"Shattered Sight" is the eleventh episode of the fourth season of the American fantasy drama series Once Upon a Time, which aired on December 7, 2014.
In this episode Emma Swan, Elsa, and Anna try to stop the Snow Queen, while flashbacks show Emma's past with the Snow Queen.
Plot
Opening sequence
The Spell of Shattered Sight appears in the forest.
Event chronology
The Land Without Magic flashback with the Snow Queen in Boston takes place in 1982, immediately after "Smash the Mirror" and before "Best Laid Plans" and the Land Without Magic flashback where Emma moves into Ingrid's home takes place in 1999, the year after "Breaking Glass" and two years before "Tallahassee" and "There's No Place Like Home" (this story also takes place in the same year as "Lily"). The scene with Ingrid and Emma at the funfair takes place about six months after they began living together, between August 26 and September 1. Ingrid and her foster daughter visit a funfair together and the flashbacks where Ingrid tries to make Emma explore her magic powers take place a week later.
The flashback where the Snow Queen arrives in Storybrooke takes place in 2001, the same year as "Tallahassee", "There's No Place Like Home", "The Heart of the Truest Believer", and "Save Henry" and several years before "Firebird". The Storybrooke flashback with Ingrid and Emma takes place in November 2011, between "The Price of Gold" (Emma is wearing her blue leather jacket, which arrives with the rest of her things in this episode), and "That Still Small Voice", where Emma becomes deputy sheriff (Emma is about to call Sheriff Graham to have him arrest Ingrid; if she was already a deputy, she would have the power to arrest Ingrid herself). The present day Storybrooke events take place after "Fall".
In the Characters' Past
Ingrid arrives in Boston in 1982. She finds a psychic shop; a Fortune Teller named Madame Faustina and tries to receive her fortune, only to learn that the "seer" is a charlatan. Enraged, Ingrid attempts to freeze her, but then discovers that she has no magic. She leaves, vowing to wait as long as it takes to find Emma Swan.
In Richfield, Minnesota in 1999, Emma has just become one of Ingrid's foster children. Though Ingrid intervenes when one of her charges steals Emma's camera, Emma attempts to leave when the bully still demands the device. Ingrid encourages Emma to stay by telling her that her bully is afraid of spiders. The two bond in the short time and Ingrid files to adopt Emma. When a carnival claw machine sparks, Ingrid believes it proof of Emma's magical talent and attempts to test it by throwing the both of them in front of an oncoming car. However, this only has the effect of breaking their bond as Emma runs away.
In 2001, Ingrid travels to Maine, where she unravels the prophecy scroll and finds herself in Storybrooke. In November 2011, when Emma wanders into Any Given Sundae, she recognizes its proprietor Sarah Fisher as Ingrid. Ingrid attempts to convince her of Henry's claims about magic were true, only to be met with denial and anger. Ingrid then removes all memories of herself from Emma into a memory stone, explaining why Emma doesn't remember her in the present.
In Storybrooke
As everyone in Storybrooke begin to attack each other, fighting and riots break out across the town. At the sheriff's station Elsa, Emma, and Anna, the only ones aside from Ingrid and Rumple, immune to the curse, try to come up with a plan to stop Ingrid while at the same time deal with keeping Mary Margaret and David from each other's throats by separating them in different jail cells. Recalling the story that Ingrid got the curse from, Anna reveals that killing Ingrid, the caster of the curse, would potentially be the way to reverse its effects. Worried for Anna's safety, Elsa and Emma leave baby Neal with a reluctant Anna, while Emma and Elsa confront Ingrid at her ice cave, they discover their powers cannot work on her due to the ribbons on them. This gives Emma an idea: to go the Vault and face Regina, who was sealed inside for her own safety.