LizaD

It's probably just a logistics thing. They did plan on Emma being glittery. She was spotted with the glittery makeup filming for the 1st episode in that feather dress, which never showed up onscreen. I think Robert said his imp makeup took like 3-4 hours? Both Emma and Hook film a whole lot so the actors' work day is already long to start with. Adding that extra time could make a difference in slowing down production when they're on a strict schedule.

Hmm I think I see where this is going. Woegina sets up a test for Hook in the flashbacks, which he obviously failed. So she sets up another test for Hook in the present but of course this time he'll pass. Or maybe vice versa, Hook passed her test for evilness back then and he'll fail it now. She'll hijack Emma's plan for self-sacrifice, cause she doesn't want to kill her and tells Dark Hook to do the "right thing." Since she knows some big to-do about Hook's daddy, she'll also know that his "sacrifice" isn't exactly a death sentence and that they can go retrieve him based on her info about his daddy. Voila, she gets to save both Hook and Emma, and destroy the dark curse all in one go! I highly doubt Adam is baiting SQ fans in the hopes that 1 in 10 million chance, one of them might be a Nielsen family or 2. The dude probably genuinely lurves him some SQ, the non-romantic onscreen version. And what's not to love about it for hard-core Woegina stans that populate the Once writers' room? I never thought they gave into fans as much as people believe. They sure as hell never gave into Rumbelle fans and those fans were at one point, probably the biggest in size.

Sorry but that sounds really ridiculous. He's not objecting to being saved, just her methods? The point is there was no other method! I didn't hear him pipe up with another idea. It just sounds petty. I hate you cause it was the only way you could save me but now that there's another way to save me, one that isn't too much for weak little me to handle, feel free to do so? Come on. Well ok but going with that, it makes her in the RIGHT all along. Because we know of no other way to retrieve a dead person from some other place. So the only way to get him to that specific hell was to turn him into the DO so that they could save him later on from that place, cause it's the only specific place they could open a portal to. That's what we're going with? Really? So the conclusion is still the ONLY way to save Hook was to turn him into the DO. Glad we got that settled.

It's really hard to speculate based off of onscreen material because we can't trust the writers to hold true to their material or any kind of logic. Emma and her overly dramatic "you must be punished" meant nothing. The story the Apprentice told the audience about Merlin and the DO was a straight up lie. The Excalibur warning still makes little sense. I have a feeling the voicemail won't make any sense either. Dollars to donuts, they already forgot what they wrote for Merlin's voicemail. I've gotten more guesses right based off of wacky speculations that are based on some outlandiish soap opera tropes than I have trying to adhere to their script. Is that frustrating to anyone else? That the story isn't structured in a way that you can speculate about the plot?

Yeah well that makes him a damn hypocrite just like the rest of them. He lashes out at her for doing it but then turns around and do the same? Yeah that's Woegina levels of hypocrisy. And no I don't see how it's better than killing Zelena off. Sorry cold-blooded murder or not, Zelena needs to be taken out because she can and will cause a lot of damage. See tethered Merlin. That's the same sort of morality yardstick that got Snow labeled a cold-blooded murder for killing Cora when Cora needed to be taken out too. Nobody saw Rump killing Pan as bad but going by that morality yardstick it was evil thing for him to do when Rump could've just slapped the anti-magic thing back on Pan. This heroes don't kill bullshit is exactly that, BS. It's only wrong cause Woegina and Rump are still strutting around town. But you know Henry proclaimined them as changed and heroic, even moreso than Emma, so it must be true. He hasn't slapped that label on Zelena yet. Also I'm with KingofHearts on this one. If it was wrong of Emma to save him the first time cause he wanted to die then it's equally wrong of her to go drag his ass back from the Underworld if he willingly sacrificed himself. What is he going to say? Save me this time cause I changed my mind? He's supposed to be dead and the only reason he's alive now is because of what Emma did. It'd be the exact situation for the Underworld which makes this entire story ridiculous and redundant. Fortunately, those are the 2 things A&E excel at.

Yeah the spring season literally has no competition like NFL but they always do worse. What's interesting is that the amount of tv viewers-shares haven't dropped due to Thanksgiving at all. They're just choosing to watch football instead. I guess football is more family friendly fare eh?

