S03.E06: Ariel

[yeswedo]

 

To repay Ariel (JoAnna Garcia Swisher) for saving her life, Snow White helps her get acquainted with Prince Eric; Mr. Gold and Regina begrudgingly agree to work together to take down Pan.

 

Note: please use spoiler tags when referring to major events that happen after this episode to allow new viewers to choose to be spoiled.

[YaddaYadda]

I guess I'll do the honors.  While I love Joanna Garcia and thought she was a lovely Ariel, I thought the episode was just a painful to watch and a waste of time.

 

It's one of those episodes that makes me really hate Fairybacks.

[stealinghome]

I don't know, I agree that a lot of the episode is a write-off...but Ariel shanking Regina in the neck with her "salad trident" might just be one of my Top 10 Series Moments. So I really can't hate on the episode too much. :)

 

(Finally, someone who has the right idea on what to do with Regina!)

[Dani-Ellie]

I've decided I'm going to call forks "salad tridents" from now on ... even if they have four tines. :P

[KingOfHearts]

I'm going to cheat here, because I haven't rewatched it super recently, but I'll go by memory:
 

Pros:
* Joanna Garcia. She was made for this role, and she does it so well!

* Regina teaching Emma magic. I love watching that for some reason.

* "Why it's the catch of the day!" 

* "I have no intention of ordering calamari."
* Regina's Ursula. CGI wasn't amazing, but I found how they mimicking the Disney Ursula so funny.

* Regina choking fake Belle. "What is this, amateur hour?" cracked me up so hard.

* Pan and Rumple. Great chemistry there!
 

Cons:

* The infamous Echo Cave Speech.

* Snow's secret keeping skills. "Don't tell Emma Neal is alive." "Ok. NEAL's ALIVE!"
* Snow's fighting with Charming. Blah.

* The fairybacks weren't all that interesting. It was just another random tale.

* The real Ursula. Thought she was just kind of creepy.

* Another jungle trek episode.

 

I actually tried making eggs in a basket from watching this episode!

Edited August 24, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[retrograde]

Even as a kid, I never liked The Little Mermaid (except the songs, of course), so I remember not looking forward to this one at all.

 

Still, some things I did like:

 

- That Hook told the Charmings about Neal straight away. That was very refreshing.

- Although

the secrets revealed ultimately ended up having zero impact on anything

, Echo Cave was a useful MacGuffin to get a bunch of stuff out in the open instead of dragging those out, too.

- "David, now is not the time."

- "Salad trident?"

- Always love Regina and Rumple bickering and scheming.

 

Parts I was less fond of:

- Neal is back.

- "Oh some tracks. That definitely means Neal was here!"

- "I'm sure Neal will understand"

- SO much bad CGI in this one

- Where did they get those dresses from?

- I can't believe that in hundreds of years of existence doing terrible things, that was Hook's "darkest secret"

[legaleagle53]

* Snow's secret keeping skills. "Don't tell Emma Neal is alive." "Ok. NEAL's ALIVE!"

 

Man, she just never learns to keep her big mouth shut, does she?  I'm beginning to think that Regina has had a point about her all these years.

 

Seriously, I'd say that if you really want fast communication services in Storybrooke, you have three options: telegraph, telephone, and Tell It to Snow.

Edited August 24, 2014 by legaleagle53

[KingOfHearts]

 

Seriously, I'd say that if you really want fast communication services in Storybrooke, you have three options: telegraph, telephone, and Tell It to Snow.

 

Fourth option is Leroy... but that's after Snow. ;)

[legaleagle53]

Fourth option is Leroy... but that's after Snow. ;)

Actually, I almost mentioned him, but he wasn't in this episode (that I can recall), and I didn't want to go too far off-topic.  ;-)

[Mari]

 Regina's Ursula. CGI wasn't amazing, but I found how they mimicking the Disney Ursula so funny.

Oh did mileage vary on this one!  ;) 

 

I hated it--for me, it was so over the top and so much an imitation of the cartoon that it was like chewing tinfoil.  The only thing that came remotely close to salvaging it for me was the creepy Ursula that I hope makes a reappearance at some point.

 

 

 

- Where did they get those dresses from?

- I can't believe that in hundreds of years of existence doing terrible things, that was Hook's "darkest secret"

I'm sure it wasn't--but, it's likely the darkest secret that would impact the group he was with. Plus, for someone who devoted his entire existence to destroying Rumple because Rumple destroyed Hook's great love?    I can see being interested in Emma--really, emotionally interested--being a dark secret in the sense it wasn't something he'd want to admit even to himself.  In some ways, it would be an admission that he'd wasted so very much of his life.

 

Also, you are completely right about the dresses.  They were horrible.  I don't care if they were meant to show that ARiel had legs, we should not have been subjected to those dresses.  Even questionable leather hotpants are not as bad as those dresses.

