KingOfHearts

We missed out on Neal and Hook being roommates in the apartment. But at least we got Rumple and Ursula living together and bickering about ramen, right?

At one point I thought it might've been revealed Hook was originally from the Land Without Magic. Imagine the reversal of the Curse in S3 leaving Hook behind and even he is surprised.

I'm stating the obvious here, but the writers didn't seem to care about fleshing out their fantasy world or how any of it worked. Hook can have a pistol because it's a fairy tale and nothing has to make sense. It's just what people associate with pirates, even if there are implications in the story like the fact if there's people with gunpowder, they should outmatch the people with bows and arrows. A&E never stopped to think about any of that. I'm not too upset that it's not completely accurate as far as the style of the time period goes (I'm content with "vague Victorian England"), but it's clear the writers didn't care at all about the world they were building. They just had three laws of magic that even they couldn't abide by, the Dark One, and later the Savior, and that was about it. I've gotten more into high fantasy worlds lately and it's crazy how much detail is normally put into the quality ones. The writers didn't have to delve deep into lore or anything, as fairy tales are normally pretty simple in nature. It's not even that they need to explain how every little thing works. The problems were that the writers were inconsistent about the few rules they did employ and they took on complicated concepts they couldn't handle. In short, the scope of the show was too big for them. They would've done better with something more focused but they threw everything and the kitchen sink into it. There's shows that pull off that grand of a scale while preserving a compelling story, but they're the exception, not the rule.

Regina's role as a mother seemed to get retconned starting in S3. S1 really hammered in how abusive she was, but later the show's portrayal of her parenting slowly fell in line with what she said in the Pilot episode: I get what this episode was trying to say - that Regina was willing to put everything aside for Henry. But it's ridiculous, as @Camera One pointed out, that she would be willing in that stage of her life to let go of the possibility of her curse breaking all for the sake of Henry. (Especially given we knew she abused him for years after the fact.) It's out of character and unnecessary. She shouldn't have learned about his biological mother until Emma came to Storybrooke.

It's almost like the Black Fairy was just a redux of Pan, down to the same character beats for Rumple. This scene still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The writers like to pointlessly screw with the Charmings for some reason, especially when it comes to Snow and Emma actually having a moment for once. We didn't need that to show the Black Fairy was "evil." Staining a wedding dress? Really? I think the writers only did it to explain why Emma wore the Grace Kelly version no one really wanted.

I thought the Jabberwocky being a person was a budget-cutting cop-out at first, but I ended up really enjoying the character and the lore behind her. There's a lot of mystery behind her menace that makes her more interesting than the typical "sexy" mind-game-playing villainess. It's always a treat in the OUAT universe when you have evil characters that don't completely side with the Big Bad's goals, at least permanently. I wouldn't call the Jabberwocky gray but they weren't firmly in Jafar's camp either from what I recall. They were basically forced to do his bidding, al a Dark One. I would've liked to see the Jabberwocky make an appearance on the parent show just to screw with some of the characters' minds. Nyx wins the prize for being the creepiest character ever in the OUAT universe. I don't even like watching their scenes because of how much they unnerve me.

I really like this scene where everyone is working together to figure out how to break the spell entrapping Merlin in the tree. All the talk about magic, like's some logical thing, makes the world feel more real and grounded. It's one of those rare cases where the heroes are functioning as a group, al a Scooby Gang in the library from BTVS. It's enjoyable to see Belle being included without holding Rumple's arm. It's nice to see Snow with her nose in a book too. I just wish this scene didn't involve Regina being bitchy and so cocky about pretending to be the Savior. I actually love Belle's hair here. She's stunning in this scene. It's a crime this show didn't have more problem solving moments where magic wasn't just about jazz hands and contrivances, but something with rules that could be studied.

