Season three of Once Upon a Time takes us through the forests of Neverland and down the yellow brick road of Oz. While the first story arc has some bumps in the road, the second proves to be mostly enjoyable.

Once the group arrives in Neverland, they’re pitted against Peter Pan (played by Robbie Kay), reworked from the fun-loving, eternal child into a sadistic villain. His band of Lost Boys are not his gang of lovable misfits but his army, policing the island and turning it from a land of wonder into a prison. Children that Pan’s shadow takes to the island are doomed to remain there forever and the air is filled with the sounds of their cries to go home.

I thought this incarnation of Peter Pan was fun to watch and actor Robbie Kay really sold his performance. I wasn’t thrilled when Pan was revealed to be the Pied Piper (the man who lured children to him with his pan flute) because Pan is already a well-known character that didn’t need to be crossed with another. However, it seemed to serve a purpose by creating a link between Pan and Rumplestiltskin (played by Robert Carlyle). While recruiting Lost Boys with the flute, Pan managed to lure in Rumple’s young son, Baelfire/Neal (played by Michael Raymond James). This seemed to be the root of why Pan and Rumple knew each other and had an antagonistic relationship. After this, Once decided to put a family spin on it.

Peter Pan turned out to be none other than Rumple’s father who was previously known as Malcolm and abandoned Rumple for a chance to be young forever in Neverland. Because people were never meant to live in Neverland, a giant hourglass was created to signify the magic draining from Neverland to keep Pan/Malcolm young. This is why Pan wanted Henry (played by Jared Gilmore), because he has the heart of the truest believer, meaning because he believes in magic and happy endings so much his heart is actually magical. He managed to trick Henry into voluntarily giving up his heart by tricking him into thinking he would be saving magic.

I thought the family angle with the major villains on the show was already used enough and this was just too complicated. Pan was Rumple’s father, Neal’s grandfather and Henry’s great-grandfather. Having Pan be a sadistic immortal boy after Henry’s heart would have worked great without all of the family baggage. That’s not to say that the storyline is a bad idea, but after a few times it’s beginning to wear thin here.

That said, there was some great character development, particularly with Regina (played by Lana Parilla) and Killian “Captain Hook” Jones (played by Colin ). Before she became the Evil Queen, Regina had a shot at finding true love courtesy of Tinker Bell (played by Rose Mclver). Tinker Bell used her magic to show Regina the man that was destined to be her true love, but Regina was too afraid to meet him and opted to be queen. This was a rare vulnerable side to Regina that we haven’t often gotten to see. Her character has now become so relatable. We got to see the backstory surrounding Hook’s path to becoming a pirate, losing his brother because of a mission their king sent them on (to Neverland, which explained how Hook knew Pan). This new angle regarding Hook showed the pain behind his swagger and bravado and made him more than just a sarcastic pirate.

The first half of the season had a problem width it’s pacing. After several episodes that were set exclusively in Neverland, it began to wear thin. With so many continuous shots of jungle terrain, the show moving back to Storybrooke was a breath of fresh air. It also seemed as if the characters trying to save Henry were spinning their wheels endlessly in order to run out the clock on the first half of the season, a problem that Once had last season as well. It was after getting back to Storybrooke that things began to pick up.

Pan pulled a Freaky Friday and switched bodies with Henry, using the confusion to cast Regina’s old curse on Storybrooke and rule the town. Although Pan was killed by his son, Rumple (at the cost of his own life), the curse was enacted. Then, Regina changed it so that instead everyone was transported back to the Enchanted Forest. The catch is that Emma (played by Jennifer Morrison) and Henry couldn’t go because technically neither was born in the Enchanted Forest. Regina gives Emma a potion so that she and Henry forget about everything and everyone from Storybrooke and instead they have false memories of a life together where Emma never gave Henry up for adoption. After a year passes, Hook shows up at their apartment in Manhattan, saying Emma’s family needs help. But since she has no idea who he is, she slams the door in his face. That kicks off the second half of the season.

There was obviously no way that either Emma or Henry would never remember everyone because otherwise the show couldn’t go on. The one year jump seemed like it was a way for the writers to age Henry faster since Gilmore was aging more quickly than the timeline of the show. However, a one year gap would mean there was plenty of story opportunity for the characters, so I was excited to see where that would go.

Part two of the season began with Hook, Emma and Henry in New York City. Hook eventually got Emma to drink a potion that restores her memory. They returned to Storybrooke but, because Henry didn’t have his memories, Emma tried to shield him from what’s really going on. In Storybrooke, everyone lost their memory of the past year as well, though much happened, including Snow White (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) being nine months pregnant. The appearance of flying monkeys made it obvious that the person behind it was none other than The Wicked Witch of the West, aka Zelena (played by Rebecca Mader).

