Once Upon a Time: Mother (4x21)

I can't believe next week is the finale... I'm really scared for whatever they've got planned for us. We've seen this show do the same sort of thing before - this episode wrapped up a lot of the major issues of the season, leaving us with a relatively clean slate for next week's two-parter. Let's take a look at what happened.

In the past, we get a Regina-centric story. This takes place during the time when she's the queen, and Snow is an outlaw. Regina visits Daniel's grave on the anniversary of his death, and is furious when Cora shows up. Cora has come back from Wonderland, and she wants to make amends with her daughter. She realizes that she was wrong to think Regina could be happy in a loveless marriage, and she sets out to find Regina's soul mate. (She had a run-in with Tink, apparently, and learned all about the man with the lion tattoo). Cora finds the Sheriff of Nottingham, who tells Cora that Robin Hood is married, and therefore not a proper match for anybody. Cora uses magic to fake a lion tattoo on the Sheriff, and then introduces Regina to him. Regina suspects something isn't right, however, as she and the Sheriff do not get along. Regina forces him to admit that Cora arranged the whole thing. Why? So that Regina can have a child.

Regina confronts her mother. Cora explains that Regina needs a child to solidify her rule. If she doesn't, then Snow will be able to take the kingdom back. Regina thinks that Cora wants power for herself. To stop Cora from getting what she wants, Regina takes a potion that will make her infertile. She seems to immediately regret this, however, and she yells at Cora to get out of her life.

Meanwhile, back in our world, it's time for Emma and the others to return to Storybrooke. Emma, Zelena, Lily, Robin, Regina, and Roland all make their way back from New York. Robin and Regina have a talk about what to do about Zelena. They decide to give Roland a potion to make him forget everything about the fake Marian returning. It will be easier on him than having him lose his mother for a second time.

Emma is able to reunite Lily and Maleficent. Lily wants to go out and get revenge on Mary Margaret and David, but Maleficent doesn't want revenge anymore. Now that she has her daughter, she just wants to enjoy their time together. Lily is disappointed. She wanted a fierce dragon bitch, and instead she just has this regular person. Lily runs off, threatening to leave Storybrooke. Maleficent can't follow her, because if she does she'll return to dust. Maleficent asks Mary Margaret and David to help her find her daughter. Turns out, she's not that hard to find - she transforms into a dragon! Maleficent and Mary Margaret try to calm her down. Mary Margaret gets knocked out by Lily's tail, but luckily she's not badly injured.

Meanwhile, Emma still can't bring herself to forgive her parents. That is, until Hook talks with her. He asks her if she's really willing to give up her relationship with her mom and dad because of a mistake they made. They only hid the truth from her because they wanted to make her proud. Emma finds Mary Margaret and David just after the incident with Lily. She uses her magic to heal Mary Margaret, and the two share a hug. All is forgiven.

Lily, human once more, talks with Maleficent. She is scared of having a real, honest relationship with her mother. Every time she's tried to really connect with somebody in the past, it hasn't worked out. Maleficent convinces Lily to stay for at least a week, so they can try and get to know each other.

Rumple is disappointed to learn from Hook that Emma didn't succumb to darkness in the process of tracking Lily down. He and the Author are stumped as to what to do next. Regina shows up and takes the quill from Rumple, who is getting weaker by the minute. He says that the Dark One can't die, but Rumplestiltskin can. Regina leaves him lying on the floor, and takes the quill and the Author with her. Regina finds Lily (this is before her dragon transformation) and talks with her. She knows that Emma's Darkness is inside of Lily, so that should work to mix in with the ink that the Author needs to write new happy endings. Lily is not cooperative, so Regina just cuts her hand and takes her blood by force.

Regina then goes with the Author to visit her darling sister Zelena, who she has locked up in the same facility where she used to keep Belle prisoner. She threatens to have the Author write Zelena out of the story by making as if she never even existed. However, ultimately Regina doesn't go through with it. She realizes that she is constantly standing in the way of her own happiness. Instead, she'll just leave Zelena locked up. Once the baby is born, she'll have limited visitation rights, and Regina and Robin can be together with Roland and the new baby, happy as a family.

The Author is disappointed that he's not being asked to write anything. He writes himself back to Rumple, and begins on the new stories for the villains. His magic quill and magic ink start writing the story in a book Rumple gives him, titled "Heroes and Villains." His first line is "Once upon a time..."

So. Complaints? Well, this whole back half of the season was built up like it was about Emma going dark. As we  learned more, we realized that Rumple needed Emma to go dark so that  the villains could get their happy ending. Okay... so now apparently Lily's blood was all Rumple really needed. That's sort of a letdown. Are we going to see Dark!Emma, or what? Was all of this just a buildup to nothing?

There was one oddly disingenuous moment in this episode. Regina drinks a potion that will make her infertile, and then instantly regrets it. I'm not sure if it was the pacing, writing, acting... but that moment when she drank the potion and then freaked out about it was really strange. I also thought Regina's motivation for changing her mind was odd. She's standing there, threatening to write Zelena out of the story, and then suddenly she goes - never mind. I'm tired of sabotaging myself. And it's great - I'm glad Regina is deciding to work hard at being a better person, but why did she? I didn't understand the switch.

But even with those odd hiccups in Regina's story line, I thought this episode did an amazing job of wrapping up a lot of the different story elements.

Emma has patched things up with her parents! Yay! Hook was the one who convinced her she needed to move on and forgive them. When Emma sees that Mary Margaret has been hurt, it's like nothing else matters. She fixes her, and forgives her, and gives her a big hug. The fight between Emma and her parents seemed to be much harder on Mary Margaret than it was on David, and I'm glad to see that they're going to be okay.

Regina's plot thread had a few weaker moments, as I discussed earlier, but she also had some awesome material here. I think my favorite part was when she got what she needed from Rumple and then just left him lying there. Her exiting line? "Goodbye, dearie." Oooh sick burn! I also liked that ultimately she decided to make the right choice, even if I didn't understand why.

Hook and Emma were adorable, as they always are. They had a really cute hug when Emma got back from New York. Precious. And then Hook brings Emma to look at the horizon because he thinks it will calm her down, and he talks to her about her parents, and about their relationship. He says it's his job - or at least, he hopes it's his job, to protect her heart. Aww! Hook is very much a part of Emma's family, and that's awesome.

I like the fact that Maleficent immediately set aside her villainy and just wanted to connect with her daughter. I also like the fact that this confused Lily - she thought her mother was going to be a bad ass dragon bitch, and instead she's just... a person who wants a relationship with her kid. I think these two will probably be able to work it out - they've both got quite a bit of darkness in them.

So after this whole half of the season, we are officially three villainesses down. Cruella is dead, Ursula and Maleficent have gotten what they wanted and seem to no longer want to hurt our protagonists. The one conflict we have left? The Author and Rumple. I can't wait for next week's weird alternate-universe finale! It's going to be strange, and hopefully awesome!

8/10