It's time for another adventure into YouTube recommendations! Saw this clip and had to compare it with Regina learning to love herself in S6. First off, there's way more evidence to believe Emma didn't love herself than to think Regina didn't love herself. Emma was abandoned as a child and numerous times growing up, making her feel less than adequate and that something was wrong with her. She hated her magic because it was hurting others. She had all these expectations set upon her as the Savior and felt guilty for putting Henry for adoption (and subsequently abused by Regina). It's the perfect concoction for self-esteem issues, manifesting itself in all the WALLS she put up for years. She was so busy trying to save everyone else, she never saved herself or even thought she was worth saving. Contrast this with Regina, who was more concerned with her internal conflict than the fact the Evil Queen was terrorizing everyone she cared about. Since Regina never felt guilty about anything except gaslighting Henry, it's safe to assume her crimes didn't translate into self-loathing. She was constantly surrounded by yes men validating and enabling her. There was Cora making her feel like garbage, but Regina always deflected that anger at others. Honestly, if she hated herself so much, she wouldn't be flaunting herself and focusing on herself all the time. Why would she constantly stare at something she hated? It's not even that she used the Evil Queen persona as a front. She reveled in it. There's also the fact Emma's magic wasn't inherently evil. It was a neutral thing going haywire because she was freaking out. Clone Queen was the picture of the darkness in Regina that led to the slaughter of innocent people. Is it really self-empowering to embrace and love that? There are so many questions to ask there. Apologies in advance for finding a Swan Queen parallel no one wanted. 🙂

There were ways to keep her "sassy" without blatantly insulting her "friends". Let her "friends" snap back at her with retort to show it was just banter or have her only make snippy comments to the villains. "Pound puppy and fish sticks" was actually a great line. At this point in Wonderland, everything was still very raw. Everyone was having to work together despite being separate for so long prior, Jafar was on the move, and the plot demanded a lot of urgency. There wasn't a whole lot of time to breathe before rescuing Will and reaching the climax of the season. That's a good way of delivering tension without making the characters look insensible.

I didn't even think about that. The writers did so little to comb through their own material just to see what they could use and connect to the Underworld. I'm still bitter Mulan didn't help by sharing how they were able to rescue Phillip from damnation by the wraith. They even brought her back to 5B and it wasn't even mentioned. Forever bitter. You could've had some fun "fish out of water" stuff with the Greek gods walking around Storybrooke like mortals. Imagine Zeus flirting with every woman he sees.

I'm sure there were a lot of Evil Regals who would call it a defense mechanism. It surely was in the earlier seasons, but later on she was with her "best friends" and was just as mean. She had no reason to be bitchy after she had "dealt" with her issues if she had any sympathy at all for the victims she befriended. At least with Cyrus and Alice, Ana intended to reverse everything. She didn't actually hate them from the beginning. Regina was just always vengeful and meanspirited even when she didn't need to be.

A&E probably would've plagiarized a lot from Xena. I wouldn't want to spend an entire season in the Underworld, but there was enough to work with in all that to sustain a whole season for sure. One half could've been in the Underworld while the other was in Storybrooke or some other above ground location dealing with the gods, maybe with a larger part for Hercules/Megara. However, I honestly like the way the writers sprinkled in mythology throughout the show. They just could've done it better. Seeing Poseidon show up and Cupid being referenced were nice touches but were only skin deep. Come to think of it - Hades and Poseidon are supposed to be brothers. It was setup in 4B that Poseidon might've been willing to help the heroes out later. It would've been awesome if he or at least Ursula was brought on his behalf. Heck, just seeing Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus in a flashback together would've been badass. The writers had so much to work with for the Greek mythology stuff and all we got was Zelena shoehorned in as a Persephone stand-in.

I can imagine all the cataloging of Big Bads plaguing the heroes. Grumpy: "JAFAR IS BACK!" Snow: "Which one is it this time?" Emma: "I hope it's not the one from the live action remake again." Grumpy: "He said he wants revenge on Aladdin!!" Emma: "So it's not the one from Wonderland, then." Snow: "What's if it's the one from Fictional Scotland?" Emma: "Okay, that one was just weird and out of place. If it's the German one, I won't be able to understand a word he says." Snow: "I really wished I was the German Snow White that time. Which reminds me, I need to have tea with her sometime soon..."

It almost seems like the two Jafar's are separate characters. Their personalities are different and there's only one vague reference connecting their stories. I think both Jafar's are interesting takes on the character, but I can't reconcile them as one entity. Bringing Jafar into S6 was a mistake, imo, because he was barely used and did little to service the story. The writers never committed to continuity with OUATIW. They threw in Will and Jafar without thinking of the implications or going any further than surface deep. I would've rather Will and Jafar not be in the parent show at all and have the parent show just pretend the spin-off didn't exist instead of doing hardly anything with it. That would be a bit less insulting to OUATIW.

