Once Upon a Time Review: Firebird (Season 5 Episode 20)

That cannot possibly be it for CaptainSwan.

I refuse to believe it. You’re not tricking me this time, Once Upon a Time! I’ve shed enough tears over Emma Swan and Killian Jones as it is.

“Firebird” picks up immediately after the events of last week’s “Sisters,” with Hades approaching #TeamHeroes to ask for their help in rescuing Zelena. Rumple and Pan, newly teamed up, are clearly not interested in playing games, since they left Hades a very convenient ransom note.

Inexplicably, Regina is blinded by her newly-recovered love for her sister. While Regina encouraging Zelena to go to Hades at the end of the last episode is a heartwarming moment, after everyone comes down from that reconciliatory high, it’s hard not to echo Hook’s sentiment–“I’m sorry, luv, I missed the part where Zelena changed.”

Honestly, Zelena’s redemption is great and all but Regina (and by extension, the audience) is being made to take a lot of this on faith. While I do actually buy Zelena’s legitimate redemption and turn towards the side of good (because we’ve followed Zelena’s backstory and her struggles closely), I’m less sold on Hades.

We hardly know this dude and the only person saying he can be changed is him. And Regina is a very smart woman! Hook shouldn’t be the only one calling BS on Hades’ apparent 180. Trusting Zelena is not the same thing as trusting Hades, or even trusting that Zelena can cure Hades of his evilness with the power of love.

Anyway, back to the action: Hades easily convinces Emma to use her magic to help him rescue Zelena, by assuring her that he’ll erase all of their names from the tombstones, allowing them all to leave the Underworld. Again, super convenient, and everyone is just assuming that Hades will keep his word. I get that the group is desperate, but this episode contains a distractingly high frequency of grasping at straws.

Of course, Pan isn’t in this for the love of his dear son, Rumple. He has his own agenda, revealed when Hades (with Emma for back-up) goes to meet with the two kidnappers to retrieve Zelena.

Hades tears up the Rumple baby contract without a second’s hesitation (cute!), but Pan, being devious, intends to steal Zelena’s heart to head back up to the real world anyway. Luckily, Emma intervenes and the Hades/Zelena reunion first kiss works like a charm to restart Hades’ heart and lift his banishment.

Again, too convenient, but whatever. Hades, now apparently 100% cured of being an evil d-bag, removes everyone’s names from the tombstones.

Unfortunately, the steady stream of everything going perfectly smoothly comes to a screeching halt when Regina and Emma are unable to put half of Emma’s split heart into Hook. Hades explains that it’s because Hook has been dead too long but offers up a potential solution: if Hook can eat ambrosia (a la Orpheus and Eurydice), he’ll be able to go back with everyone else to the land of the living. Eyeroll at Once‘s propensity for introducing convenient, super-important plot devices objects at the last possible moment.

Of course, because this is Once, there’s a timer on everything–the group needs to get through the portal before sundown, or they’re stuck there. The how’s and why’s of this portal’s existence aren’t addressed at all, but hey, that spinning clockface as the portal is a cool visual, at least!

Emma’s family is obviously unwilling to abandon her and Hook until the last possible moment (and also they randomly decide on the side project of helping people leave the Underworld), so they remain behind while Hook and Emma journey down to Lower Level 2 of the Underworld to seek the ambrosia.

Regina convinces Robin to allow Zelena to take their daughter and exit the Underworld with Hades, which only sorta tentatively makes sense–again, Zelena is only very recently “good” and has tried to kidnap the baby on multiple occasions.

Why didn’t Robin just take the baby and head back to Storybrooke himself? He may have been hesitant to leave Regina, but he has not one but two children to look after! If Snow was willing to leave Charming and her entire family in the Underworld to return to baby Neal, it follows that Robin could have done the same with Regina. Kind of illogical.

So Zelena, Hades, and unnamed baby Hood depart the Underworld while Henry, Regina, and Charming busy themselves with helping the dead tidy up their unfinished business, which, again, is a pretty stupid use of their time. I get that they want to remain behind to wait for Hook and Emma, but it’s explicitly stated that without Hades, the dead should be able to resolve their unfinished business on their own. This seems like an instance of the show trying desperately to justify Henry’s presence and his status as the author.

When they’re interrupted by Cruella and the Blind Witch, who have teamed up to claim leadership of the Underworld in Hades’ absence, it becomes clear that Cruella and the Blind Witch were given a “magic boost” after they easily trap Regina, Henry, Charming, and Robin. Everyone assumes that it was Hades who did this, but my initial inclination is towards Rumple.

