Once Upon a Time: Swan Song (5x11)

Holy Hell. That was... that was... well, it wasn't anything that particularly surprised me, but it did its job in terms of landing an emotional blow. I won't be shaking this one off in a hurry. And now we have to wait until March to see what's next?!! Argh!

Cons:

While this episode hit me in all the right emotional spots, and all my favorite characters had great moments, I would be remiss if I didn't point out a rather disappointing fact. This episode was a huge mess where the plot is concerned.

First of all, this was not at all an adequate wrap-up to Season 5A. I hope that in 5B we continue to resolve some of these dangling plot threads, because there are a lot of them. Most significantly, there's Arthur. The entire presence of Camelot in this plot thread led up to exactly nothing useful, other than Merlin supplying the origin story of the first Dark One. What about Arthur's evil hold over all of Camelot? What about his bewitching of Guinevere, and the forbidden love between Guinevere and Lancelot? None of that was at all resolved.

Same goes for Merida. While I truly enjoyed the moments she had on the show, particularly the last few times we saw her, what was the point? She fed into the main story very infrequently. I can only hope that her character has more to do in the future, because thus far there hasn't been a satisfying reason for her presence whatsoever. Everything with Merida feels like a weird, disjointed one-shot. Very well done in its own right, but what does it have to do with anything?

Last week, Killian summoned all of the Dark Ones back from the Underworld. This week, these Dark Ones mark all of Emma's family, planning on sending them to the Underworld so they can return as fully realized Dark Ones and snuff out the light once and for all. Cool, right? I was so interested to see some of the previous Dark Ones and learn more about them. But instead, we just got a bunch of cloaked figures. Nimue had a few moments of coaxing Hook on to his dark ends, but nothing more than that. And then by the end of the episode they had all been absorbed and had vanished. That was rather disappointing as well.

The flashback story this week was all about Killian. Apparently, his father sold him and his brother Liam into servitude when they were children so that he could run away from the law. Killian grew up resenting his father, and eventually became the dark pirate we all know and love-slash-hate. At this point, Regina hires him to kill Cora, but first she wants to test him. She shows him that her father is still alive after all these years, and tells Killian to kill him, thus proving what kind of man he truly is. Killian can't do it, in the end. He learns that his father was placed under a sleeping curse, and his nurse fell in love with him and woke him with True Love's Kiss. Killian agrees to give safe passage to him and his son, Killian's little half-brother by the now dead woman who fell in love with Killian's dad. However, at the last moment Killian hears that his father named his new son Liam, and becomes enraged. He thinks that he just tried to replace the children he used to have. Killian stabs his father, fulfilling his promise to Regina. There were a lot of things to love about this plot thread, in terms of what it showed us about Killian. But I must admit that Papa Killian was a bit of a letdown. First of all, why was he put under a sleeping curse? And what kind of weirdo falls in love with an unconscious person without ever having talked to him? I don't know. It was sparse on the details, and if that's really the only time we see Killian's dad, I'm calling crap on that one. And hey, what happened to Killian's little brother? Are we ever going to find out about his fate?

There's also a little subplot here about Zelena. It felt oddly out of place, given all the other chaos going on, but I wouldn't have minded that so much if it went somewhere interesting. After last week's rather touching moment where Robin and Regina give Zelena a chance to see her daughter, this week was a return to more of the same. Zelena realizes that Robin and Regina are both marked for the Underworld by the Dark Ones, and she gleefully looks forward to raising her daughter alone. Regina and Robin decide that they can't trust her with that office, and that if they actually do die, they need to get rid of Zelena before that happens. Regina uses Merlin's wand to send her back to Oz. It all just felt... so abrupt. After all the slow progress with letting Zelena in to her child's life, suddenly... she's just gone? What? And Regina, who couldn't use Merlin's wand before, suddenly can because she believes in herself now. That's nice... but when exactly did that change occur? It felt sloppy, like they were just trying to get Zelena out of the way before the episode ended.

But all of these above flaws are potentially going to be resolved. I've got to believe that at least some of this stuff is going to continue to play a role in 5B, in which case I take back most of what I've just said. If things stand where they are, though, it's hard to be thrilled with the way these plot threads were left dangling.

There's one sort of plot-hole-ish thing that I didn't like. At the end of this episode, we find out that Rumple is the Dark One again. That part is awesome. What's not awesome is that Emma threatens to tell Belle the truth, so Rumple capitulates to Emma's demands that he open a portal to the Underworld. This seems rather flimsy. What's to stop anybody from telling Belle? I mean, she's going to figure it out sooner or later, right? And granting access to Hell itself isn't exactly a trifling favor. It seems out of character for a newly Dark Rumple to cave in to Emma's grief-stricken demand so easily. It was too much of a plot device for my taste.

Belle comes back to Rumple again in this episode, because she finds out that he tried to send her out of town to get her out of the way before he died and went down to the Underworld. Oh, come on Belle. Grow a spine! That's all I have to say about this. I'm happy Rumple is evil again, truly, but I'm not happy that Belle continues to get jerked around by this guy. She needs to kill him. I'd pay to see that.

