‘Once Upon a Time’ season 2, episode 15 review: Evil Queen, meet Snow Black

This is ultimately turning out to be a rather big day for “Once Upon a Time.” After learning some much-needed details about the show’s season 2 finale at PaleyFest a little bit earlier in the day, we had a new episode of the show Sunday night that answered some questions, but quickly opened the door to a flurry of more possibilities.

The first thing we want to touch on is that Neal Cassady is heading to Storybrooke, but it already turns out that he has a history with Captain Hook from when he traveled to another world. What does this mean? The common theory floating around out there is that he could be Peter Pan, and we see that … but do we really need Pan to also be Baelfire, Henry’s father, and Rumpelstiltskin’s son? We’d almost prefer him to just be one of the lost boys.

While Captain Hook seems to be temporarily subdued in Neal’s closet (take that, Hook!), this episode was really all about evil elsewhere. Now working with Regina, Cora managed to secure Rumpelstiltskin’s dagger by effectively using the man’s own capacity for trust against him. Not only that, but the two ladies also took advantage of Snow White and her sense of compassion by using and then killing one of the last living connections to her mother: Johanna, her former attendant played by Lesley Nicol. This show murdered Mrs. Patmore!

In witnessing this event, it looks as though we could actually be seeing a much different way of thinking for Snow in the future; if she can’t beat bad with good, why not start playing for the dark side? Thus, we have the potential birth of what could be called “Snow Black.” This certainly makes the show more interesting, even though we have a feeling that she is really not going to be able to embrace her inner evil for very long.

What did you think about this episode? Be sure to share your thoughts below, and you can check out some more “Once Upon a Time” scoop from PaleyFest over here.

Photo: ABC