Once Turns 100: Once Upon A Time Season 5 Retrospective

Favorite episode?

The Dark Swan and Dreamcatcher.

The Dark Swan had a lot of funny moments and JMo/Bobby nailed the Emma DO Clippy! Rumple interactions. Yes, there were wonky bits but this far into the life of the series, which as much as went wrong toward the end, this episode started us off well.

Dreamcatcher was probably the most organic episode of the season. It fits comfortably inside OUAT version 1, family, Operation Cobra, Emma/Henry, plus tons of Neal/SF/Henry and his dad feelings.

Favorite Character Introduced?

Merlin, easily. It socks that the show killed him (and not just for political reasons) before we really got to see more of him. He was fun and if he had stuck around, I think he could have been a great mentor/teacher to Emma. Plus. Totally cute, amiright?

Favorite Moment?

Ooof. I don’t know. I honestly don’t have many. I really enjoyed Zelena’s snark  though. And Emma/Henry talking  about Neal.

Have Your Thoughts Changed?

Well, it hasn’t been that long since the season aired, but NO. This arc was by far the worst OUAT arc thus far. It was sloppy, illogical, ruined a lot of characters and mythology. The ending was painful (and not a good painful) because it didn’t seem to jive with anything set up in the beginning and several of the story lines were never resolved! OUAT has fallen into a lot of cliche writing and has begun self-plagerizing: killing the PoC, rape and wonky consent storylines, pointless fluff characters (Merida), and too much focus on ships made 5A a really bad experience.