Once Upon a Time Season 4B Premiere Review: Scroll Out the Red Carpet

Once Upon a Time S04E13: "Darkness on the Edge of Town"

The coldest part of winter is over: We are no longer banished from the fever dream of Storybrooke, the enchanted town where fake eyelashes are sold in bulk and all of Disney's licensed characters (that ones still move merchandise, anyway) live in harmony. Huzzah!

I think it's fair to say no one is more astonished by Once Upon a Time surviving long enough to air a second half of a fourth season than the show's writers themselves, because the sheer randomness of its latest story arc and its disconnection from all organic plot development makes it unquestionably clear that there's no series master plan hidden away in a writers' room lockbox. There's no road map. And if there ever was one, we are well and truly off it thanks to the recent Frozen detour, and now OUAT is charting entirely new territory. What dizzy fun it is to watch a billion-dollar corporation attempt to "wing it" each week with just a few million dollars, a month's lead time, and four years of compounding backstories to negotiate!

So "Darkness on the Edge of Town," OUAT's first new episode in months, opened with Ursula and her hip tentacles breaking into a clifftop CGI Neuschwanstein and immediately getting into a fight with Maleficent. SOMEONE had sent her an E-vite to Maleficent's house, and she had not bothered to ask questions; she just tucked in her tentacles and trekked through mountains and forest to see what was up.

Maleficent's outfit had been updated to reflect the costume worn by Angelina Jolie's version of the character and she was looking pretty chuffed about it. Then Cruella de Vil came in and revealed her special power at long last: She can control animals with her stank-breath!

Like Ursula, Cruella also didn't know why she was there. But before they could get down to brass tacks about who'd created the Facebook event, Rumple showed up dressed like a 16th century Leftenant and explained that they, as villains, were finally going to get their happy endings! Giggle!

Meanwhile, Storybrooke had enjoyed an unprecedented six weeks of normalcy. Everything was ticking along like the merriest of swiss clocks. Snow was back in the classroom and Regina was once again mayor by what I can only assume was popular demand, Emma's extensions were down to her waist, and Hook was bringing Emma coffee in the morning before starting work at the library with Belle, who was still bravely trotting around in her five-inch stripper heels. Idyllic!

I mean, I think Hook was working at the library. He appeared to be crafting a very elaborate vision board about how to get the Nun Fairies out of that hat. Very helpful. He knocked it to the floor in exasperation because it wasn't working no matter how much he believed in himself, and Belle was like, "Don't worry, I've contacted some of the top minds in this world about how to get those fairies out of that hat." I really wish OUAT would've then used a smash cut to Stephen Hawking laughing his ass off, but instead Belle minced over and started shelving books that I really doubt anyone ever checked out in the first place.

With her fake eyelashes a-flutterin', Belle said that she wished she'd seen through Rumple sooner. Hook gently reminded her that love is its own magic. Belle sighed that Rumple had held BOTH of their hearts, and I thought back to that time Hook cold-cocked Belle in the face and threatened to kill her. Hook was like, "For the record, that ol' bastard really loved you."

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Speaking of the deepest and truest of loves, Emma surprised Regina in the office with a picnic lunch!

Sooooo thoughtful and romantic. While looking for a bottle opener for their "root" beers, Emma stumbled upon the picture of Robin and Regina. "You still in touch with that nutty old forest hobo?" Emma asked, frowning. Regina assured her that shit had "appeared" to Robin, it wasn't part of her story, #nohetero.

Then Belle came running in with hot news: A professor at Oxford's Center for the Study of Complete and Utter Bullshit had emailed her back translating the steps of an ancient ritual to get the fairies out of the hat! It was time for some Wicca in the woods.

Meanwhile, in New York City, a hard-working janitor was coming home to find that her elderly roommate had eaten her last Cup Noodles.

THIS is the show I want to see. Forget OUAT in Wonderland, I want a spin-off about Rumple and Ursula sharing a one-bedroom apartment in New York, caring and sharing, relating and berating each other. A formerly magical janitor and a sassy Scottish man jabbing each other about old fairy-tale drama? Sign me up.

