So much to talk about! I really don’t
know where to begin. I just finished watching the two hour season
finale of ABC’s Once Upon A Time and my jaw was nearly to the
floor.
First, pretty much everything changed
because of the author (side note: look for my episodic novel series
#TheWriter this June) re-scripting the happy endings for everyone. In
what was possibly the craziest part of the episode, the author wrote
a different story for everyone going forward from that point in time
(a very important fact to remember). Suddenly, everyone was gone from
the town and back in the fairy tale realm, leaving Henry the lone
survivor(?) in amidst the chaos.
Waking to the empty town, Henry
ventured off to find everyone by hopping into a car with no license
mind you, and zooming down to the nearest
diner/restaurant/information place. OK, I don’t really know what
that place was but the woman working there didn’t seem to bright as
she thought he was a runaway even though he was looking for his
parents—don’t think a runaway would do that. He happened to see a
copy of a new book by the author and somehow managed to get to the
man’s book signing. A little arguing, some threatening to use a key
on a paper door and poof! They’re in his book.
Inside the book everyone is supposedly
different. Mr. Gold/Rumple is a knight in shining gold armor; Regina
is a forest bandit ala Snow White when she was on the lamb from
Regina in the original version; Snow and Charming are the Evil Queen
and her head knight/guard with the seven dwarves only being six,
which dwindled to five before the end of the night (unless we’re
counting granny as one now?) And Robin Hood was still a thief... but
he was also getting married to Selena and would wed at the toll of
Wedding bells in the morrowmorn (new word! Aww snap!). The author
being as evil as he is, immediately tried to get Henry killed to
preserve the sanctity of the story and maintain his fandom like every
writer wants (yes, I want that).
Lo and behold, the Gold Knight saved
him from the monstrous ogre before galavanting off to another
harrowing adventure (tangent: I cannot believe that #Galavant got
renewed. Who saw that comin’? Seriously?) With his life in hand,
Henry found Regina and blew her mind by telling her he was her son.
He led her to Robin Hood who introduced his soon-to-be wife Selena
which made Regina all frowny-faced when she fell in love with him at
first sight but couldn’t have him. Henry asked about his real mom
and was told that she was locked up out on a tiny island at sea, one
he’d need Hook to take him to.
After helping a wimpy Hook steal the Jolly Roger from Black Beard, they found Emma locked in a tower guarded by one Queen’s guard who was easily subdued by the butt of a sword to the forehead. Amazingly, Emma knew who Henry was unlike everyone else, and escaped with him, narrowly avoiding the flame when it turned out that the guard was actually Lily who did her dragon thing at the boat and failed.
After helping a wimpy Hook steal the Jolly Roger from Black Beard, they found Emma locked in a tower guarded by one Queen’s guard who was easily subdued by the butt of a sword to the forehead. Amazingly, Emma knew who Henry was unlike everyone else, and escaped with him, narrowly avoiding the flame when it turned out that the guard was actually Lily who did her dragon thing at the boat and failed.
Returning to land, the three ran into
Snow and Charming where Hook was stabbed and killed by Charming (very
important in a confusing way). Henry and his mom escaped and managed
to get to the chapel along with Regina to stop the wedding but all
she could do was stand at the door and stare at Robin Hood, instead
of pulling off an epic The Graduate scene (did I mention my epic
novel #Unrequited will be out later this year). Rumple came and
twisted swords with Emma in order to keep his happy ending and would
have slashed Henry’s throat had it not been for Regina jumping in
the way and taking the blade.
With all the hubbub, the bells rang, Robin got married and Regina laid dying when the happy couple emerged from the chapel. Selena grew green when Regina dared bleed on her dress, and Robin gave her that “did I seriously just marry this chick” look. Thankfully the writers didn’t use the true love’s kiss trope again as it had become a little worn, opting to make Henry pick up the pen and become the author. That’s right, the other author was around to laugh and point at Regina’s non-happy ending and still had the pen which he said had been rendered powerless on account of him breaking the rules to not write your own happy ending. #HenryIsTheAuthor.
Henry wrote the magic right out of the book, returning everyone to Storybrooke just as before. The author tried to flee upon re-arrival but was quickly caught. Henry broke the pen because with great penmanship comes great responsibility... or something like that. Still, the one thing left to solve was the riddle of Rumple’s impending succumbing to the darkness. For that, they needed to get back the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Finally being useful, the apprentice
tried sucking the darkness out of Gold’s heart and trapping it in
the magic hat. While he succeeded at taking out the darkness, he
failed in trapping it. In the biggest and best twist of all, the
apprentice said that they needed to find the sorcerer who was,
drumroll... Merlin! Yeah, it was Merlin the whole time like some of
us guessed. Other’s thought it might be Yen Sid, but that would
have been too much subliminal Disneyisms. Merlin battled the darkness
and could only trap it onto the soul of a single person. This led
to... Emma becoming the dark one. What? Did you just read that right?
Yes. Yes, you did. #EmmaTheDarkOne . She sucked up the evil energy
knowing that her people would find a way to cure her and get her back
somehow. The final shot of the season was seeing the name Emma Swan
on the dagger. The question: where the heck did she disappear too?
Not only did she take on the darkness, it looked like it consumed
her. Strange.
Another strange thing was Lily’s
small mention setting up another plot for next season, her looking
for her father. Maleficent (a character mysteriously absent with
everything changing completely) said she didn’t know who her baby
daddy was because... well, it happened in dragon form. So she
clearly couldn’t tell who she was sleeping with because, you know,
there’s all those dragons flying around and having unprotected
adult fun (though we’ve only seen two).
Hook was
mysteriously alive again even though it was said that the author
couldn’t bring people back to life. In one of the most confusing
explanations to me, Baelfire (the other person they wanted back)
couldn’t be resurrected because he died in the real world, but Hook
could because he died in the fake world which actually wasn’t the
same as the fairy tale world they originally came from? I don’t
know.
With all of that, I was still flipping
my lid. I loved every minute of it. I am more jazzed by this finale
than I was last season at the introduction of Frozen characters.
So, what did you think of the finale?
Did you enjoy it? Did you think that the villains getting happy
endings was as good as the author’s fans thought it was? Who do you
think is Lily’s father (my money is on Mushu from Mulan)? What do
you think about Emma becoming the dark one?
Mulan picture courtesy of Disney
Until next time, Welcome To The Jungle!
P.S. OK, so maybe that was a quote from
Guns and Roses, but man did that song seem to fit at the time I wrote this. I now see that I was wrong. Hmm.
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