Who is Owen Flynn? Owen made his first appearance in the 17th episode of ABC’s Once Upon a Time called “Welcome to Storybrooke.”
We first met Owen Flynn in 1983. Owen and his father, Curt, went on a camping trip. They were camping in the woods in Maine when a storm overtook their campsite. In the morning, they found a tree had fallen and smashed their truck.
The father and son decided to hike back to the road, so they could look for help. Instead of finding a major road, they found a small town—Storybrooke. This small town seemed to have appeared out of thin air. They decided to stick around in town (not that they had a choice) to get the truck fixed.
A local mechanic, Gus, was working on fixing the pickup truck. When the town mayor, Regina Mills, found out the father and son found their way into Storybrooke, she was eager for them to leave. However, Regina started to realize her life was empty in this cursed town. She changed her mind about them leaving and wanted to spend more time with Curt and Owen.
Regina and Owen began having a moment when the boy told her he lost his mother six months ago. She asked Curt if he would be interested in moving to Storybrooke. However, Curt declined the offer and Regina was not taking “no” for an answer. With her power, she took Sheriff Graham’s heart and ordered him to arrest Curt.
Curt managed to break free and he took his son on a car chase to get out of the town. Graham and Regina were able to cut Flynn off in the high-speed chase right at the town line. Curt told his son to get out of the town and find his uncle. Owen did so, but was reluctant to leave his father.
Regina approached young Owen and tried to convince him to stay, but he refused. She let the young boy go. However, Owen tried to return with some police officers. When the officers took Owen back to the town line, they were not able to find Storybrooke due to the curse.
Young Owen declared to find his father one day.
Greg Mendel
Now, it is almost 30 years later and Emma broke the curse. When the curse was lifted, this allowed outsiders to wander into Storybrooke. We saw In The Name of the Brother, Mr. Gold and Belle saying goodbye before his trip. They were at the town line, when Captain Hook showed up and shot her.
This caused her to stumble over the town line, which stripped her of her memories. Gold was about to retaliate with a magic fireball, but suddenly a car speeding down the road hit Hook. Emma and David hurried to the scene and got the driver rushed to the Storybrooke hospital. Dr. Whale was able to save the driver’s life.
When the driver woke up, Emma introduced herself as the sheriff and asked about him. At this time, his named appeared to be Greg Mendel. He was a tourist from Pennsylvania. Emma and the other Storybrooke residents were concerned this outsider saw Mr. Gold doing magic.
However, Greg convinced Emma that he did not see anything unusual. When she left the room, he grabbed his cell phone and called a woman saved as “Her.” He told “Her” that she would never believe what he just saw in this small town. For the next few weeks, Greg spent some time recovering in the hospital.
Greg would often speak with Belle, who had no memory of her past Fairy Tale Land life, about what he saw. He also began spying on Regina when she visited Belle. Greg captured Regina using magic with his cell phone. As time continued on, Greg started feeling better and got permission to leave the hospital.
He began wandering around Storybrooke. This made Emma very nervous because she was fearful of what he would find. Then one day, Greg was walking around in the woods, and he ran into Henry. Henry was trying to find a way to remove magic from Storybrooke completely. (See Episode 17: Welcome to Storybrooke)
Well, Greg secretly took a photo of Henry’s contact information from his backpack and called Regina. He told her that Henry was in the woods and he was worried for him. Regina went to get Henry. After that debacle, she headed back home.
Mary Margaret showed up to Regina’s home begging to end the feud. Regina ripped out Mary Margaret’s heart and had a few words. Unbeknown, Greg was recording the entire moment on his cell phone. After he got the footage, he went back to his car.
We then see Greg with a familiar leather braid. Curt Flynn gave this braid to his son on the camping trip in 1983. Greg once again announced that he will find his father. We just learned that Greg Mendel is actually Owen Flynn all grown up.
Ethan Embry plays Greg Mendel (grown up Owen Flynn). Benjamin Stockham plays young Owen Flynn.