Inquirer

Actually, the only time it says they're the "White King and Queen" is in the epilogue (years after both Wonderland and the parent show); in the direct aftermath of Wonderland Ana would still be the Red Queen. And there isn't such thing as "reverting to being the Red Queen" because the Red Queen isn't an inherently evil title; after all, the guy she married to become that was called the Red King and, while not a good person, he wasn't evil. From what I can gather from the dialogue they had him say, the plot they were building up in Season 4 is that Will ditched Ana this time around due to self-worth issues about marrying her and becoming a king, like for some reason he thinks he isn't good enough for her and that a lowly thief is all he'll ever be. Which is just as nonsensical as a plot where Ana regresses, honestly, since there is absolutely nothing in Will's development, his speech to Ana about True Love, or how he was acting at the end of Wonderland that suggests he'd have those kinds of issues. Even their attempt at negating it in Season 6 was laughable: Ana not being one of the two stepsisters in that episode meant nothing given that in the "Heart of Stone" episode, Ana's mother says "at least I still have your sisters" (plural; and Cinderella obviously wouldn't be counted among that since Lady Tremaine was never thankful to have her), so it could just be that there were three stepsisters for Cinderella / Ashley instead of two. Ana's mother being played by a different actress than Lady Tremaine's in Season 6 also meant nothing, since Jafar in that very season was also being played by a different actor and he was clearly the same character.

I believe the last time on the parent show where the heroes were allowed to be consistently smart and proactive and make plans was the Neverland arc. There was a lot of "heroes make/attempt plan" and "Pan goes 'Oh yeah? Here's my counter-plan to that'" and "heroes go 'Oh rly? Then we'll do this counter-plan of our own'" and so on and so forth, and it actually felt like there was an actual struggle and battle of wills / wits going on. It was to the point where literally the only thing stopping the heroes from flat-out triumphing over Pan in 3x08 was Henry being the Truest Idiot, and where the only reason things didn't go without a hitch for them in 3x11 was because Rumple forgot one small detail (that Pan made the magic suppressing cuff, so it wouldn't work on him). Afterward, it was always the heroes triumphing at the last possible minute because they were so incompetent at stopping the villains from getting to the point of near-victory, sometimes outright letting them get to that point under the excuse of "we have hope that we can stop them even when they're 99% close to winning" (ex: allowing the Black Fairy to cast her perfected Dark Curse.)

No, it was actually stupider than that - she tried to cure his dad's blindness, but the dad refused and said under no circumstances would he accept a cure from her after learning how she had left his children to die. Zelena then gets mad and throws the cure into the fireplace before turning to leave. That's when Hansel is all "how DARE you throw away the thing that my dad just said he wasn't accepting under any circumstances!" and came at her with a poker. I'm not trying to victim-blame or excuse Zelena's actions, but geez was Hansel too stupid to live.

Not to excuse the awful writing that doesn't make anything clear, but I actually don't think that timeline discrepancies are a problem with the Wish Realm: it was created by a genie's power, which can transcend time and space. It basically did not exist until the wish was made, but once it did exist it was as though it had always existed, which means the timeline got retconned in much the same way it did with the Season 3 finale. It was created, but that never meant it wasn't real, it always was in spite of what Regina thought.

I recently did a rewatch and this is what I came away with: The "evil that did the right thing" was indeed Rumple, and him getting Gideon's heart actually did change something in spite of what his Dark One side made him believe - he specifically says "Don't kill Emma Swan" when holding the heart, and while the Black Fairy's failsafe spell made it so that Gideon couldn't lose the compulsion to kill her, Rumple's order is what made it so that he made her "magic dead" instead of "ordinary dead". It didn't fully break the control he was under, but it made him land an ultimately reversible blow at the moment of truth. Emma, meanwhile, did the right thing by allowing Gideon to stab her rather than stabbing him or getting stabbed by him in mutual combat, which is more iffy...I agree that Emma shouldn't kill him since he's under control and remorseful about what he's doing (also, Regina WAS darkened when she killed the Count, the Evil Queen outright pointed that out and mocked Regina for basically splitting herself in two for nothing), but I feel there could have been ways to non-lethally defeat and detain him rather than just letting herself get killed. But yeah, they really needed to slow the Hell down and make this stuff clear. Because it only works if the Savior is killed within the "perfected" Dark Curse, apparently, which Jafar didn't have.

Years later and my thoughts remain unchanged: this 7-season show peaked with the first half of its 3rd season (although the season finale, totally divorced from all the Wicked arc's bs, was really good too, and the actual "Frozen" stuff in 4A was tolerable). I guess all the best writers and staff members left at around that point.

