Once the smoke dissipated over Storybrooke, the question was which show would the producers of “Once Upon A Time” return with, having given themselves this massive purple reset button. Would it be the intriguing, surprisingly complex version of the first seven episodes, or the haphazard and inconsistent show that followed? The answer is quite a bit of the latter, with a final reveal that might lead to some of the former.
It's funny to see a season premiere that ends with the type of moment that you'd typically see near the end of a season of "Dexter". If that had been the case, and Deb's discovery had occurred near the end of the season, then it probably would have coincided with the building momentum of a seasonal climax. Instead, the situation resolves itself fairly quickly, and something of a new status quo emerges. But there's the distinct feeling that everything could still fall apart at any moment.
One of the first truly promising episodes of the series, back in the first season, introduced the character of Angelina, Monroe’s ridiculously hot redheaded biker ex-girlfriend. Her absence was keenly felt for the remainder of the first season, at least until Rosalee came along to give Monroe someone just as awesome to romance. So Angelina’s return in this episode was an automatic plus.
With the preliminaries over and done with between “Letters of Transit” and the fifth season premiere, the writers finally get down to the business of setting up the details of the final story arc. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, with some of the character beats overcoming the weaknesses of a rather tedious plot structure.