Greg Mendell

This article focuses on the Land Without Magic character Greg Mendell, also known as the Outsider. For the Season Two episode, see "The Outsider".

Greg Mendell
Land Without Magic Character
Biographical Information
Gender:	Male
Status:	Deceased
Cause of death:	Shadow ripped out by Pan's Shadow
Home:	Granny's Bed and Breakfast (formerly) New Jersey (formerly)
Relatives:	Kurt Flynn † (father) Mother † Uncle
Physical Description
Species:	Human
Hair color:	Brown
Eye color:	Blue
Show Information
Portrayed by:	Ethan Embry (Adult) Benjamin Stockham (Child)
First appearance:	"The Outsider"
Latest appearance:	"The Heart of the Truest Believer"
Latest mention:	"Going Home"
Relevant Pages

“

I'll find you, Dad. I promise; I'll never stop looking.

”

—Greg's promise ^src

Owen Flynn, later known as Greg Mendell, and briefly known as the Outsider and the Stranger, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. He débuts in the eleventh episode of the second season and is portrayed by guest stars Ethan Embry and Benjamin Stockham.

History

During First Curse

Shortly after his mother's death, Owen goes camping with his father, Kurt Flynn. His father teaches him to make a lanyard keychain, and then gives him a finished one, which Kurt made as a child. Suddenly, a storm forces them to hide in their tent until morning, when Kurt's car is discovered to be damaged by a tree. Hoping to get to the highway and a ride to the nearest town, they travel on foot, only to arrive to Storybrooke. Led by Sheriff Graham, the pair reach the local diner, where they receive help from Granny to check into the inn, as Kurt sends his car to be repaired at the mechanic shop. Town mayor Regina, disliking strangers in her town, inform Kurt that she has put in a good word to for his car to be fixed sooner. Before this, she rebukes Owen for sitting in "her" diner seat, but he refuses to move, citing that he's already sitting in it anyway. Upon leaving the diner, Owen gifts Regina a keychain as thanks for letting him sit in her seat. Lonely for some company, Regina invites them for dinner, and after she sends Owen to pick out some good apples for the dessert, Kurt tells her about his son needing a fresh start since his mother's death. As the apples bake into turnovers, Owen opens up to Regina about people treating him differently since his mother's passing. She suggests Kurt and his son can start a new life in Storybrooke, which Owen expresses interest in, but his father declines. After a week, Kurt picks up his car, and he stops by Regina's mayoral office to give his last regards. However, this encounter leaves Kurt in fear of his life because he witnesses Regina use magic, causing him to flee with Owen, but Sheriff Graham's patrol car stops them from leaving. To ensure his son's safety, Kurt tells him to go without him, and then gives him the keychain as a promise they will always be together. Owen does as he is told, but he stops upon seeing Sheriff Graham arresting his father. Regina tries to calm him down, however, when she realizes Owen doesn't want to stay, she allows him to escape. Later, Owen brings police officers to the town border, but Storybrooke is no longer visible to him, as it is magically cloaked from outsiders. He urges the police to keep looking, but they have already given up. Inside the barrier, Regina watches tearfully, with her hand almost grazing Owen's face, but she draws away as the police take him away. ("Welcome to Storybrooke")

Sometime after he escapes Storybrooke, Owen attempts to convince people of his experiences, but no one believes him. Eventually, Owen is approached by "believers", who are people belonging to an organization, called the Home Office, that believe in magic and are willing to destroy it. Owen joins this organization and participates in a number of missions to repel magical incursions into their world. Sometime during or after this, his name is changed to Greg Mendell, and he eventually meets another "believer", Tamara, whom he forms a romantic relationship with. As part of her job, she purposely gets close to Neal, eventually becoming his fiancée. ("Selfless, Brave and True," "Second Star to the Right")

After First Curse

For an unexplained reason, Greg crashes his car into Storybrooke, during which he sees Mr. Gold conjure a fireball in his hand. After the vehicle hits a person and swerves into a tree, Greg passes out inside his car. ("The Outsider")

