I’ve wanted to write a review of the two-part season three finale, but for a variety of reasons, both in my control and out of my control, I’m just now getting around to it. That being said, here are my thoughts on the season three finale of Once Upon a Time.
As the title of this post
suggest, I’m definitely starting to lose interest in the show, and not only am
I starting to lose interest in the show, I’m also really starting to lose
confidence in the writers. I’m starting to think that Edward Kitsis and Adam
Horowitz don’t really have a long-term plan for the show, and perhaps they
never have. The final scene of the season finale only added to my belief that
Kitsis and Horowitz are just making stuff up as they go along. That’s something
I don’t think that writers of a serialized show should be doing if they want
people to view it as a good show, but I’ll talk about that more later.
Edward Kitsis and Adam
Horowitz might not know how write the show in such a way that fills me with
confidence in regards to their writing, but for the time being they sure do
know how to keep me from giving up on watching the show completely. What’s kept
me from giving up on the show completely at this point is the fact that there
has been a lot of truly excellent material for Emma and Hook and the
relationship between them this season in my humble opinion. Fortunately for me,
both parts of the season finale revolved heavily around scenes between the two
of them, with flashbacks of Emma’s past featured throughout both parts of the
finale. Being someone who is a huge Captain Swan shipper, I absolutely loved
that about the season finale.
At the beginning of the
episode of the episode Emma was spending time with Mary Margaret, David and
their new baby boy, who still didn’t have a name. Mary Margaret and David told
Emma that they were planning to reveal his name at a makeshift coronation
ceremony at Granny’s, saying that they would have had a coronation ceremony for
Emma if they could have. Upon Henry showing up at Granny’s and accidentally
spilling the beans to Mary Margaret and David that they are looking for an
apartment in New York, Mary Margaret, David, Regina and Hook all stated their
objections to the whole idea. Personally, I thought that Regina was a little
out of line acting like the whole thing was her business. If I were Emma, I
probably would have told Regina to piss off, but then again since she was the
only mother Henry knew until he went and found Emma at the beginning of the
series, it does make their whole family situation rather complicated. It’s
especially complicated since Henry has said that he does still consider Regina
to be his mom, or at least one of his moms now that he has been reunited with
Emma.
I have to say that I have
mixed feelings about the scene where Mary Margaret and David were reminiscing about
how they met and fell in love as they were looking through Henry’s book of
fairytales with him at Granny’s diner. For the most part, I found Mary
Margaret’s behavior and Ginnifer Goodwin’s acting in that scene rather gag
inducing as they were all talking about how she and David fell in love back in
the Enchanted Forrest, and I’m saying that as someone who has always been a bit
of hopeless romantic.
While I found Mary Margaret
rather annoying in that scene, I thought the scene took an amusing turn when
Hook and Emma arrived just as David was talking to Henry about how he had once
been engaged to King Midas’ daughter, Abigail, who for those who might not
remember is Kathryn in Storybrooke, back when they all lived in the Enchanted
Forest. Hook’s reaction to learning that David passed up the chance to marry
King Midas’ daughter when King Midas has the ability to turn anything into gold
was absolutely priceless. Although, after seeing what an insufferable bitch
Abigail was to Charming I can’t say that I necessarily blame him for choosing
Snow White over her.
Soon after that, everybody
discovered that Zelena’s time portal had been reopened. Emma and Hook went to
check on the portal, and Emma ended up entering the portal, prompting Hook to
reluctantly go after her through the time portal. They ended up in the
Enchanted Forest back in the past around the time that Snow White and Charming
met for the first time. Unfortunately, their arrival in the Enchanted Forest
made it so the moment when Snow White and Charming met was screwed up and
didn’t happen like it was supposed to, because Emma accidentally made some
noise, startling Snow White and prompting her to run off instead of robbing
Charming and Abigail’s carriage like she was supposed to. After Emma made a reference
to Marty Mcfly from the Back to the Future, who Hook assumed was some kind of
time traveling wizard, Emma decided that they should go ask Rumplestiltskin for
help getting back to the present. Despite the fact Rumplestiltskin hates Hook
and blames him for his losing Milah, Emma and Hook got him to agree to help
them, telling him that he and Hook would eventually patch things up between
them. Before he could help them get back home to the present, they had to make
sure that they got the timeline back on track and seeing to it that Snow White
and Charming meet like they were supposed to.
