Once Upon a Time: The Final Battle: Part One

First Aired May 14th, 2017.

Henry (played by Jared Gilmore) wakes after the Black Fairy’s (played by Jamie Murray) curse hits and finds everyone has forgotten their past lives once again and Emma (played by Jennifer Morrison) is in a psych ward. In this reality, the Black Fairy is not only the mayor of Storybrooke, but also Henry’s mother.

The Black Fairy attempts to make Emma burn the storybook to “cure” herself and Henry, but she refuses, as it would hurt Henry, and so she remains locked up. Meanwhile, Snow White (played by Ginnifer Goodwin), Prince Charming (played by Josh Dallas), Regina (played by Lana Parrilla), and Hook (played by Colin D’Donoghue) wake up in the Enchanted Forest. Regina uses a mirror and they realize the Final Battle is being fought over Emma’s soul and her belief in the magical world. Zelena (played by Rebecca Mader) appears with the Mad Hatter’s hat and takes them all to Oz and reveals that most of Oz is gone; the more Emma stops believing, the more the different realms are slowly erased. After rescuing characters from several realms, Regina works to find a spell to get them to Storybrooke while Hook and Charming scale a beanstalk to find a magic bean. Henry breaks Emma out of the psych ward and takes her to where she married Hook to get her to remember their lives. Although she has a flashback to the wedding, Emma doesn’t fully believe, so Henry instead tries to help her escape Storybrooke.

Most of us probably expected a climatic fight as the Final Battle, but this not only worked as a clever twist, but it keeps in step with Once’s overall themes of belief and hope. The series began with everything hinged on Emma’s belief and now the fate of everyone rests on that again. There’s always talk about how strong everyone’s bonds are, so what better way for the Black Fairy to test her abilities than to try to sever them? It never worked before, obviously, but by trying to destroy both Emma’s belief and her family in one swoop the Black Fairy is definitely one of the most notorious villains we’ve seen. With everyone and everything slowly being erased, it allows different characters to be brought back into the story and brings a sense of urgency to their quest to get to Emma. What really helped make the episode work was every character had a clear role and nobody felt shoehorned into the story, which was a problem especially for characters like Henry.

Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (played by Robert Carlyle) runs his shop with Gideon (played by Giles Matthey), and Belle (played by Emilie de Ravin) abandoned them when Gideon was a baby. Zelena and Regina run into the (formerly) Evil Queen, who escaped her realm with Robin Hood (played by Sean Maguire), and enlists her help. The Black Fairy confronts Henry and attempts to force him to make Emma completely reject her belief, but he refuses. In retaliation, she hurls him down a flight of stairs to further break Emma. Meanwhile, at the top of the beanstalk, Hook and Charming find a bean after narrowly escaping a dragon. Gold confronts the Black Fairy about Belle’s disappearance, suspecting foul play, but she reveals Belle is traveling the world. But she becomes unnerved after finding the page Henry drew that connected to the Final Battle.

The second half of the episode was a letdown in terms of action and story, but not completely: there were a few bright spots like getting to reconnect with the story of the Queen and Robin. But Hook and Charming escaped that dragon way too easily. That could have been at least a brief fight scene. In a season finale, you expect that sort of thing. The Belle subplot was leading to an obvious “she was held hostage” story, and I, obviously, have had issues with that in the past. While sometimes repetitive storytelling works on this show, it shouldn’t rely on it so heavily. The tail end of part one seemed to just be about segueing the story into part two, where the real action was going to be.

Emma visits Henry in the hospital, and a frantic Henry begs Emma to remember but even touching the storybook doesn’t help. The Black Fairy uses the incident as an example that Henry’s belief in fairy tales is harmful to him. Emma’s belief appears to finally be broken, and she tosses the storybook into a furnace—which makes the Enchanted Forest and everyone in it start to disappear. With the first half of the season finale over, things are just about as bad for the heroes as they can get, which means things can’t go anywhere but up. So far nobody has been lost, but, with big episodes like these, a major death is nearly always in the cards. It is clear any happy endings are going to come with a major struggle.

Quotes/Thoughts

“You married Captain Hook right here.” “Captain Hook? Who officiated, Tinker Bell?” “No, Jiminy Cricket.”

There were a lot of subtle Terminator: Judgement Day homages; Emma at times gave off a great Sarah Connor vibe.

“We’re going to be fine. Darkness never wins, it just fools you into thinking it does.”

There were a few characters who had been with the series since the pilot I was hoping to see (Red Riding Hood, for example) but they must not have wanted too many faces in the crowd.

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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