Why did Once Upon a Time crew put an apple tree in the middle of an intersection in Steveston dressed as Storybrooke in mid-March? We’ll find out tonight in the penultimate episode of season one entitled An Apple Red as Blood.
On that cold Wednesday night, local Once Upon a Time fans flocked to the village near Vancouver as word spread that the main cast — Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas, Jared Gilmore, Raphael Sabarge, Meghan Ory, Beverley Elliott, Lee Arenberg and other members of Team 7 — were all on set as their Storybrooke selves gathered around Lana Parrilla’s Regina tied to the tree. So many fans arrived in fact that crew decided to arrange meet and greets with the cast and then politely asked fans to leave so that they could get the filming done.
UPDATE: It turns out the apple tree scene was Regina’s nightmare in the cold opening of the episode. But it is the trigger that sets her on a path to try to kill Jennifer Morrison’s Emma (although the scene of Emma almost being hit by David”s truck was cut). My photos of the apple tree scene were taken from a block away. They don’t reveal much but you should be able to spot Meghan Ory, Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas and a few members of Team 7 near the torches. Before I moved away from the filming to take photos from a distance, I did see Dallas hand Morrison a sword and watched her swing it at Lana Parrilla. It’s the only time one of the show’s Storybrooke scenes ever approached the grandeur of a fairy tale one.