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It was a total "make it up as you go along" development, since one would think Cora would also have put a spell on her heart, so she cannot be controlled with it. But then it idiotic Snow-dark-heart-dilemma couldn't have happened. The writers are really something, eh?

I've been annoyed by this since Season 1, since they construct a lot of their stories and entire arcs almost reliant on the fact that the protagonist would be being bamboozled. For example, having Emma fall for Sidney's fake alliance would be a prime example in S1... so frustrating to watch. And it only got worse from there, with the advent of dopplegangers who are actually Cora and Zelena, to obviously shady people (Greg Mendel, Zelena the midwife) sneaking around while the "good guys" are oblivious, to the good guys never approaching any situation with an intelligent and well thought-out plan (eg. just walking into Peter Pan's camp... oh goody, he's not here, or Zelena's easy stroll through the hospital hallway confronting such formidable foes as Belle in her high heels).

I'll give them hotheaded, based on the hot pink hair dye.

Unfortunately, that's why it won't happen soon. 4A will be Regina trying to stay away from Robin, to do the "noble" thing (maybe with a sprinkling of the horrible "forbidden love" that the writers gave us with Mary Margaret and David in S1), while taking out her anger on Emma and Snow/Charming. Maybe they will have Emma give Henry more time with Regina since she feels so sad, and in the meantime, this will give lots of time for Emma/Hook smooching and bickering. Meanwhile, in the E plot every second episode, David and Snow can play out some wacky baby hijinks from a sitcom playbook. Meanwhile, we will either see Marion being evil and crushing powder into tea for Robin as she goes about her sinister convoluted plan of whatever she's trying to do (but Emma suspects something! you know, superpower but no proof), and then she's outed towards the end of 4A. If she's good, she will die towards the end of 4A. Then 4B will be Robin grieving, so he has to hold Regina at arm's length, which will still cause her so much pain. More crying ensues. Meanwhile Cruella de Vil wants to turn the entire town into Dalmatian puppies for her fur coat factory, which can be accomplished once she gets the scroll for the Curse. Throw a few ingredients to replace "input fake identities" with "input alternate species" and voilà. The smoke envelopes the town just as Robin finally decides he is ready to tell Regina that he wants to begin a life with her, but then they both turn into dogs. Meanwhile, Snow and Charming think the smoke is from their hilariously hapless attempts to make brownies in a totally irrelevant storyline. Fade to black.

I wouldn't put it past the writers, retrograde. Since they love body-switch storylines, I even considered Marion being Cora (that one unlikely since we saw her die) or Maleficient. Zelena's defeat felt very anti-climatic, so it makes sense she could come back. My main question would be - how would they explain how Zelena could have survived being smashed into a million pieces by Rumple's cane? That would mean she already knew Rumple would try to kill her and found a loophole to avoid it? I think Mader did a decent job as Zelena, but frankly, I never want to see her again. She already ate so much screentime.

Me too. That's one of the biggest reasons I was so disappointed in 3B. They didn't even throw us *one* crumb. I summon Angry Birds to please descend upon the writer's room and deliver our message.

For me, this episode still ranks in the top 3 episodes that this show has ever produced. Suddenly, they managed to make the Sheriff into a three-dimensional character who had a lot of issues to work through, plus this episode really showed how much chemistry he had with Emma. The flashback dove-tailed perfectly with the present-day story, weaving together the characters and really putting Emma on the spot to believe or not to believe, to open up or not to open up. The headwriters patted themselves on the back for killing off a major character and telling a story with "stakes", but it's nothing new or special. Almost every sci-fi/fantasy/adventure series I've watched in the last 8 years have killed off characters for "shock value" and then they go on the interview circuit afterwards, they congratulate themselves on being edgy. I think it's the lazy way out a lot of the times. So a character FINALLY remembers their Enchanted Forest past, and conveniently, they get killed off, and then we can continue to keep everyone in the dark. At the end of the episode, I was so excited to see how Emma would respond in the next episode, but Having said that, the pacing and the acting in this episode were superb. If anything, it's easier to write a death episode since you have built-in emotion, and they did a good job of making Graham's backstory tragic yet tie in with the Snow White tale. It was a stupid mistake, though, to throw away the male character Emma had the most chemistry with, but it was obvious that