[legaleagle53]

Oh did mileage vary on this one!  ;) 

 

I hated it--for me, it was so over the top and so much an imitation of the cartoon that it was like chewing tinfoil.  The only thing that came remotely close to salvaging it for me was the creepy Ursula that I hope makes a reappearance at some point.

 

I don't know -- one of the things about Regina when she's in Evil Queen mode is that a little scenery-chewing is almost de rigueur.  In fact, if Lana didn't go just a little over-the-top with the Evil Queen, I'd say that she wasn't doing it right!

[KAOS Agent]

Pat Carroll who voiced Ursula is one of Lana's favorites and she said that she was super excited to get to play Ursula. It was meant to be an imitation of the Disney Ursula and Lana did a great job with it. Ursula is one of my favorite Disney villains and I'm really happy that the real Once version is still happily swimming away somewhere and not at all afraid to tell Regina off for impersonating her.

 

One thing I've wondered about this episode is if the Emma/Snow conversation about the kiss with Hook was meant to display the complete disconnect between Emma and Snow or was just supposed to be Snow furthering Emma's confusion about the whole Neal thing in general. It seemed to me that Emma was trying to share something with her friend along the lines of I kissed Hook and I'm a little worried because I want to do it again and what does that all mean? Help me out here, Snow. While Snow showed she had zero clue about how her daughter thinks and went right to Neal, so Emma just kind of shut down about the whole thing. But it's entirely possible the writers were just trying to build up more for the triangle with Emma confused and Snow on Team Neal for no discernible reason other than that the plot needed her to be and that they weren't actually making any commentary on the mother/daughter relationship. 

[stealinghome]

But it's entirely possible the writers were just trying to build up more for the triangle with Emma confused and Snow on Team Neal for no discernible reason other than that the plot needed her to be and that they weren't actually making any commentary on the mother/daughter relationship.

I think this is most likely the case. They were pushing the triangle hard in this ep and the next (maybe even the next 2? I can't remember), so I think it's entirely likely that they wanted to hit the audience over the head with the fact that EMMA IS TORN BETWEEN THESE TWO GUYS. The easiest way to do that is to have Emma verbalize her confusion, and Snow is the obvious choice for that conversation partner, so. I really don't think they thought about it any deeper than that. Edited August 25, 2014 by stealinghome

[retrograde]

i agree with stealinghome's analysis, even though, yeah, Snow's response did sound like a total clueless mum response.

 

Also, I think she was somewhat aware that there was something between Hook and Emma. In 3.05, when they're making rope and Hook is sulking, Snow seems quite aware of the tension between them, and that Emma is looking at him as much as he is her. I think she reads the situation better than David. 

[Shanna Marie]

Snow gets a lot of hate for her Echo Cave speech, but upon rewatching and seeing it again in context, I don't think it's that bad. I can't imagine that any parent who's lost or had to leave a much-wanted and loved newborn wouldn't feel a bit robbed at not seeing first smiles, first steps and other milestones. Emma probably could have empathized at that point because although she gave Henry up, once she got to know him as a pre-teen, she probably found herself feeling the loss of all the things she missed. And it's not exactly a wild and crazy idea that parents might want to have a second child and that parents in this circumstance would hope to experience all the things they missed with child number one with child number two. Snow would never have actually told Emma any of this and would have kept it to herself, but the whole point of the cave was to be torture, to make people say things that would hurt other people or hurt themselves so it would keep them from being able to work together. Snow believed she was helping reunite Emma with her true love (and even if not that, Neal was their only sure way out of Neverland), but doing so required her to hurt Emma. I can't blame Snow for feeling those things because they're human and natural feelings, and I can't blame her for saying it when she was forced to, since the only other option was to find another secret that likely would have been just as damaging or to leave Neal to rot and lose their chance of escaping Neverland.

 

Although I normally hate romantic triangles, the Hook, Emma, Neal triangle had some material in it to be interesting, since Hook and Neal had a longer-term relationship with each other than either of them had with Emma. Hook, at least, considered Neal to be family, or the closest thing he still had to family, and that left him with the dilemma that getting something he wanted would require hurting someone he loved. He had about thirty seconds of getting to realize that he might be able to love again and find some happiness, and then he found out Neal was alive. He did the right thing in telling the others instead of conveniently getting a rival out of the way, and then he was faced with having to confess his feelings in order to free his rival, effectively eliminating his chances since that was guaranteed to put Emma on the defensive and put David and Snow in opposition even if Neal's return alone didn't scuttle everything. The most interesting triangles come when it's not just two people fighting over another person but when they've got a lot more at stake and have to weigh which relationship is most important and wrestle with themselves.

