OUAT vs. Wonderland Spinoff - Rewatch

[Shanna Marie]

On 4/11/2020 at 6:47 PM, Camera One said:

That's an interesting possible parallel.  Solely from her first flashback, Regina seemed less feminine than Anastasia.  We saw young Regina be heroic so she seemed more active as a person.  Whereas we only saw Anastasia lying in bed waiting for Will to get the magic mirror.

I'm not sure how much we can judge about Ana based on only seeing her lying in bed, since that was mostly about hiding her until the big revelation that Will's lover was actually the Red Queen. That's about the only way they could stage him talking to her without it being too obvious that they were hiding her identity.

If she's actually Cinderella's stepsister, then she probably hasn't had to fend for herself as far as cooking or cleaning go. Depending on the version of the story, she might have had to deal with some genteel poverty, though probably not starvation. She didn't seem to own any valuables that she could have taken with her to help fund her life in Wonderland.

Regina liked riding horses. We don't know how much work she did to actually care for the horses, since she had a groom who was ordered to saddle the horse for her. If she worked with the horses, that might have been a marketable skill. She might have been able to get a job in somebody's stable. If all she did was ride and Daniel saddled her horse for her before the ride and took care of the horse after the ride, that's less useful. I seriously doubt she did any of the really dirty work, like mucking out the stables. She was also probably from a far wealthier family than Ana, given that her father was a prince, so was more accustomed to luxury. I know we're supposed to think that she was a totally pure, good person until Snow told her secret and Daniel died, but someone who becomes a mass murderer on the level she was and who is that obsessive probably has to have had some issues to begin with, so the stress of the sudden downgrade to poverty might have made her snap the way Daniel's death did. I feel like Ana's change was more gradual. She was already craving luxury, then tempted by royalty, then Cora got to work on her. It wasn't like one bad thing happened and she became a different person.

Daniel was probably in a better position to be able to find work than Will, since he did have a skill, though him running away with his employer's daughter would have meant not having a good reference. He might have had to start over in lower circumstances and work his way back up. Will was a thief, which doesn't lead to good job prospects. Was he trying to live up to Robin's ideals and not stealing while in Wonderland? Ana had to talk him into stealing the royal jewels, and it sounds like he was doing okay as a thief after they split up (aside from getting into debt with the Caterpillar), so maybe he was trying to live honestly when he was with Ana (and not doing very well at it) and decided to screw his principles after she left him. I wonder if their challenges went beyond just their own circumstances, though. Was Wonderland poorer, in general, with all the wealth at the top, so there was no work to be had and less to steal unless you were stealing from the top? We later see the criticism of what a terrible queen Ana was and how the people suffered. If things were already bad, then that could have had something to do with how difficult Will and Ana found life in Wonderland and it wasn't just about their skills or attitudes.

[Shanna Marie]

I wasn't as impressed by the next episode, "Who's Alice?" I get where they were going with it, showing how much Alice's life had sucked and why she was willing to fight so hard for Cyrus, since he'd been the closest thing to "home" she'd had since she was a child, but I think they went way overboard with having her father and stepmother be awful to her, to the point they were cartoonish. In a house that size, with them apparently not having any servants, since her father opened the door for himself (even a modest middle-class house would probably have had a housemaid who opened the door to callers), they only had two bedrooms, so that Alice had to sleep on the sofa in the living room?

On the other hand, Alice is an adult, and she's feeling betrayed because her father remarried, when apparently her mother died when she was a child? That was also kind of weird. I can see her feeling bad because she's being shoved out of her home and her father is acting like he's entirely replaced his family, with no more room for her, but she was already upset that he'd remarried before it became clear that they didn't want her around.

The half sister seems to have been at least six, and Alice had no idea about her father remarrying, so that means either she was gone a really long time and spent years with Cyrus or time moves differently in Wonderland, so she thought she was only gone a year or two, only to come back and find that seven or so years have passed.

I can't help but feel like a father whose daughter has been missing for seven or so years would be so glad to have her back that he'd put up with a little bit of crazy and actually let her sleep in a bed and then also be a bit upset that his wife is being a jerk about things. Their reaction to Alice was so harsh and over the top that it's like they were being set up as villains, but that's not really where they went with it, given that Alice and Cyrus end up going back there to live.

Meanwhile, in the present, Alice mostly just stands around being blissed-out. The best part of the episode is Cyrus's escape and attempting to evade Ana, while Ana is pretty clever about tracking him.

The stepmother mentioned "Mrs. Darcy's son" coming to meet Alice. I surely hope he wasn't intended to be the Mr. Darcy. That would have been entirely the wrong era and would have to have been in Regency Literature World. But if time was allowed to pass and it formerly had been Regency Literature World that grew into Victorian Literature World, then he could have been Darcy and Lizzie's grandson.

[KingOfHearts]

I think thing one is a contender for the weakest episode of the season. I've watched it before, but it couldn't have been very memorable. I barely remember any of it. I remember every other episode more than I do this one.

From what I do recall, the plot is very cliche in all the most annoying ways. It's the "x person has fantasy experience and nobody believes them" trope. It's not that I expect Alice's dad to believe her, but his treatment of her is so overly harsh that it puzzles me why the writers went that way with his character knowing how things turn out later.

Where have we seen this before: Character leaves for an extended period of time, coming back to see they have new relatives and everything is worse. (Victoria or Anna/Ingrid ring a bell?)

Edited April 20, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Episode 6

I didn't think this episode was bad at all. 

The pace was a bit slow, especially in the present-day.  They spent a tad too much time in the Bora grove.  But I thought the dire signs were amusing and it was nice to see Will again.  How he broke the spell was a little weak in terms of writing, though.  They didn't attempt to explain why Will was unaffected, but I'm assuming it's because he didn't have his heart.  This was back when not having a heart was a big deal, right?  Again, this episode would have fit well if Will had just come from Season 4 Storybrooke.

Clever Cyrus was nice, though Anna's reverse footstep tracing magic was another easy solution which was never used again even though it's immensely helpful.  I think Regina used something similar for car tracks in Season 2.   So even if Jafar didn't save Cyrus from falling off the cliff, he would have survived anyway?

I thought it was fun to visit Fictional Victorian England.  If time moved slower in Wonderland, did she disappear during her first visit to Wonderland too?  It didn't seem that extreme in that case in terms of how long she was gone?  

I didn't think Alice's father or stepmother were all that bad.  From their perspective, Alice was delusional and a possible danger to the little sister.  The dad clearly still cared about her.  I like how in that world, Alice was expected to get married and Mr. Darcy was a fun name drop.  I don't have a problem with a nasty stepmother, especially in a fairytale-esque world.  It was weird how they didn't even go outside to say goodbye to Alice, though.  I'm looking forward to seeing the father eat his words.

10 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Where have we seen this before: Character leaves for an extended period of time, coming back to see they have new relatives and everything is worse. (Victoria)

I didn't even think about Rapunzel coming back from her time in the Tower, but this was very much like that.  Another A&E redux.

On 4/18/2020 at 2:26 PM, Shanna Marie said:

The stepmother mentioned "Mrs. Darcy's son" coming to meet Alice. I surely hope he wasn't intended to be the Mr. Darcy. That would have been entirely the wrong era and would have to have been in Regency Literature World. 

A&E: Regency?  Huh?  Was that before or after the Prehistoric Edwardian period in Australia?

Edited April 21, 2020 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

A&E: Regency?  Huh?  Was that before or after the Prehistoric Edwardian period in Australia?

LOL. Only OUAT when make us imagine such questions.

[Shanna Marie]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

They didn't attempt to explain why Will was unaffected, but I'm assuming it's because he didn't have his heart.

I thought that was it, exactly. Alice wondered why he wasn't affected, and he confessed about not putting his heart back because he couldn't bear to be hit with all that pain.

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

So even if Jafar didn't save Cyrus from falling off the cliff, he would have survived anyway?

That fall would have been into the boiling sea, which probably would have killed him if the fall didn't. This was into an ordinary sea or lake. Still probably not fun, but not being boiled alive when he hit the water.

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

I didn't think Alice's father or stepmother were all that bad.  From their perspective, Alice was delusional and a possible danger to the little sister. 

This is one of those things where we need more context. Are the people in Victorian Literature World aware that they're in a Realm of Story and that there are other worlds, or do they just think they're in ordinary Victorian England and have no idea that they're permanently stuck in this era? Are they at all aware of magic and other supernatural stuff? Dracula (the book) and A Christmas Carol would fit into this world, so there should be vampires and ghosts, at the very least, though perhaps not everyone in the world would be aware of these events. That would affect how Alice's father reacted to her stories about going to Wonderland. Then there's Alice herself. As I recall, Book Alice was known for daydreaming and having an overactive imagination, so no one believed her stories when she got back from Wonderland. If Alice was prone to making up stories, then her father wasn't being entirely unreasonable not to believe her after her first trip, though he didn't have to be a jerk about it. When I was a small child, my parents would have just smiled and nodded and said "that's nice" if I'd talked about going to another world, since I had an active imagination and was prone to making up elaborate stories (like an entire alternate kindergarten universe). When she's telling the same stories as an adult, maybe there's more to be alarmed about, but then she's been gone at least six or seven years from their perspective (regardless of how long it's seemed to her) and has come back clearly traumatized, so maybe "snap out of it and stop telling lies" isn't the best approach for dealing with her, and you'd think they'd be curious about where she really had been and what had happened to her. She's been gone a long time, comes back dressed strangely and talking about odd things happening to her that are consistent with the stories she told as a child after a previous disappearance. That should give them pause, you'd think.

My complaint isn't so much that they didn't believe that she's been traveling around Wonderland with a genie she was going to marry before he was killed, but that they generally treated her like she was imposing on their family. As I said, a house that size surely would have had a spare bedroom, but they had her sleeping on the sofa. She hadn't shown any sign of being a danger, but they don't want her even talking to their daughter. The father may have acted somewhat concerned, but the stepmother was giving off clear "get this interloper out of our house" signals and the father was caving. Alice seemed to be as upset about feeling unwanted as she was about them not believing her.

I think that's my problem with the episode, that it makes me so angry on Alice's behalf that I can't really enjoy it.

