At the end of Episode 8, Peter Pan trapped Rumpelstiltskin (Rumpel) in Pandora’s box. Despite pleas from the heroes, Pan also manipulated Henry into giving his heart to him. I really enjoy how the first half of the third season and the Pan story arc end in the last three episodes. Similar to the rest of the series, I like how the episodes tie flashbacks of the characters’ pasts to themes and events in the current storylines. In particular, the flashbacks of Regina’s, or the Evil Queen, adoption of Henry and Snow White’s fears of Regina’s curse are done very well. During the last three episodes, the show’s themes of love being stronger than hate, redemption, and the importance of moments in life are brilliant. I also enjoy the show’s interpretation of the term “happy endings” in a realistic context. As I noted in the past, the series has done an excellent job blending the fairy tale world with the real world we live in. In addition, the winter finale leaves us with a decent cliffhanger that gets me excited about the second half of the season.
Lana Parilla has done a masterful job playing Regina Mills, aka the Evil Queen. As we know from the series, she casted the Dark Curse that brought most of the beings in the Enchanted Forest to Storybrooke, a town created in the real world by the curse. As the price for the curse, she needed to kill the thing she loved most: her father Henry Mills. The show flashes back to right before the curse engulfs the entire Enchanted Forest. Regina gloats to Rumpel that she successfully cast the curse. However, he warns her that killing her father and getting her revenge will leave her with a hole in her life that she will ask Rumpel to fill in the future. I really like the point the conversation makes. Hatred and vengeance is a strong motivating factor. However, they are also very dark and negative feelings that leave a person with emptiness. In fairy tale stories and in real life, hope and love are more powerful. In my opinion, human beings need positive feelings. Even the vilest human beings want to believe and convince themselves that their actions are for a greater good. Accordingly, it makes sense that Regina’s pleasure from revenge eventually subsides and she is left with a feeling of emptiness. Of course, she fills the void by adopting her son, Henry, with the help of Mr. Gold [Rumpel’s alter ego in the real world].
The show does an excellent job portraying how a baby changes Regina’s life. Naturally, she enjoys the idea of someone she can love and who needs her. On the other hand, she struggles with the responsibilities of being a mother and caring for a child. Although she fruitlessly tries to tell herself that no one loves her child more than her, she has been selfish for a long time as the Evil Queen. As a result, she has difficulty doing whatever it takes to care for the needs of another person. Eventually, she learns that Henry’s biological mother was a baby that was abandoned and discovered close to Storybrooke at the same time the curse created the town. As we know, that baby is Emma. Of course, Regina becomes suspicious of the situation and deduces that the Mr. Gold has set a plan in motion that will bring this savior to Storybrooke to break the curse. Mr. Gold feigns to have no knowledge of his past memories since Regina is under the assumption that the curse wiped out everyone else’s memories of their lives in the Enchanted Forest besides hers. As such, Regina takes Henry back to the adoption agency in Boston. As she waits to finalize the nullification of her adoption, she bonds with Henry. Consequently, she changes her mind and decides to keep Henry despite the fears she has that it will bring the end of her curse. She also understands that she cannot dedicate herself to raising Henry if she constantly worries about the future. She selflessly takes a potion to forget her worries related to her knowledge that Henry could bring on his biological mother and destined savior to Storybrooke. I really like this scene because it makes it clear that Henry is Regina’s redemption. It begins at that point because she finally does something completely for the betterment of another person for the first time since she became the Evil Queen.