Charming, Belle, Henry, and Emma were all given new cursed memories at some point in time before the second curse. Charming and Belle had to focus on something, but Henry and Emma seemed to just consent to Regina altering their memories. Regina seemed to have had the power to rewrite their "stories" but it's unclear what that required or why she didn't do it during all the times it would've benefited her. You can't tell me she wouldn't rewrite Henry's memories so that he thinks she's the best mother in the world or wouldn't rewrite Emma's to make her forget about Henry.

There should've been more time for melodrama around Neal. It's strange that Regina didn't seem to even look in his direction, despite him being another competitor for being a priority in Henry's life. You could count the Neal and Henry moments on one hand. There could've been a lot of awkward co-parenting going on. The biggest hole, of course, was where the Neal/Rumple conflict was supposed to be. I don't think Neal was the greatest idea, but the writers could've milked some juicy drama out of his disposition instead of that awful love triangle in 3A. Both 2B and 3A skipped a lot of Neal being awkwardly in Storybrooke, even though everything about his character plus the Hallmark movie villain Tamara should've made things much more complicated. Most of the time he was just running around with everybody else, not too unlike Robin in later seasons.

After thinking about "Awake", I wish we could've gotten more of Snow pretending to be cursed to keep Regina off her trail. That couldn't have worked very well in that episode, but it would've made for a more interested S2 if instead of the curse breaking, someone like her or Charming got their memories back. I find the dual personalities more interesting than just the mix-matching of famous fairy tale characters. It made the show very unique in the first season. One of the show's greatest tragedies is that cursed personalities and "we are both" weren't explored more. I still hate how in S2, Mary Margaret and most of the characters from S1 just got deleted out of existence because the memories were returned. Why did everyone have an identity crisis for one episode, only to never have one again after a single speech? What about villains who could've committed atrocities back in EF but have lived for years as innocent citizens? That would be such a moral dilemma. (For the record, I don't mean Rumple or Regina, who both did horrible things in Storybrooke with their memories intact.) What about people who were married to other people in EF, al a Nolans? What about parents with kids they didn't actually have like in the case of Grace? We never got to hear what Mary Margaret thought about things and none of the love triangle stuff in S1 was ever brought up again. There was never an awkward scene where Abigail, Snow, and David made sure everything was okay. There's also the fact David likely slept with Abigail while cursed, which was never addressed. (Yet Snow slept with Whale and David gets to punch him. Such a double standard.) Even if no one but Henry knew Regina murdered Graham, Snow would've still at least shed some tears over him. It still perplexes me that they named Snowflake after Neal instead of the man who saved both Snow and Charming's lives. To me, I think the writers should've kept it more like S1 where the fairy tale stuff wasn't always so overt outside of flashbacks. There needed to be some level of realism involved to contrast with the past. Lost always tried to keep flashbacks and the present day distinct from each other. I'm not saying I want something super gritty or realistic on a fairy tale show, but S1 did a good job of striking the balance between kid and adult stuff. It was more like a prime time drama and less like just crazy fantasy shenanigans, which gave it a wider appeal. I would've kept magic very limited in Storybrooke and introduced real world characters that weren't Greg and Tamara. I'd bring down the barrier so the town would have to deal with keeping things looking "normal". It would be difficult but I'd want to preserve aspects of the cursed personalities as well because I feel they were characters that deserved to live. (Not one-note jokes like Lacey.)

I seem to recall a scene from Enchanted where Giselle was fascinated about the shower, wondering where the water comes from and calling it magical. One of the few things I liked from the episode "Awake" was Charming not having his curse download yet and Snow having both personalities. It was funny that she had to show him around Storybrooke and explain it. (Bringing my further unrelated thoughts to the Should've Happened thread.)

I think it's funny we all seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Granny's and how it was used in the show.

I always thought it would be fun if they did something like Angel where Regina moves somewhere in the real world and starts an agency to deal with magical problems that arise. Zelena could've been her partner.

