It’s time for the
final episode of Once Upon A Time ever, barring spin offs (and, let’s
face it, there’s a good chance of there being spin offs here). Which means,
being Once Upon a Time there won’t be a whole lot of common sense or
logic but we will have lots of soaring emotion and tweeness.
So Robin and Alice
have gone to Storybrooke to seek help and it all kind of goes wrong because
Granny and the Dwarfs all scream “OUTSIDERS!” and try to kill them. The hell is
this?! Since when is this a thing? Did they all start supporting Trump or
something?
Robin and Alice run
to Zelena instead and quickly convince her by throwing lots of insider
knowledge to convince her and recruit her on side
Back to the wish
realm with everyone stuck in a big magical snow globe and ye gods why why why
do villains not just murder their enemies already? Anyway everyone’s cold,
evil!Rumple has used Henry’s author powers to completely rob Rumple of his
magical powers. So he can’t escape. Instead this leaves Rumple and Killian to
play nice and reflect on the bond that years of trying to kill each other has
created. And Killian finally asks why Rumple with all his power didn’t just
kill him
Haven’t you being
paying attention, Killian? Villains don’t kill people. They torment them until
they eventually turn around and win. It’s a rule
Rumple instead says
that Killian is the closest thing to a friend he has. Which is deeply tragic
but we don’t have time to explore this so let’s just say “awww, they’re friends
who occasionally try to kill each other”. It’s like friends with benefits but
kinkier.
And now I have a
mental image of Killian and Rumple and kinky things and leather and that’s just
distracted me from the rest of the episode.
Anyway, Maui’s hook
just appears (this isn’t explained at all) which lets them break out. This
gives them chance to angst a little more, plan the future and for Rumple to
have a heartbreaking scene where he realises he will never be with Belle again
Meanwhile young!Henry
has Regina captured and wants to make her suffer for killing his grandparents
(I’m assuming this is Wish Realm Regina but at no point does Regina make more
than a token effort of explaining that wasn’t her). Regina is super focused on
telling Henry how he can be good and forgiving and nice and shiny and how she’s
totally his mother in another dimension. In some ways this is why Regina
doesn’t really want to convince him of her innocence because she wants Henry to
embrace goodness and innocence and forgiveness et al.
Henry isn’t listening
and expects to fight Regina in a duel. Of course he doesn’t just kill her
because it’s a villain rule. Regina does have a happy dream of Robin, the
original Robin, mainly because this is the last episode so everyone needs to
have a cameo. Hey they went to Storybrooke just to throw in some dwarfs and
even then they could only manage three of them.
Time to check in on
Evil!Rumple’s evil plan: he has written a book for every single character ever
and he’s going to use Henry’s dark-Author powers to suck everyone into a book
containing their own personal hell. If by “personal hell” you mean “being
alone”. Honestly you’d think he’d be more creative than that - there’s so much
you can do with bamboo skewers or electrodes or disco CDs
And this “villain
rule” is getting a little silly. Honestly why why why don’t you just KILL
PEOPLE? You wouldn’t need Henry’s Dark Author powers. You wouldn’t need to
watch while portals suck them in. You wouldn’t need to bring the blue fairy
back just to throw her in a portal without even giving her a speaking line.
The gang goes to
rescue Regina with Robin (young) and Killian providing a distraction for the
guards (and Robin asking for Killian’s blessing in marrying his daughter and
it’s sweet and awesome and shiny and yes the whole concept of a father giving
his blessing for a marriage is rooted in patriarchy and sexism but context also
matters: a same-sex couple getting any kind of familial blessing means a lot more
in the context of the sheer number of LGBTQ people who are rejected by family
on top of their relationships not being acknowledged.)
older!Henry rescues
Regina with help from their Soppinessess, Snow and Charming. Oh yay. They are
back. Woohoo. Also Snow just killed someone - shouldn’t she take to her bed for
the next 3 years or something? Or does that not apply with extras?
With Regina rescued
the Charmings lead them in a war council. And by “war council” i mean shiny
speech of saccharine sweetness. Remember the Charmings are the most passive
heroes ever. Their entire schtick is not to plan, not to do anything just react
and hope their goodness means they’re rewarded. And it works for them EVERY
TIME. Argh. How they rule a kingdom I will never know.
The next step in the
not plan is for Regina to go to young Henry and appeal to his better nature
while fighting at sword point
While everyone else goes after the Dark One with the hope that Rumple can use some borrowed magic to rip out his heart… uh huh if ripping out his heart was that easy he’d be dead long ago. Unsurprisingly it doesn’t work and evil! Rumple opens up a lot of portals… which y’know is still way less efficient than actually killing them. Killian grabs Alice to protect her meaning he triggers the nasty curse on them as well.
Luckily for them,
Regina reaches Henry by pointing out she didn’t have to come for him but she
did it, even being willing to die, to prove to him that he is loved and valued.
