YMMV / Once Upon a Time S7 E20 Is This Henry Mills?

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Facilier. While many had felt his romance with Regina was both strained and unconvincing (not to mention extraneous and against her arc and Character Development), the witch doctor was otherwise a fascinating character played with panache, charm, and silken menace. His arc with Sabine and Drew, as well as his connection to Nick, his pursuit of the Dark One's dagger, and his acting as behind-the-scenes spanner and rival to Gothel, were all sources of great material for future villainy. But instead of pursuing all this, the writers kill him off unceremoniously and unexpectedly to herald the appearance of the season's true Final Boss. While some of this is surely due to the series being canceled, and the show had already had multiple villains vying for screentime so that eliminating them would be necessary to reach any kind of resolution, this example is particularly egregious. After all, as much as seeing Wish Rumple again as the focus works on so many levels of continuity, history, and a satisfying tying up of loose ends, there's nothing to say the finale couldn't have been just as interesting if both Facilier and Wish Rumple had stuck around to face off against each other, with Rumple and everyone else caught in the middle.

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