KAOS Agent
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Posts posted by KAOS Agent
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12 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:
When Lily was waiting for a bus in 4B, they told her she'd be waiting a long time, like no buses would be coming through town, ever.
Which was stupid because just a few episodes earlier, Regina had to prove she was bad by playing chicken with a train. They put no effort into maintaining a set of rules regarding Storybrooke and how it appeared (or didn't) to outsiders.
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24 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:
Ruby said that those were things that they would both be glad to forget and that Regina may have thought she was punishing them by stripping them of their memories and their identities, but she really did them a favor by doing so.
This was something that I thought would have made for interesting exploration, but at least for Ruby, I'd say the negatives outweighed the positives. Yes, bad memories were removed, but so was her close relationship with her grandmother and she became the town slut. The show backed off on what that meant later on as they were trying to pretend the curse wasn't so bad, but the reality is that during the curse she definitely would have slept around. Not cool at all.
Whale wasn't really punished during the curse because he didn't have any loved ones left to be separated from and seemed to live a pretty good life as the town doctor. Not remembering his brother and how he died was probably a good thing. Although we don't know what memories he was given, so maybe it wasn't really any better.
I hated Emma basically thanking Regina for the curse because otherwise she'd be a brainless twit. Yes, it was totally a wonderful thing that Emma was a starving, abused child who had no love or support as a young child. Living under an overpass burning a book to keep warm at the age of seven is so much better than the much loved Emma seen here because this Emma is weak and Snowing would have been terrible parents. It's such an awful message that's repeated so much through TV/movies. The hero can only be badass if they are lonely and bitter and experienced trauma. Well-adjusted people who grew up in a loving home and have a healthy relationship with a significant other are weak and boring.
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I'm fairly certain that the creators originally intended to break the curse in episode 16 of S1. The network wanted them to push it back to the finale, which led to a lot of filler. I think that had Once not been such an immediate hit they would have let them end the curse and go from there in S1. If the show was in doubt of continuing to a second season, then allowing that arc to wrap up a little quicker and possibly bringing magic to Storybrooke in S1 might be a way to draw more audience interest than drawing out the arc with character-centrics and deeper backstory.
They spent eight years or something like that mulling the idea for Once. I'd expect the first season to be extremely well thought out. Add in some helpful guidance from successful, experienced showrunners and the show had everything it needed to build a coherent story filled with fun twists and complex characters. Combine the Wouldn't it be cool if... showrunners with a relatively short window to come up with a new long term arc and a loss of strong network oversight and you get the mess of S2 - particularly 2B.
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13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:
having just watched a lot of the show, there isn't as much Logan as I remembered, and while I wish some other supporting characters had gotten some better subplots (Wallace!!) Logan never takes over the show, beyond his family life being important to several of the mysteries and events of the first two seasons, and is certainly never getting more screen time than Veronica.
S1 had two actors it could afford to have in every episode, Kristen Bell and Enrico Colantoni. That's it. Percy Daggs had the second most appearances with 20. Veronica was in almost every scene of the season. It was a crushing schedule. By S2, they gave some other characters side plots to give Kristen a break. It wasn't fan service or love for specific characters that led to these stories, it was Kristen not being able to take another season working 18 hour days for eight months straight.
At no point did any character come even remotely close to eclipsing Veronica in terms of screen time. That continued in this latest season. Veronica has always been the focus. Maybe what ends up happening to skew people's perspective is that because she's almost always onscreen, there isn't a whole lot of mystery about the character. We see everything she does and we see it from her perspective. She even voice overs her thoughts. She's the lead of the show. If you really hated her, you probably wouldn't be watching the show. Other characters offer better opportunities for discussion and for fandom to get really heated. Logan is the prime example. His character was very dynamic, which got him a ton of fans who'd defend him to the end, and then there was a large contingent who hated him, which meant he was extremely polarizing in the fandom.
It's clear that they wanted to neuter his dynamism in this season. I think it was an attempt to bore fans with Logan so that they could move on more easily from his death. If he's just a boring regular guy, there's nothing to get excited about and fans wouldn't be so disappointed in never seeing him again. Obviously, this didn't seem to work.
