The episode started with a
flashback to the Apprentice paying a visit to the Sorcerer (I guess? It was
basically just a voice speaking from a cauldron of smoke, but who else could it
have been), telling him about the Author’s wrongdoings, and delivering the
first WTF-worthy line of the episode – about twenty seconds in, which must be
some kind of record: "The Saviour... he made me channel her potential for
darkness into Maleficent's child." Oookay. So basically, if we’re to
believe that that channeling ritual was, in fact, real, and not just something
the Author came up with, then wouldn’t this mean that Emma no longer has a
potential for darkness? Not even a little one. And if that’s the case, what the
hell is even Rumple trying to achieve, turning Emma dark and everything, if
it’s virtually impossible to do that? He’s supposed to see the future and know
these things. But then again, Emma has to have a potential for darkness because
as little a crime thievery is compared to some of the other shit happening on
this show, it’s still a crime, and I’m not sure a 100% percent darkness-free
person could physically commit a crime, not even a little one like that... how
does this „potential for darkness” works anyway? Because I’m pretty sure every
single human being on earth has it, and if Emma doesn’t, does that mean that
she’s technically not even human anymore, but something supernaturally pure
instead? Or is it possible that I’m thinking WAY too much about this...
definitely more than the effort it took for the writers to come up with this
storyline, I would say.
Next stop was in Granny’s Diner,
where the Charming family (and Regina... sorry, still not including her in that
phrase) were discussing their next move against Rumple, when Maleficent
interrupted by walking in and asking Emma to find her daughter, Lilth.
Naturally, Emma immediately knew who that has to be, muttered „No way”, then ran
off to make sure she was right. Regina eventually went after her and rudely
interrupted Emma’s reminiscing about her childhood friend, Lily. That moment
reminded me a lot of the one earlier in the season, when Snow was watching a
video of teenage Emma, completely enamored by seeing her baby daughter for the
very first time, and Regina interrupting her in a similar way, not giving a
shit that it was primarily HER fault that Emma grew up without her family. And
in typical OUAT fashion, no one said a word about it or told her to shut the
fuck up, because people on this show only remember the events of the first two
seasons whenever it is convenient for the plot. Sigh. Anyway, Emma was
devastated about this latest turn of events, and how could anyone’s heart not
break when she whispered "So the only friend I ever had wasn't even my
friend by choice." Poor baby, after this episode I want to hug her more
than I ever have. Then Regina started talking about redemption which, haha,
okay, I’m not even going to comment on that. I WILL, however, comment on the
next two WTF lines of the episode:
- "Our actions are our own but fate pushes us." Oh really? That’s interesting. Could it be that you only say that because all through this season the writers have tried really, really hard to sell the point that since the Author used to have the power to alter the stories, then that means that whatever free will these characters had before he was caught was very, very limited, and basically all the horrible things they did were actually only partly their faults? Fate my ass.
- "You have to find this girl to redeem your parents.” First of all, Emma doesn’t HAVE to do anything, and she certainly doesn’t have to do it INSTEAD of her parents. They screwed up, they should be the ones to fix it. And second, „redeem”, seriously? So it is now Snow White and Prince Freaking Charming whose redemptions we should be worrying about? How about you try to redeem your freaking VILLAINS first, show. Okay, okay, deep breath... I know I’m nitpicking here. But seriously, this season can’t be over soon enough, because I’m way over my tolerance level when it comes to this storyline. And yes, this IS my favourite show in all the universe... sad that it has come to this, isn’t it.
After her best attempt at a
pep-talk, Regina admitted that she actually needs Emma to go look for Lily
because then they can go and look for Robin too, because she knows she wouldn’t
fare well alone. You didn’t really think she would try to cheer up and reassure
Emma without having her own reasons behind it, did you?
It was very painful to watch Emma
not saying goodbye to her parents as she prepared to take off, but at least I
had that incredibly sweet and adorable Captain Swan scene to comfort myself
with.
"Be careful, Swan. As
someone who started on the side of good, and went dark, take my advice.
Vengeance is tempting, but darkness always is. Resist it. "
"Why couldn't you?"
"I didn't have anything to
live for. You have your parents, Henry..."
"You?"
"Aye, me. And I you. That's
what's kept my on my path now. Use whatever it takes to stay on yours."
