Once Upon a Time’s 100th Episode Drags Us to Hell

First Aired March 6th, 2016.

Emma (played by Jennifer Morrison) has a vision of her old love, Neal/Baelfire (played by Michael Raymond-James). He warns Emma not to go to the Underworld to find Hook (played by Colin O’Donoghue) but she’s resolved to save him and wakes up as the group arrives there.

The Underworld is a barren version of Storybrooke filled with souls, Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (played Robert Carlyle) reminds the group many are there because of them. They split up and Snow White/Mary Margaret (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) runs into Prince Charming/David’s (played by Josh Dallas) evil twin, James. The Evil Queen/Regina (played by Lana Parrilla) is summoned by her mother, Cora (played by Barbara Hershey). They share a brief happy reunion and she arranges a boat so Regina us able leave the Underworld while she can. However, Regina refuses to leave her friends. Cora brings her to a fiery pit where a soul is engulfed by flames and says, if Regina won’t leave her father, Henry (played by Tony Perez) will suffer the same fate. While in a replica of his shop, Gold runs into his father Peter Pan/Malcolm (played by Robbie Kay) who share a sour reunion. Pan offers Gold an elixir needed to find Hook and asks for help in trading his soul for one of the others to escape the Underworld. Emma pours it over Hook’s grave to speak with him. A bloodied Hook appears but the spell doesn’t work properly and he quickly vanishes.

At first I was disappointed to see that the Underworld was basically a replica of Storybrooke but the red hue and hopeless atmosphere works. The landmark 100^th episode of Once featured the return of several great villains including Pan and Cora, and better still they are relevant to the story and not just there. The episode did a good job of setting up these villains for later episodes like evil twin James and Cruella cruising around in her car. Having all of these villains in the narrative at the same time will be an exciting dynamic, especially because they are already dead. The idea that any of them or the other wandering souls can escape by trading places with a living person adds a source of dramatic tension the story. Neal’s cameo however was just shoehorned into the episode for the sake of having as many old characters back as possible. Now, if he were also trapped in the Underworld that would have made a compelling narrative and give his appearance more meaning. Showing very little of Hook went a long way, not knowing what’s happening to him makes the search that much more frenetic.

Flashbacks show Regina terrorizing a village on her birthday in her search for Snow White, but Snow and Charming stop her and send her away. Her father, Henry (played by Tony Perez), is upset that his daughter is wasting her life on vengeance and contacts Cora in Wonderland for help. Cora suggests helping Regina get revenge instead of helping her move on and uses a mirror to enter their realm from Wonderland. Henry asks to meet with Snow but Cora goes disguised as him and steals Snow’s heart. Regina crushes the heart but Henry switched it for another and a furious Regina shrinks him and traps him inside of a wooden box. Regina banishes Cora back to Wonderland but Cora takes the box containing Henry with her. Meanwhile, back in the Underworld, Regina finds her father and he tells her to stay because he’s proud of the hero she’s become. Henry is nearly taken by the fire but instead a white light appears and takes him to heaven, his unfinished business of helping Regina find redemption complete.

That party had everything you would expect from the Evil Queen’s birthday, crushed hearts, a black cake and terrified guests invited/coerced into attending. Every so often I wonder if there can be a few episodes without flashbacks to focus on the main story, ideally this episode would be great for that. But in general and in the episode the flashbacks did relate to what was happening in the present. Also I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of getting to see Regina in her Evil Queen gowns being deliciously campy and evil. I assumed the Underworld was for evil souls but apparently anyone with unfinished business winds up there, good or bad, which seems unfair to the people who tried to live good lives. And from the looks of it people don’t have the time or energy to work out their issues while surrounded by gloom and doom.

Emma and the others resolve to try and help other souls move on if possible, and when they do the broken clock tower begins to tick. Cora enters the library elevator and meets with Hades (played by Gregg Germann) who is furious that a soul has left the Underworld. Hades forces Cora to be his slave for eternity as punishment for her failure. Now the mission has expanded from saving Hook to saving everyone so clearly this is going to take a while. The scene with the clock tower was a great callback to the series pilot, but instead of a curse they’re helping souls (would a Ghost Whisperer cameo be asking too much?). It’s too soon to know for sure but Hades seems like he is going to be a fun, campy addition to the show as the latest villain.

Quotes & Thoughts

“Be careful with your threats.” “Or what, you’ll kill me again?”

I wonder if we’re going to meet Zeus and Poseidon this season too.

“The Underworld’s for people with unfinished business and that’s not me, that’s why I’m not there.”

If Neal’s heaven was that amusement park I could see why he was so content, fun rides and no lines forever!

 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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