Once Upon a Time Wiki
Register
Advertisement
This page is move protected The subject of this article is involved with the Once Upon a Time The subject of this article is involved with a Once Upon a Time related Book The subject of this article is or relates to a location The subject of this article is involved with Storybrooke The subject of this article is featured in Season One of Once Upon a Time The subject of this article is featured in Season Two of Once Upon a Time The subject of this article is featured in Season Three of Once Upon a Time The subject of this article is featured in Season Four of Once Upon a Time The subject of this article is featured in Season Five of Once Upon a Time The subject of this article is featured in Season Six of Once Upon a Time The subject of this article is featured in Season Seven of Once Upon a Time


Careful, sister. Mines are a dangerous place.

Leroy to Belle src

Storybrooke Mines are a Storybrooke location on ABC's Once Upon a Time. They first appear in the fifth episode of the first season.

History

During First Curse

Ten years into the Dark Curse, Regina is led by Mary Margaret into believing the former comatose patient, John Doe, wandered into the woods. With Archie, they search for him to no avail. After allowing Archie to go into the mines to look for John Doe, Regina calls Mary Margaret out for pretending to still be cursed when she has actually regained her pre-curse memories. She then threatens to detonate the mines and kill Archie unless Mary Margaret comes clean. Mary Margaret prepares to pull out a pair of scissors to stop her, but when Archie comes back with other members of the search party, she runs away while Regina is distracted by the sudden influx of people. Marco, observing that Regina has her hand on the detonation box, cautions her about touching something so dangerous. ("Awake")

Sometime after Emma decides to start a new life in Storybrooke so she can be with her son Henry, she is hired as deputy by Sheriff Graham on the same day a quake shakes the town of Storybrooke. Many of the townspeople, including Archie and Henry, arrive to see a sinkhole falling apart. Henry sees his adoptive mother Regina tuck a glass shard into her jacket, which gives him the idea the sinkhole has evidence of the curse, an idea he later relays to Archie and Emma. However, Regina orders Archie to put an immediate stop to her son's overactive imagination and threatens to take away his job if he doesn't. Archie complies by being overtly harsh with Henry, but this only makes the boy more determined to find proof of the curse by venturing into the mines on his own. When Archie and Emma discover he is missing, they try to search for him at the sinkhole. In the mine tunnel, Henry recovers a shard similar to the one Regina pocketed earlier. As another quake erupts, Archie dives into the sinkhole entrance just before it collapses completely and regroups with Henry inside. After the tremors subside, they ride an elevator to the surface, but it becomes stuck halfway up. In passing, Archie apologizes for his words earlier in the therapy session. On the other hand, Henry helps Archie to see that he can change, and doesn't always need to listen to other people. At the surface, Archie's dog Pongo sniffs out of his owner and Henry's scents. Emma is lowered down on a pulley to bring them up, though Archie nearly falls with the damaged elevator. Luckily, he hooks onto Emma's shoe with his umbrella. Once they are both rescued, Archie stands up to Regina by refusing to comply with her prior request and warning her about her chances of losing against Emma in a custody battle. During the evening, Regina takes out the glass shard and drops it down a mine shaft. At the very bottom, it collects together with the other broken pieces of Snow White's coffin. ("That Still Small Voice")

When Henry falls into a coma after ingesting a poisoned apple, Emma and Regina work together to retrieve a true love potion from underground and save Henry's life. While Regina operates the library elevator switch, Emma goes down alone into a part of the mines to battle a dragon. She is skeptical of the sword that Mr. Gold previously gave her to battle the beast, and tosses it aside in favor of her gun. After dodging the dragon many times, she grabs the fallen sword and chucks it into the fiery beast's chest. The dragon explodes into dust with the true love potion left behind for Emma to take. On the way back up in the elevator shaft, it suddenly halts. At the top, Mr. Gold lies and says Regina abandoned her. He tricks Emma into throwing the potion up, and then steals it for himself to bring magic to Storybrooke. Once Emma climbs up, she frees a bound-up Regina when they both are paged to the hospital. Henry is pronounced dead as Emma plants a farewell kiss on his forehead. Unintentionally, she used true love's kiss, reviving the boy, and also breaking the curse in the process. ("A Land Without Magic")

After First Curse

Following the breaking of the Dark Curse, Emma and Mary Margaret are transported to the Enchanted Forest due to a mishap with a portal. David and the dwarves mine for diamonds, which can be turned into fairy dust; an essential ingredient necessary for opening a portal with a magic hat and bringing the two women home. In the midst of this, Belle is having a hard time getting Mr. Gold to open up to her about his reasons for still experimenting with magic. Upset, she takes off without notifying him. While curiously taking a look at the town library, she is kidnapped by a man man and taken to her father, Moe. He wishes for her to leave Mr. Gold permanently, but Belle resists the idea. Moe takes matters into his own hands by making his accomplice send Belle on a mine cart towards the town border and lose her Enchanted Forest memories. Underground, she is cuffed to the cart while it speeds out of town. She tries to free herself with a key, but drops it on the mine tracks. Luckily, Belle is saved by Mr. Gold's magic, but she tells him and her father to stay out of her life. Later, Mr. Gold admits to her that he needs magic as a way to find his long lost son. This leads Belle to reconcile with him. ("Broken," "The Crocodile")

