S04.E13: Darkness On The Edge Of Town

[Camera One]

Plus they want to keep that quaint little dated "lost in time" town feel.  

Edited March 15, 2015 by Camera One

[Mari]

The impression I've had is that they've gotten technology as it becomes common--for example, the very latest in tablets are probably not there, but as a piece of technology has reached a saturation level, it's there.

 

And they did have internet in Curse 1.0, since that's how Henry tracked down Emma.

[Camera One]

Okay, I figured out how Rumple did it.

 

Belle went online to a message board, "Academic Study of Ancient Runes and Incantations".  This was where she thought the "brightest minds in the world" spent their time.  But it was actually an Invision board set up by Rumple where every member was him.  Then, he introduces himself (username "WarlockYouWillLove666"") as a Harvard Professor.  He gets Belle to send him the info, and he sends back the bogus translation that would release the Fairies and the Chernozog or whatever it's called.  Voilà.

[Shanna Marie]

Watching this episode right after watching the mid-season finale rather than after a long break is even worse because it undermines anything that was remotely moving or interesting in the previous episode. It may be six weeks in the show, but to us, it's less than an hour from the time Belle dramatically kicks Rumple out of town to the time he strolls back into town. Worse, they use something they had and knew about all along, so all that drama about Robin and Regina was pointless. Regina could have visited him or had him visit her. All they had to do was move his tent to the other side of the town line, let Marian and Roland live there, and Robin can visit back and forth and still be with Regina.

I did really like the library scene with Belle and Hook, and when the two of them ran into the mayor's office, all excited about what they'd found.

The less said about the Author stuff, the better.

The whole "it feeds on evil, so it goes after the one with the heart with the most potential for darkness" makes no sense. How do you even measure darkness potential in a good person who isn't dark? Is it just about power, since someone with more power could do more harm if they went dark? Otherwise, it would have to be the most good person, since they'd have farther to go to be dark, if we're looking at potential darkness like potential energy, but that's not at all how they framed it.

[KingOfHearts]

Rumplestiltskin, Cruella de Vil, and Ursula going through a Mr. Cluck's drive thru never gets old. I also liked Rumple and Ursula as unwilling roommates. The over-dramatic reveal of Cruella's car was great for this show. I just want to watch fairy tale characters doing random shenanigans in the real world. Is that too much to ask? I don't even need a huge, complicated plot. Just give me the Evil Queen at the DMV, dammit.

Edited February 23, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[PixiePaws1]

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Rumplestiltskin, Cruella de Vil, and Ursula going through a Mr. Cluck's drive thru never gets old.

OMG!!!...This truly was hysterical...one of THE funniest scenes this show ever did.

How utterly infuriating they can do this type of 'in joke' with fairy tale characters hitting the drive thru,  but ignore nearly every op to throw in a classic scene like this, much more often. I am not saying flood each ep with them, but this was comedy GOLD!!..(maybe an itsy bitsy pun intended..)

[Camera One]

On 3/1/2015 at 8:08 PM, Shanna Marie said:

I was expecting Rumple to be in Cruella's trunk when they crossed the town line, so I was actually a little disappointed that they played trust games instead. But wouldn't that have made a lot more sense? 

That definitely makes more sense than Regina and Emma letting Cruella and Ursula keep the Scroll instead of giving it back immediately once they got past the town line.  What if they invited their other evil friends Scar, Frollo, Governor Radcliffe, the Siamese Cats and the Ringmaster to enter the town?

So this episode had Rumple saying that the Author could somehow "change the rules" that villains couldn't get happy endings.  What rules?  "He gives heroes and villains what he deems just desserts."

Spoiler

That totally didn't mesh with what we saw later in the season.

I freeze-framed on Hook's board and that was fun.  The Landlord of the Apprentice's house was "Yen Sid".  Though the sticky saying "How did this relate to the original experiment" made no sense.

Rumple was so ungrateful to Ursula in NYC.  I just found it annoying.  Why didn't Ursula and Cruella stay together and pull cons in a team?  

Regina told Emma that she had "conquered entire realms in less time".  Why did she conquer an entire realm?  Was that one of those untold stories we would have gotten in Season 11?

The Queens of Darkness were still entertaining.  It was a nice touch when Maleficent and Ursula rolled their eyes at each other behind Cruella's back after she coaxed the scarabs out of the way and said it was easy.

On the phone call with Ursula, Emma said to Regina "They've been living in a Land Without Magic.  How could they do it?" and then "It's the hat!".   I don't get what Emma was talking about.  How could they do what?  

Why didn't the Chernobog just tear the building apart to get to Emma in city hall?  He should have been able to lift the car up and drop it.

Despite the dud of an Author storyline, this episode could have led to a decent half-season.

Spoiler

But very little panned out in an enjoyable way.  Rumple told the two Queens to "continue to repent and make friends", but that never really happened.  Just seeing the setup to the eggnapping with Snowing was getting my blood boiling.  