Taken to the hospital, Greg remains unconscious as his condition rapidly worsens. Emma scrambles to unearth information about him, and she discovers his name is Greg Mendell, while his belongings from the car lead her to believe he is just a normal man with no knowledge of the town's magical properties. Dr. Whale diagnoses Greg with internal bleeding, urging that surgery is necessary to save him, as Emma and her allies wrestle with the decision to save a stranger or let him die in order to preserve Storybrooke's secret. The group gives the go-ahead for the surgery, to which Greg makes a full recovery after surgery and wakes up. As sheriff, Emma questions him about what he saw before crashing his car. Greg lies and states he was looking down at his phone when the car got out of control. Emma then lets him go with a warning, and before leaving the room, she returns his phone. After she is gone, Greg calls Tamara, telling her, "You won't believe what I saw". ("In the Name of the Brother")

While still resting up in the hospital from his injuries, Greg overhears an amnesiac Belle recounting to Ruby about seeing a man with a fireball during the night she lost her memories. Later, he visits her, explaining what he overheard her say earlier. Belle thinks he is here to chastise her for her wild imagination, but he instead believes her because he saw the same thing as well. ("Tiny")

When Regina visits Belle in her room, Greg secretly spies on them. With his phone camera, he records a video of Regina using magic to summon objects out of an unconscious Belle's purse. As he continues to heal from his injuries, Greg tells Tamara via phone of his plans to stay in town a little longer. When asked why, he sends her the video he filmed. ("Manhattan")

Greg makes a trip to the diner and asks that his order be packed to go, which the waitress Ruby wraps in a bag for him. He talks to Emma about going hiking in the forest per Dr. Whale's doctorly advice, especially since he himself has an interest in nature photography. Emma is surprised he hasn't gone back to Pennsylvania by now, but he believes the town is beginning to grow on him. In the woods, Greg bumps into Henry, he mentions taking a nature walk and snapping photos. Henry redirects him to the actual hiking trail, to which Greg acts like he just found that out. Soon after, he makes a concerned phone call to Regina notifying her that Henry is by himself and seems upset. When Mary Margaret goes to Regina's doorstep to talk, he secretly records them from afar. On film, he captures Regina ripping Mary Margaret's heart out and then putting it back into her chest minutes later. Heading back into his car, he repeats the same words he said from childhood, vowing to find his father, and proceeds to turns on the ignition key, which has the woven keychain his father once gave him. ("Welcome to Storybrooke")

Shortly afterward, he spends time at the diner eating apple pie. At his table booth, Regina formally introduces herself to Greg. Though she gets the feeling they have met before, he quickly dismisses her suspicions. No sooner after returning to his hotel room, Greg finds Regina waiting for him inside, as she who now knows he is Owen. Greg demands to know what happened to his father, to which she explains Kurt was allowed to leave soon afterward. Greg does not believe her, threatening to not leave until he finds his father, while she attempts to persuade him out of it by telling him that people actually can vanish into thin air. Tamara, under the guise of staying in town with Neal to show support for his magic-ridden past, checks into the inn room next to Greg's. As they continue to talk on the phone, Greg hears a knock at his door and opens it to see Tamara awaiting him. Reunited at last, the two kiss before closing the door. ("Selfless, Brave and True")

On a map, Greg shows Tamara all the places he saw magic in Storybrooke. When she inquires about his search for Kurt, Greg expresses continued hopes that his father is somewhere in town. Before Tamara leaves, he asks her if the "package" is ready, and she confirms it'll be in Storybrooke by tonight. That evening, he meets Tamara at the town border, where she drives a truck in. Greg, still not knowing what the package contains, asks her how it would help their mission. Tamara notes that if there's anyone you could count on to do dirty work, it's a pirate. She then lifts the trunk to reveal a captive and bound up Hook. ("Lacey")

With unholy intentions of stealing the magic from Storybrooke and finding his father, Greg and Tamara hold Hook captive in the clock tower. Hook questions why he was kidnapped and they explain if he helps them, they will assist him in killing the Dark One. Hook assures them he had already succeeded, but both prove him wrong and show him, through a telescope, a well and alive Mr. Gold. Hook is shocked and doubts whether the outsiders can help him, however, he eventually agrees to their deal. From Hook, they receive Cora's old bracelet, which is turned over to the Home Office. With the bracelet tinkered to have magic-absorbing capabilities, Greg and Tamara return it to Hook, asking him to trick Regina into wearing it to render her powerless. Hook then deceives Regina, outing Greg and Tamara's plans for him to become allies with her, while still remaining loyal to the outsiders. Accepting Hook as her accomplice, she later betrays Hook, using him as bait for Maleficent, as she uses the time to retrieve a trigger for destroying Storybrooke and its inhabitants. In some unknown way, Greg and Tamara manage to save Hook and bring him back to the library, where he admits the truth to Regina. She tries to use her magic against them but fails. Greg explains her mother's glove, which Hook gave to her in the bottom of the library, was cuffed with the most powerful metal that man has ever known, which is why Regina is now magicless. When Tamara searches for Regina's identity through her list of Storybrooke residents and their true identities, Greg smugly states she is the Queen, before ordering his partner to put a bag over Regina's head. ("The Evil Queen")

