Senna

The first episode was all melty Captain Swan goodness ... and then of course, cold hard angsty advancement of plot. I'm disappointed at how Hook's deadly injury came about. And the bit with putting Hook's name on Excalibur happened way too fast to follow. And I don't buy him being so mad at Emma. The second episode I was afraid was going to be nothing but terrible wigs and Merida's way-too-young mother. Why do they have to slow things down like this?! No one cared about Merida before, and I care about her even less now when she's taking up time when I desperately want more actual plot. Oh, and an honor-less Mulan, What the hell, show? I can't even remember where we last left her (other than the Aurora pregnancy news), but I do remember I was finally warming to her. She was OK here, but the mercenary bit felt all kinds of wrong even in her brokenheartedness. Ruby, on the other hand ... I do appreciate that they didn't kill the character off with the actress getting busy with other projects, because I've always liked Ruby. But why couldn't we have gotten this story when she "left"? I seem to remember her wolf self being bigger. Arthur is getting to be such a tool. I liked his crazy villainy earlier in the season, but it's being overused. He has his hands in way too many pots.

Me halfway through the episode: I ship Coulson and Ros SO HARD right now. Me at the end of the episode: NOOOOOOOOOO. YEEEEES. NOOOOOOOO! Seriously, roller coaster of emotions here. Somehow this is the first romantic pairing in the show that has got me this invested (not that the FitzSimmons sunrise wasn't adorable). So I'm definitely hoping they figure out some way to keep Ros around. Why was there such a cozy picture of Jemma and Will together on her phone ... when she used up the battery of the phone in the last ditch effort to get home, and it was only after that she got together with Will? (Am I misremembering?) I'm not sure if it's a mistake simply so we could see the symbol on his uniform, or something significant. I was surprised (and pleased) that the Lash reveal wasn't dragged out, and it was great to see May showing so much emotion and vulnerability this episode. However, it feels too soon to be done with Andrew/Lash, so with whatever's going on with ATCU in the preview, I'm guessing Lash is going to be coming out of the gel sooner rather than later. If Mack doesn't eventually get a shotgun-axe, I'm gonna be very disappointed.

I cracked up so many times during this episode. Simon and Elias kissing (wat), Alex and Booth hobbling away from the FBI (because conveniently, of the large team who stormed in, only Vasquez is there), the incredibly obvious photoshop job of whatever picture Liam (?) was holding (I was laughing too hard to figure out what the scene was supposed to mean, oops) ... The "test" was incredibly stupid, but what else is new? Shouldn't everybody other than the main characters have flunked? Because they wouldn't "sacrifice their lives"? (Riiiiight.) On the other hand, the present-time Nimah/Raina stuff was pretty intense -- though that could just be because they and Simon are still my favorites. I still don't get how using twins is of benefit in that situation though. The twin that's in still has to "disappear" long enough to update the other twin and switch her in. And of course, the whole "one twin slept with the boss dude but the other is presumably still a virgin" further proves how having twins makes things unnecessarily more difficult. And oh goody, looks like Caleb has another secret. Since his father was apparently involved in the Chicago cover-up, I'm guessing Caleb was part of whatever happened then as well. Even as I rag on the show for the same things, somehow I'm still enjoying the heck out of watching it. Such ridiculousness is a good distraction at the end of a weekend.

I don't get how Zelena was able to enslave Merlin so easily. Not sure if I missed something or it just makes no sense *shrug* (Kind of like how magic never seems to work for things like transporting a person or an object right where they want to be ...) I'm also disappointed in how easily Snow went down. I mean, it has been a while since she's been awesome, but that could've been staged in a way to look less pathetic. Emma was awesome this episode; clutching the ring and yelling "I am not nothing!". And that line about Rumple disappearing when she embraces the darkness? Guess that's proof that she hasn't yet, even in Storybrooke :) The timeline makes absolutely no sense; I don't know why they bother to put amounts when "long, long ago" would actually make things less confusing. 1000 years ago! 800 years later! Oh, crap, that might overlap with Rumple!

So the Andrew=Lash people were correct (good job to those who called it). I'm not surprised, but I hope this doesn't mean Andrew is really a bad guy ... I want an explanation! Poor May. As usual, I enjoyed the Coulson and Ros scenes. Though I wouldn't put it past her to set up a fake break-in in a fake apartment, I would prefer that the situation was genuine, especially with Coulson believing it was faked. It makes an interesting match with Mac and Daisy suspecting somebody on ATCU's side of being Lash with the truth being that he's somebody on *their* side. But I'm not so sure that putting the inhumans in a cryogenic gel (or whatever) to keep them safe is the end of the story. I like SHIELD and ATCU being uneasy allies, so I don't want them to be too good or too bad either. From the articles on Will that Fitz found, we know that there was a real Will ... and that he looks the same as the pictures (presumably from 2001 or before).