Also, real talk: It was super nice of Ursula to let Rumple stay in her apartment for six weeks. That alone pushes her from "villain" to "hero" status in my mind. And future anthropologists, don't be fooled, this is NOT what email alerts look like in 2015.

Back to the black magic. Regina, Snow, Emma, et. al. were in the woods surrounded by burning ancient braziers working powerful magicks on the hat box. And for once, shit actually worked: The fairies returned! I know we were all THRILLED to see Blue back. She just won't stay dead, guys, and I was impressed by how rattled she seemed. (Where did the fairies spend the last six weeks, exactly? Whirling around in an airless cosmos?) But then also a dark cloud popped out and took off over the treeline before anyone could notice.

And now we must again get back to our backstory: Rumple had taken Ursula the Sea Witch, Maleficent the Enchantress, and Fashion-Mad Flapper Cruella to a dark, cursed cave where all three of the ladies would show orr their special skills. Cruella blew some mind-melting stank-breath on a beetle.

Maleficent consumed a hurricane of fire.

And Ursula grabbed something with her tentacle?

Okay, fair enough. I wanted to see her to do something equally impressive with water, but hey, no point in cashing out the whole CGI budget in one episode.

The something was a glass orb with some red thread inside, so we can look forward to some thread-centered MacGuffin activity in the next few weeks. And the moment it hit Rumple's hot little hand, he was like, "Ha! I tricked all of you! A monster is about to show up and attack the one person who might have the darkest heart while I flee! I don't know why I'm giving you this information, you'd think I'd just sneak away now that I've gotten what I want! And yet somehow I feel compelled to clarify and explain this situation! Ta!"

So the three villainesses squared off against the Beast Which Only Attacks the Person With the Most Potential for Darkness in Their Heart. Maleficent suggested they work together, presenting all of themselves at once and then having the two who were not attacked defending the person who was attacked. So they all paraded in front of the Hell Demon With Incredibly Specific Reasons for Getting Aggressive and he went for Maleficent and Cruella and Ursula were OUTTA there. I mean, they spidered up a sheer rock face like Edward Cullen climbs a tall redwood, then Ursula grabbed Maleficent with her tentacle and saved her in the nick of time, which was nice of her.

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Meanwhile, guess who had arrived in Storybrooke?

Yes, the Demon Who Selects His Victims Based On Their Potential for Future Misdeeds was crouched up over the library! You could almost hear the panicked residents of Storybrooke yelling, "Oh good, he's just attacking the library. None of us ever go there anyway."

Emma saw that demon and practically threw herself over Regina to protect her. Ten feet away, Hook, Snow, and Belle were chasing after them, and when they finally caught up they were all like ,"You two go and use your incredible chemistry magic to defeat that beast." And Regina and Emma gave each other the nod, waltzed out into the middle of the street, and BLASTED HIM AWAY.

It's nice to see that after having combined their magic to defeat basically every single threat on this series, it's finally occurring to Regina and Emma to just cut to the chase with this crap after only minimal prodding.

Elsewhere, Ursula and Rumple had hunted down Cruella, who had married one of the minor characters on Revenge, who'd been arrested for bankruptcy and was now being thrown out of her mansion. Rumple offered her a part in his devious plan to get their happy endings—which, considering how well that went last time, I can't believe either Ursula or Cruella let him draw the breath it took to form that words without crushing his windpipe. Cruella even called it out, yelling at Rumple that she was sick of his hazy recollections and broken promises, and I was like, "Exactly." Unfortunately for Cruella, for the rather broad plot contrivances to work on OUAT, every character has to occasionally act like an imbecile, and her moment had come. She was in on the plan, and they were all going to road-trip to this allegedly magical town of Storybrooke together! So they all jumped in her old-ass hoopty and hit up the drive thru.

I really enjoy it when OUAT has fun with itself, and this moment was sort of wonderful.

