Once Upon a Time Season Finale Review: The Final Battle (Season 6 Episodes 21 and 22)

The Once Upon a Time Season 6 Finale is a solid ending point for the major stories that have been told over the show’s last several years. It also would have served as an excellent series finale.

At the same time, I’m surprisingly more invested in Season 7’s “rebooted” story than I thought I would be. Pleasant surprises, indeed!

The two-parter picks up right where Once Upon a Time Season 6 Episode 20 left off — the Captain Swan wedding ends and the Black Fairy’s curse washes over the town.

The only person who completely escapes the effects of the curse is Henry, as per usual.

Well, that’s not entirely true — it later turns out that Gold is also “awake” but hiding it from his mother and everyone else. But more on that in a bit.

My one major caveat with this episode is the fact that the Black Fairy seemingly didn’t take into account Henry’s influence on Emma or prepare for it in any worthwhile way.

Why send most other major characters aside from Henry to the Enchanted Forest? Why not just poof him away too? Or lock him up? Was she that sure the curse would work on him? So many questions, so little explanation.

On the bright side, Henry fighting to help Emma remember her past as the Savior — and trying to convince her that she’s not crazy, just under a spell — gives us some quality Henry moments. I’m not a particular Henry fan, but even I have to admit that he has lots of impressive moments throughout the finale.

The fact that the finale is two hours is a really smart choice on the part of the writers. The action unfolds perfectly, and everything feels very meticulously plotted. It’s essentially feature film length and a pretty damn good one at that.

Back in the Enchanted Forest, while Henry is struggling to get Emma to remember, everyone else is getting increasingly nervous and shouting into the magic mirror. Hook eventually has the idea to seek out a magic bean in an effort to use it to portal back to Emma.

The Hook-Charming beanstalk adventure portion of the finale is great for a few reasons. For one, it’s a clear parallel to Hook-Emma’s first adventure way back in Season 2 —arguably when Captain Swan ‘shippers began shipping them in earnest.

Hook even makes a direct reference to the fact that he and Emma “began” on a beanstalk. Adorbs.

I also love this brief little jaunt because, while it’s ultimately a complete waste of time (plot-wise), it’s a great excuse for David and Hook to have one last bro-adventure. And I love a good David-Hook bro-adventure.

Josh Dallas and Colin O’Donoghue have great chemistry, and I’ve always enjoyed their scenes together. Their new dynamic as father- and son-in-law is excellent.

My major complaint about the Captain Swan wedding is that it didn’t come just a tad earlier in the season — I’d have loved to see more of “the Charmings” in action as a family with newest official member Hook before Ginny, JMo, and Josh leave the show permanently. And more of Hook frequently referring to Emma as his wife. It’s kind of a bummer.

For a split second there, I honestly believed that Charming might really die. It would’ve been super dark, but I did consider that there might be one legit casualty in such an epic finale. Instead, True Love’s Kiss does its thing and Snow wakes David after finding him buried beneath fallen beanstalk.

Somehow, I’ll never tire of those Charming-wakes-Snow flashbacks to the series premiere, mainly because it’s such an iconic scene. The show has done various other parallels to that moment, and I particularly like that the writers managed to fit a quick one in here, for Ginny and Josh’s probable last episode ever as Snowing.

All of the various story worlds crumbling as Emma lost her belief ends up being surprisingly tense and well-portrayed. The stakes really feel high as it’s happening, and it’s a legitimate surprise when Emma goes through with burning the Storybook, having fallen for Fiona’s machinations.

The first major twist of the finale is that it’s Rumple, not Emma or even Henry, who ultimately saves everyone from being consumed by the Black Fairy’s encroaching darkness. He is the one to kill his mother, in an extraordinarily satisfying moment.

Killing Fiona is the first of two major tests for Rumple’s character development in the finale. She offers him the world — love/family and power. She even brings out the big guns, dangling the prospect of resurrecting Baelfire in front of him.

Earlier Rumple would have jumped at this opportunity. Current Rumple realizes that he can’t trust his mother as far as he can throw her — taking Belle away from him and including him and Gideon in her curse wasn’t part of the plan — and shockingly kills her.

I think it’s safe to say that the Black Fairy is just as surprised to be killed by her son as we are to see it happen. The look on her face — classic. The actual visual effect the show uses when she’s killed (the turn to sand) looks really cool, too.