[Camera One]

34 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I thought that was it, exactly. Alice wondered why he wasn't affected, and he confessed about not putting his heart back because he couldn't bear to be hit with all that pain.

I think I was distracted by something during that scene, so I probably missed the direct connection.  Was that the same reason Hook wasn't affected by the Shattered Sight spell?  If so, then does that explain Will's behavior if he was lacking a heart?  I haven't rewatched that episode for awhile.

Quote

That fall would have been into the boiling sea, which probably would have killed him if the fall didn't. This was into an ordinary sea or lake. Still probably not fun, but not being boiled alive when he hit the water.

Ah, that makes sense.  I was also wondering if Genies didn't die as easily?  

Quote

This is one of those things where we need more context. Are the people in Victorian Literature World aware that they're in a Realm of Story and that there are other worlds, or do they just think they're in ordinary Victorian England and have no idea that they're permanently stuck in this era? Are they at all aware of magic and other supernatural stuff? Dracula (the book) and A Christmas Carol would fit into this world, so there should be vampires and ghosts, at the very least, though perhaps not everyone in the world would be aware of these events.

I assumed when watching that they didn't consciously know they were in a Realm of Story.  Their mindset does seem to be historical England.  Most people back then probably didn't believe in ghosts or vampires either.  

The Cruella episode threw a wrench when they had her conscious of being in a realm of story, I think?

People in the Enchanted Forest didn't seem to think of themselves in a realm of story either.  They were just living their lives.

Quote

My complaint isn't so much that they didn't believe that she's been traveling around Wonderland with a genie she was going to marry before he was killed, but that they generally treated her like she was imposing on their family. As I said, a house that size surely would have had a spare bedroom, but they had her sleeping on the sofa. She hadn't shown any sign of being a danger, but they don't want her even talking to their daughter. The father may have acted somewhat concerned, but the stepmother was giving off clear "get this interloper out of our house" signals and the father was caving. Alice seemed to be as upset about feeling unwanted as she was about them not believing her.

I think that's my problem with the episode, that it makes me so angry on Alice's behalf that I can't really enjoy it.

Yes, I was angry on Alice's behalf too.  But I really related to that stepmother (kidding) but from her perspective, Alice was a complete stranger who was seemingly unstable, possibly dangerous (eg. breaking that glass), and actually inside her house, with a vulnerable impressionable little girl.  I could totally see her wanting Alice out of there.  I can imagine in this fictional historical setting, the neighbors were gossiping and she didn't want that either.  She was also selfish and Type A.  I think we have to assume they didn't have a spare bedroom, and the only alternative would be for Alice and the young girl to share a room, and stepmom would not have been up for that.  Otherwise, there's no way a respectable lady like that would want a guest messing up a common area of the home.  

Edited April 21, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Was that the same reason Hook wasn't affected by the Shattered Sight spell?  If so, then does that explain Will's behavior if he was lacking a heart? 

Yes, Rumple told Hook he wouldn't be affected by Shattered Sight because Rumple had his heart. That's the one possible bit of evidence against the post season 4 Wonderland timeline, since Will seemed to be affected by the spell and if Wonderland happened after season 4, Will wouldn't have had his heart at that time. However, I was watching for that on our rewatch, and Will didn't act too terribly different than normal. I think we were supposed to see him as affected, since the scene was about how Hook wasn't affected and was having to carry out Rumple's mission while dealing with Will and Henry. But there's still an easy handwave around it. When Rumple was telling Hook he wouldn't be affected, he patted the case he was carrying Hook's heart in and made it sound like he was specifically protecting Hook's heart from the spell so that he could carry out Rumple's plans. Will's heart was just shoved inside the wall of his apartment, so the shards of the spell could still have gotten into it and affected him. You could imagine that if he'd been carrying around his heart in this episode, he might have been affected even if it wasn't in his chest. Instead, it was safe in another world, so he was unaffected by the pollen from hell.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

People in the Enchanted Forest didn't seem to think of themselves in a realm of story either.  They were just living their lives.

Though they did talk about getting happy endings and whether villains could (even back in season one), and talked about their "stories" instead of their lives. But I guess the Enchanted Forest people were at least somewhat aware of other realms and they knew about magic. For the most part, Victorian Literature World seems to have been about a more "realistic" world, where magic was something that happened in other places or that was an aberration.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I think we have to assume they didn't have a spare bedroom, and the only alternative would be for Alice and the young girl to share a room, and stepmom would not have been up for that.  Otherwise, there's no way a respectable lady like that would want a guest messing up a common area of the home.  

I think they were mostly laying it on a bit thick to have Alice having to sleep on the sofa (or else they didn't want to build another set for Alice's home -- didn't all the scenes take place either in that living room or in the dining room?). That looked like a pretty big house to only have two bedrooms. Surely they'd have had a guest room. If they were trying to make Alice feel alienated and like she'd been replaced, having the sister be in Alice's old room and Alice stuck in the guest room would have done the trick. Or have her be in a maid's room (that class of people with that kind of home in that era would have had at least one maid). The sister could still have come in to check on her after hearing her cry out in a nightmare (in fact, that would have been more likely, since the sister's room would have been closer to the guest room than to the parlor).

I can somewhat understand how the stepmother might have been taken aback to suddenly have her husband's adult daughter show up after being away for years -- if she even knew there was a daughter. She has her nice, cozy home and family, and suddenly there's this new person who sounds like a raving maniac upsetting everything. I'm more critical of the father because this is his daughter who's been gone a long time and has come home, and he doesn't stand up for her at all and doesn't seem to make any effort to build any bridges. He seems a little conflicted when Alice leaves, but otherwise it's like he agrees with his wife that it's better for Alice to be gone so they can go back to normal. And that's what's so painful to Alice, that she feels like her own father has rejected her and wants her out of their home and out of his life.

[Camera One]

31 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

However, I was watching for that on our rewatch, and Will didn't act too terribly different than normal. I think we were supposed to see him as affected, since the scene was about how Hook wasn't affected and was having to carry out Rumple's mission while dealing with Will and Henry. But there's still an easy handwave around it. When Rumple was telling Hook he wouldn't be affected, he patted the case he was carrying Hook's heart in and made it sound like he was specifically protecting Hook's heart from the spell so that he could carry out Rumple's plans. Will's heart was just shoved inside the wall of his apartment, so the shards of the spell could still have gotten into it and affected him. You could imagine that if he'd been carrying around his heart in this episode, he might have been affected even if it wasn't in his chest. Instead, it was safe in another world, so he was unaffected by the pollen from hell.

I like that explanation.  My vague memory is that Will wasn't acting too abnormal, either.  I think I might have thought he was drunk or something.  

Quote

I think they were mostly laying it on a bit thick to have Alice having to sleep on the sofa

A&E are the masters of laying it on thick.

Quote

I'm more critical of the father because this is his daughter who's been gone a long time and has come home, and he doesn't stand up for her at all and doesn't seem to make any effort to build any bridges. He seems a little conflicted when Alice leaves, but otherwise it's like he agrees with his wife that it's better for Alice to be gone so they can go back to normal. And that's what's so painful to Alice, that she feels like her own father has rejected her and wants her out of their home and out of his life.

I got the sense he was a rather weak person.  He was already a negligent father before the stepmother, since he was just preoccupied with his own grief over the loss of his wife, and Alice felt the need to make him love her.  He could have genuinely believed that the doctors would be able to "fix" her.  

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

My vague memory is that Will wasn't acting too abnormal, either.  I think I might have thought he was drunk or something.  

He was acting almost exactly like he was earlier in the season when Hook ran into him when he was drunkenly breaking into the library. I'm trying to remember why he was even at the mayor's office -- trying to steal something? That really doesn't work coming after the Wonderland events, but really fits what Will would have been like before he was reunited with Alice.

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

A&E are the masters of laying it on thick.

Which in a lot of respects is a lack of faith in the audience, like we wouldn't get it if they didn't drop anvils on us, but that ends up backfiring. Like with putting Alice on the sofa. It's so over the top that we just roll our eyes at it because it's cartoony. If they'd been a little more subtle and had her stuck in the guest room instead of her own room that's now been taken over by the new daughter, it might have actually had more of an emotional impact on the audience. Which makes me wonder if it really might have been a streamlining thing, limiting the number of sets they were using. But if they had access to the parent series sets, they could have used the set for Snow's bedroom with a tiny bit of re-dressing -- different lighting and camera angles to make it look like a small room instead of a loft, maybe a velvet bedspread to look more Victorian, but otherwise the bed itself could work for something in a Victorian home.

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

I got the sense he was a rather weak person.  He was already a negligent father before the stepmother, since he was just preoccupied with his own grief over the loss of his wife, and Alice felt the need to make him love her. 

That does seem to be the case. He wasn't resilient enough to care for his daughter after losing his wife, and then he let his second wife call the shots at the expense of his daughter. His comeuppance is rather satisfying (as is Jafar's reaction to the kind of father he was). I think that's coming in the next episode, which is a good one.

I guess this one wasn't so bad. I'm just a little overwhelmed at the sense of injustice and unfairness in the world right now, as well as seeing people in positions of power making really bad decisions out of moral weakness, so seeing what was happening to Alice was really hard for me to take. This is an episode that doesn't work so well as escapism, since it's basically saying that escapism is bad.

[Shanna Marie]

Okay, the next episode, "Bad Blood," is really good. It's quite well structured. The flashbacks of Jafar's issues with his father mesh well with the present story about Alice's issues with her father. I'm not sure if they intended it, but I find it interesting that Jafar came out of that background as a ruthless, murdering nutjob, while Alice came out of it as a good, loving person. True, her father didn't use her as a servant and have her killed, but he had her institutionalized.

The actor playing Alice's father was really good. I was impressed by how well he played Jafar playing Alice's father. There were moments where I could swear I saw Jafar looking out of his eyes. I momentarily forgot this was an actor playing a character and really believed it was Jafar pretending to be Alice's father. It got even more complicated when he was showing Jafar's empathy for Alice while posing as her father.

I must say that Alice's father's comeuppance and realization of the truth was one of the most satisfying things in either series -- him having to realize that everything Alice had told him was true, realizing what that meant about his treatment of Alice, and then him being willing to risk everything to warn Alice about Cyrus. It's so nice to see a "villain" turn around like that.

