There's No Place Like Home

"You don't have a home until you just miss it. Being with my parents the last few days...but not really being with them? I've never missed them more. Storybrooke. That's my home."

- Emma to Hook

"There's No Place Like Home" is the twenty-second and final episode of Season Three of ABC's Once Upon a Time. It was written by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz and directed by Ralph Hemecker. It is the sixty-sixth episode of the series overall, and premiered on May 11, 2014.

This episode is the second part of the season three finale, and premiered immediately following "Snow Drifts".

Synopsis
While Mary Margaret and David celebrate the naming of their son at a coronation in Granny's Diner, Emma and Hook are pulled into Zelena's time portal and find themselves in the Enchanted Forest of the past. But in their quest to discover a way back, they must be careful not to change ANYTHING or risk altering the lives of their friends and family — as well as their very own existence.

"Princess Leia"
After she has been arrested, Emma, while still under the disguise of Rumplestiltskin's glamour spell, is led in front of the Evil Queen by two black knights. One black knight orders her to kneel before the Queen, but Emma is incredulous at his demand. Regina retorts she needs to, and the two guards push Emma down to the Queen's feet. Then, Regina asks the blonde for Snow White's whereabouts, but Emma replies she already told the guards she does not know. The Evil Queen replies she does not know what kingdom she comes from, but in her realm, the price for aiding Snow White is steep. Trying to defend herself, Emma hesitatingly states she doesn't know where Snow White is, but if Regina desires it, she can help her find the fugitive. The Queen sizes her up for a beat, and remarks that Emma isn't a princess as she recognizes a "dirty street rat" when she sees one. Additionally, the Queen remarks that Emma is not trustworthy, and then has the guards send her to the dungeon.

"Liar, Liar"
Realizing Snow is not with them, Emma asks Red where she is. After some prodding, Red reluctantly admits that Snow isn't coming with them, while Charming realizes that she's using the Dark Fairy Dust to go after Regina.

Starring

 * Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard
 * Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan
 * Lana Parrilla as Evil Queen/Regina Mills
 * Josh Dallas as Prince Charming/David Nolan
 * Emilie de Ravin as Belle French
 * Colin O'Donoghue as Hook
 * Michael Raymond-James as Neal Cassidy
 * Jared S. Gilmore as Henry Mills
 * Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold

Guest Starring

 * Lee Arenberg as Leroy
 * Sarah Bolger as Aurora
 * Beverley Elliott as Granny
 * Sean Maguire as Robin Hood
 * Meghan Ory as Red Riding Hood
 * Raphael Sbarge as Archie Hopper
 * Keegan Connor Tracy as Blue Fairy/Mother Superior

Co-Starring

 * Raphael Alejandro as Roland
 * Mik Byskov as Black Knight Archer
 * Faustino di Bauda as Walter
 * Mark Gibbon as Head Troll
 * David-Paul Grove as Doc
 * Jeffrey Kaiser as Dopey
 * Eric Keenleyside as Moe French
 * Gabe Khouth as Mr. Clark
 * Christie Laing as Marian/Shackled Woman
 * Mig Macario as Bashful

Uncredited

 * Unknown baby as Prince Neal
 * Unknown as Elsa
 * Unknown as Floyd

Trivia
Production Notes=

Production Notes

 * The title card features Zelena's time spell.
 * During the original airing, "Snow Drifts" and "There's No Place Like Home" were separated by a different title card featuring a swan. The manner in which the letters form to make the show logo is different from the other episodes, as is the musical accompaniment.
 * On the DVD and Blu-ray, the swan title card is used as a menu background.
 * The title of this episode was announced by Adam Horowitz via his Twitter account on March 25, 2014.
 * The flashback scene where Neal and Emma break into the fairground was originally scripted to be them breaking through the gate to a view of Portland at night. The production team found an abandoned amusement park, and felt that Neal showing this kind of place to Emma was something that the character would do.
 * The "past" scenes with Snow White and Prince Charming were a mixture of reshoots and old footage from "Snow Falls".
 * The show's producers asked Jamie Dornan to reprise his role as the Huntsman for the season finale, but he was unavailable due to his packed filming schedule for the movie Fifty Shades of Grey and the drama television series The Fall.  He would have been spotted by Emma in the Evil Queen's dungeon and Emma would have felt tempted to reach out to him.
 * For the scene where Snow White is trapped in the net, the new close-ups were shot by having Ginnifer Goodwin sitting on a chair, with a net around her.
 * In order to keep the ending scene with Elsa a secret, Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis scripted an alternate ending, so that very few people knew about Elsa's appearance in the season finale.


