Once Upon a Time: Done with season 1!

AKA, "Why hasn't anyone in this town sit Emma down for a Revenge marathon?"

So, obviously, spoilers throughout!
So the show starts with another Fairy Tale of the Week storyline at episode 20.

At the same time, we're stuck in another fruitless loop of Emma throwing herself into trying to take down the Mayor/Evil Queen for whatever Specious Accusation of the Week she's come up with here. Apparently, this is all about breaking, entering, and hypothesizing versus plausible deniability.

For all that everyone else is clueless, the Mayor/Evil Queen is an expert at plausible deniability.

And, once again, the Mayor/Evil Queen, Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin, and Emma, are playing fruitless power games against one another that seem to be approximately as effective as standing on the playground shouting insults that contain the word "poop" at one another, and apparently putting slightly less effort into it.

Because if there's another expert at plausible deniability in town, it's Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin.

Meanwhile, Emma is blundering between all of this, and someone really needs to show her Revenge. Or, I don't know, at least an episode or two of Buffy the Vampire slayer.

Anyways, at this point Emma thinks it's a good idea to run off with a child who's biologically but not legally hers, on the basis that nobody in the town can come after her, indicating that by now any sort of law enforcement force or larger jurisdiction hinted at in the previous episodes has simply completely disappeared.  After Henry nearly runs her car off the road, she starts acting in a completely rational manner for once, deciding that she's going to leave the drama behind and only come back to Storybrooke for the purpose of visiting Henry.

In the meantime, August/Mystery Guy turns out to have been Pinocchio in fairy-tale-land. And, in a stunning moment of the writers managing to retcon something even before the first season is over, at this point it turns out that August/Pinocchio was sent through the cabinet with Emma, to protect her, and then brought her to help, claiming he found her on the side of the road.


Then, the Mayor/Evil Queen goes and bakes a poison apple turnover for Emma. At this point, the odds on who will end up eating it favor Henry slightly over Mary Margaret/Snow White. Henry, incidentally, has been behaving in such an increasingly bratty and demanding manner that you're almost relieved when he intentionally grabs the turnover and takes a bite, in order to prove the reality of fairy-tale-land to Emma, and then promptly starts dying.

Now Emma and Mayor/Evil Queen get into a fight, at which point Emma points out that Henry got sick immediately after eating the turnover, and the Mayor/Evil Queen fesses up, heads over to Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin, and they try to figure out how to save Henry.

And then the season leaves us hanging, with Henry alive again (something about true love. *eyeroll* Seriously, someone needed to put "Payphone" by Maroon Five into the scene where Emma is leaving), Mr. Gold having called up some kind of purple smoke to engulf the town, and Emma in fairy-tale-land with her father's (Prince Charming's) sword facing down a dragon.

Since everyone now (presumably?) knows about their pasts, and can travel back and forth between fairy-tale-land, and can use magic in the real world, it looks like season 2 is going to become much more interesting.