The Doctor (Once Upon a Time)
This devastates Regina, who returns to being Rumplestiltskin's pupil and demonstrates her readiness by ripping the heart out of his new protégée, crushing it to prove her advancement.It is revealed that Rumplestiltskin was actually in league with the doctor, who exchanged the strong heart for the "monster" he got in Regina, and the Mad Hatter, who allowed him safe passage back to his world, the Land Without Color.As Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), Snow White/Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin), Mulan (Jamie Chung) and Aurora (Sarah Bolger) return to the island from the castle, the foursome discover that everyone at the camp has been killed and their hearts ripped out by Cora.She ties him to a tree and threatens to leave him to the ogres if he does not confess; Hook finally comes clean and reveals his identity along with Cora's plans to travel to Storybrooke.Dr. Whale bursts into Archie's office and confronts Regina during her session to demand that she send him back to his world so he can find his brother.He departed the series due to his obligations to the Broadway play Picnic and the Marvel feature film Captain America: The Winter Soldier.[4] For the second week in a row (in spite of fears that Hurricane Sandy would affect the Eastern United States, which would've caused ABC affiliates to preempt the show if it became serious), this outing helped the series post another increase in the ratings, scoring a 3.4/8 among 18-49s with 9.7 million viewers tuning in, despite the competition it had from NBC's Sunday Night Football and Fox's broadcast of Game 4 of the 2012 World Series.Entertainment Weekly's Hilary Busis liked the episode, but somehow questioned the show creators' sudden inclusion of characters that were written in the 1800s into the storylines: "Maybe it's best not to anger the all-powerful sorcerers.Though I know that not all of Once's 'fairy land' characters actually hail from folklore—like Frankenstein, Pinocchio and the Mad Hatter are both inventions of 19th century novelists—I've still got mixed feelings about bringing Mary Shelley's classic into OUAT's potent public domain stew."[6] The Huffington Post's Laura Prudom also gave it mixed reviews: "This week's 'Once Upon a Time' certainly fit in with the rest of ABC's Halloween fare, with an abundance of lightning and shambling monsters and creepy heart stealing—but the end result left me a little cold.While it's always nice to get insight into the emotions of the characters, the truth is that what happened in Regina's Storybrooke arc in this episode didn't really move the overall plot forward.