And Alice got to be smart yet again. First, her using physics to figure out how to build the basket to fly up to Jafar's tower and calculating how adding Cyrus's weight would get them down, then her figuring out that her father was an imposter in time to get away from him. I suspect the parent show would have had her duped by Jafar for some time, maybe even bringing him along on their rescue mission so that they were walking into a trap.

Since Jafar took the father's blood in order to impersonate him, I wonder if that has anything to do with the spell WHook used to impersonate Hook Prime, since he also took blood. But he didn't seem to know everything about Alice's father other than just observing his mannerisms, which was how he got tripped up. Unlike, apparently, Zelena being able to perfectly impersonate Marian for months without even having had the opportunity to observe Marian and without knowing anything about her.

[KingOfHearts]

Funny how Jafar has the same backstory as Dio from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Parent dies, Jafar goes to live with a powerful man, only to be at violent odds with the man's son. 

Quote

Since Jafar took the father's blood in order to impersonate him, I wonder if that has anything to do with the spell WHook used to impersonate Hook Prime, since he also took blood.

OUATIW seems to have a much stronger set of magic rules than the parent show. I like that Jafar had to get a vile of blood and had to summon his staff before he could break the shapeshifting spell. It's not like OUAT where you can just flick your wrist and transform into anybody willynilly. It's also a nice touch that Alice's wish had a cost. At least on this show, magic has a price.

This episode gave me Lost vibes with all the father issues. Of course, Sayid is here too.

Jafar: "I've waited a long time to go come back here."
Sultan: "I don't even know who you are." Reminded me of Thanos, LOL.

Edited April 27, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's not like OUAT where you can just flick your wrist and transform into anybody willynilly.

And know everything they know and be able to perfectly mimic a person they've never seen, in some cases. Which created a plot hole. If Zelena, Regina, and Rumple could do that, then they should have been able to easily find out what their enemies had planned. Just transform into them, and they'd know everything their enemies knew.

In this case, I liked that although Jafar had done a good job of knowing the mannerisms that would convince Alice, like the way her father polished his glasses, and he'd bothered to figure out his dominant hand, he was tripped up by something he hadn't had a chance to observe.

Isn't the father's custom of saying grace before every meal just about the only real observance of religion in either show? I guess, as pious (at least, outwardly) as they were in the Victorian era, Victorian Literature World would have had to have Christianity. Otherwise, it would really alter a lot of the stories, especially Jane Eyre.

[Camera One]

Episode 7

Finally got to watch this week's episode!  I liked this episode, but some of my original problems with it remained.  

To dispense with the negative first, I still don't find it believable that someone could be so driven by needing acknowledgement that he is his father's son, to the point that Jafar's goals revolved around it.  I also don't buy that the old man in the cage is Jafar's father.  He looked nothing like the younger version, and his kind demeanor and personality is completely contrary.  Maybe it was another case of bad casting to ensure the audience would be surprised (like how August looked more like Baelfire than Pinocchio).  These were major problems for me on first watch and they remain so. 

It was another poor wittle willain had such a sad backstory... revenge against his father and his stepbrother is one thing, but killing random innocents, all for acceptance by his father?  Why not cast him aside and become Sultan?  Jafar seemed pretty easygoing and normal in the early stages under Amara's tutelage.  I'm still not a fan of this character.

Having said that, I really liked the parallels between the two father/child relationships.  It is very thoughtfully developed that Jafar would have expected something different from Alice and her father.  

The ending with Alice and her father's reconciliation was very moving, and I really liked Alice's speech at the end that she saw this as a win even though she lost a wish.  

I had forgotten how Jafar got to impersonate the father.  Seeing him actually learn about the father and his mannerisms was nice to see (plus he also did a lot of research at the mental institution before he even went to see Alice's father).

I liked the scenes between the two fathers in a cage.

The floating branches bird tree was a cool concept, though of course it ended up being a moot point.

I do wish Alice could have fooled Jafar for longer.  Alice and Will were acting way too obvious when they walked away from the fake "father".  

So Alice knew her father was real because he said he wouldn't deserve Alice's forgiveness whereas Jafar faking his way as father just immediately asked for forgiveness?

I still think Jafar could have held any Tom, Dick or Harry or Lizard off a cliff, and Alice would have made her third wish.  So I wish they had a reason why Jafar didn't do that.  

Winter finale next week!  

Edited May 1, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

I still don't find it believable that someone could be so driven by needing acknowledgement that he is his father's son, to the point that Jafar's goals revolved around it. 

I'm starting to get the impression that they don't mean for us to see Jafar's goals as at all rational. In this episode, there's a moment when Alice's father says something like "You're mad!" and the look Jafar gives him is totally unhinged. It's a nice bit of acting because his face seems relatively calm, but there's something crazy in his eyes. Then in the subsequent episode, they refer to him as a "madman." With Regina, I always felt like the message was that she may have done some bad things, but it was totally understandable given her sad past. With Jafar, it's more like he had some really awful things happen to him and he was mistreated, but he went totally off the rails in response. (Regina went just as off the rails, but I don't think the show wants us to see her as stark raving nuts the way they seem to with Jafar.) I do think it's telling that they juxtapose his background and response with Alice's in this episode. She, too, was essentially denied and rejected by her father, her half sibling was chosen over her, and while she wasn't killed, she was locked up in an institution. But she remains kind and good and looks out for other people. Jafar goes around hurting people and has some crazy scheme to make everything work out the way he wants it to.

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

I also don't buy that the old man in the cage is Jafar's father.  He looked nothing like the younger version, and his kind demeanor and personality is completely contrary.  Maybe it was another case of bad casting to ensure the audience would be surprised (like how August looked more like Baelfire than Pinocchio). 

Yeah, the casting doesn't work at all, and I feel like we're missing a huge chunk of the sultan's story for how he got from a guy willing to have a child murdered for being inconvenient to being kind and selfless. Did his son's death scare him straight? I don't recall if we got any additional story. Did Jafar take him prisoner at the time of this flashback, so that he's been in a cage all this time and mellowed out?

This does seem to be one of those mutually exclusive things -- Jafar has a sad backstory with a horribly cruel father, but Jafar is also a psycho villain keeping a kind old man in a cage, and surprise, that kind old man is his father. I do think we're supposed to see that his father has grown and changed, but he's not important enough for us to see that change, and I'm not sure they realize that this makes Jafar look even worse if his father is capable of growth but he isn't.

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

I still think Jafar could have held any Tom, Dick or Harry or Lizard off a cliff, and Alice would have made her third wish.  So I wish they had a reason why Jafar didn't do that.  

I don't think Jafar is capable of grasping that kind of mindset. It wouldn't even occur to him to save some random person he doesn't know, let alone sacrifice anything. He can't understand that someone would do anything without a personal connection or something to gain (and it may be that the writers don't always understand that, thus everyone having to be related or have some kind of connection in order for it to matter to the characters and viewers). And if he can't imagine that anyone would do that, it doesn't cross his mind to do that to Alice, so he relies on going to the effort of getting people she'll care about.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I don't think Jafar is capable of grasping that kind of mindset. It wouldn't even occur to him to save some random person he doesn't know, let alone sacrifice anything. He can't understand that someone would do anything without a personal connection or something to gain (and it may be that the writers don't always understand that, thus everyone having to be related or have some kind of connection in order for it to matter to the characters and viewers). And if he can't imagine that anyone would do that, it doesn't cross his mind to do that to Alice, so he relies on going to the effort of getting people she'll care about.

I like that, as a way of explaining it.  It goes with the concept that Jafar played the role of Alice's father the way HE would have wanted to be treated

I also agree that to these Writers (well, the ones that overlapped with "Once" parent show), it might be a surprise that anyone cares about redshirts.  I do find it distracting since Jafar is supposed to be so ruthless, yet he didn't do the obvious.  Will even told him in this episode that Alice hated to see anyone in pain.  

So exactly what was Jafar's original plan for impersonating her father, anyway?

Edited May 1, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

11 minutes ago, Camera One said:

So exactly what was Jafar's original plan for impersonating her father, anyway?

I think he was going to make her like her father again, by treating her the way he wished his father had treated him, then put himself in jeopardy so that she'd use a wish to save him. His plan A was to bring the father to Wonderland and use him as a hostage. Then he found out from her father that Alice probably wanted nothing to do with him (again, not grasping that Alice still would have saved him because Jafar just doesn't get caring about other people), so he impersonated the father to make Alice like him again, then rigged the dragon to attack him so that Alice would have to use a wish to save him, but Alice killed the dragon without needing a wish. By that time, the plan to fly up to the island was in progress and they were planning to bring him along, so I guess Jafar was just going to ride along, then maybe do something to jeopardize that trip so she'd have to use a wish to save them all or else use the father as a hostage once they got there and without letting Alice know that she'd been dealing with a different person. But then it was clear that Alice had figured it out, so he forced the issue.

Even if she'd played it really cool after figuring it out, there's only so far she could have taken it. She'd already offered to bring him along, and she wouldn't have wanted to trust an imposter, so she'd have had to back out on the offer or come up with some way to leave him behind, and that would have been a clue that she'd figured it out. There's not much she could have done by playing along, just increase the chances of slipping while in his presence where there might have been more risk. Getting away the way they did might have been the best idea.

[Shanna Marie]

Okay, next episode, "Home." Another one I really like (actually, I think it was around this phase of the show when I really fell in love instead of just watching it).

I've been thinking about why I think it was a really good move to have Alice and Cyrus achieve their goal of being reunited halfway through the season (which was the length of an arc on the main show), while they really bungled ending the Jekyll and Hyde (and, essentially, the Untold Stories) arc in season six so quickly. And the big difference is that everything in the story here is more integrated. Even though the Evil Queen came from the Jekyll and Hyde story and the Evil Queen was teaming up with Hyde, they actually weren't all that connected. Getting rid of Jekyll and Hyde didn't change all that much in the story because it was functionally separate from the Evil Queen, the rest of the Untold Stories, and Emma's doom prophecy.

