My Thoughts: Once Upon a Time

So OUAT (Once Upon a Time) has been a favorite show of mine for years. It premiered in 2011. I remember seeing the previews for it and being super excited. I love fairy tales, I love Disney and I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the first episode hit and I loved it. It was a little rocky in the beginning but it found it’s footing and it led us into season two and so on. Sunday May 14, 2017 was the season six finale and it was a two parter. I always feel like this show should be two hours considering how much goes on and how much I feel is glossed over or left out.

So this is going to be a two parter to prevent it from being uber long. This post will be my thoughts on the show and the following part will be where I think the show will go in the next season as it’s been renewed by ABC. There will be spoilers ahead, of the season 6 finale as well as the entire show SOOOO if you don’t want to be spoiled be aware. If you have not caught up with the show, don’t read this because I will be spoiling all throughout INCLUDING the finale.

This is also JUST for Once Upon a Time NOT Wonderland. I might mention it but this is not about it.

Warning: This will probably also be long. Sorry Not Sorry.

The story

A young woman with a troubled past is drawn to a small town in Maine where fairy tales are to be believed.

Season 1– The Evil Queen interrupts Snow White and Prince Charming’s wedding to gloat about the Dark Curse she’s planning to unleash on everyone, to ruin their happy endings. A majority of the characters are transported to the town of Storybrooke, Maine where they no longer remember their original lives. Emma Swan is brought to Storybrooke on her 28th birthday by her biological son Henry Mills. He hopes she would break the curse cast by The Evil Queen Regina his adoptive mother.

• This was my favorite season. I think the first two or three episodes are kind of hard because they’re a bit slow but things start to pick up. It was fun meeting new characters in Storybrooke and working alongside Emma and Henry to figure out who they are and how their stories fit in with the others. It was the most fun and most fresh. It was also kind of a bit dark with the whole storyline of Mary Margareta and David having an affair even though he was engaged. Plus, I think it’s when Rumple/Gold is at his best and when the story was pretty straight forward and didn’t have so many holes that required even more ridiculous answers to fill the ridiculous holes.

Season 2- Emma has broken the curse but the characters did not return to the fairy tale world and now must deal with their dual identities. Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin brings magic into Storybrooke and new threats are introduced in Captain Hook and Cora, Regina’s mother (The Queen of Hearts).

It was after season 2 that they started doing the split the season into two separate arcs (which I don’t think always worked).

• In this season everyone is dealing with the fact that they have woken up, they are finding each other, their family members and loved ones. It’s beautiful, and Emma gets to officially meet her parents. This is also when Cora, Regina’s mother comes with Hook and she is a fantastic villain. Hook was on his revenge kick, which was interesting for a while, it got a bit old but in this season it was fine as it was his introduction.

Season 3- In the first half, the main characters travel to Neverland to rescue Henry who was kidnapped by Peter Pan to obtain the “Heart of the Truest Believer”. This struggle continues in Storbrooke which sends the characters to their original worlds causing Emma and Henry to escape to New York City. In the second half, the characters are somehow brought back to a brand new Storybrooke with the last year of memories removed. Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West appears with a plan to change the past and Emma must save her family.

• At first I was a little upset that they made Peter Pan a bad guy, but Robbie Kay was soo good that I enjoyed it. I didn’t mind this being a half a season because Neverland (while I think there was a lot to be done there), got a little old after a while. It was an emotional season as Emma and Snow, came to grips that she was alone as a kid. It also had Neal return (Henry’s father) and Emma dealing with her feelings for him, as well as the new interest Hook was giving her. I still liked Hook at this point. The only thing I didn’t really like was that Peter Pan ended up being Rumple’s father who gave up being a father by wishing to give it up and he was made a kid again leaving a child Rumple on his own. It worked out well but I still didn’t like that twist.

• Zelena is introduced and I loved her, truly WICKED. Her storyline is also kind of sad  in her childhood, it was also interesting seeing Oz. I think it was a bad idea though to have the Scarecrow be a CGI character, they should have casted someone and made him a bigger role as he’s the Scarecrow, I mean COME ON! We do see the Tin Man in season 6 though.