 * -|Episode Connections=

Event Chronology

 * The Enchanted Forest events take place right after "Snow Drifts", concurrently with "Snow Falls", and before Belle is banished from Rumplestiltskin's castle in "Skin Deep". The story also takes place concurrently with the scene where the Wicked Witch of the West steals Maid Marian's identity in "Heart of Gold".
 * The Storybrooke events take place after "Snow Drifts" and before "A Tale of Two Sisters". The story also takes place concurrently with Ruby's Storybrooke flashback in "The Bear King".
 * The Land Without Magic flashback takes place in the year 2001 between scenes in "Tallahassee".

Episode Connections

 * In the Portland flashback, Emma and Neal have the drink Neal suggested when they first met in "Tallahassee".
 * Snow White was forced out of her castle in "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter".
 * How Snow White ruined Regina's life was shown in "The Stable Boy".
 * Prince Charming says his father is "making things quite difficult" for him, referring to events in "The Shepherd".
 * Red Riding Hood learned to control her werewolf skills in "Child of the Moon".
 * This is the second time Hook breaks into Regina's castle. The first time was when he seeking information on how to kill Rumplestiltskin in "Queen of Hearts".
 * The death of Hook's brother took place in "Good Form".
 * Hook tells Emma about his brother's death; something he refused to do in "Think Lovely Thoughts ".
 * Scenes from "Snow Falls" are reused.
 * Emma and Hook knock Maid Marian out and later leave her after they go after Prince Charming and Snow White at the Troll Bridge. What happens during this is revealed in "Heart of Gold".
 * Marian is abducted after Emma knocks her out with a rock. Merida does the same to Belle in "The Bear and the Bow".
 * After Snow White escapes from her clutches, Regina says, "I shall destroy her happiness if it is the last thing I do", which is a spin on her signature line from "Pilot".
 * The story behind the marionettes in Rumplestiltskin's castle was revealed in "That Still Small Voice".
 * Rumplestiltskin's memory loss potion is the same kind Regina used on herself in "Save Henry". It is also the same one Rumplestiltskin gave to Snow White in "7:15 A.M.".
 * How the mysterious urn ended up inside Rumplestiltskin's vault is revealed in "Smash the Mirror".
 * Emma's habit of moving around and running was previously referred to in "The Thing You Love Most" and "The Price of Gold".
 * Emma lost her magic in "Kansas".
 * Zelena's death took place in "Kansas". It is shown to be fake in "Heart of Gold".
 * Henry brought Emma to Storybrooke in "Pilot".
 * Emma tells Rumplestiltskin that Neal died to save them all, which occurred in "Quiet Minds".
 * Emma calls her parents mom and dad for the first time since "And Straight On 'Til Morning".
 * The new curse was cast in "A Curious Thing".
 * Hook refers to the kiss he and Emma shared in "Good Form".
 * Emma thanks Hook for coming after her in New York; an event shown in "Going Home" and "New York City Serenade".
 * The reason why magic beans are not easy to come by was alluded to in "Tallahassee", and shown in "Tiny".
 * This episode reveals what happened to Hook's ship; something that was previously alluded to in "The Jolly Roger".
 * Who Hook sold the ship to, is revealed in "Poor Unfortunate Soul".
 * What happened to Hook's ship after he sold it, is revealed in "Fall".
 * Hook gets his ship back in "Poor Unfortunate Soul".
 * Hook finally succeeds in winning Emma's heart and fulfilling a promise he made in "Dark Hollow".
 * During her wedding, Belle talks about all the times she's lost Mr. Gold—to darkness in "Skin Deep", to weakness in "The Crocodile", and to death in "Going Home".
 * Mr. Gold talks about his first meeting with Belle, which occurred in "Skin Deep".
 * Belle says that sometimes the best tea cup is chipped. This item was first featured in "Skin Deep".


