Once Upon A Time Season Four Finale Recap: Only In The Bizarro Episode Do Hook And Emma End Up In Bed

We begin this evening back in the Enchanted Forest – whoops, no it’s not. It’s a TV, circa 1960-something, and our author Isaac is a TV salesman. His sales manager is none to happy with his lackluster sales techniques, and reminds Isaac that sales is storytelling and he “doesn’t tell stories that people want.”Isaac hopefully opens a mysterious letter (because his personal mail is apparently delivered to the store) from “Star Publishing” and to his great delight, they’re demanding an immediate meeting.

He shows up at the studio where Jennifer Beals filmed the finale audition sequence of “Flashdance,” and the Apprentice is there to meet him. He tells Isaac that they’re a very selective publishing company, and their previous author has died. (Nice touch – Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966). He sets out an array of pens and asks him to pick a pen. It’s a test, and Isaac needs to choose the wand pen that calls out to him.

After it blasts Isaac with light, the Apprentice lets him know that the pen chooses the author, and somewhere there’s an evil author with a pen that has a feather from the same phoenix inside it. Oh, wait. Wrong story. The apprentice invites the author to take a trip and opens the mysterious portal doorway, inviting Isaac to step through and find his destiny.

OMG OMG OMG!! Pics From The Finale!!

That’s cutlass in Emma’s hand, me hearties!! And look at the Bandit Queen!

The evil Snow Queen!

Check out the whole album here!

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 21 Recap: One Mother Of An Episode

Tonight we get the twisted Once salute to that beloved holiday: Mother’s Day. Only in the Enchanted Forest, motherhood is rarely celebrated with brunch at the Marriott.

We start with Regina – and I’m talking old school Regina, snarky, powerful and dressed to the nines, interrupting a wedding just to rip the groom’s heart out because someone dared to irk her a bit, on this, the anniversary of her true love’s death. She visits Daniel’s grave and there, laying in wait, is Cora.

Oh, Cora, how I’ve missed you and that creepy, condescending smile.

Meanwhile, at a bar in New York, Robin and Regina are hashing out this horrible situation. Robin is understandably furious at being, y’know…raped by a maniac, but he wants Regina. He wants her and he’s willing to work around the obstacle of a baby and a crazy faux ex. Regina is far less than enthusiastic at having a crazy babymamma in the picture for a lifetime, however.

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 20 Recap: How Many Ships Can We Sail (And Sink)?

Tonight, kids, we’re going to learn all about relationships. The ups, the downs, the good, the evil, the twisted, the gin-soaked, and the things that mold and shape us. And oh yeah, the writers are going to be gleefully cackling in the background the whole time.

Sheesh. Where do I begin? I guess we start where they do, with the apprentice, talking to the sorcerer’s spectre (who sounds familiar but hell if I can place that actor’s voice). We learn that Emma and Lily’s fate has always been entwined and will continue to be so.

This becomes evident as Mal the Magnificent (and sadly missing the last few episodes) strolls into Granny’s and asks Emma to right her parent’s wrong and help her find her daughter – the mysterious Lily. Of course, Emma is gobsmacked and runs straight to the library, where she happens to find the one microfiche with Lily’s birth record on it, because there could be only one Lily in the state of Minnesota.

And how the hell did Emma end up in Minnesota at some point? I mean, if she ran away there, wouldn’t they just return her to Maine, where she’s registered in the system? I have a hard time believing they just let a kid hop from state to state all willy-nilly when they feel like it. But what do I know? I’m just a blogger, and a mediocre one at that.

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 19 Recap: De Vil Brings The Dark – And It’s Delicious, Darling

We begin this evening’s tale with a flashback to a young girl being chased through the woods by dalmatians – this is Cruella. Apparently Mommy is  more like Mumsy Dearest (they’re big on Mommy issues in this show), who has great influence over her beloved dogs. Mumsy locks Cruella in the attic without the benefit of an incestuous family, and poor little Cruella (and really, who names their kid “Cruella?”) appears to be sad and alone, and now thoroughly warped.

And in present-day Storybrooke, we see just how far the damage has gone. Maleficent confronts Cruella, wanting to know what happened after Cru and Ursula landed in our world with baby Lily. Cru confesses without a shred of remorse that while it was very nice that the magic from the dragon egg helped her stay young (nice retcon, writers), she up and left baby Lily to die in the woods without a backwards glance. Maleficent turns into a dragon and Cruella is easily able to use her gin breath and persuade her to take a nap, remarking that people “Always underestimate a girl in diamonds and furs.”

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, Emma is still bitchin’ at the folks. Snow defends herself again because she’s good, dammit! Regina walks in and lets them all know that Zelena is still alive and she’s going to NYC to rescue Robin.

And where the hell is baby Neal? They’ve obviously just come in from being out, and no one is there, babysitting Neal. If he’s at someone’s house, why didn’t they drop by and get him? Or at least call to check on him (especially since you just learned that the nutcase that snatched him from your arms is still hanging around)? I think Emma’s right – the Charmings are less-than-stellar parental role models.