Here, it's all part of the same greater story, so Alice and Cyrus were only part of a whole. It's all about Jafar's scheme. That's why he had Cyrus prisoner and wanted Alice to use her wishes. Ana was working with Jafar for her own scheme to get Will back. Alice and Cyrus reuniting only solves part of the problem and launches them into a whole new set of problems that's still part of the greater story. Now Will's the genie, so Jafar's going to be tracking him down, and that means the new goal for the good guys will be to find Will before Jafar does. They've got Ana on their side, so they have some magic now, but Cyrus is mortal and human instead of being a genie. This was a good mid-season finale because it gave us the satisfying conclusion of Cyrus and Alice being together again, but it raises a bunch of new questions. I know I'm a lot more interested in seeing how Will being a genie is going to go than I was in finding out about a room full of coathangers.

There was some serious heat in the interactions between Alice and Cyrus, both in the flashback and in the present. I know nothing about the actors' personal lives and am not insinuating anything, but it was the kind of heat that makes you wonder if something was going on offscreen, or would end up going on offscreen (then again, real-life couples are sometimes tepid onscreen). It's interesting that their love nest had one big bed and a bathtub right there, so I guess we're to infer that they were doing more than just sleeping together. And maybe I've just been totally alone for too long, but Cyrus was looking particularly handsome in the scene when they were watching the shooting stars. I don't know if it was the lighting, the camera angle, or the expression on his face, but I was really struck by how gorgeous he was. Not that he's ever ugly, it was just striking then.

Will has really grown for him to phrase his wish so selflessly and to use it to help Alice. He could have just saved his own life, which would have saved Alice. And we get to see Ana acting truly human, with all her facades down, and Cyrus is able to see her true wish so he believes that she's genuine. I loved that whole scene.

Maybe if I think more I'll have something critical to say about this one, but I just truly enjoy this one.

[Camera One]

I haven't rewatched this yet, but another comparison we can make is with the winter finale for Season 7, "The Eighth Witch", since 7A was more of a fresh start than 6A. 

Unlike 6A, there wasn't anything big dropped midway through in 7A (except for Henry's Cursed memories?), and the winter finale did kind of bring some of the plot threads together, as we found out the backstory of how the Curse was cast and Gothel got what she wanted all season (getting a hold of Anastasia) and turning the tables on Ivy and Victoria. 

Though unlike "Home", where Alice and Cyrus reunited, nothing big happened with Henry and Jacinda in this episode, other than sitting at Lucy's bedside.  Plus "The Eighth Witch" was rather unfocused, bringing on Zelena and Robyn.  

Anyone itching to rewatch "The Eigth Witch" now?  

Edited May 2, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I haven't rewatched this yet, but another comparison we can make is with the winter finale for Season 7, "The Eighth Witch", since 7A was more of a fresh start than 6A. 

The reason I was comparing it to 6A was that what seemed to be the main goal of the arc was achieved halfway through. In season 6, at the beginning of the season it seemed like Hyde was the Big Bad. It was all about dealing with him and the challenge of him being seemingly invincible, then him teaming up with the Evil Queen. Then they got rid of Jekyll and Hyde quite abruptly. They did still have the Evil Queen in town to deal with, so not everything was resolved. That's somewhat similar to what they did here, with the first episodes being focused on Alice trying to find Cyrus, and then they're reunited, but the story isn't over because Jafar is still out there. But the way this series went, it wasn't so much of a fresh start as it was a continuation with a new sub-goal while they still needed to deal with Jafar. I guess at this point they still don't really have "stop Jafar" as a goal. They just want out, but now they have to find Will before they can escape.

The season 7 comparison might have been more like a bit later when suddenly all the Cinderella-related stuff -- Victoria, Ivy, and Anastasia 2.0 -- got wiped off the board and they switched to a different story, but there they didn't really have any continuity other than Gothel having been established already.

You might say that this is the best of both worlds. The parent show either abruptly ended a plot then switched to another one or dragged it out and abruptly resolved it at the very end. The way they might have handled this story would either have been to not only reunite Cyrus and Alice but also defeat Jafar and then switch gears to some other story -- probably Ana suddenly becoming the Big Bad -- or to drag it out so that Cyrus wasn't freed and he and Alice weren't reunited until the finale. Instead, they resolved the initial goal and replaced it with a new goal that was a consequence of getting that first goal, within the framework of the same story with the same antagonist and the same big-picture problem.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The reason I was comparing it to 6A was that what seemed to be the main goal of the arc was achieved halfway through. In season 6, at the beginning of the season it seemed like Hyde was the Big Bad. It was all about dealing with him and the challenge of him being seemingly invincible, then him teaming up with the Evil Queen. Then they got rid of Jekyll and Hyde quite abruptly.

I see.  That is an interesting comparison. 

The other thing that strikes me is that "Wonderland" only had 13 episodes to work with, while Season 6 had 13 episodes.  The Hyde subplot felt especially abruptly dropped because it was only in play for 4 episodes... that didn't even reach the halfway point of 6A, which lasted 10 episodes.  Whereas, Wonderland had 8 episodes to play out the Rescue Cyrus mission. 

Which also made Rescue Cyrus feel more substantial than the Rescue Hook mission in 5B, which only took 3 episodes. The main goal of that arc was completed relatively quickly.  Even though some might say rescuing someone is a simplistic goal, it does provide for adventure and worldbuilding and can still be interesting, as demonstrated by "Wonderland".

I'm actually shocked we only have 5 more episodes of "Wonderland" left even though there seems to be so much more story told.  

Edited May 3, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

I think, really, the thing that makes it work is that "rescue Cyrus" wasn't Alice's true goal. She didn't even learn he needed rescuing until later. Her core goal from the very beginning was to live happily ever after with Cyrus. Her problem before Will showed up was that this seemed like an impossible goal, since she believed Cyrus to be dead, but she couldn't let go of the goal. She was doomed to unhappiness, and the only way for her to move on from that goal was to essentially give up her sense of self by consenting to the lobotomy. When Will showed up and she learned that Cyrus was alive, the goal became viable once more. She first wanted to reunite with Cyrus by getting to where she expected him to be. Then she learned that he was a captive, and she wanted to rescue him. All of these things were subsets of that main goal, and also included things like keeping her wishes so he wouldn't be sent back to his bottle and finding his bottle. There were some branchings, like wanting to find who took his bottle and needing to save Will from execution, but they were all things she needed to do if she wanted a chance of living happily with Cyrus in the long run. Reuniting with Cyrus is one step toward her goal, but it's not the end because they can't live happily together while Will is in danger and while Jafar is up to his schemes. Later, they also need to save Cyrus's brothers and set things right. While all of this is also the right thing to do, at the heart of it all is their desire to live happily ever after together. That gives a strong emotional undercurrent to the story and ties everything together. It's even a part of the flashbacks involving Alice because once she met Cyrus, that goal was always there. Then there are the various subplots that mirror that goal with other characters. Ana's goal is to live happily ever after with Will, though she goes about it in a very different way at first. Even Jafar is after love, in his own twisted way. His efforts (and Ana's, in the beginning) toward their goals to find love are direct obstacles to Alice's goal of living happily with Cyrus.

If you look at it this way, then Cyrus escaping and Alice and Cyrus reuniting doesn't sap the energy from the story because the real story isn't over. They're just moving to a different phase of working toward the same goal. It also means that Alice wasn't undermined when Cyrus escaped on his own. Her real goal was to be with him, not necessarily to save him (though she did want that). It would have been weaker if her primary goal had been to save Cyrus, but then she failed to do that because he escaped on his own in a way that had little to do with her efforts (other than that she unwittingly provided the diversion he needed by being so obstinate that Jafar resorted to going to her world to get her father so he could make her use her wishes).

This may be the difference between this story and the "save Hook" story. I guess you could say that Emma's goal all along was to live happily ever after with Hook, but I don't think the story was structured that way. All the characters went to the Underworld specifically to save Hook. They only got stuck there and had to add the goal of finding a way out of the Underworld because they went in without any contingency plan for getting out (and the script said Hades had to trap them there even though he initially wanted them gone and he would have been better off if he'd just let them go right away). Because Emma's only real goal was getting Hook back, she actually failed, since her actions didn't really lead to that, aside from getting him away from Hades's tortures. It wasn't even Hook trying to be with her, since he was surprised by what Zeus did. I like the way it played out, but it doesn't really work structurally, and I'm sure there's a better way they could have set up that arc to lead to that outcome.

[Camera One]

14 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

This may be the difference between this story and the "save Hook" story. I guess you could say that Emma's goal all along was to live happily ever after with Hook, but I don't think the story was structured that way. All the characters went to the Underworld specifically to save Hook. They only got stuck there and had to add the goal of finding a way out of the Underworld because they went in without any contingency plan for getting out (and the script said Hades had to trap them there even though he initially wanted them gone and he would have been better off if he'd just let them go right away). Because Emma's only real goal was getting Hook back, she actually failed, since her actions didn't really lead to that, aside from getting him away from Hades's tortures. It wasn't even Hook trying to be with her, since he was surprised by what Zeus did. I like the way it played out, but it doesn't really work structurally, and I'm sure there's a better way they could have set up that arc to lead to that outcome.

I had forgotten how convoluted 5B really was.

I guess another difference is the villains in "Wonderland" had consistent goals.  As mentioned, it was weird how Hades wanted them out, and then wanted them to stay.  And then halfway through we found out he was in love with Zelena and wanted his Happily Ever After with her.  He re-created Underbrooke for her and I don't even remember if his actual goal was to leave the Underworld and go to Storybrooke, or if that just happened, because.  And then there was that crystal thing he was trying to activate.  

Edited May 3, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

59 minutes ago, Camera One said:

And then halfway through we found out he was in love with Zelena and wanted his Happily Ever After with her.  He re-created Underbrooke for her and I don't even remember if his actual goal was to leave the Underworld and go to Storybrooke, or if that just happened, because.

