The Writers of OUAT: Because, Um, Magic, That's Why

[Zuleikha]

I'll do a quick response in the Regina thread. :)

[Rumsy4]

So, in all the time after Snowing sent baby Emma through the Wardrobe alone, not once did they wonder whether it was karma for what they did to Egg!Baby? Or whether Regina and Zelena wanting to steal their infants was the price they were paying for what they did to Mal? In a show that depends so heavily on flashbacks, it's not reasonable to expect the writers to have plotted everything in advance. There is always going to be a bit of "making it up as they go along" aspect to writing for TV shows. However, it is fair to expect continuity, and proper flow from the past to the present. There has been none of that in this present storyline the writers have given Snowing. If they wanted to show Snow and Charming as having done shady things in the past, at least they should make it work within the context of the universe they have built! Suddenly Snow is so good at keeping secrets that she never even discussed the baby napping with David once in all 3.5 seasons. Maybe they took a pirate's oath to never mention it to anyone--not even to each other--ever again. :-p

[Camera One]

Well, there was that time Adam Horowitz claimed vehemently on Twitter that if you watched *really* closely, you would know from "The Stable Boy" that they knew all along the events of "Bleeding Through".  I'm positive he would claim the same for this Snowing ret-con.

[Shanna Marie]

Well, there was that time Adam Horowitz claimed vehemently on Twitter that if you watched *really* closely, you would know from "The Stable Boy" that they knew all along the events of "Bleeding Through".

It's actually more horrifying if they did plan that. Because, really, they wanted to have Leo think that the daughter of the woman who tried to trick him into marrying her and who was caught stealing from him was a great option to be a mother for his daughter (it was never suggested he wanted to marry Regina for love, but rather because he was looking for a mother replacement for Snow)? It's icky enough that he ended up marrying the daughter of his former fiancee, but when it was a broken engagement because she deceived him? And it's not even as though he had reason to feel guilty for treating her so "shabbily" (I don't believe he treated her badly, considering she was lying to him and then tried to shift the blame to Eva), considering Cora ended up married to a prince and was living in comfort. He wasn't having to make up for what happened to her by allowing her daughter to live in comfort. He knew Cora was a deceiver and schemer, so wasn't he at least a little bit worried about what she might have been up to?

 

The ret-con factors in this latest plot that contradict it (off the top of my head):

We're constantly being reminded and shown that Snow can't keep a secret. So she managed to keep this one all this time without ever blurting anything out or acting at all guilty?

Why is Snow only just now completely freaking out about any hint of Emma's capacity for darkness? The stuff in early season four fits, I suppose, but nothing before that does. She's had qualms about Emma's pragmatism, but has never been shown to worry that Emma's sketchy upbringing might have made her dark, even though the Apprentice warned her that the darkness could return if she didn't raise her daughter the right way.

Would someone who stole another person's child and resorted to serious magic for selfish purposes really be considered pure in heart enough to walk through a door that only let the pure through?

And what about David's unblemished heart if Snow's heart was blotted by this?

How on earth would David's darkest, most painful secret be him being poisoned if he had this in his past?

How did Snow get through another pregnancy without freaking out about how the baby would turn out or without having at least one conversation with David about it? And why was his big fatherhood nightmare about not being able to protect Emma rather than something to do with the baby stealing and darkness stuff?

Why was seeing teen Emma on video a happy moment for Snow instead of a freakout when she realized she looked exactly the way she did in her vision of Emma ripping her heart out? Wouldn't that have confirmed her vision by showing that she really had been seeing her daughter instead of having a paranoid delusion?

And what about Snow repeatedly holding out hope about Regina being redeemed, right up to the point of freeing her rather than executing her? If she believed there was hope for Regina, wouldn't she have hope for her daughter, considering it was only suggested that she had the potential to be either dark OR a great hero? Snow's mantra is hope. Where did that go?

 

It is possible to do retroactive character development or world building (I'm doing it right now on something I'm working on), but you're constrained by what you've already produced and put out into the world. Once it's published or aired, that's the reality you're stuck with and you have to work around it.

[Jul 68]

.... I think the writers has put themselves (again) in a really bad place, morally speaking, with the August/Pinocchio thing. If they keep August they are killing Pinocchio, because after more than a year being a kid and living with his father, he is not the August we knew anymore. But if they bring back Pinocchio, they are killing August (again). And, either way, Marco looses. So, maybe it's just me, but I don't like it. It's another example of the writers doesn't thinking about what they are showing other than "wouldn't it be cool if we...".

I think that it was smart of the writers to change him 'back' to August. While these characters deal with death every day, at least it feels that way, they never address it as an end result of old age. This gives them the opportunity for Marco to get to know the wonderful man his little boy became and also frees him of the worry of dying while his son is so young.

Of course, that would mean character development so it probably won't happen. :)

Edited March 31, 2015 by Jul 68

[Shanna Marie]

Of course, that would mean character development so it probably won't happen.

That's sort of the mantra of this show. We'll get what's most Shocking! and Surprising! (mostly because they pulled it out of thin air), not what makes sense. And when viewers complain about the icky implications they didn't even consider (like Graham being turned into a human sex toy and them not realizing that amounts to rape), they'll brush it aside.

 

I wouldn't count on keeping adult August, just because of the actor's availability and the fact that they can explain away never seeing child Pinocchio, since he doesn't really matter in most of the plots and wouldn't be expected to have any ongoing relationships with the main characters, but it would be weird if he remains adult August and we never see him again, given all of Emma's talk about him being one of her few close friends.

[kpw801]

It's actually more horrifying if they did plan that. Because, really, they wanted to have Leo think that the daughter of the woman who tried to trick him into marrying her and who was caught stealing from him was a great option to be a mother for his daughter (it was never suggested he wanted to marry Regina for love, but rather because he was looking for a mother replacement for Snow)? It's icky enough that he ended up marrying the daughter of his former fiancee, but when it was a broken engagement because she deceived him? And it's not even as though he had reason to feel guilty for treating her so "shabbily" (I don't believe he treated her badly, considering she was lying to him and then tried to shift the blame to Eva), considering Cora ended up married to a prince and was living in comfort. He wasn't having to make up for what happened to her by allowing her daughter to live in comfort. He knew Cora was a deceiver and schemer, so wasn't he at least a little bit worried about what she might have been up to?

 

The ret-con factors in this latest plot that contradict it (off the top of my head):

We're constantly being reminded and shown that Snow can't keep a secret.

