‘Once Upon a Time’ season 3, episode 18 review: Why Rumpelstiltskin, Zelena kissed and more

“Once Upon a Time” has been on quite the winning streak as of late, delivering episodes that have been so far more than a little superior to the first half of the season. We really enjoyed last week’s “The Jolly Roger,” and “Bleeding Through” continued that trend and then some tonight with some great stories that gave us further insight, and also actually complicated the lines of good and evil.

Our favorite part of this entire hour was surprisingly the reveal that it was Princess Ava (Snow’s mother) who actually kept Cora from being to Prince Leopold as she had hoped. She also had Zelena with a gardener who she thought was the Prince, and she got rid of her in order to ensure that she could have a better life. Given that the real Prince had already left her, though, that was the one part of the hour we just didn’t buy. Why couldn’t she climb the ladder again with a child?

This story in the past finally left Snow and Charming with some good stuff to do in the present, as everyone tried to contact Cora to figure out everything that happened in the past involving her and Zelena. In the end, they’ve figured out enough of the pieces to realize that the focal point here is none other than Snow’s unborn child … which may not be unborn for very long at all.

One other great thing that came out of this is that it taught Regina to follow her ambitions more … and she then kissed Robin Hood! She’s actually allowing herself to be happy! We only wish that we could say the same thing right now for Rumpelstiltskin, who tried to make out with Zelena (a pretty risque scene for this show) in an effort to try to get the knife back from her. It didn’t work, and he was miserable … very miserable.

While Henry was strangely absent and Emma has a surprising spring in her step given present circumstances, this was still a very enjoyable episode of “Once Upon a Time.” It had almost everything we could have wanted, from Rose McGowan to significant movement in the story to understand the Wicked Witch’s intentions. Grade: B.

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