"The Bear King"

Between "Birth" and "The Bear King," it felt like Once Upon a Time wanted to do a two-hour episode but decided to do all the A-story in the first hour and all the B-story in the second hour. So "Birth" was like "All Your Faves Stall Explaining Important Stuff to the Very End of the Episode" and "The Bear King" was like "Unimportant Tertiary Characters And Ruby Have An Episode Together." Also, OUAT finally—proudly—brought a lesbian romance to the forefront and yes I am talking about the well scene.

I mean, come ON. Why else would Charming and Snow interrupt Regina that hard? Why else would Emma jump head-first into living with a man who wears eight high school class rings at a time unless she was trying to run away from the realest love she's ever known? Look, we all know I'm biased but COME ON.

Also, didn't Charming seem, like, way too burnt when he found out Arthur had lied to him?

Yeah, the episode began with everyone hunting down Arthur in his giant tent with his camping chairs covered with lamb pelts and demanding to know why he burned the Red Cap Mushroom, and also where was Merlin? Arthur was like WHOOPS gotta go. And Hook chased him down but Arthur quickly got the better of him and was about to kill Hook but then Emma showed up with Exaclibur and was like NOPE.

After Emma saved him, Hook picked himself up off the ground and started screaming. Just screaming and screaming and screaming. "You saved me?! But aren't you the Dark One?! Okay, maybe you aren't totes evil after all! In which case I must really seem like an asshole given how I've treated you! But maybe I like you even if you are all-powerful! But what happened man?! Why are you still the Dark One?! Why are we all not rememberrring how that went dooown!!!" There was so much screaming. And then Emma screamed back, "You want to know why I'm the Dark One?! It's all because of you!" Just yells echoing through the trees. The hundreds of people who are sleeping in Storybrooke's woods these days must not get much sleep because of A) the bitter cold, and B) Hook shrieking and shrieking.

Hilariously, Regina was not buying that Emma did any of this for Hook's benefit.

Her reaction to his claims made me laugh so hard. Regina was like, "No, this is not about you, Hook. Get over yourself. She said that? Well, that wasn't Emma talking, that was the Dark One manipulating you with her lies. No way this is all about you because real talk: it's all about her and me. I'm sorry. Watch how her parents tail my ass this whole episode every time she gets close to telling the truth. They know what's up."

Then Hook decided to throw himself off a roof to summon Emma. 

Unfortunately it worked, so we all had to sit through a speech about how every ring on his fingers represented a person he killed for almost no reason at all. Hook was like, "I won't judge you the way I did several times before. I will love you no matter what you've done (now that you'v saved my life) because I have done things that are much, much worse than spraying my whole head white and talking in a affect-free monotone. I killed a guy for drinking wine, Emma. Do you realize the kind of maniac you have to be to kill a guy for drinking wine?" and Emma was like, "For real? Okay, then I'll tell you. But actually I have to show you. Not here, in the house. Not this room. Find the room. Look around. Scavenger hunt it out boo. I spy with my little eye a telescope. Look through that spyglass and let's talk about the ocean. " CLASSIC SUSPENSE: telling your audience you are about to tell them something for seven or eight solid minutes and then never telling them.

Back in Camelot, Emma had come back to the diner to learn Hook was playing MASH with Henry and also Arthur was in control of Merlin now and using his all-powerful magic to hold her whole family hostage. On OUAT we call this a Sunday evening. If she didn't make Excalibur whole using Prometheus's spark, he would kill her whole family out in the woods while she watched!

Merlin even started to kill Snow, but that didn't take (personal theory: Snow is actually a demon) because Merlin was somehow able to supersede the laws of magic that theoretically bind the premise of this show together just by flaring his nostrils. While he was flaring his nostrils real hard, Hook wriggled off his tree and made a beeline for Arthur. Arthur sorta winged him but it was okay, Emma healed him.

