The Top 10 Hunks of "Once Upon a Time," Season 4

By watching an episode almost every day, we're now near the end of Season 4 of Once Upon a Time.  It's been a wild ride, and rather exhausting, with characters from every fairy tale, legend, and popular novel intermingling, switching from evil to good to back again, switching alliances, and having a previously unmentioned back history with every other character.

So far there have only been 2 gay moments:
1. Mulan expresses a romantic interest in Princess Aurora.
2. Michael and John Darling (Peter Pan) masquerade as a gay couple attempting to adopt a child.

But there are lots of characters who display no heterosexual interest and can therefore be read as gay: Ella, Ursula, Smee (Captain Hook's second in command), Dr. Hopper (Jiminy Cricket in human form).

And the beefcake comes fast and furious, like the romance aisle at the bookstore.

The first half of the season brought in all the characters from Disney's Frozen (except that talking snowman), and had them fighting the Snow Queen, Ingrid (Elizabeth Mitchell, who played one of the Others on Lost).

1. Scott Michael Foster  (top photo) as a comic-relief Kristoff

2. Tyler Jacob Moore as Prince Hans, who takes over the kingdom of Arendale in the absence of its sister-queens.

3.Marcus Rosner as Jurgen, one of Hans' 12 older brothres.

And in a subplot, formerly evil queen Regina starts a Happy Ending with Robin Hood, only to have his previously-dead wife zapped up from the past, only to have her revealed as actually Regina's evil sister in disguise, plotting to destroy their Happy Ending.

4. Charles Mesure as Blackbeard the Pirate, who steals the Jolly Roger from Hook.

5. Will Traval as the Sheriff of Nottingham, who Regina's mother tries to hook her up with as an alternative to Robin Hood.

The second half of the season brings in three Big Bads, each of whom has a goal perfectly aligned with the "daddy and mommy issues" overall theme of the series:  Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty wants to be reunited with her daughter, also a dragon-human hybrid; Cruella De Ville from 101 Dalmatians, who wants to be reconciled with her mother;  Ursula from The Little Mermaid wants the singing voice that her father, Poseidon, stole from her.

6. Sebastian Roche as King Stefan, who Maleficent curses before she gets around to Princess Aurora.

7. Ernie Hudson (show in his buffed days) as a ridonkulous Poseidon, God of the Sea, Ursula's father.

In a subplot, Regina, formerly the Evil Queen, tries to find the Author of their stories, who can manipulate the events in their lives and give her a Happy Ending.  He turns out to be a ne'er do well tv salesman from our world who got roped into writing down the stories by the 1000-year old Sorcerer's Apprentice, who in turn takes orders from a mysterious deep-voiced fireball who might be God.

8.  Eion Bailey as August Booth/Pinocchio, who was turned into a 10-year old boy a couple of seasons back, but is restored to adulthood because he knows where to find the Author.

9. Patrick Fischler as the Author.

10. The scary talking fireball isn't God after all, but Merlin from the Arthurian legends (Elliot Knight), who will apparently be a Big Bad of Season 5.

A whole plotline about the hunky knights of Camelot?  I can hardly wait.