Dani-Ellie

I would also like to add that a good mother doesn't pointedly ignore phone calls coming from the people who are taking care of her kid. Charming said they'd been trying to get a hold of her, which meant she ignored more than just that one phone call we saw her ignore (and roll her eyes at). Luckily all Henry had was a cut behind his ear, but what if he'd been hurt worse? What if he'd been in a car accident or what if the Snow Queen had taken him or done something to him? You'd think more than one phone call from the people taking care of her kid would have raised some kind of red flag.

Or Crazy Rumple could have been the result of Zelena forcing him to cast the Dark Curse and using Bae's heart to do it. Delicious bit of wickedness for Zelena, understandable sympathy for Rumple, same tragic ending for Neal.

This is where I fully boarded the good ship Captain Swan. I remember over the hiatus between seasons 2 and 3 thinking Captain Swan would be funny, just because of all the Apoplectic Daddy Charming that would be sure to result and I remember being kind of, "Aww" at Hook's "I quite fancy you from time to time, when you're not yelling at me" in "The Heart of the Truest Believer." But this right here, with the utter sincerity of Emma's thank you, Hook's teasing request for a kiss, and Emma Swan smirking in response and taking that bull by the horns (or, in this case, the pirate by the lapels), that was it for me. I boarded that ship and never looked back. ;)

That may very well be, but I've had someone tell me that Hook demanded a kiss from Emma as payment for saving David's life, which is not at all how it happened. Hook joked with her about getting a kiss in return for saving her father's life. He did not have her cornered or backed up against a wall; there was no demand. It was a joking conversation that Emma ultimately went along with of her own volition and free will. Then they argue that Emma's volition and free will are controlled by the writers, so Emma's agency doesn't matter. However, that also means Hook's actions and words are controlled by the writers, so they've just blown up their own argument. Because if everyone's actions are controlled by the writers, that's an entirely different argument than the one they're having. It's one thing to say, "This kind of writing is problematic because of Reasons X, Y, and Z." It's a completely different thing to say, "This character is problematic because of Reasons X, Y, and Z." One's meta-level and the other is text-level. Trying to combine the two into the same argument is never going to work because you're going to have people saying, "But all of the big developments of the relationship have been at Emma's initiation!" and pointing to in-show, canon examples and the opposition saying, "That's because the writers wrote it that way!" as a way to dismiss it.

I definitely agree with this. Or they stopped watching the show a season and a half ago but still insert themselves into debates about how Captain Swan is rape culture and Hook is awful when Emma's the one who's been setting the pace of the relationship. Only they don't know that because they stopped watching the show. The character has changed. The character has grown. His innuendo didn't get him anywhere, least of all with Emma. He got rolled eyes, glares, and jabs in his broken ribs. If Hook was still Captain Innuendo, winking at anyone in a skirt, and that got all the female characters all swoon-y, okay, fine. But not a single member of Team Princess was buying what that guy was selling. Season 2 Hook was an asshole, and the characters treated him as such.