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32 minutes ago, General Days said:
I think JD, who's a pretty good actor when I see him in other stuff, didn't know what to do with neutered Logan, because the writers made him so bland.
He gave an interview where he basically admitted this. He didn't know what to do with a "good" guy who'd worked through his issues and become a fairly well adjusted person. He wasn't written as a dynamic character in S4, and he struggled to do a whole lot with it.
Killing Logan was meant to shut the LoVe fans up so the show could move on, which on some level I do understand (not the way it was handled, but the need to stop the madness of extreme fandom), but they made it pretty clear that the other characters in town weren't important either and we shouldn't care about them now. It seemed obvious that Tina Majorino wasn't at all interested in a glorified cameo because her conversation with Rob Thomas showed her that that would be it for Mac. There would be nothing for her in S5. This was a bridge season they were forced to do to get to what they really wanted. Regulars got to take a final bow and now we're supposed to move on with just Veronica.
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The only music I'd really like is the S3 finale wedding/Granny's makeout music. Those cellos were awesome.
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Honestly, reading the threads for these episodes just reminds me of how bored and disinterested I was in this season. Every episode where the Evil Queen gets a lot of focus is such a turn off for me. I don't know why anyone thought that retreading several seasons worth of Evil Queen vs the Charmings would be must see TV.
Mirror world was dumb and I forgot about the dragon and how we found out that the Taser of Doom wasn't as powerful as it was first presented. Anyone on the edge of their seat wondering about the Dragon's missing daughter? Me neither.
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1 minute ago, CleoCaesar said:I have no interest in a season 5 that has Veronica traveling over the country solving crimes. The show is Neptune. It's Veronica and her dad, and Wallace, Weevil, Vinnie, the Kanes, and any assortment of townies. And yes, it's Logan too. Or was.
I think this is something that maybe isn't necessarily understood correctly by the powers that be. Yes, the show is about Veronica Mars, but it's not just Veronica that drives the story. I didn't particularly like Veronica in later seasons or in the movie, but I enjoyed watching her interact with all the others. That's what made the show for me. Those relationships were messy and worked to make Veronica palatable. Her cases were also mostly personal, which raised the stakes. Watching her wander around being a bitch to people without the heart behind it while she solves crimes with her brilliance is not interesting to me.
I think killing off Logan this way was a dumb move. There were better ways to kill him off and make it meaningful without doing such a half ass job of it. Kill him off on a mission without him and Veronica having settled their issues about marriage or something. That puts V in an interesting position with all kinds of emotions swirling while still trying to solve the case. This was just done for shock value and not particularly interesting.
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Not to mention the idiocy of Hook using not getting scurvy as a reason to throw away the Pop Tart and forcing some other breakfast on the kid while there was a large glass of orange juice on the table in front of Henry.
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The ridiculously twisted morality on this show never ceases to amaze me. Get off on mass murder and don't feel particularly bad about it? No problem. I'm sure you were just a victim. You are totally deserving of a happy ending. Been bullied and abused, living a life of domestic servitude? Victimhood doesn't look good on you. You absolutely must give up your chance of happiness so your tormentor can have a happy life or you will be punished and deserve to die for your selfishness.
Fairy tales are morality tales meant to teach children life lessons. What the hell kind of messages are the kids who watch this show getting? Be a bully, it's completely acceptable to make mean spirited comments to your
friendsvictims, crime does actually pay, doing the right or heroic thing is for suckers. It just keeps getting worse as the show goes on, doubling down on some of the more idiotic ideas they've used in the past (e.g. telling secrets is the worst thing ever!)-
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Beyond creating one note characters that show little to no growth or human reaction, the recycling of stories got really old. The semi-annual Hook wrongs someone in the past and now is trying to atone in some way episodes were good for showing Hook is indeed a changing, better man, but why must they hit that same beat over and over? If they have so little creativity in their storylines, why not change out the character in the Hook role? Why not actually have Regina do what Hook does so that we see some sort of understanding that she did wrong and needs to work on atoning for past deeds? Or why not try Zelena in that role?