That was one of those weird mutually exclusive things. I would have said, based on his actions and overall attitude, that while he did like Zelena, he was mostly trying to get her to fall for him so that their TLK would break his curse and free him from the Underworld. But then if that was true, it further cheapens the concept of a True Love's Kiss if it works even while he has ulterior motives. I do think we were supposed to see her as making the wrong choice not to trust him in the flashback. She was too afraid after all the rejection she'd experienced to think that he wanted something more from her than just to get his curse broken. But then he pretty much ditched her after she did break his curse later, and it seemed like it had all been just so he could escape. Turning the Underworld into Underbrook for her was an obvious handwave to give them the excuse to keep using the same sets instead of trying to create an actual Underworld, since Zelena never cared about creating Storybrooke. She wanted to have been chosen to cast the curse because she wanted to be chosen, not because she wanted Storybrooke. She didn't even know what the curse would entail. If she'd gone with him to the Underworld after their original meeting but before curse 2, she'd have had no idea what that place was supposed to have been. It would have had no meaning for her.

I think rewriting 5B to fit the pattern of Wonderland would have required the characters to have more reasons for what they were doing. For instance, Jafar was keeping Cyrus prisoner because he needed the third genie to do his spell. We never found out exactly why Hades was holding Hook prisoner and torturing him. We came up with theories, but nothing was stated onscreen. Really, it was just about giving them something to rescue Hook from so they couldn't just go to the Underworld, find him, and bring him home. Jafar wanted Alice in Wonderland so he could make her use her wishes and put Cyrus back in his bottle where Jafar could use him for the spell. Hades had nothing to do with Emma and the others coming to the Underworld, and he had no real reason for wanting to keep them there. The Zelena thing didn't kick in until she showed up, and he didn't seem to know she had anything to do with the rest of that bunch.

[Shanna Marie]

I think that one of the things that helps Wonderland is that the cast is a lot smaller, which helps it be more focused. We just have Alice, Will, Cyrus, Ana, and Jafar as main characters, and the rest are supporting. Alice is clearly the main character. That allows all of them to have a direct role in the story, and it's easy for them to be tightly woven into the plot with thematic links, as well.

For contrast, in 5B, the storyline that perhaps most resembles this one, we had Emma, Henry, Snow, David, Regina, Robin, and Rumple heading to the Underworld. Hook and Hades were already there, and Belle and Zelena joined them. Even though it started as Emma's mission to save Hook, it very quickly became more about Regina reconciling with her family, so it's not clear who the main character/protagonist of the story is supposed to be. The "save Hook" story is only relevant at the very beginning and very end of the arc. The rest of the arc has almost nothing to do with that story. It's put on the back burner until they have to wrap things up.

To rework 5B on the Wonderland model, we'd have to jettison most of the cast. It's hard to do direct parallels, but the best fit would probably have been Emma in the Alice role, since she's going to find her lover. Hook in the Cyrus role, as the lover being held captive. Hades as Jafar, the villain with a scheme (though there would need to be a scheme-related reason he's imprisoning and torturing Hook and he would need Emma for something). There isn't a good direct comparison to Will, but Regina might be the best fit. She really should feel like she owes Emma, since Emma became the Dark One to save her, which set all this off, and she's somewhat on a redemption arc. Zelena might be the best comparison to Ana in that case, since she and Regina needed to reconcile (though not in a romantic sense) and Zelena was linked to Hades. However, Zelena didn't seem to care whether or not she got back in Regina's good graces, and her teaming up with Hades had nothing to do with Regina, so the emotional arc and connection wasn't there. It would take a lot of reworking even after getting rid of the rest of the cast. Sadly, you can pretty much get rid of the Charmings and Robin without changing anything else.

The other "go to another world to rescue someone" arc is 3A. There the cast is a little tighter, with Emma, Snow, David, Regina, Rumple, and Hook. Henry is the Cyrus figure (as the person in need of rescue, not as the love interest), with Pan as Jafar. And in that case, he did need Henry as part of a plan to make himself all-powerful. Again, we're kind of lacking a good Will parallel, and there really isn't a good Ana figure, a villain whose current villainy is driven by regret and who switches sides halfway through. Maybe Hook is kind of the Will, but less platonic. He's got history in the place, is going on the mission to support Emma, and is turning his life around. He's also got a complicated past with the villain (since there's no real secondary villain, Pan has to be both Jafar and the Red Queen). When you focus on the core characters here, it gets a little closer to the kind of coherence that's in Wonderland, since there's either a direct connection or a thematic connection with all of them. In addition to Emma and Hook's emotional connection to Henry, she's also a Lost Girl and he's essentially a Lost Boy. But instead of our "Cyrus" escaping midway through so that the rest of the arc is about them staying out of Pan's grasp and finding a way home, he actually joins the villain and cooperates with him.

And, again, you could get rid of the Charmings without really changing the story. It would take more of a rewrite to make them relevant. I think it could be done, but it would have required digging deeper.

[Camera One]

39 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

To rework 5B on the Wonderland model, we'd have to jettison most of the cast. It's hard to do direct parallels, but the best fit would probably have been Emma in the Alice role, since she's going to find her lover. Hook in the Cyrus role, as the lover being held captive. Hades as Jafar, the villain with a scheme (though there would need to be a scheme-related reason he's imprisoning and torturing Hook and he would need Emma for something). There isn't a good direct comparison to Will, but Regina might be the best fit. She really should feel like she owes Emma, since Emma became the Dark One to save her, which set all this off, and she's somewhat on a redemption arc. Zelena might be the best comparison to Ana in that case, since she and Regina needed to reconcile (though not in a romantic sense) and Zelena was linked to Hades. However, Zelena didn't seem to care whether or not she got back in Regina's good graces, and her teaming up with Hades had nothing to do with Regina, so the emotional arc and connection wasn't there. It would take a lot of reworking even after getting rid of the rest of the cast.

This reworking is interesting and would have sort of worked.  

Quote

Sadly, you can pretty much get rid of the Charmings and Robin without changing anything else.

You forgot Rumple and Belle, the epic story of love!

Quote

The other "go to another world to rescue someone" arc is 3A. There the cast is a little tighter, with Emma, Snow, David, Regina, Rumple, and Hook. Henry is the Cyrus figure (as the person in need of rescue, not as the love interest), with Pan as Jafar. And in that case, he did need Henry as part of a plan to make himself all-powerful. Again, we're kind of lacking a good Will parallel, and there really isn't a good Ana figure, a villain whose current villainy is driven by regret and who switches sides halfway through. Maybe Hook is kind of the Will, but less platonic. He's got history in the place, is going on the mission to support Emma, and is turning his life around. He's also got a complicated past with the villain (since there's no real secondary villain, Pan has to be both Jafar and the Red Queen). When you focus on the core characters here, it gets a little closer to the kind of coherence that's in Wonderland, since there's either a direct connection or a thematic connection with all of them. In addition to Emma and Hook's emotional connection to Henry, she's also a Lost Girl and he's essentially a Lost Boy. But instead of our "Cyrus" escaping midway through so that the rest of the arc is about them staying out of Pan's grasp and finding a way home, he actually joins the villain and cooperates with him.

And, again, you could get rid of the Charmings without really changing the story. It would take more of a rewrite to make them relevant. I think it could be done, but it would have required digging deeper.

With 3A, I think the Charmings do fit, as a support for Emma, though as you said, they aren't really integral to the plot itself.  Making them relevant would simply be ensuring both Snow and Charming had relevant scenes with Emma, where they dealt with their past and worked on their current relationship.  It started in 2B, but 3A after "Lost Girl" siphoned Snowing into their little bubble for C plots and their occasional centric (making it feel like A&E were just obligated to have them there but didn't really care for them), and placed Emma more with her love interests and budding BFF.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

46 minutes ago, Camera One said:

You forgot Rumple and Belle, the epic story of love!

Rumple was essentially the White Rabbit, since he opened the portal for them, and then he wasn't entirely trustworthy, working for the villain while pretending to be helping the good guys. And he was doing this because the villain was essentially holding his child hostage. Belle was less useful and less important to the plot than Mrs. Rabbit.

If we're structuring it like Wonderland, then Emma and Regina, with help from Rumple, go to the Underworld to save Hook. Hades has some scheme that he needs Hook for, or maybe that he needs the Savior for and Hook works as a hostage. Or maybe he needs three former Dark Ones plus a Savior, so he needs Emma and Rumple in addition to Hook (now that all other Dark Ones are gone, thanks to Hook). Rumple starts playing both sides once he learns that Hades holds the "second born child" contract and that Belle is pregnant. Emma and Regina are initially hampered in finding Hook because they keep running into Regina's victims who are dead because of her, and they have to find a way to help the victims in order to get the help they need to save Hook. Meanwhile, Zelena ends up in the Underworld and is tempted by everything Hades has to offer and cooperates with him, but she has a change of heart when she meets her mother and has her memories restored, so now she wants to reconcile with her sister, even though her sister is resistant after everything she's done. Emma and Hook are reunited midway through when he escapes (maybe still with Milah's help), but Hades has captured Regina, maybe? That could be when Zelena's dilemma comes in.

It's hard to do it exactly since the characters and situations don't map perfectly, but by focusing on just a few characters it does tighten it up. They'd still have to work on their pacing and solidify Hades's scheme and his motivations. And not throw in a random side story just because they said something they didn't mean in an interview and then their first stab at doing it didn't go over well so they had to claim that wasn't really the thing they promised, it was still coming.

[Camera One]

They could use Josh Dallas in the underworld as his evil twin brother.  Maybe Henry and Snow could appear in the Underworld too as apparitions because being under the Sleeping Curse means they were half dead, and they could appear periodically to help.

[Shanna Marie]

16 hours ago, Camera One said:

Maybe Henry and Snow could appear in the Underworld too as apparitions because being under the Sleeping Curse means they were half dead, and they could appear periodically to help.

Or just do a separate parallel plot line of them in Storybrooke, like maybe dealing with the Camelot stuff. It would take screen time away from the Underworld plot, but them having a separate plot allows both plots to remain focused instead of going all over the place in order to accommodate the whole cast.

