Source: spoilertv.com

Title Mother

Two-Sentence Summary When Emma and Regina return to Storybrooke with Lily and Zelena (and Robin and Roland), Regina makes a decision to team up with the Author to finally get him to write her a happy ending, but she first needs to get blood filled with the savior’s darkness to activate the magical ink. In flashbacks, we see another attempt by Regina to control how her story ends after Cora returns to the Enchanted Forest with plans to help her find love.

Favorite Lines
Zelena: Another woman defining her happiness relative to the love of a man—sad, really.
Regina: Robin isn’t my happy ending. My happy ending is finally feeling at home in the world. Robin’s just a part of that world.

My Thoughts One of my favorite things about Once Upon a Time is that it’s a story primarily about women. It’s a show where the women are heroes, villains, rulers, and saviors. And it’s also a show where almost all of these fierce, flawed, interesting women are also mothers. On so many shows, motherhood seems to render characters less interesting than they were before. On Once Upon a Time, the opposite is true. Motherhood adds even more layers, nuances, strengths, and weaknesses to these female characters. As such, it seems fitting that an episode entitled “Mother” would be one of the most satisfying episodes of the season (and perhaps the series) in terms of the growth and depth shown by Once Upon a Time’s impressive variety of female characters.

It’s also fitting that this episode was written by Jane Espenson, whose ability to weave a cohesive theme through multiple storylines has made her one of my personal favorite Once Upon a Time writers. “Mother” benefitted strongly from Espenson’s sense of thematic cohesion. Not only did each storyline (except Rumplestiltskin’s) deal with the relationships between mothers and daughters, they also all explored the idea that happy endings can be achieved by choosing to be happy with what you have and letting go of anger and resentment. As such, this episode gave me exactly what I’d been hoping to see since this “Operation Mongoose” storyline began: the realization that you don’t need an Author to write your happy ending for you; you have the power to create your own happiness. A “happy ending” isn’t a “perfect ending.” It’s simply a decision to let yourself be happy instead of focusing on emotions that make you feel miserable and dark. Emma, Regina, and Lily spent so long blocking their own paths to happiness by letting themselves believe they were destined to be unhappy. And in this episode, all three women took huge strides toward their own happy endings by letting love fill their hearts instead of hopelessness. It takes real maturity to move beyond wanting to hurt those who hurt you, and all three women grew up in a big way in “Mother.”

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Source: http://www.tvfanatic.com

Title Lily

Two-Sentence Summary When Emma discovers that Maleficent’s daughter is the same Lily she pushed away when she was a teenager, she embarks with Regina on a road trip to find her before they go to New York City to rescue Robin from Zelena. Along the way, surprises are around every corner—from Lily’s knowledge of her true identity to Robin’s rationale for not being able to leave Zelena behind.

Favorite Line “If you pull that trigger, you’ll be the one who destroyed your life this time.” (Regina, to Emma)

My Thoughts Sometimes an episode of a television show comes along that gives you everything you wanted as a fan. That was exactly what happened with “Lily.” The past couple of episodes of Once Upon a Time have felt bleak and sometimes frustrating, and I was growing tired of the characters believing that outside forces control our actions and decides our goodness or evil or happy endings for us. And then this episode came along with its brief but lovely doses of hope and warmth, reminding me that this show has always been about finding good moments amid hard times. Even more than that, though, I was so impressed with the way writers Andrew Chambliss and Dana Horgan managed to take an episode about a pair of girls fated to be connected and use it to tell a story about the power of choice.

“Lily” was an episode about free will. And the strong undercurrent of hope in this episode came from the way so many characters in it chose to be better than their darkness and help people. This was the first episode in a long time where it felt like all (or almost all) of the characters were actively working to make good choices instead of just accepting darkness, and that made for my favorite episode of the show in quite some time.

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Source: onceuponatime.wikia.com

Title Sympathy for the De Vil

Two-Sentence Summary When Cruella kidnaps Henry, her connection to the Author becomes something of great importance to every character, especially Emma. That connection is revealed in flashbacks, which also show how and why the Author took away her happy ending.