It's an effective tool to show how Hook is working to change and how he understands that it's probably never going to be enough to make up for those he harmed. Why is it that other reforming characters aren't put into a similar position? Regina's victims who show up usually end up dead and no one even cares. The only thing her flashback episodes ever do is show the horrible atrocities she enjoyed committing in the past while in the present, it's all about her suffering when confronted by her victims. Edmond Dantes is laying there dead on the street (Is he really dead? Did anyone bother to check and see if he was just grievously injured?) and all anyone cares about is poor Regina's feelings about it all. Never mind that she set up the whole thing in the first place. Percival described a horrific scene from his childhood, then he dies and it's all about poor Regina losing her love and who cares if it negatively affects Emma or that it's yet another event that was set in motion due to her actions.
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Oh yay! Another episode where someone actively chooses to do the right thing and gives up his revenge only to be punished with death and no one caring in the least. But the best way to fight the Evil Queen is to be happy, right? Snowing are the worst.
Charlotte's death adds another to Rumpel's body count in his pursuit of getting to Bae. This will never be mentioned again and he'll suffer zero consequences for a young girl's death. Not to mention her poor sick mother whom she was leaving court to go take of, who probably never knew what happened to her.
I still don't understand why Regina is immediately absolved of killing Edmond Dantes. He was not magical, he was not holding a gun directly to Snow's head such that a split second could end in her death and Regina has complete control of her magic. Just poof his sword away and throw Edmond to the ground. Or poof him to the jail. There was zero need for her to kill him.
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It doesn't really help that she told Emma that she hates doing good. You only need to watch her when she's doing evil to see how happy it makes her. Percival described her laughing amid the murder and destruction of his village, so it's not like anyone should believe that she wouldn't revert simply because it makes her happy. There's not much tying her to being a better person when being bad feels so much better.
I have such a hard time dealing with Regina's poor me attitude about how doing good is so difficult for her. Let's all cry for the woman who can't enjoy herself now that she's not allowed to murder and terrorize her subjects.
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It always amazes me how the show will heap tons of blame on most of the characters for their actions, but when it comes to Regina, they love to have a ton of others act like it's their fault. No, Snow, you had zero to do with the Evil Queen being born. That's entirely on Regina. Direct actions by Cora and Rumpel helped her on her way, but she was given chance after chance and a crazy number of different life choices. Multiple people tried to help her and reason with her including her father and Maleficent (and even Rumpel when he marveled at her idiotic actions).
Did anyone ever offer excuses for the poor choices Dark Emma made that she was infected with an evil presence and being mentally tortured and so it wasn't really her fault? Did anyone blame Rumpel for Emma being the Dark One? Or blame Zelena/Arthur for Dark Hook? Nope, it's all on Emma and her choices.
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15 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:
I've wondered if that episode was the result of them realizing that there wasn't enough material in the Zelena story to make a whole arc, so they wrapped it up and did something different, or if the whole Zelena story was just an excuse to set up Emma for a big "there's no place like home" moment.
You're giving them an awful lot of credit there in believing they realized there was nothing more to Zelena's story. Considering they brought her back the next season, I thinking that wasn't their thought process. It would have been just as easy to send Emma and Hook to Oz through the portal than to the Enchanted Forest past.
Mostly, I think they just get bored with their season arc and like to bring in a shiny new toy for the finale. It's where the "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" writing process takes flight because it's really easy to apply this in a two hour block and not have to put any thought into stretching it out over a whole season. It's also why the newly introduced storylines for the next season fizzle almost instantly. They aren't thinking about it long term when it's introduced and are bored with it by the time the new season starts.
This episode encapsulates every major problem the writing team had. There's little conclusion to tie up loose ends, there's no follow through on what should have been deeply emotional events in characters' lives, shiny new toys are introduced in a new world with nonsensical world building, repetition of events we've seen ad nauseum, characters act completely contrary to real world people simply because the plot dictates it, etc. All of it made for a really lack luster and frustrating finale.
And, because it must be said, especially for this episode, Shut up, Henry!
