Once Upon A Time Season 7 Finale Explained

The season 7 finale brought ABC’s long-running fantasy drama Once Upon A Time to a close – here’s what happened in the final episode. The first six seasons of Once Upon A Time focused on Emma Swan and the weird and wonderful town of Storybrooke, Maine, but it took a new direction after most of the show’s characters got their happy ending when the umpteenth curse was lifted in season 6’s finale.

Once Upon A Time season 7 served as a soft reboot with the majority of the original cast departing. It switched focus to a grown-up Henry Mills now living under a new curse in the Seattle neighborhood of Hyperion Heights, and his daughter Lucy’s efforts to help him remember who he really is. In the episodes preceding the season 7 finale, another Once Upon A Time plot twist was revealed – Eloise (aka Mother Gothel) had cast a curse that sent the characters back in time. This meant the timeline of season 7 was actually taking place concurrently with the events of the first season 7 episode, where a young Henry was still living in Storybrooke.

Henry breaks that curse and reunites with Lucy and his wife Ella but the celebrations are short-lived with the arrival of Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin who whisks his family away to the Wish Realm. In Once Upon A Time’s final episode “Leaving Storybrooke,” it’s revealed Wish Realm Rumple intends to send everyone to separate realms to live out unhappy endings with the help of the younger Sir Henry, with whom he’s struck a deal.

Meanwhile, grown-up Henry is stuck in a snow globe prison with Lucy, Ella, Hook, and Weaver but they’re freed with the help of Robin and Alice. The vengeful Sir Henry is out for Regina’s blood which he needs to help Wish Realm Rumple condemn the characters to unhappy endings. Regina and young Henry face off in a sword fight which opens the portals to the separate realms but luckily, Regina is able to convince Henry she loves him, which brings him to his senses and closes the portals.

Elsewhere on the Once Upon A Time finale, Hook saves his daughter Alice from being sucked into her portal, but the heroic action leaves his heart overcome with poison, much to Wish Realm Rumple’s delight who challenges his alter ego Weaver to destroy him. Weaver rips out his own heart and gives it to Hook, bringing him back from the brink of death and destroying both Wish Realm Rumple and Weaver, who is finally reunited with Belle in the afterlife.

With evil Rumplestiltskin defeated, Regina places another curse but one that is placed out of love and unites all the storybook realms together in Storybrooke. The closing scenes of the Once Upon A Time season 7 finale are set sometime later and see Regina surprised by a coronation that reveals the citizens of the various realms have elected to crown her the Good Queen of the United Realms – finally getting her own happy ending.