Ruby Slippers

"Ruby: Well, yeah, but I almost lost you. Dorothy: You didn't. You came back for me. Ruby: I always will.'''"

"Ruby Slippers" is the eighteenth episode of Season Five of ABC's Once Upon a Time. It was written by Andrew Chambliss & Bill Wolkoff, and directed by Eriq La Salle. It is the one-hundredth and sixth episode of the series overall, and premiered on April 17, 2016.

Synopsis
In flashbacks, Ruby and Mulan find themselves in Oz, where they meet Dorothy. After the three witness Zelena’s return to Oz, they look for a way to defeat her once and for all. However, Dorothy mysteriously disappears, and Ruby’s search for her new friend lands her in the Underworld. Reunited with the heroes, Ruby teams up with Emma, Regina and Snow to continue looking for Dorothy. Meanwhile, Snow and David struggle with not being able to be with their son, Neal, and devise a plan so that one of them can escape the Underworld.

Starring

 * Ginnifer Goodwin as Mary Margaret Blanchard
 * Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan
 * Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills
 * Josh Dallas as David Nolan
 * Emilie de Ravin as Belle French
 * Colin O'Donoghue as Hook
 * Jared S. Gilmore as Henry Mills
 * Rebecca Mader as Zelena
 * Sean Maguire (Credit only)
 * Robert Carlyle as Mr. Gold

Guest Starring

 * Emma Caulfield as the Blind Witch
 * Jamie Chung as Mulan
 * Greg Germann as Hades
 * Meghan Ory as Ruby
 * Teri Reeves as Dorothy Gale
 * Victoria Smurfit as Cruella De Vil

Co-Starring

 * Paul Lazenby as Claude
 * Gina Stockdale as Auntie Em

Uncredited

 * Unknown dog as Toto

Trivia
Production Notes=

Production Notes

 * The title card features Ruby in the woods.
 * The title of this episode was announced by Adam Horowitz via his Twitter account on January 27, 2016.
 * Ruby Slippers are mentioned in the third episode of Season Three by Neal, when he is looking for a way to travel to Neverland. However, they do not appear on the show.
 * They are a reference to the magical items of the same name from 1939 The Wizard of Oz, which is the film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
 * Instead, the Silver Slippers are introduced in "It's Not Easy Being Green".
 * The establishing shot of Underbrooke and the diner is stock footage of Storybrooke from "The Thing You Love Most" and "Save Henry", but with a different color hue. Storybrooke's clock tower has been digitally replaced by the Underbrooke Library's broken version.
 * For the scene where Dorothy sits on Ruby's back while the latter runs in werewolf form, Teri Reeves rode a mechanical apparatus, which was CGIed into a wolf in post-production.
 * Belle was put under a sleeping curse in this episode, so that Emilie de Ravin could go on maternity leave.
 * In the episode's promo, Hades says "The gods don't like it when mortals play with their toys." This scene was not in the final episode.


 * -|Episode Connections=

Event Chronology

 * The Underworld events take place after "Her Handsome Hero" and before "Sisters".
 * The Oz flashbacks take place years after the flashback scenes from "Our Decay". They also take place immediately after Zelena is banished to Oz in "Swan Song", and before she goes back to Storybrooke in the present day scenes in "Our Decay". The Oz present events take place not long after Zelena leaves.

Episode Connections

 * Mulan and Ruby met in "The Bear King".
 * Zelena was sent to Oz in "Swan Song".
 * Belle pushed Gaston into the River of Lost Souls in "Her Handsome Hero".
 * David and Mary Margaret previously haunted Prince Neal in "Our Decay".
 * Claude was killed by Hook in "Queen of Hearts".
 * Zelena points out that she gave Dorothy the Silver Slippers, which happened in "Kansas".
 * Zelena says that she took a page out of Regina's book and cast a sleeping curse on Dorothy; referring to how the Evil Queen cast a sleeping curse on Snow White in "An Apple Red as Blood".
 * The Blind Witch bottled David's breath in "Our Decay".
 * Belle talks about how Emma accelerated Zelena's pregnancy in "Birth".
 * Ruby mentions that Ground Poppy Dust knocked Zelena out before, referring to events in "The Bear King".
 * Ruby mentions that she killed her boyfriend, which happened in "Red-Handed".
 * Ruby says that she eventually learned to control her wolf ability, which happened in "Child of the Moon".
 * Ruby mentions that she ended up in a town called Storybrooke, referring to events in "Pilot" and "A Curious Thing".
 * Mulan says that she waited too long to tell someone how she felt about them, referring to events in "Quite a Common Fairy".
 * Hades tried to force Hook to etch names into gravestones in "Labor of Love".
 * Mary Margaret says that when she first met Prince Charming, she hit him in the face, which is seen "Snow Falls" and "Snow Drifts".
 * Dorothy says to Ruby, "You came back for me", and Ruby replies, "I always will", a spin on Snow White and Prince Charming's lines from "Pilot" and "A Land Without Magic", where Snow White says, "You found me", and Charming replies, "I will always find you".
 * Belle tells Mr. Gold that her father should be the one who wake her with true love's kiss. Mr. Gold tries, unsuccessfully, to get him to do that in "Last Rites".
 * Belle is awoken from the sleeping curse in "The Savior".


