- Title: Once Upon a Time – Firebird
- wiki: link
Leaving three episodes to deal with the fallout of choices made and shifting alliances, our heroes’ time in the Underworld comes to an end in “Firebird.” With Zelena (Rebecca Mader) successfully restarting Hades‘ (Greg Germann) heart, after Emma (Jennifer Morrison) helps save Regina‘s (Lana Parrilla) sister from the partnership of Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) and Peter Pan (Robbie Kay), everyone prepares to leave the realm for good. Well… not everyone.
With Emma searching in vain for the false hope he fed her, Hades makes a few moves of his own in his attempts to trap the heroes in the Underworld while he and Zelena make their way back to Storybrooke. Most of our heroes will still make it home, leading no doubt to a reckoning between Zelena’s new beau and the Savior, but one member of the group is left with no hope of returning to the living. Is this the last we’ve seen of Hook (Colin O’Donoghue)? If so the show allows the pirate to go out in style, once again attempting to help Emma move on without him. The flashbacks to Emma’s pre-skip-tracer days help underline the changes in the character over time showing us how she first earned her “armor” which, eventually, Hook would help her take down.
Hook remaining in the Underworld isn’t the only surprise of “Firebird.” After using his father to get the contract destroyed, Rumpelstiltskin is free to return to the land of the living. However, understanding the cost of allowing a villain like Peter Pan back into the living world, Rumpel makes a wise (and perhaps even heroic?) choice instead. He may not yet be worthy of Belle‘s (Emilie de Ravin) love, but perhaps he’s on the right track to becoming that man? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