 

"Snow can't keep a secret"?  To be fair I think we should look at it as Snow White as a CHILD could not keep a secret.  An adult especially one who is trying to protect someone can keep a secret much easier than a child can.  Remember the CHILD Snow White was also manipulated by the skillful and sneaky Cora who was doing everything she could to make sure Regina married a King.  When Snow and Charming had their baby and suffered through the effects of the curse and met and began to know their now grown daughter, the idea that she would find out their "secret" was motivation enough for them to be able to keep the secret.  They only told her because they wanted to try to keep their relationship honest. 

 

So she managed to keep this one all this time without ever blurting anything out or acting at all guilty?

 

Snow and Charming were not successful in not acting guilty.  Emma knew something was wrong the whole time.

 

Why is Snow only just now completely freaking out about any hint of Emma's capacity for darkness? The stuff in early season four fits, I suppose, but nothing before that does. She's had qualms about Emma's pragmatism, but has never been shown to worry that Emma's sketchy upbringing might have made her dark, even though the Apprentice warned her that the darkness could return if she didn't raise her daughter the right way.

Would someone who stole another person's child and resorted to serious magic for selfish purposes really be considered pure in heart enough to walk through a door that only let the pure through?

And what about David's unblemished heart if Snow's heart was blotted by this?

How on earth would David's darkest, most painful secret be him being poisoned if he had this in his past?

How did Snow get through another pregnancy without freaking out about how the baby would turn out or without having at least one conversation with David about it? And why was his big fatherhood nightmare about not being able to protect Emma rather than something to do with the baby stealing and darkness stuff?

Why was seeing teen Emma on video a happy moment for Snow instead of a freakout when she realized she looked exactly the way she did in her vision of Emma ripping her heart out? Wouldn't that have confirmed her vision by showing that she really had been seeing her daughter instead of having a paranoid delusion?

And what about Snow repeatedly holding out hope about Regina being redeemed, right up to the point of freeing her rather than executing her? If she believed there was hope for Regina, wouldn't she have hope for her daughter, considering it was only suggested that she had the potential to be either dark OR a great hero? Snow's mantra is hope. Where did that go?

 

It is possible to do retroactive character development or world building (I'm doing it right now on something I'm working on), but you're constrained by what you've already produced and put out into the world. Once it's published or aired, that's the reality you're stuck with and you have to work around it.

[Shanna Marie]

"Snow can't keep a secret"?  To be fair I think we should look at it as Snow White as a CHILD could not keep a secret.

Adult Snow also has been shown to be not so great at secret keeping. For instance, when Hook told her and David that Neal was alive, she and David agreed to wait to tell Emma, and then she blurted it out right away. She's not good at hiding things.

 

Snow and Charming were not successful in not acting guilty.  Emma knew something was wrong the whole time.

Just since the beginning of this arc. But what about the previous three and a half seasons? They only just now started acting weird and guilty and worried every moment that Emma might turn dark. A secret this big and involving this much guilt hanging over their heads should have altered their behavior all along.

[kili]

"Snow can't keep a secret"?  To be fair I think we should look at it as Snow White as a CHILD could not keep a secret.  An adult especially one who is trying to protect someone can keep a secret much easier than a child can.

 

It was a running joke on this show that Snow kept revealing secrets. Like when Hook, Charming and Snow agreed to first ascertain if Neal really was on the island before telling Emma. Snow took 3 seconds to blurt out the truth.

[Dani-Ellie]

But what about the previous three and a half seasons? They only just now started acting weird and guilty and worried every moment that Emma might turn dark. A secret this big and involving this much guilt hanging over their heads should have altered their behavior all along.

 

This could very well be a fanwank, but up until Cruella and Ursula came to town, they didn't really have to worry about it. The only people who knew were Snow, Charming, the Apprentice, and the Evil Trio. No one had seen the Apprentice, Cruella and Ursula were somewhere but who knew where, and Maleficent was trapped in whatever ghost-like form underneath the library. Their issues in Storybrooke have been more about Emma finding out and the knowledge of what was done pushing her towards the dark side (not that she'd turn dark just because) than any sort of residual guilt for what was done; hence all the lying and cover-ups. So until Cruella and Ursula found their way inside Storybrooke's town limits, they didn't have to worry about the secret getting out because there was no one who would tell.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Dani-Ellie

[Shanna Marie]

This could very well be a fanwank, but up until Cruella and Ursula came to town, they didn't really have to worry about it.

But they made that vow to live their lives in a way that would make up for this terrible thing they'd done, so that was hanging over them. I would hope that their concern about all this wasn't just about getting caught, but also in knowing what they did. They were going to change their lives on the basis of this action -- not that it would be a drastic change, since they were already good, but they were talking about this being a guiding force going forward. But how often have they faced some kind of moral or ethical dilemma together in which this never came up? I would really, really hate to believe that they'd only start feeling bad again because they might get caught.

 

We know the writers really just pulled this out of thin air, but if we're really to think that it was part of their characterization all along they might have acted differently. But they never mentioned feeling like maybe they deserved to lose their child when they realized they were going to have to send Emma alone through the wardrobe -- not even Snow while in labor and probably a lot less self-censoring than normal. They were going through exactly what they did to Mal, and it didn't come up at all? When David was trying to talk Snow out of killing Cora, he never brought up the idea that she was going against this vow she made to live her life as a hero to make up for stealing Mal's egg. There was no guilt or discussion of all this while she was pregnant with Snowflake. There were a number of times when normal people would have at least brought up something of this magnitude to each other. Oh, and the Shattered Sight spell -- wouldn't they have been using this to tear each other down? If they had the good removed from the way they saw each other, then baby stealing would show up front and center. The only reason it wouldn't have would be if the writers hadn't come up with it yet or they didn't want to give away their future "clever" twist. Otherwise, according to the way the spell was supposed to work, this should have been more of a focus under the spell than her killing Cora or sleeping with Whale.

 

A good retcon is one in which you can look back at the earlier episodes and feel like there's another truth in there you didn't see the first time around. It may not have been set up from the start, but the writers took a good look at old episodes and maybe noticed a pattern they didn't intend to put in at the time but which they can now play with. A bad retcon just feels like something they threw in, and it's hard to make it compute with what you saw before.

[Dani-Ellie]

But they made that vow to live their lives in a way that would make up for this terrible thing they'd done, so that was hanging over them. I would hope that their concern about all this wasn't just about getting caught, but also in knowing what they did. They were going to change their lives on the basis of this action -- not that it would be a drastic change, since they were already good, but they were talking about this being a guiding force going forward.