Naturally in Once Upon a Time world this shiny happy lovey-doveyness is
enough to melt Henry and make him drop his sword - and let go of all his dark
hate and anger
Which stops the
portals working because the Dark One was using evil author power for them
rather than his own magic and just killing them because Villain Code
Time for a show down
between Rumples with Evil Rumple saying how weak Good Rumple is but Good Rumple
being clear he is best because he evolved - because he’s no longer the cowardly
creature that became the Dark One out of fear. He also accepts he won’t see
Belle again - the Magic of the Guardians is gone - but that doesn’t mean he
shouldn’t do good. Because you don’t do good because you want a reward - you do
it because it’s right
And thank you Once Upon a Time for finally acknowledging that! After seven seasons of claiming you need to be good to get your happily ever after and the Charmings basically relying on the rewards of being good to get them out of every problem imaginable, we finally acknowledge that good should not require bribery.
Rumple rips out his
own heart and gives it to Killian. This does two completely unexplained things:
It cures Killian of
the curse that hits whenever he’s near Alice
It kills both himself
and Evil!Rumple. I have no idea why. I mean if killing your wish!Realm parallel
killed you as well then the Charmings would be dead. They’re not. Nope, sadly
not.
But, as I said, this
is Once Upon a Time finale working with fairy tale rules so it doesn’t need
logic it needs lots and lots of moral lessons and singing bluebirds and other
sappy disney stuff. So even though Rumple is dead we still get a scene with him
and Belle reuniting because the Twee is strong with this one
The plan now is what
to do next, especially with two Henrys one of whom is evil but we’re not
talking about that. And Regina decides on a curse
C’mon, a curse cannot
be everyone’s go to solution in this place!
She wants to change
the curse so that rather than crushing the heart of who she loves most,
everyone she loves and who loves her carves out a chunk of their heart to give
to her (this is not horrifying AT ALL) and this will bring ALL the magical
realms together in one place - Storybrooke - so no-one will ever be seperated
again
I imagine this
includes all the bad people they’ve banished to various realms? Brings all the
villains together in one place as well? To say nothing of having 8 squillion
monarchs in one place each playing who has the biggest crown. Seriously we have
monarchy all over the damn place on this show? Do you want to speak to some of
these people first before you drag them from their homes and drop them all next
door to ALL THE DRAMA IN THE WORLD EVER
And how big IS storybrooke. Because I’m sure that ALL THE MAGICAL REALMS EVER would cover a lot of space - probably more than Maine. Wouldn’t people notice Maine has either disappeared or is now covered in castles and dragons?
Ok, it’s Maine, but
SOMEONE might notice.
Y’know this would be
the awesome beginning of a soap opera, with all these magical realms together
and being super dramatic with each other
Of course since this
is the Last Episode Ever, it all works flawlessly and we don’t get like a 9
million sided civil war, dragons don’t eat everyone and we don’t have hordes of
ogres/trolls/goblins charging out of storybrooke to invade New Hampshire.
Instead we get awesome aerial shots of castle next to castle, medieval town
next to town with magic and dragons and all kinds of shininess in a big magical
utopia that totally won’t be nuked when the President realises a large chunk of
the US has been replaced by a magical empire.
Instead everyone
gathers for a ball - including Emma and the other Killian (and won’t there be
like 9 million clones of everyone now? Like 11 Cinderellas and 30 Snow Whites
and a couple of dozen characterless princes with an unfortunate habit of
molesting corpses?) all to celebrate a coronation - Regina’s
Yes, because they
have 9 million monarchs they have decided to choose one to rule them all:
Regina. Not the Evil Queen - but the Good Queen. On account of her being the
only one who has shown the slightest shred of competence. And I’m here for
this. I’m here for this being Regina’s happily ever after. I’m here for her
redemption train reaching this glorious end. I’m here for Regina to be upheld
as the ultimate force to save them all AND for her being the one with the
proven competence to actually get things done. It’s been a rocky road, but Regina
earned this
All Hail the Queen
Which is the end of Once
Upon a Time after this last season was cancelled… and part of me thinks
that it’s time as it has been struggling on for seven seasons, but part of me
is frustrated because it could have gone a lot further if they had pulled off
the reboot
After the end of
season 6, the loss of many actors and the closing of so many storylines: I
think they had three choices: cancel the show. Reboot the series with a new
central cast. Redirect the series by taking some awesome side characters
and making them protagonists
Either of the latter
two would have worked. Instead they tried to do both and it didn’t work
I mean, rebooting the
story with new central characters would have been great. We’d have adult Henry,
Jacinda, Sabine, Naveen, Lucy, Alice, Robin with Facilier playing the
is-he-a-villain-or-not that Rumple tends to play and new villains in Gothel and
Victoria. We have some compelling characters here, enough themes to continue
the show but enough new directions to make it fresh as well as the concept of
alternate world fairy tale characters in case they wanted to pull out, say, a
new Sleeping Beauty. Or if they wanted to actually include Maui rather than
just have his hook appearing (not ok to just include the tool and not the
character of colour). It could have worked - and it would have been much more
diverse than the pretty much all straight, nearly all white 6 seasons that had
preceded it. We would have had centraL POC in Jacinda, Lucy, Sabine and Naveen,
something which only Regina had managed before. We would have had a major
same-sex relationship between characters who weren’t plot boxed for entire
seasons or didn’t just vanish. It would have been excellent
But they tried to
have their cake and eat it - and kept on Regina, Killian, Rumple and Zelena who
pretty much stole the show and shattered the focus which left us with this
season - lots of mini storylines but no focus and no direction and two casts of
characters who seemed to have little to do with each other
