Camera One

If that's the case, could everyone have just fled the Enchanted Forest and taken refuge in Arendelle to escape Regina's first Curse? Or did that reduced geographical range only apply to the second Curse? And if so, why? And if they could reduce the geographical range, why not just restrict the range to Pointy Castle, and everyone else in the Enchanted Forest could stay put?

I wrote this in the episode thread, but for the first time that I remember, they intimated that the "Enchanted Forest" was not a world/realm by itself. It's in the same "world" as Arendelle since Anna sailed to the Enchanted Forest on a ship. So what is the entire "world" called? Is the Enchanted Forest considered "enchanted" because there is more magic there than in other places? Is Agrabah from "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" part of the same world as the Enchanted Forest? If Arendelle is in the same world as the Enchanted Forest, then presumably Arendelle's people were also taken over with the Curse? Or did the Curse only affect the people in the Enchanted Forest? I expect this question to be answered, at the very least.

I finally got around to watching the first episode. I found this batch of contestants rather abrasive, with a couple of annoyingly arrogant teams and several clearly mugging for the cameras. Enough already with the stunt-casting. The dentists were so full of themselves, though I actually do give him props for helping two teams when he was sure he would be first. I wonder if he's nice or he can't help himself since his intelligence is so superior over the others. I do hope contestants are allowed to bring a compass with them on the race, since I always have one when I'm travelling and I find them so useful. I think I would have been really confused about that reverse compass they had on the show, though. For once, I was quite happy with the team who was eliminated first. Karma really bit them, hard. I was a tad disappointed in the firefighters for giving up at the end. I expected them to blow through the challenge, but he wasn't even measuring with the shovel and was using steps to measure distance. The surfer guy took so long even after the dentist guy told him how to use the compass, and how did the wrestler guy get it so quickly when the flight attendant mom taught him how to use the compass?

LOL, skipping Regina is not allowed.

I am actually quite interested in how he develops as he tries to deal with his parents' deaths, and how he ultimately took the paths towards Batman. He will have an impact on Gordon, who is the main character of this show. The writers have made it so that Bruce will have some discretion over how money is spent so as he grows into teenhood, he will probably exert some power or have ideas about how he wants to exert power. The good thing with an ensemble show is that different people would be interested in different characters to varying degrees. Bruce is probably one of the top three characters I'm interested in right now, so I'm glad he is in it.

Speaking of Henry, what was with the point of the line about Henry dealing with both his moms having new men in their lives. Has Snow seen evidence that Henry has a problem with his moms dating? He seemed impressed when he met Robin Hood, and he enjoyed spending time with Hook AND he was basically Emma's go-to confidant for boyfriend issues in New York. It seems like they couldn't care less what garbage lines they feed Snow.

This episode was rather boring. At the beginning, I thought it was neat that they did a bit of a reversal with Reese having Finch go out to investigate a number. But after that, it just started spiraling not like a nautilus but like waste water circling the drain. This is very rare for me, but this was one POI who just deserved to die. I could not feel any sympathy for her. She was an idiot and I actually didn't want Reese to take out all 15 guys trying to kill her while she wandered down one abandoned laneway after another not even realizing she had been saved much less show gratitude for it. It was clever to have Samaritan be running the game, but now we have to see Claire again. Blech.

I sure hope so. After what Regina has done to him, is he that love-obsessed with Regina that he's STILL willing to be her little henchman? She opens the door to the prison and all is forgotten? He is so pathetic. He had potential but I thought he was already wasted in Season 1 and there appears to be no change on the character direction upon his return to the show.

Rumple would have ensured the Curse happened no matter what Snow did. He would have found a way to prevent Snow from killing Regina in those two situations (he was in the crowd of the execution, so if Snow hadn't stopped the execution, he would have done something). He even conceived of that banish-Regina-and-she-can't-hurt-Snow-in-THIS-world contrivance, so Regina would turn her gaze to casting the Curse. If Regina died, Rumple would have used a spare. Just like Gandalf advised Frodo not to kill Gollum, and Dumbledore advised Harry Potter not to kill Wormtongue, in the Fairytale world, sparing someone's life when there are alternatives will pay off eventually, you just don't know when. With Cora's case, there were no alternative, and the threat was immediate. Cora had to be killed, or the entire family would have been dead.

