Hm... not a super strong showing back from the hiatus, but it wasn't terrible or anything. I would have preferred a jump straight in to the A-plot, rather than a sort of strange decision to focus on Regina's back story. Let's take a look.
Cons:
Okay, so our gang is in the Underworld, which looks just like Storybrooke. As everybody is looking for Hook, Regina runs in to Cora, who tells her daughter that she needs to leave the Underworld immediately, for her own safety. If she doesn't, bad things will happen to Regina's father, Henry. We see flashbacks to when Regina was still chasing and hoping to kill Snow, back in the Enchanted Forest. Apparently, Cora came back briefly from Wonderland to help Regina get Snow's heart, but Henry stopped this from happening, because he didn't want his daughter to be totally corrupted by evil. If Snow still lived, there was still a chance for Regina to turn over a new leaf. Regina punishes her father by shrinking him and trapping him in a box, but Cora takes the box with her at the last second when Regina traps her back in Wonderland. So sad! Back in the present-day Underworld, Henry Sr. finds Regina and tells her to ignore Cora's instructions to leave, and instead to stay and help her friends. Regina is torn, because she doesn't want Cora to hurt Henry. Henry, it transpires, doesn't get hurt by Cora's attempts to use him to manipulate Regina. He is able to pass out of the Underworld, his unfinished business finally resolved.
I did like some things about the Regina-centric story, but I was also very annoyed and distracted by the flashbacks. The time period where Regina is the Evil Queen and is chasing Snow as an outlaw has been well covered by flashbacks in the past. We've seen so many near-misses between Snow and Regina over the years that it's getting pretty ridiculous. I also found the simplicity of the battle between good and evil to be a little silly. So Regina's father represents the good potential within her, and her mother represents the evil? Ugh. Subtle.
Like I said, though, this plot thread wasn't a total wash. I did like the moment when Henry Sr. got to find peace by moving on to the next stage of his life, and the moment when he got to meet his namesake grandson Henry was also very sweet. Although I felt it could have been done without a whole episode dedicated to it, I also really approve of Regina's decision to stay behind and help her friends. It solidifies what we all already knew, but what is nevertheless nice to see: she really has changed for the better.
The rest of the episode focuses on Emma and her family hunting for Hook. They learn that everybody in the Underworld is there because they have unfinished business, and once Henry Sr. finds peace, they realize that they might be able to help these other people find their own peace as well. Rumple, after a short run-in with his father Peter Pan, finds a helpful potion in the Underworld version of his pawn shop, and Emma uses it to try and find Hook. She pours the potion on his grave (yes, there are graves in the Underworld, just go with it...) and a flickering image appears: Hook, apparently in pain, with blood dripping down his face. Hook doesn't appear able to see or hear Emma, and they get no closer to finding where he is. Although Emma tries to encourage the others to go back home and leave her there alone, everybody decides to stay, both to find Hook and to help other people with unfinished business. The exception to this is of course Rumple, who is only there because Emma threatened to tell Belle that he was the Dark One again unless he came with them and helped.
I liked a lot of the stuff in this episode that set up the atmosphere of the Underworld and sort of told us what the rest of the season is going to be about. That's why, despite my lack of interest in the Regina story and the flashbacks, I still think this episode did a good job in establishing this story arc.
First of all, let's talk about the few dead folks that we've seen really feature thus far. Basically, it was just Cora and Peter Pan. I loved the fact that these two evil parents inhabited the spaces of their children. Cora was to be found in the Underworld's version of the mayor's office, while Pan showed up in Gold's pawn shop. Seeing them there, ready to cause further pain to their offspring, got me really excited for what might be coming down the pipe for the rest of the season. I'm really interested to see what Peter Pan is going to get up to, as well as when we'll be seeing appearances from Cruella and some of our other departed. The possibilities are endless!
I liked that Emma didn't want her family to stay and be in danger, but what's really nice is that the narrative has given us a good reason to keep them around. Instead of just "we'll help you find your boyfriend, Emma," now it's "we're heroes and we need to help all these poor lost souls with unfinished business." That's a really powerful motive for the continued presence of most of our leads. The exception? Rumple. I'm also excited to see what he's going to get up to in the Underworld, since I'm guessing he doesn't leave quite as early as he may have planned.
I've really missed Hook and Emma over the past few months, but I still think it was ultimately a good idea to only tease the reunion here. Emma has to earn it over the next coming episodes. The scene where she sees him, however briefly, was really heartbreaking. When he vanished and she realized that he couldn't hear or see her, she was so upset because she thought he might not understand that she had come for him. That was so terrible! Poor Emma! Poor Hook! I wonder why he seems to be trapped somewhere else, with a bad connection to the rest of the Underworld? Why would that be? I can't wait to find out more.
This episode ends with the first glimpse of our new villain, Hades. I'll admit I'm a tad disappointed with the decision to include the flaming blue hair... I think the Disney-fication of his character could have been implied without that. But despite that small nitpick, I still thought the character made a strong first showing. It turns out, it was on Hades' orders that Cora was trying so desperately to get Regina to leave. The famous Storybrooke clock, now collapsed and in ruins, has begun to tick again due to the presence of the heroes, and Hades is not happy. With Emma, Regina, and the others there, Hades is going to start losing souls as people finish their unfinished business. Hades doesn't like that. This poses a lot of interesting questions - what exactly is the value of these souls to Hades? How does he use them? Is he the one who has Hook trapped somewhere even worse than the norm? And why did he have Cora try and get rid of Regina specifically? Is there some threat that she poses that's different from what the others can do? I'm intrigued! Hades punishes Cora for failing to get rid of Regina by subjecting her to the life of a miller's daughter, the poverty she worked so hard to overcome. Sorry, Cora. My sympathy for you ran out a long time ago. Still, I'm curious to see what role she might play moving forward!
I'll end with another small subplot that we got in this episode: Neal. As the episode begins, Emma wakes up in her yellow VW bug and finds Neal with her. He tells her that he's not in the Underworld, because he didn't have any unfinished business. He warns her that the Underworld is very dangerous, and that once she goes there, it's going to be very hard to leave again. Emma tells him that she has to try, and Neal says that he figured as much. Still, he had to give it a shot. He tells Emma that he'll always love her, and then he leaves. Emma wakes up back on the boat to the Underworld. Later, Emma discovers that Henry was looking for Neal, and tells him that his father knows that he's okay, and that Neal is in a better place now. This was really sweet. I liked the fact that Emma said she would have come looking for Neal too, if she had known it was possible. But we're allowed to rest easy about Neal - he hasn't been suffering in the Underworld this whole time. He's moved on to a place where he's happy. I loved the simplicity of their visit, and the sweetness of Henry wanting to let his dad know that he'd be okay without him. Aww!
So, all things being said, this episode did a great job of establishing the Underworld. I might not have been thrilled with the main plot, but I liked all of the set-up work going on here, and I'm curious to see what comes next!
7/10
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