Season 4- The first half included time travel events from the previous season in which Elsa (Frozen) is accidentally brought from the Enchanted Forest of the past to Present day Storybrooke. While she searches for her sister Anna with the help of the main characters, they meet The Snow Queen. Meanwhile, Regina searches for the Author of Henry’s storybook so she can have her happy ending. After being banished from the town, Mr. Gold enlists the help of Cruella De Vil, Maleficent and Ursula to change the rules of heroes and villains. Henry and Emma have to restore reality and the truth before the switch becomes permanent.

• A lot of people don’t like the Frozen movie, nor did they like the addition of it in the show, but neither bothers me. I like the movie, it’s not my favorite but I like it and I liked it in the show, mostly because I liked the actresses they chose for Anna and Elsa and I loved the connection the Snow Queen story.

• In terms of the second half, the Queens of Darkness was a rushed storyline and there are still lines that haven’t been completed. I didn’t think we really got to know any of them that well, they all had their flashbacks but they weren’t fleshed out enough and Maleficent’s story just ended and hasn’t been resolved yet. So that’s still hanging around.

Season 5- The characters embark on a quest to Camelot to find Merlin (who was the best ever!) to free Emma from the Dark One’s powers, while King Arthur is determined to alter the balance between light and darkness using Excalibur. Things happen and the characters must go to the Underworld where they meet souls with unfinished business and face Hades. They must attempt to restore order to the chaos that was created and a war between light and darkness begins with the separation of Regina and her Evil Queen persona. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde also join the story while bringing characters from the Land of Untold Stories.

• So this was probably a season that had some interesting potential. We meet the people of Camelot, we met Lancelot before in an earlier season flashback. This is also where we meet one of the best “guest starring” characters: Merlin. Elliot Knight really was a gem. King Arthur is a villain, a desperate man and Emma struggles with the darkness inside as the newest Dark One. There was also some great interesting moments of Merlin’s history we didn’t learn, even with Nimue, who was also really interesting. They had great chemistry. Hook is swayed by the darkness and makes a stupid decision which solidified my already growing dislike for him.

• The Underworld was also interesting, Hades was cool but I wasn’t into the whole “we all must go save Hook” thing. I also didn’t like how Mila (Rumple and Hook’s ex) died, it was just plain wrong. We got to see Cruella again and in the end, it was cool.

Season 6- The characters must defend Storybrooke from the combined threat of Mr. Hyde and the Evil Queen while Emma finds out about Aladdin (who was also great!) who was a Savior and must learn the fates of saviors. The battle of light and dark continue with an ultimate prophesied battle between Emma and a mysterious figure.

• Had some interesting build up, but I honestly just wanted an entire season with Aladdin, Jasmine and Jafar as they were super interesting.

Regular Characters:

Emma Swan– In the beginning, she is a bondswoman, she does not believe in magic until she is brought to Storybrooke by Henry, her son. It takes a while to believe in his tales, but when she does, she learns that she’s powerful. She is The Savior as she is the product of true love. She has faced off against many villains. She is strong, blonde, wears an awesome red leather jacket, drives a yellow bug and is a great mom to Henry. She does have light magic, which allows for many things. She even experienced time as “The Dark One” for a bit. In each season, she has her struggles, sometimes they’re recycled (which I talk about later) but she always manages to pull through them, to find another way.

Snow White- Snow White is very different than how we know her. When we first meet her, it’s the usual storyline where she is sleep and is kissed by her Prince. When the first curse hits, she is ripped away from her happy ending with David and put into the real world as a school teacher “Mary Margaret Blanchard”. She has no memory of her past life even though she and David manage to find each other (due to intense drama) her personality is completely different from the awesome, feisty, archer that Snow White is. However, once the curse is broken, she is reunited with David, their love is beautiful, they reunite with Emma (Mary Margaret and Emma are friends and roommates) who is a bit weirded out by the idea that her parents are the same age as her. Snow White is so unyielding in her believe in hope, in her family, in that she and David will always find each other. She has so much love in her heart for everyone, even Regina who has ruined her life on many occasion. However, Snow is not perfect, she has made many mistakes, some really terrible ones but I think she is great.