One other thing 5B could have taken from Wonderland was the setup for getting the main character to the other world. Instead of Emma coming up with a harebrained scheme to go to the Underworld and put half her heart into Hook's soul (I guess?) without any idea of how the afterlife worked but because it worked when her mother put half her heart into her father's physical body, have that be part of Hades's scheme. We don't find out until later that as soon as Rumple's second kid was conceived, Hades realized he held the contract, so he contacted Rumple, essentially holding kid 2 hostage unless Rumple got himself and Emma to the Underworld. What we see initially is Emma realizing she senses the dagger, going to Rumple, and him blurting out that maybe she can save Hook, since he shouldn't have had to die if he wasn't taking the Darkness with him, and since Hook was a Dark One and Emma was a Dark One, there may be something she could do to save him (it doesn't have to make total sense, since the whole thing is a lie. It just needs to be enough that an Emma who's not thinking clearly might grasp at it). Emma demands that Rumple take her to the Underworld, he puts up a resistance, she makes the blackmail threat, and he caves. Later, she (and we) learn it was all a setup and she'll have to find another way to save Hook, if it's even possible.

I was also thinking about how to find a parallel for Alice's goal of being with Cyrus so that Emma's not failing in her goal when she fails to bring Hook back and he gets that on his own merits (since I liked that part of the story). I think a good goal for her would be getting justice for Hook -- it's wrong that he died to end the Darkness and that was taken from him. That theme of justice is a good one for dealing with the afterlife. Hades is fighting against the (possibly perceived -- not that we got to see the backstory) injustice of Zeus trapping him. If Regina runs into her victims and has to atone, she might realize that instead of her being the victim of injustice, she's been the perpetrator. Zelena's beef with Regina was because it wasn't fair for Regina to get everything, and her turnaround might be her realizing that it wasn't Regina's fault. Meanwhile, Captain Guilt Complex might be the only person in the story thinking that things have been fair, since he deserves punishment. This way, Emma hasn't failed when she has to leave Hook behind with him convincing her that he's okay with it all, and the outcome would be justice because of Hook having earned his second chance.

[Camera One]

11 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I was also thinking about how to find a parallel for Alice's goal of being with Cyrus so that Emma's not failing in her goal when she fails to bring Hook back and he gets that on his own merits (since I liked that part of the story). I think a good goal for her would be getting justice for Hook -- it's wrong that he died to end the Darkness and that was taken from him. That theme of justice is a good one for dealing with the afterlife.

I think I would have preferred that.  They all trek down to the Underworld to get Hook back, but why would he get resurrected while others do not?  The Underworld also provided the Writers a chance to write a new clear set of rules.  The rules of 5B as written felt a little arbitrary (not a surprise given these Writers, but the first thing they should do with a "new" realm is to decide the ground rules).

[Shanna Marie]

On 5/5/2020 at 12:22 PM, Camera One said:

They all trek down to the Underworld to get Hook back, but why would he get resurrected while others do not?

As much as I like Hook and would have hated to see him killed off and out of the show, I have to agree. There really was no good reason why he should have been resurrected, at least, not the way they presented it. Even his great contribution in the Underworld that got Zeus to send him back to life wasn't that big a deal.

But there was potential for them to have done something along the lines of what Wonderland did with Ana, where she was restored because she hadn't been fated to die when Jafar killed her. Hook's death could have been seen as a perversion of the Grail power, since he was killed by Excalibur while doing the sorts of things that the kind of hero who can wield Excalibur is supposed to be doing. Arthur was corrupting the very idea of Excalibur/the Grail by using the sword to menace innocents, and Hook was mortally wounded while putting himself on the line to save innocents. If it had been any other sword that wounded him, Emma would have been able to heal him and he would have been fine. Then he was very much working with "Excalibur" energy when he used the joined sword to suck in all the Darkness and sacrificed himself to end it all. That even gets to some of the Christian versions of Grail lore, with a sacrifice to take away Darkness that's followed by a resurrection (though I certainly wouldn't trust these yahoos to deal with something that potentially delicate. C.S. Lewis they ain't.). There was definitely room to run into the entity who created the Grail in the Afterlife and have that entity say something like, "No, that's not the way it was supposed to work, you shouldn't be dead," and send him back, especially since the Grail did grant life before it got turned into a sword.

Come to think of it, the Grail on the parent show did work a lot like that water in Wonderland.

[Camera One]

Episode 8

I was earlier on this game this week.

This was a really good episode.  This is only my third time watching the series, so I don't remember the details at all, until they actually happen (then I remember).

Alice and Cyrus' romance is really romantic.  I think it's the most romantic classic love story they did that actually matched Snow and Charming's.  

Though when Cyrus and Alice were fighting together, for a moment, I did think about Henry and Jacinda fighting (he with the lunchbox) and I totally cringed.

I did have a question though.  Was there a reason why Alice didn't immediately go to the Outlands to their secret hideaway in Episode 1, except they probably hadn't made it up at that point?  Is there another explanation?

Ana is smarter than she seems, putting a fake bottle in the cabinet.  It was a bit cruel to behead the Tweedle, and put it in a box, though.  Horror elements like that did turn me off the show a little bit the first time around.  I hate watching that trope in medieval dramas... it's always a head or a hand or something in a bag.

I did like seeing a different character combo with Cyrus and the Red Queen.

I also liked that Jafar couldn't simply use the Red Queen's hair to immediately apparate to where she was.  He had to take time and mix some concoction, which looked suspiciously like a Dark Curse with the black clouds.

What impressed me was how the climax and the twist ending actually used major plot points from this half season.  Alice's wish in Episode 4 to die if Will dies was pivotal to the climax.  As was Alice promising to give Will a wish in Episode 1.  That showed really thoughtful planning.  Plus it actually made you sympathesize with the Red Queen.  Alice and Will still rightfully did not trust her, and they gave Cyrus a reason for being able to determine if The Red Queen was telling the truth.

Though Will's wish "I wish to end Alice's suffering" could have just ensured she died.  

I really like the chess metaphors they use since that was such a big part of the sequel book.  Though the line where the Red Queen said "In a game of chess, there is only one queen" is not very accurate.

The caravan/trailer should also have been slightly better hidden.  I'm pretty sure thieves would be tempted to see what's inside despite its decrepit appearance.  Its inclusion also was effective at showing that The Red Queen still had some of Anastasia left in her.  And this episode also finally revealed her true motivations.  They accomplished a lot in a single episode.

And then Will becoming the Genie sets up a new intriguing arc, a new goal, and a new combination of characters who would need to work together.  It was changing up the board and we know from the next episode, that it's not going to be simply reset in the next episode as per the main show's pointless cliffhangers (and subsequent hard reset).

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

Was there a reason why Alice didn't immediately go to the Outlands to their secret hideaway in Episode 1, except they probably hadn't made it up at that point?  Is there another explanation?

As I recall, when the Rabbit first went to Alice, he said something about hearing about Cyrus being alive at the Hatter's hut. She went there first because she expected to find him there or at least get the scoop about Cyrus there (since she didn't have any other details beyond that the Rabbit had heard Cyrus might still be alive). Soon after that, she learned he was a captive, so she was focused on freeing him. The moment she knew he was free, she went to the hideaway to find him/wait for him because she knew he'd go there.

[Shanna Marie]

On 5/9/2020 at 1:27 AM, Camera One said:

Though when Cyrus and Alice were fighting together, for a moment, I did think about Henry and Jacinda fighting (he with the lunchbox) and I totally cringed.

That scene made me think about Hook and Emma, mostly because of the absolute faith Cyrus had in Alice's ability to save him from the bandits. That reminded me of the way Hook was Emma's biggest fan and sure she could do anything. But it's a pity we didn't get any good scenes of Emma and Hook fighting side by side/back to back like that, did we? They fought against each other in season 2, but the closest I can think of to them fighting together was in the time travel adventure, when he thought they were fighting together but didn't realize she'd been taken prisoner.

On 5/9/2020 at 1:27 AM, Camera One said:

Plus it actually made you sympathesize with the Red Queen.  Alice and Will still rightfully did not trust her, and they gave Cyrus a reason for being able to determine if The Red Queen was telling the truth.

I liked how they handled that. Alice and Will weren't shown as being wrong for not instantly accepting Ana, even though Cyrus was right about her. Cyrus not only knew that she'd helped him, but he also had his genie senses to know what she wanted. It's interesting that she dropped her queenly accent and voice entirely and sounded much more lower-class. That made everything she said sound a lot more genuine.

On 5/9/2020 at 1:27 AM, Camera One said:

And then Will becoming the Genie sets up a new intriguing arc, a new goal, and a new combination of characters who would need to work together.  It was changing up the board and we know from the next episode, that it's not going to be simply reset in the next episode as per the main show's pointless cliffhangers (and subsequent hard reset).

I liked that they sort of wrapped up one storyline and launched into another one that grew organically from the previous one.

In story structure, there's the idea that as the story progresses, the characters have sub-goals of the greater goal (the steps along the way), and that in each scene, the characters shouldn't actually achieve their goals unless it's a case of "yes, but" where they get what they wanted but in a way that makes things more complicated, so they're always having to adjust and try new things. This would be a case of "yes, but." Cyrus is free and he and Alice have been reunited, yay! -- but now Will's a genie, which means Jafar is going to be after him, and they don't know where he is, so now they have to find Will before the wrong person becomes his master.

[Camera One]

I was also thinking about how in this show, the Genie was at their core a person and we cared about how they felt being a Genie.  Compare that to Aladdin becoming the Genie in Season 6.  He was a plot device, nothing more.  

Where does the Jasmine/Aladdin flashbacks from Season 6 fit into Jafar's flashbacks on this spinoff?  

Edited May 13, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

Where does the Jasmine/Aladdin flashbacks from Season 6 fit into Jafar's flashbacks on this spinoff?  

It depends on how Agrabah works. Is it that city, ruled by a single sultan, or is it a country ruled by a sultan, or is it a country with many sultans ruling their own cities? If there are different cities with different sultans, so Jasmine's father the sultan is different from Jafar's father the sultan, there's more timeline flexibility. It's more complicated if Agrabah is one country/city with one sultan.

Either way, the season 6 flashbacks must have happened while Jafar was trying to find genies, maybe after he lost track of Cyrus after he was sent to Wonderland. We know Eric was there around that time, and that was while Snow was on the run from Regina, so probably in the ballpark of a few years before the curse.

If there's one sultan, then maybe Jafar took his father prisoner and Jasmine's father took over. Jafar would have had to keep it quiet who he was and that he took out the old sultan in order to still be some kind of advisor to the new sultan, and he probably would have had to take his father prisoner some years before the season 6 flashbacks in order for Jasmine to have grown up feeling the responsibility of being the sultan's daughter and feeling a duty to her people. It did seem like Cyrus had been in Wonderland, stuck in the bottle, for some time before Alice found him. But would Jafar have stood back and let another sultan take over instead of taking the throne for himself, since he was the sultan's son?

