Source: ABC/Eike Schroter

Title The Brothers Jones

Two-Sentence Summary When Killian reunites with his brother Liam in the Underworld, he discovers the truth about how they came to survive a shipwreck and join the navy in the past. Meanwhile, Henry’s quest to find the Author’s pen proves to be a potential key to defeating Hades.

Favorite Line “You can come home. You just have to forgive yourself. The thing is, no matter how many times I tell you—or anybody else does—you have to do it yourself.” (Emma, to Killian)

My Thoughts Heroes inspire others. Stories of their brave, selfless deeds are meant to fill us with a desire to follow in their footsteps. However, sometimes those stories hurt more than they help. When all we know about a person is their best—their highlights—then it can sometimes feel depressing rather than inspiring to hear their stories, because we know both our best and our worst—our errors as well as our highlights. If we never see someone struggle, then we sometimes come to believe that our normal, human struggles shouldn’t happen and that we should beat ourselves up over not being perfect—when, in truth, no one is.

That’s why the most inspiring stories are those of people who overcame struggles, who fought to be the best version of themselves. The stories we most often need are not stories of heroes who are never shown to do anything wrong but of people who make mistakes, have flaws, and are honest about every stumble and failure they have along the way as they grow.

Once Upon a Time is telling stories of those kinds of heroes. Even its characters who’ve seemed like paragons of good choices have made mistakes. None of them are perfect, and that’s what makes them interesting and inspiring. And that’s a lesson multiple characters learned in “The Brothers Jones”: Being a hero isn’t about being perfect; it’s about doing the best you can and being honest about those times when you struggle with doing the best you can. That’s how you inspire hope in others—by helping them see that everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, so they’re not beyond hope if they’re imperfect.

“The Brothers Jones” was a thematically rich episode of Once Upon a Time. Its most obvious theme was that of forgiving yourself, but there was another theme that came up in nearly every storyline this week that tied directly into the idea of forgiving yourself—and that was the danger of comparison. The only way to forgive yourself for being imperfect and for making mistakes is to stop comparing yourself to others, because we don’t often know anyone’s true story but our own.

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Source: http://www.ign.com

Title Devil’s Due

Two-Sentence Summary In order to save Killian, Emma and Rumplestiltskin—who’s eager to get home to Belle for mysterious reasons—seek Milah’s help. Flashbacks to Rumplestiltskin and Milah’s past reveal more about their broken marriage and the deal he once made that threatens his future in the present.

Favorite Lines
Killian: You’re impossible.
Emma: And you love me for it.

My Thoughts
“I still see hope in your eyes.”

When Hades finally explained that this—the hope Killian still has—was the reason for his torture, it made perfect sense. If there’s one thing Once Upon a Time has always preached, it’s that heroes hold on to hope even when things seem hopeless and work to spread hope to those who need it, while villains often feel hopeless themselves and want others to feel that way, too. Hope is the heroes’ greatest weapon and the villains’ greatest enemy, so the villains will do whatever it takes to destroy hope. And that central conflict between those who spread hope and those who try to snuff it out played a major part in “Devil’s Due,” which was ultimately one of the most tragic episodes of Once Upon a Time in recent memory. (Yes, I would argue it was even more tragic than “Swan Song.”)

The tragedy of “Devil’s Due” came from the fact that sometimes hope isn’t enough. Sometimes you can’t escape your past. And sometimes you can’t get closure after you lose a loved one.

Lost souls were an important concept in this episode, and I don’t think there’s a better example of a lost soul than Milah. I’ve always been fascinated by her as a character because she’s seemed so complex, and all this episode did was add even more layers to her character. (Of course it added more layers to a fascinating female character; it was written by Jane Espenson, who literally never lets me down.)

Have I always agreed with Milah’s decisions? No. Have I always liked how she spoke to her husband after he came back from the Ogre Wars? No. Would I have done some things differently than she did? I’d like to think so. But that’s what makes her such a well-written character. I may not believe I would have done things the way she did them, but I completely understand her actions and the thoughts and feelings behind them. And who knows? If I was in her situation, maybe I would have handled things the same way. That’s the beauty of fiction; it asks us to be empathetic toward people who seem different from us. It asks us to walk in their shoes. And now, knowing what we know about Rumplestiltskin’s deal and Milah’s first meeting with Killian, I understand better than ever how she could leave her family to be with a man who gave her a choice when she felt all her choices had been taken from her.

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Source: ABC/Eike Schroter

Title Labor of Love

Two-Sentence Summary As flashbacks reveal Snow’s connection to the young demigod Hercules, she works in the present to remind him of what he’s capable of, while also rediscovering what she’s capable of. The two heroes team up with Meg to bring down Cerberus, while Henry runs into an old foe with a new plan and Hades continues to find new ways to torture Killian.

Favorite Line “I’m saying I don’t want to be Mary Margaret anymore. I want to be Snow White again.” (Snow)

My Thoughts Once Upon a Time has many recurring themes: redemption and forgiveness, hope, love, family…But my favorite theme tackled on this show has always been self-definition. I’ve loved watching the way Emma’s line from Season One about punching back and saying, “No, this is who I am,” has been reflected in the journeys of so many of this show’s characters—from Emma herself to Regina and Killian.

“Labor of Love” put that theme in the spotlight once again, and it did so using a common motif for this show: the reclamation of a name. Names matter on Once Upon a Time. And in an episode that started with Killian using his given name first and his more common—but more villainous—name second, names mattered perhaps more than ever.

For so long, I’ve been decrying the use of “Mary Margaret” instead of “Snow White,” and it seems those who sit on the Once Upon a Time version of Mt. Olympus finally heard my pleas to bring back the name—and the identity—of my favorite character, the one who made me fall in love with this show and the one I relate to the most. I might be biased because of how much that name change meant to me, but I thought this was one of the strongest episodes in recent memory. It took one of the show’s most important themes and carried it through stories in the past and present that shed new light on a character who’d been stuck in the shadows for far too long.

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