The two-part season finale of Once Upon a Time (“Only You”/”An Untold Story”) brings to a close an uneven season that was initially full of promise.

Though it had a few truly great moments and a handful of stellar performances (Cora’s farewell! CaptainSwan reunion!), the season was ultimately disappointing.

On the bright side, the events of the season do lead to some interesting character growth for Regina and the introduction of a slew of new characters from a distant land in the finale, which serves to set up what will presumably be next season’s multi-villain arc.

Hopefully, Season 6 will benefit from the “new blood” that’s come to town along with the villainous Hyde and allow the series to explore new territory by going “off-book” (so to speak). It seems we’ve also swapped out several older characters (like Merida) who decided to go through Zelena’s portal and return home when they thought the destruction of Storybrooke was imminent.

Here are five reactions I had while watching the two-part season-ender.

Emma and Regina working together is the best

Henry’s two mothers spend a long while working together searching for their wayward son. Their partnership is hands down the strongest aspect of both parts of the finale. I almost wanted them to take a bit longer finding Henry because 1) I truly could care less about that kid and 2) Emma and Regina working together is so fun. I adore their bond.

Also, Regina’s confession to Emma while at Neal’s old apartment in New York? Amazing SwanQueen moment.

Regina: What if it doesn’t matter? There’s no redemption for me. There’s only suffering. Because now, I have a curse. The curse of knowing the difference between good and evil. And I’m caught between them. If I revert, I lose everyone I love. Henry… my friends… everyone. And if I go forward trying to be good, I have to live with my past darkness and all its well-deserved consequences.

Emma: I don’t believe that. I believe in you.

Regina: That’s because… you are good. But for me, it’s a simple choice, really. I’d rather suffer than see that pain on the people I care about. This is my fate. I’m trapped.

Stunning performances from our queen Lana Parrilla and Jennifer Morrison in this scene.

I don’t ‘ship’ these two romantically like I know a faction of fans do, but even I can appreciate what an incredible, profound moment this is for them, even in their current platonic relationship.

In general, I just love that they’ve come so far–from essentially being mortal enemies in the opening episode of the series to now being confidantes and close friends. Regina is and will always be the show’s best redemption arc and one of the best redemption arcs I’ve seen on any show ever.

Regina is rarely that open and vulnerable with anyone. Clearly, after Robin’s sudden and tragic death during the events of “Last Rites,” something broke open in Regina. This moment is emotionally significant and a long time coming, given Regina’s ongoing struggles with light vs. dark. It also nicely sets up the later Evil Queen twist, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Henry is such a teenager right now

I read somewhere that, hilariously, something like only two or three years are meant to have passed. This is ridiculous because of how much Henry has changed, in both appearance and in attitude. They’re fully embracing his teenagerhood, now.

I don’t love the “Henry and Violet run away together to destroy magic” storyline. I simply don’t find Henry very compelling or relatable and the chemistry between the two teens is nothing special–standard awkward teenager romance.

On top of that, Henry’s decision to destroy magic is ridiculous. I get that he’s distressed over magic causing so much harm and chaos in his family, but he doesn’t think his choice through at all. Though it turns out, in the end, that Rumple lied about the destruction of magic meaning the destruction of Storybrooke that very well could have been true.

It’s just so reckless, and it makes me more annoyed with Henry then anything else. Distractingly so. He manages to save the day in the end, by restarting magic in a sort of play on “Clap your hands if you believe in fairies!,” but even that moment feels off.

That New York fountain scene is almost unbearably cheesy. I live in New York, and I can tell you that somebody would have thrown rocks at Henry or flat-out ignored him if he’d pulled that move here. That group of people who took his word for it and tossed coins into the fountain must have been tourists.

BUT ANYWAY: I get why it’s all necessary on a plot-level. Henry needs to be the one to save the day, to regain his faith in the good of magic.

He needs to be relevant to the plot. He manages to pull everyone (except for Belle) back into their world through his makeshift fountain-portal. In the fracas, Rumple is also able to slip through and make his way to the Land of Untold Stories, which is where the real trouble begins.

