Regina and Emma are an awesome team, okay? I may not ship them romantically, but I totally get where all the Swan Queen people are coming from, and episodes like this are a big reason why.
Cons:
There was a subplot in this episode about Belle, Zelena, Rumple, Jasmine, and Aladdin, and it got just a little bit muddled. Basically, Belle asks for Zelena's help in getting out of Storybrooke, because she's afraid that Rumple will use the Shears of Destiny on her child. Zelena says she needs the magic wand that Rumple has in his possession, so Belle enlists Aladdin to help steal it. Aladdin sneaks in, steals the wand, and delivers it to Belle and Zelena, earning praise from Jasmine for heroically breaking and entering. Just as Zelena is about to open a portal that will get Belle to safety, Rumple shows up and takes the wand back, putting a bracelet on Belle's arm that traps her, preventing her from fleeing Storybrooke. When Rumple tries to hurt Zelena, he ends up hurting himself. The two are linked from when Zelena saved Rumple's life in New York. (yeah, I hardly remember that, either). Rumple and the Evil Queen have another stomach-curling make-out session in Gold's shop, and Rumple says that he wants the Evil Queen to kill Zelena and get her out of the way once and for all.
Okay, where to start? If Belle was going to enlist Aladdin's help in breaking in to the shop, why wouldn't she ask him to find the Shears of Destiny, instead of the wand? Why even bother to include Aladdin and Jasmine in this episode to begin with, honestly, when they're given negligible screen-time and their story is not advanced at all? Why does Rumple want to kill Zelena so badly? Because Zelena was trying to help Belle escape? Oh, and even better question: why was Zelena willing to help Belle? Because she's mad at her sister for making out with Rumple? In what universe does any of this add up?
Basically, this subplot had a lot of moving parts and ultimately added very little to the story. Everything else going on here was much more compelling. All this stuff about Belle and Rumple and their child could have been an episode to itself, which might have let this material breathe a little bit. Something just wasn't working for me here, though.
Pros:
All that being said about the subplot, I must once again admire how interesting Belle has become to me. Watching her stand up to Rumple gives me LIFE. Just a few weeks ago, she was trying to make some gentle overtures of peace, sharing the ultrasound picture and expressing her hope that her child and Rumple will be able to have an relationship. But now, she's done with that. Rumple has crossed too many lines. Now, she wants to get away from him permanently, and take her child with her. This has the awesome consequence of bringing in some Rumplestiltskin lore. What is the character traditionally known for? Stealing children. Now, his plot thread is centered around stealing his own child. It's compelling, to say the least. I hope Belle gets far away from him, and fast. Seriously. You and your baby deserve better, darling!
The main plot involves Regina and Emma making a plan to defeat the Evil Queen. What if they trap her in the land behind the mirrors? Emma and Regina attempt this plan by using Henry as bait, but things go wrong when the Evil Queen reveals that she has switched mirrors with Regina. The Evil Queen banishes Henry's two moms to the land of the mirrors, where they are trapped in a prison of their own making. The Evil Queen then dresses up like Regina and fools Henry and Snow into thinking that she is Regina. She helps Henry get ready for his dance, while Regina and Emma try and find a way out. They come across the Dragon, who has been trapped in the mirror since the end of last season. They try and put together a backdoor escape that Sidney Glass was working on back in the day.
Henry, while waiting for Violet to show up for the high school Homecoming dance, realizes the truth about his moms. Everything comes to a head when the Evil Queen uses the Dragon's heart to force him to assume his Dragon shape and attack Regina and Emma inside the land of the mirrors. The Evil Queen gives Henry a chance to save his moms: if he uses a hammer that confers magic to the user, he can smash the Dragon's heart, killing an innocent man but saving his mothers. Henry doesn't do it, though - he smashes through the mirror instead. That, combined with the Dragon's fire-breathing, breaks through the glass, and Emma and Regina are freed! Hook shows up to stop the Evil Queen from getting any ideas, and she vanishes, disappointed that Henry didn't give in to darkness. Henry and Violet finally get their date!
Where to even start with all of this?
I love seeing Emma and Regina co-parent Henry. They make such a good team, and the whole thing is so touching when you think about how far they've come. I love the moment when Regina tells Emma she's scared to raise Henry by herself, and Emma tells her she's done a great job. In the end, when they're both free, they realize that they've already raised Henry into a great kid. That's a bond that nobody else could understand.
Hook gets a shout-out this week for being the first one to figure out that something was wrong. The second the Evil Queen shows up, disguised as Regina, he knows something is fishy. According to her, Emma took off to New York by herself to find the Dragon to see if he has any answers about her parents' sleeping curse. Hook isn't buying it, and for good reason. He calls Emma again and again, and then finds her phone on the beach. The Evil Queen then shows up and knocks him out. He gets to conveniently pop up at the end to restrain the Evil Queen, which led me to wonder why she didn't just kill him when she had the chance... but whatever. Thank God she didn't. I love that Hook knows Emma so well. I love that he doesn't believe she'd take off like that, or that even if she would, something is definitely fishy about this situation. Hook has worked hard to become a part of this unconventional family, and he protects what's his.
I've never really liked the Dragon... he was a lame-o plot device from the beginning. But here? He was kind of awesome! I feel bad for the guy, still stuck in the mirror world. The dragon effects were a tad ridiculous, but far better than some of the CGI we've had on this show, so I won't complain. Conceptually, the world of mirrors itself was really neat. I loved the part where Emma and Regina were running around from mirror to mirror, looking for a window back to their own world. And the Sidney Glass mention! What a callback!
Henry and Violet are adorable. Turns out, they've been hanging out a lot, having John Hughes movie nights. Henry is too precious for words. I love that he planned a special night at Granny's, after they had to miss the dance. And Violet bringing up her concerns about not fitting in might have seemed trite, but it worked really well, especially since we know she's having to adjust not only to a whole new world, but also to a new relationship, a new school, a new reality. Henry was surprisingly tolerable all episode, actually, and his relationship with Violet is not at all hard to watch.
Snow and David are breaking my heart. We didn't get to see a whole lot of them, but the tragedy of their curse is hovering over everybody else's actions. We see how they take turns being awake and with the family, passing notes to each other before exchanging the curse. As the episode ends, Snow says it's too hard to keep writing notes. She misses David too much. What a heartrendingly clever situation to put these two in. I'm more interested in their love story now than I have been since the early days of the show. I'm glad to see it get some focus, and hopefully it gets even more going forward.
Oh, and a small note? Hook says to Snow in this episode: "Are you okay, love?" and I just about died. Hook is just the sweetest to everybody. I cannot take it.
Even though I didn't like the subplot, this episode still gets high marks from me. The main plot was just that good!
8.5/10
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