Once Upon a Time Review: Where Bluebirds Fly (Season 6 Episode 18)

The moment I’ve long been waiting for finally happens on Once Upon a Time Season 6 Episode 18, “Where Bluebirds Fly,” — Zelena, the former Wicked Witch, exhibits actual, substantial character growth. And it appears to stick this time around!

“Where Bluebirds Fly” is a very Zelena-centric hour, and Rebecca Mader does an absolutely stunning job with both the flashback sequences to Zelena’s time in Oz and her present-day Storybrooke scenes.

While the flashbacks to Oz don’t tell us anything new or particularly interesting about Zelena’s character, thematically they pair very well with her plot to take down the Black Fairy on her own in the present. Of course, the flashbacks also introduce the concept of the glass magic-siphoning heart, which ends up being an integral part of undoing the damage Zelena inadvertently causes in the present.

The past Oz scenes introduce Stanum, the Tin Man, who apparently was once friends with Zelena when they were both young teens. It’s not a bit surprising when an adult Zelena refuses to give up her own magic to save him, despite battling the soon-to-be-cowardly (and terrible CGI) lion in order to save her old friend.

Her choice in the flashbacks is perfectly in character, and the conversations between Zelena and Stanum just reiterate that. He insists that magic isn’t what makes Zelena special, but it’s the only thing she’s ever known that’s set her apart.

Between Cora’s abandonment and the knowledge that Regina is a less-skilled witch, her choice is obvious. She’s defined herself by her powers for so long, and she’s not willing to give that up.

At least not yet, anyway.

She leaves Stanum there to rust. Poor guy. But hey, on the bright side, some of what he says to her must stick with Zelena, because she ends up learning her lesson, years and years later.

In the present, intertwined with the story of Zelena refusing to give up her powers for a greater cause in the past, the now-not-so-wicked witch allows her emotions to get the better of her when the Black Fairy tries to recruit her and threatens baby Robin in the process. Zelena is nothing if not fiercely protective, so obviously she immediately wants to take down the Black Fairy and prove her worth.

The face-off between Zelena and the Black Fairy down in the fairy mines is a brilliant scene and proves what a great villain the Black Fairy is. She manages to psychoanalyze Zelena down to a T, correctly reading the fact that she’s unstable and desperate to prove herself — two things which make her magic the perfect choice to turn the light fairy crystals dark.

Zelena is so easily manipulated by the Black Fairy that it’s almost funny. In fact, it would be easy to just roll your eyes at her, if not for Rebecca Mader’s incredibly strong performance.

Mader is great throughout the entire installment, but she particularly shines in the moments after she goofs and allows the Black Fairy to use her magic to create a fairy nuclear bomb (of sorts).

She’s so wounded when Regina suggests that she use the dark fairy crystal to transport herself back to Oz. Instead, Zelena chooses correctly, possibly only for the second time in her life (the first, of course, was her decision to sacrifice Hades to save Regina’s life).

Zelena decides to voluntarily give up her own magic in order to clean up the mess she’s made. The scene where she makes Regina promise to take care of baby Robin “should anything go wrong” is heartbreaking. Mader plays Zelena’s vulnerability so well there.

For a moment, I was legitimately worried that Zelena would actually be killed off. It would’ve been a pretty epic exit, at least.

Instead, Zelena’s plan works — the glass heart sucks out her magic and turns the darkened crystals back to light. And Zelena’s interference ends up having an added benefit. Having found out that Gold is keeping a comatose Blue Fairy back at his shop, one of the light crystals she and Regina grab ends up being just the thing to help wake Blue back up.

Which, in turn, means that they can question Blue about how to use the wand Tigerlily gave Hook to defeat the Black Fairy.

Essentially, Zelena is the MVP of this episode, in every possible way.

Meanwhile, on the lighter side of things, the Charming help Emma and Killian plan their wedding. And, you guys — it’s the most adorable thing in the world.

First of all, I love the brief scene of domestic bliss that Captain Swan gets at the top of the hour, with the pancakes and the almost-sex. All of the doom and gloom is great fodder for drama, but it’s important to mix that up with moments of genuine happiness — and that’s what this episode is for the couple.

Snow and Charming disagreeing about wedding planning starts out as a light-hearted subplot. Snow is so adorably excited to plan her daughter’s wedding — that huge binder of ideas!! — whereas nothing is quite right for Charming.

At first, it just seems like he’s disagreeing because he wants something bigger and better (something “fit for a princess”). But in the end, it turns out that he doesn’t want the wedding to happen at all — and for good reason.

Things get serious when Charming confesses that he doesn’t want to walk Emma down the aisle until the threat of the Black Fairy is cleared away. He wants her to have a wedding unburdened by darkness looming. Emma and Hook agree, so the wedding is postponed, for now, much to Snow’s begrudging disappointment.

Of course, we viewers are well aware that the Captain Swan wedding is happening during the series’ upcoming musical episode, airing on May 7th — aka, the episode after next.

Finally, the last major development on “Where Bluebirds Fly” comes at the very end, when the Black Fairy confesses her true reason for orchestrating Blue’s comatose state. Surprisingly, it’s got nothing to do with using the broken wand against her. Instead, Blue’s got some dirt on the Black Fairy and knows why she really abandoned Rumple way back when.

The Black Fairy is a great villain. To be honest, I don’t really want them to humanize her too much, which I fear is what they’re planning to do with this reveal.

Once Upon a Time has humanized (to some degree) just about every one of its major villains, with the exception of Cruella and Pan. Pan’s unrelenting villainy made him one of my favorite Once Upon a Time villains, and I’ve been liking the Black Fairy for the same reason.

Stray thoughts:

• Stanum = tin in Latin. Very crafty, writers!
• We see baby Robin far more often than we see baby Neal. It continues to be so strange.
• Charming seems to recognize one of Henry’s symbols — what could that mean?
• Now that she has no powers, what’s Zelena going to do with her life? This will be an interesting change for her, and hopefully it will catapult her character in a new direction.
• I’m still really loving this tentative Belle/Zelena friendship.
• So has Belle just forgotten everything that Gold did at the start of this season? Sure seems like it.
• But on that note: thank goodness they both know now that Gideon’s heart is being controlled by the Black Fairy.

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

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

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