YMMV / Once Upon a Time S5 E19 "Sisters"

• Broken Base: Cora of all villains finally gets redeemed. One half of the base was annoyed with this, feeling she'd crossed the Moral Event Horizon far too many times or was too Easily Forgiven. Others however feel that Cora always did have aspects that hinted towards a redemption that felt earned - and she is essentially dead and has been punished for her past crimes many times over this season.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Regina gets horribly hurt when she finds Cora's wand and plays with it. The parallels between leaving a loaded gun or something similarly dangerous lying around for a child to find are not exactly subtle, but it's effective.
• She Really Can Act: Rebecca Mader had been known for Evil Is Hammy and falling extremely short whenever Zelena had to display sincere emotion. Come this episode and her heartfelt, subtle performance - and she won over many of her detractors.
• Win Back the Crowd: Critics strongly praised this as an example of the show returning to solid character-driven stories, after the Kudzu Plot that was the Camelot arc.
• The Woobie: Good lord, Zelena becomes a huge one. First her mother and sister conspire to Mind Rape her to forget the one person she loves. Then it's also revealed that Cora used her for her magic years ago as a child and, when she and Regina discovered they were sisters and were ecstatic to be together, Cora erased the memories and separated them. She finally gets to meet her mother and get some closure, but then Cora has to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
  "I've waited my whole life to have a mother and now she's gone."