Once Upon a Time: Second Star to the Right (2x21)

Yes! Thank you! A good episode. I was so happy, you have no idea. After the last few weeks, I was getting nervous about how this show was going to pull off its finale, but my fears have been appeased. I'm very excited to see the ending.

So, on the plot level, things were pretty basic. Regina has been kidnapped by Greg and Tamara. Greg is trying to torture information about his father out of Regina, but she won't give in. They also steal the trigger from her (the one that will blow Storybrooke off the map).

Meanwhile, Emma, Henry, David, and Mary Margaret discover that Regina is missing. Emma still thinks it's Tamara, but when she tries to investigate, Neal catches her again. The two of them go looking along the beach. Mary Margaret and David go to Rumple, who gives them magic that will help them find Regina. Mary Margaret and David meet up with Emma and Neal, as they have all discovered where they think Regina is.

Mary Margaret and David find Regina, but Greg gets away. Neal and Emma have a run in with Tamara. Emma is temporarily incapacitated, and Neal gets shot. Tamara opens a portal and runs off, and Neal tragically falls into the portal, but not before he and Emma can exchange the long awaited "I love you."

In the flashback portion, we see Bae land in London as he falls through the portal from the fairytale world. He meets up with Wendy Darling and her family. They take him in, but it turns out that Wendy and her brothers are being visited during the night by a mysterious shadow. When Wendy is taken away, she learns that Neverland is actually not a good place - apparently once you set foot there, you have to stay forever. The only reason that the shadow let Wendy go is because they wanted a boy. Bae ends up going in order to save Wendy's brothers. The shadow flies him to Neverland. He falls into the water, where he is rescued by none other than Hook, who welcomes his dead girlfriend's son aboard.

I guess I'll start with the two things I liked least about this episode, because I did truthfully think that most of it was good. First of all, I've made a final decision as to what I think of Tamara and Greg.

I don't object to the overall concept of some sort of organization that knows about magic and wants to destroy it. I sort of think we as a species would be more likely to study it and try to use it to make money, but I can also understand the idea that humanity tries to get rid of magic because it's this alien threat and it frightens them. That's all fine with me. But... Tamara and Greg are just uninteresting as characters. It's scary, really, how little I cared about Greg's efforts to find his dad. And Tamara just annoys the hell out of me. I guess what I'm saying is that it's not the idea overall that's flawed, but it's the characterization. If they want to keep going with this idea that an organization is out there threatening magic, I'm cool with it. But they better get some more interesting characters.

The other problem was sort of nitpick-y but I found myself really distracted by it throughout the episode, so I suppose I should say something. Wendy's family was hella unrealistic. What kind of little girl sees a boy in her house and is just like, oh, hello street urchin! Have some bread! And then Wendy's parents find out and her mom just lets him live with them? Like, forever? Did she just adopt a kid on a whim? It felt really forced to me. I felt like maybe if Bae had saved Wendy's life or something, and so she hid him out of gratitude... or, I don't know, maybe the family hired him to clean the house because they felt bad for him, rather than just letting him move in and become a part of the family right away. I could be over-thinking this, but it was a distracting element to me, so I felt the need to comment on it.

But now onto the good things! We pushed the plot forward. Now, our bad guys have the trigger and they plan on using it. Tamara's treachery has been revealed, so we can stop with that nonsense. Regina, even if she's still evil, is sort of on the same page with the rest of the family. They can hopefully make something of a united front against their enemies in the finale.

I think I must say my favorite moments were all the ones with Neal and Emma. These two have great chemistry and it was fantastic to see them play off of each other this week. It was so tragic when Neal and Emma were both about to fall into the portal, but Neal told her to let him go for Henry. He said that he didn't want Henry to have to grow up like they did, without parents. It was an enormously touching thing to say, and it was so heartbreaking when Emma let him go and he fell. Since he's been shot, she assumes he'll die wherever he ends up (I personally think he's way too interesting to kill, but they did it with August, so what do I know?).

It was also so sweet to see Emma lean on David for comfort. It must be so weird for her to have found her parents in this strange way, but she clearly loves and needs them, and that moment for me really cemented it. I think the saddest part was when she asked David how she was supposed to tell Henry what had happened.

Lana Parrilla (Regina) was in fine form this week. She did such a good job at being in pain when being tortured, and when she found out that the trigger was in the hands of the enemy, she had the most priceless expression on her face. I just get the impression that she is so fed up with David and Mary Margaret and all their stereotypical fairytale goodness. It's like - you're missing the point, you dumb-asses! I no longer have the trigger, and we're all probably going to die!

As we move forward into the final episode of the season, I am very excited to see how all of these events culminate. This episode was a solid setup, even if it did have a few major blunders.

7.5/10