I'll review this as a double episode, since that's how it was meant to be watched. I'll try to reign myself in, but I have a lot to talk about.
So first of all, we have a flashback to when Emma was just a little girl, as she watches someone else get adopted. She longs for a home of her own. Later on, as a teenager, she and Neal hang out together, and Neal tells Emma that the way to know if you've found a home is if you miss it when you're away. Emma has taken this philosophy to heart: her whole life, she just keeps running away, waiting for the time she'll miss what she's left behind.
In Storybrooke, Mary Margaret and David prepare a party at Granny's to announce the name of their new son. Regina and Robin have a romantic time together, and Regina confesses to Robin about Tinker Bell, and the tattoo. Robin says that maybe they just needed the timing to be right. Emma still plans on leaving Storybrooke and heading back to New York. Hook tries to convince her it's a bad idea, but she says that she doesn't feel at home here - when she looks at her family, she sees fairy tale characters, not family members.
Then, Zelena's time portal activates, seemingly triggered by her death. Emma runs towards it, trying to figure out how to close it, but she is pulled in. Hook follows her.
They are sent back in time to before the curse was enacted, when Snow was still on the run from Regina. They actually end up being in just the right place to witness Snow and Charming's first meeting. However, Emma accidentally snaps a twig, causing Snow to fall out of her hiding place and miss her chance at robbing Charming's carriage. This means that Emma has inadvertently altered the future, since now her parents haven't met.
Hook and Emma go to Rumplestiltskin to ask for help in getting a portal back home. Rumple wants to kill Hook on sight, but Emma tells Rumple that she's the savior, and that if he hurts them, he'll never find his son again. Rumple agrees to help them get a portal home, but only if Emma and Hook set things right between Snow and Charming, and thus set the future back on its course.
They know that Snow has to steal Charming's ring in order for them to meet, so they concoct a plan: they need to get Snow to try and steal the ring from Charming's ball at Midas' castle that evening. How can they convince her to try something so risky? Well... Emma distracts Hook-from-the-past so that our Hook can go aboard his ship, talk to Snow, and agree to get her safe passage out of the area, as long as she procures treasure for him. Specifically, he wants Charming's wedding ring. So, Snow sneaks into the ball, and Rumple helps disguise Emma and Hook so they can be in attendance as well. Code names? Prince Charles and Princess Leia.
Snow breaks in and almost manages to get the ring, but she leaves it behind in her haste to escape. Emma, however, is caught as an accomplice to Snow's escape.
In the dungeons, Emma sees a girl who had previously been caught by Regina for hiding Snow's whereabouts from the Evil Queen. As they talk, Emma feels sympathy for the girl. When she uses some tricks taught to her by Neal to escape from the cell, she frees this other woman as well, unwilling to let her be executed.
Charming catches Snow, trying to get his ring back, but of course Snow doesn't have it. Hook shows up and announces that another woman - Emma/Leia - has the ring. They agree to all work together to get Emma and the ring. Snow runs off to go find help, while Hook and Charming talk about love. Snow returns with Red, who helps them distract the guards with her wolf-y form, and get them into the castle. However, at this point Emma turns up with the woman she rescued, and Hook is disappointed to be deprived of a dashing rescue. Snow goes to confront Regina, but when she tries to use her Dark Fairy Dust, Regina stops her with magic, and captures her.
Emma is forced to watch as her mother is burned to death by Regina. As Hook tries to comfort her, Emma wonders how she can still be alive, if her mother died before she ever had her. Hook is annoyed by a buzzing insect flying around him, but Charming stops him from killing it, remembering what Snow had told him about the Dark Fairy Dust. The Blue Fairy shows up and transforms Snow back to her human form. Emma hugs her, relieved, but of course Snow has no idea who she is.
The other escaped prisoner is going to mess with the timeline unless Emma and Hook bring her back to the future with them. She doesn't seem keen on the idea, so Emma knocks her out, leaving her no choice. At this point, Charming realizes that Snow has stolen his ring! He rushes off to get it back from her, and the timeline is restored, as Snow rescues Charming from the trolls (bluffing this time, as she's already used the powder to save herself from Regina's fire). Snow and Charming part ways, Charming staring after Snow with new love in his eyes. Things are as they should be.