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Hades killing Robin can/should create conflict between Zelena and Regina even though Zelena killed Hades, but it shouldn't do anything for Regina/Emma because they are unrelated. Yes, Emma understands that Regina may be upset that Emma has her boyfriend back and understandably want to break it to her gently, but that's it. The only way a story comes out of it is if Regina makes it all about her again. It sucks that Regina's boyfriend is dead, but it should be a happy thing that Hook and Emma are reunited. Emma is frequently presented with other people who get their happy ending while she is suffering from loss and expresses some modicum of positivity to it. Regina always reacts negatively. If that changes, then Regina is making progress. If she reacts like she always does, then what does that say about Regina?
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7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:
They also wanted the sense of unfairness that Emma got her happy ending with Hook but poor Regina didn't.
I'm not sure why this is a thing. It's not a zero sum game. Hook's and Robin's deaths are not connected in that way. It's not like only one could live and the other had to die. I get that a lot of people immediately jumped on the poor Regina just can't win bandwagon with Robin's death because it's all about Regina and not about Robin or his children. The guy had his soul obliterated. That's horrible for him. However, it was due to his own actions. He attacked a god. It had little to do with Regina.
Meanwhile, they went out of their way to explicitly mention Hook's torture at the hands of Hades in this episode. He suffered immensely in the Underworld. He worked with his enemy to help those in Storybrooke and then chose to walk into the light. His actions led to a higher power deciding to send him back. Maybe Zeus felt bad that the gods' idiocy with the grail led to Hook's death. He fixed his mistake after Hook had proved himself worthy of it. It had nothing to do with Emma.
This is TV, so obviously they need conflict for their characters, but it's funny to read so many comments about poor Regina after this episode aired. Regina was in an extremely positive position throughout the season. She had all the power and was feted as the Saviour in Camelot. Robin was by her side and they seemed to be happy together the entire season (except for when he inexplicably ran off to the woods with the baby). She reconciled with both of her parents, got closure with Daniel by seeing he'd moved on, regained a relationship with her sister and even saved her horse. Poor Regina just suffers so much doesn't she?
Emma spent the entire first half of the season being mentally tortured in Camelot and also controlled by Regina with the dagger, was rejected by her family due to the Dark One-ness (they didn't even try with her), suffered about the Hook being a Dark One thing and then had to kill Hook herself. She went to the Underworld to fix things where she was guilt tripped by her idiotic parents because they'd ditched their young son to go along (their choice, not hers). She was told off by her boyfriend's brother for her actions that led to Hook's predicament. She was confronted by her "victim" and physically assaulted by her. Only Emma was confronted by a victim in this manner (Rumpel/Gaston was all a game set up by Hades). She then had to once again leave Hook having failed to save him. Oh and then her parents criticized how she chose to grieve and sidelined her from getting justice on Hades. Emma lives a super charmed life.
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Still waiting for that hopeful ending where the people in the River of Lost Souls aren't lost anymore. The writers claimed that this episode showed that Auntie Em and Milah and all the rest weren't doomed forever to be mindless husks, but I don't see how a bunch of wraiths from the river actively working against the guys who were trying to get the book that could potentially save them demonstrates that. If anything, it proves the opposite.
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Instead of semi-paralleling David/James with Regina/Zelena, they could have done it with Liam/Killian. They'd already laid the ground work there with David and Hook discussing their respective brothers in S3. I know the characters must stay in their boxes, so Hook must only interact significantly with Emma, but it's a huge missed opportunity to not have David/Hook interaction.
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On 6/11/2019 at 9:01 AM, Shanna Marie said:
And because they've resolved the Regina/Zelena storyline, that apparently wipes out the other storyline, so we all have to pretend it didn't really happen.
This is a pretty consistent pattern the writers have with the "reforming" villains. It's like they think that because one issue is resolved and forgiven, everyone else is supposed to do the same only without any effort on the villain's part to resolve their heinous actions. I have zero satisfaction with the Regina/Snow issues, but Snow seems fine with it (or is suppressing everything and in complete denial of how devastating Regina's actions were to so many others including her own child), so now everyone is supposed to also get over it and has no right to demand justice. Just ask Percival. He confronted Regina and her immediate reaction was not remorse and regret, it was whether he'd shared his tale of her laughing at the murders of his friends and family with anyone else. But he dies and no one cares. We're supposed to feel bad for Regina.