 

As for the other side of the plot, Eric's royal prom remains silly, and the 80s prom dresses were just awful. We didn't need to actually see Ariel's legs to know she had them, considering that she was upright and walking. We'd already seen that she had legs and feet, so we didn't need the visual clue, and it's not like Eric would have thought, "Hmm, her skirt covers her legs. Does she even have legs? Could she be a mermaid?"

 

I noticed that Eric was planning a caravan to Agrabah, and that's where Cyrus and Jafar on the spinoff were originally from, which puts them from the same world as the Enchanted Forest.

[retrograde]

Yeah Snow's speech never bothered me as much as it seems to have other people and you have done a better job articulating why than I could have. Perhaps part of the problem was the delivery? With Emma and Hook's confessions, you could feel that it was excruciating for them to say. Whereas Ginnifer/Snow kind of said hers like "I have been holding this in too long and now I'm going to let you know how I feel!" I can imagine it was awful to say in front of Emma, but I'm not sure we saw that on screen.

Edited September 1, 2014 by retrograde

[Dani-Ellie]

Snow gets a lot of hate for her Echo Cave speech, but upon rewatching and seeing it again in context, I don't think it's that bad.

 

Responding in the Relationships thread, because my thoughts go beyond this episode.

[Shanna Marie]

Perhaps part of the problem was the delivery? With Emma and Hook's confessions, you could feel that it was excruciating for them to say. Whereas Ginnifer/Snow kind of said hers like "I have been holding this in too long and now I'm going to let you know how I feel!"

Perhaps with Emma and Hook, it was things they weren't really planning or wanting to ever say to anyone -- especially Emma's confession -- so it was painful to say it at all, to anyone. But with Snow's confession, I can imagine it being something she wished she could say to David and had maybe been thinking about saying to David, though she'd never have wanted to say it in front of Emma. She's been putting a happy face on everything and trying to act like everything was okay while this has been bubbling up inside her, so it might have felt good on one level to get it out. It's a conversation she and her husband needed to have but that they hadn't really had a chance to have. The issue there was Emma hearing it. And then the double whammy of David's subsequent confession, which I think completely distracted her from any kind of dealing with the aftermath of her own confession.

[MaiLuna]

 

Snow's response did sound like a total clueless mum response

I didn't mind Snow mentioning Neal, because yes, I think they were just pushing the triangle too, but the choice of words was awful IMO. "I'm sure Neal will understand". Neal had been engaged to be married literally 2 or 3 days before, he has nothing to "understand", Emma has every right to kiss whoever she pleases.  

[Zuleikha]

The Little Mermaid is one of my favorite Disney movies, so I was very disappointed in this episode. I can appreciate a good salad trident shanking, but they otherwise completely botched Ariel! She's NOT motivated by love for Prince Eric! She's motivated by her curiosity/fascination with the human world. Rescuing Eric prompted the chain of events that led her to Ursula, but she wanted legs before she rescued him. She even sings it explicitly in "Part of Your World" ("bet they don't reprimand their daughters/bright young women/sick of swimmin'/ready to stand") She wasn't horrible (albeit cast way too old!), but it was disappointing to have the complexity of her story reduced to love at first sight.

 

Regina as Ursula was fine and fun, but I wish the writers had figured out a way to do the story without Snow. Mermaids are already an established part of Neverland. Surely, there could have been some way to do a Neverland-based mermaid story to tie to an Ariel flashback and the Ariel reveal while letting the flashback be a straightforward Regina story or a Regina/Rumple story. There is simply no new ground with the Evil Queen/Snow conflict, and it's already past ridiculous the amount of times they've been in contact with Snow still alive. I buy the apparent headcanon of Lana and Ginnifer that there's a deep love underlying all the hate and pain, but even with that, I do not buy that Regina would have gone through all that trickery to get to Snow and then not quickly killed her. But there is still potential story with Regina's early days and the mentorship with Regina/Rumple. It really felt like the Snow was involved in the story for the sole purpose of giving Ginnifer screentime, and it didn't work. 

 

I did like that Regina and Rumple are now paired together, though, because Rumple desperately needed someone other than ShadowBelle to talk to and that pairing makes sense (so much sense, in fact, that I'm wondering why the show didn't do it in the first place since the potential story value of Regina with the Charmings was underutilized, IMHO). 

 

Also, I blame all y'all for talking about Ginnifer's real life pregnancy because I'm now distracted by watching her costuming try to conceal the pregnancy. I would never have noticed if I didn't already know, but now the empire-waist dress and loose blouses are jumping out at me. 

[KAOS Agent]

There is simply no new ground with the Evil Queen/Snow conflict, and it's already past ridiculous the amount of times they've been in contact with Snow still alive.

