LizaD

So from the all seasons thread, talking about Emma's tree I just realized something. Blue said the tree only had enough magic to protect 1 person or technically 2 since the 1 person thing was a lie. But then in S2 Emma and Snow was going to use that tree again. Shouldn't the magic be all used up already? It already protected 2 people. But then they burned it down and it still had power! And the tree was never supposed to be a way to realm hop? Didn't Blue say the tree was only a protection shield for Emma from the curse? The explanation then was that since the curse ripped everything away in that universe, which turned out to be a lie in the retcons, then taking her to LWM was the only protection. But there was no curse chasing after them in S2 so what gives?

Yeah I don't know why the show act like Snow and Charming shoved baby Emma in a tree for shits and giggles. Even if it had nothing to do with the curse Woegina was like 2 seconds away from killing that baby. It just kills me that they have St. Victim making snarky comments about Snowing's parenting skills in regards to Emma. Like bitch, you were going to kill that baby, shut your piehole. No cause at least she had a solution. It's not like anyone else came up with a better alternative. They should've asked Rump for a way to get baby Emma to safety after he told them what they had to do. It was kind of risky on Rump's part relying on Snowing to get his "key" to safety. Oh and that tree brings up another continuity problem which I'll take there.

I think they totally redid the return. The beer garden scene was also with DS in her feathery dress that I really liked. I guess they totally threw that outfit away? Such a shame. Too bad James Spader is already on another show. I would've loved him as a devil or Hades.

If this is the case then I'm going to say that head DO Rump is actually Merlin and a real separate entity, not just her "inner DO voice" as she believes. That could tie back into why Merlin trapped in a tree was able to appear to kid Emma. EK did say there was a link between Merlin and Emma but I figured that was the whole prophecy Excalibur thing. He could've been hinting at an actual physical? link. I wonder if DO Rump disappears while Merlin is walking around free and clear with Emma. That could be a clue. The warning to kid Emma still doesn't make sense though.

This is not strictly true. CBS ratings guarantees are done against the 25-54 demo, not 18-49.

Yeah I'm not seeing the Papa Hook is still alive and will be recurring spoiler. From NYCC all we got for spoilers were a flashback to kid Hook and his dad plus another separate flashback to Woegina in supreme scene chewing mode and Hook on an adventure.

I can hand wave the sand thing. Did G ever say she fell out of love with Arthur? If she still loves him then the sand could have just removed the problems they had with the fix what was broken thing. So it didn't conjure love out of nowhere. Not that the sand makes any sense anyway. How did it control Snowing? They never trusted the guy in the first place, not completely. So I don't see what it "fixed." Maybe we shouldn't complain too much. It might make A&E think that the sand is the biggest problem of S5 like how they said their biggest mistake of S2 was letting Tamara use a taser on wood August.

Aha Rump doesn't know a thing about Excalibur which means Emma came by the info in Camelot. Also this just goes to show how clunky their writing is with the exposition of using head DO Rump. It's so sad. They and Robert clearly still want DO Rump in some capacity and I do too but they don't know how to do it. What can he do? He's got no magic of his own. She probably thinks she's in control in that town with the most powerful magic. I think he was being sincere but still has his own goal, which is to get free. It reminds me of their conversation with the hat. I think Robert said that Rump was being genuine with her because he knows that's what works on her but that it's all tied up in his own desires too.

Big picture? He worded it vaguely enough. Maybe it's not so much as making sure every little detail happen as is but to keep the realms intact. Say he sees DS and Excalibur which led to end of the world, then his job is to make sure that apocalypse doesn't happen, not that he has to make sure DS does exactly what he foresee. Or maybe it's like one of those choose your own adventure books and he sees every path and choices available and he's trying to make sure the path taken is the one with the least damage for the universe. Who knows. Also that kid Emma scene was thrown in at the last second so it doesn't have to make sense. These writers don't worry about stuff like that. If they say Elliot, Merlins's job is so and so and they repeat it often enough onscreen while showing some utter nonsense, what can we do? I just want to see Merlin's pretty face onscreen and I'll be happy. The "story" like usual has been a big letdown and I didn't even have high expectations to begin with.