Well that's what makes her the black hole of suck. Not content with just ruining her character, they had to ruin practically the entire cast FOR her. It certainly wasn't about their own characters. It was for her benefit, to the writers at least. They were turned into props for Poor Poor Woegina. Yeah she's always been whiny but she wasn't a perpetual crybaby like in S2. I swear there wasn't a single episode in S2 where she wasn't throwing those long ass close up shots of "I'm the biggest victim ever!" faces at the camera or just outright sobbing. Seriously, that's not hyperbole speak. Not a single episode where she was gracing our screens that at least one of those 2 things didn't happen and 90% of the time it was both. Honestly the amount of screentime her tears got in S2 alone is probably more than the entire cast of mains' and guests' crying time combined through all 5 seasons. Hell her tears could probably be its own character and would be in the top 3 of character airtimes. It would go like this, Emma, Woegina, Woegina's tears, and everyone else. If we add in the amount of screen time spent on the characters' discussion of Woegina's tears and pain when it couldn't be shown onscreen itself, well then the airtime would be: any time spent on Woegina's pain and tears>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>then characters' screentime.

Except that's no longer true. We saw her reach out to both Henry and Hook and they both unequivocally rejected DS. Even back before Henry knew about the Violet fiasco he wouldn't even let her touch his hand. She KNEW her parents and Woegina weren't on board to Save!Hook so that wasn't based on a hypothetical. She KNEW that when Hook knows he's the DO he goes bat shit evil. So when was this? None of her actions were based on could'ves but on what happened in Camelot.If this was still true Emma would've let Hook's ass die. Remember her telling Neal, "I wished you were dead cause I don't want to deal with you?" Yeah exactly that was that Emma. Instead she saved Hook and it blew up in her face spectacularly, proving Merlin, Snowing and Woegina right after all. It also proved that she herself was right. Anytime she opens herself up she gets a smackdown of epic proportions. They don't care about Hook contrary to what some believe and his getting so-called good writing? Yeah I don't see it and this episode proved it. His "descent" into darkness and the curse casting are laughable and we can sit here and fanwank it all but onscreen they gave us zero reason for the turn that happend in 24hrs max. He went dark because they thought it would be a "cool" twist. End of story. Anything that happens after this episode, including his "redemption" will also be because they'll think it's another cool twist!

It's the DO "essence" of each that stuck around and accumulated but the real actual soul went to the Underworld. It's like how DO Rump was still around as Hero Gold is strutting his stuff.

She would've just died like the Apprentice did and what a joy that would've been. Black Flubber can only kill everything in its path unless it gets tethered to a host. Yeah not to mention that while other DOs have hurt their loved ones, it was mainly unintentional. They weren't ever the direct target or the intent to hurt them wasn't there. At most Rump just willfully neglected to see that his actions hurt Belle or Bae. Even when Rump came back in 4B he could've been pissed at Belle for kicking him out but he wasn't. Hook intentionally hurt Emma and that's a new one. Maybe he had a more legit reason to be mad but it taints their previously healthy "normal-ish" relationship to a full blown soap opera-ish one thats just like the others on the show. And the damn CGI flowers has thankfully ended now right? Once was enough to be spray can cheesy but still edible. Now the thing is just unnecessary. Or is that all their budegt allows for? Fake fields of flowers? Also this show has really abanonded the family friendly fairy tale whimsy haven't they? I can't see how anyone still thinks this is for the 5 year old kiddies or marketed for them lol. Why do we have so many DOs if all we get are Nimue, Zoso and the boar? They couldn't have squeezed in some others in there? What other smaller Disney villains? Like Heffalumps and Woozles? Or the Lion King Hyenas? Iago? Or would it be too silly for the serious DRAMA?

