Episode 7 of Season 5, you know the drill. I’m going to make this snappy as I have novel writing to do, plus I don’t have that much to say about the episode this week.

Time is a funny thing
There was no Rumple this week, no Belle and very little Regina. Oh Regina had some good lines but she didn’t have any personal development, she was just along for the ride. That kind of makes it a bit of a meh episode for me, so my responses were less deep and more snarky.

“How do you think it feels when everyone asks you how the adventure was, and you got to say that no one asked you to go along …”

Grumpy said that in the first episode of season 5. He, Doc, Happy and Granny all joined the crew on their trip to Camelot. Now, we did get to see the dwarfs in the next episode. Doc babysat Neal, Grumpy and Happy went to the ball. However, they have been MIA ever since really. So I really have to ask –

“What’s the point in going on the adventure, if you are never there?”

I get the point that the cast is too large, they don’t have enough time to give the actors stuff to do beyond ‘stand in the background’ and that’s expensive. If they don’t have to include them in an episode, then it’s probably cheaper not too. However, I like to suspend disbelief and vanishing characters really annoys me.

I can believe that Belle wasn’t there because it was during this time that she was having her adventure with Merida. I mean the rest of the gang must have been doing something while she was gone last week, I guess this was the something. Although, seriously they are walking together and she disappears. Could they at least show a little concern? I guess Henry wasn’t there because he was still all sad because the girl he liked rejected him, or maybe he’s looking after Neal, or hiding with Granny and the dwarves.

Zelena turned up in this episode – finally. She got made a series regular and has been MIA most of the time. For all that I hate the character because there’s nothing redeemable about her, there is something very watchable about her probably because she is so evil. She doesn’t have any restrictions of conscience, it’s quite liberating. She has good lines too, I loved her ripping the ‘heroes’ plans to shreds. Plus, I completely called her working with Arthur. I think she still is back in Storybrooke, the green smoke around the squire in the jail cell has to mean something.

Oh but the main takeaway of this episode? Rumplestiltskin is the boss, he is the biggest, baddest dark one ever. You know why? Because the first Dark One came into being 500 years ago – 500! Rumple has been the dark one for at least 200 of those 500 years, personally I might have been closer to 300 but one of the creators on twitter said 200.

Either way, that end scene with all those dark one’s, so many .. what were they the dark one for like one minute each? Rumple was the dark one way longer than anyone else. He should get some serious props for that. I always knew he was special.

Although, I thought that Emma was just viewing the manifestation of the darkness as Rumple because he had been the dark one that she knew. Then they said that she had all the spirits of the previous dark one’s in her mind. However, point of order – Rumple isn’t dead. Why is he with her like all the rest? That doesn’t quite follow.

Nimue, either the actress wasn’t that great or Merlin is a complete idiot. She sounded so fake and like she was playing him from the very moment they met. He knew that she was tempted by the holy grail, he decided that they wouldn’t go that way but just because he decided, didn’t mean she agreed. I get he’s a man in love but why didn’t he carry the damn cup? He was asking for trouble.

Oh and when she collapsed, or rather fake collapsed and he’s all crying because she’s hurt and going to die. Why didn’t he heal her? He still had his magic because he hadn’t cut it away with the sword yet. Silly man, I hate logic holes like that.

Plus 1000 years isn’t all that long. Merlin made the Enchanted Forest from a desert, fine I would have swallowed it if it had been longer but that just seems so recent. I guess perhaps they didn’t want him to have been alive for eons, a few hundred years would weigh on him enough. After all if you have forever, then nothing really matters.

Though seriously, he was supposedly stuck in that tree for like 500 years. How did he go see Emma in the land without magic? I mean I can sort of swallow that he gained enough magical control to talk to Arthur – when Arthur was next to the tree. However, if he could jump realms and be a man, was in stuck in the tree or not?

Anyway, it ended with Emma having made the sword in present day Storybrooke. Merlin being controlled by the sword back in Camelot, Emma being left to wander the woods alone wondering where Merlin went and Zelena being free.

My friend wonders if Emma is actually still the dark one, if she could be pretending to save everyone from the real dark one. I don’t subscribe to that theory, Emma’s magic smoke is still white and black mixed together, light and dark, savior and dark one. However, I do wonder if maybe she has more control, and is more Emma, than perhaps I had believed.

It’s a two episode double bill next week, there will be shattering revelations. Maybe we’ll finally start to get some answers to all the mysteries! There are four episodes left in 5A story arc, it’s time to ramp it up and then wrap it up. I really can’t wait.