Okay.
Well.
Emma has touched the book before, so I have no idea why it gave her memories now. That was... completely weird. All of the bad writing in this show is frustrating because it could have easily been avoided with either foreshadowing or a bit of clever misdirection. But instead it seems like it is written on the fly... which, from the Paley Panel, and from the fact that the producers of Lost can't do a different show, is pretty much apparent.
Seriously, this show is so Lost it's not even funny. Even Emma's 180 on the Fairy Tales is pure Jack's sixth season 180 on Magic.
Which sucks, because this show had some amazing episodes, and some amazing concepts (Red Riding Hood being the Big Bad Wolf, Dwarves as a slave race, Rumplestilskin as Beast, all magic having some sort of karmic turn-around). It just tries way too fucking hard to be different, sort of like "well, yeah, we do cool stuff, but we can do even COOLER stuff!" (Dwarves born from eggs, Prince Charming is actually his twin brother, Snow White had her memory erased).
The real story of this episode was the Fairy Tale World. I love how they continue to flesh out how the world works, and exactly how big it is.
Robert Carlyle. I've loved him since Ravenous. He was amazing in Stargate Universe. But as Rumplestilskin, he's fucking phenomenal.
"Well it's storming like a bitch" was a great line. Perfect juxtaposition against the fairy tale flowerism that was spouted right before.
Emma talking to August about finally believing was pretty good, too; it showcased the level of fucked up that believing actually entailed.
The Mines wraparound finally happened. Was very happy about that. Also, I'm glad they explained why the Mines were there instead of having it be some BS thing that was never explained. Great to see yet another Pure Disney Form Character, too.
Both Maleficent fights were great.
If this were the episode after Emma found out, it might have had the chance of being less sucky. It really did. This show really has an awesome theme.
Everyone waking up was great. I love how Charming literally stopped his car. I also really liked how they gave Regina a chance to run. In fact, all of the final ten minutes were what the entire season should have been.
5/10?