LizaD

Or another option, misdirect for the lame-o "shocking" twist. After last episode I think it just laid out why Emma turned dark. Someone she loves "died" and she took someone else's life, just like Nimue. I put died in quotes cause all seems to be accounted for in present day. That also explains her plan with Excalibur. She wants to tether the "dead" person to it so that they'd be immortal too, again in the same vein as Merlin and Nimue.

No I'm not. It was in a magazine interview they did, not an online one. I'd have to dig it up but I believe it was the same one that they told the story of killing off Charming in the pilot. I think the connection was what the network execs made us do. It might've also been where they told the story that the execs made them change Emma's name from Anna cause one of them had a connection to the name Emma or something. I just remember it being a big Once edition with a bunch of little tidbits like that.

I loved the Snowing romance back in S1, the fairy tale portion of it anyway. It was quintessential fairy tale and let's face it people, and by people I mean the general audience, watch this show to watch a fairy tale. When it stopped being a "fairy tale" is when people went away in droves. It was the same with Rumbelle in Skin Deep. Contained in that lone episode, it had the classic fairy tale feel to it. It was only when they tried to make it a drama and a soap opera that it all went to hell. Like the Storybrooke version of MM and David. It was so trite it almost ruined any enjoyment from the flashbacks. Which makes sense if you think about it. Their original plan for the show didn't include present David. They killed him off in the EF. It was network execs who said no with that one. And people might claim that A&E love Hook now, but it was also network execs who told A&E to make him a regular before he aired.

For the bigger awards with the bigger stars sure, like the movie or music ones. It makes sense to want to have the most number of A-listers show up. These small category ones, PC don't even air on TV so they don't bother with it. It's just a press release or mentioned pre-show. But Lady Gaga or Emilia might get them to air this one. Not even then. Those 2 fanbases couldn't get even them nominated and there were campaigns to do so. Nina Dobrev was a write-in and ended up winning and it was under the Drama category, not Sci-Fi. That's a bigger category. That's what it takes. And I think Oncers consistently overestimates their numbers. It's loud and really really rabid but not plentiful. A quick look at twitter and I see the likes of Nina and Ian with 6 million followers and none of the Once cast even comes close to cracking a million. It also says something that they weren't nominated in the first place. Yes their Once fanbase are loud and rabid but they're still relatively unknown outside the Once fanbase. Initial nominees are based on things like sales and Q scores, i.e. popularity metrics with the general population, not specific fanbases.

I don't know why I laughed at this. Does the guy not know cause the "story" is so confusing and nonsensical that even he doesn't get it? I hope they do that sexy face proud in 5x07. In other news this dangerous quest to get broken Excalibur from Arthur is dumb as shit. Why can't the most powerful wizard ever snap his fingers and get the damn sword himself if it's that crucial? From a non-magical dude that he scolded like a 5 year old a day ago, at that! I know this is just their desperate attempt at trying to give something for everyone to do but why make it so glaringly stupid? Instead of having Hook ask for some details via future seeing abilities, maybe he should've asked why Merlin can't go grab it himself on his way to do whatever with Emma.

Yeah well which one of Woegina's "relationships" aren't gross? Snow and Woegina are gross, Graham and Woegina are gross, Emma and Woegina are gross, Henry and Woegina are gross, Jefferson and Woegina, Belle and Woegina etc. There's a common denominator here and it isn't Robin Hood. All those plot points above are for one purpose and that's to showcase Woegina's pain and suffering. They flat out said it. It's not like Robin had all this history on the show and then they shoved him to Woegina. They consciously made an effort to write him for Woegina and those are the ways they chose to do it. The reason why they chose it are very clear and they all have to do with Woegina's pain, not Robin. They could've done anything with him and written anything for a nothing character with no history besides a guest starring stint with Rumbelle. They wrote what they wrote not because of who Robin is but because of who Woegina is. But that is THE problem. They don't see any of these people as Woegina's victim so yeah they're giving you a non-victim of the EQ in Robin Hood. Just like Snow, Graham, Greg/Owen, Percival, the slaughtered village weren't Woegina's victims. Instead all these people contributed to her pain and suffering. Only she's allowed to be the victim. I mean these are the same writers, (plus the actress herself) that described Graham and Woegina as cute, fun and flirty! That says it all doesn't it? Yes they sure did and I said it with this: It's still the same problem. The varying degrees of the problem doesn't change the root cause. Robin's centric was repurposed for Zelena sure but most of Charming and Belle's centrics were to give background info about guest stars too. Hell Emma can barely buy a centric herself. The first full flashback of her childhood after 4 seasons was to "re-introduce" Woegina's pain.

