Once Upon a Time: “Labor of Love” (Zero to Hero)

First Aired March 13, 2016.

Hook (played by Colin O’Donoghue) wakes up in an underground cell with a woman (played by Kacey Rohl) and is determined to escape and find Emma (played by Jennifer Morrison). When a three-headed Cerberus bears down on them, Hook stays behind to let the woman get away.

In the woods, Emma and Regina/The Evil Queen (played by Lana Parrilla) find the woman and save her from the Cerberus. Snow White/Mary Margaret (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) finds a headstone for her childhood friend, Hercules (played by Jonathan Whitesell), and goes to find him. Snow finds him working on the docks and asks for help defeating the Cerberus to save Hook and allow Hercules to complete his unfinished business. Hercules is too afraid to fight the Cerberus, but it’s called off by Hades (played by Greg Germann) and reveals the Cerberus originally killed Hercules. He warns the group not to interfere with his realm and shows them Hook’s bloody hook as a warning. Henry (played by Jared Gilmore) and Robin Hood (played by Sean Maguire) go to the Mayor’s office for blueprints of the Underworld Storybrooke. Henry is able to bypass the protection spell and comes face to face with a vengeful Cruella (played by Victoria Smurfit). She wants Henry to use his power as the Author to bring her back to life using the destroyed Quill (now in the Underworld). Cruella’s reasoning being that, if she is alive, Emma is no longer a murderer.

Is it possible Hades got his three-headed dog from the same place Hagrid did, or am I reaching a little for fictional character connections? We did get the obligatory appearance of Hercules and, what a surprise (not really), he knew Snow. I wonder if the amount of souls in the Underworld fuels Hades power or if it’s just a pride thing that he’s losing some. It’s clearly personal with Hercules: in this version, Hades won and he won’t let his nephew/prized soul leave without a fight. The scenes with Henry were the episode’s weakest part (seriously, why is he there? What parent would drag their child to Hell?). The setup of Henry trying to regain his power as the all-powerful author gives him a semblance of purpose but it was a horrible storyline. With a few scratches of his pen, Henry can make everything all better, which was the reason that story never worked; it could erase storylines just as fast as they happened. Case in point, how writing Cruella back to life erases Emma’s bad karma for killing her. How does that work? She still killed someone in cold blood.

Flashbacks show villagers asking a young Snow (played by Bailee Madison) and Regina for protection from bandits, but an overwhelmed Snow runs to the woods and ends up meeting Hercules. Hercules is hunting the Cerberus to kill it and gain entry to Mount Olympus and offers to teach Snow how to fight. Snow confronts the bandits but is outmatched and saved by Hercules, and it’s revealed Regina hired them to discredit Snow and become Queen. But with encouragement from Hercules, Snow stands up to them along with the villagers. In the present, Mary Margaret does the same for Hercules and offers to fight the Cerberus with him, just as the monster attacks the others in search of the woman. Hercules, Mary Margaret and the woman attack the Cerberus at the same time and kill all three heads. The woman introduces herself as Meg and Hercules recognizes Meg as the woman he died trying to save from Cerberus. With their unfinished business completed, Hercules and Meg move on together.

I understand the overall lesson in these flashbacks, Snow gaining the confidence to become a fighter and Queen, but I can’t help but wonder why it fell on her to handle it alone. Snow could have ordered a squad of soldiers to stop the bandits or confronted them with soldiers yet it had to be just her. Check out Hercules getting a two for one deal: he finally kills the Cerberus and gets himself a girlfriend. I feel like Meg’s imprisonment in the Underworld was meant to compound Hercules’ time there because he failed to save her (true he had no idea she was there but I think that was her intended purpose). Hades probably figured he had eternity to break dangle Meg in front of Hercules. How that his nephew and pet are gone he is going to be pissed. After getting a glimpse into the fractured family dynamic Hades and Hercules had, I’m eagerly anticipating the episode detailing their backstory.

Mary Margaret decides to shed her “Mary Margaret” identity and be known only as Snow White again. With two more souls gone, Hades has decided that for every soul freed one of the group has to take their place. He further tortures Hook by forcing him to choose which souls to take. I don’t know why Snow or anyone kept their real world fake identities, unless they want to cheat taxes or something. Making Hook choose which of his friends potentially remains in purgatory is a terrible fate in itself but there is a silver lining. At the rate Emma and everyone are freeing souls, Hades will eventually decide to go after them all and Hook won’t have to choose anyone.

Quotes & Thoughts

“You defeated me in a way no one thought was possible. You made me your friend by never giving up on me.”

Why do people going to Heaven have to move on near that lake of fire? Shouldn’t they get a somewhat nicer sendoff?

“It’s not every day your wife tells you she was friends with a god.”

Hercules’ name was misspelled on his tombstone, that’s either a major production error or some kind of copyright thing.

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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