Although I realized I was disappointed in 3A after my rewatch (I found it tedious to rewatch a second time), I do think "Lost Girl" and the ending of "Going Home" was very strong, and I also count "The New Neverland" as one of my favorites from 3A. I actually liked the flashback. It was a fun adventure with Snow and Charming, and I liked the message of enjoying the moments in between crises. There were also nice character scenes in this episode between several characters, including the one between Emma and Charming at the docks, plus it was just nice to be back in Storybrooke with quick cameo scenes from many characters. Evil Henry actually made Peter Pan interesting again. I have no problem with set-up episodes, and often, I find them better than the "big finale" which sometimes disappoints.

This season is basically built on secrets being spilled... - Edith's baby... already suspicions from Mrs. Hughes seeing Edith with fireman and then Mrs. Hughes and Anna seeing the baby photo - Bate's trip to London... now police investigation and again, Mrs. Hughes knows as well as Mary. Baxter seems to know something and Thomas wants to know. - as of this episode, Mary's secret trysts with Gillingham... Anna knows (for now) Baxter's secret is out, but I really hope we don't get the done-before storyline of Thomas framing her for stealing.

This is the timeline for Season 4 Episode 1: The episode begins immediately after the Season 3 finale, so it's still night-time. Emma follows Regina out (which would have occurred minutes after Regina first meets Marion in "There's No Place Like Home"), and there's that whole scene in front of the diner. Meanwhile, Leroy and Sleepy are in the truck driving and encounter Elsa, who freezes the vehicle. Then, the story picks up at daybreak when Elsa finally walks into town. This is the next morning at this point. So it's the morning after that Snow, Emma, etc. are along the sidewalk chatting, and Leroy runs to warn them about the freezing incident.

LOL at the careful movements comment. I guess I didn't mind the snow monster, because he pretty much looked like that in the animated movie. So whenever Elsa feels scared or frightened, he just pops out? So what if they didn't attack him, wouldn't he stop attacking back? As someone else mentioned above, they should have cut the electrical lines out if they wanted Regina to defeat him instead.

Not surprisingly, we never got to see an actual conversation between Robin and Marion alone, and instead got the next-morning-with-Regina talk. During which Robin Hood doesn't even question the fact that Regina had sentenced Marion to death without a trial. And he doesn't ask if Regina feels bad about it now. Because we know she doesn't. Apparently, none of those things are even an issue anymore, and not even 24 hours have passed.

I do find that kind of interesting as well, where Gordon's boss cared more about keeping the kidnapping from the press than about finding who the kidnappers were. She also seemed to condone Bullock's approach with threatening to beat that kid at the beginning of the episode. I liked this episode a lot more than the first one. Although some of the characters don't get too many scenes (Fish Mooney, Falcone, Bruce, etc.), the scenes they do have leave an impact. It was strange how the first half of the episode had a bunch of characters who did not appear in the second half. And the title of the episode was Selena Kyle, but she didn't really become the focus until the second half. It's such a weird way of structuring an episode. The characters which left the least impression were Barbara and the two special crimes unit detectives. Hopefully, they will get more play in the next episode since I don't feel like I know them at all. I'm not a huge fan of violence, so there were a few too many deaths for my tastes. Though at least most of the victims weren't completely innocent unlike that fisherman in the last episode. Selena's voice is a little strange, and her acting isn't as strong but her character is interesting since she looks so unique. I like how quiet she was escaping the school bus. The kid who played Bruce did a good job in this episode, and I do find him a weird mixture since he is so angry and disturbed but he talks to Gordon so formally and almost like an adult. There are some potentially intriguing interactions and that's what I find most attractive about this show. The crime of the week was decent, since they were able to incorporate so many characters in a meaningful way while revealing more of their motivations and the mythology, while at the same time keeping that one-off story afloat.

The kid is really messed up. Now I'm not sure either. Was he like this before the murder?

I'm glad the actor got a bit more to do in this second episode. I'm assuming he's trying to balance letting Bruce make his decisions and yet also being his guardian.

Unless you accidentally bump into his son... or you accidentally overhear his private conversations... or he needs something of yours... he too can be rather capricious. Regina's wrath has generally applied to anyone Snow-related/on Snow's side, her henchmen when they don't deliver, or someone who has something she needs/wants.