The pair takes Regina to the town cannery storeroom for interrogation. Using an override code, Tamara breaks into Regina's office and steal various items, such as the magic beans. The following morning, Greg begins hooking Regina to an electrocution machine, with plans of harming her until she confesses his father's whereabouts. Hook, disinterested in torture, opts out of it, asking Greg to call him again when he's are ready to take down the Dark One. Tamara excitedly shows Greg the beans, which Neal told her all about. He becomes jealous at her closeness with Neal, but she promises that the engagement ring will come off when everything is finished. As a replacement ring, Greg hands her the trigger, which Tamara sends, along with the rest of their data, to the Home Office. While Greg tortures Regina, Tamara returns later that day to inform him she managed to divert Emma and Neal away from discovering Regina. However, Mary Margaret drinks a dose of magic to breach a temporarily bodily connection with Regina in a bid to uncover where she is. Upon seeing David, Emma, Mary Margaret, and Neal enter the cannery, Tamara urges Greg to leave with her, but he refuses, wanting to continue grilling Regina, so she flees on her own. Finally, at her physical limit, Regina reveals Kurt is dead, as she killed him after she let Greg leave, and buried his remains near their old campsite. Furious at this revelation, Greg resumes shocking her, but he is forced to run after David and Mary Margaret stop him. Making his way to the woods, Greg frantically digs through the soil with a shovel until it hits something solid, to which desperation overtakes him, and he begins clawing at the dirt with his hands. Eventually, his hands touch clothes he recognizes as his father's, before seeing his father's skull. As Greg is reburying his father's remains, Tamara offers condolences and then announces that the trigger has been proven by the Home Office to be the key to destroying magic. ("Second Star to the Right")

On orders from the Home Office, Greg and Tamara are to kidnap Henry and to keep the townpeople distracted until then, they set off the trigger. Desperate to save his own life, Hook aligns himself away from the pair and gives away their location in helping David to steal back the remaining beans. David and Hook follow Greg into the cannery building. Inside, David threatens to pull the trigger unless they hand over the beans. As Greg pulls out a small clear bottle containing them, Tamara ambushes them with a gunshot, though David manages to dodge while getting grazed by the bullet. Hook tackles Greg to the ground as the bottle breaks onto the floor. While David chases after Tamara, Hook wrestles for the beans, grabbing one of them while Greg makes off with the other. Greg then catches up with David, who has cornered Tamara, before tackling him and fleeing with his partner. With the trigger seconds away from destroying Storybrooke, Emma combines her magic powers with Regina to deactivate it, causing a blast of magic to throw everyone backward. During this short period, Greg and Tamara grab Henry and begin dragging him to the harbor. On the way there, they divulge to the boy that it was never their true intention to put an end to magic once Henry became more valuable to them. Henry's family rush over in a futile attempt to stop them, but the duo use their last magic bean to open a portal to Neverland and force the boy to jump in along with them. ("And Straight On 'Til Morning")

Landing on the shores of Neverland's island, Henry attempts to make a hasty escape, which Greg puts a stop to. As Tamara tries to use a communicator to talk with the Home Office, Henry badgers Greg about who exactly is the Home Office. Greg stresses that he and Tamara don't know much about them, and believing in their cause to destroy magic is enough. When the communicator doesn't work, Greg opens the battery case, only to discover it's filled with nothing but sand. Henry then uses the opportunity to cast doubts about the validity of their employers, but Greg refuses to be perturbed by his claims. They head into the forest, hoping to start a campfire to alert the Home Office, but instead, a group of boys approach out of the bush. The leader, Felix, states that they are indeed the Home Office. Unnerved, Tamara can't believe they've been working for a bunch of teenagers, but Henry corrects her to say they are Lost Boys. He asks them why they want to destroy magic, but Felix acknowledges that was never their intention. Stunned, Greg says that was their mission, though Felix deflects the statement by countering that's what he and Tamara were told, and asks them to hand over Henry. Both Greg and Tamara refuse, wanting truthful answers about the Home Office. Because they refuse to comply, Felix calls upon the Shadow, who rips out Greg's shadow, killing him, as Tamara is later impaled by one of the Lost Boys' arrows. ("The Heart of the Truest Believer")

