Post — Aaron Ngo

Once Upon A Time is one episode away from the series finale! This episode was supposed to set up a good amount of nostalgia and emotional feelings, and while it did with a good meta-joke and many callbacks to earlier seasons, especially one that I wanted addressed regarding a certain prophecy, the episode failed to wrap up a few loose story lines like: How did Wish Realm Rumple even get to Hyperion Heights?

Better yet... Do we even care? Because why bother anymore...?

Spoilers for the episode moving forward:

The episode starts with a Young Henry Mills on a quest to rescue a princess. He struggles to defeat a dragon, but a handsomer young lad steps in and slays the beast with one sword throw to the chest. He gives true love's kiss to the sleeping princess, who questions Henry's presence.

Henry gives some excuse about wanting to see her wake, and she finds him "sweet" and 'like the brother she never had". Poor kid got friend-zoned to the max as the two lovebirds run off to celebrate their happy ending.

Wish Realm Rumple steps in and offers Henry the world: a princess, a castle, and a happy ending. That's what everyone wants in this show, a chance to have their own happy ending. But Henry refuses to deal with any version of the Dark One, he will find his happy ending the right way.

Cut to the present day!

Everyone is celebrating the end of the curse. Henry and his family are finally reunited, Robin and Alice are happily in love, Captain Nook is in the hospital but getting released, and Tiana is making everyone food.

But when Henry, Ella, and Lucy blow out candles on cupcakes to make wishes, they disappear. The exact opposite of what they probably wished for. Wish Realm Rumple appears and reveals he sent Henry's family to the Wish Realm. He offers to release them in exchange for the Original Dark One Dagger.

If Gold hands over his powers to the Guardian (Alice), Wish Realm Rumple will also lose his powers, and he wants to keep it for himself. He also goes in a rant about how weak his other counterpart is because he got himself infected with true love.

Regina finds Gold locked behind a magical wall and discovers her old lover is dead. She processes this quickly when Gold reveals the killer: Wish Realm Rumple! Regina and Gold are joined by Henry and Nook to formulate a plan of action.

Everyone agrees giving up the dagger is not an option.

"They don't negotiate with villains" is what Regina declares to her reformed villain pals and her son. This statement resonates with me because it shows how much development these former villains have gone through to get to this point.

Instead they all find a cracked looking glass mirror and decide to go to the Wish Realm. The four of them go through the portal but end up at two separate locations in the realm.

Captain Nook and Gold arrive at the Wish Realm version of his former home while Henry and Regina end up at Wish Realm Rumple's castle. These locations are meant to torture Gold and to remind him about his innate cowardice.

Gold finds the mallet he used to injure himself once upon a time. They take a look around but suspect Henry and Regina are elsewhere. Captain Nook decides to return to his old hangout spot and takes Gold along for something to use against his evil counterpart.

The Captain summons Ariel and after clearing up the confusion (she believes Gold is the evil one), gives them what they request. A small amount of squid ink to immobilize Wish Realm Rumple. Ariel wishes them luck because this Rumple is terrorizing this realm.

Henry and Regina explore the castle, finding Peter Pan locked up. He warns the duo that they will die if they continue to explore the castle. But they ignore him and continue onward, running into another familiar face.

Cruella de Vil is waiting for them and flirts with Henry. Wow that whole exchange made me so uncomfortable. Henry tells Regina he can handle this without magic and challenges Cruella to a duel. They have their fun until Henry bests her. Then Regina poofs Cruella back into her cage and question her on the whereabouts of Ella and Lucy.

She tells them that Ella and Lucy are in the dungeon. This rescue mission was getting too easy. Turns out finding them was the easy part.

When Henry and Regina find them, Ella and Lucy are trapped inside a small snow globe. It looks like the show completely pushed these new characters to the side (damsels in distress) to give the original characters their moments to shine one last time.

Wish Realm Rumple arrives and informs them that they have until midnight to save them and to hand over the dagger. Why? Because he started to fill the snow globe with falling snow.

He leaves them to consider their options. Regina tries her magic tricks to open the snow globe, but nothing works. The Dark One knows how to trap people effectively. Nook and Gold arrive with the squid ink. Henry is getting desperate, sounds familiar, and wants his grandfather to give up the dagger to save his family.

Gold refuses to do so, and Henry gets angry. He claims Gold would've done it without question if it was Gideon's life on the line and not Lucy. But Regina tells them to stop fighting. Giving up the dagger is not an option. Gold leaves to confront Wish Realm Rumple and Regina joins him.

Nook and Henry are assigned to reading books: looking up spells to break the enchantment on the snow globe.

Gold offers to hand over the dagger in exchange for his happy ending with Belle. Unable to resist such a tempting deal, Wish Realm Rumple accepts and takes the handle, falling victim to the squid ink. Gold prepares to rid the world or universes of this Rumple despite it may cost him his future/afterlife with Belle.

Regina walks in and distracts Gold of course, which leads to Wish Realm Rumple shaking the squid ink off. He claims the dagger and disappears, claiming his fun and games aren't over yet, reminding Gold about the prophecy: "the boy will be our undoing".

Whatever he has in mind: it involves Henry Mills and what he does next.

Henry figures out the only way to save his family is to use the Author's pen. He is the True Author and proceeds to knock Nook out. Henry knew he'd disapprove and heads out to seek the Apprentice. To prove himself, the Blind Man touches Henry and reviews the story in his heart.

"It is indeed a complicated story. The timelines alone would make one's head spin. Only a true author could weave such a tale."

I laughed pretty hard. The timelines are the most frustrating thing about this show. The Apprentice/Blind Man gives Henry the pen for proving himself but suggests adding more romance in his next story. Again I laughed because the love stories are not the best (except Prince Charming and Snow White). But he also reminds Henry once again that the Author is only supposed to record the stories and not create them.

But Henry disregards this warning and goes to save his family with a pen in hand. On the way back to the dungeon though, he steals the ink he needs to make the pen work from Cruella's hair. She is furious and swears revenge for ruining her hairdo!

Wish Realm Rumple swoops in before Henry can write a simple word. But Henry warns him he cannot use the pen without a True Author. In comes Young Henry, or more accurately, Wish Realm Henry. This is a good twist on the narrative but a predictable one if we thought hard enough.

The whole flashback scene at the episode's opening was not Henry's past but rather Wish Realm Henry who has nothing but bad luck. Poor kid. He never stood a chance.

Wish Realm Henry has given up on doing the right thing and made a deal to get his happy ending. He is also bitter at Regina for murdering his grandparents and taking Emma away back in season six when the Wish Realm was created.

Gold begs Wish Realm Henry not to write anything, but he instead listens to the evil one, writing word for word: "The powers of the Guardian are no more." This kills any chance Gold has at reuniting with Belle once and for all.

The heroes lose and the villain wins. As penance, Wish Realm Rumple banishes everyone except Regina away. He still has to hold up his end of the bargain with Henry 2.0 after all. This Henry wants to avenge his family, and rightfully so.

Alice feels a shock when the guardian powers leave her. She jumps to the right conclusion about their friends being in trouble, and she tells Robin. They go to Tiana, who is not feeling like a queen, but helps rally the people. I know Tiana is supposed to be a main character, but they really messed up with her character arc, if she even had one.

They find a magic bean, and of course Tiana stays behind with her love, while Robin and Alice decide to go save their friends. But they need to make a quick stop first to recruit some friends to help them. The magic bean takes the girls to Storybrooke!

THE FINAL BATTLE HAS BEGUN! AGAIN! FOR THE SECOND TIME! I'M READY TO LEAVE STORYBROOKE! AAAHHHH!

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