Not gonna lie, I was getting
steadily more frustrated by the lack of Captain Swan scenes in the last couple
episodes, but now I kinda feel like this scene alone was worth the wait. It
basically summed up everything that makes their relationship perfect, and
Killian’s beautiful smile when he said „aye, me” is what rainbows and puppies
and baby unicorns are made out of. Yes, I am
completely and irrevocably in love with Captain Swan and everything they stand
for, how did you guess?
The first place Emma and Regina
tried to look for Lily was in her old apartment building, where they ran into
this dude who told them that she had died and then said some truly nasty things
about her, for which Emma proceeded to beat him up so hard that Regina could
hardly stop her. It was at this point that I started to feel that they’re
deliberately overplaying the way Emma’s darkness is apparently taking her over,
because it really didn’t make any sense for her to get that angry at that guy for badmouthing the friend that she thought
she had lost more than a decade ago, and even back then barely knew.
Eventually it turned out that
Lily was still alive after all (surprise, surprise), but she didn’t seem all
that happy about being reunited with Emma, and promptly lied to her about
having a great life with a husband and daughter just so that she would stop
pestering her with all this talk about fate and darkness and being cosmically
connected. Fortunately, Emma’s superpower/built-in lie detector is still
working just fine when it really has to, and she decided to investigate Lily’s
current apartment anyway. It quickly became apparent that Lily might believe in
destiny a lot more than she lets on, as one of her walls was covered with
information about Storybrooke and pictures of some of its residents, with Snow
and Charming’s faces being circled by a red sharpie. Everyone who watches
Revenge knows what this means: Lily was out for BLOOD. Also, she stole Emma’s
car, but luckily she wasn’t the only around who knew how to do that. Emma and
Regina raced after her and caught her while still outside Storybrooke, where
magic is useless but guns work just fine, as Emma was all too ready to
illustrate it on Lily. That’s what you get for trying to hurt the Saviour’s
family! Then we had one of the more ridiculous scenes of the episode when
Regina tried to talk Emma out of murder by saying shit like "The journey
back isn't easy. Trust me, I know." WTF line nr. 4, because from where I
sit, it was pretty damn easy for Regina to make that journey back. All she had
to do was help out a couple times and cry a lot, and everyone in Storybrooke
magically forgotten that they were literally cursed out of their happy endings for
28 freaking years because of her, among other things. I did promise myself that
I would try to dial back my Regina-hate as much as possible so that I don’t
scare away potential readers, but it’s so hard, man. Anyway, Emma took her
advice and didn’t murder Lily, thank God. Instead they all went together to
rescue a completely clueless Robin from the clutches of Zelena, and that’s when
it was revealed that it’s not going to be so easy for him to leave his fake
wife and go back to Regina, because... drumroll... she’s pregnant! Hahahahahaha
oh boy, I was literally whooping when I heard this. What a twist! I don’t even
know if I seriously like it or if I’m just being a sarcastic asshole, but one
thing I do know: I was unfairly mad at the writers for making it too easy for
Outlaw Queen. Provided that Zelena is not just fucking around and she really is
pregnant, it will be incredibly interesting to see how this is gonna play into
Regina and Robin’s happily ever after. Ah man... I can’t wait to see how this
one plays out, with only three episodes left of the season.
There were two other, smaller
plotlines in the episode that I wanted to talk about real quick. The first one
is obviously the flashbacks to Emma’s past, when the arrival of Lily completely
screwed up her life, just as she was about to embark on her very first family
vacation. How can you NOT want to tear you heart out and make the writers eat
it after that? Anyway, from the moment that Lily showed up I was suspecting
that she was just trying to fuck Emma over, and in a way I was right, but not
in the way I expected to be. Because the promo for this episode had branded her
Emma’s mortal enemy, I thought she already knew the truth about their lineage
at this point and somehow wanted to use it against her. It turned out that she
didn’t, and all she really wanted was some money so that they can escape their
respective families and live on the road together, or something like that. Emma
wasn’t so keen on this idea because she actually wanted to stay with her foster
family, and basically told Lily to get lost and fend for her own, even after
Lily begged her to help her out. Not that I blame Emma in any way, because the
way Lily was going about things was seriously fucked up... although, and I
found this kinda weird, Emma wasn’t technically kicked out of her foster home.
She stormed out by herself when the parents didn’t include her in their speech
about „our children”, and they even called after her to stay... so who knows,
maybe they would have gotten over Emma’s lying about how she knew Lily over
time, which would mean that Emma actually depraved herself of a chance to stay a part of their family... but this is
too sad to think about so let’s just say they would have kicked her out anyway.
