Once Upon a Time 6x20 "The Song in Your Heart" Review

“The Song in Your Heart” was the highly anticipated musical episode of Once Upon a Time, landing in that interesting spot between the plot-smashing “The Black Fairy” and the two-part season finale.

I kept going back and forth between if I liked the episode or if I didn’t. I was on board with the musical storyline up until they found Hook in the pub. Like a lot of this season, it felt very early season. We have Snow and Charming wanting to defeat the Evil Queen and Regina in turn wanting to destroy them. Snow makes a wish on the Blue Star and they wake up the next morning uncontrollably singing and dancing (I got some “Once More, with Feeling” vibes from that). I liked how they flitted around the Enchanted Forest and let a lot of the side characters have a line to sing, only to be interrupted by Regina. And then they go in search of Captain Hook and I kind of lost where they were going with it; it was clear they were finding a way to throw him in because he could sing (And wow, can Colin O’Donoghue sing high notes!). But in terms of storytelling it bugged me.

Snow and Charming meet with Captain Hook.

Their voices were actually all really good. I can see why people wanted a musical episode. I just felt like it was a little wasted. Honestly, the biggest problem I had with the music was it all started to sound the same. The orchestration was pretty much the same modern musical orchestra and everything was loud and there was key change after key change after key change. I will say there were some unexpected resolutions in the melodies; good job to the composer for playing with my expectations. Also, Rebecca Mader slayed it. I’m not the biggest Zelena fan, but that was good. That song in particular sounded the most like an actual song from a musical – any ideas on what it could be?

I do appreciate that they did wipe the musical event from their memories, and that they did tie the musical part of it into the present storyline and gave Emma some literal strength in her actual heart so she won’t be alone in the Final Battle. That way the musical storyline was not too forced and it gave a little bit of light-heartedness before the season finale.

I loved the end. I kept watching the clock, thinking “there’s three minutes left. Plenty of time for something to happen”. But no, we get puddle-inducing Captain Swan wedding vows and first dance without a hiccup. Then they all break out into song (the big question is whether or not they remember it the next day) and everything seems to be great…until they all somehow still forgot about the Black Fairy’s curse and Grumpy/Leroy had his “The curse! It’s here!” line and the early season callbacks keep coming. Season finale next week, and I’m just excited to see how this is all going to turn out.

9/10