I don't think Robin is the problem. Woegina is. He's not allowed to have a personality because he's just there for propping her. Anyone they stick in her breathing space is going to have the same problem and end up as a block of wood. They are literally incapable of writing any character in her circle organically. Changing the character isn't going to solve anything. It's the same problem with Rumbelle and Snowing where Rump and Snow are their main concern and Charming and Belle are relegated to love interest hell. It's the way these writers write and think "romance." The Robin situation is just exacerbated by a million because they just love Mary Sue Victim that much more. Hook and Emma are the only ones approaching anywhere near an attempt at balance. And that's probably solely due to the fact that their interest in Emma isn't all that huge and they have more interest in Hook than the rest of the bench players. Yes their story is mainly driven by Emma's issues but Hook gets his say so on every single one of her moments, excluding when she has to go prop Woegina. He's never excluded from anything Emma does or feels and we always know how he thinks or feels in response to Emma from day 1. The other 3 might as well be a blank slate in their other SO's life. There's only room for how Woegina, Rump or Snow feels about something. Belle and Robin are excluded from a huge portion of their SO's life. Charming fares slightly better here as Snow and him are attached at the hips. But to be honest I don't really care for any of the romantic relationships so the bad writing doesn't really bother me that much, The non-romantic ones were always more interesting but the sucky writing does them in every time. I'm more disapponted in the way Snowing and their kid, Rump and Bae, the whole Pan clan, Ingrid/Elsa/Emma, Snow and Ruby, Mal and everyone etc., went down. I want to see more Merlin and Arthur, and Arthur and Lancelot but not going to get that either. Also Snow and Ingrid never sharing a scene kills me too.

I don't think the writers want Rump as a good person though. They don't know what to do with a good Rump. An evil Rump is their main plot driver, sucky as it may be. I mean they went out of their way to do Head!Imp Rump even though it makes zero sense, so that says something. I think we'll know exactly how much "say" Robert has at the end of the series. He flat out said he didn't want a happy ending for Rump and yet these writers are dead set on some fluffy sappy happy ending for everyone I think. I'm positive he'll get some kind of magic powers back at the end of this arc, especially with Hades and Underworld coming. Can't see them passing up the opportunity for Hades vs Rump and we all know Rump spends the majority of his time with the villain of the hour, even with a half-assed villain like DS. This show lives and breathes useless retreads, see the millionth amnesia plots. If I wasn't convinced of Hook "dying" before, that sneak pretty much sealed it. Subtle they are not. That random ring of anvil was so huge, it was like getting crushed under a whale. And once again the fact that entire plot points could be figured out with blurry pictures of a ring and plaid pants amazes me.

Oh for sure but that's the problem when you set up a character to be omniscient. I said at the end of last season that Merlin was either the biggest puppet master villain or the biggest idiot. Clearly they went with the latter but in a show filled with idiots, at least he's pretty to look at. That's all you can get from this show. It's what happened with Rump too. They set him up as the biggest most powerful know it all in S1 but the more we get of his story the dumber he gets. But he doesn't need to be a seer to know that. Milah died centuries ago. Besides I think the parallel here is that Nimue became the DO and now Emma is the DO. Merlin threw out a line about Emma's power being a burden on the soul whether light or dark. Dare I hope they get into why she has such powerful magic to begin with, even without the DO's power. They're explaining why Merlin got his power right? Could she have gotten hers the same way?

Pan yes! I was ready to give up this show cause Merlin's sexy face for 30 seconds isn't cutting it. Now I just need Ingrid and Cruella. I can do without Graham. I know Jamie D. would be a big get for them at this point but we all know he'd just be back for some more cutesy flirty rom-com moments with Woegina, in the words of LP. Maybe they'll settle for some free publicity by just teasing his name. I wonder if they tried to get the ratings gold Frozen crew back. Merlin also said Nimue is the only person who can now destroy the darkness and save them no? I just caught the Merlin clips so maybe I missed something. Her appearance in the finale could be trying to save their butts. Maybe this Vortigan is the source of the DO and in the Merlin/Vortigan fight he accidentally tethered it to Nimue. Or Nimue took it on herself to save Merlin. It's hard to tell how they define first DO. Is it the person Merlin first tethered it to or is the first DO the actual origin of black flubber? Merlin has to know that he and Emma failed because he's still standing there warning her about a later event. Maybe the guy should've had a better contingency plan. Nimue is definitely one of the DOs though. In the promo when Emma is holding the dagger and the names are flashing by, besides the 3 we've seen plus Gorgon, I did catch N as the first letter so that's got to be Nimue and not Vortigan. I didn't catch any other name so does that mean there's only been 5 total.

