‘Once Upon a Time’ season 6, episode 7 review: Regina’s ‘Heartless’ plan for Snow and Charming
This just in: The Evil Queen is evil. We all knew this long before getting into Sunday night’s new episode of “Once Upon a Time,” where we had a chance to further watch the path to what was this character’s desire endgame. In Storybrooke, we saw exactly that her plan entailed mortgaging the future of the entire town in order to ensure that she got what she wanted: The hearts of both Prince Charming and Snow White.
From here, the mission for Snow, Charming, many of our other heroes, and the Blue Fairy (who turned up seemingly all of a sudden, further proof that the producers seem to be rotating guest stars at random) had to conjure up a plan to turn things around — and try to use some of the feelings that may be between the Evil Queen and Rumpelstiltskin against them. We know that this particular pairing has been fairly controversial among fans, so this was clever to try to use this as an onus for a particularly fun plot — one that began with Zelena walking in on the two in a fairly intimate moment (but not too much, this is still a family show, people).
While setting up Zelena to be present for an awkward moment did prove to be tremendous entertainment, at the same time we cannot say that this plan brought us a whole lot more than that since the diversion was so temporary — or at least we thought that at first. Our heroes managed to eventually find what we’d like to proclaim as the Trap Door of Purple Mist, where in there they found … well, more hokey stuff about true love through a sapling. Yes, we know we’re being cynical, but sometimes we do wish the writing was a little less heavy-handed.
Emma faces fear – With her getting closer and closer to the potential prophecy of her death, Emma Swan started to understandably feel like her fate was imminent and there was nothing that she could do. Luckily, Captain Hook to the rescue! For all of the Captain Swan ‘shippers out there, the scene about her being proclaimed “the product of true love” is one worth being framed and up on the nearest mantel.
Flashback story – We went back to the days of the Enchanted Forest this time around, where we had a chance to see an unexplored part of the story with Charming and Snow. They were both heading to the same port city in hopes of changing their life (Snow wanted to find a safer realm, David wanted to help his mother sell his farm), but one man came between both of them and their plans.
At first, we wondered why in the world we were seeing what was effectively another Enchanted Forest rescue mission. It was made more interesting when we realized that after David met Snow, she told him to not release him so that he wouldn’t see her face. They never actually met, but that didn’t matter since she was still able to help him. She gave him the cash necessary to keep the farm running, at least for a little while longer. Sure, this was sappy, but the ending was innovative enough for it to be sweet. This was the birth of the aforementioned sapling.
The solution – Snow and Charming decided in the present that, even without the sapling, they were willing to sacrifice themselves and their hearts for the good of the town. The assumption here on their parts was that the Queen was going to kill them, which made the most sense given that she really should know at this point that these heroes will find a way to navigate around almost any other problem that is thrown in their direction. Well, she still didn’t do that! Instead, she knocked Snow out and magic-portaled her somewhere else, claiming that Charming wouldn’t be happy when he eventually finds her. When he did, he kissed her — which woke her up. Unfortunately, doing so caused him to go to sleep.
As for Rumple, near the end of the episode Regina’s plan with Zelena became all the more clear: Because of Zelena, Belle now realized not only Rumple’s extracurricular relationship, but also that he wanted to use the shears in order to ensure that his son liked him. Consider this another divide between the two.
Overall – An episode that started out a tad too full of fairy-tale cliches, but one that got progressively better as it progressed leading up to the big (and shocking) conclusion. Grade: B+.
Next week – We’ve got an episode entitled “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” Want some other news about it? Then be sure to head over to this link! (Photo: ABC.)