Anisky

"You are all dead. Very, very, very dead. Merry Christmas!"

Deeply, deeply needed to end 3 minutes earlier. Also, did anyone else wonder if the "Every Christmas is Last Christmas" sentence construction was related to "Three words: My. Little. Pony."?

This episode wasn't worth the time it would take to write even just the biggest things wrong with it. SIGH.

I thought it might be Petra. I mean, when she tried to break it off he attacked her and was choking her. She played it off like it turned her on and she liked that he "fought for her", but I'm pretty sure that was just to extricate herself from a dangerous situation. (Which: way to keep a cool head in a crisis!) As it looks like she'd genuinely preferred staying with Rafael over Saz, was in a situation where she had to make that choice, and Saz would kill her for the choice she wanted to make, well, thing to do is kill him? Or, if Serena is right: then it was almost certainly Petra's mother.

If Rumpel can just wave a hand over a surveillance tape and erase himself from the footage, then it's just as plausible that he could wave a hand over a tape and create whatever scene he wants. This makes the tape entirely useless as evidence. (Speaking of which: VHS! Blast from the past! Do surveillance cameras actually still use these, or is this one of those Storybrooke-has-uneven-technology things?) Gee, Hook's word against Rumpel's, I wonder who the Charmings would believe? *rolls eyes* Hook was definitely holding the Idiot Ball this week. I hate it when characters do that-- or rather, I hate it when writers make characters do that. Just the other week Hook knew Rumpel well enough to know that Belle must have a fake dagger because Rumpel would never give her the real one. He knows exactly who Rumpel is and the two of them are enemies. Why would he possibly SEEK OUT a situation that involves Rumpel using magic on him and having even a remote possibility of playing him? Just to regain a hand he's had literally hundreds of years to get used to not having? ARGH, so frustrating. His character motivations this week were "because The Plot." Actually, there were at least three Idiot Balls, seeing as how Regina and Henry and Operation Mongoose makes, as plenty of others have pointed out here, zero sense. I mean... what does the outcome of this "plan" even look like inside their heads? Agree with finding the Charmings cute, and loving Emma's "I can still hear you!" Snow wanting to know every detail and David clarifying that he did NOT want to know every detail, hah, that is exactly what my parents are like. The radio in the background while Emma was in her car was hilarious and wonderful. I loved every second of it. Why can't they have that kind of attention to detail when it comes to actual plot and character motivations?? I am interested in seeing Henry become Rumpel's apprentice. I've wanted to see the two of them interact more since they first found out they were grandfather and grandson. Considering how much Baelfire meant to Rumpel and how much effort he put into reuniting with him, it's just seemed odd that he's shown, like, no interest in getting to know his grandson, the son of his beloved Baelfire. So I'm looking forward to more scenes between the two of them. Yes, Robert Carlyle will have to carry those scenes, but I think he's well up to the task. Speaking of all that... I'm confused about where they're taking Rumpel's character. I mean, he's always been mostly a villain, but almost all of what he did was essentially motivated by love for his son. Until now he's always, at least to me, been a character who can genuinely love someone, yet somehow never do right by that person. His villainy lies in the fact that he doesn't care what happens to anyone he doesn't love (and doesn't mind how many of their lives he ruins), and that he loves selfishly. (Seriously, he wanted to erase Neal's memory and turn him back into a 14-year-old for a “re-do”-- when Neal just discovered that he had a 10-year-old son! There is no way Rumpel spent even a fraction of a second considering what Neal/Baelfire might want, and I doubt it even occurred him to do so.) Now, I thought Rumpel's arc in the first half of last season was his redemption/finally loving selflessly and sacrificing himself for the ones he loves, but I can see how managing that in a really dramatic moment, and when their lives are at stake, is different from a sustained change in character. But it still feels weird to me that he went from his motivation being all about his son, to it now being all about himself. Aaaaand, now that I've said that, it occurs to me that in the first episode of this season, Rumpel was at Bae's grave and seemed genuine about wanting to be a better man for Belle's sake and fully intended to switch the dagger right up until he saw the box that had the galaxy hat inside. Maybe he thinks that with enough power, which he can accumulate with the hat, that he can bring Baelfire back somehow? Maybe his motivation for the bad stuff he does hasn't changed... hmmm. Also, I am confused about something. Since magic is back in Storybrooke and the dagger works to control Rumpel, obviously being the Dark One is still (or probably more accurately, once again) a curse. So can Rumpel and Belle kiss? I can't remember if we've seen them kiss, but I'm pretty sure they have? Why wouldn't that break the curse?

LOL at Elena: Red flag. Guy: Maybe... but I have a sneaking suspicion that's your type. HAH! That's the truest thing about Elena ever said on TVD, and also probably the truest thing about her: “Red flag” IS 100%, precisely her type. For me, that quote is right up there with the one from last season: Stefan: I have a feeling me ripping people's heads off might have been a little bit of a turn-off? Elena: Actually, no. I really hope Damon and Bonnie don't believe that kid that he only fake tried to kill Damon in order to help Bonnie get her powers back. Or at least, stay wary enough that they won't end up screwed if he's lying. I mean, that is exactly the sort of lame, first-excuse-that-comes-to-mind thing I would say if I were trying to avoid being tortured and possibly killed. "I was only pretending to do the thing you're angry about in order to bring about the positive thing that happened!" It's one of those scenarios where someone will give the same answer if it's true and if it isn't.

