“And they lived happily ever after,” is not a phrase you will see on tonight’s Once Upon a Time season 4 finale.
Emma did what? There is no time like the present to catch up on the stories of the past. But no amount of magical ink can rewrite the ending we witnessed on tonight’s Once Upon a Time season 4 finale!
Hour One: A tale as old as… well, May 2015
December 1966, as color televisions made their grand entrance into the suburban living room, Walt Disney was laid to rest and a vacancy needed to be filled in the Once Upon a Time universe. Isaac Heller is called up by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. With a test that seems straight out of Harry Potter, the Author chooses the quill that calls to him and not the other way around. The Apprentice takes the Author into the Enchanted Forest prepared to give him all the answers he needs, leaving us to wander back into the Sorcerer’s house to look for our own.
We’re not sure if it is just us, but since all the characters have been pretty scattered this season seeing David, Robin, Hook, and August all in one room in their dark clothing and leather jackets was a little overwhelming. Beyond fulfilling our eye candy quota, they also figured out how to get the Apprentice out of the hat. With Blue’s help, the Apprentice wastes no time taking his first breath of fresh air to assign duties. Henry, Hook, and the Charmings head to the loft to find the key and page 28 to capture Issac.
Sitting in his shop clinging for life, Rumpelstiltskin wonders why the Author is taking his time to help the darkest of hearts. Both of them struggled their entire lives to find happiness, but with every bit of power they gained, the more dissatisfied they felt. In their new stories, Rumpel returns to his home in the Enchanted Forest with nothing but memories of doing right by his son and the Author gets to go on with his own happy ending. As the ink dries on the words, “The End,” a new story begins and Henry wakes up alone in Storybrooke.
There was a card, probably hanging on the storyboard of the writers room wall circa May 2014 that read, “What happens when the villains win the day?” Isaac paid that room a visit in his alternate reality and made that question the basis of his international best-seller Heroes and Villains. At the close of a reading, Isaac fulfills his authorial duty and signs autographs and accepts presents that celebrate the tortured characters fans rally behind. In his case, and Once Upon a Time‘s case, that person is Regina. Henry wastes no time taking a car from Storybrooke and putting that one driving lesson to use until he finds Isaac.
Henry gets the answers he needs, using the key to threaten Isaac’s happy ending. Instead of using it on the Author, he uses it to unlock the final chapter of the book. Finally, after four seasons, Henry takes a stroll in the Enchanted Forest. Isaac reluctantly follows him to the final chapter of Rumpel’s story, which will be set in stone if the bells chime by sunset that evening. But Henry has a knack for surviving and it is Rumpel, the hero, who allows him to continue his journey into the woods, despite Isaac’s best attempt to have him eaten by ogre.
Isaac’s book turns out to be a great map, but of little help when he begins to cross paths with some familiar characters from his life. Unfortunately, he left his adoption certificate and proof of ID in the loft, causing Regina to have a hard time accepting the role Henry claims she plays in his life. A mother? No way. In this world Regina is a bandit in constant competition with Robin Hood.
As she heads out to rob the Evil Queen’s tax carriage, Isaac returns to find out that he should have stuck with the edits to have the ogre win one battle. Running to catch Henry, Isaac is taken by the dark knights, aka the seven dwarves. Using his knowledge as a bargaining tool with the Evil Queen Snow, Isaac is able to spare his own life and offer the audience Snow and Charming’s new background story. Snow was in love with David’s twin James and settled to control the lesser of the two brothers after James’ untimely death.
Now, Isaac finds himself facing the same problem he worked to run away from — promising happy endings to the villains. Snow takes off to stop Regina, but Robin arrives in time to stop a fireball from consuming her face. She is less than accepting of his good will, paying him for her life when all he wants is to share a drink and make heart eyes across the table. But she walks away from the calling in her heart to find Henry questioning how she can watch Zelena walk in and take her happiness.
But Henry’s not exactly getting through to Regina, who still believes the alternate version of her life. Time for option number two. Find Emma.
Hour Two: To the ends of the world and back again
The Light One, because the word opposite is taken at a kindergarten level in the new world, returns home to his lovely wife Belle and their newborn. But a stranger has some unpleasant news for the hero. What if there was a threat to his happy ending? Something that would take away his pride and honor that he worked so hard to uphold following his first son’s death in the ogre wars? That is the price of being a hero, constantly defending your happy ending.