Prince “David” Charming- David is Prince Charming, he is noble, brave, chivalrous and daring. He also loves his wife. When the first curse hits, he’s in a coma, “Mary Margaret” visits him as part of community service. When he wakes, he has a fiancee or wife (don’t remember) but he definitely knows she’s not the one. He and MM start an affair and it’s dramatic. When the curse breaks, he and Snow find each other. Throughout the series, his roles kind of go back and forth. Sometimes he’s just Snow’s husband, Prince Charming. Sometimes he takes the lead in storylines, sometimes he’s a bit judgmental but he’s definitely unflinching in his love for both Snow and Emma. His entire family in general, since that includes Henry Mills. I do kind of wish he had a friend though, he never really had a best guy friend, he and Hook did have rapport in later seasons which is nice, but I never got the sense that David really likes Hook even if he did marry his daughter. But the biggest thing about him is his willingness to sacrifice himself for his family.

Regina Mills- I LOVE Regina. Don’t get me wrong, she has done terrible things but she has had a great redemption arc. Regina is the Evil Queen, when she was a younger woman (I would say about 16-18) she fell in love with her stable boy, against her mother’s wishes who wanted her to become official royalty. She saves a 10 year old Snow White from getting hurt on a runaway horse, Snow catches Regina and Daniel together after Regina was supposed to be preparing to marry her father the King. Regina tells Snow to keep it a secret, but she finds out later that Snow told her mother because she thought she was helping which makes Regina upset. She marries the king, because Daniel is killed before her eyes but vowed revenge on Snow. Her flashbacks as the Evil Queen shows her hunting Snow White and before her revenge plot, she learns magic from Rumpelstiltskin. As Mayor Regina Mills, she runs Storybrooke, she started the first curse, she had her way in the town but when Emma comes in, she knocks it down and goes head to head with everyone for the longest time. She eventually starts become a hero, it takes a while but in the end, she is part of the hero squad. There’s a lot with her but she manages to find her true love in Robin Hood (which I will talk about later *mad face*), she gains a sister in Zelena (The Wicked Witch) and is happy at least.

Henry Mills- He is the one who started it all. He starts off as a 10 year old boy, he finds Emma, brings her to Storybrooke and works to get her to believe that she is The Savior in order to break the curse. Which she does. He puts a lot of things in motion. For a little while, he takes a back burner, but he becomes really important in the Neverland arc because he has the heart of the true believer even though he got on Regina a lot about using her magic to get her way. Regina and Emma will do anything for him (until… I will talk about later), he meets a girl in the Camelot arc and becomes the author later on. He believes in Emma unflinchingly and loves both his mothers, biological and adopted. We also see him grow up on the show.

Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold- He is my favorite character. He is involved in almost every storyline in pulling the strings. He was the “fairy godmother” to Cinderella, he was the Beast to Belle, he taught both Regina and her mother Cora, how to use magic,  he spends most of the first season trying to find his long lost son Baelfire. His father became Peter Pan, his mother is The Black Fairy. He is the Dark One, he is extremely powerful, he makes deals with people to give them what they want but he will come to collect at some point for what he wants. He’s very intelligent, he’s insane but he’s so great, especially with the many things he’s collected over the years that hold power. He falls in love with Belle (their first episode is one of my favorites), Emma tries to help him become a hero but he always reverts to wanting power over everything, which is why he always ends up alone. He does find his son who is living in the real world as Neal (who happened to meet Emma and fathered Henry). Rumple deals a lot with trying to figure out what he actually wants, he says he wants power but he also wants family and it goes back and forth and he makes the wrong choices, even though he has a woman who loves him. I love Rumple though. Still my favorite. Robert Carlyle is fantastic.