Also in Storybrooke, Zelena's baby aged seven months in five minutes via Dark magic. Gross! It was birthing time, so it was off to Storybrooke's hospital and its single accredited doctor, Dr. Whale. He was ready with all his adorable sass when Robin and Regina brought in their captive sister wife Zelena.

The show was sure to lampshade his dye job by saying "What, Emma can get a dye job and I can't?" And you know what, if Emma had a dye job, that would be cute, but y'all shellacked her head with Christmas tree flocking so nice try. Also: how crazy is it that Dr. Whale is on this and iZombie, a show about a zombie who solves mysteries, and of the two, iZombie is 100 percent more gritty, realistic, and grounded? Like, compared to OUAT in terms of realness, iZombie is like The Wire or something. We live in a golden age of fantasy television. 

Anyway, Robin and Zelena had a baby girl now and Regina was like, sure. Then Emma busted in and kidnapped Zelena. That's why she'd rushed the birth! Because she needed to kill Zelena but didn't want to hurt the baby. Yes, Emma's grand plan is to put all the darkness into Zelena and then kill Zelena, because even though all this season Emma has sounded like the only grown up on the playground, explaining over and over that darkness is a metaphor and people are not two-dimensional representations of good and evil, suddenly filling Zelena with darkness like a water balloon with tar and then just popping her seemed like the best solution at hand. 

Then Emma chained up Hook next to Zelena and left the room so they could get a lot of exposition across to each other as quickly as possible.

Regina then arrived at Emma's house butt hurt that Emma was whisking Hook off for the fourth act and leaving her ass with Robin, and Emma came mincing down the stairs miffed that Regina would call her "Miss Swan." Yes, even when Emma finally had Hook all to herself and Regina had Robin and their Magic Baby alone in a room at last, these two immediately found an excuse to get nose-to-nose and hash out their feelings while the Charmings looked on in horror. I love it.

Meanwhile Hook, like an idiot, had taken the cuff off Zelena again. She snuck out and then after the commercial break immediately snuck back in with a dream catcher containing the last piece of the Camelot puzzle: Hook's memories.

See, back in Camelot, once Emma had finally harnessed the Prometheus whatzadoodle to bind the Dagger and the Excalibur, somehow in binding that magic the magic healing of Hook's neck suddenly stopped happening? Something about Excalibur being forged to break through any immortal bond or something. I don't know. Basically, this show is so up its own ass logic-wise that I am not even going to attempt to pull one of those Jenga bricks loose. I am still confused about why Hook is 300-going-on-13 in the first place, so far be it from me to question why the neck wound Emma had previously healed suddenly popped up again.

Suffice it to say, Hook had a giant, glowing, CGI sore on his neck like a hickey from Satan. So Emma dragged him out to the field of Roses and Chives and told him she was going to bind him to the sword instead of Merlin and she would be bound to the dagger and yes that would make him a Dark One but at least he wouldn't die? He was like, "No, actually just let me die." But Emma was like, "No, I can't lose you or who will my parents fixate on while me and Regina go off on road trips together to visit my ex-girlfriends?"

So yeah, Emma made Hook a SECOND Dark One!

Lol forever at how thrilled Hook is about that cape situation. 

So this is actually a delightful little twist, because as we all know, the only thing Hook hates more than the Dark One is colorful non-leather fabrics. I mean, yes, there are a lot of questions raised by the reveal that Hook has been Dark One No. 2 all along, like: how did Hook not realize he was an all-powerful immortal? Why would a memory curse work on him if he is now one of two almost omnipotent beings? And why was Emma pretending to be evil and promising to punish everyone all this time if she was the one who, like, goofed basically? 

It's a shame they can't just True Love Kiss each other back to okay but True Love's Kiss never seems to stick with these two.

So then Hook did his Super Furious expression but come on now. 