Favorite Line “Forgive me if I don’t take advice from a woman who held a grudge for half her life because a 10-year-old spilled a secret.” (Emma, to Regina)

My Thoughts Sometimes it’s easy and fun for me to talk about challenging episodes of television. And sometimes it’s not. “Sympathy for the De Vil” falls into the latter category, so I apologize if my thoughts are a bit scattered this week. A lot of things happened in this episode; some I adored, and some I was less than enthusiastic about. Ultimately, this was one of those episodes that will probably be more enjoyable to analyze later on than in its immediate aftermath. So much of its emotional and thematic core depends on how actions and arcs are going to play out into next week and beyond. That’s the problem with cliffhangers—they’re cool to watch but not so cool to write about without devolving into pure speculation.

“Sympathy for the De Vil” did right by its title character in so many ways. It created a backstory for a villain that was engaging and unbelievably surprising. But the episode faltered a bit when its focus shifted from Cruella back to the Charming Family drama. This season has given us new characters with great stories to tell, and it’s also tried to build up a compelling story about Emma being tempted by darkness. However, I think both didn’t need to be in the same season. There’s such deep, complex emotional drama to be mined from Emma’s potential darkness and how her parents’ betrayal of her trust plays into that, but a lot of it is getting lost in the equally deep and complex backstories of this season’s many villains. I appreciate the scope of this season (and am happy these Queens of Darkness turned out to be so wonderful), but I’m ready for the focus to narrow down a little bit as the season finale approaches.

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Source: http://www.tvequals.com

Title Heart of Gold

Two-Sentence Summary As flashbacks to Sherwood Forest reveal the origin of Robin Hood and the strength of his relationship with Marian in the past, he faces a difficult choice in the present between what his heart wants and what his sense of honor demands. Unbeknownst to him, though, Marian isn’t who she says she is; she’s actually Zelena in disguise, and she makes a deal with Rumplestiltskin to save his ailing heart in return for a happy ending of her own.

Favorite Line “You are quite possibly the biggest pain in the ass I have ever had the displeasure of writing about.” (The Author, to Rumplestiltskin)

My Thoughts Sometimes episodes deviate from the norm and fail. Sometimes they’re a breath of fresh air. “Heart of Gold” was an example of the latter, mainly because of the strength of the actors involved, its thematic connection to the overall arc of this half-season of Once Upon a Time, and one crazy twist. This episode could have felt boring or unnecessary; instead, it captivated me from start to finish.

Maybe my love for “Heart Gold” comes from the fact that I’ve loved all versions of the Robin Hood story since I was a little girl. There’s just something about an outlaw with a kind heart and a deep sense of honor that never fails to draw me in (which also explains my love for Killian Jones). And Sean Maguire brings the perfect balance of dashing fairytale spirit and real, grounded moral conflict to this character, whose deep sense of honor might turn out to be his undoing.

The Sherwood Forest flashbacks in this episode did a stellar job of giving depth to Robin and Marian’s relationship, which was absolutely necessary given Robin’s choices in the New York City portion of the storyline. For as much as I’ve loved Robin Hood since childhood, I’ve loved Marian even more, so I was thrilled to see Christie Laing capture both Marian’s kindness and her strong spirit in those flashbacks. Whether she was telling Robin she could speak for herself or supporting him in his new life as Robin Hood, this was the Marian I spent hours pretending to be when I was little. I thought Maguire and Laing had a lovely, easy chemistry in those flashbacks that allowed the audience to see what Robin was trying to recapture with Marian in New York.

The flashbacks also set up the idea of Robin being the kind of man who chooses to help people in need, sometimes at the expense of his own happiness. I loved his interactions with Will—not just because the world needs more Will Scarlet (Even in this episode I was left wanting more.) but because it showed just how big Robin’s heart is. When Will discovered the bottle after Robin had gone, I was surprised by how emotional I became. Robin is an incredibly selfless character, which in many ways makes him the perfect match for Regina. She spent much of her life devoted to her own selfish goal of vengeance, so I think loving a man like Robin helped her become more selfless. In the flashbacks, Robin sacrificed his own safety and happiness to help someone who was vulnerable. That same kind of sacrifice was put in front of Regina at the end of the episode, and I really believe she’ll make the choice Robin would want her to make (but more on that later!).

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