After some days of mining, Happy begins assembling the other dwarves for a hard earned lunch break while Leroy persistantly continues hammering at a wall. It collapses and sends him falling into a secret cavern with a large amount of diamonds embedded in the ceiling. David, Henry and Mother Superior are informed and arrive to inspect the cave. Mother Superior agrees that the diamonds can be made into fairy dust and asks David to keep the hat safe. They celebrate the success with a late night drinking binge at the diner. However, their plans are ruined when Albert, in an attempt to sabotoge David's life, burns the hat over a fire; making it impossible to use. ("Child of the Moon")

Emma and Mary Margaret race to return to Storybrooke by fighting against Cora and Hook for an open portal at Lake Nostos. Both Mr. Gold and Regina fear Cora will be the one arriving in town instead, and decide not to take the chance. They absorb all the diamonds in the mines with a wand and turn it into fairy dust. At the wishing well, Mr. Gold creates a trap so whoever comes through the portal will be instantly killed. Leroy and Ruby discover the theft and notify Henry, who persuades Regina to have faith that Emma and Mary Margaret will come through instead of Cora. She lifts the trap just as the two women pop out of the portal. ("Queen of Hearts")

Out of a desire to keep Cora from harming any more innocent lives, Mary Margaret curses the woman's heart and purposely misleads Regina into returning it to its rightful owner. This causes Cora's death, though Mary Margaret suffers repercussions from her own actions not only by feeling guilt, but also incurring the vengeful wraith of Regina. Mr. Gold informs David and Emma of Regina's plans to enact a spell to force Henry to love her while sacrificing the heart of the person she hates most, Mary Margaret, as an ingredient. Henry disagrees with his family's solution of killing Regina to stop her murder spree and runs away to the mines. He grabs some dynamite and heads to the wishing well, hoping to blow it up and get rid of magic, as this is the one thing ruining his whole family's lives. David, Emma and Neal figure out what Henry is doing once they notice the dynamite is missing and hurry to stop him. A confrontation with Regina ensues and ends when Henry calls for both sides to stop fighting over magic. Regina placates him by burning the spell she wanted to cast. ("The Miller's Daughter," "Welcome to Storybrooke")

Once Regina is aware of the other townspeople are secretly growing magic beans to depart for the Enchanted Forest and leave her behind, she destroys all of them except one bean plant, and takes it for herself. Under an elaborate ruse, magic hunters Greg and Tamara have been covertly infiltrating town. They gain the alliance of Hook, who fakes a partnership with Regina. Once he acquires her trust, she tells him about the magic beans, and her plans to leave for the Enchanted Forest with Henry once the Storybrooke and all its inhabitants are annihilated. To do this, they must repossess a trigger hidden below ground. While travelling through a mine tunnel after taking the elevator down, Regina notices Hook is wearing her mother's armband. Unbeknownst to her, it has been enchanted with the ability to absorb the wearer's magic. She takes the armband back and places it on her own wrist. They reach the dark cave where the dragon Emma once defeated, Maleficent, is still housed since she is incapable of staying dead, though only Regina is aware of this. She pushes Hook down into the pit so he can serve as bait for Maleficent, who regenerates as a large, two-legged screeching creature. Regina, on the other hand, walks a short distance to Snow White's broken coffin and reaches inside to pull out the hidden trigger. Hook is saved by Greg and Tamara and reaches the ground floor level to greet a stunned Regina as she steps out of the elevator. He allows Greg and Tamara to kidnap her for interrogation. ("The Evil Queen")

Greg pockets the trigger from Regina. In turn, Tamara discovers it is the key to destroying Storybrooke after sending it as data to their employers, "The Home Office". They set it off in the mines, much to Hook's displeasure, who abandons them and realigns himself on Emma's side to stop the impending danger. Regina goes to slow down the trigger with her magic while David and Hook steal back a magic bean from Greg to take everyone back to the Enchanted Forest. She willingly decides to stay behind, and asks Emma to tell Henry of her heroic deeds. The strategy changes when Emma and her family rush into the mines to use the bean to send the trigger into a vortex. However, Hook previously took the bean for himself, leaving everyone else stranded with no other options. Regina is nearing her limit in holding back the trigger until she and Emma combine powers to halt the destruction permanently. In the distraction, Henry is kidnapped by Greg and Tamara to Neverland while Emma and her allies follow them. ("And Straight On 'Til Morning")

