The Jolly Roger

"The Jolly Roger" is the seventeenth episode of Season Three of ABC's Once Upon a Time. It was written by David H. Goodman and directed by Ernest Dickerson. It is the sixty-first episode of the series overall, and premiered on April 13, 2014.

Synopsis
Ariel returns to Storybrooke and pleads with Hook to help her find Prince Eric, who never returned to the town when the new curse was invoked. Emma agrees to let Regina teach her how to use magic so that she can help defeat Zelena, and Mary Margaret and David try to prove that they can be just as much fun as Hook is with Henry -- who thinks they are boring. Meanwhile, in Fairy Tale Land during the past year, an angry Ariel confronts Hook over her missing Prince Eric, who she assumes was kidnapped and possibly killed by the swarthy pirate. But when Hook confesses that the Jolly Roger has been stolen and Eric is most likely the thief’s prisoner, Ariel unknowingly provides him with a clue as to who the culprit is, and Hook – with Ariel in tow - goes off in search of his ship.

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
 * Michael Raymond-James (Credit only)
 * Jared S. Gilmore as Henry Mills
 * Robert Carlyle (Credit only)

Guest Starring

 * Beverley Elliott as Granny
 * Christopher Gauthier as William Smee/William Smee
 * Rebecca Mader as Zelena
 * Gil McKinney as Prince Eric
 * Charles Mesure as Black Beard
 * JoAnna Garcia Swisher as Ariel

Co-Starring

 * Jessa Danielson as Wench
 * JC Williams as Lead Guard

Production Notes

 * The title card features David's truck.
 * The page with roots of incantations in Regina's spell book shows the Sephirot from Kabbalah. The characters on the Sephirot are not actually Elvish, but symbols for alchemical processes.
 * Hangman's Island, where Prince Eric is imprisoned, is a real-world location near Boston.

Event Chronology

 * The Enchanted Forest flashbacks occur after "Quiet Minds" and around the same time as the opening scene of "The Tower", and nine months before the casting of the new curse in part two of "A Curious Thing".
 * The Land Without Magic events occur after "It's Not Easy Being Green" and before "Bleeding Through".

Episode Connections

 * The new baby crib has been put together in "Snow Drifts".
 * This episode reveals what happened to Hook during the last year, and what he has been keeping from Emma, something that was alluded to in "New York City Serenade" and "The Tower".
 * Hook, Smee and Emma all mention how William Smee was transformed into a rat, which occurred in "The Outsider".
 * Regina casts a protective spell around Mary Margaret's apartment, which Emma planned to ask of her after discovering Zelena's true identity in "Quiet Minds".
 * Regina refers to how Zelena was able to break her blood magic, which occurred in "Witch Hunt".
 * Regina first began teaching Emma magic in "Ariel".
 * Regina mentions how she "barely outwitted" Zelena yesterday, referring to events in "It's Not Easy Being Green".
 * Emma talks about the last time David and Mary Margaret looked after Henry, which occurred in "Witch Hunt".
 * Hook talks about how the people who try to leave Storybrooke are attacked and turned into Flying Monkeys, which was shown in "Witch Hunt".
 * Smee's question about what happened to Hook's ship, is answered in "There's No Place Like Home".
 * Hook mentions how he was there when Cora failed at ripping Emma's heart out, which occurred in "Queen of Hearts".
 * Emma talks about Henry's old life in New York City, which was shown in "Going Home" and "New York City Serenade".
 * Regina mentions Rumplestiltskin teaching her how to use magic. Their lessons began in "The Doctor".
 * Ariel and Prince Eric first met in "Ariel", and became a couple in "The New Neverland".
 * Hook first set out to find the Jolly Roger in "New York City Serenade".
 * Other people have held a knife to Hook's throat and "lived to tell the tale"; including Emma in "Tallahassee" and Tinker Bell in "Going Home".
 * The locator spell that Belle used on Eric's cloak is the same spell that was used on Jefferson's hat in "We Are Both" and on Ruth's ring in "A Land Without Magic".
 * Ariel talks about how Hook helped Mary Margaret's family in Neverland, a journey which began in "The Heart of the Truest Believer" and concluded in "Save Henry".
 * The harbor where Hook finds his ship, is also the harbor where the ship is docked in "Snow Drifts".
 * It is also the very same harbor where the ship, then known as the Jewel of the Realm, was docked in "Good Form"; although the buildings look slightly different, since the scene in "Good Form" takes place in daylight.
 * What happened to the ship after Hook got it back is revealed in "There's No Place Like Home".
 * Emma learns of Zelena's curse on Hook's lips in "A Curious Thing" and loses her magical powers in "Kansas".
 * Hook mentions Walsh was working for Zelena by keeping an eye on Emma, which is shown in "New York City Serenade".

Disney

 * When Emma sees Ariel and Eric through the mirror, the couple reenacts the beach scene from The Little Mermaid.

Lost

 * In Mary Margaret's apartment at the end of the episode, the clock is at 8:00 PM. 8 is the second of the Lost numbers.

Fairytales and Folklore

 * This episode features Hook and William Smee from the Peter Pan story as well as the mermaid and her prince from The Little Mermaid fairy tale.

Popular Culture

 * This episode features Black Beard, the infamous English pirate who is the figure most often associated with the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean. He is the first Enchanted Forest character—or indeed, any character in the series—to be adapted from an actual historical person.