Once Upon a Time Season Premiere Review: The Savior (Season 6 Episode 1)
The Season 6 premiere of Once Upon a Time starts off hot out of the gate — we quickly meet new characters, new villains start stirring up trouble, and new storylines are introduced.
Unfortunately, soon enough, the writers revert back to the old, familiar, tried and true stories, leaving a strange and dissatisfying feeling of deja vu.
Because, after all, haven’t we seen each of these stories already, in one form or another? Haven’t we seen Emma face a seemingly insurmountable problem and decide to conceal it from her family and her partner, choosing to go it alone instead? Haven’t we seen Zelena and Regina bicker over their respective levels of darkness?
Going into the season, I was really hopeful that the show — which, to be perfectly honest, has never again matched the high of Once Upon a Time Season 1 — because of the creators’ announcement that they would be reverting back to the full-season arc format (as opposed to the two-arcs-per-season method that they’ve employed over the last few years).
This way, I thought, they can let a story unfold naturally, more organically, and perhaps in a more fulfilling way. The half-season arcs haven’t worked for me for quite a while. The last, truly satisfying half-season arc was the Neverland arc — mostly because of its powerful conclusion, the Once Upon a Time Season 3 midseason finale — but even that was hit or miss throughout.
Don’t get me wrong — there is potential in each of these stories, if the material the actors are given is strong enough. We’ve regularly seen Jennifer Morrison, Lana Parrilla, and Robert Carlyle (who are, far and away, the strongest actors on the show) knock it out of the park when the material warrants it.
Luckily, Morrison, Parrilla, and Carlyle are each at the heart of what appear to be the three main season arcs. And I will gladly — gladly — eat my words if I turn out to be totally and completely wrong, and these arcs (which, as of now, seem rote and way too familiar) end up blowing me away and rejuvenating the show.
Emma starts off the premiere at a real high point — adorably making out with Hook.
Yep, that’s right — we get a whole two minutes of Captain Swan acting like a normal, cute couple before the ground literally starts shaking beneath them, signaling that trouble is a-brewin’. I’m a bit bummed that the writers didn’t at least give Hook and Emma a time jump a la Arrow‘s Olicity — so that we could at least know that the two did have a modicum of happiness in between dealing with drama.
Soon enough, though, Emma starts getting the shakes, which, apparently, signals her imminent death.
The show reveals this by first introducing us to Aladdin in the brief opening scene which introduces Aladdin and Jafar and their conflict. It’s a strong opening! In it, Aladdin appears to be in hiding or seclusion, for some reason. Jafar comes to confront him, but rather than simply killing him, the villain decides to taunt Aladdin for his deteriorating condition — Aladdin, also a Savior like Emma, also has the shakes — and his impending death.
It’s a lot of exposition all up front, which is typically not an awesome way to reveal story, but Oded Fehr sells it as Jafar. Basically, the scene is a Jafar showcase. Aladdin does basically nothing aside from have the shakes and look angrily at Jafar, while the Oracle does nothing besides lamely try to keep Jafar away and then get thrown against a wall, knocked out.
Emma’s shaky hands continue to plague her, and she continues to not know what’s going on — or confide in any of her many concerned loved ones — until an encounter with Hyde, of course. After her shakiness and sudden apparent flash of the future almost costs the group the opportunity to take Hyde into custody — which, by the way, is far too suspiciously easy to do — he suggests that he knows the genesis of her condition.
Hyde and Emma have a great, very tense interaction, leading to the line of the premiere: “Keep calling me girl and see how that works out for you.”
Eventually, a red bird leads Emma in the direction of the Oracle that we briefly met in the opening scene. The Oracle confirms that Emma’s vision is of the future and that she’ll die encountering some villain — a cloaked, mystery figure — at some point soon-ish, despite attempting to change her path.
I’m super bummed that Emma falls for all this so easily. After six seasons, I’d think she’d be a bit more discerning by now. This Oracle whom she has never met before tells her that she’s going to die, after Hyde, an obvious villain, pushes her there. Why does she, at no point, consider that this is all a ruse?
My guess, right off the bat, is that the Oracle is a shape-shifting Jafar. That red bird who leads Emma to the Oracle? Hmmm, don’t we know some other red bird who regularly likes to pal around with the evil sorcerer?
Anyway, Emma is freaked out and bummed because she immediately believes the worst — that she’ll be dead, no matter how she tries to change her path. I get having an initial “OMG, woe is me” moment and retreating into herself, but if we spend the rest of the season with Emma not telling her family about this, I’ll be disappointed. We’ve been there, done that already. I’m tired of Lone Wolf Emma. I understand that it’s her nature, but at some point, she needs to really, permanently grow out of that inclination.
Speaking of people who need to grow — Rumple remains completely separate from the rest of the Storybrooke crew throughout the premiere. And for good reason — Hyde freely offers up the information that Hyde gave Storybrooke to him. That’s kind of a jerk move on Hyde’s part, if you ask me. Why not keep that on the down-low, man?
Things move very quickly in Rumple’s quest to awaken Belle. He follows Hyde’s instructions, recovering a magical dust to enter Belle’s dreams and awaken her.