 * -|Cultural References=

Disney

 * The dress and hairstyle of the woman who comes out of the urn is from the 2013 Disney film Frozen.

Lost

 * Dopey is wearing a Geronimo Jackson shirt. Geronimo Jackson is a fictional band on Lost.

Fairytales and Folkore

 * This episode features Snow White, Prince Charming and the Evil Queen from the Snow White fairy tale, Red Riding Hood from the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, Captain Hook from the Peter Pan story, the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair from The Adventures of Pinocchio, Robin Hood and Maid Marian from the Robin Hood ballad, Aurora from the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, as well as Rumplestiltskin from the Rumplestiltskin fairytale.
 * Also featured is a group of trolls that inhabit a bridge. This concept is found in the fairytale "Three Billy Goats Gruff".

Popular Culture

 * The opening scene with Emma and Neal at the fairground is an homage to the famous scene from the 1954 movie On the Waterfront where Marlon Brando is sitting in a swing in a children's park and handles a white glove dropped by Eva Marie Saint as they recall earlier days.
 * Emma's alias in the Enchanted Forest is Princess Leia; a reference to one of the main protagonists of the original Star Wars trilogy. This reference is made especially interesting by the fact that Lucasfilm, the studio behind the series, was bought by Disney, the parent company of ABC, the network that airs Once Upon a Time.
 * Hook's alias in the Enchanted Forest is Prince Charles; a reference to the current Prince of Wales, who is currently first-in-line to inherit the British throne.
 * The episode title is a spoken phrase from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.


 * -|Set Notes=

Props Notes

 * An excerpt from the fairy tale of "The Golden Bird" is seen next the illustration of Hook and Emma in the storybook.
 * In the captain's quarters aboard the Jolly Roger in "Snow Drifts", there was an urn bearing an almost identical resemblance to the one Elsa comes out of in this episode; the only difference being the lid. Both props have been used in previous episodes. They can be seen among Regina's wedding gifts in "We Are Both", and a recolored version of the urns are used to decorate Cora's heart vault in the Enchanted Forest in "The Doctor". The urns also appear in Alphonse's Mansion in "In the Name of the Brother".

Set Dressing

 * In Rumplestiltskin's vault, there is a statue of Pazuzu, the demon from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, and the antagonist from The Exorcist franchise.

Costume Notes

 * The part where Neal handles Emma's glove was Michael Raymond-James and Jennifer Morrison's idea.
 * Emma's prisoner dress is a white version of the gray dress that the Evil Queen wore when the latter was imprisoned in "The Cricket Game". Emma wears the same gray dress when she emerges from the vault in "The Dark Swan".
 * Belle's wedding hat was made by Canadian-based fine headwear maker Kelly Dunlap. The hat fabric is a very high quality millinery fur felt called Deco Cloche in Winter White. Fittingly, "cloche" means "bell" in French.


 * -|Goofs=

Goofs

 * The wanted poster Prince Charming holds up, during the scene he traps Snow White in a net, does not have her name on it. However, in the next shot, when Snow White looks from above, and when the poster is pulled out from Prince Charming's bag by the Bridge Trolls on the Troll Bridge, the name Snow White is visible on the paper.
 * When Snow White comes over to thank Prince Charming for saving her, you can clearly see that the one who comes over is not Ginnifer Goodwin, but her stunt double, Maja Aro, who served as the body double for a pregnant Ginnifer for the final episodes of Season Three.
 * Prince Neal's announcement ceremony is mistakenly referred to as a "coronation". This mistake is also present in the episode synopsis released by ABC.


 * -|Other Notes=

Filming Locations

 * The opening scene with Emma and Neal at the Portland amusement park, was filmed in Vancouver's Playland amusement park. The carousel that Emma and Neal sit in, is called the Wave Swinger, while The Crazy Beach Party and the Wooden Roller Coaster are sitting next to it.
 * The scene with Ingrid and young Emma at the funfair in "Shattered Sight" was filmed in the same amusement park. It was also used as a background plate for Emma's dream/vision of Neal in "Souls of the Departed" (the scene itself was filmed indoors on a soundstage ).
 * The exterior scenes in the Enchanted Forest were filmed in Burnaby's Central Park.