SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
Is it just me, or was this mid-season finale different from how this show usually does them? More often than not, the mid-season finale concludes the first half of the season’s storyline but no such conclusions took place. That’s not a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just different.
Surprise of the season: Gideon – of all people – is the figure under the hood who is supposedly going to kill Emma (we all know that won’t happen). No one could have seen that coming. It was so random.
Why is he going to kill Emma? Given that he was kidnapped by his grandmother, the Black Fairy, and she’s evil, it’s safe to say that he was raised evil. But the question still remains.
Also, if something had happened to Mother Superior, and the fairies knew she had Belle and Rumple’s child under her protection, why did they – Belle and Rumple – have to call them to find out? The fairies should have called them. That would have been a much better way for that particular story to have unfolded.
I really wish the writers had not gone in this direction with the Gold family’s story though. Not just the fact that Gideon is apparently evil now, and that in and of itself is not a bad thing, but the fact that Belle’s effort to keep him safe is now being presented as having been a mistake and a failure. The writers are making it look like she made the wrong decision and I still feel like it was the right one.
Given everything that she went through with Rumple this season and seasons past since the deterioration of their marriage, it doesn’t sit well with me that her decision is being presented that way. There really wasn’t anything else she could have done to protect Gideon from Rumple. Now that he was kidnapped by the Black Fairy and maybe turned evil, being raised by Rumple was not the worst thing that could have happened to him but it still was not ideal.
At the start of the episode I thought that we would get to see Emma’s vision come true, because it was revealed that the sword that will kill her can hurt the Evil Queen without bringing harm to Regina. Emma started going after the Evil Queen and everything and then the story totally diverged into what was essentially filler with the Evil Queen and the magic lamp and Genie Aladdin. That felt a little pointless and all of that happened just to bring back Robin in order to wrap up the episode with a disappointing ending.
My biggest problem with how the show is handling the sword is that it kind of just came out of nowhere that it was the perfect weapon to defeat the Evil Queen. We’ve been seeing it all season – in Emma’s visions – but at no point was it even slightly hinted it that what kills Emma is just as important as who. I wish the writers had established its importance and built it up some before this episode. The reveal that it can kill the Evil Queen would have had more impact.
It felt like the writers decided to just throw that in at the last minute. Not that they had always intended that to be the case.
The Evil Queen was terribly mishandled. She had so much potential going into it given the end of the last. The writers set themselves up to tell this epic, intriguing, very interesting story and they totally dropped the ball on that and wasted what could have been an amazing story. In fact, they spent the entirety of this half of the season fumbling and floundering with virtually all of the storylines. So far this season has been a mess.
Wish world Emma was really weird. Seeing her as a weak, cowering damsel that sings as she skips through the forest was the strangest things ever. It started to look like Regina was going to awaken Henry as the Saviour and not Emma. That would have been an interesting direction for the show to have gone in.
What happened when Regina was walking down the aisle to the Charming family though? The over head shot and the shot from the crowd looked very strange. Like the footage was sped up. It was awkward, jarring and disorienting.
Random thoughts:
- Emma got wiped out of existence!
- The costumes in Emma’s wish world are stunning.
- Aladdin saying “Ew” when the Evil Queen touched him was hilarious. I wish Regina hadn’t basically slut shamed her immediately after though.
- I kind of like the loop hole they came up with for the ownership of the lamp.
- I prefer Rumple as Rumple and not Mr. Gold. Seeing him here only reminded me of how awesome he used to be.
- Poor Aladdin getting passed around and used.
- Emma: “That other person kind of sucked.” Regina: “Singing Princess Emma..isn’t my favourite model.” Speaking for the audience.