Well Jane E. was one of Buffy's writers. She probably pitched it. The Canadian promo shows Nimue trying to kill Emma with everyone in the background. Looks like it got out of control for it to be a trick, not to mention the filming spoilers of them roaming around town marking people. I do hope it's a trick, otherwise I can't give credit to Hook's "grand sacrifice" if he's just fixing his own mistakes. Sorry but I thought it was complete bullshit that Woegina was all of a sudden a hero that everyone had to kiss her ass cause she now wanted to stop the fail safe that she was going to use to kill everyone. In the words of Elsa, "no thanks needed when I caused all the trouble." I also hope the Hook and Woegina centric doesn't mean Woegina is going to step up and Kill Hook cause Emma is incapable of it. In fact, nevermind that's probably the case. Or it's Hook's and Woegina's plan together cause they don't trust Emma to be able to do it and we all know Emma isn't ever allowed to be competent. That would allow to them to say "see our master storytellers give their own twist to Buffy-Angel!"

Well you could say that about every character then. No one hates Hook, the turn-offs are the plots. No one has a real problem with Snow, it's her plots. No one hates Robin Hood just his plots. Sorry but the "plots" bcecome the characters at this point. And no, S1 Regina is a totally different beast vs S2 to present Mary Sue Victim Woegina. Which is why I said the Mary Sue Victim chased away the most viewers in 2B. S1 Regina was actually my one of my favorite characters along with Snow and Rump. By the time S2 rolled around and that episode where the 3 men in Rump, Jefferson and Victor were victimizing poor poor Woegina, it pissed me off with the flashing neon signs of where this was going. The lasagna thing sealed it and ever since I haven't found a more annoying Mary Sue ever, than her to date.

Yeah that's on Lana. The words aren't exactly harsh but her acting choices to be a full on bitch dripping with condenscension 24/7 grates immensely. That's all fine and good if you're supposed to be a full on unlikeable bitch. But not so much if the narrative says otherwise. Combined with ultimate self-righteous high horse hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness makes for the most annoying creature ever. I mean Mader gets nothing but bitchy lines and Zelena is supposed to be an irredeemable bitch but even she comes across less harsh and judgmental. I honestly feel bad for her when she's in a verbal battle with Woegina. It's just straight up harsh. And how Woegina talks to Zelena is no different than how she talks and treats Emma. I rather be friends with Zelena. Cruella is another one. She's super snarky but her snark comes across with a bit of playfulness and self-mockery. I can't wait for Cruella to be back for multiple episodes in 5B. I hope her and Hades tear up the Underworld together. And avoid the black hole of Mary Sue suckiness. I also hope this doesn't turn out to be another case of "bring back characters to ruin them" like they did with Cora.

TWOP forums are notorious for flat out uber loathing Mary Sues in ALL shows, of Lana Lang fame comes to mind. This forum seemed to have been the alternative after it closed so it's no surprise that the sentiment followed. If you look at S1 recaps it was Emma that was the target because everyone thought she was the de facto Mary Sue. When that proved to not be true any longer the hate transferred to the real Mary Sue. It reminds me a lot of Lana vs Chloe wars where Emma is Chloe. But it's almost blasphemous to compare Lana Lang with Woegina. Lana Lang would be Chloe compared to her. Except this doesn't hold up with the "real" audience. Her arcs always rate lower and it was her arc in 2B that cratered this show from a genuine mainstream hit to a more cultish genre show, right along with its rabid fans. I'm not. First Snowing are the only ones that are from genuine Disney's bread and butter princesses line, even if it's the bastardized form. Second, while the most rabid and loud onliners seems to gravitate towards villains, it doesn't mean the general population doesn't like heroes. Disney animation made billions off of "heroes" that has stood the test of time. You know it's the Avengers and all the other comic book superheros that command billion dollars franchises for decades. It was the Harry Potter universe that did the same, not the Voldemort universe, even though there are plenty of rabid fans for him too. Generally people want to root for the good guys to win at the end of the day, whether it be genuine good guys or misunderstood good guys. And not of the "No Regrets" slaughtering villages got lasagna-rejected variety of "good guys." This isn't to say there isn't a faction that root for the Ted Bundys and fall in love with them. But it's not mainstream sentiment is it? What Once fails to realize is that villains can only be as interesting as the heroes are and vice versa along with the bone of contention. And since they believe that heroes are bland and boring their villains also falls flat most of the time. S1 only worked well for Rump and Woegina because Bandit Snow was a viable hero fighting against them for a good reason. I don't think Emma was up to par in S1 but at least she had a legit purpose while Snow did the heavy lifting. Pan worked well cause the team as a whole proved to be worthy of his villainy. Hook had it easy to come up against a character like Rump. Who exactly were the QoD fighting against? Whiny Woegina about her author getting her a happy ending? Sniveling Snowing and their "my baby is going to be so dark?" It's no surprise that Cruella was the most successful of the bunch when she had the least amount of ties and contact with that hero crew. Look at Zelena. What can she do with the black hole of suck that is OQ?

