LizaD

Yep. And it usually coincides with a drop in ratings. I think 5x05 will hit one of the climatic points and then they give us the breather episode with the Merida/Belle throwaway episode. I could've sworn Matt M. later clarified that Hook's dad is for the episode that is actually a Hook-Woegina centric not just Hook and it's most likely set for 5x10. Quite frankly after years of wanting a young Emma flashback and saw what we got in Breaking Glass, it doesn't bode too well here. A&E obviously live by "be careful of what you wish for." I think Emma's goal is to destroy the darkness permanently and Merlin doesn't think that's a hot idea because there's a universe rule where light has to be balanced by darkness. Hence the warning and we'll see that the DO exists because Merlin the good but useless schmuck also exists. She's probably successful, leading to some screwed up world for 5B, cause you know life ruiner and all. They don't actually have to go to the underworld. The underworld could come to Storybrooke and how apropos would that be? That town seems a close approximation to hell. Or they can say the Underworld looks like the EF or Neverland.

I thought they did at NYCC. They said DS ends 5A and 5B is about something completely different? They wouldn't kill off a kid would they? Maybe they're killing off Violet in the Henry centric and hence the saddest "romance" ever from A&E.

No the numbers Adage is talking about is C3. That's plus 3 days that people are watching on DVR but NOT fast forwarding the commercials. It means they're sitting there watching commercials on DVR. Nielsen doesn't release C3 numbers publically. You have to buy it or sometimes networks will release them if there's a bragging point to be made. The numbers that media sites publish for the public is L+3 (live+3 or live+7). Meaning that's the plus 3 days counting ALL viewers regardless if they watch commercials or not. That number doesn't matter because again, people are only interested in number of people who watches commercials, not the show itself. ETA: Since Once wasn't mentioned, it's safe to assume they didn't get any significant bump in the C3 numbers and therefore wasn't worth mentioning.

Yes but also the writers have said Emma has access to the accumulation of all the knowledge and skills of past DOs combined. She didn't need to manipulate Hook for information. She knows what Rump knows and therefore knew the info about the cutlass already. It was exposition meant for the audience. She would know about the ship too I guess but I don't konw if that's the imagery they wanted. Crumbling a sword/cutlass over Rump while Excalibur is in the background works in a way a shrunken boat or floorboard wouldn't. Or a shawl for that matter. Not to mention there would be no good reason Hook would have that shawl and not Rump. And it had to have been something Hook had. The fact that she stole Happy's axe first at least showed that she tried something else before going after Hook. If she's going to be drooling in a corner and whining about how evil she is ala Snow after killing Cora then I damn well want her self-flagellation to be worth it. Because that stuff is no fun as we've seen, so the least they could do is provide the entertainment before she's a sad sack again. Besides her non-evil acts, she doesn't even look like she's having fun. What happened to the "villains always have more fun" thing? It'd be a lot more entertaining to me if her and sparkly imaginery Rump was tearing up the town and I'm not saying they have to go on indiscriminate killing sprees. Rump did plenty of shady things that didn't involve killing. At this point TP'ing the sheriff's station would be more evil than what's she done so far. As is, Dark Swan is a non-starter and pretty much DOA.

Well that was based on late last year and we don't know if that was due to Frozen or not. There was also no mention of time period that that accounted for from the self-responders. Shifting it a couple of weeks or even days might have changed the results with something like Netflix. CBS did the survey and were trying to discount Netflix's original shows by claiming that the most popular shows on Netflix aren't even Netflix original programming but network scripted dramas and hence networks still rule the roost. I agree. We're talking about billions of dollars in revenue for Disney from Star Wars. Once is a drop in the bucket so it makes no sense for them to let Star Wars boost something that inconsequential overall. Too much hassle for a temporary and very brief boost. They wouldn't even give free rein to Frozen to these guys and that's a direct tie with the fairy tale thing. There's nothing else in Disney's fairy tale vault that would revive this show, I don't think as evidenced by Merida. They've burned through most of the princesses ones, except for Jasmine although Jafar was in Wonderland. They could start making human versions of the Lion King, Winnie the Pooh and the like I suppose.

I think one of the Camelot people cast the curse especially with the whole let's redo Camelot in Storybrooke. Emma pulled a Zelena and hijacked part of it. Not sure if people caught this from the NYCC stuff but A&E "spoiled" that Merlin is a good force which damn it. This just means he's an idiot and a lame duck with all that most powerful magic stuff. Also JM said Dark Emma's goals are for the "right" reasons but wrong method and that would go with Merlin's warning because I didn't think it made sense in the context. He warned her not to pull Excalibur even if it's the right thing to do cause bad shit would go down. So far it sure doesn't look like her "snuffing out the light" mission is for anything good. So I'm thinking is "snuffing out the light" herself? As in OG Emma? And since the DO is currently housed in her, taking out light Emma also takes out DS? Would they go that dark with a quasi-suicide mission? I'm not saying it's going to work and they'll come up with some contrived loop hole at the end with St. Victim ultimately saving the day. Otherwise I can't see why the Excalibur mission is a right thing to do. And why the fuck is Merlin so useless?

