KAOS Agent

Fox Sports North has been really good about using Marney's broadcasting skills. She did play by play for the Timberwolves this season as well.

Even if there was some deep horrible thing that Stefan and Briar Rose did to Maleficent, what we saw wasn't her getting revenge on them, but on Aurora. There's nothing to root for when a "wronged" person is getting justice on an innocent party. In addition to cursing Aurora, Maleficent exiled Phillip and turned him into the Yaoguai. How awesome of Regina to not just enjoy her own evil acts, but encourage some other evil to wreak havoc on the kingdom. I have no sympathy for either of them especially when they expect everyone else to just suck it up and get over it, but feel completely justified in continuing to pursue some sort of justice/revenge/recompense for their sob stories.

Except that this show continually says that evil isn't born, it's made. Unless you're Embryonic!Emma apparently. The whole thing is ridiculous and awful.

I think that this idea could have worked if what the Author was going to do was rewrite Regina's horrible actions in the past. I could even see everyone else getting on board with this idea because then it's not about the mass murdering tyrant getting a free happy ending with no repercussions for past evil and villainy. It's about Regina acknowledging and undoing her past wrongs which would technically undo her villain status and restore others' happy endings and possibly open the door for Regina to find one for herself. Instead, it's about some crazy idea where Regina is not responsible for her evil, she's just written that way and now she totally deserves to get her happy ending dammit! The return of Marian and removing her murder from Regina's list of bad deeds would have been the start. Emma or Snow or Henry could have drawn from that experience to show Regina that she was exactly the villain the book portrayed her as, but maybe the Author could change those actions. They could even later find out that it requires Regina to actually want to do this and not simply pay lip service to the idea to get what she wants. That way she'd really have to prove that she's over Snow's "betrayal" and all the other things. It could make for an interesting tale as events where Regina was simply murdering people because she was annoyed that day would be easily overturned, but events where Regina was truly angry and unforgiving couldn't be undone (this would also have the benefit of them not worrying about reversing the original curse).

Wasn't this one of the episodes where the full shooting script was sold? I think I remember that the script has Emma & Hook making out in the hallway and then Regina comes walking through all sad faced and Hook tells Emma to go (let's be real though, those two would have been in Hook's room about ten seconds after that heart return scene faded out). This was the episode the show never recovered from. Nothing after this point ever ends up being truly excellent again. Welcome to the beginning of the end and the start of the execrable 4B.

I love how Snow is suddenly completely over her fear of letting someone else watch her baby. Her first was torn from her arms due to the curse and the second taken to be used in a spell, but the kid's less than a week old and her fear has been deemed unreasonable by a cricket and after a date night, she's planning to have Emma babysit as well. Of course, Emma has evil magic, so no baby for her. Realistically though, that's some massive psychological trauma to get over. Not to mention she missed everything with Emma. She'd be even more obsessed with not wanting to not miss a single thing with Snowflake. First time parents (which Snow called herself) are very unlikely to leave their newborns so young especially when there is yet another evil magical threat wandering about. The whole Mommy and Me thing, while amusing, was a joke. Babies Snowflake's age can't even see properly. He's not going to be socializing with other babies and since he can't even begin to hold his head up, he wouldn't be able to interact at all with Ashley's activities. There is no benefit to him, only risk. Also, germs. So many germs with all those parents and babies in an enclosed space like that. Just say no. I get that it's kind of nitpicky, but it takes me out of the show when things are so blatantly off in terms of time passing in story.

These are the writers who thought that Cora apologizing to her daughters for wiping their childhood memories was enough to get her into heaven, so obviously mass murder and torture is pretty low on their list of sins, but relatively minor infractions that mess with family is a path straight to hell. Look at poor Milah. She became a mindless, tortured husk and her sin was leaving her son with the father who loved him so she could have a happier life. Not the best action for a mother, but it's not murdering an entire village and then turning their zombified corpses into your own personal army level evil either.

Did it really though? Killing David's dad was pretty much Hook's issue. He got all broody and stupid about it. Then they made it into a ridiculous melodramatic soap opera where no one's actions felt real and I mostly just rolled my eyes. Added to the awfulness of the Captain Swan soap opera, we got the fun Emma is going to die storyline. How exciting! Let's tear apart the only decent thing in her life and top it all off with death! Just thinking about it all makes my blood boil. Poor, poor Regina is so misunderstood and deserves all the good things in life because reasons, while Emma's entire childhood was sacrificed for Regina's happy ending that she was bored with in about six minutes and then Emma was required to die to save everyone again. But this show is all about hope and is never bleak. I hate ever getting invested in a show that wrote this travesty of a story.

There was some sort of scene in the ice cream shop that addressed this, but I don't remember whether it was in an episode or was yet another deleted scene. Ingrid tied up one of the dwarfs and had him hidden behind the counter when Regina came in and questioned Ingrid's presence. She ultimately bought whatever story Ingrid was selling. Really though I have no idea how many people are in Storybrooke and Regina seems to find pretty much everyone beneath her notice, so it's not surprising that she wouldn't notice Ingrid's arrival in town. Regina can't even remember the people whose hearts she took. Why would she remember random peasants who work in the ice cream shop? Especially a shop which never actually existed in Storybrooke until S4 decided it did and had retcons with Emma visiting it because it was Henry's favorite. I think the shop was actually the shelter where David worked in S1.

