We start with a ship at sea in a storm with a kid and his
dad on board – I’m going to guess at young Killian because this show needs
moooooar flashbacks. His dad then broke poor Killian’s heart by selling his son
and running from the law
Do we really need more angst here? Really?
Flashbacks! This is all about Killian’s daddy issues this
week.
Waaaay back when Killian and Regina were both evil and
made a deal: Regina tried to recruit Killian to kill her mother in exchange for
a trip to a land without magic where he can kill Rumpletiltskin without his
magic. After she makes him confront his dad because DADDY ISSUES – and this
daddy is also lucky enough to find a way to be immortal – by being put under a
sleeping curse. True love broke the curse and made him a better man. Oh and as
a better man he has a new son. This apparently inspires Killian to spare his
dad and get him to safety rather than stabbing him in the face.
Except Killian sees his dad selling the same lies to his
new son as he did to him – and to rub that salt in, he’s even called his new
son Liam. Killian’s older brother’s name. His dead older brother. Recycling the
names of dead older children is kin of tacky. He stabs his dad to death and his
dad, like all convenient sacrificial characters, dies begging his son to redeem
himself.
In the present Gold and Killian have a confrontation –
the pair still don’t like each other much. This scene is entirely about
taunting.
The rest of the good guys march down the road in dramatic
formation, recapping Killian’s plan to bring back all the Dark Ones. Emma is
preparing to kill Killian if necessary. Mary Margaret soggily whimpers at the
idea. I think this is why Emma tells them to split up
Everyone gets a collection of Dark Ones confronting them –
all of them marking their wrists. The Mark of Charon – Gold explains that the
Dark Ones can’t actually stay in the real world, they have to choose
replacements. Those with marks will be dragged into the Underworld which Gold
assures us is a terribad place. He’s already given up
Regina goes to try and confront Killian about how far he’s
gone but he points out that Regina doesn’t really have a whole lot of moral
highground to lecture people about going too far in the name of revenge. She
throws back his own path of redemption and how he changed even as he scorns hers.
He menaces her with magic rather than let her talk.
Meanwhile, Mary Margaret is being soggy and despairing.
Rather than find a solution she wants to have a nice goodbye dinner. I bet she
orders the salad, or something equally wet, dull and virtuous. Emma and Regina
aren’t giving up – but Emma is going all out now to save her soggy family; she
wants to put the Darkness in someone and sacrifice them (as was the original
plan with Zelena. A good plan I might add, though no-one agreed). She wants to
sacrifice herself
I wish to make it clear now, show, if Emma sacrifices herself
therefore showing her true goodness and redemption and earning a bright light
and twinkly resurrection then I will go out, find the cutest, most adorable,
most twee creature, kill it, cook it and eat it.
Gold is also doing the “make the most of their last
moments” by giving Belle magic to allow her to travel and see the world. Belle leaves
and Emma and Regina arrive for Excalibur for the sacrifice. He gives it to her
without a deal – but warns them that Excalibur has the will of its own and
chooses its own miracles.
Robin and Regina focus on curtailing Zelena (who is
planning the ultimate crime – redecorating Regina’s super-awesome office). She’s
brought the wizard want with her – which she now definitely make work thanks to
a boost of self-confidence and banishes Zelena with a tornado – sending her
back to Oz. Well that was anti-climactic.
Emma leaves a note for her family and is reminded death
isn’t so bad as she sees the Charmings being all soggy.
Killian also doesn’t want Emma to kill herself so after
much taunting, some angst and a really obvious trick, he takes the sword off
her. Well that plan falls apart. Just as the Charmings find her note and Nimue
reassures them that Killian has already foiled her sacrifice plan with minimum
effort.
They’re teleported to the gateway to hell along with a
gazillion dark ones, ready to commit the ultimate atrocities – inflicting the
Charmings on all the innocent underworld monsters. Charon arrives, Emma arrives
to cry and say goodbye –while Regina decides to invoke Killian’s epic daddy
issues.
Daddy issues works – and Killian raises Excalibur and
uses it to draw all the darkness out of everyone – pulling all the Dark Ones
into the blade – then clearly planning to sacrifice himself for the darkness.
Emma and Killian beautifully argue over who gets to sacrifice themselves with a
good stabbing. Emma takes the blade… and stabs him.
Nooooo this show just became 800% less sexy!
Excalibur is destroyed, Emma and Killian become human
again, their Darkness powers gone – and Killian dies.
In the aftermath Belle and Gold reconcile – and
she seems to be taking back her reservations from the last episode. Which
may be short lived… because Emma can hear whispers. She calls Rumple to his
shop where Rumple reveals the truth: he used magic to change Excalibur. It didn’t
destroy dark magic, it simply moved it and Rumplstiltskin as a shiny new dagger
with his name on again. Yes he’s the Dark One. Not only the Dark one but the
most powerful Dark One ever
As Emma puts it, Rumplestiltskin found a loop hole and
betrayed them all again – because he’s just that damn good. Emma decides to
blackmail him (unwise), threatening to reveal all to Belle unless the Dark One
sends her to hell
No, really, she wants to go to the Underworld to pull an
Orpheus on Killian. And no, she’s not going to sacrifice herself for Killian –
but she’s going to share a heart/life with him just like Mary Margaret and
David do.
He also seems to be bringing an entourage because she does
have some awesome friends. And the Charmings. Well everyone needs sacrificial
pawns.
Despite my threat against cute fuzzy animals, there was a
lot of beautiful, touching goodbye scenes in this episode. They have some height
emotional moments here.
I also like it’s little ways of conveying a message – can
there be any greater sense of Gold’s redemption than his not trying to make a
deal for Excalibur?
I find myself… disappointed by this mid-season finale. I
think part of that is due to this being a pretty epicly awesome season with
twists and turns and so much action and fun that the bar was set high. This was
one of the best seasons OUAT has pulled out in a while – this ending was
lacklustre. The defeat of the Dark Ones, the defeat of Zelena, Rumple getting
his powers back was a series of non-events, one after another all strung with
the epic daddy issues no-one wanted or needed. So many anti-climaxes! So many
easy defeats of what should have been epic fights. That’s it? Nimue is gone?
She was awesome! That’s it, Zelena is gone? She was awesome! That’s it Dark one
Killian is gone? But he was awesome! It was all too easy and no amount of
weeping could sell it as more
And it’s not just this episode but the way it runs off a
lot of the plot lines. Merlin and Lancelot, two awesome and unexpected POC
roles were brought back for this season and that was excellent and… wait, that’s
it?
Mulan and Merida had their own epic little storyline and
they brought back Ruby! Maybe they were going to finally get behind ACTUALLY
developing Mulan as bisexual rather than playing the “probably but we’re not
going to go too far…” MulanRouge could
have been a thing. That’s it?
I just hope the next half of the season pulls a lot of it
back because there was too much epic in the first half to have it all end so
flabbily.
