Once Upon a Time: The Queen is Dead (2x15)

Oh my word. Once Upon a Time. It's a bit difficult for me to be objective about this show, since I just love it so damn much. But, I shall try. I know that this show suffers from a few rather sub-standard actors and some pretty shoddy dialogue, but the genius of other actors and the brilliance of the plot more than make up for it in my opinion. The effects aren't great, it gets more than a little cheesy at some parts, but at the end of the day I still keep coming back for more.

The characterization of this ensemble cast is superb and the plot keeps moving forward and twisting around in new and unexpected ways. Never a moment wasted with this show. Now, let's dive in to this latest episode, "The Queen is Dead."

It wasn't the best episode that this show has seen, and the flashback moments were riddled with problems. However, the plot moved forward with fresh leaps and bounds, and we got a healthy helping of Revenge!Hook and Hurt!Rumplestiltskin, so at the end of the day I think we can chalk this episode up to a win. (I am betraying my fandom tendencies by freaking out over this show. I know. Make fun if you will.)

Let's talk about why this episode was pretty good.

- Hook! God help me, I love Hook. I love hating him. He's interesting. I love that he showed up and stabbed Rumple, and I love that Neal knows him. I hope you all realize what that implies.... right? Bae didn't come to our world first. He went somewhere else. Somewhere where he DOESN'T AGE. And he knows Hook. Neal is freakin' Peter Pan! Neal is Bae AND Peter Pan. God damn, I love this show! It's just as cool as how Rumplestiltskin is Cinderella's fairy godmother, and the crocodile from the Peter Pan story, etc. How creative is that?

-Another thing that is nice about this episode is that it maintains the awesome pacing of the show. Once Upon a Time is not a show that leaves you waiting. Stuff happens, every week. Cora has the knife now. Rumple could be dying. Snow is turning into Dark Snow (It's like Dark Willow all over again! Buffy fans will know what I mean). A lot of stuff happens in this episode, but in a good way.

If I had to complain, I would say that the flashback stuff was kinda silly... Snow's mother was boring... the deception with the blue fairy was obvious... I mean, we all knew that the blue fairy would never really offer dark magic like that. One intriguing thing was that ending with Cora and Snow's mother. What's between them? Why does Cora hate her? Is it all just to get Regina on the throne or is there something else going on?

I also missed seeing Rumple in this episode. Yeah, I know we got Mr. Gold, but any episode with good ol' creepy-scale-faced Rumplestiltskin is great. This one didn't have that. The back-story was so much less interesting than the other things I want to know.

I want to see Neverland. Snow's mother dying? Please. We always knew her mother would die, so what was the point of that? It was, again, slightly interesting to see how Cora orchestrated everything from the beginning, but it sort of felt like... so what? I wanted more from this back story, or else I wanted a different one all together. 

I can't wait to see Bae and Hook battle it out in Neverland... Here's hoping for that in the near future.

8/10