But the beans don't have any exceptions to them. That's how Neal got here with the bean in the first place before his grandpa's minion dragged him to Neverland. But they're trying to make who's heart was crushed a mystery so it evens out. Emma's already done the most vilest thing of all in A&E's bible and that's ruining Woegina's life. I'm sure heart crushing some random person not related to Woegina is no big deal. It's not "heroic" but it won't earn you the moniker of life ruiner. I swear if Emma crushes Merlin's heart, she's going on my shit list forever. Or if she drags Hook out she better grab Merlin too. I don't think Emma is enraged at anybody. That's a red herring they threw out. The spoiler for one of the sweeps episode was Hook tries to find out what Emma did in Camelot, not what everyone else did. I think she made a misstep herself and ended up fully "dark" cause of it.

So lame. There is zero reason for the dark curse now that a million ways has been established to go from the EF to Storybrooke. Emma would have to crush Henry's heart. Although I guess they already cheated when Pan got away with crushing Felix's heart. Why do they insist on repeating the same shit over and over again? And the curse is even lamer now that the person who cast the curse doesn't even get to be in charge of the cursed people. They're not even trying at this point are they? Maybe it's a workaround. She rips out someone's heart and commands them to crush someone else's heart and cast the curse. They did? But they lie like it's their job to lie. But if not then maybe she commands Hook to crush her heart. I think that's more believable than Emma crushing Hook's, with Henry still around. So now they're sharing a heart? Lame. Super lame. It was lame when Snowing did it but at least they've always been set up as the ultimate cheesy fairy tale couple. Hook and Emma up until this point were more grounded in real world vibe.

So if Emma has the voice of all the previous DOs in her head, why did she need a dream catcher to know that a Dark One tree-ed Merlin and how it happened? She should already know it. They also reiterated it in an interview around the time of the premiere. A&E wrote 5x5 themselves lawd. I can't even fanwank that she temporarily banished her dark inner voice cause she was ripping out hearts and throwing full on black magic.

I think Hook goes to the Underworld in 5x11 and gets rescued in 5x11. In that process, somehow the bumbling fools of EF opened up a portal from the Underworld to their town leading to 5B. I bet the last shot of 5x11 is Cora in Storybrooke and she's the big cheese of 5B with Hades. That's why Hook isn't in any of the filming where DS and Rump seems to be running around town with the rest of the crew. The rescue is part of how DS gets de-darked. Maybe the former DOs including Nimue are in the "in between" world and they're roaming free cause the portal is just starting to crack. The DO vault could be the in between. Or all former DOs got recruited to be Hades' minions. I just want Ingrid, Cruella and Pan back. Don't care about the rest. And if somehow Merlin died, his sexy butt better be back too. Then again, the longer they stick around the more chances they'll be ruined. See Cora.

They announced it today cause her centric is on Sunday so Merida-related news. I think 5x8 and 5x9 makes up the 2 hr session. They're just counting each hour separately. That's why they taped both episodes at the same time. It could still have a double meaning. Wasn't Arthur taping with the Brave crew?

Oh hell naw! You guys did not just put Jacob!Merlin in the same sentence as Belle. Did we all not see what happened with Will when he got stuck with her and Rumbelle? I'm hoping to keep him around, not get rid of him. Besides he's got his own sob love story lined up with Nimue who shows up again in the finale. What is it about Merida that grates so badly? She's so obnoxious. You can be "bad ass" and not have such a shitty attitude. Red was awesome like that. Too bad they couldn't use her instead or Tink.

Merlin has "chosen ones?" You can't make this stuff up. Are they really going to label it just like that in show? So we know he disowned Arthur and DS is probably on his shit list now too. His apprentice is dead but before that, pretty much useless anyway. Who's up next? Maybe the guy should think about his life choices. Even his lover tree-ed him.

Ok I like Arthur. Shadiness and all, at least he's thinking of the peasants! Or at least he pretends too. The rest don't even bother. But that entire sequence with Merlin made me laugh cause it was just so trite. Him getting scolded by Merlin about a broken sword while Merlin's all I've been waiting for you Emma, made it seem like a teacher with the teacher's pet and the class trouble maker. I mean the subject matter is about legendary Excalibur, the darkest dark to ever dark and a meeting centuries? in the making? And it ended up like a scene straight from a coming of age high school movie, starring the professor and his 2 students.