As seen at the Storybrooke Stop-N-Shop

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 18 Recap: Can I Call It Or Can I Call It?? The Green Bitch Is Back!!

We begin tonight’s tale in Storybrooke, where the Charmings and Emma are looking for The Author in the deep, dark woods. Emma’s still pissed about the whole “Trading her soul for the soul of an innocent” thing and is frankly tired of her parent’s shit.

“But we changed!” Snow whines. Yeah, Snow, we know. We all know. And it hasn’t been for the better this season. I’m tired of your shit, too.

A few dozen yards away, the author is trying to make his own pen from a tree branch – apparently magic quills can be sculpted from the wood of Enchanted Trees (even though he was clearly using a feather quill when last we saw him – hello continuity) and there’s a lack of those in Storybrooke. Rumple shows up with a prickly, “Remember me?” And the author replies with the winning line of tonight’s episode:

“You’re quite possibly the biggest pain in the ass  I’ve ever had the displeasure of writing about.”

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 17 Recap: Worst Laid Lines Often Go Awry

Tonight’s story begins back in the Enchanted Forest with a tale of two babies. Snow and Charming have tracked a unicorn through the woods, because a mere touch of it’s horn will show them what their unborn child will be like.

Unfortunately, they see two very different kids. Charming sees a sweet and cuddly baby, but Snow sees evil teen Emma, who glares at her and rips her heart out. As the mother of a hormonal thirteen year old girl, I have no idea why this scenario is so startling. Really, I don’t.

Snow is horribly freaked out by this, and Charming begs her to tell him what’s wrong. She replies that “Saying it out loud will make it too real.” Who the hell says lines like that in real life? Nobody, that’s who. Writers throw stuff like that in when they don’t want to repeat something in two consecutive scenes, but it sounds like crap.

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 16 Recap: Poor, Unfortunate, Ghostbusting Souls

Who you gonna call?

Oh, come on. You know you shouted it out as soon as you saw him.

This week’s episode sees the return of one of my all-time favorite characters, the dastardly Captain Hook! He’s been Killian Jones for a while now, and while my Captain Swan heart is all aflutter every time Emma uses his given name, I have to say I’ve missed my dark and vengeful villain.

*sigh*

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 15 Recap: It’s The Reg And Mal Show!!

It’s the Reg and Mal Show!

We open today with our formerly evil queen meeting up with the three big baddies at Granny’s. They had to change Ursula out of the prom gown so she would fit in the booth, I guess and Maleficent looks amazing. Cruella’s drinking, which I guess is her schtick.

Flashing back to the Enchanted Forest, we see young Regina fuming over Snow White and reading Maleficent’s spell book which she found in her Mother’s things (and don’t for a minute think we won’t get to the bottom of that story…). Rumplestiltskin shows up and oh, first season Rumple, how I’ve missed you. Regina’s all impressed by the way Maleficent can turn into a dragon. Rumple tells her to wait and let her magic mature, but Regina is determined to put herself on the fast track. She seeks out Maleficent, spell book in hand.

Back in Storybrooke, the Charmings let Emma in on the plan to send Regina undercover (which they conveniently forget to mention is their plan). Emma is understandably hacked that they left her – the most qualified person in town to go undercover – out of the plan.

On the other side of town (which is all of, what…six blocks away?), the mistresses of mayhem are playing “Dont be a hero” on the train tracks to test Regina. She loses because she poofs them to safety. I gotta say, I love the idea of four unbalanced evil (or semi-evil) women cruising the town. Too bad so much of the man-candy is gone or spoken for. Could you imagine Sheriff Hunksman getting Fifty-Shaded by the four of them?

Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be in my bunk.

Once Upon A Time – Season 4, Episode 14 Recap: Maleficent The Utterly Magnificent

We begin today’s tale with a nightmare – Snow’s nightmare, to be exact – in which the big three try to take baby Neal, and Maleficent in particular is vowing to steal all the happiness from Snow and her family. Snow awakens to see that it’s 2:38 in the morning – and it’s strangely light outside. Like, daylight-ish light outside. That’s a helluva street light shining in your window. Might want to buy some blinds.

It turns out David’s up too, stressing and drinking and thinking about the horrible, terrible thing they don’t want anyone to find out about. Which of course, sends us back to the Enchanted Forest, where we see Snow and David outside their castle. They see one sleeping dwarf and automatically assume there’s a sleeping curse in place instead of lifting his hat to see if it’s Sleepy.

Surprise! The big three are visiting, and they’ve come to tip Snow and Charming off about the evil curse Regina intends to enact. Snow and Charming are understandably leery, but they do realize that a curse this severe could screw with the bad guys as well as the good, so they agree to team up. Apparently, there’s some tree of wisdom in the forest (I do hope this isn’t going to be Grandmother Willow, though I guess that would be the only callout they could possibly give to Pocahontas that wouldn’t offend a helluva lot of people). The tree answers your questions, and you need two heroes to unlock it or whatever. Snow and Charming can ask the tree how to defeat Regina.