The tracks for Regina are actually some of my favorites in the series. "One Perfect Day After Another" does a fantastic job of conveying Regina's feelings of triumph and later boredom when she's trapped in Groundhog Day Storybrooke. It plays her theme but it becomes more sluggish and slow as the track goes on. "The Queen's Curse", which plays during the Pilot, is so wonderfully ominous and suspenseful. It really feels like something terrible is about to happen. It finally kicks into full gear with Regina's theme, crescendoing at the end as the Curse swallows up Regina and Snow. The show's soundtrack was awesome at conveying emotions even when they weren't in the writing or staging. (A lot of the Rumpbelle music is very romantic, despite all their scenes making me want to gag.) Listening to it always makes me feel nostalgic. The writers attempted to do more of this stuff in later seasons, but it always fell flat. You had the random Not!Team Princess specials, like Mulan/Merida/Red, Red/Mulan/Dorothy, Jasmine/Ariel/Hook, etc. that didn't have much to do with the overarching plot. The connections or clashing potential the characters had was never leveraged, so much so that it seemed like A&E just drew names out of a hat. Did anyone ever stay at Granny's after S1 that we saw on screen? It wasn't much of a B&B after S1. Just a diner. The only time I felt the writers were creative in managing the budget was when they did Underbrooke in 5B. It was a clever way to keep it "Storybrooke" but a slightly different atmosphere. They didn't need potted plant sets or to jump back to Storybrooke to remind everyone what show they were watching.

I just rewatched the Pilot for the first time in a while. (I didn't get to join y'all for most of the rewatch, as you know.) I won't go into the nitpicks that have already been discussed in depth, even though there are a lot of them. But, something that struck me this time was how atmospheric it felt. Everything had a certain tone in Storybrooke that was otherworldly and fantastical, even when there were no overt supernatural elements on screen. The show managed to replicate this at times in different fashions, but it never really did after S3. The story itself seemed grand and epic when paired with the flashbacks. In later seasons, the scale kept growing smaller and smaller. Something random I noticed I didn't catch before was that Rumple not only knew what Emma's gender would be, but that Snow knew she was going to give birth to a girl. This of course gets called back in 2x03, where Snow finds out she'll have a daughter via Ruth's necklace. Charming still thought it was going to be a son. The flashbacks in the first three seasons did a good job of explaining things like that in the Pilot without completely retconning everything... for the most part. (Let's just forget S6 tried to tie in the "final battle" Rumple mentions in the Pilot with its craptastic storyline.) The Pilot was some great escapism. Not sure if I'll do a full rewatch, but it was nice to go back to when OUAT was actually fun to watch.

Funny how Jafar has the same backstory as Dio from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Parent dies, Jafar goes to live with a powerful man, only to be at violent odds with the man's son. OUATIW seems to have a much stronger set of magic rules than the parent show. I like that Jafar had to get a vile of blood and had to summon his staff before he could break the shapeshifting spell. It's not like OUAT where you can just flick your wrist and transform into anybody willynilly. It's also a nice touch that Alice's wish had a cost. At least on this show, magic has a price. This episode gave me Lost vibes with all the father issues. Of course, Sayid is here too. Jafar: "I've waited a long time to go come back here." Sultan: "I don't even know who you are." Reminded me of Thanos, LOL.

No, I don't believe it did. I guess Zelena did a speed read of What to Expect When You're Expecting in just a couple days to become a fake midwife. But she was reading it later in S5 so who knows? I think it would've been interesting if everybody in the 3B curse got a cursed personality but their real personalities still intact, like the original characters after the first curse broke. As you said, the writers didnt do much with their fairy tale personalities outside of having the Merry Men live in the woods. What if Zelena's cursed personality was actually a midwife, or Robin was some lawyer who sued rich people taking advantage of the poor? I've always wished the show did more with the cursed personalities because they were just so interesting. It's like all these fascinating characters in S1 "died" because the fairy tale personalities took over. I miss Mary Margaret, dammit.

Belle said he took her in because he was "lonely", but my headcanon is that Rumple went through many servants and housekeepers. He probably killed the last one and needed a replacement. Even when he still lived with Bae in the hovel, he had a mute maid he later killed.