And we have
officially reached the final part in season 1’s three-part finale. However, this season finale sets up Once Upon a Time’s tradition of having
things end on a cliffhanger. On the plus
side, I do feel that is a good tactic, as it encourages people to come back for
the next season. On the other hand, I’ve
seen quite a few TV series that end on a cliffhanger because the show’s staff
has a season finale all set up and then find out too late they won’t be able to
get renewed for another season (i.e. Caroline
in the City, Sonic SatAM, and the
short-lived TV series version of Ten
Things I Hate About You). Here’s
hoping the show writers for OUAT will have enough warning if the show ever
fails to get renewed for a new season so they’ll be able to end things on a
satisfactory note.
The
Enchanted Forest subplot for this episode concludes the story of Snow White and
Prince Charming. Evil Queen Regina’s
guards escort Charming up from the dungeons to bring him to be executed. Um….wasn’t Evil Queen Regina supposed to
spare him if Snow bit into the Poisoned Apple?
You really are a double-crossing slimebag, aren’t you, Regina? However, Charming overpowers the guards, but
then runs into one of the Black Knights, who turns out to be the Huntsman. (Oh,
Graham; how we’ve missed you! It’s such
a shame you’re gone.) The Huntsman helps
Charming to escape the castle, but Regina magically transports him into an
inescapable forest, where Charming once again runs into Rumpelstiltskin. Because Rumpelstiltskin wants to ensure that
Charming reunites with Snow, which will of course ensure Emma will eventually
be born (remember, she’s the key to breaking the curse Rumple wants to see
broken), he enchants the ring Charming’s birth mother had given him before
leaving to live his life as Prince James back in ‘The Shepherd,’ so it will help him track down Snow. In exchange, Charming must agree to hide
Rumpelstiltskin’s Essence of True Love (which was created from the hairs of
Snow and Charming), within the body of Maleficent. Charming agrees to the terms, and after a
pretty well-choreographed battle scene with Dragon Maleficent, he succeeds with
a rather clever move by shoving the egg through Dragon Maleficent’s…um…ear
gills? I don’t know, really. Never actually studied dragon anatomy in
school. Once he succeeds in his mission,
Charming sets off to find Snow White, which brings us full circle with the
flashback scene in the pilot episode.
Back in
Storybrooke, Emma has taken the unconscious Henry to the hospital, but when Dr.
Whale cannot find an explanation for Henry’s current state, Emma’s eyes fall
upon Henry’s book. The moment she
touches it, she gets an instant flashback to her childhood. More specifically, the day she was born, when
Charming sent her through the magical wardrobe.
(So, why didn’t that happen before?
She touched that book so many times before this. Did she just have to be open to the idea of
magic for that memory-trigger to work? The
rules of magic make my brain hurt sometimes.)
When Regina charges in, a rightfully irate Emma drags her into a supply
closet, where she angrily confronts her over the turnover. Regina then confirms to Emma that everything
Henry had ever said about fairy tales and the curse was true, but then states
she cannot do anything to wake Henry up, and if they can’t figure something
out, he will most likely die. And may I
just say, give these two women Oscars for this scene. Or whatever the TV
equivalent is. Emma’s rage and growing
despair as well as Regina’s shock and visible sorrow and regret; their acting
and reactions to everything is just spot-on and so very believable.
In order to
save Henry, the two women call a truce and pay a visit to Gold/Rumpelstiltskin,
who somehow already knows about what happened to Henry. (Does he have a crystal ball in the back room
or something?) He tells them that the
only thing that can save Henry is true love, and tells them his vial of Essence
of True Love had been hidden within Maleficent’s body, which is currently lying
in an underground chamber beneath Storybrooke’s library. After he gifts her with her father’s old
sword, Emma ventures out into the underground cavern where she faces off with
Maleficent in full-blown dragon form.
The scene that follows is really fun to watch, and not just because we
see it being shown side-by-side with Charming’s battle with the same foe, in
order to highlight the obvious parallels.
And I’m not really all that surprised that Emma decided against using
her father’s sword at first and went for her gun instead, and not just because I
gather this is supposed to indicate she’s still not completely ready to accept
her role as the Savior. I’m sure that
pretty much anyone would show preference for a ranged weapon over a melee one
when facing a flipping dragon. Plus, this
is undoubtedly the first time Emma has held a sword in her entire life. If you were facing any opponent, it’s only
natural to go for the weapon you’re actually familiar with over one you’ve
never even touched before, let alone know how to use. In the end, however, Emma manages to defeat
Dragon Maleficent by imitating the moment in the animated Disney film, when
Prince Phillip throws his sword straight into Maleficent’s heart. (Ah, I see what you did there, show writers. Nice touch.)
