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).

Yes. LOTS of Stephen King's stories are set in Maine, "It" included.

He was still talking about The Last Jedi there, not Rogue One.

I dunno, given the litany of horrible things Rumple did to both his wives and both his sons, plus his grandson and extended family, she's got some serious competition.

Here it is, btw, the line in question is on Page 34 . Also, Graham was meant to be Sherlock Holmes in this draft, hence the emphasis on him as British, the love of pixie sticks, the "pounding on pavement" line, etc.

There was an early version of the pilot put online where Emma was named "Anna", and a big change is that Mayor Mills does not have the same persona that the Evil Queen does - she's shown as a nicer, more relatable person, with A&E (in their usual writing style where they tell us how we should be feeling) write "unlike her fairy tale counterpart, we find that we REALLY LIKE THIS WOMAN." Basically, she'd be more like how Fiona portrayed herself as the Mayor in "The Final Battle". Whether this was just an act, a cursed personality, or if it was meant to be Regina's "true self" and the Evil Queen persona was just a false front all along thus making her a misunderstood heroine, I do not know. They got him into it when Cinderella tricked him into paralyzing himself with Squid Ink (or at least, she thought she did), and he couldn't escape because it was made from magic-restricting materials. Of course, we later learn that he COULD have escaped it because he had Squid Ink hidden on him that could've dissolved the bars, but he didn't because he actually wanted to be in that cell, and thus Team Princess was able to use the Squid Ink to dissolve the bars instead when Cora and Hook had them trapped there. Also, why should we feel happy that Belle is being brought back together with her abusive husband? And no, it does NOT "bring out the best in Rumple" since he ends up betraying everyone and joining his mother to help cast the Dark Curse. Which he is then nonsensically absolved of just because he turns on her after she doesn't live up to her end of the bargain, and does something solely for the benefit of his own wife and kid, not for anyone else he's harmed. Tiger Lily's main significance was inadvertently causing Fiona to become the Black Fairy because she was a dumbass. Also, her origin was literally a carbon-copy of Tinker Bell's: was once a fairy, but now isn't and lives in Neverland. So "unexpected". A&E have said that Snow, Emma, Regina and Henry are "the hearts of the show" at various points. So, which is it, guys? It can only have one heart. The first part of that statement is an insultingly blatant lie. I can name a number of character deaths, from Graham's and onward, where they never "found the hope and the fun" afterward. And yeah, they find it "hopeful and fun" that now everyone is best friends with the person who caused so much irreparable harm on their lives. Of course.

Or if you wanted to redeem her through having her realize that she was crazy and completely wrong in who she assigned blame to. But bizarrely, that never happened.

Rumple said it in the series finale: "You don't do the right thing for a reward. You do it because it's right." If you're only doing good to get into Heaven, you're doing it wrong. Srsly, the notion that "you shouldn't bother being a good person if you can get the reward of Heaven either way" is just as morally troubling as anything on the show, IMO. Also, Cora was evidently tortured by Hades for a long time if a remark of his in 5x16 is to be believed, so it's not like she never suffered after death. And I don't think that Cora would have gotten into Heaven if she tried it any time before she actually did - she got in because she reconciled Zelena and Regina with herself and themselves, and also seemed repentant of all her evil, outright saying that if she does go to Hell than it's what she deserves after the things she's done (it was the same thing with Liam in 5x15).

True. Emma electing to sacrifice herself in order to save everyone and everything COULD have been great had it not been for all the other times the show had denied her any action before. The S5 finale of Buffy worked because Buffy was always allowed to be an active hero and kill the bad guys, and it makes it all the more special when this time that can't resolve the situation at hand and her sacrificing her own life has to instead. If Emma had allowed to be more like Buffy and actually resolve problems through decisive action and killing her enemies before, then her acceptance of death would hold real significance to it. Also, she should've been the one to kill the Black Fairy.

The ONLY three times the "heroes don't kill" thing was actually valid were: 1. Regina stopping Gold from killing Zelena, who was now defenseless and neutralized as a threat, so killing her would just be straight-up murder. 2. Merlin begging for Nimue to not kill Vortigan, since she'd be doing so with holy power and doing that would corrupt both it and her. 3. Emma not killing Gideon, making it clear that she could but refusing because she wanted to save him as well as everyone/everything else since he was a controlled innocent. Had she just killed him, she would be no better than Regina and how she handled the Count of Monte Cristo situation (finally that stupid episode gains some relevance!) Every other time it came up (Cora, Cruella, etc.) was just nonsense. It was especially bad when Snow evidently felt more guilty about killing Cora, a mass-murdering psychopath, than she did at almost killing Mulan back in 2x08 (seriously, rewatch that episode and that moment near the end - she was actually gonna freaking do it!)

You could still have 3A, 3B and 4A, even if in modified forms. But yeah, 4B, S5, S6 and S7 would all be rendered impossible.