What's up with the black and white magic? They made it seem like Emma couldn't access her white magic anymore, even when she's doing something innocuous like saving someone. Now she can use it? How convenient. I can't tell if they just really thought it was cool to see the white and black string cheese together like that, which it wasn't, or it's actually a plot point for later. I saw somewhere that one of the writers and I'm forgetting which one said NOTICE how it took both Emma's light and dark magic to free Merlin. Apparently they explained that both was needed in show, but it was cut for time. I understood that part well enough from the clip I saw. Not sure what explanation would be needed. Also, I'm not sure if this was done on purpose or not but the white blonde chick dressed in all white and the black dude dressed in black makes for an interesting visual when they're next to each other. And I mean interesting in a good way because they look stunning side by side, well more him than her. Thankfully they didn't have the black dude in black wield the black evil magic too or I'd be side eyeing them.

But the Author wasn't the major storyline in both arcs. It was introduced then popped up again in the finale and whenever Woegina popped up to whine about her life which miracles of all miracles, wasn't every episode in 4A. Here the DO is THE plot and the only plot going on. We're getting the first DO, why the DO existed, and the current and most recent former DO. I guess they could make it a B or C plot for 5B to even it out but it still feels a little cheated and probably would be tiresome to most by the time 5B rolls around, no matter who the DO is or isn't. What's comparable to the Author is the Underworld thing, being introduced then we see it again in the finale. It does look like Hook goes to the Underworld but the only red flag is well how is that Woegina centric? We all know the Bs are all about her. Maybe they can split up. Hook and Emma and maybe Rump goes under, while Hades goes to Storybrooke. I'm only throwing Rump in there cause you just know Rumbelle have to be split up again. They're so allergic to writing those 2 together. I wish for the same affliction for Woegina and Emma.

No I think it was the combination of DO power plus that lame saviour stuff as shown by the in your face black and white cheesiness. If it was any DO power then Rump could've done it or any DO that came before him. Also he could've told Arthur that a DO could release him, instead of savior. It still makes sense because the DO put him there and there's also that stuff about his true love. So Emma is the DO and the true love baby all conveniently packaged in 1. Merlin seems pretty nonchalant for all the shit that seems to have gone down and for being tree-ed forever. He looks like he just wants to kick back with some popcorn.

I'm sure that's it but by the time we get to that point in the story it'll feel old and redundant. Like everything else on this show. Because we're seeing that play out right now. She's trying to get rid of the darkness in order to protect everyone and not lose them but trying to get rid of it is exactly what is costing her everything. Whatever went down with Hook in Camelot isn't going to be as climatic as I suspect they hope it will. There's also Nimue? reappearing all glammed up Rump style. How does she fit in now and where's Merlin? Now I just want to see his pretty face but it feels pretty empty that he's not around when all this is going down. Maybe Snow's bright idea is to send the DO to the underworld ala S2 when she wanted to send some apocalyptic bomb back to the EF to save Woegina. Only this time Hades get really pissed at them sending him their problem.

When they decided their goal wasn't entertainment but high-brow drama moral lessons and climbed on their moralizing soap box cause their views are so fucked up. 3A wasn't really course correction from 2B, so much as they temporarily got off the soap box, either to go take a dump or visit the golf course. Anytime they center an arc around good vs evil it all goes to shit. 3A wasn't really good vs evil, it was more Pan vs all these lost abandoned people, most of whom were his family and they didn't even address that. On another note, did twitter lose their shit from yesterday's episode as the new writer predicted? I don't know for sure either way but I hope not cause I think she overestimated how many people care about Henry's poor feelings.

I only watched the Merlin and Rump clips so can't comment on everything else but damn Merlin is hot. I don't even care what he's doing. He can just stand there and look pretty and it's still 99.9% better than what the other characters are doing. And you know Rump has really taken a long hard fall when they give him one of Charming's story and Charming still got the better deal. At least Anna was perky and earnest. Merida's just a cranky bitch. Robert is aces but the writing fails but what else is new. Why does it have to be so extreme between sparkly DO and coward Rump? I don't find it believable that Rump just reverted back to pre-DO days. He still has all his memories and his experience as the DO for 3 centuries. That changes a person whether or not they have the power.

Am I missing something? What in that picture=Hook going to underworld? Cause he's not in it? Maybe Colin is the one taking the picture. Belle and Zelena isn't in it either. I don't think the picture spoiled DS's ending either. We already knew from NYCC that it was ending. And there's only one real possible ending to it. I'm tired of every finale ending in some separation and the premiere is a saving mission with some amnesia thrown in for good measure.