Once Upon a Time Review: The Brothers Jones (Season 5 Episode 15)

“The Brothers Jones” is all about (you guessed it) Captain Hook and his supposedly virtuous brother, Liam. I love Hook, and I love CaptainSwan, but somehow this episode of Once Upon a Time falls short. I blame the shoddy writing for making Hook a whiny insufferable ass for most of the episode. This is not the Hook we know and love!

Despite its flaws, “The Brothers Jones” is an essential part of the Underworld arc. That much is clear. If the rescue-turned-escape from Hades’ realm had proceeded without anyone dealing with the emotional fallout of Hook’s short but memorable Dark One reign, it would’ve just felt wrong. It makes perfect sense that Killian would be feeling unredeemable after what he’d done as the Dark One, but the way that he’s convinced of his redemption in this episode feels weird, contrived, and way too quick.

Interwoven with the present-day Underworld sequences of Emma, Killian, his long lost older bro, and the gang searching for the Underworld-equivalent of the Story Book are flashback sequences to Killian and Liam’s time in servitude, after their shitty father sold them. The man who would come to be known as Hook is a drunkard and a gambler at that time (which is fair, seeing as how their father sold them to a ship captain and all… it would screw up the best of men). Liam, on the hand, is ambitious and has plans to be in the King’s navy (which we already know he succeeds at, since that’s where we’d met him before). The actual specifics of how he got to the navy completely change our (and Hook’s) view of the character.

Essentially, in what also feels like a super contrived “twist,” aboard the ship of their servitude, Liam managed a mutiny in an attempt to steer his men out of the eye of a storm. Hades appears, flames his hair at Liam to show the elder Jones he means business, and promises that Killian and Liam will live and get the ultra-valuable Eye of the Storm jewel in exchange for the souls of all the other men on board.

I have so many problems with this. It’s not exactly the butchering of Liam’s character because, to be frank, we hardly know him, and Emma is right — even before the reveal of his deal with Hades, Liam comes across as incredibly self-righteous. And when the daughter of Snow and Charming calls you self-righteous, you know you’ve got problems.

No, the issue is more with how it all goes down during the flashbacks. First, Captain Silver is wonderfully bitchy but apparently a useless captain. He puts up absolutely no fight against Liam’s mutiny, which is insane. At the point when Hades appears, the show doesn’t even try to play it like “Everyone on board will die if you don’t sell me these souls.” It’s pretty clear that Liam would be able steer the entire ship out of the storm and save everyone. He just wouldn’t have the Jewel. By choosing to sacrifice everyone, Liam makes a purely selfish choice. Not one out of necessity, to save his life and his brother’s. I just don’t feel like what he did is at all within character for what little we’ve seen of him.

Captain Silver also overhears Hades blackmailing Liam into doing his bidding, using the secret of their past deal, in the most soap opera-ish way imaginable. He’s just casually walking into the bar while Hades and Liam are loudly discussing it.

Naturally, he’s pissed off, as is the rest of his dead crew, so when they swarm Liam and Killian, I’m almost rooting for them to kick the crap out of Liam at least. Especially after he is such a jerk to Emma, criticizing her for turning Hook into a Dark One to save his life and telling her she’s not good enough for Hook. I mean, seriously, buddy? You haven’t been around your little brother for actual centuries, I’m not sure how you feel you’re qualified to make that call.

For how abrupt and contrived the set-up for Liam’s metaphorical fall from grace feels, the wrap-up is equally too fast. Killian is angry at Liam for his lies and for ripping the Hades pages out of the Under Book about 30 seconds before the brothers Jones and the dead ship crew get poofed over to that terrible CGI cliff by Hades. Hades proceeds to start poofing the men over the cliff, and Liam taking responsibility for what he’d done and allowing himself to fall from Hook’s grasp is (predictably) what manages to help him move on to a better place, courtesy of a silly looking little rowboat. Instead of just killing Hook right thing, Hades gets upset and leaves. Hades had promise initially, but his actions make very little sense. Why is he keeping Hook alive?

Anyway, Hook’s realization that Liam wasn’t so great after all makes him realize, in turn, that perhaps he is worth saving after all, and he and Emma make up. Logically, it doesn’t exactly follow, but I’m at least glad that this (hopefully) resolves the Emo Hook problem. I don’t think I could have multiple weeks of Hook being whiny and ungrateful to Emma for dragging her entire family to hell to rescue him.

Alongside this Saved-Soul-Of-The-Week plot with Liam, Henry struggles with the choice of whether to resurrect Cruella. Henry has been pretty stupid in the past, but taking Cruella’s word for it and believing that resurrecting her would somehow cure Emma of the fact that she was capable of murdering Cruella — that’s next level stupidity.

Luckily, “cool grandpa” Charming manages to break through to sullen teenage Henry, and we get to avoid that whole debacle. I also appreciate the fact that Henry acknowledges that he’s basically useless, just hanging around waiting to be rescued or standing at the sidelines. That said, I don’t think I care for Henry coming to the forefront and becoming a major part of this story. Given that the current plan to defeat Hades is for Henry to rewrite Hades’ story (instead of, say, writing that he and his family are safely back in Storybrooke), it unfortunately seems as though Henry will get his moment in the sun. Here’s hoping he doesn’t screw it up.

Other thoughts:

• Rumple is absent for this episode, which makes a little bit of sense, since he’s apparently been known to just wander off and do his own thing in the Underworld. Since he and Hook have so much history, I do wish he would’ve been around as a counterpoint to Hook’s inevitable redemption.
• Robin is also absent for this episode which… makes no sense at all. Does anyone even remark on the fact that he’s gone?
• There are a few fantastic SwanQueen moments in “The Brothers Jones” (mostly while Hook is still being a doofus): Regina telling Henry to listen to his mother (Emma) and his mother (her), Regina telling Emma that she’s too good for Hook, Regina realizing that she and Hook are very similar.
• Charming making out with Cruella is going to haunt my nightmares.

What did you think of this episode of Once Upon a Time? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Once Upon a Time airs Sunday at 8/7c on ABC.

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