**Side Note: I know he cut his hair for the T2: Trainspotting  film but I don’t like it for the character lol.

Belle French- She starts off as a guest character, then a reoccurring to become a regular. Rumple shows up to help her kingdom but his price is that Belle goes with him as his maid. She chooses to do so for her kingdom as she wants to be a hero, from all of the books she’s read. Belle goes to his huge castle and in the beginning she’s afraid of him but eventually that becomes less and less afraid and wants to know him. They fall in love with each other, she happens to meet Regina who plants the idea of True Love’s Kiss in her head and she kisses Rumple and it starts to break the Dark One hold on him, but he chooses the power over her love. He lets her go and she goes. In the real world, Rumple thinks she’s dead but she’s been held in the mental hospital. When the curse is broken, they are reunited and it’s been a battle for the longest time. They do get officially married and Belle takes a backseat in a lot of storylines (to my chagrin). She works in the library which is fitting, the others come to her for research purposes, in flashbacks she has some adventures, but she spends a lot of time trying to believe in Rumple to be a good man until she eventually gives up on him because he’s stubborn. She tries to have her own life but ya know they never really let her do that. She and Rumple have a child, she names Gideon from a hero from one of her favorite books. Belle really tries to keep her baby from being corrupted by Rumple’s back and forth.

Captain “Hook” Killian Jones- He starts off as a villain, working with Cora, he’s a swashbuckling, witty, guy-liner wearing pirate. He just wants revenge against Rumple for killing his girlfriend (who was Rumple’s wife) but on the way, he ends up falling for Emma and vice versa, after he tells Neal (who decides he also wants to get Emma back) that he will fight for her. It takes everyone a long time to trust him, considering the things he’s done in the past, he even tricks Charming with a life or death situation. However, he does build a relationship and a life for himself in this new world. I don’t really find him that interesting, especially once he and Emma become a thing, (though I did like his episode where he and Emma go back in time in FTL and see how Snow and Charming met). He is harmed and dies, Emma tries to save him but in order to do so she ends up making him a Dark One, which he shows that he is easily corrupted by dark magic and gives in to Nimue (the first Dark One) and then does sacrifice himself to save everyone and he dies. In the Underworld arc, everyone spends all of their time trying to save him, he does manage to hold out against Hades, but he is given a loophole and comes back to life. In season 7, he proposes to Emma and they get married, but in there, it’s revealed that he killed David’s father in the past, he and Emma have a moment where they’re separated because he freaks out and runs when Emma tells him not to hide things and lie to her. But in the end, married.

Zelena “The Wicked Witch”-  She is introduced as Regina’s long lost older sister, she was given away by Cora because she was a baby out of wedlock whose father wasn’t royal. She wanted to be royal and she knew that having Zelena would not bring that. So Zelena grows up in a damaged household, but she shows magic experience early. It is revealed that she and Regina did meet as children but Cora uses magic to make them forget each other due to Zelena being a peasant. But Zelena knows that she was given up and that all of the good attention was given to Regina and she is extremely jealous which makes her turn green from the inside out. She becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, which has ties in with the other witches, with Dorothy (though water does not melt her). She has an infatuation with Rumple, especially when she learns that he’s teaching Regina magic, she wants him to choose her to cast his dark curse. Her main goal is just make Regina pay for being the one Cora chose. She is defeated, Rumple kills her but she manages to come back and replaces Maid Marian, kills her and tricks Robin Hood in having a baby with her. With that, she manages to come back and work with Regina and the Charming team. She struggles for a little while, especially when she meets Hades and he turns out to be her true love, she chooses Regina over her true love and destroys Hades. When Regina splits herself, she bonds with the Evil Queen, and in season 7 she gives a huge sacrifice and gives up her magic to save everyone. I love her too.

Villains:

There have been a lot of villains on the show, some have been more important than others or they’ve been on the show way more than others. I’m not going to talk about them really but I will mention them. At least the ones I remember and that stood out.

• Regina Mills “Evil Queen”

  • Lana Parilla owns this role, I love Regina. She’s great.