This storyline ended with Emma leaving Lily, and Lily getting on a bus by
herself, where she just happened to meet the Apprentice by chance, and this is
the story of how she knew everything about her parentage, and Emma’s role in
her „destiny”. While we’re at it, let’s not forget WTF line nr. 5: "You
are not as responsible for your own misery as you would believe.” Bla bla bla,
your fate is already written, nothing’s your fault, bla bla bla.
And finally, there was Rumple’s
quest to get back Belle’s heart from Regina’s office, which is probably the
most fucked up thing that happened in this episode... not the getting it back
part, but the fact that Regina still had it in the first place. After I had
grinded my teeth all the way through that terrible scene last week where she
threatened to crush Belle’s heart if Rumple dared to make a move while she was
out of town, I just thought it was the most obvious thing ever that she went
and immediately returned the heart after. After all, she didn’t really plan to
crush it, it was just a ruse, so why keep it? Wasn’t the whole point that
Rumple has to think that you have it?
So you can probably understand my bewilderment when it was revealed that Regina
did indeed keep Belle’s heart in the usual little box in her office. What a
fucking joke. Redeemed villain my ass. But at least she doesn’t have it any
longer, as Rumple enlisted Will Scarlet’s help in getting it back. I’m still
not sure how I feel about the Will/Belle relationship, I mean we literally have
no background on them and will we ever find out what happened to Will’s True
Love, Anastasia? But even Rumple admits that Will is a better man for Belle
than he could ever be, so for the time being I have no problem with them being
together. I do have a HUGE problem with this line from Rumple though, which we
might even name the biggest WTF of them all: "My heart is nearly black,
and if I continue hurting you, then there's no hope for me." Why, because
you WOULD happily continue hurting her if it wasn’t for your decaying heart?
What are you even trying to say??? Rumple has always been one of my favourite
characters, partly thanks to his unapologetic evilness, but fuck me, even I
have my limits.
Episode MVP: Abby Ross as Young Emma. This was not the first time
she has portrayed the teenage version of Emma and hopefully it won’t be the
last either, because she’s always wonderful. And can I just say how happy I am
that after four seasons we’re finally getting to see Emma’s life before
Storybrooke, or at least some of it? Because I am.
Quote of the episode:
"THIS IS THE REAL WORLD
REGINA, THERE ARE NO HEROES AND VILLAINS, JUST REALPEOPLE WITH REAL
PROBLEMS" - Emma Swan
Capitalized not because Emma was
shouting it, but because FUCKING THANK YOU. I couldn’t ever put it into words,
but I have a huge problem with the way the characters keep classifying
themselves and each other as ’heroes’ and ’villains’, which as far I remember
is something that wasn’t prevalent before season 4, but now it is literally all
they talk about all the time. Which basically goes against one of the biggest
reasons why people love this show in the first place, namely that no matter how
many fantastical adventures these characters get into, they always behave like
real, actual human beings, people you can understand and relate to, and not
like clichéd, one-dimensional fairytale characters. Emma Swan giving voice to
my own annoyance was, not gonna lie, the highlight of the season for me.
Random tidbits:
- The scene with the Author at
Cruella’s grave was really sweet, but I didn’t really know what to make of
Emma’s appearance there. Jennifer Morrison does a fantastic job portraying
„Dark Emma”, and she looked absolutely wicked in that scene, but it felt a
little bit out of place for me.
- All throughout the episode I kept
getting annoyed at Regina calling Emma ’Swan’. I made a note of it twice, first
I wrote DON'T CALL HER SWAN when she was trying to get Emma to go and find
Lily, and then later STOP CALLING HER SWAN when she was trying to talk her out
of shooting Lily. It probably shouldn’t bother me this much but calling her
’Swan’ was always Killian’s thing, before this episode he was literally the
only one who did so. ’Emma’ and ’Miss Swan’ worked just fine for Regina for
almost four seasons, why this abrupt change now?
- I’m not about to get into any
shipping wars and I’m always iffy about people accusing the writers of fanservice,
because so many of those times is actually just two characters interacting with
each other in a completely logical way and the fans blowing it out of
proportion... but lately I’ve been noticing it more and more whenever Emma and
Regina share a scene, and I do wonder whether Regina saying „I need you” and
Emma saying „Tell me, your Majesty” in this episode was really necessary...
- Lily’s boyfriend was briefly
mentioned in the flashbacks but never shown, and rule of TV says that whenever
a character is mentioned but not shown, they WILL turn up eventually. I wonder
if that’s the case here, and whether this mystery boyfriend will be in any way
important later.
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