I don't blame Robert. Imp!Rump is loads more fun than love sick Gold or the stoic villainy Gold. It's also a new dynamic for him. Imp Rump is something he's never gotten to do with Hook or Emma outside of the short Back to the Future scenes. At this point he probably knows there's nothing new that Rump could be doing. They've diluted the original curse so much it might as well not be a curse. They just use it strictly as portal traveling and amnesia inducing. Which is really ridiculous considering they've made up a million ways to go back and forth by now. I mean how are they cursed? They lost 6 weeks of memories whoop de doo. Time isn't frozen, everyone has their identity intact, they have the free will to remain idiots, no one is desperate to go out in the real world etc. And they really dumbed down the main crew this time didn't they? No one is even trying to get memories back? After they found out that Emma stored them in dreamcatchers in 5x05? They were just waiting around to see if DS would return them I guess. Those stills of Emma gathering them up and then handing it out is pretty hilarious and campy. Not sure thats what the writers intended. Oh and Belle's books have stuff like breaking magic's sacred rules like time traveling and how to get rid of light magic but no memory retrieval stuff?

I think it's equally been a Hook-Emma centric arc. Don't think Emma's gotten this much POV since S1. And really no one has gotten a chance to react to DS except for Hook and hero Rump. In Camelot it's been Emma centric and Storybrooke has been more Hook centric. It should've been a 3-way Hook/Emma/Rump arc with the DO stuff at the center. I'm surprised at how much of a non-player Rump has been. We're still missing his role in all of this. He does have the broken dagger again at the end of 5x11 and I'm going to lay my money on him getting magic back but without the DO stuff. It is curious though that "Swan Song" emphasis on Swan, ends up being a Hook and Woegina centric. They just can't help themselves can they? It would make better sense to have it be Hook and Rump, and/or Emma, and Rump with the connection to Hook's daddy.

I loved Ruby's friendship with both Snow and Charming. They did wonders in the fairy tale flashbacks but it never got off the ground in Storybrooke, even in S1-S2. It's such a shame how they wasted her. I think her centric in S1 was one of the best episodes of the series and it was Elliot Knight's fave episode ever. Too bad for MO her series didn't stick. Well that was the point. A&E explained it. They said they didn't want to make it seem like Woegina could easily replace Henry and also why they didn't want to do anything with OQ in the missing year.

Who wrote Hat Trick? I still think that's their best episode of the series and man did JM and Sebastian sell the hell out of it and then some. I hadn't realized they had such a revolving door of writers. Maybe that's the problem? There's no dissension cause people just leave. Not saying that all these people left cause they didn't agree with A&E but that the longer you work with a group of people, the more likely disagreements come up.

I don't think the writers saw it quite that way. That "issue" ended with Emma admitting that her parents were right and she's been a cold bitch to her parents all of 3B because she was scared and her walls. Again. This "issue" ended because Emma finally learned to accept herself through Elsa's help. It wasn't Snow's problem, it was Emma's because she let Ingrid play on her insecurites. Again. This one ended when Emma let go of her childish anger that was turning her EVIL and playing into Rump's hands. This is really the only 2 I have a problem with because it is slightly in character, going all the way back to S2 when Snow threw her kid and the entire EF realm under the bus to go save Woegina. It's a shame because really S1 Snow fairybacks and Rump/Gold is what got me hooked on this show and I think Ginny is the strongest actor they've got outside of Robert. They've sytematically destroyed her character to the point that the Disney cartoon version is about 100x's better.

If she does that hasn't been evident since Miller's Daughter. She hasn't written a Rump centric since then but its not like she does him any favors in her episodes. It's not like she throws gratuitous lines in there about how Rump has suffered oh so much more than baby Jesus or his love is so epic he feels it with his kidneys. As for Rumbelle, she's been coasting off of Skin Deep. But I don't know about "created." If we give her that then she created OQ too and does anyone really want credit for that? I wonder if there was a difference of opinion there. She seemed to love the woobie while A&E are willing to let him be more shady. Meanwhile Robert is hardcore, Rump's a villain and no happy endings for him. Maybe that explains why she moved over to writing Mary Sue full time.

