Mitch

Yea, they way it worked out...they could have made Neal and Bae two separate characters...the "reveal" of that twist didn't amount to anything back in SB. Did Regina even get a reaction that Rump was Henry' grandfather..did it move plot along? I know Henry was just super duper extra special but I think it would have worked best if Neal was just a guy from our world who could bring a fresh perspective to the nonsense...and a real threat to Regina that he might take the kid away as he has no ties and a threat to everyone as he is the only "outsider" to know that they exist in our world. Keeping Neal as a con man who basically wanted to do good for his kid but still couldnt resist perhaps making a buck by letting the outside world know about SB. I think the plot mechanics to make Neal...Bae were just goofy and sloppy..he was here, there and everywhere. They could have kept "Where's Bae" as a running mystery is he in our world or not..and why doesn't he want Rump to find him.

That would be a great story! I like the idea that the LWOM was the epicenter of magic and it was drained...creating all the magical realms (and why we have their stories which came to people in dreams and they twisted them.) And you solved the problem of why Blue was so totally helpless in times of need. Blue's banishment of magic left the LWOM thinking that dragons and Camelot were all legends and stories. Morgan Le Fay should have been the "Final Battle" instead of a stupid Black Fairy and then a dumb tree nymph, and they could have followed much of 26's finale with Morgan bringing magic back to the entire LWOM meaning it was drained and obliterating the realms. How I would love to see Morgan kicking Regina's butt and bringing Rump a dump to his knees, and only Emma left to fight.

They missed the biggest reveal of all, which actually was tied to their "plot" Cora revealing to Regina that Emma has super powerful magic, but doesn't know it, and Emma and Snow don't talk about it..(Emma.."What the hell was that?" Snow: "THAT we can talk about when we get home") and is never discussed by them. For one thing I think Snow knowing Emma had magic would be big, and I would think that Cora would not only warn Regina about Emma's magic, but it would one of the reasons that Regina sides with Cora..knowing that not only is Henry's dad is in town (well,the way I would write it would be that the father's return would be a bigger reveal and happen before Regina hooks up with Cora) and have maybe Emma and Neal talk about taking Henry with them to the LWOM to get away from the craziness, and there is no way to stop Emma except maybe have powerful Cora become more powerful. That would at least make Regina's motivations easier to understand.

I can't believe Regina was cleaning toilets for 28 years..I would think a couple of her servants from the EF would have been made her housekeeper and gardner...but we never saw it...(I wanted Malificent to be Regina's put upon secretary at City Hall, and after Emma comes back and starts breaking the curse she gets more and more of her brain back and starts shooting zingers are Mayor Mills...) Welcome to SB had so much potential...(I wanted to see Regina watching Dynasty and then seeing her parading down Main Street with Big Ass Hair and shoulder pads as she thought that is how powerful women in our world dressed..) but as usual with this show, it missed it all to have Regina whine and kill someone...

I do think they should have had at least one episode where the peasants were backing Regina...(stupidly but the average SB'er seemed as dumb as a stump..) cause she gave them plumbing and heat...and Regina cunningly did that to the general population that she could care less about...just so if the curse broke she could say..."I did this for you...to turn the tables on the haves and help the have nots..." which would be a hilarious scene right up there to her..."I know, I feel violated myself!" line...though the A & E would write it as if it were true! Then it would be the royals from other kingdoms that would be pissed off at her (though I have to say, the neighborhood Regina lived in looked nice so she would have had to have had people in those houses and I am sure she would have put other royals there so she didn't have to deal with the peasants when she got her mail...(did anyone HAVE mail???) At least when Dimbulb Charming was going on and on about returning to the EF I would like someone to say, "Sure, pretty boy, you got a castle, I gotta shit in the woods!" They originally had to use a compass, which would have been cool if they lost it and landed up in weird ass places. They could have at least said that the Sorcerer's House was the home of the actual Hall of Doors seen in Jeffies hat, and he was the guardian of the gates...so then they could use that instead of convoluted reasons, but only after the Sorcerer...or was it the Apprentice..I was half in and out during Frozen and Queens of Darkness so cant remember...approved..if he doesnt you jumped through you die..including Rump. All of your ideas are great..damn, can we have a do over???