Emma and Hook (along with the other freed prisoner) go to Rumple. He says the only way for the portal to be opened is if the person who came through it reverses it. Since Emma doesn't have her magic anymore, it looks like they're trapped. Rumple prepares to drink a memory potion, saying he knows too much about his future now, and he traps Emma and Hook in a vault of magic so dangerous even Rumple doesn't want to mess with it. While in there, Emma remarks that she misses her family, and that Storybrooke really is her home. Her restored faith in her family brings her magic back, and she's able to open the portal. Rumple shows up and grabs Emma before she can enter it, demanding to know what happens when he finds his son. Emma tells him that Bae dies a hero, and that he has to drink the memory potion so he won't take that away from his son, and make everything worse. Rumple drinks the potion and lets Emma go through the portal.
Back in Storybrooke, Mary Margaret and David announce their son's name: Prince Neal. Hook and Emma talk, and Hook reveals that he got to Emma in New York by giving up the Jolly Roger in exchange for a magic bean. Emma and Hook share a kiss. Rumple and Belle happily get married in a private ceremony, with just Belle's father in attendance, and Hopper officiating. At Granny's, Emma introduces the freed prisoner to Regina, since she's still freaked out and thinks of Regina as evil. At that moment, we finally learn this woman's identity: Marian. Robin and Roland tearfully reunite with her, while Regina angrily accuses Emma of not thinking about consequences.
In the last shot, we see an urn that was brought over from Rumple's vault of dangerous magic. It cracks open, and icy blue liquid forms into a woman who seems to have ice powers. She walks forward into Storybrooke, ostensibly to wreak her own havoc on the town.
Yikes. Double episodes make for long plot summaries, and believe me, I held myself back from going into a lot more detail. Shall we start with the negative aspects?
For one thing, I don't understand what happened to Zelena. So... she did die? And her death triggered the time portal opening? How the hell does that make any sense? If she needed to die to open the portal, then obviously that wasn't a very good plan for changing her own past, was it?
Speaking of Zelena... is Rumple really going to get off the hook that easily? He gets to marry Belle and have his happy moment of remembrance when the Charmings name their son after his lost child... are we not going to acknowledge the fact that he murdered someone and is lying to Belle about everything? I can't see a way for this to work out positively, and I still feel like it's such an erasure of all of Rumple's character development thus far.
Lastly, I know we were doing a sort of fairy tale version of Back to the Future, but my God, Emma, you are such an idiot! I don't think there was any way for Emma to screw things up more spectacularly. She ruined her parents' love story, and then she accidentally let slip to Rumple that he falls in love with Belle, and that Neal dies... what would have happened if Rumple hadn't had the strength to swallow that potion? Everything would have been ruined!
But honestly, the positive stuff overwhelms the negative stuff beyond any measure. I was really impressed and delighted with what this finale had to offer. Let's look at some of the positive aspects. I could never manage to name them all.
Firstly, this was totally a story about Emma and Hook! Their romance was one of the featured aspects of this epic adventure, and there were so many adorable and sexy moments between them I can't even count. Hook's reaction to seeing Emma in the peasant's clothing, and his reaction to seeing her in the red dress... and then there's the fact that he punched himself in the face for kissing her. He held her when her mother was killed, wiped her tears away, was willing to go to any lengths to rescue her from the dungeons... his conversation with David about finding the right person... the fact that he followed her into the portal in the first place, their dance together at the ball, and that kiss at the end. Hot damn. Honestly, my interest in these two as a couple has only grown stronger and stronger as the show progresses and that ending, with Emma and Hook kissing lovingly, was just what it all should have been leading up to. I loved how different this kiss was from their first. Still passionate, but this time it was full of love instead of just lust.
But more than being about Emma and Hook, this finale was Emma's story. It was Emma's realization of what it means to have family, and what it means to have a home. The flashbacks we had with her were brief, but they helped solidify some character traits of Emma's that we've sort of known about but never really dealt with until now The fact that her love for her parents brought her magic back is just so perfect. It also broke my heart when she realized how badly she must have been hurting her parents to treat them with such distance all this time. She had the strength to accept family and home and open herself up to vulnerability. You go, Emma.