I thought the Alaric erasing Damon from Elena's memory storyline was going to rip off Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and having seen what it actually was, I wish they HAD gone the Eternal Sunshine-rip off route. It might have been more interesting. That said, I am much more sympathetic to Elena's decision than everyone I've seen on these boards. The man I was in love with and expected to spend my life with died, and the grief was nearly unbearable. Each day was a torture to get through, in the beginning. But a month later, and especially four months later, it wasn't gone, but it had receded. I could think about other things, I could start to enjoy happy things in life for a few moments, even though I was still going through the grieving process. If my emotional pain four months later were just as bad as the week after his death, and I truly believed it would continue, I don't think I'd have been able to take it. Realistically I probably would have begun to lose my grip on reality. Forgive me if I'm mixing this up with another vampire mythology, but there's reason to think that Elena's memory of him and the pain might not ever fade for eternity, yes? I know vampires don't have perfect memories on VD, but their brains and emotions definitely work differently. If her emotional pain was just as bad four months later, and she doesn't know for sure how vampire memory and emotions work, I can believe she'd believe they'd never fade without external help. I can especially sympathize with her because people are not known for making the most rational decisions when wracked with grief. In fact they have a tendency to make pretty terrible ones that later they regret. I think a lot of people would be desperate enough after four months unrelenting (except for drugs) to want to do anything to escape the pain. The only difference is, a human's only choice is to keep going or to commit suicide. If they commit suicide, well, their story's over, and if they keep going then they hopefully look back someday on the good memories and are glad they remember them. Elena's only different in that she has other choices. She should have asked Alaric to compel her to feel peaceful and be able to move on, or even flipped her humanity switch, but she did it this way for purposes of plot setup. I hate it when shows do that, but I don't think it really reflects on her as a character. Also, I'm confused by everyone saying that Stefan searched for four months, and that particularly people who think that was too short a time are saying that. I thought the episode established that he'd searched for less than two months? It was four months since Damon and Bonnie died, and at the dinner scene it was revealed that Stefan had been living in that house in whatever town he was in for at least two months. The longest he could have searched before giving up was TWO months, yes?

Seriously, if I were Snow I'd be like, "You asked me to be mayor, but if you don't like it, then go ask someone else. Or better yet, we could have an election!" Didn't we establish in previous seasons that Leroy is familiar with electrics? Given what we've seen of their moral fiber so far this season, I can totally believe that he and Granny were sitting around going, "Huh, I mean we COULD try to restore the electricity, but that sounds like hard work. Hey, you know what, I know she's super busy with a newborn and all, and that she was an elementary school teacher with no relevant skills to the situation in this world, but I bet if we told Snow she was the new mayor and that it was her job to fix the electricity for the entire town, she'd feel obligated to do it. I mean, she'd try to be mayor for a while afterwards, but we could just heckle her and lead a couple town mobs against whatever she says, and she'll be so exhausted from the baby that she'll give up. Yeah, that sounds way better than fixing the power ourselves."

My response to the bathroom scene: "But who is the Element of Magic?"

Why did the DiLaurentis family move from Georgia to Pennsylvania to live next door to the family of the man Mrs. DiLaurentis had an affair with, especially when by all evidence we’ve seen both Mr. and Mrs. DiLaurentis completely distrust and dislike the Hastings? Why did they move so close, if both sets of parents want their children to stay far away from the other family (as they’ve kept saying)? I think there’s some kind of connection between the DiLaurentises, the Hastings, and Bethany Young. And I have a feeling that both Mr. Hastings and Jessica have (had) a vested interest in making sure that Bethany never speaks to the police. I think Mrs. DiLaurentis was on the Board at Radley to keep an eye on Bethany. It was she who convinced them to lie about what happened to Toby’s mother. Mr. Hastings wanted to close down Radley for some reason, but had an abrupt change of heart when he learned Bethany was involved in the case concerning Toby’s mother—which would cause investigation into Bethany Young. Of course, since she was dead at this point (Mr. Hastings probably just thought she was missing), she couldn’t TALK to the police, so the big secret would be something that might also be discovered by digging into her backstory. (Unless he was just worried she told people in the asylum, or that it would draw attention to her disappearance and there’d be a search for her.) All of this suggests, to me at least, the possibility that Jessica saw BETHANY hit Ali over the head with the rock, and buried her body not so much to protect Bethany, but to keep Bethany away from the police. Let's assume she really believed her daughter was dead (which seems like a crazy mistake to make, especially with two people in the same place making the same mistake with two different girls on the same night-- I have a theory about that, but that will have to wait for another time). Whatever secret surrounds Bethany is important enough to lie and claim an accident [or murder] was a suicide; for the DiLaurentis family to move halfway across the country to live next door to people they hate (this is of course speculation that this is the cause of their move); for Jessica to spend all that time and money on Bethany. Maybe it was important enough that keeping Bethany away from the police was more important than giving her daughter a proper burial, or making a mentally ill girl (or worse, a girl who is not mentally ill but who the Hastings/DiLaurentises locked in an asylum anyway to keep her quiet) pay for her crime. Come to think of it, if that last bit IS true-- that Bethany was "framed" as mentally ill and locked away to keep some secret quiet-- that would fit perfectly as the terrible thing that Jessica saw the Hastings being capable of. Maybe Jessica had to go along with it because she had too much to lose if she didn't, but did all those things for Bethany because she felt guilty that she was complicit in an innocent girl's wrongful lockup.