Season finale of Once Upon a Time has just come out. And boy, what a finale it was. However, if you’re not too fond of spoilers, please find a different article.
Now then! Ready to share some thoughts.
The fourth season of the show really had us going places. First, we were granted a different view of the “Frozen” story, then we met up with all new villains – well, some older ones as well, but who’s counting.
What I liked about the show and yes, the finale as well, is how it offered different perspectives on any tale Disney and/or Grimm were kind enough to share with us.
The villains, no matter how evil, have motives to do whatever it is they’re doing. Nothing is more boring than a character being evil just because the story really needed a bad guy. True, a story might need that, but without a proper reason it doesn’t really work.
And since heroes and villains alike have reasons for accomplishing their respective goals, it is a valid point to ask “Do villains deserve their happy endings as well?”, which is what Once Upon a Time has done for about the second half of the season. However, if one comes at the cost of the other, what do we do? How do we decide?
In order to solve this question and just to put the weight of the world on somebody else’s shoulders, the villains have been trying to find the Author, supposedly the guy who can change every character’s fate. Best guy to ask if you want your story rewritten. Literally.
Yet, as it turns out, even an Author can have his own agenda, trying to bend the rules or dodge them altogether. Once folks had found him, dear Mr. Gold being first, everything changed.
The season finale was basically spent trying to undo Gold’s happy ending. Because in it, all the villains had happy endings – and the heroes had to suffer under it.
Needless to say that, Henry, with the help of Regina, Hook and Emma, managed to save the day. But that’s really the part that isn’t interesting.
The last episode ends with all evil being pulled from Gold’s heart, which then breaks loose and, to keep it under control, needs to be bound to a single person. While the darkness itself first heads right for Regina, it is Emma who eventually ends up sacrificing herself, asking the rest of the crew to get her back from the dark side.
… So basically she did the exact thing everyone has tried to prevent from happening time and again. Noble, but probably not the wisest choice. And while her son, recently become the new Author, broke the quill he has nothing to work in his favour to help his mother. At least nothing that has magic.
Fortunately the next season as been approved, if one is to trust IMDB (which I do)! So we shall find out how everyone saves Emma, come this autumn!
There’s one thing I’m not quite happy with though: when a new character is introduced, the others bond with them, becoming friends. However, the people they were fast friends with before, only appear on the side lines from then on forward. A shame, really, because I’m sure old friends have things to give as well.
Whether it’s magic or simply an idea nobody else had, that’s still more than nothing, right?