Not that I have the world's highest opinion of Hook, but even I don't think he's actually about to punch Emma to smithereens for doing whatever it took to save his life. He is about to play Zelena in some way that involves her thinking she's finally found an ally but learning once more that she is truly alienated from every conscious being that traipses across Earth's surface and, you know what, she deserves it. Just for being party to this mess:

Okay. So after an episode that at least involved the core cast and had to do with things we vaguely cared about, OUAT then trolled us all for 45 solid minutes with shot after shot of the most ridiculous wigs I have ever seen. I mean, it was like a Tim and Eric sketch with the premise "What is the saddest thing you can say while wearing a very silly wig?"

Also, Ruby appeared on top of Mulan.

And Mulan talked about how she had broken her heart by another human being because there was SOMEONE she loved but she didn't tell that person soon enough and now it was too late for her and them. WHO NEEDS GENDER SPECIFIC PRONOUNS? Not Mulan. 

But yeah, "The Bear King" could be summarized as wig, wig, wig, nipple, wig. Merida's dad had gotten this helmet that forced people to follow him into battle and the witch was like, "Get it back!" so Merida went looking for the man who killed her father that day he went to battle, that killer who also took the magic helmet, and the killer was Arthur. THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN OF ARTHUR PENDRAGON CONTINUES UNABATED. Also, Merida's dad hadn't worn the magic helmet into battle! He threw it in a lake before the battle even started. So I guess he had the last laugh on Arthur, because Arthur should never have even killed him! Yes, he sure showed Arthur.

Now with all that wig hair under the bridge, Merida wanted to kill Arthur pretty bad, but guess what? The whole helmet quest the witch sent her on in the first place was just a test to make sure she could lead. And she can! And real talk: she couldn't fit that helmet over her wig even if she tried. Also nipple.

And also: Ruby left OUAT because she didn't "fit in."

Basically all you needed to know from the second hour of this week's Once Upon a Time is:

1. OUAT's Scotland is called DunBroch.

2. There is literally a clan there called Clan MacGuffin because OUAT assumes we don't know a Macguffin from a fast-food breakfast sandwich.

3. Arthur and Zelena are in cahoots and sadly it's probably the best thing that's ever happened to Zelena because she is very lonely. 

4. Arthur killed Merida's dad so now she gets to kill him even-stevens-style.

5. Ruby and Mulan are off hunting werewolves together even as we speak.

5. OUAT may have had an "all the wigs you can film are free, free, free!" contract with Party City but Party City probably counted on this episode coming out before the end of October. 

And also it's really hard to fabricate a convincing wooden leg.

Guys. What a weird chunk of television!? I genuinely love that Hook is now a Dark One. I'm not sure what that means or where it will go but yes. He's always had the wardrobe for it. Also, go us, because we all predicted from way back that Emma was nowhere near as evil as she was pretending to be. It feels good to be simultaneously right and also feel like "WTF?" So, well done on "Birth." Real talk, I could have waited for "The Bear King" to come out on VHS, rented that VHS from the library, and then simply thrown it in a river. But I did love seeing Meghan Ory and Jamie Chung again! Will Mulan and Ruby leak into the main show or was this a one-off? Can we expect a Once Upon A Time In DunBroch spin-off to pop up next fall? How much longer can this crazy train last? Did I actually see all that happen or am I having a stroke?

 

QUESTIONS:

... Why would Hook even be angry about this? Yeah, yeah he hated the Dark One 300 years ago, when the Dark One was also a specific individual who killed Milah and was named Rumplestiltskin. Hopefully he knows better than to automatically hate himself?

... How are they going to get these two doofuses out of this pickle?

... Should the U.K. formally sue ABC for defamation of the character of Arthur Pendragon?

... Speeding up a baby in the womb: blessing or curse? Would it feel kind of like swallowing 500 of those sponge pills that turn into dinosaur shapes in a cup of water?

... Can someone take me step-by-step through what the hell exactly is going on with Excalibur? 

... Sre you so excited for Ruby or do you think Mulan and Ruby are going to, for all intents and purposes, jump into a wormhole holding hands after this episode?