Pros:

That "Cons" section is rather long, but the good stuff was just so oh my god amazing that this episode leaves me with a great impression overall. Let's talk about some of the awesome stuff.

This episode was Killian's, and despite my above complaints about his father being underutilized, I loved seeing him take center-stage in a flashback episode. Learning the horrible history of his father's betrayal goes a long way towards explaining why he ended up the way he was for so long. He lost his father at a young age, not to death but to a terrible betrayal. He lost his brother, and then he lost his first love Milah. No wonder the poor guy turned Dark. It fits what we've seen in other Dark characters who eventually redeem themselves. Regina had a very tragic past too, but she managed to work her way past that. So did Hook, until he's suddenly thrown back in to all of that by becoming the Dark One once again. It was interesting to see how changeable he was. He wanted to give his father a chance, but then his feelings were so hurt by hearing the name "Liam" that he changed his mind. It's something he's clearly regretted ever since. The same sort of thing happens in the present-day plot line, only in reverse. He spends most of the episode plotting for his ultimate revenge against both Rumple and Emma, but all it takes is a strong emotional moment for him to turn back and do what's right. All of the consistent goodness we've seen from Hook this season has been the product of many centuries of hard work. Once that Darkness is brought back in him, he becomes really unstable. It's an interesting character trait.

The most surprisingly interesting relationship of the night was between Regina and Hook. As everybody in Storybrooke scrambles for a way to stop Hook from extinguishing all of the Light for good, Regina ends up finding Hook at the docks. She reminds him that he needs to prove himself, and be the man he's always wanted to be. She tries to talk to him about his past with his father, but he shuts her down. Later, Regina again reminds Hook that he doesn't want to see another family torn apart because of his actions. Whether or not these things get through to Hook is hard to tell, but Regina took a surprising tack by appealing to Hook's better nature instead of going on the attack. It was a very Mary Margaret-ish thing to do, and it made me quite proud of her.

Speaking of Mary Margaret, the show made an interesting choice by having Mary Margaret and David give up on finding a way to stop Hook. They decide to spend their last moments with baby Neal and Henry, as they share a dinner at Granny's. This forces Emma into the position of sole hero, as she has to battle against her own internal Darkness and the Darkness inside her True Love Hook as well. I wasn't really pissed at Emma's parents this time, though. They hadn't given up on Emma, but they weren't about to waste what little time they had left scrambling for answers. It's a rather understandable position, and one I was shocked and quite moved to see Mary Margaret and David make. Even Henry didn't see a way out of this one. And, of course, the way out is a price so steep that none of our perpetually hopeful Charming-family heroes would have ever thought of it.

Jennifer Morrison and Colin O'Donoghue both get A+ grades from me in the acting department. My God, this was intense. Essentially, Hook realizes at the last second that he can't watch Emma suffer. He has to do the right thing and expel the Darkness. So, he absorbs all the other Dark Ones into Excalibur, and then Emma has to stab him. The Darkness expelled, a newly cured Emma weeps over Hook's dead body. O'Donoghue did a lot of really intense brooding in this episode, and it worked very well. The best moment is when he's watching Nimue hurt Emma to stop her from interfering. The look on his face is one of such anguish and helplessness. He can't let this keep happening, but he's not sure if he can stop it. And then Emma's reaction to Hook's death... she's flat out whimpering in pain as she cradles Hook and lowers his body to the ground. It was so painful and so amazingly portrayed by Morrison. When Hook is being taken away on a stretcher, Emma is holding his hand until the last possible second. As he's taken away from her, she practically collapses, only held up by Mary Margaret and David, who try and comfort her. This was all very intense. I mean, we all know that Emma is going to go and save Hook in the Underworld, but Morrison's acting was enough to make me feel real despair over Hook's death. Ouch.

Then there's the ending. Emma feels the call of the Dark One Dagger and ends up at Gold's shop, where she learns that Rumple is once again the Dark One. Despite how frustrated I am that Belle is still with this guy, I'm rather thrilled about Rumple still being evil. I'm sorry, but he's so much more interesting as a full-on villain than a half-baked hero. This is going to be so intense. How long is he going to hide the truth from Belle, and what will be the consequences when everybody realizes that Hook's sacrifice didn't dispel the Darkness after all?

As Rumple opens the door to the Underworld, Emma and her family walk towards the boat that will, I guess, take them down the river Styx and into Hades. And as Emma walks towards the boat she says it. She says the thing: "Hook, I will find you. I will always find you." OH MY GOD. TRUE LOVE CONFIRMED. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I could not be more thrilled about this. It's exactly what I wanted to happen. I think that Hook and Emma are honestly one of the most beautiful romances on television ever. They make such amazing partners, and I can't wait for the super angsty longing and finally emotional reunion that we've got ahead of us. This has been an emotional half of the season for these two, but they will come out of it stronger than ever!

So. This is a long review, and that's because this episode gives me a lot of complicated feelings. It is undeniably flawed, but the emotional weight of the main characters was enough to totally counterbalance the messiness of the plot.

8/10