So EK finally gave an interview that had some semi-spoilers in it, posted in media thread. Of note, he says Merlin has the big picture more than anyone. He's relatively selfless in that his actions are driven by not what he wants but what he knows needs to happen. He's there to make sure the future stays intact. I knew it was something like this, once A&E said he wasn't the villain. I alo said that the one time he goes against the rules probably led to the DO's existence and him and Nimue paying the price. Also that Emma broke off from Merlin and went dark completely because she's repeating his mistake and choosing to go with her heart vs. what needs to happen. Since JM said she's driven by her love for Hook then I'm guessing she sees his death or Merlin tells her about it and she's trying to prevent it from happening or it did happen and she changed the past. He also said Merlin and Arthur do have a special bond. That's surprising to me. I was set on Arthur having been bamboozled by some imposter. Other thing of note, the kid Emma and Merlin scene was added in later. I'm like huh? Didn't A&E say that scene was going to set up the rest of the arc with the prophecy? How the hell wasn't it originally planned? ETA: Crazy spec but what if Emma tethered Hook's soul to bottom Excalibur and that's why his name is on it. Now I don't know why she would want to remove it and all that pure hero pulls it out, snuff out the light stuff but could be just a misdirect.

Another interview with Elliot Knight. He's done a whole lot of them. This one has some spoilers in it. http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/10/21/10-things-you-didn-t-know-about-merlin-from-once-upon-a-time-3601749

I do remember a casting call for a servant who hates his employer. I thought it was about Arthur and his knights or something but maybe it's Merlin's servant. I don't know if he's the first DO though. Seems pretty lackluster for the first DO. And didn't A&E say that we'll see that all the DOs took on the DO for a good noble reason? Hating your boss doesn't sound like a noble reason to me. Merlin got locked up in a tree by his servant and that's what Emma sees in the dreamcatcher? Damn that's weak. I would've liked it better if Nimue trapped him in keeping with the original legend.

Merlin probably put the sword back in the stone and resealed it with some new rule. Emma seems to be fine with Merlin in Nimue's episode. She has her dagger and it looks like he's teaching her so what went wrong and why couldn't he do anything about the DO? He also said bad things would happen if she tries to remove Excalibur so I don't know if the 2 names on whole Excalibur is actually a good thing. My guess is she broke some magic rule just like Merlin did back in the day and the price was Nimue tethered to the DO. With him finally appearing next episode I hope he kicks the story into gear. It's been dragging.

I thought time didn't stand still anywhere post-curse, outside of Storybrooke. That's the reason for the Cora dome in the first place right? Everything outside of Cora's bubble was going to move in normal time but she put them in a time bubble to sync up with Storybrooke. Arendelle wasn't affected by the curse either way but Ingrid froze them. Also didn't Happy say 6 weeks had past in Storybrooke and the amnesiacs also took that as 6 weeks had past in Camelot too and figured that's the amount of time they lost? I took that to mean that those 2 places also were in-sync. Which brings up something else that bugs, now that they made that fairy tale realm so so tiny that you can walk to another kingdom in a couple of days and apparently the great big Dark curse only took out a tiny portion of it. Don't the EF people now feel stupid for not packing up and going over to say Arendelle over somewhere farther? From the time of Snow's wedding when Woegina gave them notification to Emma's birth, that gave them 9 months to walk somewhere and escape! Why didn't anyone think of that? I mean Hook knew he only had to "outrun" it.

Well if she's using a dreamcatcher to find how Merlin was turned into a tree then none of the DOs did it. He trapped himself? Also if Arthur was being all shady how come Merlin didn't take care of the dude? I can't believe the most powerful magician won't be able to tell that Camelot is a fake product of magic.

I'm pretty sure they dropped Lily like a hot potato when they decided to do something different with Camelot over the summer planning. I thought the finale set her up for Camelot with the find my daddy thing and also the star tattoo that gave her a direct connection to the Apprentice and Merlin. In other news, Merida still grates. She's just so shoe-horned in and reeks of desperation to name drop Disney property. I mean Frozen did too but they more than pulled their weight as we saw with the ratings.

I've seen this going around and I would just like to point out that she was reading Dellilo's Underworld which has absolutely nothing to do with the literal place of Underworld/Hell or greek mythology. It's about the zeitgeist of America post-WWII to 90s. That said ep. 2 Woegina's centric and NYCC points to Underworld and conveniently comes with a Disney Hercules tie-in. It's an obvious choice. Yes. I think A&E said so. At the very least they said 5B is something completely different from DS. Does it have to do with being a king and the rightful heir at all? The DOs don't seem to think so. They just want a pure hearted hero and while the goal is a bit murky it doesn't seem to have a thing about ruling Camelot. Maybe Arthur misinterpreted Merlin's prophecy and we know he doesn't bother clarifying. Ingrid spent how many years obsessing over the savior named Emma that she thought was going to be her sister? Only that's not what Merlin meant at all.