Looks like Raina and Nimah are next on the list of red herrings. I wonder if they'll spend a fruitless episode suspecting Vasquez as well, despite her not even being in the opening episode (not that the characters know that of course, but we the audience know she's not even an option). Seriously, we are running out of people to be suspects. Shelby with Caleb's father is super gross. But obviously she has terrible taste in men. Also, wow, that's how Caleb treats a girl he likes? You want to be boyfriend material, how about you act like it? I'm so done with his whining. I don't care about Alex and Booth, but I have difficulty imagining him in a relationship with Vasquez. Everybody is way too obvious about talking with/visiting Alex when she's supposed to be in hiding. Raina removing her hijab with Simon was way hotter than any of the sex scenes this show has done. Please give me more of this, show.

The way I feel about Merida seems to be the way most people feel about her, so I'll leave it at that. (What a waste of the movie character.) I do wonder, since she got back to her brothers and was ruling properly, how she ended up getting transported to Storybrooke. We haven't seen anyone else from her clan. Did Emma purposely drag her along? And if so, whyyyyy? I've never been very fond of Zelena, but she was amusing this time around. Meanwhile, I've always liked Rumple, but this new iteration is way too pathetic. I guess one could argue that being the Dark One so long and relying on that has made him even weaker/more cowardly than he originally was ... but then again, he was also without magic for 28 years as Mr. Gold, so I'd think the effects shouldn't be this great. I really like Merlin, so I hope he sticks around for a while.

Well, even though I said I didn't want a space boyfriend for Jemma (not to mention, it's awfully convenient that the only other person stranded on a planet is an attractive not-too-old man who speaks English, but them's the breaks), I still found myself really enjoying this episode because like a lot of people, I love Elizabeth Henstridge and I love Jemma. A whole hour of Jemma is more than fine by me. I'm also kind of glad the entire story came out in one episode; I feel like this probably worked better than it would have if it were stretched out in short scenes throughout a season. It kind of felt like a different show, but I didn't mind. The planet itself was pretty interesting, and though I can take or leave Will (he was adequate, but not particularly endearing), I'm curious to find out what "It" is. I found both the black cloak and the astronaut suit (with face obscured, of course) quite ominous. Actually, as for Will, it would be kind of interesting to bring him back and see how their relationship would run now that they're not the only two people on the planet. Would they still want to be together when the main thing they have in common is an awful shared experience? For what it's worth, the preview only really confirmed that May believes Andrew is dead. (Unless I wasn't paying close enough attention and they showed his body.) *I* still don't believe he's dead.

I'm not sure what Simon hoped to accomplish by introducing Max to the other recruits. Even if Max agreed to pose at his boyfriend, there's no way they'd be convincing together. I hope there is a good reason for his pretending to be gay. I don't think his latest confession to Elias is the truth either. I started laughing out loud when Caleb and Shelby snuck off to have sex. I get the idea of hate sex, but petty squabbling/behaving like an annoying kid brother isn't a turn on. The amount of threatening Miranda does ("If you fail tonight, you're out" to the twins) is laughable. Didn't these writers ever pause to think that the FBI might want to continue improving good candidates rather than dumping them at the first possible misstep? Nooo, of course not, in this show's world, experience and practice are nothing compared to raw talent, so if you mess up once, you're done for (I know, it's for the dramaz, but it was obvious they weren't going to fail with those conditions, so why bother?)

This episode was kinda eh. Not terrible, but definitely not as much fun as the last few. I didn't mind Henry's crush story previously, but it just took up too much of the episode this time. And I agree with those who find it ridiculous that Violet's "Let's just be friends" could cause a tear of true loss or whatever. Between that, angry Merida (what happened to the poor girl to make her like that?) equating bravery with getting mad, and the Neal references, are you trying to make me roll my eyes, show? (Cuz it worked.)