This led to a lot of
interesting drama and some great and rather humorous moments between Hook and
Emma throughout the episode. One of my favorite moments during this part of the
episode was when Emma was trying to seduce a past version of Hook on the Jolly
Roger as a part of a plan to help get Snow White passage on his ship.
Eventually Hook became overwhelmed with jealousy at the sight of watching Emma
make out with his past self, so he knocked his past self out. Emma wasn’t too
happy about that, but he reasoned that his past self would blame the whole
incident on the rum he was constantly drinking at that point in his life.
Later that night, Rumplestiltskin
used some magic to make it so they would look like different people to everyone
at Charming and Princess Abigail’s ball, therefore helping to preserve the
timeline. They also used the aliases Prince Charles and Princess Leia at the
ball. Part of the reason they needed to go to the ball was so they make sure
that Snow White stole the ring that she was originally supposed to have stolen
when Charming and Abigail were on the carriage together. This part of their
plan worked, making it so that Snow White trying to steal the ring from the
palace during the ball ended up being how they met. Unfortunately for Emma,
Snow White ended up dropping the ring and Emma was caught and arrested by
Regina and her minions at the end of the first part of the episode.
Both parts of the finale
were very Emma centric and featured several flashbacks to moments from her
past, the main themes of these flashbacks were based around the fact that Emma
had never really felt like she had found a real home growing up since she moved
around all of the time, hoping to one day find a place that felt like home to
her. This is something that she talked to Neal about in a flashback of a time
when they broke into an amusement park when they were on a date at some point
in their relationship.
During the second part of
the episode, Emma met a woman who had been arrested for helping Snow White and
was scheduled to be executed soon under orders from Regina. Emma managed to
break both the woman and herself out of the prison cell using the same trick
that Neal had used to break into an amusement park that they had once gone to
on date. Hook objected to Emma wanting to bring the woman back with them to the
present since there’s no telling how doing so would affect the timeline, saying
that if she were to live she could end up doing something very bad like kill
one of the seven dwarfs, but if she’s executed by Regina, then the dwarf would
live. I’ve heard this argument before many times when it comes to discussing
time travel. For example, SF Debris, who reviews Star Trek episodes as well as
many other science fiction TV shows and movies, once posed the argument about
what a person should do if they went back in time and encountered Hitler as a
child. Should they kill him in order to prevent the Holocaust from happening,
or do they take him and raise him to become a good and kind person who wouldn’t
want to do everything that Hitler did? Personally, I don’t know which of those
two scenarios is the best thing to do, but I think it’s a very interesting
question to ponder and it’s something that I found myself thinking about as I
was watching that part of the episode.
Anyway, Hook reluctantly
agreed to bring the woman with them. With that done, they continued along with
their plan to fix the timeline and continued to encounter a lot more problems
along the way. At one point in the episode, Emma and the others were led to
believe that Regina had managed to kill Snow White, but they soon figured out
that Snow White managed to escape by using the dark fairy dust to turn into a
ladybug. Thankfully, the Blue Fairy managed to turn Snow White back to normal,
much to Emma’s delight. Emma’s joy over the fact that she was okay confused the
hell out of Snow White though since as far as she knew, they didn’t know each
other. This slowly helped to restore the timeline, because Snow White was able
to return Charming’s ring to him and that ended up becoming the moment that the
two of them fell in love with each other. As Emma and Hook were watching the
whole thing, Emma got emotional, but Hook assured her that it was okay for her
to be feeling emotional about the whole thing since not everybody gets to watch
his or her parents fall in love.
