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Xander was the "every guy" and I liked him. It's a shame they didn't give him as much to do in some of the later seasons. I remember reading an interview where the actor expressed that disappointment.

Now that you mention it, they did it in both 3A (when he was off with his hallucination of Belle, and then with Pan) and 3B (with Zelena). Bad idea. Though I only enjoy his interactions with the others when he doesn't have the upperhand, but he usually does. They're all dumb and helpless, and only he has the key, but wait! It comes at a price! Just shut up already.

There are 7 photos from the premiere that CBS posted: http://www.cbs.com/shows/under-the-dome/photos/1001402/season-2-first-look/51588/ I've captioned them for convenience: #1: The garbage can has fallen over. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! #2: Town hanging gallows is built in record time but everyone collapses from exhaustion. Junior: Where does this wooden plank go? #3: Are you There Dome, It's Me, Jim. #4: Does everyone need a pick-me-up after the latest Dome-induced coma? #5: Hi, I've been here the whole time. #6: No, there's no more shampoo so we all have limp hair. #7: The Dance of the Metal Objects, by Dome.

Rumple definitely more purposeful, and I agree about that village scenario. Still, he derives definite pleasure from playing with people's emotions and manipulating them, and that's disgusting too. That's why I don't like any of the villains, no matter how many sob stories the writers pull out of their you know where. Granted, Rumple and Regina both have their moments where I can feel slightly for them, partly due to the acting. Pan, Cora and Zelena all leave me cold, and their full-of-themselves monologues put me to sleep.

Both Pan and Cora were sociopaths and despicable, and giant vault of hearts, murdering hundreds of people in cold blood and turning them into zombie armies vs kidnapping children, all are equally disgusting though at least Pan kept them alive (for what that's worth, and all the Lost Boys did fit on one ship). Unfortunately, I don't find Cora relatable at all.

They're both bad, but I found Elderly Cora even more despicable. Yes, Pan didn't love Rumple whereas Cora supposedly loved Regina, but Cora massacred an entire safe haven and threw Johanna off the clocktower, even though she already had what she wanted, and of course killing Eva. Talk about petty and pathetic. The only "good guy" we saw Peter Pan (or his shadow) "kill" was Blue, and Henry, I suppose. As for the villains, I hate them all.

The actor said he didn't want to leave, so it was a producer/headwriter decision.

Totally random. Most of them aren't smiling or have any significant expression, and in some, the character is looking to the side at who knows what.

That would be consistent with the Alice situation. His answer was about as clear as mud. And why even mention Cora and Hook, since they were in the Enchanted Forest. So Oz and Victorian Novel World are "protected realms that stay in stasis"? Just because? Not a good sign when you need an explanation for an explanation.

That explanation didn't even make sense. What "protected realm"? And he said, "as we established"? Yeah with Cora and Hook, but what did Zelena have to do with it? If Zelena was in the Cora Dome, why not just say so? What does "a la Cora" mean? "By" Cora? "Like" Cora? But if so, who put up the protected dome? Zelena herself? Oh right, since everyone and their granddaughter knows how to do that. Except Blue, the most ancient power.

Exactly. Even if it was a knee-jerk reaction, she could have expressed anger without bringing Snow into it. Using Snow as a prop for Regina's redemption was one emotional arc they *did* spend time on, but that single line to Emma erased any progress made. And when an entire episode was spent on that said progress, what a waste.

I think you accidentally figured out Adam and Eddy's plans for Season 6.

Really? I like to hand over my heart after the first date.

I think I blocked that from my memory as well. From my hazy memory, Regina just put the pieces together after finding out Zelena was her sister by Cora and that Rumple also taught Zelena. Then, they revealed Regina had read that letter many times as quiet comfort after Cora died, thinking she was the subject of the letter. Excuse me while I go cry a little.

I am curious to know what their actual biggest regret from S2 is, since they sure repeated a lot of the same mistakes again in S3. For me, the only major thing they did fix in Season 3 was to provide Regina, Rumple and Hook with a mostly linear redemption arc with screentime to develop the redemption and changes in their mindset or personality. Of course, the flip side was to hell with the other characters, but what else is new.

You know what? That one scene and Charming dancing with Emma at the beginning of the episode basically made "The Tower" one of my favorite episodes of 3B. Even though the rest of the episode actually wasn't that great (as I realized when I rewatched recently with the friend who only catches up when she visits). That's the thing with this show. When it's good, it's so good. Even though that goodness actually lasts 2 minutes in a 40 minute episode.

As stealinghome said in the past, that episode should logically have ended with a conversation between Emma and Charming, with her reaffiriming that he wasn't a failure as a father, that she didn't blame him and that she has faith in him. I know Emma and Hook have chemistry, but by spending more than half of Emma's already limited screentime in Season 3 on romance, they shortchanged the parental relationship. And in that episode, all it would have taken was one scene. And they're still digging the hole. I don't think shaking the writers would help. Their regret after Season 2 was not that they had Regina massacre a village, or that they did not have scenes with Emma/Charming/Snow and their family relationship, or the list of one hundred and one problems with plot, character development and pacing. It was giving Tamara a taser.

