Hercules was mostly fine–and I love the sight gag of him carrying two huge anchors around in present day. But a lot of this episode feels like 402 in which we had Anna meet Charming and she’s the one who taught Charming how to fight and how to be a hero. It wasn’t a super idea back then and it’s not one now. I have an issue with a character never before alluded to popping out of thin air to teach our heroes how to be heroes. It’s lazy and it makes the guest character look like a plot device themselves. While the message that being a hero (and future queen) is about making hard choices even when you’re scared it definitely applicable, it’s a lesson Snow learned when she was far younger, with her mother Eva and that impending death. And that lesson learned at that time was far more weighty and meaty and meaningful. Little Snow saying that the crown was “heavier than it looks” told me all I need to know about Snow as a young princess–she would struggle because it’s not an easy task, but she’d come through because she knows how to be compassionate but make hard choices. I didn’t need some hunky boy to pluck her from a hole in the ground and explain heroism to her.
And Meg. Wow. Yeah, not good. Not good at all.