Jared Gilmore is an anime villain voice-actor now. I actually watched and he is really chilling with his line-reading. I think it was noted that on OUAT, Jared shined when he was "Panry" at the end of 3A and "dark" Prince Henry in the series finale, so I think playing villains is definitely something he should do more of going forward.

To those interested, thefutoncritic confirms that this episode and the following finale are designated as Episode 612 and 613 respectively. That means that the original vision for the season had them coming directly off of the 11th episode (the one with the Moriarty vs. Morland conflict). The 8 episodes in between then and now (designated as 614 through 621) were all a result of the network extending the season. If it wasn't for that decision, this season's pacing would have felt a lot smoother than it has. Oh well...

I loved the cameo, because it showed the consequences his face turn and actions in the S1 finale - almost killing one of her parents - have on Rapunzel. In S1, Rapunzel's worst nightmare was Gothel returning and trapping her in a tower again - now, her worst nightmare is Varian returning to destroy her family out of a misplaced desire for vengeance. Also, I appreciate that the show, even in an illusion, still doesn't pull any punches on how twisted and psychotic he's become, with Jeremy Jordan selling it perfectly.

This does not seem to be the case - this site confirms that everything up to this episode was the right production number (this one being 611), only for the following episode to be 614 and in continuing from there. This means that "Episode 20" and "Episode 21" are likely going to be 612 and 613, and will be a two-parter resolving Michael. That, or "Episode 19" and "Episode 20" are 612 and 613, and the season ends on a newly-made standalone leading into Season 7. But that's less likely, IMO.

I think the two halves of Season 5 actually did it OK, since the second episode of 5A introduced the Underworld concept and had other Greek mythology stuff such as the Holy Grail being from the gods and the Promtheum Flame being needed to reforge Excalibur, the 5A finale led very directly into 5B (with the whole "save Hook" mission), and the last Underworld episode before the completely unrelated two-part season finale had King Arthur as a major character who found redemption. By contrast, Season 3's halves were only connected by the "Home" theme, and Season 4's halves were only connected by the horrible Author plot which took a major backseat during the Frozen arc of 4A. Nah, it's not - not unless the show itself starts validating his victim complex, which I don't think it will. Its writers are smarter than OUAT's. Something that many kids who were in school with Donald Trump have actually grown up to experience. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.

So here they are basically admitting that Emma's final scene in the series....is all about Regina, and "how far Regina's come", and that it "symbolizes the whole series". Some other gems: and You did a HORRIBLE job building to this, both long-term (due to Regina's terrible quasi-redemption) and short term (HOW was the end of the season geared to reach this point? It literally comes out of nowhere.) Wow, so the interviewer seems to imply that Sir Henry, who was "so dark" because he wanted justice for his grandparents and his own ruined life, maybe should NOT have been redeemed in the end and just gotten killed off. As opposed, of course, to said murderer of his grandparents and ruiner of his life. A&E really seem to forget that Rogers was NOT OG Hook like they probably initially wanted him to be - he was never Rumple's enemy. Yeah, I've...got no comment here.

Even in Season 1, this ends up making no sense since Charming asks Abigail "did you try TLK" on Fredrick, so he IS aware of it. EDIT: Ninja'd by Shanna Marie on that point. XD

That's true. I always loved that about that last episode with him, btw....he starts off teaming up with Hook solely because Hook points out that he'll probably end up in Hell given what he has done unless he redeems himself, and Arthur wants to go to Heaven. But as the quest goes on, Arthur starts getting really invested, to the point where he tells Hook to leave him to get dragged into the River of Lost Souls and go get the story book. And at the end, there's a portal to Heaven right there, but he forsakes his whole original motive for this ordeal because he now realizes that he wants to KEEP redeeming himself and being a better man and king, and that the Underworld (particularly the lost souls in the river) need help from a just ruler, and so he stays behind rather than move on. That's exactly the kind of redemption I can get behind (see also: Ingrid.)

She did actually regret murdering her father by 5x12, crying and telling him she's sorry in the Underworld. Which is more than ever she did for Snow. Technically, everything Rumple did was for himself too. Bae did not benefit from Rumple finding him, in fact he was terrified of the prospect and didn't want it. Finding Bae was so that Rumple could feel better about himself, it wasn't some grand goal to keep Bae safe from any form of danger (which is also what he positioned his becoming the DO as, but if that was the case he could've saved Bae through controlling Zoso. Killing Zoso and taking his power was simply because Rumple desired power, thinking it would make him not be a coward anymore, with the core tragedy of his character being that it didn't. If anything, it made him more of one. He even summed it up perfectly in 7x22.) Agreed with this comment completely. Regina's is REALLY weak by comparison, especially since she was born into power and only had one person who really hurt her (Cora).