Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3038174-20131122121540/@comment-24674051-20160815180420

I would not say that the Dark Curse is just breaking and everything is in a loop. Granted, what you say it true, but i think that is more due to laziness in writing, overuse of certain plot devices, and general nature of the genre, and less due to a specific plot thread that is leading to an ultimate final battle.

In truth, Rumple's prophecy in the pilot was sort of overly melodramatic. Saying that there is going to be a "Final Battle" sounds really cool, but particularly for a show like Once, that can last for several seasons, and has the ever-impending axe that can drop at any random moment, it's going to be hard to say when there is a final battle, except for the Series finale (and even then it may depend on how everything is wrapped up). If it was a regular story, you'd spend  the first 6 books building up the story knowing that the battle was not going to occur until the end of Book 7. And the Final Battle would be easily identifiable as the Protagonist and Antagonist face off in a duel to the death, with the protagonist ultimately winning.

So, going back to my previous post, I look at Season 1 (and just season 1) as the story in it's entirety. The final battle is really the whole of the first season present day, with the conflict that occurs between Emma and Regina as the battle, which culminates with Emma believing in magic, defeating Regina, breaking the curse, and freeing the town from the effects of the curse. If you stop the story at the point where everyone's memory is restored, you have a good story. T he epilogue, where Gold dumps the potion in the well to bring back magic, is really nothing more than the setup for the next story to come.