• Rumpelstiltskin/ Mr. Gold/ The Dark One

  • Robert Carlyle is iconic in this role, I love him. I definitely prefer him in his makeup because I think he’s able to have way more fun in that role. Plus, the voice, the walk, the ticks for the Rumpelstiltskin is great. I do like how he changes the cadence and tone of his voice for Mr. Gold. He’s the string in a lot of storylines, he is the catalyst for a lot of things and he always has a stake in a fight. It may not be in the forefront or obvious but it’s there. He always figures out a way and sometimes it’s so underhanded and backhanded that it’s amazing how he somehow always wins even when he loses.

• Cora Mills/ Queen of Hearts

  • Barbara Hershey was AHMAZING in this role. Cora was so ruthless. She wanted Regina to be Queen and does whatever it takes for her to be Queen. She orchestrates the situation of Regina saving Snow on her horse, she kills Daniel (Regina’s first love) in front of Regina, even though Regina sends her to Wonderland, she still keeps her hands in the pot from away. She comes back and tries to get Regina on her side, she is very good with her words. She also had a thing for Rumple lol. She seemed like she was gonna turn it around but Snow pulls a bad decision and Cora dies. She shows back up in the Underworld and mends the bridges between herself and Regina and Zelena, it was a touching moment. Rose McGowan was also good as a young Cora.

• Zelena/ The Wicked Witch.

  • Rebecca Mader was great, I love her delivery, I loved her expressions and monologues.

• Malcolm/ Peter Pan

  • Robbie Kay was great as Peter Pan. I love that character and it was interesting seeing him as a villain and I loved it. I didn’t like the twist of him being Rumple’s father. A man child, who chooses to be young again instead of caring for his son. It runs in the family apparently.

• Ingrid/The Snow Queen

  • Elizabeth Mitchell was great, she was the Snow Queen, which is what Frozen was based on, but actually having her be this broken woman who felt alone after losing both her sisters (one of them being Anna and Elsa’s mother) and she tries to find them again in Elsa and Emma who both have magic, she wants them both to embrace the extent of their powers (they’re also blondes lol). She can also be argued to more of the tragic villain who later becomes a hero as she willingly sacrifices herself to save Anna and Elsa.

• Maleficent

  • I honestly liked her look in the beginning because it was different, they changed her appearence after the film came out, but that’s fine. She was also interesting, also a bit of a tragic villain but she’s disappeared along with her long lost daughter.

• Ursula

  • She was a villain for a moment. Part of the Queens of Darkness arc, she is the first one to let it go, she was a mermaid who cursed herself to get back at her father but when they reconcile she goes away. It was unfortunate with her costume and that in the earlier episodes with Ariel that we never really got see Merrin Dungey play off of JoAnna Garcia-Swisher.

• Cruella De Vil

  • She was great, definitely a favorite of mine. Not a redeemable villain, Victoria Smurfit played her to a T. She cannot kill due to The Author getting back at her for tricking him, she has the power to influence animals, and she does die and shows up in the Underworld. So great.

• Nimue/ Original Dark One

  • Carolina Ford plays her as both Nimue pre Dark One and as The Dark One.  She loves Merlin (they’re sooo cute) but she tries to manipulate Emma into killing Merlin but is unsuccessful but is with Hook. She is able to manipulate others into doing what she wants, she is ultimate darkness and I wish we saw more of her.

• Captain Hook/ Dark One

  • Didn’t like this, I already didn’t really care for him, this storyline made me dislike him even more.

• Hades

  • He was great, Greg Germann was able to be menacing but also pull the humor they had in the animated film. I think it was a missed opportunity to not have any true scenes between Hades and Hercules.

• Fiona/ The Black Fairy

  • She was a villain of season 6, I thought Jaime Murray was really good. She has this smile on her face while spewing the most ridiculous nonsense, it was so great. She also pulled a lot of strings behind the scenes, similar to her son Rumple. Fiona became the Black Fairy by choice, she had Rumple, freaked out because his Fairy Godmother Tiger Lily foresaw him being a Savior (yes Rumple was supposed to be a Savior) and she tried to learn spells and magic to protect him from that, ends up becoming the very person he was meant to defeat (which he does in the finale). She really gets her plan in motion in the finale but she stays in the shadows mostly before now.

