Once Upon a Time: Dreamcatcher (5x05)

Yikes, Emma. You're breaking my heart here. Which is, I guess, the whole point. Let's just dive right in.

Cons:

The main plot in Camelot this week was hinged on the fact that Henry has a crush on this girl Violet. However, once he tries to court her, she reveals that she just wants to be friends. Okay, that's all fine. This, unsurprisingly, upsets Henry. Apparently it upsets him enough to break his heart, and this is what causes me some doubt. Regina, quite selfishly, uses the tear of his heartbreak to help break Merlin out of his tree prison. I guess I'm just thinking that Henry's heart being broken by a gentle rebuke from a young girl he barely knows is a little... silly. Emma actually refers to this as Henry's "first love." Yeesh.

Merlin's introduction in the opening would have been cool, but it actually ruined the surprise for later on. Essentially, we see him devastated over the death of the only woman he ever loved, saying that the Dark One destroyed her. The Dark One appears and traps this man, revealed to be Merlin, in a tree. He's a young man, not a wizened old wizard. This is fine - this is great, actually. Reminds me of BBC's train wreck of a show Merlin, which I love with all of my pathetic little shipper heart. But later, when Emma releases Merlin from the tree, the surprise was gone, since we already knew what he looked like.

Pros:

Regina and Emma working together is everything to me. This week was all about the two of them working together as Henry's mothers to give him confidence. It was also about working together to save Emma from the Darkness. To do this, they need to release Merlin, and to release Merlin they need a reverse of the curse that trapped him in a tree. This involves collecting the tear of a broken heart. Regina volunteers to relive the memory of Daniel's death. Unfortunately, her grief is not strong enough, causing Emma to do something awful - before Henry and Violet are set to go on a date, Emma takes Violet's heart and tells her to break Henry's heart. Henry comes running to his moms, crying over Violet's rejection. Voila! Merlin is free.

Back in Storybrooke, Emma helps Henry find Violet's missing horse, and seems to be on good terms with her son. But there's a problem with this - we all know what she did now, and very quickly, so do Regina and Mary Margaret. They see the memory of Emma taking Violet's heart in a Dreamcatcher, one of the many that Emma has been making and using to remove everybody's memories. All of a sudden, we have this really delicious parallel between Cora and Emma. Both have done terrible things to their children, but both have had seemingly "good reasons." Emma and Regina's kinship as Henry's mothers was so tragic, because in the end we have the realization that Emma crossed a serious line back in Camelot.

Emma's manipulations as the Dark One are getting more and more serious across the board, in fact. Not only did she force Violet to break Henry's heart, she also let Violet's horse escape in Storybrooke on purpose, just so she could be the hero in finding the horse again. And she continues to control Merida, using her to turn Rumple brave.

And let's talk about that, shall we? It seems that Merida might be a lot more resistant to Emma than we thought. She trains Rumple to be a bad ass sword fighter, and says that she wants to use him to destroy Emma. Woah! How is Merida resisting Emma's magic?! Color me intrigued! Clearly, the idea that Rumple is going to be the hero to pull Excalibur out of the sword is a red herring. In this episode, we see Hook nearly grabbing the sword before Regina stopped him. I really, really hope this is going where it seems to be going. It would be so awesome if Hook was the one to pull the sword from the stone.

The end of the Camelot plot was awesome. Even though the surprise was dampened a bit, it was still cool to see sexy young Merlin freed from his tree. Most interesting of all, he says that he can free Emma from the Darkness, no problem. The only catch? Emma has to be truly ready to be released from that Darkness. Given what she had just done to Henry, it seems unlikely that Emma is truly "ready." But what does that mean? I'm starting to really love the plot device of Emma knowing the full story while everybody else is left in the dark. It's very like what Rumple was up to in the earlier seasons of the show. While Regina, Hook, Mary Margaret and David scramble around looking for information that they already learned and then forgot, you've got Emma, who is probably the only person who knows why she wasn't "ready" to be saved. And where is Merlin now? He doesn't seem to be in Storybrooke!

This might not be the best episode of the season, but it certainly sets up a lot of interesting stuff, and it's getting me more and more pumped for what's coming next. This season is awesome!

8/10