Winter Finales 2013

 After the success of shows such as Lost and 24, television studios have started airing new episodes of hit shows every week from the premiere until late November/early December with a long hiatus from December to end of January/February/March.   2 of my favorite shows – Revenge and Once Upon a Time – followed that pattern and they both ended with quite a bang.

Revenge ended their 1^st half of Season 3 in early December with the reveal of who shot Emily.  I can say that the shooter was someone that I didn’t think would do it.  It was a shocker, one story-line that I never remotely thought of.  The moment to bring the shooter to light was a very calculated move but not by Emily.  She actually got herself on the other end of the gun by a lapse in her revenge agenda and slipped. Yes, Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke slipped up and the result was 2 bullets to her stomach.  After watching the episode it was her slip-up that was most shocking and surprising with the reveal of the shooter just behind it on the scale of shockers.    It will be very interesting to see how she gets out of this situation since she has never been this vulnerable before – with the shooter and with Victoria Grayson (and no Victoria was not the shooter) since Victoria found out that Emily was a waiter at one of their New Year’s parties.   Seeing Emily vulnerable is going to be very interesting because for 2.5 seasons she hasn’t been anywhere near this position.  It is entirely new for her and it is going to scare and shock her to the core.  My prediction for the second half of the season is Jack will be there for Emily more than ever.  He will put aside his anger and resentment towards Emily and fight for her because after all she is the girl that he grew up with and cared for all those years.

Once Upon a Time started the 3^rd season in Neverland and ended up in a completely different timeline in New York City.  After Henry was kidnapped 6 legends (Evil Queen, Snow White, Prince Charming, Hook, Rumplestilskin, and Emma) followed him on Hook’s ship and tried to figure out a way to save Henry.  Little did they know that they would find out the true identity of Peter Pan and one of them would be sacrificed on their home turf.  But let’s get to the finale.

Peter Pan (aka Rumple’s dad) stowed away on Hook’s ship back to Storybrooke in Henry’s body (while Henry is in Peter Pan’s body locked in a magic box).   Everyone in Storybrooke came together to stop Peter Pan from exacting his revenge and changing Storybrooke forever by making everyone forget who they are creating a brand new Neverland where he is the leader.  After getting both Pan and Henry back to their respective bodies, Rumple has an epiphany that in order to kill Pan he must die too (still not sure how that works).  So Rumple sacrifices himself in front of his son and grandson (Neal and Henry).  But the party still isn’t over.  Pan was going to enact the same curse that brought everyone to Storybrooke. Before he was killed he set that plan in motion and the only way to stop it is to destroy the curse from ever happening – rendering Storybrooke non-existent.  Henry is the only one who can stay because he was not born in the Enchanted Forest and Emma can stay with him because she is the savior but there is a catch – neither Emma nor Henry will have any memories of Storybrooke, her parents and anything they have gone through in the time since she entered Storybrooke.  Reluctantly they accept and both Henry and Emma have new memories of a life together as mother and son.  But of course in true television fashion the finale doesn’t end there.  Jump to 1 year later and Emma receives a knock on her door. It’s Hook asking for her help with her parents. She doesn’t know him and slams the door in his face. So ends the episode. And the worst part is no new episodes until March!

I had to explain the majority of the mid-season finale because it was so intricate and every detail mattered.  It was an amazing finale.  It makes me anxious to see what happens when they pick the show back up again in New York with Henry and Emma still not knowing anything about the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke while Hook is roaming around New York trying to make them remember.  But the question I have doesn’t stem from if Emma and Henry will remember (of course they will eventually) but if Hook remembers who Emma is then it might be safe to say that all of the characters from the Enchanted Forest were taken back with memories of their lives in Storybrooke.  This is a conundrum because how can someone have memories of a place that never existed?

The studios worked their magic (no pun intended) well with both Revenge and Once.  They weaved a story so powerful that it compels people to write and obsess over the plethora of possibilities that awaits their favorite characters when they return to the small screen.  But somehow no matter how many possibilities you can come up with, none of them hold a candle to what will actually happen.  I guess we all just have to wait and see.