With that done, Emma, Hook
and the woman Emma rescued returned to Rumplestiltskin in the hopes that he
could get them back to the present. Rumplestiltskin told them that only they
can open a portal back to the present, and Emma succeeded in doing so using her
own magic as Rumplestiltskin pleaded with Emma to tell him if he would be able
to get Baelfire/Neal back. She told him that Neal died as a hero, so he
shouldn’t take that away from Neal as she went through the portal back to the
present with Hook and the woman.
Emma shared an emotional
reunion with her parents, telling them that she wants to stay in Storybrooke
after all, which seemed to make Henry happy. Mary Margaret and David also announced
to everybody that they had named their son Neal in honor of Baelfire/Neal.
Rumplestiltskin seemed to be saddened by this news, and honestly I think it’s
kind of weird that they are naming their son after the man who was essentially
nothing more than Emma’s baby daddy. Yes, I know that Emma and Neal loved each
other, but I still think it’s weird that Mary Margaret and David did that given
Emma and Neal’s history.
I have to say that I’m
really glad that Emma seems to have realized that Storybrooke is where she
belongs and is finally ready to truly embrace it as her home. I really hope
that’s the case, because I feel like there’s been a lot of back and forth throughout
the series regarding whether or not Emma wants to stay in Storybrooke, and it’s
really starting to annoy me at this point.
After Emma had reunited with
her parents and Henry, she shared another great moment with Hook where she
asked him how he managed to outrun the most recent curse and find her in New
York City. He told her that he had traded the Jolly Roger for a magic bean in
order to get to her. Emma seemed truly touched that he would give up the Jolly
Roger in order to get to her. If you ask me, Hook trading the Jolly Roger for a
magic bean so he could get to her is probably the grandest romantic gesture
that he could ever make to her given how important I know the Jolly Roger is to
him. Emma FINALLY gave into her feelings for Hook after he told her what he had
done, and they started sharing a very passionate kiss.
Based on how the writers
left things between Emma and Hook at the end of the episode, it looks like they
will be a couple next season. Personally, I can’t wait to see what Hook and Emma’s
relationship will be like now, since Hook definitely doesn’t seem like the kind
of guy that would do things like take her out to fancy restaurants for romantic
dinners or make her breakfast in bed like I think a good boyfriend should do.
Maybe they can watch the Back to the Future trilogy together since Hook had no
idea what Emma was talking about when she mentioned Marty McFly earlier in the
episode. I also can’t wait to see Mary Margaret and David’s reaction to the
fact that Hook and Emma are romantically involved with each other now. I don’t
necessarily see them welcoming Hook into their family with open arms if he and
Emma end up getting married at some point in the future, even if Emma truly
loves him and Henry seems to really like Hook too.
While all of the scenes
between Emma and Hook in both parts of the season three finale were definitely
the biggest highlight of the season finale for me personally, the season finale
also featured some great moments between Gold and Belle, namely their wedding towards
the end of the second part of the season finale. While I loved Gold and Belle’s
wedding, I just wish the writers had featured a bit more buildup to their wedding.
I know that this episode focused primarily on Emma and Hook, and I love the episode
for that reason, I still think the writers could have given that plot
development a bit more screen time leading up to their wedding. As enjoyable as
Gold and Belle’s wedding was to watch, a part of me felt like that scene was
just tacked onto the episode in order to fill screen time for the episode.
The two-part season finale
had some really nice moments between Regina and Robin Hood as well, but much
like the Gold and Belle storyline, this storyline didn’t get much screen time.
That’s really a shame too, because I enjoyed the moments between Regina and
Robin Hood much more than I enjoyed watching Mary Margaret gush over the new
baby as they talked about how she and David fell in love with each other back
in the enchanted forest. I’m a huge Ginnifer Goodwin fan, but her acting in
that scene was just cringe inducing.