Two cases of "send the magic out of the town" to solve problems were used in Season 4 - sending Marian away and sending the Chernobog out.  But they never really used this strategy again, did they?  

Why did the Chernobog pick Maleficent as the person with the greatest potential for darkness?  We later learn Cruella was the unrepentant murderess and sociopath with no soft spot.  

[daxx]

I love the scene with Hook and Belle at the beginning. Too bad the show didn’t do more of that. The drive thru was fantastic.

Still hate that Emma gives Regina all the credit when Belle and Hook did all the work. Sigh.

Rest of the episode was kinda meh.

Edited February 25, 2019 by daxx

[Camera One]

14 minutes ago, daxx said:

Still hate that Emma gives Regina all the credit when Belle and Hook did all the work. Sigh.

I'm glad at least Blue didn't go overboard with her "thanks".

[tennisgurl]

So begins the full on Author part of the show, or, as I like to call it: Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.

Edited February 25, 2019 by tennisgurl

[tennisgurl]

I could watch a whole show of characters from fairytale lands just messing about in the real world. Cruella as the wife of some rich white collar criminal (with her amazing car in the garage!), Ursula and Rumple as reluctant roommates, the iconic drive through scene, its just great, its basically what I wanted from this show all along. 

Of course, then we have to get back to Storeybrooke, and the fun seriously goes down several notches. Its not a bad episode, there are a lot of scenes individually I like. I like a lot of the Captain Swan moments, especially when she was telling him that he was a hero, Belle and Hook working together as a team is awesome, and I kind of love how everyone has gone against so many bad guys, they just easily figure out what to do and where to go. 

I did roll my eyes at Emma insisting that Blue thank Regina, instead of her as well as Belle and Hook, who actually did all the damn work (while Regina just..read a paper), but to be fair, Regina wasnt super insufferable this week. Yeah there was the continuation of the Author and Robin moping, but she was mostly nice to people, helpful without whining about everything, and even tried to sacrifice herself for Emma, which is actually selfless, not the fake selflessness they have so often tried to give her. So, let it not be said I cant be fair to Regina. 

I kind of love that Rumples plan is basically "these suckers will let in any psycho with half a sob story and a speech about hope, we can get in easy peasy!", which isnt exactly wrong. I also question Bells research skills if she totally bought Rumples story. I guess she didnt know much about the internet, but she didnt look up credentials for this guy? Was she just posting on ancient language message boards? Did Rumple add his name to Oxfords faculty list? If so, how?!

Really, this episode is decent enough in a vacuum. Not great, but not bad either, with some good scenes. Its just knowing what all its setting up...

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I also question Bells research skills if she totally bought Rumples story. I guess she didnt know much about the internet, but she didnt look up credentials for this guy? Was she just posting on ancient language message boards? Did Rumple add his name to Oxfords faculty list? If so, how?!

That's a really good point.  I understand that Belle might not be proficient with the internet, but neither should Rumple.  Why not directly email people on the Oxfords faculty list?  Why ask around on some random message board?  Heck, there must be some knowledgeable people in Storybrooke from the Enchanted Forest who know ancient texts. 

Another thing - How did the Chernabog end up in the Hat anyway?  

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

That's a really good point.  I understand that Belle might not be proficient with the internet, but neither should Rumple.  Why not directly email people on the Oxfords faculty list?  Why ask around on some random message board?  Heck, there must be some knowledgeable people in Storybrooke from the Enchanted Forest who know ancient texts. 

Another thing - How did the Chernabog end up in the Hat anyway?  

Why asked on the internet at all in the Land without Magic? Why would anyone know the answer to that? Asking around Storybrooke, the EF or any other magical place makes more sense then asking an entire world that has no magic on how to solve magical problem.

[Shanna Marie]

On 2/27/2019 at 2:10 PM, tennisgurl said:

Regina wasnt super insufferable this week. Yeah there was the continuation of the Author and Robin moping, but she was mostly nice to people, helpful without whining about everything, and even tried to sacrifice herself for Emma, which is actually selfless, not the fake selflessness they have so often tried to give her.

True. And when asked to help, she just went and did it without even asking why she should and what's in it for her, like a certain someone we could mention who supposedly has a good heart.

But I do still find it interesting that we have two very different things going on in the same episode, and I wonder if the writers even paid enough attention to what they were writing to recognize the parallels they set up. We have Regina, supposedly fully believing herself to now be a hero and therefore deserving of a happy ending, spending all her time holed up in her office, focusing entirely on trying to find the Author to get her a happy ending, studying this book full of her own evil deeds without any sign of remorse and without seeming to feel any need to make amends to all these people she's hurt. But in the same episode, we have Hook, spending all his time working with Belle to figure out how to undo the evil things he was forced to do, feeling bad about having been weak and having failed to be as good as he wants to be, and not even considering himself to be a hero or expecting any kind of reward or praise for what he's doing.