Mentions of Neal. I was pretty satisfied with the way they killed off Neal, even if it was really weird with the whole absorbing thing and the crazy Rumple and all that... I was happy because we knew that what Neal had done had amounted to something. In this finale, we get several mentions of Neal, and they all serve to reinforce the idea of his heroism. It's a fitting tribute to a character who had his fair share of cowardice in the past - a trait he shares with his papa. Kudos to Jennifer Morrison's performance particularly as she was telling Rumple that his son died a hero. I got chills.
There were moments throughout the episode where I questioned all the repetition of Mary Margaret and David's story. We got a lot of the same dialogue and situations coming back with only slight alterations, and it seemed sort of odd to watch them all again. But by the end of the episode, I really appreciated this move. I think it served to show how fragile True Love can be in this universe, but also how powerful it can be. Emma managed to screw everything up by snapping a twig, but at the same time, even in altered circumstances, Snow and Charming managed to fall just as deeply in love.
This observation dovetails very nicely into what happens with Marian in the story. I'll admit, I guessed it was her from an early point, especially with how happy Regina and Robin seemed to be at the very beginning, and the mentions of Marian and Daniel. I saw some people online complaining that this twist with Marian is undermining all of Regina's character development. I don't agree. I think we have to wait and see what they do with it - I think Regina has honestly changed for the better, but that she had a moment of - frankly, understandable - anger at Emma, when confronted with losing her soul mate. I think it will be interesting to see what happens now: will Robin and Marian reunite happily ever after and leave Regina bitter and alone? Or will Marian and Robin part ways, and will Regina get her true love after all?
Of course I have to finish by discussing the ending. I am... shall we say... perplexed, by their choice to include Elsa in the story. I haven't made a judgment as to whether it's a good or a bad thing yet, but I will say this: it's risky. Every other character in the story is either an established fairy tale character (Snow White, Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, etc.), an original character (Emma, Henry, Neal) or occasionally a more creative interpretation of "fairy tale," as they pull from distant historical figures like Mulan, or from more recent books such as The Wizard of Oz or Peter Pan. This is something different. I know the Snow Queen is an old story, but Disney's version of it is very, very, recent, and extremely different from its source material, much more so than other Disney Princesses have been. So basically, we now have Once Upon a Time taking a character who is very, very recent to Disney's canon and doing their own twist on her.
If I had to list some pros and cons... well, in terms of cons, I think using such a recent character takes away a bit of the timeless aspect that this show had going for it. These fairy tale characters are, for the most part, coming from stories that the show's core audience grew up with. With Elsa, that's not the case. Also, since Frozen is so incredibly popular, they run the risk of alienating some of their fans if they put too much of a twist on Elsa. On the flip side of that, they need to do something original with her, or else what's the point?
Still, I'm going to reserve judgment until I see what they end up doing with her. For all I know, they have something great up their sleeves.
That's where I shall leave it!
9/10
Speaking of Zelena... is Rumple really going to get off the hook that easily? He gets to marry Belle and have his happy moment of remembrance when the Charmings name their son after his lost child... are we not going to acknowledge the fact that he murdered someone and is lying to Belle about everything? I can't see a way for this to work out positively, and I still feel like it's such an erasure of all of Rumple's character development thus far.
Lastly, I know we were doing a sort of fairy tale version of Back to the Future, but my God, Emma, you are such an idiot! I don't think there was any way for Emma to screw things up more spectacularly. She ruined her parents' love story, and then she accidentally let slip to Rumple that he falls in love with Belle, and that Neal dies... what would have happened if Rumple hadn't had the strength to swallow that potion? Everything would have been ruined!
But honestly, the positive stuff overwhelms the negative stuff beyond any measure. I was really impressed and delighted with what this finale had to offer. Let's look at some of the positive aspects. I could never manage to name them all.