It's the Storybrooke side that's dragging the whole she-bang down because nothing happens there. I kept waiting for DS to wreak some havoc and she became a hermit and stared at a damn sword all day long. I think if you just string the Camelot bits together it'd be clicking along. As for the oppressive part I think I put my finger on why. Usually in the other seasons, they give the crew these small bits of real victories along the way even if they don't matter that much. Here I'm feeling like Emma is starring in her own Myth of Sisyphus. They made her journey feel a bit futile because her victories are fake. They're only there to set her and the audience up for a bigger fall. She gave Merida her heart back, turned around to save Robin and get scaly skin? WTF? She got rid of head!Rump but apparently that was a bad thing because it meant she was giving into the darkness. She un-treed Merlin but then we got the reveal that she ripped out someone's heart and created the worst teenage angst ever. She beat Nimue but then Merlin turned into Dark 2. Merlin and her beat the darkness and was about to reforge Excalibur but Hook was dying and now they're Dark One and Two. Add in Arthur the co-villain, who's villainy is more angsty than the others in the past and yeah it is sort of oppressive. The heroes aren't getting anything done. The villains aren't having any fun being villains. Zelena tries but the baby custody case is too "real world" for any real humor or silliness to seep through.

I agree but I didn't realize it until 5x08. But that culmination point kind of pushed it over the edge and not in a good way. I'm glad JM and Colin got their time in the sun and stretch their acting skills but it's just exhausting. I was riveted watching them last night but sitting on it now, it's a bit much for what is supposed to be a silly fairy tale mashup. 4B was dark but I felt like Cruella and Ursula lightened up that whole bit of QoD silliness but then again I didn't watch a chunk of those episodes. There's really none of that around this time. They've somehow managed to suck out every last bit of fun. Even Merida adds to the harshness of the arc. And 4A feels downright fluffy now. I'm really surprised the ratings have been as rock steady as they have. Guess the families with young kids left the house long before now. I just really wanted sexy fun Merlin damn it.

I'm surprised they didn't plan for a more fluffy big event for the 100th like a wedding or musical episode or some ridiculous Disney breaking the 4th wall meta thing. It sounds business as usual even with the returning parade of villains. If they didn't want to break the flow of the story it could've been a standalone special. I'm starting to think the Underworld/confronting the past is going to be too doom and gloom on the heels of this DOs stuff.

I see the writers have learned nothing from the Marian-Zelena debacle. How do they not know that the cool factor to a "twist" is to let the audience go back and pick up on all the clues first missed but obvious in hindsight? The cool factor is not pulling it out from your asses. I was just thinking that instead of replaying straight flashbacks in a dream catcher they could've done a replay like 6th Sense did with the scenes seen in a new way. But they can't do that cause they left no such hints. Just like the Marian thing. I know the spoiler thread peeps weren't surprised at all but even without spoilers that wouldn't have been a good surprising twist because it made no sense.

Not this time. But probably not in the way everyone's thinking of. They took his character back because all this time he's been a fighter but now he just gave up. The harder path isn't dying cause he's too scared to face temptation again. The harder path is the one Emma wrongly forced him on, to face darkness and beat it but he didn't even want to get in the ring. And yes I get that he has his own fears and self-loathing etc. but he kept asking Emma to put her faith in him and their love and she did it. I'm not saying Emma was right to force him either, just that he could've made the choice himself. But he didn't have enough faith in her, in their love or himself that they would be able to beat his darkness. He fought to get revenge and he fought for Emma but he won't for himself. That's probably his arc, the insecurity and finally believing he's a good man etc. but in my book, I side-eye the "I'm too scared the take on darkness" way more than him giving into the darkness itself. In that, they've written Emma, Rump and Hook to be alike, but I don't know if it's intentional. Those 3 are way more afraid of change and putting themselves out there than anything else, so they hold on to their old "insecurity" blanket like a lifeline.