Zelena’s main storyline was that she wanted to take down Regina, who turned out to be her younger half-sister. Their mother gave up Zelena as a baby and she was taken to Oz in a tornado and spent much of her life angry and jealous that Regina had the life she deserved. In fact, her green skin was reworked as a symbol of her jealousy toward Regina. We got to see glimpses into her past in Oz, including her brief meeting with Dorothy, descending into pure evil after giving in to her rage against Regina. Her plan was to change history so that she would never be given up and Regina was never born by casting a time travel spell, something that has never been done because it goes against the laws of magic.

When I saw that Zelena was Regina’s sister my first reaction was disbelief that the major villain was once again related to someone in the main cast. This is an angle the writers for Once seem to love so much they keep using it. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well it worked. Zelena was a great character to watch. She was very campy and she stole nearly every scene she was in. Scenes with Regina and Zelena were always fun because they were a clash of two strong characters and there was lots of energy. One of my favorites was a scene wherein they traded jabs about whether red apples were better than green apples. It was also cool to see Emma and Henry switch roles with her being the one to believe in magic while he was skeptical at first.

In order to cast the first time travel spell, Zelena needed a few things, including Regina’s heart and Snow’s baby. Once they realized they needed Emma and her magic to defeat Zelena, Snow and Charming decided to re-enact the original curse from the series pilot to take them back to Storyrbrooke. But for that to work, Snow had to crush Charming’s heart, which she did, but then Zelena added a potion to the curse so they forgot how to defeat her. Instead of letting Charming die, Snow had Regina take her heart and split it in half because their love is apparently so strong they can share a heart.

While many super fans were probably thrilled that Snow and Charming found a way around having his heart crushed, I felt that it was just too convenient. Throughout the entire run of the show it’s been established that they are meant for each other and their love is very strong, but having them find ways out of situations that for any other character would have meant their death feels like a cheat. Even back in the Neverland story arc, Charming was poisoned and was told if he left Neverland he would die, but at the last minute Rumple found a way to cure him so he could leave. Charming dying to save his unborn child would have been an amazing plot device, but it seems the writers don’t ever want to write him off the show.

Zelena proved to be a very capable villain, from turning residents of Storybrooke into her own army of flying monkeys to orchestrating Rumple’s revival (at the cost of his son Baelfire’s life). Her past with Rumple where she was his first student until he chose Regina over her was good, but I wondered why he would keep that information to himself, especially after she swore to come after him. But the scenes where Zelena used Rumple’s magical dagger to control him and gloat over her success were always great to watch.

There were two major subplots in the season, one of which was Emma learning how to use her magic. It took only about one episode for Emma to be an apparent expert with her magic, moving objects and attacking Zelena. Eventually, Zelena used a curse to steal Emma’s magic and remove the last threat to her. Emma having magical powers felt wrong. She was always a strong character and fighter, but her using her wits was what made her endearing and I was happy she lost them.

The other subplot was Regina finally opening herself up to a relationship with the man she was destined to be with, which turned out to be Robin Hood (played by Sean Macguire). They began to open up to each other and actually started what looks like it could be a serious relationship. Regina always seemed to go through one emotional hurdle after the other and it was nice to see her find a little happiness.

Everything came to a head when Zelena stole Snow’s baby moments after it was born and began casting her time travel spell. With Emma no longer having powers, everyone convinced Regina that, because she’d turned good, she could use light magic to counter Zelena’s dark magic. Regina easily defeated Zelena in a fight that lasted about thirty seconds and took away her powers. Rumple decided to take advantage of that and murdered the powerless Zelena as revenge, but that unleashed some dormant magic from her and her spell was activated.

The fight between Regina and Zelena felt very anticlimactic after all of the buildup, I was hoping for a more epic fight between the two sisters. I was also disappointed that Zelena had to die because she was a great villain and I would have liked to see her appear in more episodes in the future. However, her death did lead to what turned out to be a very strong season finale.

Emma and Hook were sucked into Zelena’s time portal and ended up in the Enchanted Forest around the time Snow and Charming first met. Emma inevitably altered history and kept them from meeting so she and Hook, with some help from Rumple, had to find another way to get them to fall in love. Along the way, Emma realized how much she loved her family and decided to abandon her previous plans of leaving Storybrooke to escape all the chaos.

The trip through time was great because it allowed the series to go back and put a new spin on key moments from season one. It was like Back to the Future, with Rumple playing the role of Doc Brown. The episode even referenced the movie in a meta moment.

After setting the timeline back on track, Emma and Hook prepared to go back to the future (eh) from Rumple’s vault. However, Emma ended up freeing a young woman (played by Christie Lang) from Regina’s prison the day before her execution. They took her back to the future, thinking they would do less damage that way, but the lady turned out to be Robin Hood’s deceased wife, Maid Marian. Marian and Robin Hood reunited and Regina’s happy ending was cut short. She put the blame solely on Emma. The fallout will surely provide lots of great drama for season four, but it wouldn’t be complete without a new villain and the last scene sets that up. When Emma and Hook came back from the past they accidently brought a bottle from the vault with them that broke open in the present, releasing Elsa the Snow Queen from the Disney film Frozen. She looks pissed about being locked up and seems ready to stir up some trouble next season.

If you enjoyed Manny’s review, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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