‘Once Upon a Time’: Mr. Hyde, the Dragon and dual Evil Queens in the season finale

The end of the fifth season of “Once Upon a Time” came in a two-hour special that took us out of Storybrooke, gave us a new uber villain, gave long speeches to Regina and Henry, and brought a darkness to life that will be a huge threat going into Season 6.

We start off back in Storybrooke, where everyone is getting over the sojourn to the Underworld and the death of Robin Hood. A sullen Regina gets multiple offers of condolence. Snow White and David continue the words of comfort, but Zelena believes that only someone who’s going through the same thing can understand.

Also in the diner grieving with his mom is Henry. His Camelot cutie Violet comes over to offer condolences about Robin, and also to say that she’s glad he got back in one piece.

Emma, on her way to the diner to tell everyone that Hook is back, wants Hook to wait outside so that she can break the news to Regina gently. The whole happy endings thing must be getting to her. It’s true, and it actually makes sense. Before she can break it to Regina, though, the town is rocked by a blast, and Hook comes running in to see if everyone is OK. You can hear the disappointment in Regina’s voice, but she overlooks it, knowing that Rumplestiltskin must be up to something since two of the more powerful magic wielders are in the diner.

Rumple is up to no good, but also up to no bad actually. He’s got part of the Olympian Crystal and plans to use its power to awaken Belle. But he needs more power, so he’s basically hooked the crystal’s power up to that of Storybrooke.

In the clock tower, once everyone finds out that Rumple/Mr. Gold has tethered the crystal to Storybrooke’s magic, they need to go find and confront him. Emma tells Regina to back off on this particular mission, that she may not be thinking straight. That’s funny coming from Emma. The duo comes up with a plan anyway.

Henry overhears their argument and is brushed aside as his moms talk. He’s had it. Calling his friend Violet over to Mr. Gold’s Pawn Shop, he tells her that he intends to get rid of magic. First, he magically steals the crystal from Rumplestiltskin. Operation Mixtape is in effect as he thinks up a plan to take the crystal out of Storybrooke and destroy magic altogether.

He’s a smart one, that Henry. Emma and Regina go to Boston to catch him after Emma tracks him using the tracker she installed on his cellphone. But Henry left his phone on the bus to Boston, knowing that she’d track him using it, and throwing off his moms while he and Violet take a trip to New York. A side effect of taking the Olympian Crystal out of Storybrooke is that magic seems to be working in the real world. The only frontier that the show has yet to really explore is magic in the magic-less world. Interesting. Anyway, as Emma says, though, if she and Regina have their powers, then so does Gold. A quick locator spell using Emma’s blood lets them know Henry and Violet are in New York.

Meanwhile, in Storybrooke: Zelena, doing a nice thing, sends everyone back to the Enchanted Forest and their myriad lands, using a mystical doorway. But magic has been tampered with in Storybrooke. As everyone crosses over, the mystical door also sucks more people (the heroes) in when they don’t want to go. Zelena, David, Snow and Hook are transported to an unknown world — and are zapped into unconsciousness by a man wielding either a wand or an electric cattle prod.

Everyone converges on New York. Of course Gold would drive into the Big Apple in a big black Cadillac! Surprised his license plate didn’t say darkone. Henry was already there, and he knows that his father, Neal, was looking for a way to destroy magic and might have left some clues as to how to do it in his New York apartment. Clue found: library appointment?

Emma and Regina are next to get to New York. They bond a bit in Neal’s apartment, which they also go to, and which has some of Robin’s belongings in it from their stay, including a letter that Robin wrote to Regina. In it, he praised how she’s overcome her evil. She tells Emma how evil had consumed her, and how it’s still a fight. How her first impulse when seeing Hook back from the Underworld was to “rip his throat out because it wasn’t fair.”

Regina has the curse of knowing the difference between good and evil and being caught in the middle. Lana Parrilla delivers a great monologue about her time spent fighting to be good and thinking that in the end, she will never win.

Henry and Violet go to a huge library and check out rare books. They find a bunch of old “Once Upon a Time” books, which means there are a lot of other worlds they don’t even know about. One world that Henry sees a photo of happens to be exactly where Snow, Zelena, Hook and David are.

Back in this strange world, the heroes are caged. A very large, strong man almost chokes Hook to death through the bars. But who is he? He knows Rumplestiltskin and apparently is an enemy. Snow tries to reason with him, but no deal.

The strong guy is the warden of this new place. The gardener, who the heroes first encountered, comes back and wants to help. He will try to repair the Sorcerer’s wand if they’ll trust him. Tough choice, but they give him the broken wand.

In the library, Violet sees a black cup that looks an awful lot like the Holy Grail, which was the beginning of all magic. So maybe this cup is the end of all magic since it looks to be the opposite of the Grail? Eh, shaky reasoning, but we’ll go with it. The cup reacts to being close to the crystal. As they try to get out of the reading room, there’s Rumplestiltskin — and it’s no fight at all as he waves his hand and makes them go to sleep. Rumple grabs the crystal, but he also sees something else in the room. Maybe other magical items that, because they were in a magic-less world, didn’t really do anything? Hmmm … we never find out.

In the strange other world, the gardener repairs Zelena’s wand. But the henchman won’t let him leave. Wait … is this guy Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?!? Hyde’s henchman forces Jekyll to become Hyde with the potion created by Jekyll. He’s upset at first, but Hyde understands why the change was forced.

Hyde can somehow use the wand, and opens a portal to New York — and takes Pandora’s Box away from Rumplestiltskin. With Belle trapped inside, Hyde’s going to try to make Gold do what he wants. This’ll be interesting. Hyde is also going to basically hitch a ride with Jekyll back to Storybrooke. Does Jekyll really not know that he’s Hyde? I wonder. Regardless, he lets Jekyll think that he has rescued the heroes.