What we saw onscreen were the relevant scenes where Snow and Charming realized for the first time that Emma might be the only person in the world who is able to save their baby, which doesn't necessarily imply that they didn't care about Emma. I'm definitely angry about how they pushed the Charmings to the background and gave everyone else emotional scenes (especially Regina) on missing their loved ones, but it is also not fair to disregard what we already know and have seen from Snow and Charming in the past and then draw a conclusion which contradicts those basic tenets of their personality. The actors who play Snow and Charming would have acted the hell out of that, for sure. But it goes back to their priorities being more about redemption of the villains.

I don't think Snow and Charming are anywhere near that horrible to Emma. And I don't think Emma has such low standards (except with Regina, but everyone has low standards with Regina). It was clear how proud Snow and Charming were of Emma in "Lost Girl" when she was trying to work the map Peter Pan gave her. It was clear how much Snow wanted to be there for Emma, but also wanted to give Emma the space she wanted in "Nasty Habits". It was obvious how much Snow and Charming wanted to believe that the events of "Going Home" could give Emma a happy life, even if it wasn't what she expected. While Emma did have a horrible childhood, I love that Emma is not weak enough to be jealous that her parents are more concerned over a newborn during a pregnancy where their baby is being threatened by a Wicked Witch.

I rewatched "New York City Serenade" / "Witch Hunt" recently, and yes, it was really disappointing. One of the things I was looking forward to, was Snow and Charming reacting to losing Emma. Except there was nothing. The screentime was spent on how Regina reacting to losing Henry, that she wanted to bury her heart (in "New York City Serenade") and give herself a sleeping spell (in "Witch Hunt"). I wish there was a way to get across to the writers that this was not okay. I agree. I don't doubt that Snow and Charming still love Emma very much, despite how they were portrayed in 3B. That is just who they are as people, and while I'm deeply disappointed at how the show has shown the Emma/Snow/Charming dynamic (or NOT shown their dynamic) in 3B, I don't think Emma blames them at all for dragging her back to be the "saviour" for her little brother.

I was against the concept of Sheldon getting a girlfriend, but I think they have done a good job with Amy, since I didn't mind it as much as I thought I would. Still, I don't want it to progress to a sexual relationship. Sheldon's asexualness is one of the unique aspects of him that I don't think should be changed. That would be a complete 'jump the shark' moment for me, if they did sleep together.

This article also says "Galavant" will be a midseason replacement during "Once" hiatus, which means the season will be split in half, which means narratively, they will likely tell two stories. Let's just hope this time, there's more continuity between the 2 halves. http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/05/13/abc-fall-schedule-2014/9033673/

I think someone suggested before maybe Rumple would make a deal with Elsa's parents. He would replace the role of the trolls. So one of Elsa's backstories would be combined with a Rumple flashback, sort of akin to the Zelena/Rumple flashback episode. Worst case scenario is Cora had another child and it's Elsa, LOL. Maybe a secret child with Leopold. And Regina is Anna, who must open her heart again to love after being rejected by Robin Hood. Or what about Elsa being Rumple's seemingly evil but actually misunderstood mother, who he ended up sealing inside an urn. And she helps him to get over losing a child once they work through all their misunderstandings.

I wish she could get a fully platonic friend too. In an interview when asked about Emma and friendships, Kitsis said that Hook was her friend.

I was expecting the worse as well, so I generally felt relief, but for me, I felt it became about her family literally only at the end of the day, with Snow "dying". I just wasn't satisfied with that one event changing everything. There were some short, nice, precursor moments, such as Emma's expression when she first saw Snow and Charming in the Enchanted Forest, but it was too little for me. Because they had done little with Emma/Charming until S3, it was fresh and new and they could *start* building. With Snow, they started in S1 and so by now, they don't know how to continue to progress, so they regress, and as you said, they use Snow as a prop for the Regina redemption story. The writers felt they needed to go backwards with Snow/Emma to make this "There's no place like home" revelation work.