 

I was not at all suggesting that they didn't take their lesson and apply it previously. I was responding to the point that they only started acting super-guilty and worried about Emma turning dark this season and not any other time. They were worried that Emma was going to turn dark when she found out. That was where I was saying they didn't have to worry about it up until now. Emma was never going to find out if only Snow and Charming were around but once Cruella and Ursula show up, well, now there are two people who know and could easily tell.

[Curio]

A good retcon is one in which you can look back at the earlier episodes and feel like there's another truth in there you didn't see the first time around. It may not have been set up from the start, but the writers took a good look at old episodes and maybe noticed a pattern they didn't intend to put in at the time but which they can now play with. A bad retcon just feels like something they threw in, and it's hard to make it compute with what you saw before.

 

Yes, exactly. A "good" retcon could potentially be the introduction of Clark, a fairy godfather who has been tasked with keeping Killian alive all these years. (Totally stealing your idea, Shanna Marie.) To me, that would be a good retcon because I could go back and watch previous episodes, have a lightbulb moment, and say, "Oh, so that's why his heart has never been crushed, even though he's had Rumple's and Cora's hands in his chest numerous times. And that's why Poseidon was so easily defeated when he could have just killed Hook on the spot to retrieve the shell. And that's why he keeps miraculously getting saved numerous times even though he gets knocked out at least once an episode." I can go back and watch the old episodes and not feel like anything drastic has changed with his character or the plot.

 

With Snow and Charming, it's a "bad" retcon because I can't go back and rewatch old episodes and feel like their characters could have realistically done this act to Maleficent. I feel like the writers just took it a step too far this time.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Curio

[Shanna Marie]

If I had time to write fanfic, I'd have to write some Clark stories. Poor Clark. He never gets a moment's rest. And Hook's survival is getting so ridiculous that there really has to be some supernatural intervention involved. It practically begs for a retcon to explain it.

 

I know that the arrival of Cruella and Ursula amped the guilt and fear up to 11 and that's why Snow and David started acting so squirrely that it pinged Emma's senses, but what makes this a bad retcon is that there have been a lot of other situations in the past when realistically this should have come up between them, even if it was just an anxious shared glance that now takes on more meaning. But they had a fairly extensive conversation about why killing Cora was a bad idea, and the vow Snow made to move forward living as a hero to make up for it should have been number one on the list of reasons David gave for why she shouldn't do it. Snow felt so guilty that she didn't want to put the unicorn mobile over her daughter's bed, but while in labor and knowing her child would be sent through a portal, she didn't mention that this was what she'd done to someone else, so maybe she deserved it?

 

Obviously, this couldn't have come up because they hadn't decided that this had happened back when they wrote those episodes, but then that should limit the degree of retcon. You shouldn't retcon something that a character realistically should have brought up in the specific situations you've already shown.

 

They also have something of a challenge in that they're not only writing the characters in the present day but also in multiple time periods in the past, which means the past characterization is set in stone and needs to remain consistent, no matter what they have the characters doing in the present. They've shown so much of Snow and David's life from the time they met until the curse that anything that gets slotted in really needs to be consistent with what they've already shown, and since they showed the casting of the curse in the pilot, they really shouldn't show anything before that event that would contradict the kind of people they were shown to be then. They can change going forward, but it's a mistake to change the way they're depicted in the past.

[tennisgurl]

 

You shouldn't retcon something that a character realistically should have brought up in the specific situations you've already shown.

That is the thing that always really gets to me about bad retcons. It retroactively makes the characters either look like idiots, or look like jerks. In this case, they look like both. Why the writers want to keep making Snow and Charming (especially Snow) out to be awful makes no sense to be. Retconing them into doing this dumb egg thing is such crap writing, I feel like the writers are going Meta on their own terrible writing choices. 

[Zuleikha]

Snow felt so guilty that she didn't want to put the unicorn mobile over her daughter's bed, but while in labor and knowing her child would be sent through a portal, she didn't mention that this was what she'd done to someone else, so maybe she deserved it?

I can buy her not feeling guilty at a moment of terror and imminent loss, but certainly she and Charming should have been afraid. They were told the importance of raising Emma in the light, and now they find out that they're going to lose all influence over her? That should have made them question whether to go through with the plan for at least a bit.

 

It also seems out of character to me that Snowing's response to seeing Cruella/Ursula was to bury their secret rather than to try and find the egg!baby and make sure she's okay. Even though they can't easily leave Storybrooke (except for the part where they totally could with Ingrid's scroll), we've been shown that they can contact people on the outside. Some people blamed Regina for not seeing Marian's life as an opportunity for atonement, which I don't think would have been consistent writing for Regina. But I do think it would have been consistent writing for Snowing to see Cruella/Ursula that way and to be concerned about the egg!baby. The retcon isn't even an excuse for that because the writers planned the whole part. They just seem to have lost their grasp on who Snowing are supposed to be.

[Mari]

With Snow and Charming, it's a "bad" retcon because I can't go back and rewatch old episodes and feel like their characters could have realistically done this act to Maleficent. I feel like the writers just took it a step too far this time.

Yes.  The thing is, I could see them taking Mal's baby.  Frankly, someone probably should have taken her baby.  If the Enchanted Forest had a decent prison system, Mal would have been spending her time there, while someone else raised eggbaby. 

 

When you have to step over the parts and belongings of the people a baby's mother murdered in order to get to the baby, there aren't many societies that would say "That woman should have the responsibility and gift of raising a child!"  It would be easy for them to decide take Maleficent's baby in a fit of governing/responsibility/concern.

 

Feeling guilty about it afterwards would have been in character for Snow and Charming--particularly if they thought something happened to the eggbaby that they rescued from Maleficent, afterwards.  

 

The step-too-far for me, was the evil stuffing.  That made little sense to me--if you're afraid your baby's going to be evil, what makes you think making a shapeshifter's baby's evil potential more is a good idea? 

 

Then, when there were no clues within the story that indicated this (some hero tests, the Echo Cave . . .) it just reeks of "Let's do something shocking that flips the narrative to the benefit of the characters we like to write, anyway." 

 

Why the writers want to keep making Snow and Charming (especially Snow) out to be awful makes no sense to be.

Because they're passionate about showing that the heroes/villains dynamic is artificial.  They're just not good at it.  Since Snow and Charming are the most traditionally heroic characters on the show, as well as characters who are supposed to be featured in the B sections, it makes sense to make them secret villains so that we can see that everyone is bad, but some people just get blamed for it.

 

Villains aren't villains, and heroes just get better press.  (Blech.)

[Shanna Marie]

Then, when there were no clues within the story that indicated this (some hero tests, the Echo Cave . . .) it just reeks of "Let's do something shocking that flips the narrative to the benefit of the characters we like to write, anyway."

