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“Once Upon A Time” recap (5.11): Shot to hell

Previously on Once Upon a Time, Ruby and Mulan decided to save themselves and ran far, far away from the nonsense, Hook remembered that Emma made him a Dark One to save his life and suddenly was super mad and super evil and called all the Dark Ones back from the depths of the Underworld.

We open the episode with a young boy on a ship calling out into the dark for his father. His father comes to tuck young Killian back into bed, telling him that we’re all braver than we think, and that he must choose what kind of man he will be. Killian’s father proves what kind of man he is by trading his young sons to some pirates and escaping via rowboat.

In present-day Storybrooke, Emma leads Team Charming to fight Hook once and for all.

Regina is ready to fight, but Mary Margaret isn’t sure fighting the man Emma used to love is such a good idea. Emma’s with Regina on this though, as in most things. She says they need to stop Dark Hook, no matter what it takes.

Robin Hood and Regina pair off and are intercepted by Zelena, who wants the baby, so she can raise a wicked little munchkin. Regina says there’s no way they’d give custody to a rapist, but Zelena knows they’ll be dead soon and cackles as she disappears. Regina and Robin turn around to see two Dark Ones coming toward them.

And in fact, Dark Ones appear for Mary Margaret and David, and the Seven Dwarves too, appearing like Death Eaters and closing in like Dementors.

Nimue is the one who visits Henry, walking straight through him. Emma asks what this means, and Gold tells everyone they should now have a mark on their wrists. Charon, the captain of the ferry to the underworld, needs to take the same number of bodies back to the Underworld as he took out. But Charon doesn’t care about who precisely he takes, so the Dark Ones all just had to pass their ticket to hell on to some unsuspecting soul. If they don’t do something about it, the ferry will take them to the underworld by the time the moon is risen.

Gold says they can’t win, and even though he hasn’t been the most trustworthy in the past, most of Team Charming is willing to take this advice at face value. But Emma isn’t marked and is desperate to save her family.

The Dark Ones, with their cloaks of varying degree of sparkle, struts about the city ominously while their leader stands at the water’s edge. Regina finds him and calls him Killian, surprising him by not slinging one of her trademark insults at him.

Regina tries to talk to him, ex-villain to ex-villain, saying that just like she’s not the woman who asked him to kill her mother, he’s not the pirate who agreed to do it. But Hook magically grabs Regina by the throat and tells her to stop talking about that event they decided never to speak of again until it was convenient for the plot at hand.

We flash back to Captain Hook telling the Evil Queen he’ll kill her mother if she helps him get revenge on his crocodile. Regina has a test for him first though, something to make sure he’ll be up for the task. She smiles that wicked smile and leads him to his test.

Back at the Charming Loft, Henry is sifting through books for answers when Mary Margaret decides they should just give up and make the most of their final moments on this earth. Henry and David agree and they all plan on going to Granny’s for their last supper. Emma looks at them like they’re crazy-they’ve faced weirder and harder things than this, why are they just going to lie down instead of fighting Hook? Besides, what about this baby? Mary Margaret looks startled, she forgot the baby even existed. She shrugs and says Emma can take care of it now and makes Emma promise to come say goodbye after she’s finished with her fool’s errand.

Regina finds Emma like a magnet pulled to her other half and says in an accusatory tone, “So, I hear we’re giving up?” Emma says they’re not and that she has a plan. She looks into Regina’s eyes and asks if she remembers what she promised back in Camelot. Regina is like that’s kind of a sore subject since I didn’t have those memories at all until yesterday but yes I remember promising you to do what’s necessary to fight the darkness.

Regina promises first, asks questions after. Regina remembers Emma saying she needs a vessel to put all the darkness in, someone to sacrifice, and asks who she has in mind. And Emma says, “Me.”

Belle goes to Gold, unaware of the madness going on, and he gives her the keys to her car and tells her to run, run as far away from this godforsaken place as she can and never look back. She thinks this is weird but has been looking for a way out of this walking encyclopedia gig for a while so she gets the hell out of dodge.

Regina and Emma come into the shop and tell Gold that they need his help because they’re going to fight Hook.

Emma asks for Excalibur, and Regina starts to explain the plan so Emma doesn’t have to say it again. Gold knows the plan is suicide, and looks between the two of them, not believing Emma would die to stop Hook, not believing that Regina would let her. But he sees the look of determination in both of them and hands over the sword, telling Emma she’s brave.

On her way out the door, Emma invites Regina to have dinner with her family-their family-at Granny’s, but Regina has to make sure Robin isn’t doing anything extra stupid, but promises to come by later.

Flashback Evil Queen brings Hook to a pub to face a man she isn’t sure he’s strong enough to face. At first Hook thinks it’s a pirate-hating thug, but when Regina knocks the man out of the way with a casual flick of the wrist, Hook sees his father tending bar.

In present-day Storybrooke, Regina and Robin find Zelena making herself at home in the mayor’s office, using a paint color book to pick out wall colors and baby names. She’s just waiting out the clock until everyone dies, perfectly giddy about the whole thing. Regina surprises Zelena by whipping out Merlin’s wand, and poofs them both to the clock tower. She waves the wand and a green tornado swoops in and takes Zelena away without even enough time to say, “I’ll get you my pretty!” Regina tells her sister to, “Enjoy Oz, witch,” and enjoys her win for a moment.

Strangely enough, Regina then forgets she has an all-powerful wand, and doesn’t mention it again for the remainder of the episode, despite the fact that it definitely could have helped the situation.

Without Regina by her side, Emma isn’t brave enough to say goodbye to her family, so she leaves a note on the juke box telling them what she’s about to do and why, and then sneaks back out again.