That's what I'm saying. That's all super lame stuff for someone who is supposed to be the DO, the darkest of dark. She turned a dwarf into a stone that was reversible. She could've killed him, now that would be evil. Wiping memories is child's play at this point for that town. At least she only took 6 weeks. Taunting? That's evil? Even so, her taunts need serious work. I think Granny throws out insults better than she does. Hell she's said meaner and bitchier stuff to her parents and Hook as regular old Emma. They don't know about her super duper secret snuffing mission that currently has no meaning to us either. For all we know, it could just mean wiping out the electric grid in town ala Elsa last season. The power thing also makes zero sense. Unlike Rump who didn't have magic before and presumably got addicted to magic and the power it brought, Emma had all of that before and didn't care for it. She had one of the most powerful magic anyway and she wanted to give all that crap up to go live in NYC. They're going to have to explain that and not just brush it off with Emma likes power now as one of the writers on twitter did. If she's going to be treated as a real threat and force of evil then do it. It's like what they did with Eva or Snow. They acted like those 2 were the worst human beings ever and all Eva did was pull a Jerry Springer. She's getting the flack and the consequences so have her earn it! That's all I'm saying. I guess i just expected more from Dark Swan than Evil Eva or Dark Spot Snow.

I'm on Arthur's side for now. He owes these people diddly squat and so far his goal is for his people and his kingdom. That's more than can ever be said for any of the others on this show. When he's shown to be a lot more selfish, like you know letting a mass murderer go free to continue terrorizing and killing peasants, I'll judge him harsher. I liked that David got something to do and him and Arthur sounds good on paper but not buying the insta-bffs. Maybe they can ditch their wives and just go on shady adventures. The problem I have with the Hook and Emma scene is Dark Swan really hasn't done a single evil thing, besides the horrific crime against hair dye. She's done more shady things as normal Emma, true story. So the thing is he's gone from "saving Emma" to defeating Emma in a nanosecond cause reasons, and amnesia. Instead of trying to reach her, he's out to beat her now for no good reason that I can see. It also goes against every single mantra this show has set out. Everyone has treated Dark Swan a million times harsher than Woegina or Rump has ever been treated combined and she's hasn't done anything. She stole an axe? OMG how evil. I'm glad she's not being coddled but on the other hand it just shows how unfair this show really sets it up. The towns folk were oh so evil for not eating Woegina's lasagna and it's their fault she wanted to kill them all but Emma? No way every single thing is all her fault and on her. Seriously you can't have it both ways and stack the deck against only one person. This goes for Zelena too. Team Zelena all the way here. I'd be ok with a Zelena, Dark Swan, and Rump team up. I don't get the blank slate thing. You can't be a blank slate if you have all your memories and life experiences intact. Those experiences make up who you are and inform your choices. So yeah not buying that either. His slate might be wiped clean but it's not blank. And on the show Hook keeps trying to separate Dark One from Emma but in every single interview the actors and the writers have maintained Emma is still Emma, just a bit off-color. So which is it? Oh and Emma can't use her magic to free the one guy that can save her but it was all fine and dandy to force her to use it to save someone else? This show. I just can't.

Wait I think Arthur crushed Lancelot's heart cause they were bffs, before Lancelot tried to steal G. And that's why Arthur can no longer pull out Excalibur for Emma! But it's still lame that Arthur had to cast the dark curse at all, especially when clearly he's not in control.

And there's a full circle feel to it. Rump used baby Emma to break his dark curse and now she's using him to do whatever. He was the DO for the longest time so it's apropos he should be involved in the Excalibur DO stuff. I hope this means we'll get blank Gold/DS/head DO Rump scenes. Should be great fun if they know what to do with it. We've got DO Rump "mentoring" DS and in turn DS mentoring hero Gold. This. I was hoping that the twist was that there is no dark curse. Why the fuck do they need a dark curse to get back to Storybrooke anyway? We've clearly seen 1 million ways to do so. Hell just 2 days ago their time, the crew came to Camelot via another way. Merlin is strutting around in his fancy black robe for gawd sakes! We've seen him draw a door out of thin air to anywhere. This also means that the cheap from a spray can cheesiness of Snowing's heart sharing is also being repeated? I'm guessing they're doing Hercules next with Hades as the new big bad? Maybe the next big twist is that Zeus fathered everyone on the show!

