When 'Once Upon a Time' first started it was highly addictive and made the most of a truly great and creative premise. Really loved the idea of turning familiar fairy tales on their heads and putting own interpretations on them and the show early on clearly had clearly had a ball. Watched it without fail every time it came on and it was often a highlight of the week. Which was why it was sad when it ran out of ideas and lost its magic in the later seasons.
The first four seasons had a few ups and downs, like blips in some of the writing, effects and characters that are not as interesting or as well used as they could be, but were on the most part very solid. Many episodes being good to fantastic, with interesting spins on characters, great character interactions and performances and compelling and emotionally involving back-stories for most of the characters. So was expecting a good deal from Season 5 and "The Dark Swan" didn't disappoint at all. All the episodes between that episode and "Devil's Due" ranged to me from decent to brilliant, before reaching disappointment with "Our Decay" and especially "The Brothers Jones". "Her Handsome Hero" was a big improvement but wasn't perfect and although controversial to me "Ruby Slippers" is better than given credit for.
"Sisters" from personal opinion was a very good episode. Not one of the show's best or an episode that will shatter the earth, but it is the best episode since "Devil's Due". Not perfect and could have been even better than it was but the emotional impact and character interaction makes it an improvement over the previous four episodes.
Although the writing is significantly less soapy and campy than in "Our Decay" and particularly "The Brothers Jones", there are clunky moments still though significantly less frequent.
Did find it not so easy to buy Regina and Zelena's rather too kind treatment towards Cora.
However, there is lots of evidence of forward momentum and character development advancing, even if other episodes did both better.
What really makes "Sisters" is the character interaction, especially between Zelena and Regina which had so much heart and provided a large part of the episode's emotional impact. Cora is well written and doesn't come over as too standard. Lots of fun is to be had with the interaction between Hades (still a great character, and one of the best assets of the Underworld arc dominating the second half of the season) and Zelena, being tense and sometimes affecting while it is so much fun seeing the two bounce off and positively trying to out-act each other. David is the most interesting and best developed he's been all season and his rival chemistry with James has intensity.
Much of the acting is strong, excepting Emilie DeRavin (her Belle continues to be bland, disappointing considering "Her Handsome Hero" did such a great job with her) and Sean Maguire whole presence is useless, though they are not in the episode enough to bring it down significantly. They are far outweighed though by excellent turns from Greg Germann (sinister and fun), Rebecca Mader, Lana Parrilla, Barbara Herschey (all three giving deeply felt performances) and Josh Dallas (charming)
Furthermore, "Sisters" is a very handsomely mounted episode visually, the settings and costumes are both colourful and atmospheric, not too dark or garish and never cookie cutter. It is photographed beautifully too. The music is haunting, ethereal and cleverly used with a memorable theme tune.
Writing has the right balance of humour, pathos, mystery and intrigue mostly, though as said it is not perfect. This aspect has come on a long way since when 'Once Upon a Time' first started, much more complexity and nuance, or at least at this point on the most part.
Overall, very good. 8/10 Bethany Cox