Moreover, I like how the story directly ties back in to the fight with Peter Pan. After he takes Henry’s heart, he retreats to his Thinking Tree to recuperate and regain his full powers. The tree is significant because it is where Pan abandoned his son, Rumpel, years ago. In addition, the tree protects Pan as he recovers since it preys on the regrets of people and wraps them with its vines. The concept of the tree is very well thought out. As Pan cares only about himself, he does not have any regrets. Not even orphaning his own son bothers him. Consequently, the tree does not affect him. When Regina, Emma, and Snow arrive at the tree to stop Pan and get Henry’s heart back, it traps the heroines with its vines. Emma has deep regrets about giving up Henry at birth. Similarly, Snow has the same regrets giving up Emma even though it was Emma’s best chance to live a good life and it needed to be done so Emma could break the curse. On the other hand, Regina should have the most to regret. She was originally a good person that succumbed to her hate and dark side. Accordingly, she did many terrible things to a lot of people. Nevertheless, she has no regrets. As she proclaims to Pan, everything she did brought her to Henry. Consequently, he is worth all the crimes she has committed. The scene also shows that her love for Henry is her greatest strength and outweighs all the evils she has done. Again, he is the source of her redemption. In one of my favorite moments in the season, Regina is not bound by the tree as she feels no regret. She completely stuns Pan as she rips Henry’s heart right back out.
Next, Snow White’s flashback is also excellent. In the first episode of the series, Regina crashes the wedding of Snow White and Prince Charming to threaten her curse. The flashback addresses Snow’s justified concerns and reaction after the threat. Despite Charming’s suggestion to forget about it until it happens and to enjoy their honeymoon, Snow is obviously worried and cannot stop thinking about it. Eventually, she develops a plan to cut off Medusa’s head and use it as a weapon against Regina as Medusa’s gaze will turn any living being into stone. Although Snow tries to sneak off on her own for this task, Charming catches Snow and joins her. When they face off against Medusa, they are unable to cut off her head so they try to flee and escape. Unfortunately, Charming is turned to stone saving Snow from Medusa’s grasp. At this moment, Regina appears as a reflection on a shield to taunt Snow. Regina laughs since she did not even have to do anything to ruin Snow’s happiness as Snow did it to herself. I agree with the lesson of the scene. In the real world and the fairy tale world, bad things are going to happen. There will always be threats, foreseen or unforeseen. They will occur whether you try to stop them or not. While you should try to prepare for and deal with problems as they present themselves, you cannot live in fear and be paralyzed by them. By living her life to try to stop something terrible that you may or may not know for sure would happen, she put herself and the love of her life in danger. She put both of them in a horrible situation they should not have been in the first place. Nevertheless, Snow learns from her mistakes immediately. Using the same concept that she defeated herself, she uses the shield as a mirror to reflect Medusa’s own gaze upon herself. Accordingly, Medusa defeats herself by turning herself to stone. From this point on, Snow learns to live her life to the fullest and not worry about dangers as they will always exist in one form or the other regardless of what she tries to do.
In addition, I really like how this point is emphasized throughout the last two episodes. When the group returns home to Storybrooke from Neverland, everyone is obviously happy as they believe Pan is defeated and Henry is saved. While most people try to enjoy themselves and look forward to a bright future, Emma is incapable of thinking about herself after the terrible ordeal Henry went through. Even though she owes it to herself to see if she and Neal still have a spark in their relationship, she is afraid to let her guard down and be happy so she turns down his offer for lunch. Her father, David/ Prince Charming, has one of the best conversations of the season with her. While she allays her fears to him, he makes a great point that life is made of good moments and bad moments. The bad ones are not a reason to hide from the good ones. Instead, the bad moments should be even more a reason to look for the good moments as they are the ones that make life worth living. I completely agree with the message. As we listen to fairy tale stories growing up, they usually ended with “and they lived happily ever after”. It implies that the characters have no other worries and are just happy the rest of their lives. In real life, it is definitely not the case. There will always be challenges and obstacles in the way. In my opinion, you need to endure the trying times and enjoy the good times. It is what I believe is the show’s interpretation of a happy ending. This idea is further highlighted in a flashback to a conversation Snow White and Prince Charming have immediately before the curse completely engulfs their kingdom. While Snow laments the fact that the future they imagined will be destroyed by the curse, Charming is more optimistic about the situation. While he concedes the future Snow refers to is indeed gone, he sees the curse as another twist in life that will be overcome so they can create a different happy ending. Again, I cannot concur more with the thought. Things never go according to plan. You are better off remaining positive and finding ways to adjust than to be negative and sulk about problems. Of course, it is easier said than done speaking from personal experience. Regardless, “Once Upon a Time” does a great job in bridging the fairy tale idea of a happy ending to the real world.