Why was everyone's Camelot ballgown an off the shoulder type dress but Emma got what looked like a baby's baptism dress adult sized?

I saw somewhere on twitter where Jane answered the "Mary Margaret" in Camelot thing and she said it was so that viewers would know the flashback wasn't the distant flashbacks of yore. Are they serious? I don't know if this implies that they think their audience is dumber than they are or that they think viewers are so casual in their watching of this show that can't tell pre-curse flashbacks from flashbacks of 6 weeks back. You know the flashbacks that prominently feature Dark Emma in them. If that's the audience they're aiming for I think it explains so much. I also hate to break it to them but I don't think the people that can't tell pre-curse flashbacks vs "present" flashbacks are watching the show. They would've just switched the channel.

I know what Siege Perilous means, the Seat that is reserved for the knight who would be successful in the quest for the Holy Grail. In most legends it is a chalice or bowl of some sort. That's what I mean, that the seat title here is referring to the quest for the chalice and Charming has a chalice at some point this episode. In some stories that knight is Percival and others, Galahad who is Lancelot's kid. Sure the Holy Grail could be the dagger but then again Siege Perilous could mean a quest for something other than the Holy Grail too in Once verse. I'm not sure the writers see it that way. Emma clearly said it was Woegina's price. I mean these are the writers who thought Woegina controlling Emma with the dagger was hilarious so and that Woegina stepped up big time to "protect" Emma so.....

But this episode is Charming's centric isn't it? Also I think Siege Perilous is referring to the chalice that Charming had at one point in filming spoilers and the quest is the one him and Arthur go on in the flashback. But notice he's only going to fetch it so that Woegina can yet again be the one to save the day. There's no way Hook is THE hero and this early? Not a chance. Emma thinks he's her hero cause she's not pissed at him. I'm surprised A&E aren't writing the finale and that they're giving it to the newer writers to boot.

Only if she's Merlin's kid! From the magic thread, I thought I'd answered this here cause it's sort of spoilery. When I read one of Elliot's interviews and he said they were going to explore the existence of magic with Merlin and that there was a link between Merlin and Emma, my first thought was hot damn they're finally going to explain why Emma has these super magic powers and it's probably cause of Merlin. But then I remembered what show I was watching and that thought pretty much disappeared. I think we're just going to have to buy their true love baby thing. I don't know where they're going with Merlin and Emma but it probably won't make sense.

But Emma didn't ask for payment for services rendered and the Fury came back to get her payment anyway. But KAOS is right, there is no logic or rules to the show even if they like to pretend there is. Rump didn't get any payment when he saved David cause Neal shut him down and no one bothered coming after David or Emma the person who asked for it. So the whole "price" thing wasn't set up to explain Rump's deal makings nor was it to clarify a rule. We all know the end goal of the "price" was to establish St. Woegina as the savior.

You know I originally thought it was their pat answer to why Rump was making deals left and right, to protect himself, but it actually doesn't. On rewatch of the clip what he says is the person asking for the magic is the one who has to pay the price, not the person doing magic. When Emma said she'll pay it, which I think she did anyway, he said that's not how it works. So if the person asking doesn't pay the price, it doesn't rebound onto the do-er. So technically Rump was helping all these people out? Lol is that what they're saying? He's just the debt collector but not the creditor. If he didn't ask for something from these people he made deals with, then they would've had to pay for it somehow anyway to someone else. In that case I think it does make sense. Everytime someone asks for a magical solution, they generally get screwed over, usually courtesy of Rump. The "all magic comes with a price" sticker is for the customer, not the producer. Note I think this is how they framed it in show and makes better sense.. But A&E, master storytellers that they are, have contradicted themselves anyway because they have claimed before that doing magic costs something to the person doing magic.

I think Emma is simply going for Hook first because she actually wants to interact with him even if it is for a nefarious purpose. I don't think she wants to give the others the time of the day. We're only on ep.3 so we've got a long ways to go. Each episode she'll try to manipulate someone new probably. I say it'll happen in ep.8 after we get the story on Merlin and Nimue. As for Arthur, maybe since the sword is his, she thinks its too risky to even let him near it. Or there's some other info she has that they don't want to give to us yet. I mean this is all post meeting Merlin so she/head Rump should have a whole lot of info the writers will eventually give up in all their master storytelling glory.

