Season 5B was not well written. Half of the characters didn’t interact with anyone of relevance to their lives. Cora interacting with Regina was the most interesting thing that happened there and that is hard to take because of what Cora did to Regina and everyone else she met and murdered. Hook interacting with his brother and Emma realizing Liam was shady was the second most interesting interaction.
They made up a new backstory with Snow and Hercules so they could do some Greek Mythology instead of having Snow interact with say her parents or even Cora who she murdered. We find out Milah has been hanging out in the Underworld, but she never meets Hook because, seriously, what would they do with that? The whole Henry wanting to bring Curella back so that Emma isn’t a murderer was ridiculous. Emma killed Curella in self defense to save her kid. That’s not murder. Also, why not have Emma interact more with Cruella, that might have been interesting.
Whatever happened with the people who were thrown into the river of lost souls? Milah and Aunt Em?
They didn’t do anything interesting with James or Gaston and they could have. Instead, they were just bumps in the road which gave no character development to the regulars. I don’t remember Charming do anything interesting except talking to the baby over the seance phone. The Red and Dorothy episode was random and very badly constructed because it focused on Snow and the Red/Dorothy plot was more of an afterthought so that the writers could get their LGBT check mark.
Then there was the end where Robin died protecting Regina, then Zelena uses the crystal on Hades. Yet, Robin is special extra he can’t be brought back to life just because and Hook is then brought special extra back to life by Zeus just because. At Robin’s funeral.
Season 5A and 4B were bad, but 5B wasn’t some well written masterpiece either. There was some better character moments for Regina, but there was so much that was missed out on. Snow, Charming, Emma, and Rumpel pretty much had no interesting interactions with anyone who they knew who died or who they had killed besides Emma’s true dream with Neal. It also dragged on forever because everyone knew Hook would live and Hades would die, so just do it already.