 

Since the show decided to go the redemption route with Regina, the only way to get the Evil Queen on the show is to have the continued flashbacks to Regina v Snow which are very, very annoying because as you pointed out, Snow should be dead. The actresses' headcanon never really worked for me because while I can maybe see Regina hesitating about pulling the trigger herself when faced with Snow, she repeatedly sent others out to kill her. Those people aren't expected to fail and when they do, they are forced into slavery (Graham) or killed which gives them a crazy strong motivation to succeed. If Regina was subconsciously trying not to kill Snow, she'd never put Snow's fate in others' hands. 

 

Also, I blame all y'all for talking about Ginnifer's real life pregnancy because I'm now distracted by watching her costuming try to conceal the pregnancy. I would never have noticed if I didn't already know, but now the empire-waist dress and loose blouses are jumping out at me.

 

Sorry to have created the distraction. You would have eventually noticed though because it gets really obvious. Ginny is also normally pretty thin in her face, but the pregnancy really filled it out. While they can cover the midsection with carefully draped clothing and coats or potted plants and judicious use of her stunt double, it's not possible to never show the actress's face. 

Edited January 4, 2015 by KAOS Agent

[YaddaYadda]

The Enchanted Forest flashbacks are incredibly tedious and I could care less about Regina vs Snow round 1,099,875,325 because ugh.  Season 1 was one thing and those were really enjoyable, even Season 2, but enough already.  I hated the Ariel flashbacks and I hated Regina as Ursula, but boy did I love Ursula coming at Regina the way she did and scaring her half to death.

 

I remember the discussion after Good Form where a lot of us were wondering if Hook would tell the truth about Neal or keep it to himself and how that would come back to bite him in the ass if he kept his mouth shut.

 

The whole Hook/Neal dynamic has always been interesting in the sense that Hook really would have done anything for him, including change his pirate ways and risk losing whatever thing he and Emma might've started building in order to free him from Pan.  I always thought the whole echo caves to be a bit ridiculous, but hey...Hook basically tells Emma that he wants to move on with basically her and Snow confesses that she wants a do over babe...

 

The single one scene in the whole series that flushed down the Emma/Snow relationship forever.  No, Snow, you are not forgiven.

[OnceUponAJen]

Call me sentimental (I will admit to it), but I loved Hook's unabashedly romantic declaration in the Echo Caves scene. I know he was "forced" into making it, but I loved the expressions that Colin brought to it as an actor, particularly the look on his face when he knew what David was going to say in reply to Mary Margaret.

Edited January 4, 2015 by OnceUponAJen

[Mari]

I do not buy that Regina would have gone through all that trickery to get to Snow and then not quickly killed her. But there is still potential story with Regina's early days and the mentorship with Regina/Rumple. It really felt like the Snow was involved in the story for the sole purpose of giving Ginnifer screentime, and it didn't work. 

 

Also, I blame all y'all for talking about Ginnifer's real life pregnancy because I'm now distracted by watching her costuming try to conceal the pregnancy. I would never have noticed if I didn't already know, but now the empire-waist dress and loose blouses are jumping out at me. 

 

I have to agree that the flashbacks to the Regina/Snow "I could have killed you, but didn't" have been done and done and done.  There's plenty of other story to tell.  Tell that--because the more often we see someone nearly get killed, but for some reason not at the last minute, the more ridiculous it becomes.

 

Hee--I tend not to notice so quickly things like the weight gain, but I hated (and still hate) those dresses Snow and Ariel wore to the ball.  Yuck.  And I have issues with the love at first sight, thing, too.  If you haven't had a conversation of some kind, it's not love; it's lust or infatuation, and reducing Ariel's desire to experience more than her current existence shouldn't be reduced to lust or infatuation.

[Zuleikha]

The single one scene in the whole series that flushed down the Emma/Snow relationship forever.  No, Snow, you are not forgiven.

 

I don't see how Snow's confession in the Echo Caves was more hurtful or worse than Emma's declaration of orphanhood to make Pan's map work. Both said a truth under magical duress that the other probably secretly knew already, and neither would ever have said it so directly otherwise. If anything, I think Snow's declaration was less hurtful than Emma's because Emma pretty much invalidated her relationship with Snow whereas Snow just wanted an experience of motherhood that she had been cheated from. 

 

If Regina was subconsciously trying not to kill Snow, she'd never put Snow's fate in others' hands.

 

This actually makes some sense to me. Regina sends others because she does want Snow dead but knows (at least subconsciously) that she won't be able to do it herself... If I remember right that was part of the logic of sending someone else after Cora, too. But I don't think it holds up over confrontation after confrontation. At some point, Regina would be desensitized, and there just wasn't anything in the writing to convince me that Regina really would have hesitated over helpless mermaid Snow instead of disintegrating her or breaking her neck. At least, the writers could have had Regina taking out Snow's heart when Ariel shanked her since I could buy that Regina would prefer to capture Snow's heart to a quick kill!

