The writers of Once Upon a Time threw a bit of a curveball by breaking the curse in the Season 1 finale. Sure, it would've been just annoying to leave Emma the disbelieving cynic any longer, but this move also negated a conceit that would've floated another series for seasons. However, clearly OUAT is above resorting to just getting by, and in flipping the script on the original premise, they've set the scene for an especially fascinating second season.
Spoilers ahead!
Emma may now be a believer in magic and fairy tales, but she's still plenty cynical about finding a happy ever after with her parents...who, somewhat disturbingly, turn out to be two of her same-age besties in Storybrooke, Snow and Charming, who some people are still calling by their fake SB names (?).
I think Snow needs to take a big step back and assess how extremely weird the situation is, instead of anticipating Emma's delight at their reunion (especially since Snow and Charming essentially shipped their baby daughter off, far away from them, creating a total abandonment complex, even though they had good reason).
Grandad James (I mean, his real name is James, not David, so we should either be calling him Charming or James, right?) has taken Henry in now that Snow and Emma have unfortunately been sucked into that strange part of Fairy Tale Land that wasn't effected by the curse. Now that the first family of OUAT has been split up, it's just a question of how many episodes will be spent on James and Henry's quest to get the ladies back. I'm hoping sooner rather than later, though this also brings up the question of SB's actual function in the show at this point: isn't it time everyone migrated back to FTL?
Regina has plenty of trouble on her hands, what with limited to no magic, and Rumple hellbent on revenge for what she did to Belle. She's mainly hapless in this episode, and I can't wait to see her get back to full prowess.
Moving onto one of my absolute favourite parts of the show, RumpBelle,
Ehmagawd. So cute. So sweet! So conflicted! Robert Carlyle (who I already loved enough for this) and Emile de Ravin (I forgive her now for Tess on Roswell), and both of their accents have infused this coupling with such pitch perfect angsty bittersweetness that I care way more about them than Snow/Charming (plus it's so obvious that Snow and Charming will "always find" each other that there's a lot less compelling mystery in that ship).
Mysterious opening sequence guy: AKA Rene from True Blood. Erm....Baelfire? Emma's baby daddy? Hrrrmm!!
Aurora/Phillip/Mulan: This was kinda underwhelming. I mean, I love that they got Wren from Pretty Little Liars for Prince Phillip - very hawt - but otherwise, none of these characters are likable or even interesting. The love triangle seems forced. Perhaps that's because this part of the episode felt unnaturally crammed into an hour already replete with developments and further unanswered questions (wouldn't you rather have found out wassup with August?! Or why Regina doesn't know who Jefferson is? Or heard more than like one line of dialogue from Red?).
The one important detail we did glean from this part was that part of FTL was uneffected by the curse, which is all kinds of bizarre. We can probably assume that either Rumple or Regina left this area "frozen" as a kind of escape clause in the curse, just in case they wanted to return to FTL.
Yet which one of them did it, and why this section specifically?
And is the rest of FTL gone, or hidden, or what?
Since there are now at least three levels to OUAT - past FTL flashback, present SB, and present FTL (ooh, and what about past SB flashbacks, or flashbacks of Emma's pre-SB adventures?), I can't wait to see how complicated season 2 becomes!