This is why I want the Disney people to stay. Not so much to sideline Regina but to force some kind of non-Regina perspective into the narrative. Maybe the Disney people would have some ideas as to how to integrate a character like Regina, who was responsible for so much of the rest of the characters' suffering (no matter how much some people would like to pretend she wasn't), back into the fold without the victims having to apologize to their abuser but without Regina losing her snarky edge. Or maybe the Disney people would have some ideas as to how to give Regina some self-awareness that sticks and make her redemption an upward trajectory with a few little blips instead of being a freakin' pendulum swing. Because look, Ingrid was probably the most sympathetic villain this show has ever done. Her motivation made sense to me because it was coming from a place of pain, denial, and, most importantly, guilt. I don't at all condone what she did but I can definitely see how killing her own sister with magic she couldn't control would have led her down this path. It was such a heartbreaking thing, and wherever that idea came from, it was absolutely brilliant. Judging by previous villain/character motivations on this show, I'm guessing it was Disney. I already highlighted what I loved about her redemption via death above, so I won't repeat, but even that was just so unlike anything this show has done and frankly, it was wonderful. I think this is part and parcel of the big problem: there's no real interest in the aftermath of the plots, only the plots themselves. Snow and Emma fixing their issues would have been wonderful to see. Elsa could even have given Snow a little bit more of a nudge since her own parents were pretty much the poster children for what not to do with a magical child. But nope, a "please don't change" and a hug and poof, all those problems are fixed. They're clearly aware of the problems because Ingrid hit pretty much every single one of them, and I still maintain that Emma wouldn't have gotten so upset if Ingrid wasn't pushing the correct buttons. So somewhere in the writers' room, they do get that these are real issues that should bother Emma, but the resolution, like so many of them, was basically non-existent. Same with Regina and Emma. A writing team not so Regina-focused would have had Emma arguing back. They would have had Emma listing all the way Regina ruined her life. They would have had Emma telling Regina about all the times she's saved her ass ("you've never had my back"). A writing team more focused on the consequences of previous plots and not just the Plot Of The Moment would have recognized how much of a hypocrite Regina was and how out of character it was for Emma -- Emma Swan, people -- to stand there and take it. A fresh perspective would not be unwelcome, is all I'm saying. ;)

And to be perfectly frank, I think the show was all the better for it. I honestly wish we could keep whatever people Disney had in the writers' room/production meetings/wherever permanently. First, the flashbacks, like season 1, told a cohesive story, which was refreshing. Of course, this could just be because it was covering new material and not showing retreads of the Regina/Snow conflict, but still. I liked once again seeing a singular story of how the characters got to where they are in the present day. Second, I think the Emma/Elsa parallel is far better than any Regina/Elsa parallels, on both sides of the coin. It allowed for Emma to grow and develop while allowing for Elsa to put the lessons she learned in the movie to good use and help someone else who was going through the same thing she did. I thought making Emma the Elsa and Elsa her Anna was absolutely beautiful, and the Emma/Elsa friendship is, no lie, my favorite thing that came out of 4A. I even have this elaborate headcanon about how Emma and Elsa can totally talk via mirror magic and how the Arendelle portal is permanent because I adored Frozen Swan so much that I did not want to see it end. And finally, Ingrid's redemption was so damn refreshing for this show that I am like 98% convinced that came from Disney. The villain saw the error of her ways, accepted her path as her own, apologized, and sacrificed herself for the common good. It was the exact opposite of everything Regina, and I personally loved it to pieces.

Put me in the camp of "Rumple doesn't really give a crap about anyone who isn't him and Bae." And honestly, for me, Bae's only sort of in that camp, because how many times have we seen Rumple completely ignore Bae's wishes in favor of his own? Every single flashback we've been shown is Bae begging his father to stop hurting people, to stop killing people, to let go of the power, to "come with me and start over." I do think Rumple loves (loved?) Belle as much as he is able, but therein lies the problem. He's not able to love all that much. Whatever his reasoning, his love, first and foremost, is his power. It's why he dropped Bae into the portal (I recently did a rewatch of "The Return" ... Bae didn't just slip from his grip, he most definitely let Bae go). It's why he lied to Belle. It's why he wanted (and attempted!) to kill Henry. It's why he screwed over pretty much everybody this season. Everyone was either a threat to his power or standing in the way of his accumulating more. I personally think Rumple and Belle being together was dragging them both down. Belle had to be either oblivious or enabling, and Rumple had a leash that, as far as I can tell, he grew to resent. I hated that he was lying to her. And it wasn't even a lie by omission; he offered her something under the guise of "look how much I trust you!" and it wasn't real, so what, he didn't trust her? And then he went and made that deceit the symbol of their engagement. That's so damn underhanded and, quite frankly, disgusting to me. And I get it, he's a villain, he's going to do underhanded, disgusting things. But don't try to sell me that as an epic fairy-tale True Love story. I cheered when Belle commanded him over the town line. Rumple wants to have his cake and eat it, too, and he finally found out that he couldn't. It provided me a nice bit of comeuppance for him and a healthy dose of self-respect for Belle. Because she should want to be chosen, and she shouldn't have to be second to her husband's thirst for power.