An odd new figure, Morpheus, tells Rumple that he can awaken Belle, and Rumple gets to work trying to get dream-Belle (who believes she’s still his fearful servant in the castle) to fall in love with him. It’s essentially Rumbelle’s greatest hits for those two, as they recreate each of their iconic moments — the teacup, the dance — in short order.
Except, just kidding, it’s all a trick — Rumple, despite truly loving Belle and their child, lies to her once again in an effort to awaken her, thereby basically failing Morpheus’ apparent secret test. And surprise! “Morpheus” is their unborn child, appearing in the form of Morpheus to test Belle’s resolve to stay away from Rumple.
The nature of Rumbelle baby is a little mysterious and, to be honest, creepy. Is the fetus some kind of all-seeing, all-knowing creature? Otherwise how would it know, from the womb, that Rumple will betray Belle and the baby in the future? Sketchy.
Regardless, Belle passes the test and rejects Rumple, allowing her to awaken, which is great. To be totally honest, I’ve never been as keen on Rumbelle as other fans have been, but I can appreciate them. Despite that, Rumple has lied to Belle repeatedly and betrayed her trust again and again. Belle would be an idiotic, stagnant character to return to Rumple once again.
I foresee one of two paths for this couple, over the season. Either Rumple will be driven to redeem himself after Morpheus’ words and will reunite with Belle after proving himself, or he’ll sacrifice himself in some big gesture to selflessly save everyone and die a hero. Since the writers have stated that a major character will die this season — and Emma dying is way too obvious — I’m inclined to think the latter.
Meanwhile, Regina and Zelena experience sister-roommate squabbles that turn into a full-fledged fight.
Despite making incredible inroads last season — my favorite part of Season 5, to be honest — Regina and Zelena’s relationship quickly deteriorates once again. The impetus? In the moving-in disarray, Zelena misplaces a feather from Robin’s cap that Roland gifted Regina.
Now, obviously, Regina has every reason to salty about Robin’s death. It happened relatively recently and, despite how Zelena wants to spin it, his death was directly caused by Zelena’s foolish decision to trust Hades.
That Zelena mentions to Regina that she “lost someone in [the room where Robin died] too” is truly absurd and made me hate Zelena for her selfishness for a moment. Like, I fully buy that Zelena loved Hades — but when Regina is standing in the room where Hades murdered her true love is maybe not the time to bring up how much you loved the murderer, hm?
The fight reveals the larger issues: Zelena is upset that Regina destroyed the dark part of herself (the part most like Zelena) without consulting her, and Regina blames Zelena for Robin’s death. She’s also struggling with the idea that Robin’s soul was obliterated.
The fight leads to two wonderful conversations, and one obvious reveal.
First, Regina talks to Henry, who suggests that Hades lied when he said Robin wasn’t at peace. The writers very carefully didn’t frame the conversation in a “So we can get him back!” kind of way. Rather, it seemed to be more like they were allowing him to be at peace — which is fine, because a direct re-do of Season 5’s rescue of Hook from the Underworld would’ve been super boring.
Then, Regina has a heart-to-heart with Snow. Snow doesn’t exactly offer up any life-changing advice for Regina, but she does admit that it was Regina’s horrid stepmotherliness that led Snow to always be full of hope. It’s a powerful moment, and I love seeing examples like this of how the relationship between the two women has developed.
Finally, the “big” closing reveal is the Evil Queen revealing herself to Zelena. I sort of thought that the Queen would be a bit more discerning and secretive, biding time to enact her evil plan, so her quick appearance is a little disappointing in that regard.
It will be interesting to see the two Reginas interact and to see what role Zelena plays in this mess. It seems clear that redemption is the ultimate goal for Zelena, so I’m guessing she’ll be instrumental in defeating the Evil Queen in the end. The Evil Queen, for her part, will probably be en route to bust Hyde out of jail by next week, so Lana Parrilla and Sam Witwer can show off some of that electric chemistry we’ve glimpsed of them.
Stray thoughts:
- Oded Fehr is great as Jafar (from the bit we’ve seen of him, anyway) but, as someone who legitimately enjoyed Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, it’s disappointing to see a recast Jafar. I loved Lost‘s Naveen Andrews in that role!
- Welcome back, Archie Hopper! (And Pongo.) (Mostly Pongo.)
- Snow leads the charge into the forest to find the Land of Untold Stories refugees who have migrated over to Storybrooke with Hyde. I’m curious to see these new characters interact with the original Storybrooke crew, but I’m even more excited to see Snow White take charge with a leadership position again. She’s had very little to do in recent seasons, so I’m happy to see her running towards a meaty storyline.
- The big question of the season: Will Jafar, Hyde, and the Evil Queen all remain evil? Once has a tendency to humanize almost each and every villain (except Hyde and Cruella, who were just straight-up bad) until they’re no longer threatening. Who will that happen with this year?
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.
Caralynn Lippo
Caralynn is a freelance writer and editor, but most importantly, she is a diehard TV addict. A few of her current favorites are Mr. Robot, You're the Worst, iZombie, and The Vampire Diaries. She also writes about TV for Romper, The TV Junkies, and TV Fanatic.