Once Upon A Time; Twice A Wasted Hour #OnceUponATime #DarkSwan #DarkHook

Once Upon A Time; Twice A Wasted Hour #OnceUponATime #DarkSwan #DarkHook

All pictures courtesy of ABC

These fools pulled the old longer-but-not-better switcheroo on us last night. Was it just me or did that second hour of the two hour not-yet-winter finale really feel like that unlockable mini-mission that you let your little brother play only after you beat the entire game but you didn't want him messing up your saved game. Yeah, it was confusing and kind of a waste.

This week's Once Upon A Time (#OnceUponATime) was super-sized to fill that extra hour that the dying show Blood and Oil usually stews in. Unfortunately, while the show as a whole was good, the second hour was unnecessary. For that reason, I won't mention much about it. But the first hour was amazing!

Excalibur finally restored to one sword, now all that remained was for Emma Swan to make a decision on which way she'd go, good or evil. A talk with Hook who still loves her reveals that she has undergone her plan of evil just for him. What that means we soon find out. But what is clear almost immediately is that her plan requires a life.

Cut to Selena AKA the Wicked Witch who is still sitting in prison two months pregnant with a wristband banning her from using magic. Suddenly, her stomach swells from 2 months preggers to her water breaking and needing a doctor immediately. Surprise, surprise, the only doctor that seems to be worth anything is Dr. Whale, the same guy that apparently made Frankenstein in the first (or second?) season. A little banter betwixt them as she threw him against a wall with some magic a while back and before they knew it, a baby popped out.

And then Emma arrived. But was she there to take the baby? No. Apparently she sped up Selena's pregnancy to get rid of the baby from her own would-be useable vessel. Wow, I made that more confusing than it needed to be. OK, she kidnaps both Hook and Selena down to her evil lair where she assures him she is still good and wants to banish the evil. But the only way to do that is to imbue all of her evil in someone else--Selena--and then cut her down with Excalibur.

And then things went uh-rye.

First Hook unlocked Selena's bracelet. Then they escaped upstairs where Swan seemed to have frozen everyone in the town before coming back inside in hopes of finishing her plan. But in the middle of her escape, Selena happens to find the dreamcatcher that can show you truth and what you need to see and all that. Hook throws some squid ink on Emma to keep her in place and unarmed as Selena shows him the truth in the catcher. The truth goes back to the fairy tale land six weeks earlier.

Before escaping back to Storybrooke, King Arthur and Selena tried one last time to get Emma to unite the blade and give it over to him so he could complete his quest to rule the kingdom and end all dark magic. Redundant? Yes, seeing as how everyone was already focused on doing this, but he wants all the glory. Still in control of Merlin and the bottom half of the sword, he orders the great and powerful wizard to kill Emma. As luck would have it, they duke it out only for Merlin to fight off the greatest evil and regain control of his senses. But not before Hook is sliced by accident with the sword's blade. Emma does some quick healing magic and everything is good.

But everything isn't good. Failing to mention it earlier, Merlin finally tells the group that a slice from the blade cannot be healed under any means. As she is about to reunite the two blade halves, he lays dying. But being the dark one she is, she concocts a plan which I didn't even quite understand, somehow making him a secondary dark one, thereby saving his life through imbuing him with evil. An around about way of using death magic to save him/bring him back from the dead, she is punished by being made dark once again.

Thus, to rid the evil from both herself and Hook, she must cast it out of both of them and into Selena before cutting her down. It's the only way to rid herself of such evil. I probably should feel exceptionally bad that I actually find that to be a good plan sense Selena seems only to want to be evil. They don't have to cut her down, just send her back to her land and put some sort of spell on her to never be able to come back.

Unfortunately, after learning all of this Hook lets his own dark one tendencies take over and thinks she's still the evil one in need of destroying. The first hour ends there as the second hour takes us back to the land of the BRAVE.

Unrelated almost entirely to the first half of the show, Merida is challenged to find a magical helmet her father ordered from a witch or face her queendom going from humans to wolves. Bringing back Mulan who apparently trained her and Red Riding Hood who had mysteriously disappeared just for this storyline apparently, the three women seek the helmet. After producers earlier in the season talked about bringing back Mulan's lesbian story and giving her a happy ending, I almost got really pissed that it looked like they were about to make Merida and Mulan--the two strongest female characters in Disney's "princess" line-up--gay. Because clearly you can only be a strong girl/woman if you're gay, right? Thankfully they changed it to where Mulan and Red left together after defeating the killer of Merida's father. The killer? King Arthur. He and Selena escaped back to Camelot.

The couple that wears a similar color on the Spectrum together...

The helmet found, Merida refuses to return it to the witch only to discover the entire thing was a crap test to see if she'd have the character to be a noble leader. She talks to her dead dad, swears revenge against Arthur, the end. The entire hour had me wondering why this wasn't divided up and stuffed into a few episodes over the course of a few weeks. Instead, it played like the lame hour-long sequel to Brave I never wanted (almost as long as the movie, by the way). So while the first hour had me soaring, the second was a huge let down.

What do you think? Did you enjoy both hours equally? Were you excited to see Mulan again? Do you like the potential pairing with Red Riding Hood? What about the #DarkCouple? Will Hook and Emma both rid themselves of the darkness or will one succumb to it for good (see what I did there)? Let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button if you see no comments).

Check out my new comedy novel Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or  #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The full first season is out now NOW exclusively on Amazon. If you like fast action crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, "between Kandi's gullibility and Kim Fields' faces, I'm already too through with this season of Real Housewives of Atlanta."

P.S. Now that wasn't even a real sign-off, was it? It was just a mentioning of a reality show I watch. Gosh, am I even trying anymore? I'll definitely try next time.

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