‘Once Upon a Time’ Recap ‘Swan Song’

Hook is
finally attempting to finish his quest
of getting revenge against the
crocodile, you know, that mission he
was on when
we first saw him oh so long ago. Dark Hook doesn’t really care
who he takes down
in the
process, and this episode. Carron, Storybrooke’s local ferryman to the

Underworld (why is this even a thing)
has marked Henry and his family (which is
basically the whole town) and
they’re about to go on a one-way trip
to Hades.
Rumple, who is never any help… like ever, tells the group that no
matter what
they try to do to
stop it, they’ll still be going to the Underworld. Gee thanks,

Rump.

In order to move
the plot along (and land us in the
Underworld for when the show returns)
everyone kind of lays down and takes
it,
accepting their fate. Man, I thought this show was going to give us a
fight– a
mid-season finale to
really rave about, but I’m not so sure right now. Instead
of spending time
with her son, Regina is doing busy
work sending her sister back
to Oz, which really pissed me the eff off. This
is so out of character, even for

Regina. I’m sensing a theme this season, that everything is really
disconnected
and the writers are just
not communicating properly when compiling these
stories. Which is a damn
shame. I wish that they knew what to
do with Zelena,
but instead everything feels just wrong. So there she goes,
getting whisked away
by a
green tornado never to be heard of again, until they figure out how to

integrate her properly.

Emma’s wheels are turning as Snow,
Charming, Henry and Baby Neal
(yeah, I forgot about him too)
are having a meal
together. Emma’s brilliant plan is to suck all the Dark
Ones back into Excalibur
and
then kill herself with it. I see the sentiment here… saving her family and

getting rid of dark magic forever-
– but, I’m kind of over this sacrificial theme
they’ve got going here. It’s
just a glorified suicide mission
and it doesn’t sit
well with me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good idea… but
Hook isn’t going to take

things lying down. The dark menace shuts her plan down before it even gets

started. The reaper appears
and Regina, of all people, asks Hook “what kind of
man do you want to be?”
This quote is extremely important
and something we’ve
seen many, many times before. It seems Hook is always
the one struggling with
what
kind of person he wants to be and will be. The flashbacks lacked something

but it was necessary to see Hook’s
emotional turning point in current times.
Although I wouldn’t have put money
on it, it worked for this
episode.

Hook finally gains a conscience (is that you
Jiminy?) and decides not
to go
through with the plan, instead he captures all the old dark ones into the

sword and asks Emma to kill him
with it. Instead of being the blubbering,
stubborn and in love Emma we have
seen in recent episodes, she
respects his
wishes and let’s Hook die a hero. I’m not one to believe that
Hook and Emma are
meant to be
together, but I can admit that this was a heartfelt and emotional
moment on
these two characters parts and
Jennifer Morrison has done a great job
with the character shift.

Rumple sends Belle
away, which is
selfless, but weird. She has a town full of friends and she
just ups and leaves
without a
reason or without saying goodbye to anyone? I was disappointed with
Belle
for leaving all willy nilly, but I
guess Rumple’s love for power would
have ultimately been both of their
undoing. Rumple jumped at the
opportunity to
get his powers back and we’re left feeling like he’ll never
truly change. To be
perfectly
honest, I’d rather see mischievous, scheming Rumple then in love and
wimpy
Rumple. At this point is Rumbelle
ever going to be able to have an honest
relationship? I don’t know. Probably
not.

I
really wanted
to see the mid-season finale focus on the core cast, at times
I enjoyed the new
characters
and stories but it seemed forced and one of those let’s do all the
Disney
characters at once for ratings. All
in all this episode didn’t really do
it for me… we see Hook quickly become
who he wants to be, which seemed

unrealistic seeing as he didn’t struggle at all to fight the darkness.
Regina
didn’t really get a chance
to be a savior… and we’ve lost Dark Emma, which was
probably the most
interesting thing the first half of
this season. The second
half of season 5 returns March 6, 2016… and since
the group will find themselves

in the Underworld, we’re left wondering if this is the direction the show
should
have gone in? Will the
show survive such a drastic shift? And can they get their
crap together to
give us an amazing second half of
the season? We shall see.
Until next year!

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