REVIEW: Once Upon a Time, S6 Ep1 – The Savior

Once Upon a Time returned with more magic, mayhem, and mystery as a dirigible full of citizens from the Land of Untold Stories crash lands into Storybrooke. Emma struggles with a worrying vision of the future, Regina begins to deal with her decision of ridding herself of the Evil Queen, and Rumple tries to win back Belle’s love.

It was a pretty eventful season premiere for Once Upon a Time, which luckily did not introduce too many new characters. Instead it focused on its strength, developing the core cast and delving deeper into their problems. The main storylines involved Emma, Regina, and Rumple, with only Emma’s story linking back to the new characters like Hyde and the Land of Untold Stories. There was also a welcome cameo from one of my favorite characters from season one, Archie Hopper, who offered some support and coffee to the distraught savior. 

But since this is Once Upon a Time, it was not without its weird family tree twists and cheesy villains. Whenever you think the characters’ family trees can’t get any more complicated, Once Upon a Time pulls a trick like having Morpheus be Belle and Rumple’s son in adult form. He manages to wake his mother with True Love’s Kiss but in doing so, drives a firm wedge between his parents, warning Belle not to believe Rumple’s promises. Still in the womb and the Rumbelle baby already has trust issues. What a show. But it’s only fair and Rumple has been too shady for his own good. He’s going to have to work a lot harder if he wants to maintain a relationship with Belle and their new child. 

It looks like where last season explored and expanded the mythos surrounding the Dark One, this season will be doing the same for that of the Savior. The opening scenes of the episode were from the clip shown earlier this year at Comic Con and featured Aladdin and Jafar. Aladdin suffers the same tremors and overall depression as Emma begins to in this episode, which draws a clear parallel between them, as Saviors falling on hard times. Since we are going to probably see more of Aladdin’s back story, as well as meet Princess Jasmine, we’ll see how this ties into Emma’s latest journey.

 Regina’s story line was more interesting because it was smaller and more intimate, not muddled by magic or curses or new characters. This was a more reflective episode for her, which is always effective. She also had some great bonding moments with Snow and it was wonderful to see them this way, to see how far they had come in their relationship to be able to truly be like family. The loss of Robin Hood is still fresh to Regina and she’s still having trouble adjusting to being sisterly with Zelena. But they’re bound to work things out. Too bad the Evil Queen is back somehow and aiming to make trouble. But Regina is nothing if not determined, and more than any magic, she has the power to re-write her story. And hopefully, this time she will get the happier ending she has always deserved.

The stage is set for an exciting and intriguing sixth season of Once Upon a Time, full of new challenges for our heroes and villains. They’re bound to succeed in the end, but with this show, it’s really more about the journey.