Here we have Zelena, for whom I actually have much more sympathy, having the slate wiped clean because her problems with Regina were resolved. Let's just skip over the part where she murdered a young mother and raped that woman's husband. No consequences there. Of course, since this story involves Regina, this will only last until Regina has another hissy fit about something and it's all Zelena's fault because it's always someone else's fault to Regina.
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Not only did Rumpel casually kill Gaston when he was trying to save Belle, but he was stuck in the Underworld because of their unfinished business. Gaston says, "I have been trapped down here for years, suffering and miserable because of him." So basically Rumpel's actions meant that Gaston was being tortured in death too. But you know, Rumpel has a good heart.
The other thing I picked up on was that Belle didn't want to bring the ogre to the castle because "the soldiers will torture him." Yes, that's a direct quote. Gaston was not acting out of line with what Belle knew everyone in the army would do. He's not a special brand of psychopath. He's doing what everyone else would have done. I'm not trying to justify anyone's actions, but how is Gaston super evil for acting the same way others would, but Rumpel is okay when he's torturing Robin in a way that I'm pretty sure the rest of the kingdom would find abhorrent.
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12 hours ago, tennisgurl said:
Considering how important the ogre wars are to the backstory of many characters, how long has this war been going on anyway? It was going on when Rumple was still a human, and when he was long the dark one when Belle was an adult, but we know nothing about it. Is this the EF version of the hundred years war, or is it tons of different wars that are jump lumped together?
There are vague mentions of the Third Ogre War or whatever, so I think the implication is that the ogres have been fighting off and on for centuries. That said, is there no history in the Enchanted Forest? Hook & Liam were sent to find the dreamshade for use against the ogres, so their kingdom was fighting them. The Dark One ended the war that Bae was going to be sent to fight. Does no one remember that? Why was it that book loving Belle had never heard of this Rumpelstilskin guy and the epic end of the ogre war? There was a throwaway line about how Zelena had solved the ogre problem before the reverse curse. How exactly did she do that? Her magic isn't all that, so why couldn't the fairies have done the same? No one could erect a magical wall to keep out the attacking ogres? There's no worldbuilding and they don't care. Ogres are an unstoppable force when they need them to be and easily disposed of when they need to explain them away.
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It helped the show immensely that the actors playing their main True Love couple had crazy chemistry and were falling in love in real life. Imagine if Dania Ramirez was playing Snow and Andrew West was Charming. How far do you think this show would have gotten? Lana Parrilla became a cartoon character by the end, but she was crazy effective as Regina/Evil Queen in early seasons. Robert Carlyle carried Rumpelstiltskin way longer than should have been possible given the writing. The writing on this show was always super cringy, but the excellent cast elevated it beyond all expectation. They could only do so much with the material given though and eventually nothing could cover for the absolute dreck the writers were putting out there.
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The whole Auntie Em thing pisses me off. She's stuck in the Underworld because Dorothy is her unfinished business, but Dorothy is under a sleeping curse, so Auntie Em can never leave since Dorothy will never truly die. And then even if she did wake up sometime, she could bypass the Underworld like Neal did and Auntie Em would still be stuck forever. I hate the arbitrary and awful nature of this unfinished business nonsense. And now of course, she's been consigned to the River of Lost Souls where she will be a tortured, mindless husk for all eternity. That's not bleak at all. That's all kinds of hope right there. Free Auntie Em!
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S04.E08: Years, Continents, Bloodshed
in Veronica Mars
But why couldn't Veronica move to San Diego or something? Neptune is really close to there and that's where Logan would have been based out of. She didn't need to take soul crushing jobs in Neptune. Why not expand? She's got to have some serious cred given her high profile cases. I think Logan would have been supportive of Veronica branching out professionally if she'd tried for something more. Something that would give her the same outlet for excitement that Logan gets in his job.
I have little problem with Logan expressing that he wants a wife and kids and if that's not something she's interested in then it's best to end it now. That's a deal breaker in a lot of relationships and dragging it out just makes everyone miserable. Neither one was particularly happy with the way things were. It was clear that they were going in different directions and wanted different things in life. It would be painful to end it, but ultimately everyone would be better off.