Of course, I also need to return to the Peter Pan storyline. Naturally, Pan does not simply give up after Regina takes Henry’s heart back. However, Regina is no fool so she casts a spell that prevents anyone from taking Henry’s heart. When Pan attacks Henry aboard Hook’s ship, the Jolly Roger; he finds himself unable to rip out Henry’s heart. Instead, he attempts to rip out Henry’s shadow but Rumpel intervenes and traps Pan’s body in Pandora’s box. Unfortunately, Pan already switched bodies with Henry. This twist is enjoyable because Jared Gilmore gets an opportunity to play a villain as a Pan possessed Henry. Throughout the series, Henry has always been the sweet, innocent true believer. Accordingly, it is nice to see Jared Gilmore play a dark role for a couple of episodes. In my opinion, he did very well. Next, the rescue party trapped Pan’s shadow on the sails of the Jolly Roger in order to fly back to Storybrooke. As Pan is believed trapped in Pandora’s box, they believe his shadow is harmless. Unfortunately, Pan is in Henry’s body and unleashes the shadow on the town. His scheme is genius. Regina’s magic is kept in her family crypt. As a result, he knows that she will bring Henry there to protect him from Pan and his shadow. Once Pan infiltrates the crypt under the disguise of Henry’s body, he uses a potion to knock Regina out. Pan has been very cunning all season and shows it again as he easily outwits Regina by taking advantage of her love for Henry.
The item he takes from the crypt is the Dark Curse that Regina used to bring everyone from the Enchanted Forest to Storybrooke. As we know, all the characters lost their memories when Regina cast her curse and lived in a town controlled by her and created under her wishes. As a result, Pan hopes to do the same except that Storybrooke will be remade into his nightmare with the inhabitants as its slaves. In describing his plans to his second in command, Felix; Pan notes that the curse is a fate worse than death as “death is final… Their suffering will be eternal”. While Emma was created to break Regina’s curse, there will be no such savior to break Pan’s curse. Similar to Regina’s curse, Pan needs to take the heart of the person he loves most. When Felix inquires whether that person is Rumpel, Pan responds that he never loved his son. In a later confrontation with Rumpel, Pan tells Rumpel that he saw him as a helpless baby full of tears “pulling away my name, my money, my time… pulling away any hope of making my life into something better”. Pan adds that he viewed his son as “This pink, naked, squirming, little larva that wanted to eat my dreams alive”. Moreover, Pan promises that he will kill everyone Rumpel loves. Of course, Pan needs the heart of the person he loves the most. However, love can mean many things including loyalty. Accordingly, he takes Felix’s heart to initiate the curse. These actions prove how sadistic Pan truly is. He does not need to torture an entire town for all of eternity to achieve his goal of saving himself but he chooses to do so anyway. During the season, I expected Pan to have some kind of redeeming qualities similar to the other main villains in the series. At a certain point, I even thought that there would be a twist that explains Pan’s actions to reveal him as a hero like he is in every other version of Peter Pan. However, he has only been more diabolical and cruel as the season progressed. He is completely selfish as he has no other motivations than to satisfy his depraved desires and saving himself. He loves no one, not his son and not his best friend and confidant Felix. While Regina struggled with the decision to kill his father to cast her curse, Pan did not hesitate to kill Felix. As I have stated before, it is truly ironic that the show has decided to make one of the greatest fairy tale heroes, Peter Pan, the one villain in the series that has no redeeming qualities. However, the writers have used their creative license brilliantly. Its reimagining of Peter Pan as a villain is perfect. While he is still fun and entertaining with his boyish charm, he is truly a monster underneath.
