A Season In Review: Best & Worst Episodes

[MatthewPaul]

BEST EPISODE: “Second Star to the Right”/”And Straight On Til’ Morning”
I’m going to cheat a little, but these two episodes were intended to be watched together and are essentially a two-parter as the titles suggest. This Season finale just had everything. I loved getting to finally get a peek at Neverland, and FINALLY seeing more of Bae’s backstory following his departure from FTL. The dark twist with Peter Pan and The Shadow were both interesting and creepy. I also loved seeing Bae and Hook interact, as it reminded me of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver from “Treasure Island.” Rumple, Regina and Hook all had their redeeming moments in these episodes. We had Rumple admitting to his mistake of bringing magic into town, restoring Belle’s memories, and he stopped thinking about avoiding the prophecy for the sake of protecting his grandson. We had Regina own up for all of her mistakes by trying to stop the trigger, and she made peace with the Charmings for their common goal of saving Henry. Even Hook redeemed himself by helping get one of the beans and offering his ship as a vessel to retrieve Henry. The ending is of course a great set-up for Season 3.

Best Runner Up: “Queen of Hearts”
This episode was a huge relief for many reasons, the biggest being Emma and Snow’s much needed return from FTL. We even got an epic showdown with them, Mulan, and Aurora against Hook and Cora at Lake Nostos. Even the flashback with the reveal that Cora was the Queen of Hearts was fun to see, along with witnessing how she and Hook avoided the curse. So much was resolved, and it was a very satisfying Winter Finale.

WORST EPISODE: “Selfless, Brave and True”
This has got to be the most hated episode of the Season. I was not a huge fan having August randomly gone for over half of the Season, and his returning episode was a huge letdown. As other people have said, the flashback with Neal and the Dragon was just too weird and out of place, and Tamara’s role was just annoying. We also had the infamous taser, which even Adam & Eddy admitted was a big screw-up thanks to getting responses from many fans who accused them of not knowing how wood and electricity work. I’m also not a huge fan of reverting August to a little boy again. Geppetto pulled that whole stunt with the wardrobe, and yet he gets a second chance with Pinocchio as a little boy, while Snow didn’t with Emma? Not only that, but we as an audience didn’t fall in love with the kid Pinocchio we only briefly saw. We were in love with the fully grown August that we saw for half of Season 1. Rebooting August felt more like it was an excuse to write Eion Bailey off the show.

Worst Runner Up: ‘In The Name of The Brother”
This was the episode that really started the ratings slope for the remainder of the Season. As much as I’ve loved Jane Espenson’s other episodes, this was certainly her weakest episode of the series thus far. Everything about the episode just felt out of place, angsty, and a bit too dark. I actually enjoyed “The Doctor”, but the flashback in this episode was a poor continuation of Frankenstein’s storyline. The only thing I really enjoyed in this episode was the Frankenwolf scene, particularly the “I ate my boyfriend” line. 😆

[obisgirl]

BEST EPISODE:
And Straight On ’til Morning – This episode was amazing. I wasn’t sure how serious the writers were about destroying Storybrooke, but I’m glad our heroes were able to save Storybrooke in the end. It was nice to see Emma use her True Love superpower again. Emma called Mary Margaret and David “mom” and “dad.” That was nice. Blue made a potion to help Belle remember who she is. It’s so nice that Lacey storyline wasn’t dragged out too much. It was nice to see more of Hook’s backstory with Bae and that he so wanted to change and forget his revenge at that point. And then in Storybrooke, in the present, Hook’s about to leave but then he has second thoughts and then BOOM! He pulls a Han Solo and he comes back to help our heroes. That was awesome. And a nice setup for going to Neverland next season.

Best Runner Up:
Tallahassee – Every time I analyze or come across a new interpretation of this episode from a CS standpoint, it makes me love it even more. Now, I can’t wait for Once to come to Netflix so I can watch this episode and Snow Falls back to back. Because both episodes follow the same pattern, showing our two female lead’s past/present.

WORST EPISODE:
Selfless, Brave & True – While I hated the character of August, the thing that still bothers me the most about this episode is the squashing of character development. As a writer, I love my character development. Remember, we all obsessed about who was August in season one; but since August is a kid again, all that stuff he went through in season one doesn’t really matter anymore because he doesn’t remember it. I hated this episode so much, after viewing one time, I deleted it from my DVR never to be watched again.

Worst Runner Up:
Welcome to Storybrooke — I know everyone was excited about this episode because of the return of a certain Sheriff who shall not be named, but to be honest, I was disappointed with the flashbacks. Making everything a time loop felt like a waste of time for the episode, which was supposed to show us how all our characters were trapped in time. I felt like it could have done differently, like instead of repeating a day, maybe a week. Although the opening sequence with the curse hitting was cool and it was nice to finally confirm when Storybrooke was created.

In the Name of the Brother, would be a second choice for runner up because it also felt like a filler episode, and the pacing of it was weird.

[heatherc1275]

BEST EPISODE: Manhattan
This was probably one of the least action packed episodes of the season but it makes my list as my favorite season two episode simply for all the emotional power it packed into so many characters lives. Emma seeing Neal again, Rumple finding his son, Neal discovering that Emma had his child after he left her, Henry discovering that Emma lied to him about his father, and the Rumple backstory of his time in the Ogre Wars…it was non stop emotion and I think this is when OUAT is at it’s very best, packing an emotional punch. 😀 I LOVE this episode and OMG, the desperation I have right now for there to be a commentary on the season two DVD from Jennifer Morrison and Michael Raymond-James for this episode is VERY high.

Best Runner Up: (tie) Second Star to the Right, Straight On Til Morning
These were intended to be a two part episode so I’m putting them together too as my second favorite episodes of the season. I think every single character was important at some point during the two hours and there was a great combination of action and emotional turmoil going on throughout both episodes too. They were just utter perfection and set things up amazingly for season three.

Honorable Mention: Tallahassee
The start of my SwanFire and Michael Raymond-James fandoms and I LOVED getting some back story for my favorite character, Emma. I’ll gladly take a commentary from Jen and MRJ for this episode if I don’t get the one for Manhattan, LOL 😆

WORST EPISODE: Selfless, Brave, and True
This one is only the worst for me because August never apologized to Emma for what he did to her and Neal all those years ago and that was the ONLY thing I wanted to see in this episode. I’m still bitterly disappointed that we never got that moment and now that August is a child size Pinocchio again, we’ll never get to see it and that is just not okay for me. 😥

Worst Runner Up: In the Name of the Brother
I just couldn’t get into the story that much and honestly, even now I can barely remember what all happened in this one and that’s definitely not a good sign if you can’t remember anything that went on during an episode! 😯

#MoreBOOMLessGloom

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