That Still Small Voice

A straw spinning wheel is shown in the forest.

In the Enchanted Forest, a young pickpocket named Jiminy desires the chance to be a good person, but is forced by his father (Harry Groener) and mother (Carolyn Hennesy) to participate in their cons. After he finishes collecting some stolen goods, Jiminy tells them that he desires to leave the family business. Unfortunately, as years go by, the now-adult Jiminy (Raphael Sbarge) is still aiding his parents, who come up with excuses to keep him from leaving. He runs into a young boy who tells him to follow his conscience. One night, Jiminy pays a visit to see Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) and is given a tonic that will set him free from his parents and is told to either have them drink it or throw it over them.

Later that evening, Jiminy and his parents convince a couple to give up some goods in exchange for a tonic that will supposedly make them immune to a plague. He soon discovers that his father switched Rumpelstiltskin's tonic with the one they sold, and finds that the couple have been turned into dolls. Even worse, he then discovers that the couple were the parents of the young boy he spoke to earlier. Having realized what he has done, Jiminy makes a wish and receives an answer from The Blue Fairy, who shows up to give him his one true wish: becoming a cricket. Jiminy is also told that he has a chance to help someone in the future, starting with the young boy, who would grow up to be Gepetto. As for the cursed dolls, they end up as a collection at Mr. Gold's (Carlyle) pawn shop.

In the present day, Dr. Archie Hopper (Sbarge) continues to evaluate Henry (Jared S. Gilmore), who is still trying to convince him that he is Jiminy. Meanwhile, Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan) officially makes Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) his new deputy. An explosion soon after causes the town to shake, followed by a sinkhole that emerges at an abandoned mine shaft. As Emma, Henry, Archie, and the sheriff show up to see the damaged area, Regina (Lana Parrilla) arrives to try to keep everyone from going any further, then comes across a certain object which looks like an ornate piece of glass and puts it in her pocket. She is also not pleased with the sheriff hiring Emma, and also reminds Archie that she can have him fired and out on the streets if he fails to succeed in dissuading Henry of the veracity of the fairy tale stories.

The next day, Archie follows through on Regina's warning by convincing Henry that the fairy tale stories are not real, upsetting Henry. This prompts Emma to pay a visit to Archie as she figures out that Regina was responsible for threatening him. Emma accuses Regina of threatening Archie, but Regina says that Henry is missing again. Archie conjectures that Henry may have gone back to the mine shaft. There, Henry begins to investigate the area and comes across a glass item similar to the one Regina found earlier that he puts into his backpack. Archie goes in to search for Henry and finds the boy, but as they try to escape, an aftershock blocks off the main entrance, leaving an injured Archie and Henry trapped. They find an elevator shaft, not knowing that above ground Emma and Regina have taken the suggestion of blasting the main entrance from Marco (Tony Amendola), which results in the elevator carrying Henry and Archie being lowered even further after the blast takes place.

Inside the elevator, Henry asks Archie why he refuses to believe that he is Jiminy Cricket. Archie acknowledges that he might share Jiminy's personality and in a similar fashion to his alternative past, yearn to be free from being told what to do. Meanwhile, above ground, Emma finds the opening of the elevator shaft and volunteers to go down the shaft, where she succeeds in rescuing Henry and Archie. Archie tells Regina that he will continue to see Henry and that if she attempts to interfere he will take action against Regina and have her declared an unfit mother. Regina backs down after Archie's threat, she looks at the object she had in her pocket and throws it down the shaft, where it is revealed that it is a small shard of the infamous glass coffin of Snow White's (Ginnifer Goodwin).

Concurrent with these events, Mary Margaret (Goodwin) continues to visit the amnesiac David (Joshua Dallas) at the hospital. At the same time, Kathryn (Anastasia Griffith) also continues to visit David, showing him pictures to jog his memory but later admits to Mary Margaret that he doesn't remember anything that he saw in the pictures, although he claimed otherwise when talking with Kathryn. As Mary Margaret notices David becoming more attracted to her, she still feels threatened by Kathryn's presence. This prompts Mary Margaret to submit her letter of resignation as a volunteer at the hospital.

The episode first aired on November 27, 2011. It earned a ratings share of 3.4/8 among 18- to 49-year-olds and scored a 5.9/8 ratings share overall. An estimated 10.7 million watched the episode, and it ranked third in its timeslot behind Football Night In America on NBC and 60 Minutes on CBS but ahead of The Simpsons on the Fox network.[15][16] The episode ultimately finished in fourteenth place for the week among the major networks.[17] In Canada, the episode finished in twenty-second place for the week, garnering an estimated 1.43 million viewers,[18] a decrease from the 1.59 million of the previous episode.[19]

The episode was met with generally positive reviews.

Writing for AOL TV, Laura Prudom noted that the episode "proved to be an undeniably satisfying hour of television, deepening our understanding of Archie/Jiminy's character and giving us some welcome development in Mary Margaret and David's tragic romance. I don't know about you, but I really could watch a whole hour of those two playing hangman and innocently flirting and need nothing else from the show."[20] Entertainment Weekly columnist Shaunna Murphy wrote that while she "ragged on Robert Carlyle initially, his campy Rumpel is quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of this show."[13] Tor.com's Teresa Jusino called Espenson's script "so engaging" because it deviated from the series' typical two-story format and "incorporated a third, separate modern storyline" that featured other characters in addition to Jiminy Cricket, in which "each storyline got just enough attention."[1] She added that the episode's best parts were its "intimate character moments, particularly the scenes between Archie/Jiminy and the boys in his life," and attributed this to Espenson's strength as a writer. Jusino felt another highlight was Sbarge's performance, as he "navigated both Archie and Jiminy’s journeys from being pawns to being their own men with precision and warmth."[1]

Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club graded the episode with a C. He criticized Gilmore's performance in "That Still Small Voice" and earlier episodes, writing that "Gilmore struggles to make a connection with his character, so it always looks like he’s reading lines," which might have a negative effect on the Henry's character development.[9] Sava felt that Espenson, based on her previous work, was good at balancing large casts and wrote "this episode juggles the expansive character roster of this series better than its predecessors."[9] Conversely, IGN's Amy Ratcliffe said she has "never liked Henry as much as I did in this episode," especially his explanation to Archie on why he is Jiminy Cricket.[21] Ratcliffe added that Jiminy had the "most touching backstory" of the season up to that point, opining that "the transformation of Dr. Hopper was moving, and this episode maybe felt the most like a fairytale of the stories we've seen so far."[21] She graded "That Still Small Voice" with 8 out of 10, an indication of a "great" episode.[21]