– Aladdin
Boy is this a jam-packed episode. At the top of the hour Emma drops the news on David that Hook killed his father and has now left town. Meanwhile, Hook, Captain Nemo and Liam are on the Nautilus and have gone through a portal to who knows where and Jasmine and Aladdin are in the Enchanted Forest trying to find their home. In a flashback to many years ago, we see the Sultan trying to marry off Jasmine to a prince with an army to face off against Jafar. Jasmine insists on finding a hero (aka Aladdin) but Jafar pops by to say that savior is no more and Jasmine’s only recourse is to marry him or else the city will be destroyed. On the bright side, I do appreciate the writers keeping in that Jafar was the bastard son of a King who always wondered about being a prince. Jasmine is still determined to find a hero, even if it isn’t Aladdin and latches on to Ariel who is in search of Prince Eric. I guess they needed to sort of wrap up Eric and Ariel too. I have to admit for a minute when Ariel said that Eric had a navy fleet I was worried Jasmine was going to try and marry him! But it doesn’t happen. Instead, Jafar impersonates Eric and when jasmine agrees to marry him, Jafar makes the city disappear. He taunts her about her choice and calls her a failure.
In the Enchanted Forest, Jasmine finds the ring that was supposed to be her dowry and decides she’s going to chuck it and the lamp into the ocean. Unfortunately, before they can do so, they are attacked by a kraken (which I guess is good in a way since Hook and the crew need the blood to create another portal). As they try to find Jafar (given what he did to the city way back when), Hook sort of gets roped into giving love advice to both Jasmine and Aladdin. He’s none too happy about playing match maker either. Oh, and then as they are on their way to find Jafar, they end up starting to sink thanks to kraken damage. Jasmine uses one of her wishes to get them to the frozen island. Nemo and Liam (who got transported with the other three) head back to the ship to go down with it. As much as I am not a fan of Hook in general, I would have liked to see more of him and Liam bonding and just getting to know each other while they were both in Storybrooke. I mean, would Liam have been involved in the wedding party if the wedding were still on (I suppose it probably will be back on at some point this season).
The gang end up at what looks like a tiki bar and are very confused at first. Then Jasmine realizes the trap that gets sprung on them (full of forks) could only belong to one person. Apparently, this is where Ariel and Eric have ended up. And they’ve somehow ended up with Jafar’s genie lamp (thank you for keeping that continuity again, too). But he’s found a way to break the genie curse. He knocks out Ariel, Aladdin and Hook and reveals to Jasmine that her city is in the crown jewel that ended up in her pocket. He demands the ring back but she turns him into a creepy wooden staff with some of his own magic and then with a kiss to Aladdin, she restores her city.
Back in Storybrooke, Emma tries to distract herself with digitizing files at the sheriff’s station when Regina stops by with a half price drink special coupon for a new bar in town. Regina even convinces David to go back to sleep so they can have a proper girls’ night out (without Zelena). Emma isn’t interested and only ends up going when she gets tricked into responding to a bar fight. She’s not really into the whole bonding time (although she’s highly amused by Snow semi-drunkenly challenging some Vikings to a game of darts to see who pays for their tabs). Ultimately, Emma opens up to the bar tender. But that’s not such a great thing because just as she gets in touch with Hook (thanks to a device from Ariel), the bartender shows up and it’s really Gideon. He’s being kind of a dick but at least he’s asking Emma for her help in taking out the Black Fairy. The boy has finally taken the advice I’ve been yelling at my TV screen for weeks. If he had just asked for help in the first place, none of this drama would be happening and they could have established a stronger front against the Black Fairy sooner.
Overall, I was not impressed with this episode. I felt like they could have done a lot more with the girls’ night out. We need to see some fun Emma, Regina and Snow interactions and the bar setting was perfect for that. It wasn’t that I didn’t think they shouldn’t have concluded the Aladdin and Jasmine storyline but in all honesty, I didn’t really care about them that much. If we are going to wrap up storylines, I’d rather they finally reveal who Lily’s father is! I mean that’s a piece of Emma’s history they haven’t fully explored yet and I think they should have. I hope that they will move things forward towards some kind of resolution. I did like that they are finally having Gideon ask Emma for help. If he can stop being so creepy and a tool then maybe things can work out for the heroes and our reformed villains (I’m counting Rumple among them for now because he is trying to less of a dick right now). I also hope they give Henry some more to do, other than sitting on the couch listening to music like they did in the two scenes he was in this week.
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