Once Upon a Time Season Six Premiere

First Aired September 25th, 2016.

The episode opens with Jafar (played by Oded Fehr) gloating over a defeated looking Aladdin (played by Deniz Akdeniz). The action then moves back to Storybrooke where Hyde (played by Sam Witwer) and everyone from the Land of Untold Stories arrives in town.

Jekyll (played by Hank Harris) warns that the untold stories could prove dangerous and works on building a weapon strong enough to defeat Hyde. Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin (played by Robert Carlyle) uses information from Hyde to find a temple and uses its sand to enter Belle’s (played by Emilie de Ravin) dreams and tries to wake her from the sleeping curse. Regina (played by Lana Parrilla) adjusts to her sister Zelena/The Wicked Witch (played by Rebecca Mader) and Zelena’s baby living with her, as well as dealing with the emotions from extracting her Evil Queen persona from herself. The group captures Hyde with Jekyll’s weapon, but Emma (played by Jennifer Morrison) suffers from vivid hallucinations that nearly hinder her from helping. Hyde insinuates that he knows what is wrong with Emma, and she visits him in his cell and he cryptically tells her to face her own story by following the red bird. In Belle’s mind, Gold meets a young man (played by Giles Matthey) who brings him to Belle. She’s reliving her former role as his servant and has only an hour before she’s unable to recover from the curse.

This was the first episode of Once without flashbacks and it was surprisingly refreshing. But the scene with Jafar and Aladdin didn’t relate to the rest of the episode and was an odd way of opening the season. There was a lot going on in the episode, but, aside from the opening, every storyline had enough screen time that nothing felt forced or underwritten. When Belle is woken up, it would be great to see her have an independent story from Gold and break out into her own character. However, considering Hyde and these untold story characters are the central theme of this season, it’s surprising we didn’t see more of them. Hyde was pretty easily captured, but he’ll break out soon enough. It stands to reason we would have been introduced to some of these other people, but if most of them are dangerous villains it does become a concern that there can be too many shoehorned into the series. Breaking out of the one villain per story arc angle is fine, but having a “villain of the week” doesn’t allow for any characterization.

Regina tells Zelena she blames her for Robin Hood’s (played by Sean Maguire) death, and Zelena is resentful of Regina separating her evil self and they become estranged. Snow White/Mary Margaret (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming/David (played by Josh Dallas) attempt to convince people from the Land of Untold Stories they mean no harm and to join them. Emma finds a red bird in the forest and it leads her to a girl who tells her the hallucinations are her future. Emma will fight a dark hooded figure in a battle, and when that day comes: she will die. Gold manages to trigger Belle’s memories, but she can’t bring herself to trust Gold after all his lies. The young man reveals himself to be Gold and Belle’s unborn son and before he wakes Belle with true love’s kiss, he warns her not to let Gold destroy them like his last family.

Emma is having visions of her inevitable death. She likely will die before coming right back to life; just about every other main character has died and come back: so it’s her turn. Regina and Zelena are once again estranged, although Zelena’s reasoning for being angry seems like foreshadowing. She feels the biggest connection between her and Regina is evil, which sounds like Zelena may not be on team hero just yet. Belle and Gold’s unborn child manifesting to beg his mother not to fall into familiar patterns was amazing. If that isn’t enough for Belle to make serious adjustments in her life concerning Gold, nothing ever will be.

Hyde taunts Emma that her role as Savior and need to help people will be what causes her impending death. Mary Margaret helps Regina come to the realization that while she may have lost Robin, she still has a chance for happiness. Meanwhile, the Evil Queen persona tracks down Zelena and offers an alliance. Emma will never stop saving people, so in that sense she is possibly doomed. Regina hopefully will find some kind of happiness, because at this point the writers are just picking on her character. Zelena lost one sister, but gained a new one who shares her love for wickedness: this should prove to be a dangerous duo.

Quotes/Thoughts

“You can change the path to the destination but the destination is the same. On the day you saw, in the battle you saw, you will die.”

Here’s hoping these untold story characters won’t bring anymore Author related storylines.

“I choose to believe that this story will have a better ending than my last.”

Apparently if you spend too much time saving lives and being a hero, it will eventually break you down, so, at some point, all these heroes will have to retire and that could be the ending of the series.

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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