Firstly, this was totally a story about Emma and Hook! Their romance was one of the featured aspects of this epic adventure, and there were so many adorable and sexy moments between them I can't even count. Hook's reaction to seeing Emma in the peasant's clothing, and his reaction to seeing her in the red dress... and then there's the fact that he punched himself in the face for kissing her. He held her when her mother was killed, wiped her tears away, was willing to go to any lengths to rescue her from the dungeons... his conversation with David about finding the right person... the fact that he followed her into the portal in the first place, their dance together at the ball, and that kiss at the end. Hot damn. Honestly, my interest in these two as a couple has only grown stronger and stronger as the show progresses and that ending, with Emma and Hook kissing lovingly, was just what it all should have been leading up to. I loved how different this kiss was from their first. Still passionate, but this time it was full of love instead of just lust.
But more than being about Emma and Hook, this finale was Emma's story. It was Emma's realization of what it means to have family, and what it means to have a home. The flashbacks we had with her were brief, but they helped solidify some character traits of Emma's that we've sort of known about but never really dealt with until now The fact that her love for her parents brought her magic back is just so perfect. It also broke my heart when she realized how badly she must have been hurting her parents to treat them with such distance all this time. She had the strength to accept family and home and open herself up to vulnerability. You go, Emma.
Mentions of Neal. I was pretty satisfied with the way they killed off Neal, even if it was really weird with the whole absorbing thing and the crazy Rumple and all that... I was happy because we knew that what Neal had done had amounted to something. In this finale, we get several mentions of Neal, and they all serve to reinforce the idea of his heroism. It's a fitting tribute to a character who had his fair share of cowardice in the past - a trait he shares with his papa. Kudos to Jennifer Morrison's performance particularly as she was telling Rumple that his son died a hero. I got chills.
There were moments throughout the episode where I questioned all the repetition of Mary Margaret and David's story. We got a lot of the same dialogue and situations coming back with only slight alterations, and it seemed sort of odd to watch them all again. But by the end of the episode, I really appreciated this move. I think it served to show how fragile True Love can be in this universe, but also how powerful it can be. Emma managed to screw everything up by snapping a twig, but at the same time, even in altered circumstances, Snow and Charming managed to fall just as deeply in love.
This observation dovetails very nicely into what happens with Marian in the story. I'll admit, I guessed it was her from an early point, especially with how happy Regina and Robin seemed to be at the very beginning, and the mentions of Marian and Daniel. I saw some people online complaining that this twist with Marian is undermining all of Regina's character development. I don't agree. I think we have to wait and see what they do with it - I think Regina has honestly changed for the better, but that she had a moment of - frankly, understandable - anger at Emma, when confronted with losing her soul mate. I think it will be interesting to see what happens now: will Robin and Marian reunite happily ever after and leave Regina bitter and alone? Or will Marian and Robin part ways, and will Regina get her true love after all?
Of course I have to finish by discussing the ending. I am... shall we say... perplexed, by their choice to include Elsa in the story. I haven't made a judgment as to whether it's a good or a bad thing yet, but I will say this: it's risky. Every other character in the story is either an established fairy tale character (Snow White, Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, etc.), an original character (Emma, Henry, Neal) or occasionally a more creative interpretation of "fairy tale," as they pull from distant historical figures like Mulan, or from more recent books such as The Wizard of Oz or Peter Pan. This is something different. I know the Snow Queen is an old story, but Disney's version of it is very, very, recent, and extremely different from its source material, much more so than other Disney Princesses have been. So basically, we now have Once Upon a Time taking a character who is very, very recent to Disney's canon and doing their own twist on her.
If I had to list some pros and cons... well, in terms of cons, I think using such a recent character takes away a bit of the timeless aspect that this show had going for it. These fairy tale characters are, for the most part, coming from stories that the show's core audience grew up with. With Elsa, that's not the case. Also, since Frozen is so incredibly popular, they run the risk of alienating some of their fans if they put too much of a twist on Elsa. On the flip side of that, they need to do something original with her, or else what's the point?
Still, I'm going to reserve judgment until I see what they end up doing with her. For all I know, they have something great up their sleeves.
That's where I shall leave it!
9/10
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