I liked Anna a lot better than Merida. Merida grates for some reason. Yes Anna was the quintessential Mary Sue but I prefer that kind of Mary Sue over say our permanent Mary Sue Patron Saint of Victims. On any other show though and I would've despised her. On this show it was refreshing to see someone hailed as the bestest thing since slice bread actually do good things and do them because she is just that good. Eye roll worthy for sure but at least honest storytelling. Trying to find honesty in this show is like searching for Big Foot. Teen Lily was annoying. Horribly. But maybe that was the effect of the horribleness of the episode itself. I didn't mind adult Lily and I liked Lily and Mal if I ignore the blatant "throw Snowing under the bus eggnapping" thing. However if there's no Mal around I'm not interested in seeing just Lily. The thing that bugs is that they set up a story for her in the 4B finale. And yet sometime between the finale and the planning for 5A, they changed their minds. Again. Then they'll pretend that if they pick it up 2 seasons later it'll all make sense and show off their mad master storytelling skillz.

Well they already co-opted Excalibur for the DO stuff so Excalibur doesn't have to equal ruler of Camelot. It could be purely about the DO and Camelot was a red herring. We don't know if Merlin made that prophecy about Camelot and the sword or if it was a lie or if OG DO Rump made it. Rump could've easily pretended to be Merlin or Arthur made a deal with him. I think the sword is going to be more about Merlin and Nimue. I'm betting at the end Arthur will learn that he didn't need some stupid broken sword to be the King of Camelot. He just need to do the right thing and all that cheese and his obsession with Excalibur is what ruined him. Or if all else fails I'm sure he could squeeze out some tears and whip up a mean baked ziti. And voila, pure of heart Arthur is back in the house. There's still the missing piece of how Merida fits in too. The actress did say she had a lot of stuff with Rump and she seems to be part of the crew.

Ok the 2 names on Excalibur thing is kind of cheesy. Less cheesy than heart splitting but still put it on a cracker. Isn't removing Excalibur going to be bad move according to Merlin's prophecy who is confirmed by A&E to be good, even if he's useless? Also if Hook is pulling it out, we better see Merlin making a visit to his wee self. I guess with the kid Hook flashback that his daddy and lineage tie into Camelot? They would predate Arthur a couple of hundred years. A&E did say Hook would be a large feature in the first 11 episodes. And finally Snowing get something to do even if Charming is coming off a little dumb. Maybe they should've made Arthur his childhood buddy or something to explain this insta-bff.

To be fair they've systematically destroyed every founding premise of the show anyway and they did it way before the super cheesy heart splitting crap. Woegina's woe is me drama over killing her dad price was supposedly "hole in heart can't ever love again." Except they took it all back and said she's always lurved Henry so much even without a stinking heart. So yeah its not like she paid any steep price either. The entire point of the Dark Curse was to get to LwM and lo and behold we now have a million ways to do that, all of them so much easier than what Rump did. On top of that it wasn't even Rump's curse anyway and he had to steal it. Ohand what happened to LwM? It got magic.....by 2 strands of hair from a couple of egg nappers.

Well Gold could be the one in hero mode and he's chasing after Emma and Excalibur. She poofs into Hook to psych him out? But since it is half Hook centric it probably is him. Is Gold's sword broken at the tip? It looks like it has a square end, not pointy. Also I was just thinking, the Robin and Zelena story sounds a lot like Lancelot and Elaine/G, except Zelena doesn't give a crap about Robin. Lancelot and Elaine's kid was Galahad and they do have Jr coming.

But if Excalibur is already whole then Gold did do his heroic bit and pulled it out. Then he could revert back to form I guess since we don't know what a whole Excalibur does. Or since this is a Hook/Woegina centric then Woegina pulled it out and Gold stole it. From the sneak peak, that soundtrack of what sounds like Children of the Corn chanting is pretty creepy. Was it whispering Emma Swan or just random creepy sounds?

Yes and the rules governing all of that is set by WGA. I'm going to guess that since she's a total newbie that her title is staff writer. There are several levels of writers on any given show. Disney-ABC also has an in-house writers and directors development program. I'm not certain on the exact details but you apply to the program and Disney places you in one of their shows. Kind of like a paid internship I guess. I don't know if that's what this new writer is but that is an option.

I think Nimue makes more sense than Morgan in context of what they wanted to do. Nimue=Lady of the Lake=Excalibur=First DO. There's a stronger association of the Lady of the Lake to Excalibur than Morgan to Excalibur. Merlin is ancient, going back to the roots of magic according to Elliot. Since they placed Arthur and co. as contemporaries of Snowing, Morgan as the first DO wouldn't make sense. They could age Camelot but the point is they want everything to be from the Snow era and they already introduced Lancelot. Also Nimue is for Merlin's back story and obviously they want to do another sappy romance for him and again Nimue works better for that than Morgan.