Rumsy4

It was a combination of both, I think. They gave the Evil Queen a persona that was "sexy", wealthy, and powerful, because sadly, many people are attracted to the trifecta of beauty, money, and power. Good is "boring" to them. That is evident in the way they dress their heroes vs villains, especially with the whole "evil cleavage" thing (the one exception being the boob Blue Fairy). But this Show is supposed to be a Fairy Tale Show with a twist, not a "twisted" Fairy Tale. They couldn't overtly show a villain succeeding over heroes. So, they hit upon the disingenuous idea that even the worst villain "deserves" redemption, and subtly promoted the morality that villains deserve good things more than the victims whose lives they destroyed. They made Regina more sympathetic to the audience by giving her the most screen time and point-of-view narrative in the whole show. And their tactic has succeeded with a large group of people. Regina is one of the most popular characters in the show. People were discussing a recent interview that claimed the seed of the Show was about where the Evil Queen would find her Happy Ending. I really believe this was A&E's original idea for the Show, even if they ladled a lot of good sauce over the spoiled meat (or should I say, heaped ice cream over rotten apples) in earlier seasons. Here are some quotes from an A&E interview from 2013 (pages 43-46; 62-63 on the pdf or 41-44; 60-61 on the scanned pages) that support this: Mayor Mills was to a certain extent what they described in Season 1--a tough woman who would get in your face. Rumple was very much a Machiavellian character in Season 1. They both started losing their nuance from Season 2 onwards. I had to laugh at this part: The interview has some priceless quotes about their writing process which we have discussed in the past. These are quite interesting to revisit now that the Show is ending. But I don't want to make this post even longer. So, I'll stop here for now.

Exactly. Let's HOPE Wish Henry won't end up thanking her for it.

There were some spoiler pictures of the Evil Queen in Storybrooke. I'm wondering if that's Clone Queen or Wish Queen. Initially, I assumed Robin's return meant it was Clone Queen and Wish Robin, but Lana has since clarified that it's the "original" Robin Hood. So, who knows?

I'm wondering if she'll show up in the series finale, or if she's supposed to be dead.

Very true. The S2 Aurora and Philip TLK was way more meaningful even if we had only just met them as well.

It was more Emma's embarrassment in admitting to Wish August that she "sort of" lived with Hook in her reality. Then, there was the thing about putting him on a diet. The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way. But I did enjoy reading the behind-the-screen stuff with Colin and JMO. hehe

No. Because people from the Wish Realm have had past interactions with people from other Realms like the Disenchanted Forest of Cinderella 2.0.. And Alice is the biological child of a Wish Realm and non-Wish Realm person. So, they are not implanted memories. For example, Grace was implanted with fake memories of parents who weren't biologically her parents. She was Jefferson's daughter. When the Curse broke, her real memories came back. Alice is the bio child of WHook and Gothel (non-Wish Realm). There is no curse to break here.

It's implied. However, not everything needs to be stated. In the beginning, I too found the retroactive existence of the Wish Realm idiotic, but since then, WHook and Alice have really sold me on their "realness". So, it doesn't bother me anymore except when it comes to Regina. But then, 95% of any storylines within Regina's radius bother me. So, that frustration is not specific to the creation of the Wish Realm.

That's not how it is explained on-screen. But this is how they are explaining it. It's upto us whether we buy the plausibility of their explanations. After all, time travel doesn't exist either. Their version of how time-travel works is convoluted too. They're stating that past history can be changed as in Emma's TT adventure, but sometimes, "whatever happened, happened" as with Henry phoning Henry. If Emma hadn't interfered with history, we may have assumed the latter case to be the only plausible way for Time Travel to happen in the ONCE 'verse. But we know that history can be changed.

It seems like the Wish retroactively made the Wish Realm and its characters to have always existed. It’s like Emma’s Time Travel adventure changing the Snowing meeting to have always included Emma and Hook’s interference. I’m not saying it’s logical for a genie to have that much power, but this is what it amounts to.