Yes... It is kind of funny how in front of Regina, it's all "oh are you okay?", and on their asides, Charming jokes about incineration, Henry asks if Regina is going to go evil again and Snow ponders seriously if Regina will do that "thing" she usually does, without much of the usual optimism. So really, deep down, none of them actually trust Regina. I might just fanwank that they all play up their rah rah rah Regina enthusiasm whenever they might die, since Regina (and Rumple) are the only ones with actual consistent magical power and they know Regina is unstable and needs constant positive reinforcement.

That comment was weird and made no sense, but I checked out that fan's twitter profile, and she actually doesn't usually tweet about "Once". She basically said it's no big deal and she usually tweets about food, and she did not further engage on the issue. Her profile says she is a "clinical psychology grad student", so maybe she just went overboard with the psychoanalyzing?

I don't think A&E has a clue that 3B sucked. Everything NOT "Frozen" in the Season 4 finale sucked in exactly the same ways, but these ratings will make them pat themselves on the back, and pretty much delay any sort of self-realization of the flaws of the show until a future ratings tank, or not even then.

Maybe not fun, but still sadistic satisfaction, such as when he killed Tamara and Zelena, and beating up the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Season 4 Episode 2 - Evil Mickey Mouse comes to Storybrooke to reclaim his hat. He steals Elsa's white gloves, making her magic go out of control, freezing the entire town. In flashbacks, we watch Anna's ship getting blown off-course. Instead of landing in the Enchanted Forest, she embarks on a mysterious land inhabited by Ronald McDonald and his friends Grimace and Hamburglar.

So I just watched the Recap Special (darn it for no other shows I could watch tonight). Eddy's expressionless reading of the script was a little unsettling. As I always say for recap shows, sometimes, it does make the show more exciting and better than it actually is. And the flashbacks are so perfect for recapping... I mean, they even included that brief scene of Emma at the foster home. From the show, it actually makes it seem like the show explored Emma's conception of home and it gave me the warm fuzzies mixed with raging anger making me want to throw teacups against the wall. Regina's story was told in a 7 minute stretch, all the way from "The Stable Boy", and it was quite sympathetically portrayed. From watching Daniel killed, to magic lessons with Rumple where "Regina was reluctant to embrace the Dark Side", with a recap of Tinkerbelle & Regina... there was only one brief scene from the Regina-hunting-Snow era, when she was giving that speech to the villagers about telling her where Snow is (from the S3 finale, not the village massacre episode). Then Eddy explained how in Storybrooke, Regina realized a life of revenge was empty. Exactly when did Regina come to this realization again? She might have found life in Storybrooke empty, but she certainly didn't realize seeking revenge was an empty experience. Plus she had no regrets. The Regina journey continued with her "join(ing) forces with the heroes" in Neverland and how when Peter Pan cast another Curse, "Regina stepped up". At this point, either A&E in the voiceover stated, "She had changed." Also at this point, I fell into a laughing fit. A few more great quotes. From Eddy: "She ended up making heroic decisions", as they recapped Regina and Robin Hood in the missing year. From narrator: "Regina had evolved but she found it difficult to let people in". So overall, the recap special really does make you feel badly for Regina, all about how she felt she would never get her happy ending. If you're wondering about the other characters: - Emma got ~2 min, 30 seconds for her story in the recap. Probably because there was no Nealfire to be seen or mentioned. - Rumple got ~5 min. Apparently, Belle's "superpower" is she can see the real person beneath everything. LOL. So it's all about the struggle "between his lust for power and his PURE love from Belle". Uh, if that's pure love, I don't want to see unpure love. - Snowing got ~5 min (hey, more than they got on the actual show!) - Zelena and 3B got ~5 min (not sure why they felt the need to recap Zelena's irrelevant sob story but not show Rumple killing her) - Season 3 Finale + Captain Swan were discussed together and got 6 min. "Emma never thought about the consequences of messing with time travel and the past"... riiiight... The brief scenes they included of Marion from the finale actually made her seem a little annoying. A&E ended by talking about home and saying that "these fairy tale characters are realizing this crazy town in Maine is their home." Huh? So now everyone has realized they want to stay? Since when? Let's end with a line which really resonated with me, from Adam: "What we were REALLY interested in, was... why was the Wicked Witch green?"

Well, if there's an upcoming episode called "The Yodeler", you know your idea has reached A&E.