Hear me out: we don’t see much of Rumple in this episode, as he’s busying himself dealing with daddy dearest and preparing to move a still-comatose Belle through the portal and back to her father, to be awoke by True Love’s Kiss. We do, however, see that Hades is basically always at Zelena’s side.

When would he have had time to hand off a spell to Cruella and the Blind Witch without Zelena knowing? Rumple, on the other hand, would have had plenty of time to do this. The only question is what Rumple’s motivation would be, trapping his frenemies and his grandson in the Underworld. Knowing this show, though, I’m sure they could conjure up some reason. At this point, I’m about 50-50 split between thinking the current villain is Rumple or Hades. Could go either way.

If the new Big Bad trying to trap everyone is actually Rumple, he would have had to also destroy the field of ambrosia because, oopsy, after that life-or-death mini-quest to retrieve the ambrosia, Hook and Emma find that it’s been completely destroyed.

Like the others, they immediately assume it is Hades’ doing and that he maliciously plotted to trap them all in the Underworld. Which, again, is possible–but it’s also equally possible that Rumple himself plotted to make sure that Hook, once his great enemy, remains behind in the Underworld.

The “final” goodbye between Emma and Hook, when Hook realizes he has no hope of escaping the Underworld and that Emma must let him go, is absolutely heartbreaking. Colin O’Donoghue and Jennifer Morrison give fantastic performances. If I truly believed that this is the real final goodbye, I would be a puddle of tears right now.

That said, I don’t believe for a second that this is the last we’d see of Hook. This marks Hook’s third “death” (of sorts) in this season alone.

The first was back in Camelot, when Emma turned him into a Dark One. The next was his death as the Dark One back in Storybrooke. Now, he’s apparently remaining behind in the Underworld, while Emma and her family escape, but I don’t buy for a second that Killian will do as Emma asks and move on without waiting for Emma to come rescue him.

I’m certain that Killian will either rescue himself or the group will find some way to retrieve him. If that goodbye is really the end, then I’ll be sorely disappointed and surprised–a non-finale death for a major character? Nope, don’t buy it. Once loves to save up those big, gut-punchy deaths for season or midseason finales.

Elsewhere, Rumple tricks his father, vanquishing Pan for good by filling a sack with River of Souls water and shoving it inside Pan in place of the heart that Rumple fake-stole from Robin. I know, it’s way overly convoluted; but hey, it gets the job done and Pan is kaput (for realsies!). With the Pandora’s box that Pan offered up as leverage to entice Rumple to retrieve a heart for him, Rumple packs Belle up like carry-on luggage and leaves through the portal.

Last, but not least, Emma and her family reluctantly go through the portal at the last possible second, leaving Hook behind. For a second, with all the hesitation, I really thought that Hook would come limp-running up, screaming, “Emma! I found some secret ambrosia seeds! Wait for me!” or something. But alas, he didn’t. So Emma is forced to leave him behind. It’s really sad.

Also sad: that sorry excuse for a flashback sequence in this episode. I mean, seriously? A jacket origin story? Do we really need that heavy-handed metaphor about the jacket being emotional armor? We get it: Emma is closed off emotionally, thanks to her early abandonment by her parents.

This is yet another example of a flashback sequence that, while technically showing us something new, only serves to reiterate a character trait we already know well. It doesn’t actually tell us anything new and therefore is a total waste of time (in my book, anyway).

I’ll say that it is interesting to see that Emma essentially copied her early Once persona from that random bounty hunter lady, but that’s about all the flashback sequence has going for it. Also, that woman died in the actual lamest way ever. Stabbed by a piece of glass after helping your mark escape from a courthouse? Are you for real, show? So silly.

Other thoughts:

• “The Stiltskins”?! Are we honestly supposed to believe that Rumplestiltskin has actually been Rumple Stiltskin this entire time?
• Regina is being completely dismissive of Robin’s very real trauma. Actually, so is the show. Are we all just not supposed to talk about the fact that Zelena murdered Robin’s wife and raped Robin in the course of conceiving that baby? Are we supposed to discount Robin’s very legitimate hesitation to trust or hand off his infant child to the woman who violated him in that way?
• Speaking of Robin, he’s totally the one to die in next week’s episode, isn’t he? I mean, everyone else is too important to lose, and Robin has hardly even appeared in the most recent run of episodes. Poor Regina. And poor Robin–he really got shafted this season.
• That moment where Emma points out that Rumple has gotten what he wanted so why doesn’t he just leave and Rumple is like “Huh, fair point” and poofs out is hilarious.

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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