I think the only problem with the split Emma is that DS isn't completely dark. You saw shades of real Emma with Henry, Hook and when she's alone. I don't even think she's dark with Woegina either but that's another story. I think that's just really clunky writing to draw out the "mystery." Remember all those cryptic conversations Ingrid and Rump had that went absolutely nowhere and meant absolutely nothing? Their writing gets super clunky when they try to do 2 things: draw out some mystery and then when they finally do want to reveal something, the exposition is really bad too. I think we already got the answer of her "goal" which is to join Excalibur and the dagger. I don't think the mystery is there anymore. The twist they'll drop is what happens when it is whole. JM had pictures of her with Excalibur for ep. 8 right? I think that's when its pulled out and that's also when we saw Snowing and Woegina at her house too so most obvious conclusion is that Woegina pulls out Excalibur.

Regurlarlyleaded, maybe they'll both be split and we get 4 for the price of 2. Add in some shapeshifting stuff and things could get really fun. I was basing my spec off of Jacob and Man in Black and we all know how much they love their Lost references. Jacob sounds a lot like Merlin and I think the premiere scene was a callback of 2 scenes combined in Lost. Jacob appears to young Kate while she is stealing something and appears to Jack, giving him the Apollo candy bar. So of course our super creative master storytellers had Merlin popping up while young Emma is stealing an Apollo bar. The Man in Black aka Smoke Monster is just like our Black Goo Monster aka DO.

Light magic comes with a price too and we've seen it. Emma put a down payment on it 28 years in advance. Maybe this is why the Blue Fairy seems incompetent. She's faking it cause she doesn't want all these people coming to her. This could apply to Glinda and the rest of the seemingly useless on the "good" side. They can't say no cause that would be mean so they discourage people from coming to them in the first place.

Speaking of cut scenes whatever happened to the one with Emma in the black feathery dress? I thought that was her coolest outfit. I don't remember what the scene even was but would've loved to see that dress in motion. Elliot Knight did a round of interviews, all linked on his twitter. Nothing spoilery except that they're going to dive "deep" into the existence of magic with Merlin and he didn't meet Robert until they shared scenes a few days ago. I think Nimue died as the first DO and she's only there to give Merlin a backstory plus the DO mythology stuff. I just don't think it makes any sense for Merlin to be trapped sometime during Emma's childhood and adulthood, especially when the dude is supposed to be the Big Cheese of magic. Maybe there's 2 Merlins walking around? 1 good and 1 evil to explain the existence of good and evil magic. The one trapped in the tree and the one they freed is the evil one cause the dude is walking around in a black robe. The good one was the one with young Emma and is currently hanging out in NYC. Nimue plus good Merlin trapped the evil one way back in the day. They also stripped his evil magic and Nimue took it on ala Emma. I mean as of ep.7 we see Merlin and white dress Emma with her dagger. How did shit hit the fan so quickly after that given Merlin's power? And why is he letting her have the dagger and do magic with it when it just makes her darker?

I don't think Emma is faking it and the "mystery" of why she turned dark is pretty obvious and now answered. She kept having to save their asses in Camelot and using dark magic to do so and it eventually added up. That's why in Storybrooke she's now off on vacation from saving duty and blamed them for it. I'm going to guess that each episode will now put one of them in peril forcing her to save them and puts her one step closer to full darkdom. Which kind of sucks narrative wise because it is redundant. She took on the DO initially to save them and she ended up embracing it because she was saving them again? I still say the original dark goo was Merlin's. He was probably trying to do good but ended up breaking some law that turned it into dark magic and voila we have the show. In the various legends Merlin was resigned to what his visions told him of the future but I don't think this one will. He was probably trying to change the future that screwed up everything.

The Cora we saw in Miller's Daughter that tricked Rump was brilliant! It didn't last very long though. I don't think she did anything particularly intelligent or creative in 2A or 2B present time. Besides shapeshifting with magic, she didn't really outsmart the princesses. Taking Aurora's heart was more magic too. Once she got to Storybrooke, it required Woegina being dumb and she beat Snowing purely with magic. I think Hook was smarter than she was in present time. Rump was also brilliant in S1-S2 but shortly after Miller's Daughter, he too got a lobotomy. Nothing he's done after stands out as smart and with all the retcons they've done, his actions in S1 now seem kind of dumb too. Every plan of his after required the other characters being dumb as bricks than him being clever. Pan was entertaining but nothing stands out to me as being really clever on the level of S1 Rump (pre retcons) or Cora tricking Rump. Now I love Ingrid but how was Ingrid clever? She let a teen get away from her and then spent the next 15 or so years sitting on her ass selling ice cream. Her big plan to get Emma and Elsa to be her sisters failed on every level and was really amateurish. I don't even know what the hell she was doing with the ribbons of nonsense. Now she did manage to pull dumb Emma's strings but that plan backfired on her as it sent Emma straight to Rump. I will throw an honorable mention to Snow's out all "super villainy" in taking out Cora. Now that too was smart. Too bad she's had to pay for it ever since.

I'll take my reply to the villains thread.