The final fights with Pan are done very well as it links back to the stories of redemption. First, David, Tinkerbell, Hook, and Neal are forced to fight Pan’s shadow when it attempts to stop them from getting a wand that Rumpel needs to cast a spell to return Henry and Pan back to their respective bodies. In a flashback, Hook explains that he either does things for love or revenge. As Rumpel killed his true love, all he was left with was revenge. It is the reason he was an anti-hero who made some villainous decisions. However, he risks his life against Pan’s shadow and does it for Emma. It symbolizes his redemption during the season and return to being a hero because of his love for Emma. It also represents the theme of the last three episodes that love is ultimately a stronger motivation than hate. During the fight with Pan’s shadow, Tinkerbell also finds redemption. Earlier in the season, it was shown that Tinkerbell was a very naïve fairy that believed in the good in everyone. As a result, she tried to help the Evil Queen find her true love and defied the warnings of the blue fairy to do so. When Regina betrayed her, the Blue Fairy stripped Tinkerbell of her wings for recklessly ignoring the warnings. At the same time, Tinkerbell lost faith in herself and became a bitter person. As the season has progressed, Tinkerbell has slowly but surely regained her good nature and her belief in herself. At the end, she finds complete redemption as her rediscovered belief sparks the Pixie dust she has to work which allows her to fly up to Pan’s shadow to capture and destroy it. While it is one of the side storylines of the season, I really enjoy the story of a fallen fairy that regains her wings.
Next, the best stories of redemption during the series have been the two main villains since the beginning, Rumpel and Regina. While you can clearly see they are trying to change over the course of the series, their pasts as ultimate villains definitely make you skeptical whether they can truly be good people again. My questions about their true nature are answered this season. For Rumpel, his need for power and self preservation are so strong that even his son, Neal/ Baelfire, has lost all faith in him. When Neal learns that it is prophesized Henry is supposed to be Rumpel’s undoing, Neal believes that his father only went to Neverland to kill Henry instead of saving him. It is not farfetched as Rumpel at least thought about it at the end of the second season. Nevertheless, Rumpel’s redemption lies within his love for his son and for Belle. Accordingly, he could never actually kill his own grandson to save himself. In fact, he shows he is willing to sacrifice himself for his family as he was trapped in Pandora’s box after a confrontation with Pan in an attempt to save Henry. It is the main difference between him and his own father Peter Pan. As the group leaves Neverland, Rumpel admits to Neal that he did not want Neal knowing Pan’s true identity. Rumpel laments that he and his father are the same as they both abandoned their sons. However, Neal reassures Rumpel that he is nothing like Pan. Rumpel searched for Neal because he loved him. Pan never searched for Rumpel as he does not care about anyone but himself. For me, this scene is the moment I knew Rumpel is still the good man that he used to be.
Rumpel’s complete redemption comes in the final confrontation with Pan when Pan casts the curse then threatens to kill Rumpel’s loved ones. In the end, he does what is necessary and sacrifices himself to stop Pan. As shown earlier in the season, he sent his shadow away with his dagger which is the source of his power. He has his shadow return with it and kills Pan with it. When Pan tries in a desperate attempt to say Rumpel and he can still start over and have their happy ending, Rumpel simply responds “I am a villain and villains don’t get happy endings”. From my perspective, Rumpel did not get a happy ending because he paid for the sins he committed as a villain. However, he is a good man at his core. Before he sacrificed himself, he tells Baelfire that he used the curse to find him. Rumpel wanted to tell him that he made a mistake when he abandoned him. However, Baelfire can still have a happy ending. Unfortunately, he cannot have it with Rumpel. As a result, he is unselfish and sacrifices himself for his son and the others. It corrects the selfish decision Rumpel initially made to keep his magical powers over escaping to the real world with his son. He also tells Belle that her love made him stronger. Before he became the Dark One, he was the village coward who crippled himself to desert a war. Once he obtained his magic, he cowered behind his powers. However, Belle’s affection and compassion made him stronger. He faced his demons and became a better man. He also gains the strength to do the right thing regardless if it is against his interests. The development of this story arc has been brilliantly done. Again, it links back to the idea that love is stronger than hate. Even though Rumpel becomes the “Dark One” and is consumed and corrupted absolutely by power, his love for his son and Belle are even stronger than the darkest magic. I really like how the character has come full circle. Although he is supposedly dead, he has been one of the best characters of the series and I do not think we have seen the last of him.