So true..the Regina Mills of S1 and the Regina of S2B seem like totally different people. She was fun manipulating everyone around her, and it was fun when Emma got a one up on her, and it was fun when Gold had her number...but this Regina is annoying as hell. Also, if I wrote this I would have never let Cora have magic...as it makes no sense...why didn't she just magic her way to Queen if she was so powerful? I would have had her been a conniving manipulative woman who finds out her daughter has the potential for very powerful magic..and Cora sees her as an entre not only to royalty but great, great power, as long as she controls Regina. Cora would then be a king of role model for Regina in our world using her cunning to manipulate others without magic. I just can't see Cora keeping whiny good Regina around as a kid, and not poofing her into a statue while she take control of the world.

Yes, is SB still in Maine..and if so..how do all those realms squeeze into a pocket of Maine Woods? Also, I have never understood their retooling of the LWOM. Is it or isnt it? In past seasons they were clear that crossing over the town line takes you into reality..and there is no magic and of course Rump had to smuggle magic into our world, but it was confined to SB, which kept him there..if its just a matter of belief, then why would that Monster thing from Fanastasia disappear crossing the townline, it would believe there was magic as it would have no other context...when Ingrid waves her arms to zap the Fortune Teller she is surprised there is not magic..she actually believed she could produce it..yet in Seattle no one brings magic back yet some people use it and some people dont...Regina admits she has no magic yet later she handwaves Rump free from his trap, with no effort at all. I can get them not getting the specifics down on some things as they are lazy as hell, but the whole show and various BIG plot point were built on having no magic over the townline? It made no sense at all.

I actually think S1 was "darker" then all the rest of the seasons. People were trapped in a town, and (suggested in S1 but never followed up on) had their families and loves ripped away from them, as they lost free will. Even the villains were not happy...both Gold and Regina were more conflicted and not cackling villains. The relationship between Regina and Henry was contentious with Regina trying to be what she felt was a good mother, and failing miserably, and Henry going back and forth between trying to love the woman who raised him but just not being able to. Emma and Henry were more "friends" then mother and son and you could see that Emma tried to distant herself from Herny's hero worship. At the time you could actually feel for Regina despite her being a villian..if the curse breaks she looses everything..(so we think) etc. I think you hit on the word as the rest of the seasons' while becoming more shallow and cartoony ("Hope will save us!" "We also rescue family") it also became bleaker...villains are one dimensional, cacking away but turn on a dime into "good" Good is considered "evil" if good actually steps up to a challenge then letting "Hope" take charge. Side characters are killed off at random, some of them iconic...Aunt Em..Rumps first wife...the Scarecrow trembling in fear from the silliest wicked witch ever...(Zelena) to have his brains removed and they arent returned..the tin man turned into a statue or whatever... Strength, brains, strong wills and bravery dont win the day...a magical instrument will...magic is always more powerful but DARK magic is much more powerful then White magic...(i.e Glinda and Blue) an Author can control people when prophecies dont (who needs a curse...in Once NO ONE has free will...) there are three kinds of people in the world.."heroes, villains and extras who are killed or turned into animals and no one gives a shit....people with real axes to grind and considered disposable and wrong...(the guy in Camelot who naturally tried to kill Regina for revenge...) and the worst...villains like Regina and Rump don't need remorse or apologies to become accepted...as long as they are main characters.. Dark actually has a view point and needs brightness to balance it ....bleak has no moral backbone because the morals are made up...

I would have loved if the..do we see clones of the original EF characters would be in the coven...like Malificent, the EQ, Wicked Witch...who would have been totally disgusted by the piss poor villains the characters from the "other" EF were. It would be funny to see Regina poofed into w wall or chains by their version of the EQ...