• Gideon

  • Mostly a pawn by the Black Fairy. He is Rumple and Belle’s son, he was kidnapped after BF attacked the Blue Fairy. His main job is to fight The Savior and kill her. He shows up in Belle’s dreams as Morpheus telling her to let go of Rumple due to him not choosing her etc. etc. same old stuff…but turns out he’s the one Emma’s been seeing in her visions. The Black Fairy has his heart, he’s good but she’s corrupting him and makes him go after Emma in the finale, he kills her, but due to her willingly dying, his life resets and he’s reverted back into a baby, since he was raise away from Bella and Rumple in a different dimension where time is faster.

• The Author/ Isaac Heller

  • This dude is just a slime ball. I don’t even care lol, Henry took over for him. The only thing I remember him actually doing is getting his feelings hurt with Cruella and writing that she can’t kill anyone.

• Jafar

  • There are technically two versions of him, the version in OUAT in Wonderland and the one in season 6. I don’t think they’re meant to be the same person, which is unfortunate. But he was wasted. I thought Oded Fehr was a great choice to pick up this character after Naveen Andrews who was also great. I will talk more about him later.

• Emma Swan/The Dark One

  • Her outfit was amazing but I would argue that while she was The (A) Dark One, she wasn’t evil but it was cool to see her lurking around.

Reoccurring Characters

This means they showed up more than once. It could have been twice but it’s more than once but they’re also the ones who are most involved.

• The Seven Dwarves– We spend most of the time with Grumpy/Leroy who is great “The CURSE! IT’S HERE!” but they’re cool.

• Robin Hood- I loved him. I’m still upset at what happened to him and I will never forgive it. He and Regina were meant to be together, he had two kids, albeit he was tricked for the second one but still. They killed him, it wasn’t even a death, he was erased before Regina’s eyes. Then they bring him back but as a alternate version and they put Regina’s evil half “The Evil Queen” with that version of Robin. Fine but NO!

• Widow Lucas/Granny- She owns a diner which is the center of the town basically. She has a crossbow, so when she’s involved, she’s cool.

• Blue Fairy– She is still a mysterious figure to me.

• Mulan- She is a warrior who starts off assisting Prince Phillip on his quest of finding Princess Aurora. Mulan has been in and out of storylines and I wish they would have done way more with her.

• Tinker Bell- She started off as a fairy in training “Green Fairy”, she goes to help Regina find her true love, she guides her but Regina ultimately shies away from it and it causes Tinker Bell to lose her wings as she broke fairy rules. She goes to Neverland. She later comes back to help Regina even though she’s hurt and angry. She forgives Regina and manages to help more later.

• Merida- Following her movie (which I liked her in the show way more than I did in the film), she witnesses her father’s death and becomes the Queen of her kingdom. She has to prove herself to the United Clans and does so. She ends up getting swept up in Hook’s Dark Curse and goes to Storybrooke where Emma keeps her prisoner and uses her to train Mr. Gold in being heroic to free excalibur. She also later meets Mulan and I think they had a mutual attraction but nothing ever happened.

• Ruby/Red Riding Hood- She was a main character in season two, she is Snow’s best friend in the Enchanted Forest. Her cloak is magical, it helps keep her wolf side under control as before she would turn into a wolf at night, unknowingly, and attack so the cloak is magical. She is loyal, she is awesome and I love Ruby. She ended up disappearing after a while, but comes back in season 5 I think because she went to FTL to try and find more wolves, but ends up going with Mulan to Oz, where they meet Dorothy, who gets put under a sleeping curse and Ruby kisses her waking her with True Love’s First Kiss. I wouldn’t have minded that if it wasn’t so rushed, it was handled so sloppily.