On 5/9/2020 at 1:27 AM, Camera One said:

Alice and Cyrus' romance is really romantic.  I think it's the most romantic classic love story they did that actually matched Snow and Charming's. 

They fit my two main requirements for a fictional romance. On the one hand, I can imagine them actually getting along together in real life. They have similar values and they balance each other well. They really understand each other. And there's enough keeping them apart and providing complications to make things interesting. They're from different worlds, he's a genie with an evil sorcerer after him, then there's his past that got him stuck dealing with being a genie. Their connection is strong enough to make it worth all they went through to be together, and the conflict feels organic and not contrived because it comes from who they are and what their situation is.

I think that does compare well to the Charmings, who also clicked well and who had a lot to overcome to be together and happy.

I loved Emma and Hook, and I think they clicked well. I could imagine people like them being a good couple in the real world. Where I think they whiffed on that relationship was in the conflicts keeping them apart to make the romance part of their story interesting. They were all very contrived rather than coming organically from the characters. You don't necessarily have to have a lot of conflict if the relationship isn't the main story. If there's other conflict, then they can just find each other, figure out their feelings for each other, and get together, then function as an established couple. That could have worked just fine for Emma and Hook after season 3. But they kept throwing in contrived little conflicts to make it harder for them to be together while ignoring the organic potential issues that were built into the characters.

[Camera One]

The Palace in Agrabah looked different in Wonderland vs. Season 6, so maybe there are different cities.  I wonder why Jafar would be working as an advisor to another Sultan?  How did Aladdin's Genie fit in with his plans?  What about the Savior mythology?  It really makes you want to watch "Street Rats" again, doesn't it?!

Edited May 14, 2020 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

The Palace in Agrabah looked different in Wonderland vs. Season 6, so maybe there are different cities.  I wonder why Jafar would be working as an advisor to another Sultan?  How did Aladdin's Genie fit in with his plans?  What about the Savior mythology?  It really makes you want to watch "Street Rats" again, doesn't it?!

It almost seems like the two Jafar's are separate characters. Their personalities are different and there's only one vague reference connecting their stories. I think both Jafar's are interesting takes on the character, but I can't reconcile them as one entity. Bringing Jafar into S6 was a mistake, imo, because he was barely used and did little to service the story. The writers never committed to continuity with OUATIW. They threw in Will and Jafar without thinking of the implications or going any further than surface deep. I would've rather Will and Jafar not be in the parent show at all and have the parent show just pretend the spin-off didn't exist instead of doing hardly anything with it. That would be a bit less insulting to OUATIW.

[Camera One]

Could the Jafar from OUATIW have come from the Disenchanted Forest with Jacinda and Friends?  Now that we know it's so easy to go back and forth between realms that have the exact same characters.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Could the Jafar from OUATIW have come from the Disenchanted Forest with Jacinda and Friends?  Now that we know it's so easy to go back and forth between realms that have the exact same characters.

I can imagine all the cataloging of Big Bads plaguing the heroes.

Grumpy: "JAFAR IS BACK!"
Snow: "Which one is it this time?"
Emma: "I hope it's not the one from the live action remake again."
Grumpy: "He said he wants revenge on Aladdin!!"
Emma: "So it's not the one from Wonderland, then."
Snow: "What's if it's the one from Fictional Scotland?"
Emma: "Okay, that one was just weird and out of place. If it's the German one, I won't be able to understand a word he says."
Snow: "I really wished I was the German Snow White that time. Which reminds me, I need to have tea with her sometime soon..."
 

[Shanna Marie]

19 hours ago, Camera One said:

How did Aladdin's Genie fit in with his plans? 

My personal theory (not backed up by anything onscreen, since by the time Jafar appeared on the parent show they'd entirely forgotten the spinoff) is that after Cyrus got sent as far away from Jafar as possible, and after Jafar trapped Amara in the staff, he went in search of a third genie so he could do the spell (since Amara had reasons for getting those three specific genies, while Jafar just wants genies because of their power). He came to that city on the trail of Aladdin's genie, then was thwarted when Aladdin became the genie's master before Jafar could get to him.

20 hours ago, Camera One said:

I wonder why Jafar would be working as an advisor to another Sultan?

Maybe he was using that sultan the way he later used Ana, to get him the resources he needed to track down the genie. He might have started with the assumption that someone in power would have the genie, not some street rat.

It doesn't seem like Jafar cared all that much about ruling anything in an ordinary sense. He wanted that ultimate power to make his father love him and to rewrite history so that he was the beloved son brought up to be the next sultan. Just becoming the sultan because he seized power wasn't good enough. Maybe? I feel like I'm writing this for them right now.

20 hours ago, Camera One said:

It really makes you want to watch "Street Rats" again, doesn't it?!

No.

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Bringing Jafar into S6 was a mistake, imo, because he was barely used and did little to service the story.

You could substitute almost any season 6 guest character's name for "Jafar" in that sentence. The one bit of continuity was that Jafar was still trapped in that bottle as a genie, which picked up from the end of Wonderland. However, they completely forgot all the genie rules that season, from how the wishes worked in relation to who was the master to how easy it was for Jafar to free himself from being a genie.

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I would've rather Will and Jafar not be in the parent show at all and have the parent show just pretend the spin-off didn't exist instead of doing hardly anything with it. That would be a bit less insulting to OUATIW.

I think Wonderland could have existed just fine in parallel to the parent show if they hadn't brought over characters. Bringing in Will was a huge mistake. He only works if you ignore what they said in interviews and pretend that season 4 Will was after Ana broke his heart and ditched him to become queen and before the Rabbit came to get him to kick off Wonderland. If he was really meant to be after the happy ending we saw in Wonderland, they needed to have put in a lot more explanation up front instead of teasing that there was a story they'd get to someday, only to just drop the character without a word. With Jafar, it's almost like they brought him in as part of the Aladdin story and forgot that they'd already used the character elsewhere.

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

Could the Jafar from OUATIW have come from the Disenchanted Forest with Jacinda and Friends?

That would explain so much. Cyrus and Jafar are from the Disenchanted world's Agrabah, which explains the different sultan. The parent show's Jafar is from the Enchanted Forest world. He probably ended up as a genie, too, but for different reasons. This is my new headcanon.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

That would explain so much. Cyrus and Jafar are from the Disenchanted world's Agrabah, which explains the different sultan. The parent show's Jafar is from the Enchanted Forest world. He probably ended up as a genie, too, but for different reasons. This is my new headcanon.

That could explain why the Genie rules were different in Season 6, if Disenchanted Genies operated differently.  

The Season 6 storyline also diverged from the animated movie because Jafar was still around to taunt Aladdin about being Savior after they freed the Genie, so Jafar couldn't have been trapped in the lamp the same way.

 

 

[Shanna Marie]

So, the next episode ... I liked that people were actually allowed to be mad at Ana, even though she's now changed sides. It wasn't that Alice shouldn't be mad and refuse to work with Ana because that's not what heroes do or because being mad was a sign of darkness, or any of the nonsense they fed us on the parent show. It was that they needed Ana to help save Will, and Cyrus had good reason to believe that Ana really would work with them to that purpose. The villagers weren't wrong to be angry at Ana for being a terrible queen who lived in luxury while they starved. She had to listen to their complaints and criticisms and had to realize that there was nobody on her side. The only problem was that Cyrus and Alice needed her help, and they got caught up in the punishment for her crimes. She's not instantly perfectly reformed. It's not like a switch was flipped. Her primary motivation is still mostly selfish, even if it is less destructive now, but she does seem to be waking up and realizing some things.

It was interesting seeing how wishes worked through Lizard and Will. Big wishes are a bad idea and backfire on the wisher. Little wishes that benefit others can come out okay.

I also liked that Cyrus and Alice's relationship wasn't perfect. They had issues to work out and deal with after they were reunited. They needed to talk, and they didn't really have time for it, which created some conflict. That felt organic based on who they are and what they're going through. It wasn't the sort of contrived nonsense that got thrown at Emma and Hook (while the organic issues were never dealt with or even acknowledged).

I loved the second proposal, with the fireworks in the background, and her actually letting him talk (also something to compare to Emma and Hook).

Speaking of comparing to parent show relationships -- It's occurred to me that one of the reasons I'm so in favor of the headcanon that Wonderland takes place after season 4 of the parent show rather than before is that the before timeline more or less turns Will and Ana into Belle and Rumple. Bell and Rumple had that pattern in which he'd do something horrible that betrayed her, she'd be angry and they'd split up, then he'd do something moderately good (or not entirely bad, or refrain from doing bad, or have something bad happen to him), and then they'd get back together again. Then the whole cycle would repeat all over again. One round of that cycle might have worked, but repeating it makes Belle look like your typical abused wife stuck in a dangerous cycle of splitting up and getting back together. If Wonderland happened after season 4, then Will and Ana have gone through one round -- they were together, she betrayed him by marrying the king and ditching him, he got rid of his heart and left, tried to move on by getting involved with other people, then they were reunited, she changed, he changed, and they got back together for good. If Wonderland happened before season 4, then that means that after all that, they split up again, and it would seem that it was a repetition, with her doing something to ditch him, given that he was getting drunk and looking at pictures of the Red Queen in an Alice in Wonderland book. If they'd been split up involuntarily, like he was running some errand in the Enchanted Forest and got caught up in Curse 2 and couldn't get back to her, then you'd think he wouldn't have started dating Belle a few weeks later. And I guess we're to presume that after Belle ditched him, he found his way back to Ana, and they reconciled again.

[Camera One]

This show definitely works so much better believing that this is what happened to Will AFTER Season 4.  I could almost imagined it aired as a Season 8 after the disaster of Jacinda and Friends.  The other way around would actually somewhat ruin this show, to think that even after all this, Will and probably Ana had both reverted.

Cyrus reminded me of Hook right from the start... those V necks on every outfit he has are seriously very reaching.