The episode and arguably the entire third season in regards to Emma's arc was more about Emma and Hook than about Emma and her parents, which they just want to give lip service to. Once again, it shows the writers' priorities and what they care more about. It would have been possible to do both. As Emma said, even minor tweaking would have made it a whole lot satisfying.

Quote from Mari in another thread: I think they will need to be a little more careful with "Frozen" since it's so recent, people would know the plot well and Disney would want to approve any changes. With Neverland and Oz, I doubt they were restrained in any way. As you said, Oz in particular and also Peter Pan, it was a vague, surface treatment of the original story, then making it fit their plot.

Replying in Non-spoiler speculation.

I sympathesize about the snark! Although I am critical of the show, my cousin used to hang around when it's on, not really watching, but just interjecting obnoxious comments about how dumb everything is. I think extras tend to only appear on the DVDs, unfortunately. Maybe you could just watch the DVDs on the computer? Would that work?

Are they doing "Frozen" for the entire season? That might be better than 2 completely separate arcs like in 3A and 3B, which required double the setup and thus double the screentime for the villain. The complex part in this case is Elsa isn't even a real villain, so they will need a new "big bad" in the back-half anyhow. I think so too. Unfortunately, they'll be sidelined no matter what they want.

I agree... I wouldn't hold my breath, though. Peter Pan and Zelena got way too much screentime, and by extension, Rumple and Regina respectively. I suppose it would all depend on which main character Elsa is paired with (or related to DNA-wise, knowing this show). If it's Rumple or Regina again, then it'll be similar to 3A and 3B. We know that one connection would be Rumple with Elsa since her urn was in his possession. Maybe he and Elsa will together learn to "let it go", since the writers indicated Rumple will be learning to deal with Neal dying. Maybe both Elsa and Belle will be in love with Rumple, and he too can get the romance treatment like Regina did in 3B. Regina will probably be busy with the Robin/Marion triangle, so hopefully she's out. Emma will probably be having adventures with Hook. Snow and Charming will probably alternate babysitting, maybe given the comic relief D plots where the baby vomits all over them, or they have to change a diaper. Hilarity ensues. Not.

The Wonderland spinoff is supposed to occur in the "Once" universe, so it should be consistent with the parent show. But I agree with the above, that it doesn't really work. I suppose time in Victorian Novel Land could work differently, but if anything, time there travels faster than Wonderland, since Alice came back from what she thought was a short trip, and her father said she was gone for a very long time. Maybe I'll just pretend that in Victorian Novel Land, time works like a book. When "pages" are not being turned, time stands still and no one ages. And sometimes, the pages are flipped fast and time rushes by. So the 28 years Will was in Storybrooke = the "year" Alice spent at the asylum.

Yes, that part I can understand. They never really "went there" with how Regina would have acted if Emma did decide she was going to leave Storybrooke. It would be selfish, but I wouldn't have blamed Emma if she missed the life with just Henry and her, and not sharing custody with Regina. It would have been even better for Regina's development if they didn't make Henry such a cheerleader, if they kept his attitude consistent with early Season 2, maybe with a little bit of thawing but without the full-on pom-poms. They also never "went there" with how Henry would have acted if Emma had insisted he go back with her to NYC. There is so much they COULD have explored with Emma and didn't, and this is not even including the mountain-load of awesome scenes she could have had with both Snow and Charming, both separately and together, during 3B.

Vaughan still got to watch the first episode, so maybe he was involved in some of the pre-planning. I'll spoiler-tag comments about that behind-the-scenes video, even though it didn't reveal much.

Maybe that's why Emma held on to what Neal said? Because she didn't experience it, so she went with and continued to look for what Neal described as "home". The problem I had is that Emma DID experience missing her parents and her life in Storybrooke when she was told they would all be taken away from her in "Going Home". And she looked devastated. So even if she had all those NYC memories, she should still have remembered that she didn't want to leave all the people she met in Storybrooke.