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bimoWatching 5.12 Souls of the Departed it occurred to me how strongly the episode seems based on a theme of smoke screens of mirrors.
Starting with the most obvious and impossibly to ignore:
- The Underworld mirroring Storybrooke and vice versa (though through a red filter, darkly).
But then we’ve also got, listed in no particular order:
- A flashback with Sidney /Regina’s mirror functioning as the gate to Wonderland, which of course represents a rather strange and bizarre form of mirror world all on its own.
- Two distinct cases of parents mirroring their children’s official function and attire, with Pan dressed like Mr. Gold and running the town’s pawn shop, and Cora posing as the town’s mayor while wearing a very Regina-esque business suit.
- James posing as his mirror image twin brother David in such a successful manner that Snow is unable to tell the difference. Well at least for a few seconds.
- Two different attempts of the Living contacting the Dead, one of them failing horribly (Killian), one of them successful (Henry Sr.). Plus, in addition we also got one successful attempt of the Dead reaching out to the Living (Neal and Emma).
- Regina’s love for her father reflected in her love for her son. The two Henrys finally meeting each other was one of the episode’s emotional highlights for me, by the way.
And last, but certainly not least the episode gave us two rather opposed stances regarding the concept of “Letting go”:
- On the one hand, there are the goodbyes between Neal and Emma, and Regina and Henry Sr., both of which are portrayed as being peaceful and providing some utterly needed emotional closure regarding the persons directly involved. (On a slightly more disturbing note, Neal also explicitly warns Emma of the impending doom that will follow should she follow through with her plan of rescueing Hook.)
- On the other hand, however, the show is going to great lengths to establish both Emma’s and Regina’s quest of saving the Tortured from Hades’ realm as morally right and heroic. For Regina freeing the Damned might mean coming one step closer to achieving redemption. (Especially since she has fully acknowledged for how many of the Dead stranded in the Underworld she is responsible herself. And as for Emma and Hook: If the flickering graveyard image of Killian’s pain and exhaustion is ramming one point home, it is that, totally independent from who Killian Jones is, whatever atrocious crimes he might have committed, he needs to be saved, be it by returning to the Land of the Living or final salvation. Nobody deserves being (eternally?) captured in whatever hellish state he is going through.