I'm not going to believe that Andrew's dead until we have a funeral with a body on display. But I'm betting there will "be no trace of his body" or something next week because he's laying low since he knows people are out to kill him. ... Even though his part in the story is fairly small, I really don't want him to die. Good job, show, making me care, grr. The thought that he might be Lash is interesting (and with him pulling a disappearing act on May, there's possibility there), but since I like Andrew, I hope that isn't the case as well. Because then he would definitely have to die (unless there's something more to the killing inhumans thing, which there probably is, but still). For this reason, I am in favor of Lash being someone we don't know yet. I can't wait to hear about Simmons' alien planet time. I concur with the please-no-alien-lovers. Maybe there's something on the planet that could save the world or something.

I thought this episode was miles better than last week's. It's still ridiculous, but in the way that I enjoy. The characters are beginning to grow on me to the point I almost (ha) care about them -- mostly Shelby, Simon, and Nimah twins. I think this is mostly because the more the show gets the "this person is suspicious!" bit out of the way early, the more I can trust that these characters are not terrorists (right now I most suspect Liam). The only thing I really don't like (well, other than the main character's growing Mary-Sueness -- she finally screws up, but of course it's only because the bad teacher's out to get her) is hearing things in the present time scenes that we haven't seen yet in the flashback scenes -- like whatever happened between Alex and Shelby concerning Shelby's parents. I would prefer to see these things in the same episode they're mentioned, and not have that kind of anvil hanging over future (flashback) scenes. They made it sound like Simon had joined the FBI only recently because of investigations into his company, but I think we still haven't heard the whole story.

For my own sanity, I'm just going to assume the 5 years bit means "excluding the years of curse time that for some reason covered Camelot but whatever ignore the man behind the curtain." There was a lot of nice Captain Swan going on in this episode, for which I was grateful. And of course, Hook's glee at Henry's first crush was adorable! I was ready to be mad at Snowing for being dumb/too trusting, but they actually did a good job ... until the magic dust. But for what it's worth, even though the Arthur backstory was fairly predictable, I enjoyed it well enough. I don't get why the sword being broken mattered in the first place ("What will the people think?!" Um, who cares? And why??), but that's typical of the crazy found in Once's villains. Poor, poor Guinevere. I do kind of like the idea of Camelot being an illusion, essentially. "Fixed" but not really fixed.

So we have three people (Tommy, blondie, HRG) who are supposed to save the world and don't have a clue. I just about screamed when HRG interrupted Erica just as she was about to say something possibly important; it's not like she'd even trailed off. Not mention Tommy teleporting himself away before anyone could explain anything to him (even though he complained about not being told anything). All the obfustication is tiresome, and it makes it feel like there's no progress. I'm trying to think of something good to say about this episode, but I got nothing.

I wanted to see the rest of the dinner scene with Fitz and Gemma! That scene was so sweet, him just wanting to do whatever he could for her, and her being overwhelmed by it. I wonder why she wants to go back -- what was on the other side? Skye ... I mean, Daisy ... with Gemma was another good scene, and a nice callback to their friendship. And Ros and Coulson with the car was a cute little scene. I was less impressed with the whole Lincoln or Daisy debacle. When Coulson suggested there was someone else on the hospital footage, I thought he meant the blue spiky dude, not Daisy. Never mind that the whole thing could've been avoided if SHIELD had been in position and ready to pick up Lincoln when Daisy called him in the first place. I also thought the kiss felt misplaced. I'd be fine with an eventual Daisy and Lincoln relationship, but this didn't feel like the time or the place for romance to start (in fact, the whole time Lincoln and Skye were angsting on, I kept saying, "No, get out of there! There's no time for this!"). I hope Lincoln's not on the run for much longer, because that type of storyline is so played out ... as soon as his friend showed up, I knew he was either going to betray him or die. And it was both! Bah.

I remember something like this as well, so more implied than hallucinated :) As a side note, some viewers are assuming that Mrs. Parrish knows Miranda because she recognized her in the bathroom. My take is that Mrs. Parrish doesn't know Miranda personally, but saw her picture (in the news, maybe?) in the wake of whatever her son was responsible for. I think she said something like, "You're the FBI agent whose son--" and then was cut off by Miranda talking about standing up for Alex. Or something like that.

While I am enjoying the soapiness of this show in general, I'm not too keen on the "we're cutting people!" rigamorale and how ridiculous it made everyone. That Miranda wasn't actually going to cut anyone didn't make it any better. She was annoyingly self-righteous, and I find it hard to believe that no one until Simon decided to put in a vote to sacrifice a few to benefit the greater number -- which while not fuzzy-wuzzy let's-be-a-team friendly seems like the kind of hard decision FBI agents might need to make now and again. ("Hard to believe" from a writing perspective, not from thinking this is an actual thing, ha.) I wonder then if Simon was undercover all along (as I half suspected before) or if it's just been in the "present" time. Was that Vasquez crying about not being able to see her daughter? She was practically unrecognizable.