And then there's the fact that Snow herself keeps bringing up killing Cora but has never brought up this, whether alone to David or under a spell. She went on and on about Cora under the Shattered Sight spell, but didn't mention babynapping? She seriously feels worse about killing the person who murdered her mother in order to protect the whole town than she does about taking away someone's child and getting it banished to another world?

 

I ran across a quote in this article about the decision of whether or not to keep watching Game of Thrones now that it's going to spoil the books, and it could just as easily (or more easily) apply to this show:

Our fixation on novelty and surprise has resulted in too much popular entertainment with increasingly contrived plots, all in the service of delivering an empty, forced twist.

That's exactly what this was, turning characters into pod people in order to deliver an empty, forced twist that furthers the writers' agenda at the expense of good storytelling.

 

Oh, and we're going to have to change the name of Hook's fairy godfather/guardian angel. Clark is Sneezy's Storybrooke identity, and I doubt he's the one keeping Hook alive. How about "Cornelius"? Or is Liam watching over his little brother from the Great Beyond?

[Curio]

That's exactly what this was, turning characters into pod people in order to deliver an empty, forced twist that furthers the writers' agenda at the expense of good storytelling.

And the sad thing is, the writers don't need to do huge surprising twists to keep the audience engaged. I know I reference Breaking Bad in this thread a lot, but it's one of the few shows where I can point to many different examples of outstanding writing. Putting the rest of this under a spoiler bar just in case anyone is still catching up on that show...even though it's been off the air for more than a year. 

There was a lot of hoopla about how that show would end, and everyone was on pins and needles about how certain plots would wrap up. Thankfully, those writers actually followed through with plot points they had already established instead of throwing in random twists to keep the viewers engaged. Even though some of the resolution might not have had the most surprising "twists" ever, the audience got a different satisfaction - the satisfaction of seeing certain plots and "Chekov's guns" come to fruition. For example, there were lots of clues in previous episodes about the ricin poison, and many people online guessed that Walt would use that poison in Lydia's tea. Guess what happened? Exactly that. Does that make the plot twist less satisfying? No. It was rewarding as a viewer to see a mystery evolve on screen and I cheered when what I guessed might happen actually happened. But with these Once writers, I feel like they would have said, "Well, everyone is expecting us to use the ricin to kill Lydia. So let's dump that plot altogether and introduce a completely new poison at the last second no one has ever heard of, and that's how she'll die. No one will see it coming!" Yeah, because you never gave us the clues to lead up to it. That's not surprising, that's annoying.

 

Oh, and we're going to have to change the name of Hook's fairy godfather/guardian angel. Clark is Sneezy's Storybrooke identity, and I doubt he's the one keeping Hook alive. How about "Cornelius"? Or is Liam watching over his little brother from the Great Beyond?

Or we can take a page from It's a Wonderful Life and use Clarence. Although, I do like the idea of Liam breaking the afterlife plane occasionally to lend a helping hand.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Curio

[Shanna Marie]

I thought about Clarence, but then I couldn't make the timeline fit because by the 1940s he'd be an old pro at guardian angeling after looking after Hook for so long, and even though I know it doesn't have to be a real crossover, I couldn't get the idea out of my head.

 

Anyway, the revelation that someone -- whether Liam from beyond the grave, a guardian angel, a fairy godfather, or his father Davy Jones -- has been looking after Hook all along would be a perfect example of a good retcon, where the reaction is "oh, that explains so much." The show would actually make more sense because it would explain why so many people who wanted him dead and had the power to make that happen let him walk away and why people he's wronged in the past keep springing to his rescue in the nick of time. A bad retcon, like the one in this episode, leaves you coming up with lists of things that contradict it and makes no sense when you look back at previous episodes because it just doesn't compute. I guess a meh retcon would be like the revelation that David was a useless coward before he met Anna. It does sort of explain how he learned enough sword fighting in one day to slay a dragon, and it doesn't directly contradict anything we've seen before, but it doesn't quite fit and certainly doesn't illuminate anything about him that makes us look at him in a different way now that we know about it.

[Mathius]

Although, I do like the idea of Liam breaking the afterlife plane occasionally to lend a helping hand.

About that....

http://the-lady-swan.tumblr.com/post/115216928055/out-of-the-past

[Camera One]

When asked which character is the most fun to write...

 

Jane Espenson @JaneEspenson  ·  17h 17 hours ago
@starbucksjmo Thank you!  I love writing for all our characters. Rumple and Regina are obv fun to write, but I also love Emma, Snow, etc!

 

Not to read too much into one tweet but it's not surprising the villains come to mind first, and the heroes get the etc.

[Serena]

Yes, because Jane is all about the sassy quips. She comes from the Joss Whedon School of writing dialogue. Not from the JW school of writing characterization or plotting long term arcs, unfortunately (and I'm not even a Joss superfan).

[Curio]

In another thread, I was talking about how most of the main characters on the show have a very distinct voice to them. (By voice, I mean they have a unique style of speaking and using vocabulary where if you saw a piece of dialogue on a script page without looking at the name of the character, you could probably guess who said the line.) Emma speaks very naturally and uses a lot of informal words like "wanna" or "gonna." Throw in a couple of "really??" exasperations and some sarcasm and that's Emma's voice. Hook will use sailor vocabulary like "aye" or more proper words like "alas." And of course, "love." Regina has her trademark bitchy snark and Rumple usually has long monologues with colorful vocabulary. Snow is cheerful (although not so much, lately) and Charming is probably the most like Emma in the way he speaks.

 

The characters where I have the most difficulty finding specific voices for them are Robin and Belle. Which isn't rather shocking considering those are the two most under-developed main characters on the show. But still, I feel like I have a much better grasp of Will's voice than those two combined. So, I decided to try out a writing experiment to see how easily each character's "voice" came to me.

 

Here’s the hypothetical scenario: Granny has just set out the last sprinkle donut on the counter. The room is filled with every regular cast member. How would each character respond to this?

 

Emma: So, uh…Killian…you wanna sneak over there and snag that last donut for us to share?
Hook: Aye, love. But only if you promise to not use it to play ring toss onto my hook again.
Charming: I think I see Emma eyeing up that last donut. I’ll bet you five bucks I can get there faster than her.
Snow: And then once you do that, you’ll help me feed Neal, right? Daddy got to sleep in this morning while Mommy had to wake up at 5:00am.
Regina: I can’t believe they’re all fighting over a thousand-calorie piece of grub. Why didn't I incinerate her recipe book when I had the chance?
Henry: Mom, it’s so not worth it. It’s not even chocolate glazed.
Rumple: It appears my plan is working flawlessly. They’re all so focused on that useless donut that they won’t even notice my presence as I steal the final ingredient in the back kitchen. Then, I’ll finally be able to cleave myself from the dagger and obtain my freedom.
Belle: If that donut is anything near as good as that chocolate cake we had on our first date together, I think we should take it before somebody else does.
Will: Oi, you’re right about that. That chocolate cake was bloody delicious. Definitely worth the trouble I might face tomorrow morning.
Robin: ????