There is still one destroyed happy ending we have not seen yet. AHOY! Henry makes his way to the docks to find a scrawny deck hand with no fighting ability bowing at the feet of Captain Blackbeard. With a few tricks up his sleeve from hanging around with Pan and the old Hook, Henry not only takes back the ship, but gets Hook behind the Captain’s wheel. As they approach Emma’s island of isolation, Henry has a plan to fool the only black knight, use the old fake prisoner gag. In the tower, Emma immediately recognizes Henry. She may not be the Savior in this land, but her memory is clear as day. However, Hook’s altered reality does not include the blonde who falls into his arms, but it does involve an allergy to rum.
There is not much time left for flirting on Emma’s part since she must stop the guard, who turns out to be Lily, teach Hook how to fight so that muscle memory will take over, and get to the church in time to stop Zelena’s wedding. Hook begins to recognize that Emma has strong feelings for him and asks if in another lifetime they were meant to be together. Calling back to season 4’s finale, he finds himself once again jealous of the other Hook.
Snow and David arrive ready to take Henry’s head, but Hook holds them off when Emma’s attempt to explain the family tree and an alternate reality fails to move them. Hook gets the upper hand on David, but as he goes against Snow, David literally stabs him in the back and Emma can do nothing but watch him die. The timeline now becomes that much more important.
Henry takes Emma to give Regina one last pep talk to get her moving towards her happy ending. Her first step is to go after Robin and shatter the new time line. Sure, happy endings are not dependent upon getting the guy, but love is. Emma understands she is scared of the possibility that Robin does not feel the same. That same fear is a hurdle that prevented Emma from telling her true love that she loved him. Instead she watched him die and now if Regina does not stop this wedding, that is how their story will go.
Rumpel, defender of happy endings for heroes everywhere, arrives in time to stop the mythical boy and “Savior” from ruining his happy ending. With Emma disarmed and Regina off staring at Robin from the doorway, Henry is left to take on Rumpel alone. Henry soon finds himself at the end of Rumpel’s sword, until Regina jumps in front of him taking the fatal stab as the bells toll. Robin exits the church bonded in matrimony, but is nevertheless still concerned for Regina’s wellbeing. Zelena reveals her greener side as he tends to his true love, but Isaac is there to deliver the final lines of his book. Or so he thinks. Isaac may not be the Author anymore, but a new one has yet to be named. As Henry reaches for the quill, it glows and he takes his calling to write a new ending — Everything that Isaac has written is undone.
Waking up on the streets of Storybrooke can mean one of two things. Either Granny’s got a bit out of hand the night before, or a curse was just broken. Though not a curse, the nightmare of their trip into the book shakes the best of them. Emma runs to the loft to make sure that Hook came back and he not only survived, but woke up and immediately searched for Henry. Emma has her love back, but the hurdle still exists between her head and heart that even death cannot remove.
Belle has a similar hurdle to leap as she goes to Rumpel’s side. With his heart about to give out, the threat of the Dark One running untethered in the world becomes a very real threat. And with seven minutes remaining in the episode, the clock is ticking even faster for a resolution!
Snow and Charming head to the edge of town to greet Isaac as he tries to flee. His name is gone from the best-seller list, his fame and fortune erased. Writing the pain and suffering of others is a cost that builds a villain, not a hero.
The power of the quill is tempting, but Henry has never been one to err on the side of darkness. The storybook is a product of truth and that is what needs to be written. With that, Henry snaps the quill in half and already exceeds expectations.
A celebration at Granny’s is never the be all end all for a season of Once Upon a Time. As Hook jokes about dying at the hands of David and Mary Margaret and Lily announces that she was the product of anonymous dragon sex, Gold lies dying on the floor of his shop. Belle grabs the Apprentice, Emma, and the rest of Operation Mongoose to try to contain the Dark One. With his heart cleared of all darkness, the Apprentice returns it to Gold’s body and puts his life on pause until they can figure out if the human host can be saved.
With the dagger clear and the Dark One without a host, every viable human is in jeopardy. Before the stories of the Enchanted Forest began, long before the Charmings and the Evil Queen, the Sorcerer kept the darkness from consuming the realms and only he has the power to destroy it. Somewhere, Merlin awaits.
For now, the Savior takes her reinstated title seriously and decides that those around her brought her back from the darkness once and they can do it again. She grabs Hook, tells him she loves him, and drags Regina out of the clutches of the darker powers.
The dagger falls to the ground and reads, Emma Swan.
Once Upon a Time season 5 will return Fall 2015.