YMMV / Once Upon a Time S4 E18 "Sympathy for the De Vil"

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Be wary of trusting strangers who seem to be in danger too much. They might have ulterior motives.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • How much of a hypocrite is Emma being in this episode, refusing to forgive her parents? Regina calls her out that she has forgiven Hook for a lot more, and Emma fires back that Regina held a grudge against Snow for considerably less.
  • Just how true was either Cruella or Madeline's story? Did Cruella become a sociopath through her mother's treatment? Or was she indeed just born evil? And if so, why did Madeline lock her up as opposed to committing her? Did she believe she could reform her? Or was she afraid that Cruella might do even worse things if she was let loose in public? Or simply did she want to spare her reputation?
• Cry for the Devil:
  • Subverted—aside from its title, the episode sets us up to think Cruella was a poor, abused girl being horribly mistreated and held prisoner by her tyrannical mother, particularly when showing how much she enjoys being outside and having a night on the town...but she turns out to be a sociopath who most likely murdered her father and two stepfathers, and undeniably does murder her mother, all while proclaiming she'd always enjoyed darkness from a very young age.
  • Played straight with Madeleine retroactively. While assumed to be a horrible abuser who kept her daughter locked up in an attic for years - and kept her in line with dalmatians - it turns out she was a perfectly normal woman who discovered her daughter was a complete sociopath. And three husbands were murdered. Judging by things, she loved all three and lost them because of what a monster her daughter was.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The shots of Pongo and the dogs owned by Cruella's mother when they are under her control are played as if this is some horrific subversion of their true nature...but as shown when Cruella herself is threatened by them with no magic involved, Dalmatians can be extremely vicious with anyone who tries to hurt their owners (or whom their owners identify as enemies), and they were originally bred to be guard dogs.
  • Another one considering the pun on the episode's title. It's said that Cruella poisoned her fathers with Madeleine's trumpet flowers. The most likely candidate - which is known to be fatal if ingested - is the angel's trumpet.
  • Cruella and Isaac go to a club called Murray's - which was a real one in London that was open from 1913 until the 70s. What's more is that the song Cruella is listening to on the radio is called "The Toast of Beak Street". Murray's was located on Beak Street.
• Narm: When Pongo is chasing Henry and he's calling out "help me" as 'desperately' as he can.
• Narm Charm: Cruella's 'splash into the darkness' speech is a little operatic but damn if Victoria Smurfitt doesn't make it legit Nightmare Fuel.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite the implication made by the appearance of a Dalmatian under Cruella's control back in "Heroes and Villains", and the reveal regarding her power and her mother's dogs made in this episode, the writers never follow up on any story between Cruella and Pongo (save for her brief bit of controlling him to capture Henry), nor does she ever interact with his owner Archie. There was a great deal of characters and plots going on as it was, but Pongo remains one of the few well-known characters to appear and be clearly name-dropped without ever going into their story, so it is something of a shame.