Ok, finally got to watch this. All in all, this was a perfectly adequate episode, but also utterly forgettable.
Liked:
Regina’s lines were on point and hilarious. She consistently has some of the best dialogue in the show, but at some point this “Regina’s there to deliver the snark” role is going to exhaust itself. So far, though, it works fine.
Snow finally renouncing her identity as MM, with an added quip about the uselessness of Hallmark motivational speeches. Finally! Maybe she can also ditch the heinous MM fashion, while we’re at it.
Cruella’s back!
Hades. I think so far I’m enjoying how the actor plays him.
Mixed:
I didn’t really mind the Herc storyline, but I’m not crazy about what they did to Megara. Did the writers decide they’d reached their strong women quota, and that any new female character they introduced from here on has to be a helpless damsel in distress?
The medals for Hercules’s labors is what would happen if a quarters collection and a video game achievements system had a love child.
Let me get this perfectly straight then: the pen is alive, and a magical entity, and is the epitome of unfinished business, because… why? Because it has to be used? Because it has a specific story to write and it hasn’t written it? Because it didn’t want to die? And why does Cruella suddenly have great insight into the nature of the pen? I’m putting this in mixed because at least we now have a story for Henry, and something for him to do, which marginally justifies why he got dragged along to the UW. But still, this is just a little silly.
Disliked:
Ham-fisted rehashing of the “try try again” message. There are better, more subtle ways to do this.
Total lack of explanation, even foreshadowed, about why Hades is torturing Hook (or Megara for that matter). Actually, Megara and her connection to Hercules at least makes sense, since it seems that Hades has a bone to pick with his bro (and hence his offspring). So far my understanding is that Hades is a kind of mid-level bureaucrat at an institution like an other-worldly DMV, presiding over what is essentially a waiting line before whatever comes next. His goal, as it appears, is to maximize the amount of people stuck in said waiting line because… well, I suppose because it augments his sense of power and self-importance. This seems odd, though — unless a lot of people don’t have unresolved business when they die, Limbo-Brooke should be majorly overcrowded. Seriously, where is everybody? Anyway, Hades for some reason doesn’t actually want anyone to move on, so they run about depressed, doing whatever repetitive things they’re doing, and unable to move out of the UW. Or something like that. But then why focus on Hook and torture him? For the lulz? Myeh. Anyway, so far my biggest gripe with this half-season is that the world building is limping along in a way that’s confusing rather than intriguing.