I thought Arthur seemed awfully shady in this episode, but I wasn't sure if it was intentional until the mushroom "disappeared." I really like him as a villain, firmly convinced that he's on the side of right while doing awful things (having Grif drink the poison was cold!). I mean, not to say the other villains weren't deluded, but at least it feels different -- Arthur has an outward sheen of righteousness. And Charming got to do something! I feel like it's been forever since we've had a Charming episode. Even if it was kind of weird that he was all "I'm just a poor shepherd" when he's been a king. But whatever, I was happy to have scenes with him that lasted more than two seconds. Regina telling Zelena to stop acting like a victim was .... ugggh. I continue to find Dark Emma very fun to watch. And conflicted Hook! Ooh, the angst is sweet.

No kidding! And I'm pretty sure they said the location was South Bend, Indiana, which is all the way at the northern border of IN. So the closer (to Carbondale) cities of St. Louis, Louisville, Springfield, and Nashville (to name a few just by looking at a map) all were fresh out of O negative? Sure, show. Suuuure. Unless they were specifically trying to lure him into using his powers? I guess it's possible, assuming they were somehow aware of what he could do.

To echo others, I really liked Jenny and Joe working together, and Crane and Abbie's porch conversation near the end was excellent. I'm interested in where they're going with Abbie's dad. The stuff with Daniel was pretty good too. When they said they knew each other from "academy," did they mean FBI training (which would be really recent) or some other academy? Busty Ross is terribad. She doesn't make me angry; more like astounded by how awful she is.

Ehhh ... I am quickly losing interest. Pretty much everyone was boring this time around, and the stupid of Jose showing his powers in broad daylight (with the garage door open) just burned. And of course Molly offed herself to keep things cryptic. Why couldn't she just go with Noah last episode? She had more potential than a lot of these characters. In fact, the only characters I care even slightly about right now are Tommy and Ren (his storyline may be awful, but he's kind of fun).

Not as good as last week, but yaaaay, Simmons is back! Still, as others said, it felt too easy, so there must be some lasting effects on her for this plotline to have a purpose. I'm thinking she is an inhuman and that's why the monolith took her in the first place, so I'm curious to see how they'll deal with that, if I'm right. I just hope she is still, in the important ways, the Simmons so many of us (Fitz and me included) have come to love. The scene at the end was a good sign. I don't mind Melinda and Andrew staying apart for now. After all, we've just seen Hunter and Bobbi reunited. I'd like to see a slow burn this time. Though with Melinda going after Ward and Baron junior keeping an eye on Andrew, it does seem like Andrew'll be in danger. I could see things starting to go well only for him to get killed ... I hope that doesn't happen.

I too hope the fugitive aspect doesn't last much longer. I'm always disappointed to be pulled away from the training. Simon's showing more holes, and it's nice to see someone (Elias) picking up on them. Though now I'm sort of wondering if Simon is also undercover. He's getting so suspicious I feel like he must be innocent (ha). Was there some significance to the profile (Mark something?) Caleb was looking at on his phone? (It was the Catcher in the Rye book, then a picture of a husky along with a guy's picture.) Also, was there a terrorist plot foiled by the FBI in Chicago in 2014? I wasn't sure what it was referring to, so I tried to Google and didn't get anything that quite fit (at least from a brief look). Then later Ryan referred to something being the "same as Chicago" so then I started wondering if it was something that only happened in the show.

Even though as others have said, the Woegina was strong in this episode, I still found it to be quite a bit more fun than this show has been for me in a while. I like Dark Swan, and I do get the impression that Emma is baiting Regina and Hook toward some end in present day Storybrook, which at least makes it seem like someone knows what's going on. And dressing everybody up and having a couple of CS kisses certainly doesn't hurt things. Poor Percival, though. (Also, that necklace was hella ugly.)

It feels like not very much happened this episode. I guess that's partly because there are so many different plotlines. The only parts that really stood out were Tommy transporting himself, Luke starting to develop powers (Joanne can DIAF any time now), and the dirty cop going after Evos having his own powers (but that might just be because it's Dirty Paul ... too bad he doesn't seem like the type of character who'll be sticking around for long).