 

Maybe Robin would say something about sprinkles being a weird modern day decoration for a pastry, but I still don’t really know he speaks. I'm not saying every character needs a catch phrase or be snarky to stand out, but I should at least be able to know how they might react to a situation and what they might say. And that's where the writers have really let down Robin's character - he's just so bland. If anyone wants to take a stab at his dialogue, be my guest.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Curio

[YaddaYadda]

Robin: Why would a cat need a hat?

[Curio]

LOL. I actually did laugh-out-loud at that, YaddaYadda. 

[Rumsy4]

Robin: I've lived by a code all my life, but not today. (Steals the donut and hides in the pantry to eat it),

[Shanna Marie]

Robin: I've lived by a code all my life, but not today. (Steals the donut and hides in the pantry to eat it),

That's close to what I was thinking, but my idea was: I've lived by a code all my life, but Regina might want it.

[Curio]

It's a shame Robin never got the modern-day technology memory download like everyone else. It would be hilarious if his Storybrooke alter-ego was in web development.

 

"How dare you accuse my software program of stealing money from the government! My code has a code!"

 

Now that I think about it, Robin as a modern-day coder who's good at hacking into things and stealing things digitally would be a much more interesting take on the character than whoever is on my screen right now.

[Zuleikha]

Now that I think about it, Robin as a modern-day coder who's good at hacking into things and stealing things digitally would be a much more interesting take on the character than whoever is on my screen right now.

That is brilliant!

 

I know it would have been repetitive and maybe there was just no way to make it interesting, but I wish curse 2.0 had featured a brief return of the alterna-personalities. It was never explained why that didn't happen (although I guess there seems to be a general thing with curse immunity). Then Snow and David wouldn't have seemed so foolish for not being more suspicious of Zelena; we could have had a return of Lacey (just for fun!), and Robin, Aurora, and Phillip could have gotten the 20th Century download.

[FurryFury]

Now that I think about it, Robin as a modern-day coder who's good at hacking into things and stealing things digitally would be a much more interesting take on the character than whoever is on my screen right now.

 

It really reminds me of Grimm's take on Rumplestiltskin, back when I watched it. It was an OK episode.

 

It was never explained why that didn't happen

 

Probably because the cast didn't want it. I suppose the dual personalities stuff wasn't a built-in mechanism of the curse, but rather what Regina added to it herself.

[Mitch]

Yes.  The thing is, I could see them taking Mal's baby.  Frankly, someone probably should have taken her baby.  If the Enchanted Forest had a decent prison system, Mal would have been spending her time there, while someone else raised eggbaby.

 

I would totally get behind the story if THIS was the case. At least these supposed heroes did something proactive and not just react to the latest threat, and worry, and stand with a sword and say something cardboard cartoony and then get knocked aside, but get saved at the last minute from outside interventions. Forget Hook these two morons need a guardian fairy as they continue to stumble into trouble with no plan. Anyway, if they did something heroic, that actuallly looked non heroic to idiots like Henry, that would be an interesting storyline..."No Herny, sometimes heroes have to make a terrible choice to save others..so grow the hell up already!"

 

But I can see them feeling guilty that it was a human baby and especially with what happened with Emma they would worry who raised that child.  And they would have to throw the whole good and evil tranference thing out the window as that just makes them look even more idiotic.

[buildmeupbuttercup]

So A&E have "blessed" us with another interview (slightly spoilery so read at your own risk). This question highlights what these writers still don't seem to get (and thank you Matt Mitovich for asking it in such a way to highlight what a shit writing move it was to have this revealed off camera). We are clearly not the only ones who were pissed at that: 

"I ask this only because it was revealed off-camera over a commercial break: Did Emma learn the whole truth about her parents’ secret?"**

Even almost two weeks later this is what I still don't understand. Other than the fact that all meaty Charming family scenes are resolved in Offscreenville, what could possibly motivate them to just skip the meatiest part of this whole dumb Snowing "secret"? I mean this is the reveal, this is the climax to Snow's "Emma can't find out or else she will become EVIL". Surely they weren't concerned that rehashing the secret in the episode would be repetitive because these are the writers who had Gold's whole "stars, align, cleave, dagger" repetitive shit multiple times for three straight episodes in 4A and had Regina/Gold/Henry explain ad nauseum about "author, write, happy ending, blah blah blah".

 

It wasn't just Emma hearing and reacting to the secret that I'm most disappointed in missing but how (I'm assuming) Snow would've even lead into that reveal. "It all started when Mal told us our child could be born either good or evil--you know like every, single unborn child has the potential to be in the history of EVER--and then there was this tree that rejected us, and since we were the greatest and truest heroes we figured it had to be unborn you that was evil. Oh, and then we touched this unicorn horn and even though your father saw that you would be totally normal it showed me that you would be EVIL and we're heroes and couldn't have an evil baby, so here's what we did...". Were they afraid if they spelled it out like that it would sound as outlandish as it came off to viewers? That after hearing that Emma could have had an even stronger reaction than "I don't care" and walking out and they didn't want to write that?

 

Once again the climax of a storyline is teed up perfectly for them and they swing and completely miss, which I fail to understand since they are the ones creating these stories in the first place.

 

(**P.S. spoiler alert: "yes, yes" Emma learned everything. Once again thanks Adam for revealing in an interview or on Twitter what should be revealed on my screen. I absolutely hate when they do that.)

Edited April 9, 2015 by buildmeupbuttercup

[Shanna Marie]

I've been trying to compile what I see as the key writing issues with this show, and here's what I have so far:

 

1) Inadequate development of the premise
The core premise of this show is absolutely brilliant: A cynical 21st century American woman learns that fairy tales are real and their characters are real people when she visits the small town in Maine where they've all been brought by a curse -- and she discovers she's the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. There's the fun of the fairytale mashups with all the characters living in the same world, the twists on the stories, and then the real world/fairy tale clash and playing with what the fairy tale characters would be like if they lived in modern America.

