Some fun moments, but a horrible finale. Predictable and boring. Give Hook a break, and for goodness sake, don't encourage battered women to go back to abusive relationships. Okay, no. I'm sorry. This was a horrible finale.
Yes, there were some fun moments, and I'm not saying it couldn't have been worse, because it could have. I'm sure it was fun for the actors to switch roles for a while and it was fun for us to see them, but there were so many things wrong with the plot line as a whole.
Personally, I've never been all that interested in the Enchanted Forest flashbacks. I feel like short ones once in a while are helpful, but the show goes overboard with whole story lines that don't add enough to the current character's story arc. To do an entire finale where it was basically one big alternate EF storyline was just pointless. We knew going in that whatever happened there would be erased as long as Henry succeeded, and obviously we knew he was going to succeed because... duh. So any drama was totally taken out of any characters dying or Robin getting married or Snow being evil.
Apart from all of that, I'm just really starting to get bored with this show. We all knew Emma was going to go dark eventually, so that wasn't a twist or surprise in any way. Also, if you're going to constantly screw your characters over, you've got to give them some wins once in a while, and you have to make those wins satisfying enough for the viewers to want to stick with it. Like, the whole Robin/Regina thing has been building all season, and then by the time they finally got together, it was completely overshadowed and anti-climatic. I don't feel like we really even got a moment to be happy for them. And for goodness sake, people, give Hook a break for ONCE. He keeps getting the total shaft and he's a really good sport and just wants to do the right thing and be a good guy and protect the people he loves, and he NEVER gets a breath to just be happy. Ever. It's getting so old.
On top of all those things, I'm sorry to all the Rumple/Belle shippers out there, but her going back to him is some seriously new level of messed up. She got her moment of strength standing up for herself and no longer allowing her evil husband to abuse and use her, and now she's just running right back to him. This is a family show - what message is this sending? You love him, so you're going to stay with him no matter how abusive he is or how many people he hurts? Gross. Just...no.
I don't know when Snow and Charming became so uninteresting and I'm not even sure why, but I really don't have a lot to say about them. They're almost completely unnecessary to the whole plot line. I would love to see some moments with Emma and her parents having some real heart to hearts. I feel like they're really throwing away some huge opportunities to explore and deepen those relationships.
Usually I see reviews like this and think, "Geez if you hate the show so much, just don't watch it." But the thing is, I actually LOVE this show, and that's the reason I'm so disappointed with this finale. I feel like it has so much untapped potential that the writers are totally missing out on by re-hashing the same old patterns over and over again.
What I loved: Regina, as always. Henry is the author. Wimpy Hook was hilarious. As frustrating as it was to watch Hook get the shaft AGAIN, the acting and emotional intensity at the end was really, really good.
So many things about the episode I loved in themselves, but just didn't make any sense as part of the larger whole, which made this one of the worst season finales I've ever seen.