And even with that extra hour stuffed with filler and a yay! adultery conversation, they couldn't find the time to include the excellent Elsa/Snow conversation about magic and changing yourself to suit others. A lot of the deleted scenes from this show probably weren't that necessary or interesting, but that one was a really good one and should have been included in this episode. Snow's turnaround to Emma and her magic and its staying power seems more realistic after seeing her understand things from Elsa's perspective and truly get what she's asking/wants Emma to do.

Ah the good old days when using the dagger to control someone was a really, really horrible thing to do. I laughed so very hard at this comment.

The best part of this episode was Sidney screwing over Regina and telling her off and being freed by Ingrid. Long live the Snow Queen! As a fun comparison let's look at "hero" Regina's dialogue with Sidney and his with the "evil" Snow Queen. Snow Queen: You're free. As promised. Sidney: Thank you. Now, what is it you wish me to do first, my queen? Snow Queen: I wish nothing from you. Sidney: I don't understand. The deal was... * Insert a bunch of babble from the Snow Queen about reflections here* Snow Queen: Enjoy your freedom, Sidney. A word of advice. Get a warm coat. It's going to get a bit cooler around here. And here's Regina, Hero Extraordinaire and definitely not a monster... Sidney: My queen, I have news. I have found the Snow Queen's lair. Regina: Well, where is it? Sidney: I think a little quid pro quo is in order, don't you? I'm growing tired of this glass prison. Regina: Let's see if your information yields results. Then we can discuss your freedom. Sidney: You expect me to give up my leverage before I've received anything in return? Do you think me an imbecile? Regina: I think I've trapped you in a mirror twice. And if you find them too constricting, well, then... Perhaps you'd like to return to your cell at the hospital. Sidney: Upon further reflection, it appears I don't have the leverage I thought. Listen closely. I will lead you to her.

I discovered that the deeper we get into the rewatch, the less interesting it is to discuss the characters or their actions. In S1-S3, it felt like the characters were developing and changing and their actions were more in line with how I'd expect that character to respond. The longer the show went on, the more they depended on random plots that required the characters to act in a certain way. It didn't matter if that was something completely out of line with the individual character. There is little point in analyzing or assessing the characters or where they might be going because everyone was hostage to the plot. And of course, once you know that nothing is ever going to come of any of it, there's nothing interesting to parse. The only other character bits we got were those same pieces that were set in stone in the Pilot. No matter how many times Emma demonstrated growth and change in her attitude towards relationships, it didn't matter. Her Walls were the inevitable fall back for drama with Emma. Snow had "hope". Regina was the sad victim who doesn't deserve the hate, but always gets to be nastily snarky. Rumpel is evil, but totally a teddy bear at heart and it's just that terrible curse that makes him bad. Charming is just there.

The 4A finale was where the show tipped into total awfulness. That whole episode was a mess. They were in such a hurry to set up 4B that they failed to deliver a decent conclusion to the story that they had been telling. Rather than having Emma or Belle put together the hints about Hook and Rumpel that had been peppered throughout the season, they literally had something fall off a shelf and that was it. Emma almost seeing Hook die - the thing she was so worried about in episode 3? Meh. No big deal. He's fine. Better go have drinks with Regina. All of this on top of Emma getting her memories of Ingrid back - this time with the full picture - and then watching Ingrid die. No emotional fallout from that either. Then we got 4B where the show really fell into the unrelenting bleakness that it never came out of. No one smiled. No fun adventures. Just all consuming endless depression. I obviously continued watching the show, but the end of 4A was where my excitement and interest in this show waned. 5A really crushed my interest and then I was just watching to see how bad it could get.

What the show and Regina & Henry conveniently ignore is all of the terrible stuff Regina did after the book ended. That is, the murder, rape, attempted murder, accessory to murder, theft, unlawful imprisonment, etc that she was a party to in Storybrooke. No one is writing the story of Storybrooke that is forcing Regina to be evil or villainous. If the show wants to say that's what has been going on, then they just wiped out the agency of all the characters in the story and made the entire show irrelevant. I think the implications from events being fated is bad enough, but this takes those problems to a whole new level.

Belle gave him the dagger, but made him promise that he wouldn't go after Zelena. I don't think she was holding the dagger at the time. Then he gave it back to her, but it was a fake by then. I don't know. Rumpel is a dick and I still question Belle marrying him so quickly. I guess giving her his dagger was all she needed to trust him, which makes it all the worse really if that's what she's basing her marriage decision on.

What does she think happened to Zelena? Maybe they addressed that and I just don't remember, but Zelena was supposed to be in the jail and now she's not. Obviously, the Charmings didn't remove her and Regina was happy to put her there, so that leaves Rumpel, whom she expressly told not to seek revenge on Zelena, as the likely culprit for the missing woman.

