'Once Upon a Time' Hero and Villain of the Week: Darkness Rising

Warning: This recap for the “Birth” and “The Bear King” episodes of Once Upon a Time contains spoilers.

Just last week, we wrote about how love has the power to do good and to do evil on Once Upon a Time. These episodes proved that again — and in the most heartbreaking way.

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We finally got most of the pieces of the puzzle of how Emma came to embrace her Dark One-ness during her sojourn in Camelot. It seems she did it for love… of Hook! She has to make a terrible choice: Save Hook and let in (and multiply) the darkness, or watch the man she loves die.

Hook begs her to let him go. Snow begs her to let him go. Regina begs her to let him go.

But Emma can’t. She loves him. She hopes that she can figure out some way to come back from this. Unfortunately, saving Hook dooms them both. Now they are BOTH Dark Ones. Who can save Storybrooke now?

Heroes of the Week: Merida, Mulan, and Ruby

This week was a double-header, so the crown goes to three of the bravest ladies around. The second episode, “The Bear King,” delved into Merida’s story. We saw flashbacks to her time learning how to fight from — yay! — Mulan. And we saw that crucial moment when Merida missed shooting the arrow into the man who killed her father.

Well, turns out that man was Arthur. And he was looking for Fergus’s helm, which was magicked into making men follow him into battle. The old witch wants the helm back, or she’ll turn everyone in Merida’s clans into bears.

Merida runs into her former tutor, Mulan, who’s pretty cynical and DGAF these days (her heart being broken over Aurora). But there’s still a spark of courage in her, and she decides to help Merida. In doing so, she frees Ruby — yay! — from a curse that turned her into a wolf all the time. The three of them track down Arthur, retrieve the helm, and successfully fight off Arthur.

Merida is crowned queen, and it seems that the witch was only testing her with the helm. Mulan and Ruby go off to have some other adventures, while Merida vows to avenge her father.

Arthur, watch out!

Villains of the Week: Arthur and Zelena

We’ve already seen, several times, that Arthur is NOT a good guy. He’s selfish, he’s weak, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to hold onto his power. That includes teaming up with Zelena in the Camelot timeline to make Excalibur whole again.

Emma, Snow, and Hook manage to fend them off. So do Merida, Mulan, and Ruby (see above). Unfortunately, in the Storybrooke timeline, they’re still up to no good. Emma speeds up Zelena’s pregnancy — it’s a girl — but not to snatch the baby. No, she wants Zelena herself, because Emma wants to funnel all her dark magic into her and then kill her!

But Hook, good guy that he is, doesn’t want Emma to cross that line. He frees Zelena, who then goes all Wicked Witch on everyone and shows Hook exactly what happened in the Camelot timeline. He sees how Emma turned dark — and it was for him. She was about to unite Excalibur and get rid of all dark magic, but he’d been cut by the blade. Uniting Excalibur would mean Hook’s death.

Emma couldn’t let that happen, and despite pleas from Snow and Regina, she saves Hook. In doing so, she becomes dark AND multiplies dark magic. She essentially creates a new Dark One in Hook!

And if you thought Dark Swan was scary, Dark Hook is terrifying. Not only that, he’s got the Wicked Witch as his new partner in crime. “Happily ever after” seems like a pipe dream now.

Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on ABC.