Belle is left behind in Storybrooke with the task to put up a barrier to keep more outsiders from entering into town. Along with Archie, Mother Superior and the dwarves, they enter the mines. The dwarves break open a crack in a boulder of fairy dust while Belle dumps the potion into the crevice. Despite enacting the barrier, Belle doesn't feel like a hero and desires to do more to help. Her chance comes when a visitor from Neverland, Ariel, comes bearing a message from Mr. Gold. Belle is instructed by him to find a specific item in the pawnshop to defeat Peter Pan and save Henry. Eventually, she unearths Pandora's Box, but two strangers working for Pan, John and Michael, trap her and Ariel while they take the item into the mines to destroy it. Belle and Ariel catch up and knock them away from the box with a minecart. Once Belle regains the box, John and Michael begin pleading for her not to help Mr. Gold. When they admit to being Pan's lackeys only because he imprisoned their sister Wendy, Belle coaxes them into allowing Mr. Gold to use the box to defeat their shared nemesis. ("Dark Hollow")

While trapped in Pan's body, Henry recalls being trapped in the mines soon after Emma arrived in Storybrooke. Henry talks about the episode to prove his identity to Emma. ("The New Neverland")



After Second Curse
Elsa and Emma use a locator spell on a necklace to track Anna, who they need to create a counter spell to ward off Ingrid's impending curse. However, they are led them to a blocked cave-in in the mines and later determine it'll take hours to uncover the passage. When Belle explains that the necklace must be destroyed to enact a protection against the Ingrid's spell of shattered sight, Elsa fills a pouch of pebbles and hands it to Emma as a fake necklace while she herself returns to the mines with the real pendant to continue looking for Anna. Reaching the cave-in, she blasts an exit through the blocked entrance just as Emma joins her. They walk out onto a beach, and in desperation to see her sister again, Elsa unknowingly harnesses the power of the necklace to bring Anna to her. ("Fall")

After Third Curse

As Happy and the other dwarves are mining, Leroy encourages them to be productive since Dopey can't at the moment. Happy jokes that Dopey is helping by producing oxygen as a tree, causing everyone else to laugh at the comment, though a stern Leroy tells them to stay focused. At this, they resume mining, only to be interrupted by Emma's unexpected presence. The new Dark One gleefully proceeds to steal Happy's pick ax, intending to use it on the Excalibur stone. ("Siege Perilous")

As Dopey leaves to pursue a master's degree, Leroy works the double the time in the mines to make up for Dopey's absence, which upsets him greatly. ("The Other Shoe")

After falling asleep in the library, Belle dreams about finding a book with a red strand and following it to a cave in the mines, where she finds the Shears of Destiny sitting atop the strand. Only when she moves to grab the shears, it disappears, making her realize she is dreaming. Her grown son, "Morpheus" comes to give her a cryptic hint about what she must do to defeat Mr. Gold, and that the answer is right in front of her. He begs her to stop his father from changing his fate, and then, he uses the fake shears to cut the strand, which jolts Belle out of the dream. ("Changelings")

At some point, the Black Fairy discovers a cache of light fairy crystals in the mines that she intends to use in the upcoming final battle. Believing Zelena's magic, which is at a disbalance due to her own lack of love and desire to prove herself, is exactly what she needs to turn the crystals from light to dark, she goads Zelena into coming to the mines by offering her a fake alliance. Instead, Zelena arrives to kill the Black Fairy for toying with baby Robin, but she is followed there by Regina, who insists she's stopping her for her own good. Criticizing Regina's sudden concern for her, she points out that in all the time Regina spent grieving for Robin Hood and blaming her for his death, she sacrificed Hades just to save Regina, only to be shunned by her. When Zelena still refuses to give up, Regina tosses her into a wall, which triggers a quake that seals them in. The two sisters continue arguing, with Regina asking why she needs to be the best, and Zelena proclaims that it's because she is the best. Deeper in the mines, after Gideon incapacitates Regina, the Black Fairy leads Zelena into a cave of light fairy crystals. Zelena blasts her with magic, but it doesn't effect the Black Fairy, who uses it to imbue the crystals with dark magic. Regina arrives to try and stop the fairy from choking Zelena, but she is flung aside again. As the Black Fairy explains why she needed Zelena's magic, Zelena realizes the fairy offered her a faux alliance knowing that she would make the wrong choice by coming to the mines. The Black Fairy then causes a blast of magic to emit from the crystals before teleporting both sisters out of the mines. Later on, the Black Fairy and Gideon watch with surprise as the crystals in the cave revert from dark to light, in part due to Zelena allowing the Crimson Heart to absorb all her magic, which untethers her magic from the crystals. ("Where Bluebirds Fly")

Visitors

Trivia

On-Screen Notes

Production Notes

Filming Locations

Appearances

Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.

References

Advertisement