Maybe it's my cynical lense from the parent show, but I felt like they were portraying Alice as irrational and had to be talked down by Cyrus, like two females just can't work together.  It didn't help that Ana made a few Regina-esque quips in the tent like how Alice and Cyrus are even more "insufferable" in person and claiming that Alice only thinks about herself.  

I did like that the regular people were allowed to be angry at Anastasia and she actually admitted straight-out that she was a horrible queen.  Imagine if someone else had acknowledged that.  It would have been nicer if they had shown the regular people weren't cruel enough to tie up Cyrus and Alice to leave them to die as well.  I must admit I was sad to see the glowing necklace go to the wolves, literally, but it's a nice concept that it was their past.

I like how they still gave Alice and Cyrus stuff to work with once they've reunited, unlike how they didn't know what to do with Snowing after the Curse broke.  Alice being afraid that the battles never end and hoping to just have her happy ending and rest is an interesting response, which of course makes the revelation that the other genie's are Cyrus's brothers more difficult to take.  

I too thought it was clever how the fireworks in Will's subplot dove-tailed so nicely with giving Cyrus proposal a nice backdrop.

I really hated the Jabberwocky due to her cruelty but she was a very effective villain.  She was creepy and extremely menacing.  

What they did to Lizard was really cruel.  Her last "wish" could have been just a passing comment, like the whole "I wish I was never the Savior" from Season 6.  

Edited May 18, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On 5/18/2020 at 1:45 AM, Camera One said:

The other way around would actually somewhat ruin this show, to think that even after all this, Will and probably Ana had both reverted.

That's where I don't even know what they were thinking in bringing Will to the parent show. Early in season 4, it looked like he was sad and missing Ana, which kind of worked, except that he'd reverted to stealing -- and it was petty theft, stuff like breaking in to the ice cream shop. But when he started dating Belle, that just blew everything up.

On 5/18/2020 at 1:45 AM, Camera One said:

Maybe it's my cynical lense from the parent show, but I felt like they were portraying Alice as irrational and had to be talked down by Cyrus, like two females just can't work together.

I saw it more as Alice being perfectly justified in being mad at Ana, but irrational about refusing to cooperate under the circumstances. Cyrus seemed to be very careful about how he phrased it. And she was being a bit irrational, not listening to his experiences and knowledge and being more stubborn than was a good idea at that time. I thought they found a nice balance, where it wasn't like Ana's sins were being forgotten and Alice didn't have to become her new best friend (unlike on the parent show), but she really needed to put her feelings aside at the moment and deal with Ana to save Will. That's probably how they should have approached the Neverland arc with Regina, but they weren't allowed to be angry at her for having just tried to kill them all.

On 5/18/2020 at 1:45 AM, Camera One said:

It didn't help that Ana made a few Regina-esque quips in the tent like how Alice and Cyrus are even more "insufferable" in person and claiming that Alice only thinks about herself.  

There I got the sense that she was lashing out in a defense mechanism. It sucks to have to be around a happy couple when you've just been ditched. She sounded a bit half-hearted about saying it, like she was still clinging to her persona. I don't remember, was she using her "Queen" accent then or her "Ana" accent? Later in the episode, she totally drops the "Queen" accent. When Regina made those kinds of comments, I felt like she really meant them, not like she was posturing and putting up a front to hide her vulnerability.

On 5/18/2020 at 1:45 AM, Camera One said:

It would have been nicer if they had shown the regular people weren't cruel enough to tie up Cyrus and Alice to leave them to die as well.

That did somewhat weaken their position, but I guess they figured that anyone who'd ally with Ana couldn't be entirely innocent.

On 5/18/2020 at 1:45 AM, Camera One said:

What they did to Lizard was really cruel.  Her last "wish" could have been just a passing comment, like the whole "I wish I was never the Savior" from Season 6.  

You have to be careful what you wish, even if you aren't the master of a genie. Someone later might wish that your wish comes true, even if you didn't really mean it. Though in this case, I think she did mean it. That was a heartfelt wish. It wasn't necessarily meant as an official genie wish, but I guess when it's felt that deeply, it becomes official. It would have been better if Will had just told her he didn't have a heart, but I guess they're saving that revelation for later and didn't want to give it away so soon. And I guess not having a heart keeps you from loving but doesn't stop you from being sad.

And not having a heart doesn't change anything if you're Regina in 3B or Hook in 4A. Rumple having Hook's heart only meant he controlled him. Hook seemed to feel everything just as deeply. He was just as crazy about Emma. It might have been interesting if he'd gone as cool and remote as Will, where he couldn't love. But then someone might have noticed that something was wrong with him. Or did Rumple do something that made him still have the feelings from the heart, so he'd be tortured instead of numb?

[KingOfHearts]

17 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

When Regina made those kinds of comments, I felt like she really meant them, not like she was posturing and putting up a front to hide her vulnerability.

I'm sure there were a lot of Evil Regals who would call it a defense mechanism. It surely was in the earlier seasons, but later on she was with her "best friends" and was just as mean. She had no reason to be bitchy after she had "dealt" with her issues if she had any sympathy at all for the victims she befriended. At least with Cyrus and Alice, Ana intended to reverse everything. She didn't actually hate them from the beginning. Regina was just always vengeful and meanspirited even when she didn't need to be. 

[Camera One]

10 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

but later on she was with her "best friends" and was just as mean. She had no reason to be bitchy after she had "dealt" with her issues if she had any sympathy at all for the victims she befriended. 

That is so true.  By that point, we were supposed to just think she was sassy.  It was almost like it was cool to denigrate your "friends".  

[Shanna Marie]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

It was almost like it was cool to denigrate your "friends". 

Ah, yes, that heartwarming scene in which she fat shamed a woman so pregnant that she gave birth a few hours later and attributed her size to ice cream.

Going back to Alice's reaction to Ana, I think one reason I don't take it as the show treating her like an irrational female is that the closest parallel I can think of on the parent show was when David got all snippy in Neverland and refused to listen to any of Hook's advice, even though Hook was the only one in the group familiar with Neverland and he'd survived about a century there. But David couldn't believe him because he was a pirate and a villain. There were plenty of reasons for David not to trust Hook, but the guy was putting himself on the line to help them, and he was familiar with the place, so David really needed to shut up and go with it for the time being.

I think Alice had more reason to distrust Ana than David had to distrust Hook -- Alice had suffered directly from Ana, had been betrayed by her repeatedly, and Ana was the reason she lost Cyrus in the first place, while David seemed to be more bothered by the idea that Hook was a villain than angry about any one particular thing Hook had done. I don't know that the show wanted us to see David as irrational, but then David did nearly die after ignoring Hook's advice and Hook saved his life, so maybe we were supposed to be thinking he needed to get over himself. I think they played somewhat with the expectation that Ana might be shady and did the fakeout, where we were left to wonder, along with Alice, if she'd ditched them, so I don't think we were supposed to think that Alice's concerns were entirely without merit.

[KingOfHearts]

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

That is so true.  By that point, we were supposed to just think she was sassy.  It was almost like it was cool to denigrate your "friends".  

There were ways to keep her "sassy" without blatantly insulting her "friends". Let her "friends" snap back at her with retort to show it was just banter or have her only make snippy comments to the villains. "Pound puppy and fish sticks" was actually a great line.

At this point in Wonderland, everything was still very raw. Everyone was having to work together despite being separate for so long prior, Jafar was on the move, and the plot demanded a lot of urgency. There wasn't a whole lot of time to breathe before rescuing Will and reaching the climax of the season. That's a good way of delivering tension without making the characters look insensible. 

[Shanna Marie]

Next episode up, and I've forgotten the title. Anyway, it's the one with the Cyrus backstory, and I was really getting the Hook vibes here -- and not just for the wide-open shirt. They're similar character types. Human Cyrus was probably a worse person than pre-Navy Hook but not as bad as pirate Hook. But then Human Cyrus was pretty much the same age he is in the present, since he didn't age as a genie, so fully adult, while the only way Hook's timeline works at all is if he's a teenager before the navy (even though he looks more or less the same as he does when he's mid-30s or pushing 70), so Cyrus has had more of a chance to go down a bad path than Hook had at that point. Maybe human Cyrus is what Hook might have been like if the navy hadn't come along. Hook is what Cyrus might have become if he hadn't been turned into a genie, if instead his mother had died. He might have then gone after revenge against the men who killed her (and there he might be considered a bit worse than Hook, since Hook wasn't at all responsible for his brother's death, while Cyrus had actually been cheating at cards, not that this warranted getting his house burned with his mother in it). But we've got the guy who's older than he looks, who did some impulsive, arrogant things with terrible consequences and has since learned from his experiences, feels shame about his past, and is trying to be a better man. Cyrus's growth arc happened offscreen, since he'd already learned from his time as a genie before he met Alice, while Hook's growth was a multi-season storyline. Oh, and (a) brother(s) is/are important to him.

It's interesting to consider what might have happened if he'd made a different choice, as he wishes now -- as I said, he might have gone after those men in revenge, along with his brothers (as the middle son, he seemed to have a lot of sway over both his older and younger brother). Amara would have died, so she wouldn't have taught Jafar. Jafar seemed to have some kind of innate magical ability and was driven by revenge, so he might have found someone else to teach him. My guess is that Amara wanted to do the "break the laws of magic" spell to go back and save her sons, to make Cyrus not take the water. Jafar's other teacher might not have known about or been preparing to do that spell, so he might not have been able to go as far as he did. But Ana still would have become the Red Queen and would have been terrible for Wonderland. Goodness knows what might have happened to Alice if she hadn't met Cyrus. Would she have made it home with the Rabbit as proof and been reconciled with her father sooner? Or would she have been caught by the queen's men if she hadn't taken refuge in his bottle?

This one is also where we really see Ana's redemption working out, where she's forced to ask for all the things she dumped Will to get, only now they're torture to her and she doesn't really want them. It's like she's getting a chance to repudiate her earlier choices while also being punished for them. That redemption equation I came up with is really working for her here, with remorse for her past actions plus karma and suffering. Then after she goes through that whole ordeal, she's honestly moved by the kindness of the Tweedle that she knows she doesn't deserve.

I guess regret/remorse and the chance at redemption are themes of this episode, with that happening for both Cyrus and Ana.