Alas, Gideon’s heart is still controlled by his evil grandma, and despite Rumple overcoming his darker instincts (in the form of an Enchanted Forest version of Rumple) and trying to do the right thing, Gideon still moves forward with his task to kill Emma.

As an aside: the scene between Robert Carlyle and, well, himself, down in the Black Fairy’s tunnels is a really excellent one. That said, the “Ow, I twisted my ankle suddenly!” excuse is a really poor one that’s very clearly just thrown in there to get Belle out of the way long enough for Rumple to have this intense internal battle. Really silly.

Ultimately, Emma’s battle with Gideon plays out exactly as she foresaw it way back on Once Upon a Time Season 6 Episode 1, bringing everything full circle — Gideon does successfully kill Emma. But Emma sacrifices herself, so that she neither kills an innocent or is killed by him in battle.

Emma’s choice — the “third way” that Regina gives her a great and quick pre-battle pep talk about — is an act of selflessness that effectively manages to solve everything pretty flawlessly. She “dies” for a hot sec, but again, True Love’s Kiss (from Henry) does its thing, marking yet another parallel to Once Upon a Time‘s Season 1 Finale, when Emma woke Henry from his poison apple turnover induced coma with TLK.

It’s a very pat ending, but I’m not even mad about it because the rest of the finale is so heartwarming and perfect.

Essentially, everyone gets their “happy beginning” — Snow, Charming, and baby Neal get to move to a big white house with a barn and a Lassie dog; Regina gets to be the mayor (aka, Queen) of Storybrooke, with the love of the people she always wanted, while co-parenting Henry with Emma; and Emma and Killian work together protecting the town as law enforcement.

Heck, even Rumple and Belle get their happiness, in a move I wasn’t entirely expecting — Emma’s sacrifice manages to blast adult Gideon back to babyhood. It’s confusing and the mechanics of it aren’t explained at all, but Rumbelle finding baby Gideon zapped into the tunnel is a very moving moment.

Finally, everyone (including the Rumbelle family!) enjoys a nice family dinner together. The overt visual biblical reference to the Last Supper is a little weird, but I can appreciate the sentiment.

Of course, everything is wrapped up in nice little bow, but the show must (literally) still go on — despite the majority of the cast leaving Once Upon a Time.

The series takes a cue from its spiritual predecessor Lost, tricking us all by scattering what we initially think are flashbacks throughout the finale of a little girl being sent by her dad to protect the storybook. In fact, they’re flashforwards — she’s now-adult Henry’s daughter Lucy, and the finale ends with her going to find her dad. Except he has no idea who she is.

This, I think, is a brilliant way to reboot the show and to again pay tribute to its beginnings. Lucy finding Henry perfectly mirrors Henry finding Emma in the pilot. The flashforward scenes are just spare enough to get me really interested in finding out exactly what happened between Emma triumphing in the Final Battle and Lucy arriving on Henry’s doorstep. Onwards to Season 7!

Stray thoughts:

• Why CGI rooftop? WHY?
• LOL’ing forever at those terribly photoshopped pictures of Belle going around the world on vacation. The Black Fairy has endless magic at her disposal, and that’s the best she could come up with?
• Gotta love how Fiona takes Emma to a rather dramatic-looking furnace to burn the book rather than, say, just lighting it on fire casually.
• “Hello there, mummy.” In general, I could have done with about 500 more episodes of Hook and Snow/Charming making awkward references to their new family status.
• As predicted, Gideon does finally call Rumple “papa.” Heart melts.
• Henry clonking Gideon over the head to help Emma is easily Henry’s most badass move ever.
• The Evil Queen’s inclusion is unexpected but a nice touch. I love seeing her selflessly sacrifice herself to protect the others and then get resurrected and find her own happiness by getting engaged to Faux Robin Hood.
• I can understand Regina’s inclusion next season (since Lana Parrilla is signed on as a series regular), but I’m baffled by Hook’s and Rumple’s. Both characters’ arcs seem neatly closed and tied to, respectively, Emma and Belle/Gideon — none of whom are set to return. How are they going to write Emma and Belle off? It’s a mystery.

What did you think of the season finale 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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