There were three things in that episode I would classify as such. One was this scene. The second was Snowing falling sideways like puppets when Regina crushed their hearts. The third was Emma’s reaction to old fat Wish Hook. I was disgusted, and particularly because as you said, we were supposed to find them funny. In that set of episodes, A&E revealed their true agenda—that they would stomp on anything to elevate their pet Regina. Incidentally, the only main character to escape from humiliating treatment in those Wish Realm episodes was Rumple.

The cry of every hopeful fan of the Show for the past seven years. This is eventually followed by disappointment and disillusionment. Sorry if my response seems flippant. But seriously, the writers will never address this becasue they never thought deeply about it at any time. To them, it probably seemed fun to give Regina the "gift" of murdering Snowing, while also making her appear a hero for coming to rescue Emma. In Season 6 particularly, the writers had stopped caring about character motivations. It was all plot-driven. We simply cannot dissect these episodes without noticing the puppet strings. Otherwise, it makes both Regina and Emma look like moral monsters for abandoning Wish Henry to a tragic life after he lost every single member of his family. So, within the same two episodes they had the contradictory logic of Regina refusing to fight Wish Henry and preparing to die by his hand, while minutes before, she casually crushed Wish Snowing's hearts in frustration when Emma wasn't responding to her bullying tactics. Five minutes later, she has no problem abandoning orphaned Wish Henry to his fate. Ten minutes later, she sees Wish Robin and wants to take him home with her. The writers cannot maintain logical consistency within a single episode because they have ten different contradictory agendas playing out on screen. Their wish of glorifying Regina as a hero at the same time as keeping her the Evil Queen has been their greatest weakness and downfall. Because every character who comes within Regina's orbit gets tainted by such slanted writing. The worst victim of the Regina-bias was Snow. She had zero personality by the end of Season 6. But Henry, Emma, Robin have all suffered to varying degrees.

I saw that too. Seems like they overplayed their hand. I can't see Tom Ellis playing Regina's doormat to the same extent. Maybe he would have brought a different dynamic to Outlaw Queen.

I don't get why networks cancel shows without given the showrunners enough time to wrap up storylines. It seems mean-spirited. Is it to keep the producers from shopping around for other networks?

Let's not forget Will Scarlet who was confined behind bars with just a half-eaten pop tart for sustenance because he had disrupted the Sheriff's date.

So, what's the consensus on the rewatch? We're not supposed to post spoilers in the specific episode threads, correct? Should we hold all the rewatch discussions in the All Seasons thread, or do we post in both?

That's sounds like a horror story because that's exactly what the writers would've done. I'm devoutely thankful JMo decided not to stick around! lol

I wonder if the writers would have given Emma and Hook a similar storyline if JMo had stayed. They would've been the Snowing-equivalent separated by the Curse, and Alice might have been their daughter. The Guardian storyline would have fit even more considering Emma's and Hook's history as Dark Ones, and Rumple's betrayal of them. Imagine if they had picked someone as poorly as the actresses who play Jacinda or Lucy. Even the actress who plays Robyn is not as good.

This is one of the many reasons why I hate Season 6. It does make Emma seem callous for abandoning Wish Henry. Even when she did not realize that he was "real", I have a hard time believing that Emma would have left him behind. Probably because she's literally just in one scene, and to use that in the promo would be to waste it.

Absolutely. I teared up at their conversation--it was so bittersweet. They're the best part of Season 7, and one of the best-developed relationships in the Show. I think it's good the Show got cancelled before the writers inevitably ruined it. lol

Poor WHook. Nobody was there to even drive him home from the hospital? I ship WHook and WAriel. When Regina talked about wanting to take revenge on Wish Rumple, I had to think for a second to realize she was referring to Facilier's murder.

It looks very authentic. When are you coming to visit us all, @daxx?

Groan. Worse than I imagined.

Hope you will join the rewatch! I may be back to table-flipping next week, but this week, I too am feeling melancholic about the show coming to an end.

Fear not. We'll treat you better than how those pre-historic victorians treated Gothel, @Camera One