 

Except they don't seem to have figured out some of the key elements in this premise. For one thing, half the time the fairy tale backstories seem designed to show that we don't know the whole story, there's a lot more to the tales than we know. These are real people, not just characters, and that means there's good and bad and shades of gray in all of them. It's not as clear-cut as the stories would make it seem, and it's a lot more complicated. But at the same time, they seem to be saying that there's a big contrast between our messier, shades-of-gray world and this fairy tale world where everyone's either a hero or a villain, the heroes always win and the villains always lose, and only heroes are allowed to have a happy ending.

 

It can't be both. You can't say that the fairy tale world is a real world just like ours where the stories are more complex than what you see in the storybooks and even the villains have a side to their stories, since evil isn't born, it's made, and also say that this world is different from ours because it's more black-and-white with villains guaranteed to lose and heroes guaranteed to win, so our world is the only place villains have a chance of winning.

 

And then there's the actual development of the premise, which they keep forgetting to use. They've lost the sense that this is a fairy tale enclave transported to our world. They've lost most of the culture clash. They've put one of the pure "real world" characters in a relationship with one of the few fairytale characters who has no cursed memories of our world, and their culture clash has amounted to him not getting the reference when she used "Princess Leia" as an alias, him not knowing what Netflix is, and her griping about having to wear a corset in his world.

 

They also don't seem to have put a lot of thought into the relationship between worlds and how these fairy tale events that are contemporary in that world have been told for centuries in our world. They didn't have to give a treatise to the audience on it up front, but they should have had a sense of it and more or less stuck to the rules they'd established, and that would have led to some consistency throughout.

 

Which leads to …
2) Poor worldbuilding
This is especially true where magic is involved. There's no defined magical system. Magic amounts to the magic user characters being able to do anything they want, with no limits, just by waving their hands around, except when they can't and have to do an elaborate spell that requires specific ingredients and a ritual that has to be done at a particular time in a particular place. Nonmagical characters have no way of fighting back against the magical ones, and sometimes even the magical characters are helpless against other magical characters, except when they aren't. This means that the plotting generally amounts to the heroes spending most of an arc utterly helpless against the villain, only to win at the last second by interrupting the elaborate ritual with some knowledge or item that just appeared.

 

Meanwhile, we don't know what the role of magic is in their culture and what people think about it. Most of the magic users we've seen have been evil, but the ordinary people don't seem to have a strong attitude about magic. It's just part of life for them, even though it's a part of life that has meant living under tyranny.

 

This is where they could have salvaged the Evil Fetus Emma plot -- if instead of being told that nonsense about potential for either good or bad they'd been told she had magic, and all their experience with magic had been evil, so they did the ritual to remove the potential for evil, thinking it would remove her magic, and then that's why they were surprised when Emma turned out as an adult to still have magic. Except that still would have had to have been planned better because it's all too huge for a retcon, since it should have shaped everything about their attitudes toward and relationship with Emma.

 

If a fantasy novel were written this way, it would be rejected outright by any editors with half a clue because it's too obvious that the writers are just flinging ideas around without any coherent or consistent worldbuilding. It's very amateur.

 

I have more, but this is already epic and my cold medicine is kicking in. Time to retreat to the sofa for a Game of Thrones marathon.

[Camera One]

Good summary!  And that doesn't even include the character issues, from plot-driving character/wasting of characters as props, to ignoring ramifications of events on character psyche, to lack of interest in exploring deeper character interactions.  A lot of that comes to the writers' mindset, which seems apparent in their interviews.  From "washing dishes is boring" to skipping over things completely and just revealing it via Twitter, to a clear bias of writing for villains, to focusing on the shiny ornaments at the expense of the actual tree that needs to support those ornaments.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

And that doesn't even include the character issues, from plot-driving character/wasting of characters as props, to ignoring ramifications of events on character psyche, to lack of interest in exploring deeper character interactions.  A lot of that comes to the writers' mindset, which seems apparent in their interviews.  From "washing dishes is boring" to skipping over things completely and just revealing it via Twitter, to a clear bias of writing for villains, to focusing on the shiny ornaments at the expense of the actual tree that needs to support those ornaments.

Oh, I'm just getting warmed up. But I got hit with a sudden cold and can't quite think coherently enough to be cogent in further analysis at the moment.

[Zuleikha]

I think the poor worldbuilding is tied to them not thinking beyond season 1. The world was developed just enough for season 1. Magic didn't need rules because it was confined to the past (and generally to the villains), so it was fine to be plot-dependent. 

 

But then once they had to keep going, they didn't have the discipline to go back and figure out their worldbuilding (even though they wrote themselves the perfect opportunity to put rules in place for magic), and I think they've always had some problems with pacing their seasons. Even with s1--which was a genuinely good season of television--Graham's death was done for shock but never had the impact on the story that it deserved.

 

I feel like this is a general TV problem with fantasy television. I can't think of any examples of solid worldbuilding. 

[Shanna Marie]

One other issue is that they seem to forget what should be the number one rule of a series: It's the Characters, Stupid. The characters are generally the reason people keep tuning in. They're why viewers care about the events. Shocking twists only have an impact if you care about the people involved.

 

Today's audiences are pretty sophisticated and very plugged-in. We're pretty sure that the main characters are going to live through whatever's happening, unless there's been some sort of casting shake-up or contract dispute, and that news is generally out and about before the episode airs. Most network series don't shake up the status quo too much. So when you give us a situation like Rumple needing to crush Hook's heart to do the spell that will free him from the dagger so he can leave town and still be the Dark One, we're not on the edge of our seats to see if Hook will live or die or if Rumple will become all-powerful and leave town for good. We're waiting to see how Hook survives and how Rumple is foiled, and then what we're really in suspense about is what will happen next -- how everyone involved will react in the aftermath.

 

Since there's not a lot of major suspense, the real drama and tension is in the consequences, and these guys are afraid of consequences. Big, major things happen, and then life goes on without anyone really being changed or affected. They write for the Shocking!Twist! but after so many shocking twists that don't really twist anything, they lose all impact. Since I've been marathoning A Game of Thrones (I don't really recommend doing that on cold medicine, BTW), I can't help but compare. I don't expect this series to be GOT because that's not on a broadcast network and it's based on a series of novels, but they do know how to do a shocking twist that works. The Red Wedding had everyone gasping in shock, whether you got to it first in the book or saw it for the first time on the series. But while the event itself was shocking, they didn't just leave it there. It changed everything on the show -- and not just by reducing the cast significantly. The repercussions of those events were still being seen as of the latest published book. It changed a lot of characters' attitudes toward things. It changed the power dynamics. It wasn't just about creating a shocking moment.

