Ok… here’s goes nothing. This may be the most negative I’ve been about the show in awhile so bare with me.
Overall: 5/10
I thought this episode was pretty awful.
Liked:
– That they followed through on this LGBT relationship. There were issues, but at least it was something.
– Snow and Ruby’s talk about how Snow knew for a long time about Ruby. It was true, it was heartfelt, and very realistic and Snow was the perfect person to have that conversation with her. Best scene of the episode.
– Hades turning Auntie Em into gloop was pretty great.
– Belle coming to Zelena for help was great too. Enjoyed that scene quite a lot.
– Snowing actually feeling bad for leaving baby Neal. We all jumped on the writers for not addressing this at the end of season 5a, and I’m glad they found a way to get Snow back to her son. Plus spitting up those two usually makes them more interesting honestly.
– Hook’s redemption? He actually had a nice conversation with Charming and Charming admitted Hook was growing on him. And Hook actually thanked him and almost sort of apologized for not seeming more grateful. But it is also makes more sense to me now….Hook seems less grateful not because he’s a jerk but because he didn’t want Emma to save him, never mind have the whole motley crew come down for him. He obviously is thankful, but it’s hard to be really thankful when he didn’t want them to do it in the first place.
– Henry actually being the author and calling Charming Grandpa. It’s the little things writers…
– Once again Hades and Zelena are sort of stealing the show this half season.
Mixed:
– Realm jumping has just become way too easy. And I get why it has become that way. They need new stories, so they need new realms and they need to send these characters to these realms. Problem is that the way they told seasons 1-3, getting to different realms was extremely difficult. Now it’s not and the show suffers a bit for it.
Disliked:
– How did Ruby get to the UW exactly? A tracking spell (although wasn’t a tornado what brought her here).
– Ruby Slippers happened so fast. They continue to have this problem. Had the relationship been with another character, perhaps it would have felt less rushed because we had seen Ruby with them before. That’s what I thought they meant when they said they were setting up this relationship in season 5a. This was crazy fast, and honestly just so early for true love’s kiss.
– Poor Mulan. This was heartbreak hotel for me. I stood by this character being in the LGBT relationship and I said I would be angry if she wasn’t part of it, so I am. How many times is she going to use pronouns? How many times are the people around her going to find love and she isn’t? Why even bring Mulan back for this crap? Anybody who saw season 2, knows Mulan was being set up for this relationship. Why that changed is beyond me. Even in season 5a, they had Red leap onto Mulan, and then they showed that in the beginning of this episode as well. All signs pointed to Mulan. But then they cast this random girl who they wanted to be “warrior Dorothy”, and she really was only cast so they could pair her with Ruby. They had never met before. She also literally sucked. Did she display any sort of warrior fight in her at all in the two episodes we saw? She got burned by Zelena a couple episodes ago, and now she needed Ruby to escape some flying monkeys. And then she went and got herself pricked into a sleeping curse. What a waste and a bland character. With Mulan, they had met before. It would have felt way less rushed. Especially since they allegedly have been together doing stuff since 5a. Why did they change this? I just don’t get it. The relationship was nice in that it was nice to see this kind of relationship fully accepted on this show. But boy did they mess this part up. And now both characters will just go to forgotten character island. So not only did they screw up Mulan here, but now this LGBT relationship is only going to be for one episode. We aren’t even going to see it continue to be played out like all the other couples on here. Very furious about this. Ok rant over.
– The plot literally stopped this week. What on earth is Hades’ end game? What is the friking point of his character right now? We still don’t know so much and it’s reminding me of season 3b.
– Belle putting herself in the sleeping curse. Like WHAT? How is it that Hades can’t get the baby if she is knocked out? That makes no sense. And equally, it makes no sense that she would think her father would be the one to wake her up. Her father isn’t even in the UW! Is she crazy? This was so dumb and it made Belle look rash and she didn’t even let Rumple try and explain why this was a horrible idea. What a dud to end the episode on.
– Where on earth was Robin. There was a line Regina even said saying that Robin would want Snow to check in on Roland in SB. Are you kidding me? Like where the heck was this man?
We better get some answers as to what they plan to do to defeat Hades, and how they plan on saving Hook, because remember, he is still actually dead! The plot is a mess right now. This half season started so strong and the last two just have stopped the UW plot and it’s maddening. Hopefully next week gives us some good Regina and Zelena stuff and moves the plot along. But this was the worst episode of this half season by far for me.