 * -|Cultural References=

Fairytales and Folklore

 * This episode is a rendition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz story with the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy Gale, and Toto.
 * Auntie Em, the Munchkins and the Poppy Field from the novel also appear.
 * Also featured in this episode are Hades from Greek Mythology, Captain Hook from the Peter Pan story, Cruella De Vil from The Hundred and One Dalmatians story, the Blind Witch from the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, and Mulan from the legend.
 * The Underworld from Greek Mythology also appears.
 * The name of the river Styx, one of the five rivers of the Underworld from Greek Mythology, appears on an archway in Hades' Lair.
 * Auntie Em melts into a pool of water, just like the Wicked Witch of the West does in the book.

Disney References

 * Dorothy mentioned that she was committed to an asylum after telling her family about Oz. This is a reference to the 1985 Disney sequel film Return to Oz.

Popular Culture

 * This episode revealed that Dorothy is a lesbian or bisexual. "Friend of Dorothy" happens to be a LGBT term that started out as a euphemism for stating or asking if somebody was homosexual without others knowing, back when homosexual acts were illegal in the United States.

Religion

 * While talking to Belle about the latter's fear of Hades taking her baby, Zelena is drinking whiskey. The label on the bottle says Moloch. Moloch was the sun god in Ancient Canaanite religion. In the 8th-6th century BCE, firstborn children were sacrificed to him.


 * -|Set Notes=

Props Notes

 * As Belle is flipping through Her Handsome Hero, one page contains text from Lorem ipsum, a filler text commonly used as mock-content when testing a given page layout or font. Lorem ipsum consists of badly garbled Latin, based on sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of De finibus bonorum et malorum ("On the ends of good and evil"), a philosophical work by the Roman philosopher Cicero. Lorem isum is often used when previewing the layout of a document, as the use of more understandable text could easily distract the user from the layout being examined. While many forms of Lorem ipsum exists, the show uses a version that can be found on several online websites, including this page on the official website of Adobe Systems.
 * The exact same text appears in one of Mr. Gold's spell books in "Her Handsome Hero".
 * The Underworld storybook page about Dorothy and Ruby that Henry is writing says:

so tangible and intoxicating to her, was merely in her head. It was a thought that was too crushing to bear, not to mention that it also meant Dorothy would be doomed to lie on that dais forever. Ruby could hardly take the pressure, and suddenly she needed someone by her side to reassure her, someone who could instantly put all this turmoil into perspective. Fortunately Snow White was only a few feet away from her. Dorothy turned to her uneasily, and Snow nodded her on, as if to share a little of her own courage. You can do it, Ruby", Snow said. "Go on." [image begins] was enough to bolster Ruby, who turned back [image begins]ing up the courage to say something [image begins] toward anyone before. But [image begins] to look at Dorothy in [image begins]. Ruby's eyes [image begins]ew she [image ends] And then she leaned down and kissed Dorothy. For her, it was the kiss of a lifetime. She felt a jolt of electricity pass from her lips to Dorothy’s. And just as she was [shot ends]


 * In the scene where Belle puts herself under a Sleeping Curse, the sewing machine on the pawnshop shelf behind Mr. Gold is the same prop that was used for Cruella De Vil's sewing machine in "Sympathy for the De Vil". The same prop was sitting in the backroom of the real pawnshop in "Swan Song".

Costume Notes

 * The design of the silver slippers is not the same from Season Three to Season Five. The new slippers first appeared in "Our Decay", but they are first seen in close-up in this episode.
 * The new slippers are "Pompadour" French Court Shoes from American Duchess, with added glitter and bow. These shoes have been used by production companies all over the world, from South Africa's Film Afrika to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The same shoes were featured in the opening credits of the Outlander episode "Not in Scotland Anymore", and a pink version of the Pompadour shoes were worn by Ivy Lynn on the Smash episode "The Fringe".


 * -|Goofs=

Goofs

 * La Tandoor and Worthington's Haberdashery, two former businesses in Storybrooke, can be seen in an exterior shot of Underbrooke, where stock footage of Storybrooke from "The Thing You Love Most" and "Save Henry" has been used; even though previous episodes have established that the storefronts next to the Underbrooke Diner are the Underworld versions of Chop Shop, Duperré & Hughes and Any Given Sundae.


 * -|Other Notes=

Filming Locations

 * Vancouver's Everett Crowley Park doubles as Oz for this episode.