And I just have a mental image of Emma, years from now, telling this
story to the grandkids and then turning to Phillip (because next season
confirms he does exist in this show’s universe) and saying ‘thanks for the example, by the way,’ and
Phillip being all confused because he hadn’t had a chance to see Disney’s
version of Sleeping Beauty and has no
idea what she’s talking about.
However, I do have a minor question about
this scene. Right before she finds
Dragon Maleficent, Emma chances across the glass coffin that had once held Snow
White when she was under the sleeping curse.
But hadn’t we seen in a much earlier episode that the glass coffin
resided in the mine tunnels beneath Storybrooke? Was this a continuity error,
or is the secret hidden elevator within the town library a backdoor entrance to
the mines? I’m leaning to the second
conclusion, particularly since we’ve already seen the main entrance to the
mines is now caved in. On the other
hand, it begs the question of how extensive these mine tunnels are.
Anyway, once
Emma obtains the vial of Essence of True Love, Mr. Gold tricks her into giving
it to him by making her believe that Regina had double-crossed her. Emma finds out too late that Gold deceived
her, but before she and Regina can go after him to get back the Essence of True
Love, they are contacted by the hospital staff, who inform them that Henry
didn’t make it in a very heartbreaking scene.
Grief-stricken, Emma places a goodbye kiss on Henry’s forehead, which
instantly breaks the curse, and also proves that Frozen of 2013 and Maleficent of 2014 weren’t the first
times something associated with Disney tweaked the whole long-accepted rule of
True Love only existing between people who were romantically in love (this episode
first aired in 2012). Now that the curse
is broken, Regina realizes that she has to find a place to hide, since everyone
in Storybrooke now remembers who they are, and more importantly who she is. Before she leaves the hospital room, she begs
Henry to remember that no matter what anyone might say, she really did love
him.
While all
this is going on, Jefferson/the Mad Hatter is naturally ticked that Regina has
gone back on her promise to help him reunite with his daughter
Paige/Grace. To get back at her, he
sneaks into the psychiatric ward beneath the hospital to help break out the amnesiac
Belle. (Wait, is there a plaque on the
door that states Sidney Glass is also down there? Is this because he confessed to kidnapping
Kathryn? I never actually noticed that
before!). It was at this point that I
was rather disappointed to see my previous prediction that Belle had somehow
remembered her past was proved to be incorrect, but oh well. Anyway, Jefferson instructs Belle to find Mr.
Gold and tell him that Regina had kept her locked up, no doubt knowing that
that information would lead Gold/Rumpelstiltskin to want to get back at her for
a) keeping Belle a prisoner for who knows how long and b) leading him to
believe she had died. And while I’ve
never been all that invested in the pairing between Bella and Mr.
Gold/Rumpelstiltskin, I do admit I loved seeing their reunion, as it’s
glaringly obvious in his face upon seeing her alive again, and when she regains
her memories once the curse breaks, that he does indeed love her dearly. However, getting Belle back isn’t enough to
prevent him from dropping his vial of Essence of True Love into the well that
pretty much leads to Lake Nostros back in the Enchanted Forest. In doing so, he conjures up a large purple
cloud that quickly engulfs the whole town, declaring that the cloud is bringing
magic back to Storybrooke.
Another
potentially tearjerker scene involves Emma’s final visit to August/Pinocchio
before she travels down to battle Maleficent.
The scene is even more emotional to see when you remember the last time
they spoke, Emma was telling August that she didn’t want the town to need her
and practically called him crazy when he tried to convince her of the
truth. I imagine she originally came to
him in order to apologize for that, but instead arrived just in time to see him
revert completely into an inanimate wooden puppet. I really do like this scene because it not
only is a good illustration of how important it is for Emma to succeed (because
if she doesn’t, August/Pinocchio will be stuck in this inanimate state
forever), it also proves that these two really were developing a good
friendship. Just think about it for a
minute. Emma knows her son’s life
depends on her obtaining this Essence of True Love, and that time is off the
essence. But she still chooses to take a
few moments to seek out her friend and apologize for not believing him.
Of course, because they’re the show’s main
couple at this point, the season cannot end without resolving the Mary Margret
and David story. David approaches Mary
Margret to once again apologize for thinking she might have killed
Kathryn. He tells her that he loves her,
but if she doesn’t want to be with him, he’ll accept her decision and move into
the apartment Kathryn had leased when she’d been planning to relocate to Boston. Mary Margret admits she can’t give David a
reason to stay, still clearly feeling that the world will always conspire
against them. Thankfully, the curse
breaks mere seconds before David can cross the town line, and he returns back
to Storybrooke, where he has a wonderful reunion with Mary Margret/Snow White,
right before the town is enveloped by the purple smoke.
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