I'm so sorry, Writing Wrongs.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I'm sitting here, watching the clock until work lets us the hell out. ;) Mari, not sure what you have on hand, but an easy spinach dip can be made with 1 package of chopped spinach, an 8-oz tub of sour cream, a softened 8-oz block of cream cheese, and a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch powder. Microwave the spinach per the package instructions, mix everything together, serve with veggies or crackers or anything that's not going to break (because the dip is thick). I bring it everywhere and it is consistently a hit.

I seem to remember there being a bit of tension as to which set of memories he'd recover. Didn't Gold talk to him about the mobile? If he'd fixated on the mobile instead of the windmill, would he maybe have recovered his Charming memories instead of the David Nolan ones?

Exactly. The whole thread about Emma enjoying the moments would be more resonant if we could actually see these characters, y'know, enjoying their moments.

I got Emma, and I didn't even cheat!

That's the Cecil Green Park House at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I'm reasonably sure both the exteriors and interiors were filmed there. I know it best at the Candlewick Inn from Harper's Island, but it shows up in a lot of stuff.

I'm confused, too. Because look, Regina, the people around you are far nicer to you than you really warrant, considering how your actions have affected them. Plus, last season, she was all, "I can't be happy without Henry" to the point that she was willing to put herself under a sleeping curse rather than live without him. Now she has her son, and she's been shown shutting him out and pointedly ignoring -- and rolling her eyes at -- phone calls from the people who were taking care of him. So which is it, Regina? Is your son your happily ever after or isn't he? What, exactly, are you looking for? If this were any other show, I would have the faith in the writing team that they are in fact setting Regina up for the lesson that her happy ending is hers to chase. It's not about achieving some state of blissful peace like completing a level in a video game; it's learning how to be happy with and hold onto what you have because the only ending in real life is death. She's going to face challenges for the rest of her life, and no one can just hand a happily ever after to her, it must be fought for. But with all the victim-blaming and whitewashing of past actions that's already gone on, I just do not have the faith in these guys. I'm hoping they surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.

Which is bullshit because regardless of his reasons, he tried to de facto kill the heroine of the show. Maybe they can skirt around it if the hat doesn't kill whom it sucks in, but that's not the point. Rumple has no clue what becomes of the people in the hat. He doesn't care. And he was certainly gloating to Hook as if Emma was going to die. Again with the intent mattering and not the outcome.

I agree with this. I honestly think it was the flip-flopping that killed it. Every time they build her up to a certain level of self-awareness, they backslide her again. And, y'know, I wouldn't mind a backslide or two if the backslide wasn't back to square one every. single. time. Her speech to Tink in 3A? Was wonderful. It was amazing. It showed a level of self-awareness that she was responsible for her own misery and that she had darkened her own heart because of the path she took that I'd been yearning for. And then they kill it six episodes later with the "no regrets" thing. The intention may be to show "she's struggling, you guys!" but it just says to me that she's never going to learn.

Right. If we hadn't seen so much of Regina's past evil, I don't think it would be as frustrating. But when they show us: a field of bodies from an entire village whose only crime was not helping Regina find and kill another innocent person, a pile of bones of all the children she sent into the Blind Witch's house to retrieve the apple for her, her guards being sent in to kill an innocent newborn baby (and there is no mistaking that was the guards' instructions since "getting rid of a baby just made my to-do list"), killing her father to enact the Dark Curse, using a stolen heart to take away a person's free well, attempting to kidnap a child, killing the child's father and leaving said child orphaned, putting an innocent woman on death row for refusing to help her on her vengeance quest and then parading that woman around as an example while laughing at her suffering and fear, and gaslighting her own son (and that's just all off the top of my head!), I need for the inevitable redemption arc to address these things. Basically, show me why a that person described up there deserves a second chance.