 

I think how this episode could have worked better with the same main characters would have been to put Snow in the Eric role in the tale. Just skip the romance entirely and make Ariel's motivation to get to land/escape her father. Regina-as-Ursula could then give Ariel a legs-for-Snow type of deal and Ariel could be trying to trick Snow from the beginning. Instead of a ball, have Snow/Ariel talk in a cove or something like that and talk about their fathers and dreams... maybe work in something about attitudes towards kids to connect Snow's fairyback to her Neverland present arc. Then Ariel could betray Snow, have regrets, unbetray her before delivering her to Regina-as-Ursula. Regina could still take Ariel's voice, but never come face-to-face with Snow directly. Regina could get Ariel's help at the end with the same promise of legs on demand.

 

(and I don't really mind noticing Ginnifer's pregnancy. I just think it's funny because it's jumping out at me, and I am normally the worst at spotting stuff like that. I've failed to notice people's 3rd trimester pregnancies in real life!)

[KAOS Agent]

 

I don't see how Snow's confession in the Echo Caves was more hurtful or worse than Emma's declaration of orphanhood to make Pan's map work. Both said a truth under magical duress that the other probably secretly knew already, and neither would ever have said it so directly otherwise.

 

The problem isn't Snow's confession because she was forced to say it. The issue stems from the fact that just two days ago Snow had stated that it was her job to make Emma not feel like an orphan and then she turns around and says Emma's not what she wanted. Which again, duress. However, the secrets told in Echo Cave were meant to be hurtful and divisive and Snow and Emma never have a single conversation about it. In "Lost Girl" when Emma says she feels like an orphan, she apologizes to Snow and wants to make it okay. Here, we got nothing. A simple "are you okay, Emma?" or even an "I love you, Emma" (something that has never been said directly to Emma by either of her parents) would have at least acknowledged that it was painful and that Snow wanted to make it okay with her daughter. Instead, we get Snowing drama and Emma with the Triangle of Doom and Snow's next conversation with Emma is snippy and completely ignores the issue. 

 

This is a pattern with the writers who when asked about the Charmings relationship with their daughter talk about how much they love each other, but then when they want drama for plot reasons, they bring up the issues that they continually sweep under the rug (which shows that they know exactly what's wrong with the relationship), make it a big deal and then it's fixed with a hug and a sentence until the next time they need drama. Six episodes into the season and it's already been used for drama twice. They can't keep bringing out the underlying problems in this crazy relationship and then never let the characters have a meaningful conversation where they hash it out. And of course, since they bring up these issues, never show them being resolved and never really show Emma and her mother having happy, good times, how is the audience to assume things are all great and wonderful in that relationship?

 

They also often unintentionally make Snow look uncaring because they focus heavily on other characters' relationship angst while Snow just seems to keep right on without a care. If Regina had made a confession to Henry about how him being adopted made their relationship special and unique, but how it wasn't enough and she wanted a child of her own, I guarantee you we'd get endless scenes of Regina crying and wailing to anyone and everyone about how awful it was and apologizing profusely to Henry and nonstop drama about everything because that's what this show does. So when Snow doesn't get any scenes like that, it appears that she doesn't care at all. Her character must stay in her relationship box. Snow gets relationships with David and Regina, she's not allowed to deal with Emma outside of plot dictated drama. Emma gets meaningful relationships with Hook, Neal, Regina and sometimes Henry, but she's not allowed to hash it out with her mother. It's endlessly frustrating.

[YaddaYadda]

I find that the worst part in all of this is that Emma and Snow do have that thing in common where they both had to leave their child behind.  Emma has her regrets regarding Henry much as Snow has regrets regarding Emma.  They tried to do what best under the circumstances.  It will never sit well with me that the writers decided to have Snow's confession in the Echo Caves right after Lost Girl.

 

Not to mention that we found out that the convo Emma had with Snow, she was supposed to have with Hook instead.  At the end of the day, doing that might've been less destructive to Emma and Snow.

[Dani-Ellie]

However, the secrets told in Echo Cave were meant to be hurtful and divisive and Snow and Emma never have a single conversation about it. In "Lost Girl" when Emma says she feels like an orphan, she apologizes to Snow and wants to make it okay. Here, we got nothing. A simple "are you okay, Emma?" or even an "I love you, Emma" (something that has never been said directly to Emma by either of her parents) would have at least acknowledged that it was painful and that Snow wanted to make it okay with her daughter. Instead, we get Snowing drama and Emma with the Triangle of Doom and Snow's next conversation with Emma is snippy and completely ignores the issue.