The Land of Untold Stories seems cool and I request many flashbacks

I’m about tapped out on Enchanted Forest and Camelot flashbacks, but I’ll gladly sit through flashbacks establishing the backstories of new characters that have made their way over to Storybrooke from the Land of Untold Stories.

Henry and Violet find several storybooks in the New York library that appear, on the surface, to be identical to Henry’s storybook but are actually filled with entirely new stories we haven’t seen before. Brilliant!

I re-watched the scene a few times, as Henry flips through “Once Upon a Time: Volume II,” and here are a few of the characters I can *definitely* see in there:

Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack of Amerian folklore

Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels

Moving away from Disney and traditional fairy tale characters is a good thing. It quite literally opens up a whole new world for us to delve in to, and I’m excited to see how season six allows this to play out.

I’m already preparing for all the LOL-ing I’ll do at Paul Bunyan’s gigantic blue CGI ox.

Two Villains for Season Six

The season finale sets up two villains for next season. Whether they will end up working together or wreaking havoc separately remains to be seen, but I’m intrigued by the possibilities for each of them, both as a pair and as two individual antagonists.

First, the obvious: Hyde is the personification of evil–all of the bad aspects of Dr. Jekyll split off and crystallized into their own, monstrous form.

Sam Witwer absolutely nails it. He is so creepy and menacing as Once Upon a Time’s version of Hyde. Even his voice sounds like the epitome of evil.

I remember him as Davis over on Smallville and he’s just great, so I’m expecting big, impressive things from his Hyde next season. Especially since he’s already gone toe to toe with the Dark One and triumphed!

Next, we have the Evil Queen. Lana Parrilla is amazing and two Lanas? That can only mean great things.

Metaphorically, the splitting off of Regina’s Evil Queen persona using Dr. Jekyll’s serum is genius. Like Hyde tells Regina, banishing evil is not that easy, and clearly, crushing her evil double’s heart doesn’t work–that would have been far too simple.

By envisioning the Evil Queen as a new, separate person, the distillation of all of Regina’s anger, rage, and dark power, the show sets up a fantastic arc for real-Regina next season: a literal fight to destroy the darkness within her (now, without her) and achieve final redemption once and for all.

I think it’s going to be epic and full of amazing Evil Queen outfits. If Hyde and the Evil Queen team up, even better. I already see great chemistry between Lana Parrilla and Sam Witwer, in that quick penultimate scene.

What’s the deal with Rumple?

Note that I said two villains for season six and not three. I still don’t believe that Rumple is a villain or has any interest in being the villain at this point.

His interests are quite clear: he desires power to protect himself and his loved ones. He’s unwilling to be “good” and play nice at the expense of Belle’s and his unborn child’s lives.

Of course, he is willing to make a deal and hand Storybrooke over to Hyde in exchange for Hyde’s help breaking the curse on Belle. This is a perfectly Rumple decision: make the drastic, seemingly “necessary” decision now and worry about the consequences later.

He clearly doesn’t want to do evil for evil’s sake. It remains to be seen whether he’ll throw in with the heroes when they take on Hyde next season, once he gets what he wants out of Hyde and wakes Belle.

Bonus: THAT KISS!!!

Excuse me while I go fan myself for 4-5 months until the show comes back.

Other thoughts:

I enjoy Regina and Emma having the first half of the finale basically all to themselves, but it strikes me as a bit strange that Emma lets Hook out of her sight so soon after he’s miraculously returned from the dead. If I were her, I’d have been like, “Nope! You’re attached to me for the foreseeable future. Deal with it, buddy.”

Are we going to see Henry suffer any consequences for using the Author’s quill to retrieve the Olympian crystal from Rumple? They’ve made pretty clear that misuse of the Author’s quill is a huge no-no.

Like the Olympian crystal of “Last Rites,” we got yet another last minute plot device that conveniently no one knew about or mentioned until it was essential–the duplicate Holy Grail, which is capable of destroying magic.

I adore the musical score used in this finale. Gorgeous strings! It’s just perfect for the Victorian England vibes of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde’s section of the Land of Untold Stories, too.

Nobody cares that pregnant Belle is trapped in Pandora’s box, huh?

What did you think of the season finale of Once Upon a Time? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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