• Ariel- She’s a mermaid who first saves Snow White, they become friends, and go to a ball that Prince Eric is having, as Ariel is infatuated with him. She comes in and out a lot, she ends up being at the mercy of Regina, who steals her voice and it’s only granted to her with a magical bracelet that also gives her legs. Ariel finds Eric again later, she accidentally get put into a bottle with the Jolly Roger but is freed and is living with Eric on an island. I loved her involvement but I wish they handled her better, same with Eric, I didn’t like the actor they chose for Eric and I don’t like how they just kept throwing out information with them without really earning it.

• Cinderella/ Ashley-  I guess she was more of a “guest star” than a reoccurring but whatever, I liked her. She was cute, before the curse, she’s a teenager who’s pregnant and creates a bond with Emma (who could relate). In FTL, Rumple was her Fairy Godmother lol and she’s been in and out a few times. The last time we saw her, was a dramatic turn with her stepmother and stepsisters, where one of them was nice.

• Merlin- I will talk about him sooo much more later but I AM STILL UPSET AT WHAT THEY DID TO HIM! I loved Merlin, he was my favorite new character they brought into the show and he should have been made a regular. He should be part of this new season. He is the originator of LIGHT magic, we first meet him appearing to a young Emma, we then see some flashbacks of him fighting a Dark One and he’s turned into a tree because he wouldn’t attack. Then, Emma frees him from the tree using a mixture of light and dark magic. Then he’s sassy lol which I loved and Elliot Knight was fantastic.

• King Arthur- He was a villain but I didn’t put him in the villains list because I thought he was more of a misguided, desperate man than a villain. He made bad choices because he felt that he was told something. He was pretty terrible but he redeemed himself in the Underworld arc.

• Aladdin- *sighs* A lot of people had issues with the accents, it didn’t bother me as no one really has accents based on their characters. But I liked him and I wanted more of him. We first see him in a sort of flashback where he’s lived a bit of time as a Savior and now he was a shell of a man, he was hiding in a shack. Jafar comes and taunts him. Then in the past, we see him in Agrabah as a  thief, then he meets Jasmine and she talks him into going with her to the Cave of Wonders where it’s revealed that he is a Savior. Jafar shows up, taunts him and then we meet him again later. I think Aladdin had a lot of potential. It turns out that he got swept up in the Dark Curse and had been living in Storybrooke for a time, Emma manages to find him using their connection to Savior magic and it turned out that he cut away his Savior magic with shears from The Fates. He and Jasmine reunite, he then willingly becomes a Genie so he could help. The Evil Queen steals the lamp, she and David had a fight and David steals back the lamp. THEN Jasmine makes a wish and they both disappear to find Agrabah, then the happen to meet up with Hook later, they find Ariel who happened to have a bottle that holds Jafar who is a genie (which I’m assuming is after his time in Wonderland from OUAT in Wonderland), they finally kiss and they break the spell on Agrabah and Aladdin is free from the Genie life. We see him in the finale but hardly though it was great seeing him in that Prince Ali getup. So many missed opportunities.

• Jasmine- So I did appreciate how they had her have to square off with Jafar in the end. In the flashbacks, she’s feisty and almost a little manipulative but she gets the job done. She manages to help Aladdin figure out he’s The Savior, she wants him to accept his destiny. When he leaves, she stays to be a proper leader after Aladdin makes a comment about her not knowing her own kingdom. She fails, runs off to the Land of Untold Stories and is brought to Storybrooke with the others, where she pretends to be someone else as Snow’s teacher’s assistant. When Aladdin comes back, they have their moments but never kiss, then she makes a wish when he’s a Genie to find Agrabah and they go off on their own adventure where she faces Jafar. She’s afraid of him but manages to pull through and win. I think it was great they had her face her fears but she was kind of useless for a long time, even in the Flashbacks, we don’t really see her and Jafar have many interactions for her to be so afraid of him, he also never really did anything to warrant fear personally.