 

This is the key for me. On the face of it, I actually quite liked Snow's secret, because yes, this is the kind of stuff that should come out of the Charming Family's situation. There should be anger, there should be feelings of injustice, because it's true. The time stolen from Snow and Charming and Emma is priceless ... and irreplaceable. There is nothing that can give them that time back, nothing that can give Emma a second childhood in which she's raised by her loving parents and nothing that can allow Snow and Charming to raise their little girl, and they should be furious and hurt and everything in between.

 

My problem was the lack of follow-through. This is 100% a writing issue but Snow spends what, half of the next episode furious at Charming over his secret. And when they do hash it out, she tells him that she would "happily" spend eternity dodging Lost Boys with him, and neither one of them even so much as mention their daughter. The daughter who, as KAOS Agent pointed out, had just told Snow like three days ago that she still feels like the orphan she grew up as and whom Snow had just promised like three days ago she was going to help change that. Sorry to tell you, Snow, but your daughter kinda can't not feel like an orphan anymore if her parents are trapped in a realm she can't easily visit. And I get that Snow's decision was an impossible one to make but my problem was it didn't seem like she struggled with it at all. It was "of course I'll stay with you, Charming" while neither one of them seems to consider what that means for the rest of their family.

 

So we have Snow spending half an episode pissed at Charming but never once does she seem to stop and think, "Gee, if I'm this upset about Charming's secret, maybe Emma's upset about my secret. I should ask her if she's okay." And when the last thing we get from Emma on the subject is her dropping her eyes from her mother when she says "Our relationship with her is unique but it's not what I wanted," how are we supposed to take that? Is she ultimately okay with it? Is she just burying the pain because that's what she does? Where is her head at? As her mother, shouldn't Snow want to know the answer to those questions? As a viewer, I certainly want to know, and it irritates me that I don't.

[YaddaYadda]

I think it's in this one where Emma is trying to talk some sense into Snow regarding David's situation and she tells her how she says a whole lot with nothing and Snow replies that Emma inherited her father's tunnel vision (when the flashback...Medusa....really, Snow?)

 

The Snow and Emma relationship has been talked to death and then some.  One of my favorite scenes was when Emma and Snow visited the castle in the Enchanted Forest and Emma got to see where she was supposed to grow up and got emotional because she realized that she was loved and wanted and her parents wanted what was best for her and I thought there would be some progress from there because that was such a great foundation to build on.  I think one of the main issues is that the moment Mary Margaret became Emma's mother after the curse broke, she forgot or found it difficult to be the mother of a 28 year old which absolutely fair because yes, their relationship is very unique, but for the love of all that's holy, have a freakin' conversation!

 

So, I have to admit that more than a year later, I still don't understand the Medusa flashback and why it was necessary at all.  Do Adam and Eddy have a hat with names on pieces of paper where they do a draw and decide to write the weirdest things?

[Serena]

Yeah, the disconnect between Snow being wrecked by guilt for killing Cora, a mass murderer, to defend her family, and not having any problem killing Medusa, who was just chilling in her cave not hurting anyone, and if we want to go there she was also only dangerous because she got her powers as a punishment for being raped, is mind-boggling.

[Zuleikha]

I think it's in this one where Emma is trying to talk some sense into Snow regarding David's situation and she tells her how she says a whole lot with nothing and Snow replies that Emma inherited her father's tunnel vision (when the flashback...Medusa....really, Snow?)

 

Did I blink and miss the Medusa flashback or is this from a future episode?

 

So we have Snow spending half an episode pissed at Charming but never once does she seem to stop and think, "Gee, if I'm this upset about Charming's secret, maybe Emma's upset about my secret. I should ask her if she's okay."

 

Responding in "Dark Hollow"

[YaddaYadda]

Did I blink and miss the Medusa flashback or is this from a future episode?

 

Oh crap!  Totally my fault, my bad.  For some reason I thought Medusa happened during Ariel, got confused because I'm re-watching season 3 right now.  Super sorry for spoiling this, but if it helps, it's nothing to write about.

[Souris]

Ariel shanking Regina with the salad trident is never not glorious.

[KingOfHearts]

On 1/6/2015 at 3:29 PM, Souris said:

Ariel shanking Regina with the salad trident is never not glorious.

It still is.

Joanna Swisher's performance as Ariel is the only really outstanding thing about this episode.

On 8/24/2014 at 12:31 PM, KingOfHearts said:

"What is this, amateur hour?" cracked me up so hard.

Although, this is still one of my favorite Regina lines of all time for some reason.

Edited November 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Joanna Swisher's performance as Ariel is the only really outstanding thing about this episode.

She really is perfect, an embodiment of the cartoon but in a way that feels fresh rather than a slavish re-creation of the cartoon.

