Once Upon a Time: The Dark Swan (5x01)

Yay! Awesome episode is awesomeeeee! I'm so happy that this show is back. I've been looking forward to Emma Swan as the Dark One since the second I realized it was going to happen. Let's start with a few little annoyances, so I can spend the bulk of the review gushing about how awesome this is going to be.

Cons:

At the very end of this episode, after all of our heroes have followed Emma into the Enchanted Forest and pulled her away from the Darkness, everybody wakes up back in Storybrooke. And they can't remember the past six weeks. Emma has gone full Dark, and nobody knows why. So... in reality, it's probably a good idea to tell the story in flashbacks. That's one of this show's strengths. But at the same time, isn't the amnesia thing getting a little tired? We've already done the memory loss thing several times on this show! I'm getting really sick of it!

The other potential flaw is with our new characters. I'm reserving judgment - maybe they will become more interesting in future, but so far they're not doing much for me. Merida's personality is basically "Scottish person," and Arthur's is "generic kingly Brit." To be fair, it's still early. Hopefully these characters will gain some interesting personalities as we move forward.

Let's talk about all the good stuff!

Pros:

Great integration of new storylines! Even if Merida and Arthur are a little bland right now, the way the stories of Brave and of Arthurian legend are being introduced into our main plot is really admirable. Emma needed the wisp to get to Merlin, and Merida got to it first. Merida was also a good first test for Emma, as she tried to fight against the darkness within. And the Arthurian legend stuff? Having the Dark One's dagger be the tip of the sword Excalibur is an amazing twist, and one I never would have expected.

Another great decision in this episode is to have Rumple, as the Dark One, be the voice inside Emma's head leading her down the wrong path. That's a great way to keep around the best villain this show has ever had, while still allowing the Rumple back in Storybrooke to be free of the Darkness.

Back in Storybrooke, I was enormously happy with the team effort to get to Emma. Everybody was desperate to find her, but nobody more so than Hook, which of course sent my little shipper's heart all a-flutter. He was desperate enough to go to Zelena in order to open a portal to bring him to Emma. That plan almost went very, very bad, but Regina saved the day on that one.

I loved the moment when Regina tried to channel her inner darkness to open a portal to take them to Emma, but, irony of all ironies, she's done too much good! But Regina was pretty much kicking ass when it came to operation Find Emma, actually. Hook may have been the one desperate for her, but Regina was the one who fixed Hook's mistake in letting Zelena escape - she let her evil sister open the portal, but then bound her magic before she could use it to go to Oz. Instead, using Emma's baby blanket as a conduit, the people of Storybrooke piled in to Granny's Diner and rode a twister to the Enchanted Forest. I'm sure the Swan Queen contingent were thrilled that Regina was the one who thought of Emma's baby blanket. It's really sweet to see the evidence of how much they care for each other now, after everything that's happened.

The best Regina/Emma moment was of course when Emma gives Regina the dagger. It reminded me of Supernatural, when Dean gives the First Blade to Cas. Emma is right to trust Regina with the dagger. Hook would never kill her, and neither would Mary Margaret and David. It's a powerful sign of trust and understanding between them.

Of course, the Captain Swan stuff was delightful. Hook's desperation was palpable. Great acting from Colin O'Donoghue. He didn't go off the rails and get all melodramatic, but you could still tell how scared he was. And when they were reunited, we see that he was almost too late. At the moment when Hook and the others show up, Emma has Merida's heart in her hands. The hallucination of Rumple is encouraging her to crush Merida's heart, take the wisp, and use it to find Merlin. But it's Hook that talks her down. He reminds her that they're all there - former villains united with heroes - because of her. They all want to help her in any way they can. And that hug - wow. So amazing.

On a lighter note, I love that Leroy (aka Grumpy) and some of the other dwarves came along to the Enchanted Forest. It was so funny to see Granny and the other comic relief characters come along on the big adventure. Grumpy insists that he's tired of being left behind. It was a good reminder, too, of the dwarves' undying loyalty to Snow, their queen. Hopefully they can do some fun stuff with the dwarves in the coming weeks.

I'll end this review by discussing Emma as the Dark One. We only got to see it for a minute, as Emma appears back in Storybrooke with the others, as Dark as can be. I love that we're not seeing just a totally soulless Emma. She's not just a campy bad guy. Just like Rumple still had a heart and the capacity to feel human emotion when he was the Dark One, we can see that in Emma too. It seems that the root of her evilness is her bitterness. The first thing she does is tell Mary Margaret and the others that they failed to save her. They failed to prevent her from turning into the Dark One. Even though she's the bad guy right now, she's deeply upset about being that way. She wanted her family to protect her, and they couldn't. Even worse? Regina doesn't have the dagger anymore. Emma has it. Uh oh! Kudos to the makeup and costuming department for Emma's "Dark" look. And serious props to Jennifer Morrison for her performance. She didn't go over the top, because she's not the same type of villain we've seen in Rumple, or even in Regina. She kept the balance between total evil and the Emma that we've all gotten to know over the past four years.

I could not be more excited for this season. This was such a smart direction for the show to go. It brings us back to focusing on our main cast of characters, it puts our hero in a new and troubling spot, pushes the boundaries, and still affords an opportunity to introduce some cool new characters and integrate them into the story in exciting ways. Can't wait for next week!

9/10