Although Pan dies, his curse remains. Similar to Rumpel, Regina makes sacrifices that complete her redemption. As Regina originally casted the curse, she can destroy it. However, it comes at a significant price. In order to cast the curse, she gave up the thing she loved the most and killed her father Henry. Similarly, she has to give up the thing she loves the most again by letting her son Henry go. As the curse brought everyone from the Enchanted Forest into Storybrooke, its destruction will send them all back as they do not belong in the real world. Unfortunately, Henry was born in the real world and cannot go back to the Enchanted Forest with them. However, he will not be alone. As Emma is the savior who was created to break the curse, she can escape it again. Since the beginning of the series, she wanted Emma out of the picture so she and Henry could be a family. Accordingly, it is a completely selfless decision when she finally decides to give Henry up to Emma in order to do what is best for him. In a touching moment, Henry tries to take the blame for the situation as he found Emma to break the curse. He did it because he felt alone with the misperception Regina did not love him. However, Regina takes responsibility for her actions by noting that she cast a curse out of vengeance. She also says that Mr. Gold [Rumpel] is right. She is a villain and villains do not get happy endings. Henry corrects her by saying she is not a villain. He tells her that she is his mom. Henry’s statement represents she is still the good person she was before she was manipulated and pushed to become the Evil Queen. Since Storybrooke will have never existed with the destruction of the curse, Emma and Henry will have no memory of the town or anyone in it. Accordingly, Regina gives a gift to Emma: new memories in which Emma never gave Henry up for adoption and the two were always together. As Regina only caused pain to others as the Evil Queen, it is a noble act that symbolizes the completion of her redemption. Regina has been an amazing and fascinating character. It should be interesting to see what direction the show goes with her.
Since Emma and Henry will not retain any of their memories and everyone in Storybrooke will revert back to fairy tale stories for them, she laments that the situation. As she is the savior that was supposed to bring back happy endings, she feels she should have the power to find a better solution. However, her mother Snow White states that happy endings are not always what you think they will be. Snow points out that Emma touched the lives of everyone in the town. Emma broke the curse and was the leader who was even able to lead an unlikely group of heroes, villains, and a pirate into Neverland to save Henry. Moreover, Emma and Henry can be happy as a family. While the situation is not ideal, it is still a happy ending. Accordingly, the ending of the first half of the season ties back perfectly to the idea of a happy ending in real life. Of course, it is not how things will end. A year after the end of the curse, Hook appears at Emma’s door for help as something terrible has happened in the Enchanted Forest and her parents are in trouble. Naturally, she has no reconciliation of Hook and thinks he is delusional. I am intrigued to watch how Hook will use his charm to convince her of a past she does not remember. In addition, we learn from a preview that the villain for the second half of the season will be the Wicked Witch of the West. The series has done a flawless job with its villains. I cannot wait to see its interpretation of this iconic character.
About Pat Wong
Patrick is a contributor for Rookerville. He is an avid sports fan. Before joining Rookerville, he was part of a defunct New York Yankees message board, NYYankeefans, where he was its top poster and was inducted in its Hall of Fame for his contributions. Patrick is also a passionate fan of movies. He has enjoyed reading movie reviews over the years and is excited about the opportunity to review movies.