Maybe the reason the writers
didn’t feature more scenes between Regina and Robin Hood was because they were
both really happy together in the episode, so there wasn’t really any conflict
present when it comes to that storyline, at least not until the end of the
season finale. Once Emma, Hook and the woman they rescued had returned to the
present, Emma introduced the woman to Regina in order to assure her that Regina
isn’t necessarily evil any more. Unfortunately for Regina, upon being
introduced to each other it was promptly revealed that the woman that they had
rescued was none other than Robin Hood’s wife, Marion. Robin Hood had told
Regina earlier in the episode that he had come to believe that Marion was dead
and was therefore trying to move on with his life.
I know that Regina has done
a lot of bad and evil things in the past, but I’m still rooting for her to find
love and happiness with Robin Hood, or some other guy, if not him, so I feel
really bad for her at the moment. Personally, I hope that the return of Marion
won’t cause Regina to become full on evil again and she’ll be able to handle
the situation in a mature manner next season. If Regina goes back to being evil
again, I think that would destroy a lot of the character development and growth
that Regina has undergone throughout the course of the show’s first three
seasons. Who knows what will happen though? Maybe it will turn out that Marion
is a very bad person that Robin Hood wouldn’t want to be with any more, and
he’ll end up choosing to be with Regina instead. I guess only time will tell.
In the meantime, let’s just hope that Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz didn’t
learn how to handle character development on a TV show from the same people
that the creators of How I Met Your Mother did, because as far as I’m
concerned, Once Upon a Time already has enough problems to deal with.
Anyway, Regina was furious
with Emma to say the least, saying that she was just like her mother in the
sense that she doesn’t always think about how her actions have consequences.
Regina also told Emma that she better hope that she and Hook didn’t bring
anything else back from the past when they returned to the present.
This brings me to what I
found to be the most upsetting part of the season finale for me personally. In
the final scene of the episode, a jar was shown breaking open and a sky blue
color gel type of liquid pouring out of it, which eventually turned into a
woman that the producers have since confirmed is Elsa from Frozen. Once Elsa
was out of the jar and had finished transforming into her human form, she
strutted off to…somewhere, leaving an icy trail in her wake. I should probably
point out that this scene was done with a stand-in for Elsa since the role
hasn’t been cast yet.
(Sighs heavily in
frustration)
I know that the movie Frozen
has ended up being a huge hit, but personally I think it was a huge mistake on
Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz’s part to decide to incorporate characters from
the movie into the show. As far as I’m concerned the entire fan craze
surrounding Frozen is nothing more than a fad. Fads come and go, and sooner or
later people will become fixated on some other movie and probably won’t be
thinking too much about Frozen once that happens. I definitely had an issue
with Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz incorporating characters from
Frankenstein, Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz into the show since Once Upon a
Time is supposed to be about characters from fairytales, and none of those
stories are fairytales. I eventually learned to accept that they did that to
varying degrees since those stories have all been around for many, many years
and are considered timeless classics in literature.
Frozen, however, is not a
timeless classic. It’s a movie that came out less than a year ago. I know that
technically Frozen is loosely based off of the story “The Snow Queen”, which
was published in 1844, but the producers have already said that this isn’t “The
Snow Queen” that they are reimagining, it’s Frozen. I’ll admit that I’ve
already been having a lot of doubts about whether or not Edward Kitsis and Adam
Horowitz really know where the show is going in the grand scheme of things for
a long time now, and deciding to incorporate Elsa from Frozen only makes me
think of them as being like children with toys even more than I did before,
constantly getting excited about a new toy that they play with constantly for a
while until they get another new toy they become fixated on, largely forgetting
about the older toy.
As far as I’m concerned,
that’s not a trait that writers of a serialized show should have if they want
to make a good show. I think that the creators of a serialized show should
always have fairly concrete long-term plan for the show right from the very beginning
when the show is merely in the development stage rather than just making things
up as they go along. Otherwise, the writing for a serialized show will almost
always suffer greatly down the road, only to inevitably fail and I feel like that
has definitely been the case with most of the serialized TV shows that have
come and gone over the past several years.
