The city breathes smoke and memory. In the ruins of justice, the living and the guilty drink side by side, waiting for someone else to light the match. The Woodsman finds a ghost from his past offering him a way back into purpose—if he’s willing to trade what’s left of his soul. Snow White drowns in the echo of a revolution that’s rewritten her name in blood and myth, until a familiar shadow steps through her door. And above the cheering crowds, Goldilocks and Crane shape the new world with fire, speeches, and executions that sound like progress.

In a hidden refuge carved into the roots of an ancient tree, Detective Brannigan finally exhales. The war feels far away here: a kettle murmurs, a child laughs down in the tunnels, and an old badger tells stories that make the forest itself seem to breathe. For one night, she trades sirens for silence. But beyond the snow-soft clearing, Fabletown’s underworld shifts. Sanctuary and storm draw breath together—while Brannigan listens for the answer that’s been following her since childhood.

In the wreckage of Toad Hall, Detective Brannigan digs through the ashes of a city that’s learned to burn its dead twice—first with fire, then with silence. What she finds buried beneath the floorboards isn’t evidence; it’s a voice from the grave, a father’s final confession that sets her on a trail no badge could sanction. As the old systems collapse, Brannigan follows ghosts through forgotten archives and cursed forests, chasing whispers of survival and the faint, dangerous possibility of redemption.

When the old order fractures, the city combusts — and everyone must choose a side. Fabletown’s brittle peace breaks open. Behind gilded doors, backroom bargains and brittle egos collide; outside, a ragged army answers with fire and teeth. The smoke reaches the prison, where an unlikely insurrection floods the corridors and a man long boxed by fate finds himself running for a city that’s already changing shape. Politics meet pyres, alliances shift like ash, and small sanctuaries try to hold a child safe while the streets remap themselves in blood and slogans.

On a rain-slick night, Fabletown learns the difference between reform—and reckoning. Neon bleeds into puddles as the city’s veneer starts to crack. A celebrated doctor leaves work with tidy plans and tidy principles; elsewhere, a judge balances ledgers and excuses. Neither sees the match being struck. Inside the detention center, Bigsby finds an unlikely ally whose simple decency is the riskiest currency of all, while the Horseman’s shadow lengthens across the yard. And high above the courthouse steps, Snow White climbs to a meeting she shouldn’t accept with Goldilocks—now the voice of a movement that speaks in ultimatums. Law or fire. Procedure or revolt. As the night unravels, institutions wobble, alliances harden, and a choice takes shape that can’t be unmade.

A tender farewell becomes the first tremor of an earthquake. Three days before the storm breaks, Mr. Toad sends his son upstate with promises of quiet brooks and safer skies. It’s tea in the “good mugs,” jokes to hide a debt he can’t outrun, and a hug that lingers like a last photograph. When the news finally hits, Snow White is left with the weight of a promise she couldn’t keep and a single thread to pull: a missing housekeeper named Gretel. As the city shrugs and moves on—ice-cream openings over obituaries—Snow and Detective Brannigan choose the harder path, comparing notes in the rain and preparing to dig where the records have been wiped clean. This chapter is grief, resolve, and the moment two women decide to stop looking away.

From the burning woods of the Homelands to the concrete shadows of Fabletown, survival is never without a cost. The story shifts between memory and confinement. Bigsby Wolf recalls the night his family was torn apart in the Black Forest, a memory that still claws at him in his prison cell. In the present, alliances and rivalries inside the detention center reveal who really holds power behind the bars. Outside, Detective Brannigan walks into a crime scene at Toad Hall—what looks like just another casualty of Fabletown’s underworld, but feels more like a warning written in blood. Meanwhile, Snow White uncovers a lead that could unravel the city’s darkest secrets, even as new disappearances deepen the mystery.

In a city that loves a spectacle, Snow White tries to turn a rigged narrative into a fair trial. The courtroom lights hum, the gallery buzzes, and every shadow seems to lean toward a verdict that hasn’t been earned. Snow White takes her place beside Bigsby Wolf, a defendant more legend than man, while Ichabod Crane polishes a story the public already wants to hear. Opening statements clash, a hostile witness list looms, and the rules of evidence start to feel optional. As Snow works to pry truth from bias—challenging searches, timelines, and the credibility of men who profit from fear—the episode tracks the tightrope walk between justice as performance and justice as practice. In Fabletown, facts have to fight their way past reputation. Tonight, we find out if they’re strong enough.