Breaking Glass

"Breaking Glass" is the fifth episode of Season Four of ABC's Once Upon a Time. It was written by Kalinda Vazquez & Scott Nimerfro, and directed by Alrick Riley. It is the seventy-first episode of the series overall, and premiered on October 26, 2014.

Synopsis
Regina reluctantly teams up with Emma to search for the Snow Queen after Sidney, who is once again Regina's prisoner in the mirror, discovers her whereabouts and agrees to lead her to the location. With Belle babysitting baby Neal, a nervous Mary Margaret and David prepare for their first date night away from their child and find themselves on a mission to track down Will Scarlet, who has escaped from the town jail, and Elsa sees Anna in the Storybrooke woods. Meanwhile, back in the past, young Emma finds herself a kindred spirit when she befriends a girl who, like her, is a runaway orphan.

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
 * Colin O'Donoghue as Hook
 * Jared S. Gilmore (Credit only)
 * Michael Socha as Will Scarlet
 * Robert Carlyle (Credit only)

Guest Starring

 * Giancarlo Esposito as Sidney Glass
 * Georgina Haig as Elsa
 * Pascale Hutton as Queen Arendelle (Credit only)
 * Elizabeth Lail as Anna
 * Elizabeth Mitchell as Snow Queen
 * Nicole Munoz as Lily
 * Abby Ross as young Emma

Co-Starring

 * Anson Hibbert as Policeman
 * Barclay Hope as Lily's Father
 * Kelly-Ruth Mercier as Store Manager
 * Oliver Rice as King Arendelle (Credit only)
 * Ilias Webb as Kevin

Uncredited

 * CGI Ice Warrior
 * Unknown baby as Neal Nolan

Quotes
Snow Queen: Mirrors reflect our mood, our desire, our essence. They are a temporary receptacle for some tiny fraction of our soul.

Production Notes

 * The title card features the ice staircase created by Elsa.
 * The graffiti on a gate, which young Emma and Lily pass as they run from Lily's father, has "Cora" written on it.
 * The house where Emma and Lily crash for the night, contains several references to the Enchanted Forest, where Emma comes from. There are model ships on the mantelpiece, and two paintings depicting tree trunks in a forest are decorating the walls. There is also a giant seashell on the the windowsill next to the television.

Event Chronology

 * The Land Without Magic events take place in 1998, after "Snow Drifts" and before "Tallahassee".
 * The Storybrooke events take place after "The Apprentice" and before "Family Business".

Episode Connections

 * How Sidney was trapped in the mirror was explored in "A Tale of Two Sisters".
 * Will was arrested in "The Apprentice".
 * Hook takes Henry sailing, which he first did in "It's Not Easy Being Green".
 * The set of photos that Sidney took of Emma and Henry first appeared in "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree".
 * The photographs that Emma shows Elsa are from scenes in "The Thing You Love Most". The picture of Emma and Henry leaving Archie's office was first seen in "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree".
 * Young Emma mentions a little girl, Cecilia, from her group home was adopted, which was illustrated in "Snow Drifts".
 * Regina's anger toward Emma is explained in "There's No Place Like Home".
 * Marian's affliction occurred in "Rocky Road".
 * Regina is looking at a photo of herself and Robin Hood, which was taken between scenes in "A Curious Thing".
 * Regina makes a reference to the first time she trapped Sidney in a mirror during "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree".
 * Sidney's cell at the hospital, which Regina refers to, appears in "A Land Without Magic" and "A Tale of Two Sisters".
 * The Snow Queen says that she has hundreds of mirrors. Some of these mirrors appeared in her ice cream shop in "White Out" and "Rocky Road".
 * The box Emma keeps, which is "what's left of her childhood", was first seen when she unpacks her things in "The Price of Gold".
 * Hook picks up glasses, which Emma used to wear as a young adult, as established in "Tallahassee" and "There's No Place Like Home".
 * Emma's baby blanket was knitted by Granny in "Pilot".
 * The photograph of Emma and Neal was taken between scenes in "Tallahassee".
 * The Snow Queen's connection to Emma was first alluded to in "Rocky Road".

Disney

 * This episode features Elsa and Anna from the movie Frozen.
 * Elsa builds an ice staircase similar to the one she made in the movie Frozen during the song "Let It Go".
 * Elsa repeatedly says "I'm not afraid", which is a reference to the line Anna says right before the reprise of the song "For the First Time in Forever" from the movie Frozen.
 * The Snow Queen freezes the fake Anna before she vanishes in the wind. This is a reference to when Anna turns into an ice statue in the movie Frozen.
 * The Snow Queen tells Elsa that she is going to "build a snowman". This is a reference to to the song "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" from Frozen.
 * David tells Mary Margaret that Belle will be able to reach them even if they fall through a portal to Asgard; a reference to the fictional realm from the movie Thor, in which Josh Dallas originally portrayed the Asgardian Fandral.

Fairytales and Folklore

 * This episode features Captain Hook from the Peter Pan story and the Snow Queen from the fairytale of the same name.

Popular Culture

 * Lily says that she likes to think of the star imprint on her arm as a symbol, "Like Harry Potter"; a reference to the title character of the famous book series by J. K. Rowling, and the scar on his forehead. The first book of the series was released in the U.S. in 1998, which is also the year where the flashback takes place.