Later, Greg's body is found by Tinker Bell, but "there was not enough left of him to find anything useful" on it. ("Nasty Habits")

Trivia

• Character Notes
• Production Notes
• Cultural References
• Set Notes

Etymology

• According to show creators Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, Greg Mendell's name is a direct reference to the geneticist scientist, Gregor Mendel.
• Kurt and Owen's last name, Flynn, is a reference to the 1982 science fiction movie Tron. Show creators Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis wrote the screenplay for the 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy.

Production Notes

• The casting call described him as "a major recurring guest star role with an option for next season [...]. A character named Barrett. He's in his 30s, kind and smart, but also has a very dark side and has beliefs and a way of life that he will fight fiercely to defend."
• The casting call for his child self, Owen Flynn, was described as "a free-spirited 10-year-old who is mourning his mother's tragic death."

Disney

• Greg's cell phone ring is the Star Wars opening theme. ("In the Name of the Brother")
• Owen has a Return of the Jedi sleeping bag. He also mentions Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies, and makes a reference to lightsabers. ("Welcome to Storybrooke")

Popular Culture

• The craft Owen is making before the dark curse blasts through the woods is a scoubidou. They are typically made with plasticized PVC and are commonly used as key chains and bracelets. An older Owen, who goes by Greg, fashions another and uses it as a key chain for his car. ("Welcome to Storybrooke")
• The song playing on the radio beside Kurt and Owen's campsite is "This Must Be the Place (Native Melody)" by Talking Heads. ("Welcome to Storybrooke")

Props Notes

• Owen's pom pom hat was Edward Kitsis' idea. It was something that he himself had as a child. ("Welcome to Storybrooke")

Set Dressing

• His car license plate is 2KFL 138. ("The Outsider")

Appearances

Once Upon a Time: Season Two
"Broken":	"We Are Both":	"Lady of the Lake":	"The Crocodile":	"The Doctor":	"Tallahassee":	"Child of the Moon":	"Into the Deep":	"Queen of Hearts":	"The Cricket Game":	"The Outsider":
Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Appears
"In the Name of the Brother":	"Tiny":	"Manhattan":	"The Queen Is Dead":	"The Miller's Daughter":	"Welcome to Storybrooke":	"Selfless, Brave and True":	"Lacey":	"The Evil Queen":	"Second Star to the Right":	"And Straight On 'Til Morning":
Appears	Appears	Appears	Absent	Absent	Appears	Appears	Appears	Appears	Appears	Appears

Once Upon a Time: Season Three
"The Heart of the Truest Believer":	"Lost Girl":	"Quite a Common Fairy":	"Nasty Habits":	"Good Form":	"Ariel":	"Dark Hollow":	"Think Lovely Thoughts":	"Save Henry":	"The New Neverland":	"Going Home":
Appears	Absent	Absent	Mentioned	Mentioned	Absent	Mentioned	Absent	Mentioned	Absent	Mentioned
"New York City Serenade":	"Witch Hunt":	"The Tower":	"Quiet Minds":	"It's Not Easy Being Green":	"The Jolly Roger":	"Bleeding Through":	"A Curious Thing":	"Kansas":	"Snow Drifts":	"There's No Place Like Home":
Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent

Once Upon a Time: Specials
"Magic is Coming":	"The Price of Magic":	"Journey to Neverland":	"Wicked is Coming":	"Storybrooke Has Frozen Over":
Absent	Archive	Archive	Archive	Absent
"Secrets of Storybrooke":	"Dark Swan Rises":	"Evil Reigns Once More":	"The Final Battle Begins":
Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent

Centric Listing

This list contains all Greg Mendell-centric episodes/stories: "Welcome to Storybrooke"

Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.

See also

• Greg's Car