Once Upon a Time - The Queen is Dead

Tonight's episode was a series of BAAAAAUUUUMM moments and well done epicness to contrast to last week's more character driven story and it works incredibly well.

We, disappointingly, don't get much from the Gold/Neal/Emma/Henry thread this episode, but given its heavy focus in the last episode, it's understandable. But there was still some good stuff. The conflict from last episode thankfully isn't resolved here yet. It takes time and needs more growth. Hook shows up in New York City to stab Rumple with poison. This does a good job of uniting everyone and driving the story back to Storybrooke despite the unresolved personal conflicts. I'm happy for this. In this episode, they all but say that Neal is also Peter Pan, which I also like and I'm glad they addressed that timeline factor. Also, Neal's engaged. I think we all saw that coming. I'm still holding out hope that Emma and Neal will end up together by the end of the season. Overall, while brief, the stuff in NYC was very decisive this episode. Truthfully, I would have appreciated more character moments from this storyline, but I certainly understand the need to move things forward for storyline purposes, especially when you are only allotted a certain number of episodes per season, so it's completely understandable.

The fairyback for this episode was about the death of Snow White's mother. It was very emotionally heavy and provided an excellent ground foundation for Snow's beliefs and set of morals. Despite the fact that they only got to share one scene before the Queen took ill, the connection between young Snow and her mother was extremely strong. Bailey never ceases to astound me at how well she captures Ginny's facial expressions and movements. It's fantastic acting from one so young. The real value from this fairyback, however, comes from showing us the extent of Cora's Batman Gambit to make Regina the queen. It truly shows how diabolical this woman is and what she is capable of. She's shaping up to be an excellent main villainess. We also received further hints at Cora's backstory in this episode which will be revealed next time when the original "Rumplestiltskin" fairytale is set to be told. I'm really looking forward to it.

But, the real meat of this episode comes from events in Storybrooke. I love how Gold was willing to trust his newly discovered in-laws with the dagger's location. It was excellent development. Snow herself was the most compelling character of the episode, though. Her conversation with Regina showed the holes in her ideology and made her doubt herself, a theme that carried itself throughout the episode. While I seriously question why Snow didn't bring up Cora killing Daniel in her attempts to convince Regina that she's on the wrong side, I really enjoyed the psychological and moral warfare going on between good and evil this episode. The confrontation in the clock tower was excellent. Cora again uses her skill with the Batman Gambit to force Snow to hand over the dagger in exchange for the life of Johanna. Although, I saw it coming a mile away, of course, Cora killed Johanna anyways. Cora's clearly laying down a lot of options. I can honestly say that I don't know what she's building up to. She now has the dagger, the giant is growing magic beans, and, now, she's pushing Snow White over to the dark side by breaking her spirit and her morals with it.

The last line was incredibly chilling:

Snow: "I'm going to kill Cora."

Is Snow going to succumb to her dark side at last?
What is Cora building up to?
Will Gold survive?
What is Cora's history with the Queen and what is her deal anyways?
Will Regina realize that teaming up with her mother is a bad idea yet?
Is Neal's fiancé going to irritate Swanfire shippers everywhere?
Will Hook come out of the (storage) closet?
Did Neal look good in green tights?

And, most importantly of all...

Who is going to die next episode?

I'm looking forward to the answers of every single one. To the next episode with speed!