The first scene of the episode takes place in New York City, where a dove lands on the windowsill of an apartment owned by an unidentified man (Michael Raymond-James).
Gold had promised Belle (Emilie de Ravin) that he would not kill Regina, which technically he has not since a wraith consumes souls, and she walked out on him after learning what he had done.
David takes charge of Henry, who tells Regina that he will never speak to her again if she does not bring Mary Margaret and Emma back to Storybrooke.
In the Enchanted Forest, Prince Phillip (Julian Morris) awakens Princess Aurora (Sarah Bolger) from a magical, year-long sleep with true love's kiss.
The final scene of the episode reveals a twist: the storyline of Aurora, Phillip, and Mulan is not a flashback, but rather takes place in a part of the fairytale world whose inhabitants were—for an unknown reason—not removed by the Evil Queen's curse, and is contemporaneous with the Storybrooke plotline.
[5][6] Two additional actresses who joined the recurring cast were Sarah Bolger as Aurora and Jamie Chung as Mulan, who both made their debuts during this episode.
[7][8] On its first broadcast, "Broken" was watched by an estimated 11.36 million viewers, placing second in its timeslot behind NBC's Football Night in America.
She found Snow and Emma's descent into the hat to be a "surprising turn of events and a fun way to force them together and make them work out their new mother/daughter roles."
The various relationships and their sorted issues – including Mr. Gold & Belle and Snow & Emma (who is none too pleased with being left without parents for 28 years) -- have such potential.
Club gave a B+ rate to the episode saying "Mr. Gold bringing magic back to Storybrooke in a wave of fuchsia fog, and this season 2 opener confirms that this show is going to be a completely different beast going forward.
I think Horowitz and Kitsis have pointed the show in a compelling direction with plenty of new mysteries to unravel, and I'm eager to see how magic affects our world.