They want the Evil Queen and Regina to be two different people so that the audience separates the horrific acts in the past from poor innocent Regina except that Regina has murdered two people in Storybrooke and been an accomplice in another. She also plotted to murder everyone in the town and didn't bat an eye over the fact that she was condemning a ton of innocent people including babies (Ashley's kid would have been a few months old) to death. Regina is not some misunderstood person who learned from her mistakes with casting the curse and now deserves a second chance. She murdered Kurt Flynn just because he wanted to go home. She grinned when she learned that Owen was dead. She's not remorseful. She doesn't care about anything unless it directly affects her. In this episode, everything was wonderful until one of her victims returned from the dead. Is her immediate reaction shame and sorrow for having killed the young mother and deeply hurting Robin? No. It's to blame Emma for not letting her victim stay dead and thus ruining the life she essentially stole from the woman she murdered. On the other hand, heaven forbid any character whose name does not begin with the letter R even begin to harbor bad feelings about someone or seek justice for themselves or defend themselves against an evil aggressor. Their pain and suffering is not sufficient to justify any kind of negative feelings or self defense. In this rewatch review we also largely skipped over Rumpel's horrific betrayal of Belle. He proposed on a false dagger, broke his promise about seeking revenge (I'm cool with him killing Zelena personally, but in relation to his promise to Belle and their marriage, it's messed up) and then went on to marry her while the show portrayed that part as romantic and loving. That's really sick. Belle needs to make better life choices, but if she'd done the smart thing and told Rumpel they needed to wait for a bit to build that trust and develop their relationship again, the show would have made it out like Belle was awful and poor woobie Rumpel deserves better.

He even knew how to dance. David at the ball in the S3 finale could so easily blend in (and that was very early in his tenure as "James") that it's hard to believe his utter incompetence here. I guess he's a prodigy. One quick lesson or look at something and he can beat seasoned soldiers with a sword and dance better than Fred Astaire. If he's not a prodigy, one wonders how a simple farm boy found the time to learn to dance while someone raised in wealth and privilege with the intent of marrying a high royal never did.

I want an Emma & Elsa girls' night. Can they head to a bar, get drunk and have Emma play Elsa's wing man? I liked their conversation in the ice cave and it really showed off their friendship chemistry and similarities and is so much better than Emma/Regina. Notice that while Emma is possibly going to freeze to death, she doesn't blame Elsa or yell or anything. She's just cool about the whole thing (no pun intended) and has a normal conversation with Elsa. Pretty sure Elsa apologizes too. It's so refreshing.

I'm kind of sad that they cut the more extended dialogue between Hook and Emma where he was heavily flirting and wanting to continue with the events of the previous night. What made it onscreen really limited the perspective of where Hook was in his thinking of the relationship and how much Emma was really pulling back. Also, Emma backing off pursuing a relationship because of Regina is awful. She needs to live her life and enjoy the good parts because Regina is never going to be happy (she doesn't know what she wants or how to get it and no, the book is not the answer). Also, Emma's life in general tends to lean towards sucking, so finding a positive and happy relationship is definitely something to hang on to.

That just brings up the grandfather paradox that screws up the type of time travel story used in Back to the Future and this episode. While it actually applies to any changes made to the past, the easiest way to describe it is a scenario where you go back in time and kill your grandfather before he has children, thus ensuring that you won't be born. If you were never born, then you were never around to go back and kill your grandfather.

Don't forget Greg/Owen, Dorothy, Milah, Gaston, Cruella, Guinevere, Lancelot, Jasmine, Aladdin, Hyde, Snow White, etc. They had Shiny Toy Syndrome. They were like toddlers in the sand box. They'd play with a toy for a few minutes and then get bored with it, throwing it off to the side. Occasionally they might pick one up a while later only to be unceremoniously dropped once more, but others were never to be seen again.

Even very young children in the foster system can be very screwed up. A confused and scared three year old who had just lost her home & parents could be extremely messed up and start acting out, which would make her very hard to place permanently.It's hard to say what her adoptive parents were like, but I can't see them as being all that great if they threw her away when they had a baby of their own. What kind of people would do that to a sweet little girl? If she'd gotten into the right situation with patient people, she'd have been okay, but she was shuffled from home to home with nothing lasting longer than six months (and that six month placement was in her teens and referred to as much longer than anything else). A bad or overworked social worker doesn't have time to deal with problem kids. A couple of bad placements and Emma was likely shoved into a group home where that chip on her shoulder and protective walls continued to grow. By the time we see her in this episode, while she's desperate for a family, she's hyper cynical and distrusting of anyone and too old to be seriously considered for adoption when there are cute younger kids available.

I've found I have a similar problem. The deeper we get into the rewatch the less interested I am in the story because the aspects of the show that I really loved were diminished as time went on. I loved the Emma/Snow relationship in S1. The two never had a single one on one conversation with each other lasting longer than 30 seconds post S3. There's nothing to look forward to with that. Worse, I know that what will happen is what I consider to be the total destruction of the relationship. Just thinking about 4B is enraging. It's all downhill from there.