I thought this was a pretty good episode overall, though I think there are some weird muddy premises in there that I don’t know how I feel about.
Liked:
The Mills women. I adore Barbara Hershey, and she just does Cora so well — from the icy Past!Cora to the repentant UB!Cora. Lana and Bex were also wonderful and the scenes with the three of them were mostly really good
Cruella punching Emma.
The return of Peter Pan, terror that he is. I am actually looking forward to seeing what he and Rumple will be up to.
Mixed:
I don’t know about the message that what Zelena really needs is to find a “new love” with Hades. With the presumption that this is somehow a replacement for the love she’s missed out from Cora? As if romantic love and mother-daughter love are somehow the same sort of thing? And what about baby Pistachio, wouldn’t that be a more logical source of completion for Zelena? Unless this is set up as something that, in retrospect, will turn out to be bad advice. Narratively speaking, warnings from the dead should probably be taken seriously — when Cora says she thinks that something about this place has “warped” Hades, perhaps she’s right?
Disliked:
Babies as props. Seriously. Robin wandering around the woods logging a car seat. I mean, this is so utterly hilariously ridiculous, I can’t even. Or leaving the baby on the hood of a car. In the rain. Just sitting there. Someone, for the love of all that is holy, get Robin to a babywearing class. It’d be such a useful skill to have, seeing how he insists on using a bow.
Oy, the Rumple/Belle scene. No idea where this is going, but I suspect more of the same. More of the same Rumple’s gonna Rumple, and Belle is going to throw a tantrum as soon as she finds out. I am so so sad to say this, but I am so utterly sick of the repetitive writing for the Rumbelle plot. At this point, if the writers decide to do another “Rumple for the evilz all the way” storyline in this arc as well, they are just wasting the audience’s time.