 

Contrast that with Graham's death. There was maybe one episode of fallout. Emma's mentioned him since then. But there haven't really been repercussions other than Emma becoming sheriff. Regina got away scot-free, she seems to feel no guilt, and the writers are acting like it doesn't even matter. It was all about the shock in that moment, and then it was practically forgotten. These writers would do a Red Wedding in the diner and then in the next episode no one would mention it, the person who did it would still be part of the gang, and everyone would move on with their lives.

 

Or there was the Shattered Sight spell. That was built up as something huge, but when it happened, they were a cream pie short of a Marx Brothers movie on Main Street and Regina and Snow snarked at each other. Nothing changed in the aftermath. No bad feelings from what was said lingered. We saw no physical injuries. Not even an extra died. It's as though it never happened.

 

If we see enough things happening that don't matter to the characters, why should events matter to us? It also becomes hard to relate to characters who don't react like normal human beings. That may be where a lot of the fondness for Regina comes from -- she's the only character who's allowed to react to the things that happen to her in a way anyone can relate to. When something bad happens to her, she feels pain. She's sad about losing things. We see her cry. Everyone else just soldiers on, seemingly unaffected. They aren't allowed to get mad or stay mad at someone who's hurt them. They aren't allowed to feel betrayed. They aren't allowed to miss someone they've lost. They aren't given the chance to freak out about almost losing someone. With every character but Regina it's like, "Oh well, that happened, moving right along." Often, the scenes are skipped entirely. And that's where some of the Regina hatred also comes in, since she's caused so much harm and yet it's all forgotten since no one has really been allowed to react to it. We see every tear she sheds, but they skip entire scenes that would show us how other people are dealing with their traumas. When they do get to react, it's treated like a flaw. Snow was only allowed to point out that she was ten when her huge "betrayal" of Regina happened when she was under a spell that brought out the worst in her. It was considered a sign of a darkened heart when she was angry at Gepetto for his lie about the wardrobe. These aren't normal people you can relate to.

[jhlipton]

2) Poor worldbuilding

This is especially true where magic is involved. There's no defined magical system. 

 

Don't forget that "Magic has a price" except for when it doesn't.

[Shanna Marie]

Don't forget that "Magic has a price" except for when it doesn't.

And then they're still surprised when it has a price. How many times was Regina warned about the cost of casting the Dark Curse and the fact that it would leave a hole in her heart, and yet now she's acting like something's horribly wrong when her relationship doesn't work out.

 

After this latest episode, I'd say that another big writing flaw on this series is a lack of focus. Instead of thoroughly exploring and developing one thing, they seem to have reached a point of just throwing random things at us and hoping it looks "complex" instead of looking like desperation. They really have out-Alien Vampire Bunnied themselves.

 

Oh, and "surprising" isn't necessarily the same thing as "good."

[FabulousTater]

You know....Someone needs to take the use of flashbacks away from these writers. They use it as a crutch to try and make up for the fact that they are making all this shite up as they go along, to try and justify or rectify the plot holes they make, but they only end up creating a mind-boggling (ratings killer) clusterfuck. When it's all said and done all we're left with is a storyline that within the larger context doesn’t make sense anymore.

It’s one thing to use flashbacks every once in a while to allow the audience into a character’s head and see where the characters are coming from in the present day story, but the writers are so intensely dependent (lbr, it’s a damn addiction) on using flashbacks to create new contrived points of conflict that this show's storylines have lost cohesion — and worst of all, the flashbacks they rewrite/retcon occur seasons after what we were originally shown. Like, "BTW, what we established with those flashbacks in season 1 and 2? Ya, that's no longer what happened. You're welcome, audience!"

 

The whole show is just a big mess of plots thrown at the wall. It’s like someone was trying to render a photorealistic painting by haphazardly splashing paint everywhere and when they miss a spot they come back a year or two later and literally throw some more paint at the holes. But because their aim is piss poor and with little to no thought given to longterm consquences of what they are doing, it just ruins what was already layed down (and, sadly, even that wasn’t good to begin with).

They can’t just rehash the same story over and over, but then at some point randomly inject changes like nothing and pretend it was some big twist they had planned all along! You can’t come back seasons later to the same story and say, “Oh, but wait! What you didn’t know was that Zelena was Marian all this time!” or "All this time Snowing did this terrible thing to an innocent baby and were harboring this deep dark secret all along!" and not expect viewers to be like “Give me a fucking break. You just made this shit up two seconds ago.” That isn’t story plotting. No, no. What that is is pulling shit out of your pants because you're either out of ideas or you're using the flashback like a "get out of jail free" card to try and fix it every time you realize you screwed up the story, again.

I just saw on twitter that someone asked Adam how Belle could’ve recognized Robin when he was glamoured and some other twitter user said “Maybe it’s because they had other adventures afterwards” and Adam replied with “Exactly”. Like, Oh, of course :-/…

 

I’m pretty good at following genre series and shows with crazy mythologies, but FFS I need some GD linearity in my storytelling not retconning. I have to be able to trust something and use it as a touchstone. You can't keep ripping out the foundation of the characters right out from under them and expect the characters to maintain any internal logic, and you sure as hell can't expect the audience to stick around if you keep doing that. And based on the ratings alone, millions have already thrown their hands-up in the air and given up.

 

(The lack of emotional pay-off also doesn't help. At. All. I think that's one of their biggest (if not THE biggest) writing blunders. This show basically has no logical plotting, no worldbuilding, nor basic rules that we can rely on. But sticking with the show despite all that has had very little rewards -- despite our efforts to fanwank the crazy in hopes that along with the irrational plotting there will at least be some emotional payoff, there is none. There is no payoff whatsoever.)
 
I mean, if the audience needs a damn flowchart, algorithms, and to talk to everyone in the forums so we can all come together to try and find an ounce of logic with what the F is going on, but ultimately going to Twitter to find any answers provided by the writers, and this is something that happens season after season, then you know what? You’ve failed as writers and showrunners.

Someone needs to take flashbacks away from the writers. No more. No more flashback crutches because at this point I just want to beat you with them. No more fill-in the blank storylines slapped randomly into place years later, you twits. You’ve got to write linear stories from here on out because either you're too dumb or too incompetent to use flashbacks judiciously and coherently.

Edited April 13, 2015 by FabulousTater

[FabulousTater]

We see every tear [Regina] sheds, but they skip entire scenes that would show us how other people are dealing with their traumas. When they do get to react, it's treated like a flaw. Snow was only allowed to point out that she was ten when her huge "betrayal" of Regina happened when she was under a spell that brought out the worst in her. It was considered a sign of a darkened heart when she was angry at Gepetto for his lie about the wardrobe. These aren't normal people you can relate to.