I recently started watching
Babylon 5, which for those who aren’t too familiar with it is a science fiction
show that was heavily serialized throughout its five year run. Apparently, the
creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, already had a series bible and a five-year
plan for the show already created when he was pitching the show to networks in
the hopes that they would pick it up. It sounds like his plans for the show
were so concrete that improvisation was often discouraged and always had to be
approved by him beforehand since it could possibly interfere with his overall plans
for the show.
I know this might make J.
Michael Straczynski seem rather rigid and controlling as a creator of a TV
show, but from what I understand he had trap door built into every character in
the event that something would happen and the actor left the show for any
particular reason. What that essentially meant is that it sounds like he had
“backup characters” developed for each character that he could replace the
departing character/actor with without having to alter his overall plans for
the series all that much. He obviously did that because even he knew going into
the show that sometimes things happen and situations arise that cause lead
actors to leave a show. I think this would suggest that even if he did have a
very concrete grand vision for Babylon 5 right from the show’s conception, he
also knew that life doesn’t always work out the way people want it to, so he
would have to be prepared to be a little flexible if a situation that required
some flexibility arose. Based on what I know about Babylon 5 at this point, he
did indeed have to use several of his “backup characters” throughout the show’s
run, but I digress.
I’m not saying that all
creators of serialized TV shows need to be that detail oriented when it comes
working on a show like Once Upon a Time, but I do think having a detailed plan
and a concrete vision right from a serialized show’s conception is very
important. I just don’t think that Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz have ever
given the show that same level of thought, and this latest plot development
only makes me feel that way about the show even more than I did before.
I’ll be the first to admit
that while I initially wasn’t very happy at all about all of the new characters
(Namely Hook) that were added to the show in season two when the season began.
I was especially bothered by the decision to make Colin O’Donoghue a series
regular before his first episode even aired, because I felt like the show
already had too many characters as it is, many of whom were being rather
neglected. I still feel that way, however, I’m willing to admit that I ended up
loving Hook as a character to the point where both he as a character and Colin
O’Donoghue as an actor are one of the reasons why I keep watching the show
despite all of my frustrations with the show at the moment. The Hook/Emma
pairing is also another reason why haven’t stopped watching Once Upon a Time
yet.
I say all of this because
since I ended up being very wrong about how I felt that the addition of
Hook/Colin O’Donoghue to the show was a mistake originally, I’m willing to at
least try to keep an open mind regarding Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz’s
decision to incorporate elements from Frozen into the show for season four. I’m
not very happy with it at that moment, but I will try my best to keep an open
mind about it.
One thing that I forgot to
mention earlier in this review is that I found Princess Abigail to be rather
insufferable in all of the scenes that took place in the Enchanted Forest.
Given what a total bitch Abigail was to Charming, I can’t say that I blame him
for choosing Snow White over her, even if she is King Midas’ daughter, but I
digress.
All things considered, I
loved both parts of season finale, mainly because it was full of great moments
between Hook and Emma. I also enjoyed the stuff with Regina and Robin Hood, and
I wish that there had been more scenes between them in both parts of the season
finale. It was definitely very nice to see Regina be genuinely happy for once
rather than being happy because something bad has happened to someone she’s
upset with. The episode definitely could have used some more screen time
between Gold and Belle leading up to their wedding, because that just felt
rather tacked on with the way the writers handled it. Personally, I thought the
whole thing with Hook and Emma having to work together to resettle the timeline
so that Snow White and Charming would meet before the two of them could go back
to the present definitely dragged on too much and was a tad tedious at times,
but Hook and Emma’s interactions with each other throughout the whole process
definitely helped make up for that. I know I’ve probably made my objections to
Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz’s decision to incorporate elements from Frozen
into the show next season pretty clear, so I won’t say anything else about
that.
That being said, my final
score for the first part of the finale (“Snow Drifts”) is 7 out of 10, while my
final score for the second half of the finale (“There's No Place Like Home”) is
9 out of 10.
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