I do like the bit with Hook coming clean about Neal to the Charmings up front and Snow's utter inability to keep a secret. It's interesting that she still holds to the idea that all secrets are bad when so much bad stuff happened to her because she didn't keep a secret. There's also some interesting character stuff going on with the Echo Cave.

The ball might earn the award for most ridiculous costumes. The women look like they're attending a 20th century high school prom while the men are dressed in medieval and Renaissance style clothes. And then there's the blonde in a faux sari. It's so bizarre that suddenly this one time in all these kingdoms, we see women wearing short skirts. And with the stripper heels, of course, because someone involved with this show has a fetish.

It didn't seem like the knights coming after Snow were under heart control by Regina. They seemed to be true believers who supported Regina and hated Snow. They genuinely hated her. They didn't have the blankness that we saw with Graham, and they didn't seem to be mouthing Regina's words. So, where were Regina's supporters in the curse? Or did she kill them all along the way when they displeased her? How did she recruit them? Were there people in the kingdom ready to rebel against the king? Did they think she was going to sleep with them if they pleased her? I wondered what Eric's father thought about soldiers from another kingdom coming into his kingdom.

Spoiler

During this arc, I got the feeling they were really setting up a triangle between Neal, Emma, and Hook, and I'm not sure they planned for Hook to be the winner from the start. Even all Emma's talk about wishing Neal was still dead came across like being about how much she loved him. And then there's Snow's "Neal will understand" about Emma kissing Hook -- yeah, like Neal would have any grounds for complaint, given that he was engaged to someone else five minutes ago. It's interesting that Neal was so abruptly killed off in the next arc after all this setup. I wonder if someone at the network saw the reaction to the kiss with Hook and nixed the triangle and Neal.

[companionenvy]

I've never blamed Snow for the Echo Cave revelation. Not only was she forced into it, she takes great pains to try to soften it by talking about how much she values what she has with Emma, and making it clear that her desire comes from the sense of what she's missed with her. Snow wouldn't be human if she didn't feel this way, and it isn't any reflection on Emma. I do think, however, that Snow has been in some denial over her feelings until recently - the orphan scene, combined with the "I don't know how to comfort my daughter - its the first thing a mother learns" have reinforced how irrevocable her loss is.

Emma's confession to Neal is a lot more brutal, not that I blame her for it, either.

[KingOfHearts]

On 11/16/2018 at 9:00 PM, Shanna Marie said:

The women look like they're attending a 20th century high school prom

Spoiler

The ball gowns are from the Prehistoric 1980s Victorian Mean Girls collection. 

[andromeda331]

Those gowns crack me up! They are so awful. After so many great costume decisions and designs they come up with this? I did like Joanna Swisher she was a great Ariel I wish they had done more with her. I love the real Ursula threatening Regina too bad we never saw her again. 

[KingOfHearts]

I love how this show has...

... three different Ursulas, yet we never see the real one in the flesh.

[Camera One]

It's a shame we never got to see the other 16 Ursulas.

[KingOfHearts]

8 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It's a shame we never got to see the other 16 Ursulas.

Don't worry, they'll be in A&E's Twice Upon a Time reboot series along with the 20 other Regina's.

[tennisgurl]

I could watch Ariel stab Regina in the neck with a fork a million times, and it would never get old. 

Joanna Swisher really is a perfect choice for Ariel. She is sweet and charming, a little clumsy and naive, but also loyal and funny. And she and Snow have a great, easy chemistry very quickly, and I enjoy the two of them together, even if the whole adventure is kind of random from Snows perspective. She has to escape for her life (and find Charming? Are we there that?), but also takes some time to hang out at the neighboring kingdom, and help this mermaid with her problems? It also makes me wonder about the mermaid when she first got to Neverland. Yeah, Hook said the mermaids are scary and are going to attack them, wouldn't she have said something about her friend who was a mermaid, so maybe they could talk to them? 

The cave of echos was a good bit of characterization, and I thought the revaluations were all pretty good. Snows secret did make me upset and sad, but its because its a saddening and upsetting situation. It sucks for Emma that her parents want a replacement kid, but I can understand why Snow wanted to do this. And Emma's secret was brutal. Its understandable, but its still something that people wouldn't just say to a person.  

Pan calling Belle fertile will never stop being weird. I do enjoy Regina and Rumple snark. Regina's snark is more fun with him, because, unlike with Snow, he gives as good as he gets. "What is this, amateur hour?" "That would explained her displeased expressions." And its not shocking at all that Regina was the one who stole Ariel's voice. Regina has a list of lives ruined that cross time and space, and runs about the size of the universal phone-book, and is petty as fuck, so add Ariel and Eric to innocent people she screwed over! You know, I am aware that Regina did the Ursula bit because Lana wanted to be Ursula for the day (because this is already the Lana show), but its a pretty lame impression. I was thrilled when we realized that there was a real Ursula. 