I go back and forth between "they never planned to redeem Regina" and "they always planned to redeem Regina and just have no concept of a moral event horizon." Because even in season 2, we have Regina, in the past, massacring an entire village because they refused to help her with her vengeance quest. We have half a season's worth of Regina, in the present day, trying to kill Henry's entire family so she can have him all to herself. (So basically, don't try to sell me on this Evil Queen is in the past crap, show, because present-day Regina is just as cruel and just as unstable.) For me, there's no fixing that. There's no coming back from that. That kind of mentality is what leads people to have their own episodes of Snapped or something. And especially where Regina has "no regrets," has not offered apologies to the Charmings for trying to kill them, and does not seem to see the error of her ways, that's a danger you isolate lest she decide she wants something else and kills a whole other bunch of people to get it.

Emma had a family until she was three, and then they returned her to the system when they had their own child (per the pilot). That is probably the single most damaging thing that could have ever been done for her. Toddlers don't get adopted as quickly as babies, and a three-year-old whose entire life had been uprooted and who'd had the only parents she'd ever known give her away to strangers is a challenging child. She'd be hurt and confused and angry and scared, and she wouldn't be old enough to properly express those emotions so they'd come out as outbursts and bratty, defiant behavior. (When my brother and sister-in-law first took custody of my nephew from his mother, the social workers already wanted to label him as emotionally troubled. He was two months shy of his third birthday. He would have had a tough time of it in the system, and turning his behavior around has been a lot of hard work for my brother and sister-in-law.) I'm not sure how quickly she could have been adopted out, either, because I'm not sure what the laws are in Maine and how long the search goes before the state terminates parental rights. It may be plot contrivance, but it's not entirely unheard of. :)

Sorry for the double-post, but from YaddaYadda in the Relationships thread: Y'know, this is where I really miss the real-world-ness of season 1 Storybrooke. Because without magic and villains and constant threats, there was time for the washing-dishes talks. There was time for relationships to develop. My favorite part of this show, hands down, was Mary Margaret and Emma. And you know why? It had nothing to do with magic and curses and heroes and villains and everything to do with this mother and daughter who didn't know they were mother and daughter coming together. It was watching Mary Margaret burrow under Emma's wall and it was watching Emma learn to let her guard down enough to let Mary Margaret in. It was talks over cocoa and cookies and it was a grasp of a hand at breakfast and it was absolutely lovely. And this is what's so frustrating, I think. These guys can do the washing-dishes conversations. We've seen that they can do it. And when they do it, I do think they do it well. So why not play to the show's strengths? The plots fall apart with too much analysis, and the relationships between the characters is where the real drama is. So let the cast work their magic and let the relationships take center stage instead of being snippets. Let the realistic consequences come out instead of having the characters run from plot point to plot point to plot point. Slow the hell down and let the damn story breathe because whenever they've done so in the past, it's worked beautifully. I just don't understand it.

Responding in the Writers thread.

Not necessarily. It's possible that Ingrid just couldn't do whatever she wanted to do to the psychic in that very moment because she didn't know that "magic works differently here." Emma's manifestations of magic in this world have been more in line with real-world things: the flickering lights, the sparks in the overhead lines, the sparks in the claw machine game. Ingrid's magic could still work but just work along the same lines. (Of course, a scenelet explaining this would solve the need for a fanwank, but still.)

As is typical with this show, it wasn't a lingering moment or anything, but it was neat. You're welcome! :)

I don't know if she was directly under the library when she found it but yeah, she saw it when she was in the tunnels in "A Land Without Magic." Unless the second curse didn't put it back, it should still be down there.