This just reminded me...in the "Heart of Gold" just now, Regina is reasonably appalled that Rumpel would work with Zelena because Zelena got Bae to kill himself. But when the shoe is on the other foot, when Snow has a negative reaction to the fact that Regina murdered her father, tried to murder Snow herself, tried to kill her husband and daughter multiple times, cursed Snow's whole family and kingdom, almost killed her grandson, and was complicit in Snow's nanny's death, well, Snow's reasonably negative reaction is framed by the writers as bad and frowned upon. The way the writers structure it it's all "How dare Snow not instantly forgive Regina and invite her to dinner and eat her lasagna! Snow is soooo mean!"

 

These writers are a real piece of work...

 

(ETA: Oops. Just realized I double posted. Sorry.)

Edited April 13, 2015 by FabulousTater

[jhlipton]

(ETA: Oops. Just realized I double posted. Sorry.)

 

That's Okay -- once was as hash-browns and the other as french fries.

[KingOfHearts]

In this stage of the game, flashbacks are pointless unless they show a critical moment that explains what's happening the present. We do not need stories that are vaguely similar to the present day events in order to shoot a point across. (Enter the Dragon, White Out for example.) Lost, in its later seasons, ditched their normal flashback formula because there was so little left to tell. There is nothing else we need to know about Snow vs. Regina and what all happened in that time period. Because of this dilemma, the writers are forced to add retcons and insert stories that make no sense within the timeline. Flashbacks should have the purpose of giving us new information needed to understand what's happening in the present. Except for climactic episodes (like Best Laid Plans), they rarely serve this directive.

 

The writers have had several opportunities to correct this and they walked past every single one. Fill Storybrooke scenes with character moments? Nope, let's put a pointless flashback scene instead. Use the Missing Year as an exciting new array of interesting stories? Nope, let's show more Zelena. I'm sorry writers, but we do not need to see Snow's honeymoon or the Queens fighting off a Chernabog.  If you're going to have flashbacks, use them to expose your world more. They should give a reason for the present, not duplicate it.

Edited April 14, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

They've crossed the line from flashbacks being harmlessly boring or repetitive, to flashbacks destroying characters or ret-conning to unbelievable levels.  They're no longer using flashbacks to support the story or to fill in blanks, they're using the flashbacks to CREATE new problems for the characters in the present-day.  So the writers are using the flashbacks to drive the plot.  

[tennisgurl]

And in this last episode, we basically had a flashback to a flashback OF a flashback! Will this madness never end?!?!

[Serena]

I don't get why they can't do it like TVD and The Originals, and have flashbacks 4-5 times a season. So, when they happen, they're fresh and exciting for the audience, and they have more time to explore the current storylines.

[sharky]

I understand why they use the technique the way they do -- it's a very Lost thing to do, which makes sense considering where A&E came from. The flashbacks aren't an issue when it comes to telling the story in the current timeline. The problem is that the current timeline is stuffed with fluff. Cut out a bunch of extra stuff there and it would all be much better. It's like the writers are getting paid by how many storylines they can tell in one episode so they stuff them full.

[Curio]

In this stage of the game, flashbacks are pointless unless they show a critical moment that explains what's happening the present. We do not need stories that are vaguely similar to the present day events in order to shoot a point across. [...] If you're going to have flashbacks, use them to expose your world more. They should give a reason for the present, not duplicate it.

I've been saying this for a while now. Unless the flashback is being used to show the audience something about the character that helps us understand their headspace more, or if the flashback event has been hinted at for a while and the audience is curious about seeing that Offscreenville event actually happen on screen, they should just stop doing flashbacks altogether.

 

I couldn't help but think about Will's sister during the last episode. Now that's an example of a flashback that would be beneficial for the audience. Will's sister's death was already hinted at in the Wonderland series, and now that they've mentioned it again on the mother show, the audience is curious about what went down. The writers have laid the ground work for us to visualize what might have happened: Will's sister drowned in a frozen lake and it distraught him to the point where it took him years to get over it and he needed a magical potion just to move on. That's a flashback I wouldn't mind seeing more of to fill in the blanks of how exactly Will's sister fell through the ice and how he reacted to it in the moment. That's a character-building scene this show needs more of.

 

Instead, I'm thinking about Will's Offscreenville flashback during a flashback episode about Robin going to Oz, which was never even hinted at before. Never during 3B were there any clues about Zelena knowing Robin in the past or that Robin made that adventure to Oz. Therefore, the entire episode felt pointless and retconned because no one in the audience was begging to see that flashback. There also weren't any hints that Will made the trek to Oz, so his presence felt tacked on as well.

 

Compare that to Hook's 3B magical bean adventure we never got to see on screen. During multiple episodes in 3B, the writers kept building up this huge secret about how Hook was able to get to Emma in New York, and then they set up another secret about who he might have traded the Jolly Roger to. Because of those hints and clues the writers dropped along the way, that made the audience's anticipation about seeing that mystery solved on screen grow even more. But...they ended up summing it all up in a ten second conversation. That's it? Really?

 

I honestly don't even know what to expect with this show anymore because the writers are so out of tune with what the audience actually wants to see on screen. Just take our forum poll about favorite couples as an example. Now, I know that this forum isn't an accurate representation of the entire Once audience, but an 80+ person sample size is fairly decent, and it's pretty apparent that there's a huge landslide opinion about favorite and least favorite couples. It's obvious (not just here, but in other Internet pockets) that not a lot of people are digging the Robin/Regina relationship, and yet, that's what this entire 4B arc is centered around -- reuniting those two. That's not going to result in a satisfying season arc. I know that the show is technically Adam & Eddy's vision, but at some point as show runners, there has to be a balancing act where they address what the audience is enjoying the most and adjusting their game plan to match that. Because at the end of the day, television is a business, and if they keep losing viewers and viewer interest, they won't have jobs anymore.

[Souris]

Adam and Scott Nimerfro are being VERY defensive on Twitter about criticisms of this ep. Nimerfro even told one fan to "enjoy your coloring books" instead. Albeit it was to a notorious jerkward Bad Apple who complained that the ep wasn't plot-driven enough (DA FUQ???), that was still a wildly unprofessional way to respond. Anyway, that tells me the writers are worried about the general response to 4B. There are lots of different reasons why people are unhappy about 4B, but it seems to me that it hasn't been well-received on the whole. Even some loyal TV critics are making negative comments.

 

I hope they actually sit back and think about what they've done wrong instead of just doing the defensive, knee-jerk "The fans simply don't understand our brilliance!" response. I doubt it, but I hope.