[PixiePaws1]

I never understood the big drama over Snow wanting another baby (naming of 2nd child...big HUGE drama...separate issue). Snow is young and in love...this often results in pregnancy/pregnancies...why would people assume she only ever wanted one kid?? Emma gets a sibling and that's great for someone who grew up only wanting a family.

 

Not going to lie. I only stopping laughing at Emma's secret when ArseWipefire, demonstrated both, his arrogance and his abusive bullying, by completely ignoring the fact that Emma prefers him to be dead. 

[daxx]

3 hours ago, PixiePaws1 said:

Not going to lie. I only stopping laughing at Emma's secret when ArseWipefire, demonstrated both, his arrogance and his abusive bullying, by completely ignoring the fact that Emma prefers him to be dead

Saying “I’ll never stop fighting for us” right after that basically dismisses Emma’s feelings and agency all at once. He should have said he still wants to try to make it up to her but understands if she wants nothing to do with him and will be content to be co-parents. 

Spoiler

He basically says that after dark hollow but immediately takes it back when they get to Storybrooke.

[profdanglais]

The real irony of the Plot Device Caves Echo Caves is that 

Spoiler

only Emma's secret is really her darkest secret. The rest of them all have darker things that the writers hadn't thought of yet they didn't confess. Eggnapping, anyone? Surely that's worse than simply wanting a second kid. 

Edited November 20, 2018 by profdanglais

[companionenvy]

Spoiler

This is a fanwank, but we could argue that it is less their darkest secrets than the things they most don't want anyone around them to know - in other words, that it is context dependent.

In Hook's case, I don't think you even need a fanwank; Emma and Snowing already know that he's done a bunch of terrible things, so "I killed my bastard father" wouldn't necessarily make a major difference (he doesn't know at this point that he killed Charming's father). It is more frightening for him to admit to emotional vulnerability.

For Snowing, though eggnapping is terrible, I could buy that in the moment, each of them were more reluctant to admit the things they did than to randomly bring up an old crime. And yes, I know the meta-reason is that the show hadn't come up with that plot yet, but even if they had, it is possible that they would default to the more immediate, emotionally resonant secrets.

It is also possible that more than one secret would have worked - the point was to reveal something hidden, painful and true. 

[profdanglais]

@companionenvy I like it. Fanwank or not, it works for me. Plus, I suppose that for the secrets to be bad enough to make a pirate crew tear each other apart they would have to be relevant to the other people in the cave, and not necessarily evils done to random people that no one else knows. 

[Shanna Marie]

22 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

It also makes me wonder about the mermaid when she first got to Neverland. Yeah, Hook said the mermaids are scary and are going to attack them, wouldn't she have said something about her friend who was a mermaid, so maybe they could talk to them? 

That's a good point. If Ariel was Snow's experience with mermaids, wouldn't that have colored her perspective about mermaids?

But then there's the question about how Ariel fits into the mermaid world. In this episode, there's nothing about her not fitting in. She's just into Eric and fascinated with human stuff. But if all the other mermaids are those fanged, demonic witch-type monsters, then how does Ariel fit in there? Is she some kind of genetic mutation? Is she lonely as a mermaid because she doesn't fit in? What does her family think about her? That could have added an interesting layer to things. It's one thing for the cartoon Ariel to not fit in because she's interested in land and humans, but it's another entirely if Ariel is practically a different species from her family.

Spoiler

Then again, Ursula #3 was originally a mermaid and seemed fairly humanish, not like the mermaid they caught in Neverland. Are they capable of looking less monstrous when they aren't angry? Are there different species of mermaid?

[Camera One]

That's a good point.  They probably forgot about the mermaids in the premiere by the time they wrote this episode.

[tennisgurl]

Maybe Ariel is from a different species of merperson? Is Ariel even native to Neverland lagoon? Or maybe its more of a cultural thing, and the mermaids around Neverland are aggressive, while the mermaids from Ariel's colony or kingdom are more benevolent? Ariel doesn't seem like she wants to escape her family or people, and she seemed certain that Snow would be happy with the merpeople in her kingdom, and she certainly doesn't seem like she would kill random people, or think that Snow would. Or, maybe she did want to leave the ocean because she was so different, which would add another interesting level to her. Actually, it would be kind of hilarious if the mermaids were just attacking because of Regina, and they knew her as the Evil Queen who stole Ariel's voice. Doesn't totally go with what Hook says about them, but I always love the idea of people being justifiably pissed at Regina. Which means that Regina killed a person who was just trying to get justice for one of her people, which...is certainly in character. 

Or, of course, the writers couldn't just not give a shit about their own mythology, and didnt think about the mermaids they wrote just a few episodes ago. But, from this show? Madness!