Back in Storybrooke, having stunned the Winged Beast With a Highly Contrived Set of Criteria for Killing People into submission, Regina and Emma had returned to the mayor's office to make plans together and finish up those salads ... but then Regina received a call from the "Sea-Bitch." (Rude) On Rumple's number! Something smelled fishy, and I'm not referring to the fact that Ursula is half-octopus because those aren't even fish, dudes. They're cephalopods, obviously!

My point is that Cruella and Ursula, after being dragged out to the middle of nowhere by Rumple, had only just then been informed that Storybrooke was both invisible and impenetrable and were about to stomp Rumple into a fine tan jam. However, he convinced them that they would all go in acting as double agents pretending to seek redemption, when really they were paving the way for his comeback. Robert Carlyle gave the material some actual emotional resonance because he's a genius, which inspired them to call Regina, and then a well-timed shriek by the Hell Beast gave them a little leverage: Ursula explained to Regina that this was a Winged Creature Who Only Goes After Characters With Possible Dark Arcs In Their Near Future, and in return, Regina and Emma promised to let them into Storybrooke once they'd defeated the monster.

The following sequence was, I must say, simply wonderful. I loved seeing Regina and Emma work in partnership. I loved seeing Regina assume that the demon would be going after her because her heart was the darkest, and I loved seeing Emma risk her own life to help Regina escape the demon by luring it across the town line via her little Beetle.

Regina snapping on the Beetle being yellow was cute, but it wasn't nearly as hilarious as Emma confirming that this was the same Beetle she stole approximately 16 years ago. And then we were treated to the beautiful moment of the Beast being thrown across the line and dissolving into dust...

...and then Regina and Emma exchanged this SIZZLING LOOK of complete and utter "YES"-ness to each other. That look said it all. Even Ursula and Cruella, who couldn't technically see them at that moment, they could just sense the romantic tension and gave each other the "Girl, are they together?" side-eye.

So, A+++ with all of this.

And then Snow and Charming showed up and were like, "Don't let those bad ladies in here. Haven't you noticed that every time a bad lady comes to town, it takes us like 12 episodes to deal with them? Don't do it." Which, you know, I can't argue with that logic. But Regina was like, "Hey I was once the worst and look at me now, I'm like the world's best daughter-in-law. Let's give it a go." And obviously Emma was like, "I'm with Regina in every sense of the word." So they threw the scroll to Ursula and Cruella and welcomed them to town, and Ursula and Cruella in turn brought Gold through once night had fallen, which really: nice of them.

So, UH-OH, Rumple is back and his plan is unfolding! He explained to Ursula and Cruella that HE was the Oxford Professor of Bullshit whom Belle had contacted earlier! HE had brought the Demon of Plot Contrivance to Storybrooke! Ursula and Cruella had no idea what he was talking about with the professor, but I did, and HOW the HELL did he pull that off? How could he have controlled who Belle was emailing, without magic, so that he could send a false reply? What, did he reroute an actual Oxford professor's email to his own? And even if he was that tech savvy, how would he know WHICH professors Belle would contact? Or did he just assume she'd be contacting smart folks about getting the fairies back, so he sent her an message from smartdudeudontknow@yahoo.com? How could he predict that?! The email situation was the biggest plot hole of the episode, which is saying something.

Anyway, as a little cliffhanger, Snow and David threatened Ursula and Cruella in the woods! Snow said she'd rip their hearts out if they told ANYONE what they DID in the WOODS. What do you think they did in the woods, guys? Shrooms? Drum circling? We'll find out next week.

QUESTIONS:

... The Author might be a she, so why is everyone just calling him "he"?

... Did you notice how no one was sitting next to the Blue Fairy at Granny's even at her own Welcome Back party? Kind of feel bad for her.

... Is Henry a sophomore now? If so, is Mary Margaret just teaching all the grades?

... How did Gold know that Belle would email smart dudes and Oxford professors and then get Belle to email him FIRST, thinking he was an Oxford professor, sans magic ?

... Cruella's stank-breath: cool power or WTF?

... How excited are you for the Queens of Darkness on a scale of 1-10?