A word of caution to this tale, should you fight the darkness in the Once Upon a Time season 5 winter finale, you will fail.
“Now you now how it feels to be like everyone else. Isn’t it just peachy?” As Hades strips away Hercules’ only link to the world of the gods, the hero of the Disney adaptation loses more than his super strength. He feels the crushing blow of reality set in. The consequences of his powers left a world of pain and disappointment around him. All that remains is for him to make the ultimate sacrifice to set it all right.
Once Upon a Time season 5 not only threw the entire town of Storybrooke into the Underworld, but placed its fans in their own version of hell last night as the three month hiatus descended upon us. “Swan Song” lived up to its title seeing the final performances of Dark Hook and the Dark Swan.
As the Dark Ones made their way through Storybrooke looking for a human soul to sacrifice to solidify their return, the tale of two distinct Dark Ones, Emma and Hook, echoed Act III of the Disney classic. No great powerful being is coming down to save the people they love in the mortal world. In order to set things right, a trip to the Underworld and subsequently the death of one of their own is the only way to strip Darkness from the world once and for all.
Thus far, Once Upon a Time season 5 has surpassed every prior season in storytelling and character development. For the winter finale, it is only fitting that we break down the episode into the good, the great, and the greatest, plot lines.
The Good: Rumpelstiltskin will never learn
This is the last straw, right? We can finally hate Rumpel for all eternity? Last night, Gold made it clear, for what seems like hundredth time since he proclaimed his love over his son’s grave, that he will never care for anything as much as he cares for power. Just when Hook and Emma seem to have all the agency in their actions, Gold emerges from the shadows to reveal his hand.
With all of his warnings and seemingly good intentioned farewells to Belle and the town at large, something should have sent up some flags. But with the focus remaining on the Dark One with magic stopping at nothing to get his revenge, what could Gold possibly do without magic?
The Great: Hook’s past is the key to his future
A reminder of Regina’s darker side entices Hook to revisit a time in his past when the captain of the high seas visited a demon from his past. Not much is known about Hook’s childhood aside from the knowledge that he has a brother named Liam. The boys’ father traded a young Killian for a rowboat and the chance to chase a new horizon. So when Regina tells Hook to kill his father, he approaches the task with caution. However, when Hook sees his father, Brennan, tell his third son (also named Liam) the same tale he told Hook before abandoning him, Hook carries out Regina’s request.
Hook unexpectedly took center stage this season and this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what factors feed into the making of a ruthless pirate.
The Greatest: Dark CaptainSwan takes us to the Underworld
In the same vein as Emma’s ultimate journey into Darkness for the benefit of the world at large, Hook takes a parallel path culminating in the greatest sacrifice to rid the world of Darkness once and for all. It turns out that Emma was the key all along to making him realize that a hero’s sacrifice is still possible in spite of his recent fling with the Dark One.
Emma tries to interfere with the Dark One’s great plan after losing her dark magic when Hook absorbed it into Excalibur. But the light magic of the Savior is not powerful enough to stop centuries of dark magic, until Hook sees the sacrifice Emma is willing to make in order to save her family. Hook sees this as the opportunity to let the man he always wanted to be, not the man who was easiest for him to be, shine through. He asks Emma to take Excalibur and kill him. For the second time, Emma is faced with losing the man she loved to the darkness.
Hook dies, for real this time, but there is one final opportunity to save his soul from certain torture. Open a portal to the Underworld and take a trip to see the ruler of departed souls.
What could possibly go wrong?
Source
Once Upon a Time season 5 returns with episode 12, “Souls of the Departed,” Sunday, March 6, 2016.