They escape through the streets of a bustling village and Jekyll tells them that it’s a place where castoffs who don’t have their own particular worlds go — the Land of Untold Stories. Jekyll takes the heroes back to his lab where he completes his potion, apparently something that could split the good from the bad in a person. Before he can test it, Hyde’s henchman comes in and forces the change. Hyde and Jekyll then split apart as Hyde takes Jekyll’s new potion. Now they are separate entities. Zelena hits Hyde with a fireball to the chest, but it does nothing. The heroes run — as they should.

Back in New York, Emma and Regina try to trick Gold and steal the crystal, but, as usual, it doesn’t work. He gets the hair that he wanted from Regina all along, so that he can locate her sister, Zelena. He seemed to think that someone was wielding the Sorcerer’s wand that Zelena has to open that portal and take Pandora’s Box and Belle. Before Rumple can enact the spell, Henry comes in with the anti-magic cup, sucking up all the magic! Cool, except that they could’ve all been reunited with the others in the Land of Untold Stories.

Henry finds out he made it tougher to get his friends and family back after his stunt. Emma finds him at a wishing fountain that they used to go to when they lived in New York. She consoles him though, telling him that there’s always a way, and that Gold and Regina are going out into the city to find someone who may still have magic to use.

As they walk, Rumple tries to tell Regina that her dark, Evil Queen persona is her real self, but that she’s been suppressing and denying it for the sake of others. “Deep down, the Evil Queen is who you are,” says Gold. Regina doesn’t believe it.

They visit the Dragon, “a simple herbalist” who will not help Rumplestiltskin. But he will help Regina. He, like all of us, sees a battle inside of her of light versus dark. He’ll help her because it’s “imperative that she win.” Using a lotus flower, the Dragon can see into the Untold Stories world, but he’s not powerful enough to open a portal. He believes that the heroes can, though. “Magic is all around us, if we believe.”

Henry takes them back to the wishing fountain, saying that it is magic. They all throw in a coin and make a wish ... and the crystal flickers. They need more magic. More belief. Henry stands on a statue and asks the people of New York City to help power the crystal. He gives an impassioned speech about believing in magic and family to get people to flip a coin into the water to make a wish. Good melding of the real world and the magical one — and it works, as people throw coins in the water to help Henry’s wish come true. The wishes create a portal, bringing the heroes, and Jekyll, to New York from the Land of Untold Stories. Of course, the New Yorkers just think it’s a really cool show when the water disappears and the heroes show up.

Hyde is really mad after the heroes disappear right from his grasp. Rumplestiltskin, though, appears and pays him a visit. Hyde wants to talk, but the dark one is not in the mood. Rumple chokes Hyde, and Hyde wants to make a deal — because he knows how to wake Belle and what land Rumple has to go to in order to do it. As warden, he runs into all kinds of characters.

Snow and Regina have a talk. Regina wished away the Evil Queen earlier, but “her karma will always be there.” Snow proposes using Jekyll’s formula to split Regina from the Evil Queen, which seems like a terrible idea. But they do it, and two queens appear. After Emma restrains the costumed Evil Queen, Regina kills her — pulling out her heart and squeezing it to dust. Awesome, but it seems like this will have some pretty far-reaching consequences. Waiting for the other shoe to drop....

Henry and Violet must part ways — she has to go tell her dad what’s been going on. Her dad’s not actually from Camelot anyway. “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is no great shakes.” Funny. The literary characters are taking over.

The heroes relax. Regina has no evil side now. Regina destroys the crystal and ... Hyde is in Storybrooke. Seemingly impervious to magic, he’s walking around like he owns the place … which, according to the deal he made with Rumplestiltskin, he does. Rumple brought him back, along with some “friends of his,” to take over Storybrooke while Gold checks out the lead Hyde gave him for waking Belle. There’s going to be some fighting going on, and Hyde says that it’s not so easy to kill the darkness. What’s that mean?

Ohhhh. We find out in the very next scene. In the Dragon’s shop in New York City, the smoky remains of the Evil Queen solidify. She is not destroyed, and instead, takes the Dragon’s heart. War will be coming in Season 6. Double the wit and one-liners from Lana Parrilla? Sounds like fun!

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In a twist, we add insight to the recap by publishing occasional questions, concerns and comments submitted by Layla Andre, 9, a fervent fan of “Once Upon a Time” and the daughter of an L.A. Times staff member. They come about while she watches the latest episode, and they’re probably some of the same that many viewers have.

— It’s nice to see Violet again. But why does she always wear colors that aren’t violet?

— If Henry destroyed magic for good, “Once Upon a Time” would be so boring...

— It was sooo easy for Rumple to defeat Henry and Violet! Just a wave of his hand ... and down they went!

— Putting a drop of blood on a map to find someone is pretty cool. Why haven’t they used that trick before?

— I like the character of Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde. Even though he isn’t from a fairy tale...

— Henry made a really stupid mistake destroying magic when he did. Zelena couldn’t get back, Snow and David couldn’t get back, Hook couldn’t get back, Belle couldn’t get back... And Rumple said Storybook would be destroyed.

— It was pretty wonderful how Henry got the people of New York City to restore magic by throwing coins in the fountain. And those wishes reunited the heroes!

— Can anyone use the Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde potion to kill the bad part of themselves?

— They never showed what happened to Belle...

— This may be the last time I write about “Once Upon a Time” for the Los Angeles Times. Thank you to Jevon Phillips for giving me the opportunity to write about one of my favorite TV shows. And thanks to all of you for reading!

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