Flashback Hook drinks until the pub clears out and then confronts his father, who looks the same age as he did a hundred years ago, much like Hook looks like he did a hundred years ago minus 15. Hook’s secret was Neverland while his father’s was a sleeping curse. He was cared for by a nurse whose kindness changed him into a better man and whose kiss woke him up. Killian is inspired by this story and says he was supposed to kill him, but instead he’ll just pretend he killed him and arrange passage for his father and his father’s son.

In Storybrooke, Emma goes back to her house to find Hook waiting for her. Killian thanks her for reminding him about his mission to kill Gold, blaming her again even though he’s seen him every day for the past few years and has mentioned it himself on occasion. And what’s worse, Emma apologizes. It made me sick to my stomach, because it sounded like a classic example of an abusive relationship. “It’s your own fault I hit you, you made me so mad!” “I’m sorry!” Uh, what? No. That’s not how that works.

Emma says she’ll protect her family, even if she has to kill him to do it. She half-heartedly waves Excalibur at him and he turns into Henry pretty much in front of her eyes and easily takes the sword from her. He poofs away with it and Emma cries, presumably at her own stupidity.

At Granny’s, Mary Margaret and David find Emma’s letter and head out to stop her, but it’s too late. Nimue is here to take them to the underworld. She takes them to the lake, where everyone else has been taken, too.

And at least one writer remembered that there are three young children afoot, and inserted a line about them being taken care of by the fairies, who are apparently not in the business of using their magic to save anyone.

Charon and his boat chug along, and Emma runs up to her family to apologize for failing them. Regina, hating seeing Emma blame herself for this, steps up to Hook and yells at him once more. She asks if he hasn’t ruined enough families already, and asks him what kind of man he wants to be.

We flash back again to Hook showing up to give his father the papers he needs and overhearing him giving his new son the same advice he gave little Killian. When Hook finds out the boy’s name is Liam, he gets pissed and doesn’t believe he’s a changed man at all. He’s not willing to risk losing his chance at revenge for this man he hardly knows, and so Hook kills his own father.

In Storybrooke, Nimue says it’s time but Emma says no and lunges to attack.

But Nimue freezes her to keep her from interfering. Seeing Emma struggle for breath eventually proves too hard for Hook to watch so he stops her. He finally steps up and fights the darkness within him, lifting Excalibur and sucking the darkness into the sword, into himself. Shaking, he begs Emma to take the sword, to end this. Killian says he was weak (true) and wants to be strong now, and asks her to let him die a hero. Not having time to explain that it doesn’t really count as saving everyone if it’s your fault everyone’s life was in danger in the first place, Emma takes Excalibur.

Emma stabs Hook through the gut and holds him while he dies. She says, “I love you,” and I’m very surprised Hook didn’t say, “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” (Then again, Killian was never as self-aware as Spike.)

As the darkness dies, Emma’s hair is cured of its powdered wig disease and Hook’s Excalibur neck wound comes back in full force. Hook falls to the ground, and Emma and her red leather jacket cry over Hook’s body.

Dramatic music swells as medics come and take Hook away while Emma cries into her parents’ shoulders. Regina looks at Robin and wonders how to get rid of her beard now that Emma’s rid of hers.

The next morning, the sun comes out in Storybrooke, and Gold gets a surprise visitor in his shop: Belle. Henry called her and told her everything, even though that makes no sense whatsoever, so she decided to come back. She says he lied to her and then kisses him. In that order. Nothing in between. She then elaborates that she is thanking him for being selfless by sending her away in the face of danger. Which isn’t even true, because the selfless thing to do would have been to tell her everything and let her choose whether to stay or to go. Telling her to leave without telling her why was motivated by his own desire to keep her alive so HIS heart wouldn’t be broken, and was thereby selfish. He should have risked his own happiness by letting her choose her own path. But noooo, the people who write this show are the kind of people who think women like it when men order for them in restaurants.

Emma is moping about her house when she starts to hear voices.

She follows them to Gold’s shop and finds out that he still has the dagger. He somehow (no need to elaborate, it would only make less sense than it’s about to) got Hook to unknowingly channel the darkness into Gold, making Rumpelstiltskin the Ultimate Dark One. The Darkest Douche in All the Land. Emma reminds him that she still has magic and threatens to use it to poof to Belle and tell her all about this, unless Gold helps her.

Emma gathers her family and tells everyone that she’s going to the Underworld to get Killian back. Everyone looks at her like, “Girl, I know we collectively make the worst choices in the history of free will, but that is a seriously stupid decision.”

Emma has watched Hercules and has made up her mind-she’s going to go to the underworld, and give Killian half of her heart so they can live as one the way her parents have. Because sure why wouldn’t you want to be more like the Two Idiots?

Robin asks how they’ll get to the Underworld, and Emma says they’re going to have Gold call the ferry for them. So they all go down to the Hellmouth and wait for Charon (who is so giving them a two-star Uber rating for being the most annoying passengers ever) to lead us all to hell, hold the handbasket.

Y’all, were we just punk’d? Or was that really the winter finale? Is it me, or his this show truly gone to hell? I feel like the early seasons were all about empowering women to find their inner power and fight their own battles. I feel like this season has been about forgiving men for being abusive. Giving them umpeenth chances they haven’t earned. A lot of you tweeted me last night saying you’re done with the show, and honestly, I don’t blame you. I’m going to stick it out, because I want to see where the Ruby/Mulan story goes, and because I’m a masochist apparently. Hopefully 5B gets back to the good stuff.

As always, thanks for tweeting along and making me laugh even when the show is making me cringe. Here’s the last #queerytales roundup of 2015! I’ll see (most of) you again in March.

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