So comparing the finale of each "season"... An Apple Red As Blood / A Land Without Magic I loved the Henry eating the apple turnover moment... I thought that penultimate episode was better structured and more effective than the follow-through in the finale. Second Star To the Right / ...And Straight On Til Morning Season 2 had a horrible back third and a bad finale, but if I had to choose between the penultimate episode and the finale, I would also go with the penultimate one "Second Star to the Right"... .the flashbacks were a nice twist on Wendy and the Darlings with a side of Bae, and there were some nice scenes with Emma and Neal. The New Neverland / Going Home 3A's finale... I will have to rewatch "A New Neverland" since I don't really remember it too well, but "Going Home" feels more memorable because of the heart-wrenching ending. I rewatched it recently with a friend, and the Peter Pan/Rumple stuff in "Going Home" really bored me the second time around. A Curious Thing / Kansas (I'm going to disregard the last two episodes since they were practically stand-alone) The ending episode to the Zelena arc ("Kansas") totally sucked. I think I preferred "A Curious Thing" to that, if only because of the momentum of getting Henry to remember (and the internal struggle Emma was clearly going through) and also the well acted Snow and Charming flashback, which had a spice of humor with Regina.

It didn't have to be a slog, though. They didn't need to try to kill time. Emma's progression of belief could have been a little more gradual instead of nothing, nothing, a little, back to nothing, more nothing, nothing, wham, believe everything, realize Mary Margaret and David are actually her parents, realize Mary Margaret and David are actually Snow White and Prince Charming, confront Regina, have everything confirmed, break the Curse.

I agree... I actually felt a lack of payoff in the season finale for this very reason. Though of course, the even bigger lack of payoff was still to come at that point. This was actually what I really expected would happen in the Season 1 finale. This is what I actually expected: Season 2A: Emma would believe but Regina wouldn't know, and Emma would try to get various people in town, especially her parents to believe. Right before winter break, she would finally get someone to believe - either Charming or Snow. Season 2B: That first person would help Emma with an underground movement, getting more and more people to believe, and then everyone would believe in season finale, which is when Charming and Snow would both remember. That would be a long wait, so they would have needed to be *really* skilled at writing. If Charming knew, he could try to court Mary Margaret, without the irritating adultery stuff. This would have been a long time to wait for Emma, Charming and Snow to begin their journey as a family unit, but we never even got that anyway. If they had done in S2 what KAOS Agent suggested above (actually follow-through on the multitudes of ramifications from the S1 events), the breaking of the Curse at the end of S1 could have worked. That would have made a huge difference, especially in 2B. In some ways, 2A wasn't as bad. Still completely lacking in payoff, but not horrible. They delayed having Emma/Snow/Charming actually unite by separating them in the first episode, so it wasn't until 3B where it was clear they weren't even going to bother to address them. Plus on top of that, they had Regina regress like a yo-yo, while the "good guys" acted as dumb as doorknobs.

Her response was so eloquent. I don't buy the BS that the writers gave about why they needed to kill off Neal, but that was not up to Jennifer Morrison. She can only work with what she is given, and based on her past comments, I presume that she also wanted more scenes with Snow and Charming.

In S1, the lack of magic and the need for subtlety in Regina & Rumple in Storybrooke, plus the procedural nature, forced it more into a character-based drama. Starting with S2, the plot was all about a flamboyant, larger than life threat who/which might kill/destroy everyone (first Cora, then the fail-safe, then Peter Pan, then Zelena). Once was already popular with the younger crowd in S1: http://www.vulture.com/2011/11/once-upon-a-time-is-a-rare-hit-with-the-whole-family.html

This applied to the second Curse as well. They felt they had just said goodbye to Emma at the Town Line. Snow also woke up already 9 months pregnant, which would have been unsettling for her. I don't like it, but to me, it explains why they were all about the new baby and less about Emma in 3B. So many missed opportunities for Emma/Snow and Emma/Charming bonding since 3B would have been perfect for that after pointless trek after pointless trek in 3A.

You're right about the actors making it work, just like so much about this show. But conceptually, why? I can only think of two reasons (1) "surprise" factor... Snow and Charming would be the last person you would think (2) Dragging Snow and Charming through the mud x 384928. So even THEY would enact the dark curse that even Maleficient wouldn't touch. Regina isn't so bad at all. I tend to think it's just the writers' real personalities showing through. It still wasn't that kid friendly... Safe Haven massacre, for example.

As much as I hated the whole dumb Snow-dark-heart thing, that was significant enough to require a follow-up. Yet there was absolutely nothing in S3 about that. I mean, that Door for the pure of heart would have been a good time to deal with it, or to resolve that Snow has healed her heart. But now that I think more about it, Zelena trapped Glinda there. Why would she bother with a True-of-Heart requirement for the door?