• Tiger Lily- So far it looks like we’ll be seeing more of her, but she started out as a Fairy. She was Rumple’s Fairy Godmother and we’re still learning more about her. But I’m interested and I love that her Fairy outfit has a lot of Native tribe hints to it and I love that. She also helped Hook on Neverland in the present as she’s no longer a Fairy I don’t think, similar to Tinker Bell. I don’t know why yet though.

• Princess Aurora– Yeah, she was annoying, they probably could have used her better but meh.

• Elsa– I know a lot of people don’t like Frozen and did not like the addition of the characters on the show but I like the movie and I didn’t mind their additions. I actually think I liked them in the show more than I liked them in the movie. Georgina Haig was really good casting for Elsa and I liked her friendship with Emma and I liked how they incorporated her character into the Snow Queen thing especially since Elsa was based off the Snow Queen story.

• Anna– Elizabeth Lail was great as Anna, she was less annoying but she kept the fun and quirky personality of the character. The need to help her sister was great and I enjoyed it.

The Musical Episode.

They finally did a musical episode that held Emma and Hook’s wedding. Snow and Charming made a wish (in the past) to defeat The Evil Queen which the wish turned out to be making everyone sing (though it wasn’t constant singing like in Les Mis). It was pretty great to be honest, a lot of plot holes was introduced in this episode but they did the whole “you won’t remember this later” thing so those holes were filled. For example, Snow and David met Hook in the past, but when they met him in season two, they never met him before, NOT TO MENTION Snow meets him again later before she marries David when she tries to run away and buy passage on a ship. But I loved the episode, I thought it was sweet and cute. Zelena’s song was my favorite but it ends with The Black Fairy casting a Dark Curse.

Season 6 Finale.

So in the two hour finale, The Black Fairy Fiona cast her curse, everyone is more or less transported back to the Enchanted Forest, Emma is in a mental hospital due to her buying into Henry’s “delusions” about the Once Upon a Time storybook. The Final Battle that had been hyped up all season is over Emma’s belief, basically if she stopped believing in magic then Fiona would gain godlike powers and break all Laws of Magic. Meanwhile in the Enchanted Forest, the others have gathered at Regina’s castle, the other worlds are disappearing due to Emma’s belief fading and other people have escaped to Regina’s castle, including Aladdin and Jasmine. David and Hook deal with a giant dragon and a beanstalk to get a magic bean, the Evil Queen sacrifices herself to hold off the Darkness to delay everyone else being wiped away. Emma destroys the Storybook at Fiona’s prompting and when she returns to her home away from Storybrooke, she finds a hand drawn Storybook from Henry and it restores her belief just in time. Gold faces off with Fiona when he finds out she lied (She’s his mother by the way) and he kills her fulfilling the prophecy put on him as a child. The curse breaks and everyone returns to the town. However, Gideon is still under Fiona’s spell and fights Emma, but she pulls a Harry Potter move and is killed, however, this releases Emma’s light magic and the battle is won. Both Gold and Emma chose good so Gideon is changed back into a baby to give Belle and Rumple a chance to raise him this time and all of the realms are restored including anyone who might have “died”. So happy endings all around, they have a nice little dinner. Some years later, we see a little girl from the beginning of the finale, go to Seattle where she finds adult Henry who doesn’t know her and tells him she’s his daughter.

I liked the finale, I thought it was handled very well and they really tried to wrap a lot of storylines they pulled in this season. I think there’s a lot of potential still in the show, especially with most of the cast gone after this season. But if it would have ended right here, that would have been okay too, the idea of the main people we’ve journeyed with since 2011 is bittersweet and I cried. I CRIED!

I knew Emma was going to die, but I hoped it wouldn’t be a final death, especially after she’d just got married, but like I said, a Harry Potter in which she knows she would die and willingly allows it to happen, but that allows her light magic to take over. It was a beautiful scene to be honest.

I love this show so very much. I think they have dropped the ball a couple of times but I stuck with it because I couldn’t wait to see what they did next. There are so many fairy tales, so many pieces of literature they could dive into… which makes this a great transition into my next piece.

Part II: The Future of Once Upon A Time.