Actually, I don't think she cackled and she had a surprised look on her face...(haven' t watched it since it originally aired so...) and then back in the Mayor's office Regina looks wary , but then Cora explains how she set things up that ended up in Daniel's death and then Regina looks odd and then..she just drops it and goes along with it. This episode, is like many others where it seemed as if one of the writers had to go pick up one of their kids at school and someone else finished writing the script..without reading what happened before.

Was Mother Gothal planned for S7 of the old format and was later stitched onto the new one? Her backstory made more sense in SB then it did in the middle of a neighborhood in an urban area. While they cocked the story up I think it would have worked better as the S6 storyline.. I think it would be interesting if they had Gothel and her wood nymphs living where SB eventually was created, and the "wishing well" was were they lived and practiced their benign nature magic. Instead of being "thousands of years ago" have it just been hundreds of years when European settlers came and settled the land. Taking their fear of witchcraft from Europe then consider the nymphs witches and satanic and kill them all except for Gothel who escapes wounded to the one and only EF. There she has to wait until she can hitch a ride back to our world when she hears about Rump's curse and bides her time. During that time she learns more powerful and lethal uses of magic and builds up her power intending to return to the LWOM and spread magic beyond the confines of SB....so her plot would be to kill off or enslave anyone who could get in her way, or want to share her power including Rump, Regina and Emma. I would have given her the backstory that she naturally wanted to join the fairies but they got sick o her wanting to kill a mortal eveyrday so they kicked her out and she was indeed what they called the Black Fairy. Its too bad to waste a good villain on a really bad, even for Once, orgin story.

The whole thing about Storybrooke in the first season that made it fun was that it was mysterious...how did it work, who is there. The funny thing is, after magic came back Storybrooke lost its mystery and was just another a boring town with a few magic users and where magic was treated as if in a cartoon. The interplay of magic in the real world ..where no magic should exist ( I refuse to think S7 is canon ) should have made SB a crossroads to all the realms where characters appear out of nowhere and a place with a lot of mysterious nooks and crannies...(I always thought the tunnels under town were interesting..were they an in between place where some magic was in place so Malificent could keep her dragon form...why was Snow's coffin down there....the Sorcerers mansion is another place that would have been fun to explore...(that is where I would have had the hallway with the doors that go to different realms...he was the crossing guard so to speak of the realms but Jefferson's hat bypassed that..instead of having to twist into knots to explain realm hopping when it turned out to be easy as can be. I would have made SB less Disney generic..peppy Main Street and more Twin Peaks..or at least the Haunted Mansion.

I was just reading a story in Vanity Fair about writers rooms and "Mini Rooms" where places like AMC and Amazon want to look at what the writers write for the first five episodes before okaying a series and pilot. VF is bemoaning that its "mis-treatment " of writers but one writer/producer said this ... "It’s not that a pilot doesn’t have value, but I think there’s also things the room can tell you that a pilot can’t. There are way too many examples of very well-crafted pilots that, once you’ve actually gone to series, [the show] crumbles on you because the pilot was so clever or flashy in the way it was executed that it didn’t real­ly demonstrate what the series would be on an ongoing basis. When you’re forced to actually plot out and craft and write four or five additional episodes, and figure out what the whole season would be, then the show-runner really knows what the show is.” I was thinking this had Once "written" all over it...the pilot was GREAT...and while S1 was the best of the series you can still see weaknesses there. I am not sure if five episodes would have helped, but I think the general idea of each season not being well thought or planned out comes to mind here.

Did we ever get a name (on screen) for the "realm" that the fairytale action too place this year? Was it actually called the Enchanted Forest? Was that a different Oz they showed, but Zelena was there so is it a different one? How did Facilier meet the EQ..and did this realm have a Snow White and EQ?

What hurt the show was killing Cora and then making her have a half ass redemption. I loved Cora just cause she was evil and made no bones or apologies. Sure she was poor and screwed over by her drunk father and Zelenas' father..but she wanted power and never cried about anything. They should have had a "Phantom Zone" where they banished the big bads so they could break out and cause havoc again. Jafar and Cora would be fun.