S05.E02: The Price

[YaddaYadda]

Maybe Regina poofed them a new wardrobe. I mean there was no dress waiting for her even though she's said she was the Savior. 

[Shanna Marie]

Maybe Regina poofed them a new wardrobe.

Well, she did poof up her own dress, so maybe she did outfits for everyone else, and we can blame her for the lack of imagination for Hook. Blaming Regina makes me happy. :-)

 

And that would explain why they were back in the same Storybrooke clothes in this episode -- they never actually changed clothes (in 6 weeks? Ick!), and all it took was undoing the spell to put them back in their old clothes.

[snarkybelle]

Lot of things bothered me about this episode and there's too many things on my list to write but first and foremost, I hope to high heaven that A&E doesn't make Regina the new savior.  Because once they get the Dark One out of Emma, does she have no role now?  I mean, maybe Emma would like to relinquish her savior duties to someone else but in light of what Regina has done there is no way she could ever be the savior.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind her getting some redemption and a happy ending, but to be the savior would erase all the horrible things she has done and it has been truly horror filled as Percival, if he were alive, would gladly point out.  

 

I hope instead they make Emma save herself.  A&E has been saying that Emma saves herself and they better continue that mantra.  Hook and Henry could help but mainly, it needs to be Emma.

 

I hope that once Emma does save herself, she takes Hook and Henry and gets the heck out that town.  I'm getting sick of Emma's parents continually supporting Regina and giving her second chances.  Now Leroy supports her as the Savior?  I couldn't believe it when David gives Regina a dancing lesson when he hasn't done that for Emma, only in a dream.  Then he kills for Regina.  Not disarm, but kills?  Has he done this for Emma?   I hope Mary Margaret's realization that if they win, Emma loses, really puts their roles in perspective.  It will be all of them against Emma.  That has got to suck, even if that is what Emma wanted to get the Darkness out of her.  I have a feeling they are going to help the darkness consume Emma in Camelot and she would have been better off if she were alone.  We really don't know if Emma would have killed Merida before they showed up.  It would have been close but I think she would have stuck Merida's heart back in her chest.  Then Mary Margaret using the dagger to control Emma to stop her from killing Merida.  MM has no faith that Emma would do the right thing.  Thank goodness for Hook.  Then Regina using the dagger to control Emma was not funny.  How ungrateful can you be to a person that just saved your life.  I'm usually not so down on Regina but a lot of what happened in this episode was beyond my endurance.  

[Christi]

Guinevere is mexican?? Awful casting

[KAOS Agent]

The actress is from Portugal. She seems to have a lot of experience on Portuguese soaps, so she shouldn't have any trouble fitting into the soap that is Once Upon a Time.

[kingshearte]

Then Regina using the dagger to control Emma was not funny.  How ungrateful can you be to a person that just saved your life. 

I did think her slip was a bit funny. When she was all "Oh, shut up," and Emma suddenly had no choice but to do so, for me at least, that was one of those funny for an instant, and then very sobering. I would definitely have preferred if Regina had taken her cue from that and tried really hard to refrain from accidentally commanding Emma. Taking it entirely the other way and joking about it? Blech.

[daxx]

I hate that Regina was so flippant about being able to control Emma. Right after the accidental command she should have placed it back in her pocket and stopped touching it. She was far too gleeful when Emma responded to the command to shut up.

[october]

I agree. Regina is someone who has abused magic (stolen hearts, curses, etc) to control others before and has gotten away with it. Even though Emma gave her the dagger, Regina is a serial abuser who has been put in a position of power over one of her former victims. It would be one thing if Regina had learned over the years to treat others with empathy and not abuse her position for personal gain, but she hasn't as her attitude towards Emma in this episode shows. Someone who has changed would listen to others, not silence them and then laugh about. She's really not learned a thing.

 

I want to be optimistic, but from what I know about the coming episodes I think this is it for me where Regina is concerned. I can't take it any more. She is vile.

[Shanna Marie]

Rewatching this to get ready for the new episode, and it struck me that when they were explaining to Arthur about Emma being the Dark One, they didn't bother to mention the fact that she wasn't the typical Dark One, that she took it on as a sacrifice to save someone else. It also didn't seem to have occurred to anyone, especially Regina, that this explanation for the reason they were at Camelot might have kept them from instantly trying to kill Emma when they found she was the Dark One. And Regina's stepping up to claim to be the Savior was risky because if there was a prophecy about them coming and about one of them being the Savior, there was a chance that the prophecy also told them that the Savior was the Dark One (apparently there wasn't, but when Regina opened her mouth, she had no way of knowing that). Would Emma's magic to free Merlin have automatically looked dark? And if it did, would that have mattered? Merlin would have been free and then could have helped Emma, and that one bit of magic to free Merlin wouldn't have been any more of a heading toward darkness than saving Robin was, and again, freeing Merlin would mean Merlin was there to help. Would they really have been so freaked out about the Dark One if they'd known she was also the Savior and had taken it on as a sacrifice because it was something only the Savior could do? You'd think that being the Savior would somewhat mitigate being the Dark One.

 

I can totally believe that Regina wouldn't have thought of all that, but it's amazing that no one else did.

[Mathius]

I feel like the role Regina is playing (faux savior) was really meant for Lily but because there was an outcry from fans (rightfully so) to use the characters they have established, they gave it to Regina.

While Lily absolutely would have made more sense, I am 100% positive that A&E never had any plans to use her in that capacity. Outcry from fans has seldom stopped them before and, more to the point, they have NEVER needed a reason or excuse to put Regina in these kinds of roles and give her things that made Emma special. The only plan they have/had for Lily was her mystery daddy, Regina was always their go-to replacement savior, the writing was on the wall in the S4 finale with her being given "light savior" blood in the AU.

[KingOfHearts]

 

I feel like the role Regina is playing (faux savior) was really meant for Lily but because there was an outcry from fans (rightfully so) to use the characters they have established, they gave it to Regina.

I find Lily's absence to be glaring. She's supposedly Emma's friend from childhood that Emma cares about, and 4B tried its darndest to engage us into her story. 

[Dianthus]

Hook says from the get-go that the ball is basically a waste of time b/c he cares more about Emma than some stupid dance and a chance to play dress-up. Regina makes it all about her and gets in a dig about Snow while having her little snit fit. I can certainly see how that would come across as SQ is more canon than CS and makes Hook "almost unbearable." :-P

[jhlipton]

And why does dancing on this show involve women going limp and men swinging 'em around?

All dances, from medieval times through the 1800s, involve men and women in lines, walking about slowly and twirling each other. And any couple can join in at any time.

There are no allemandes or brauls or gavottes. Only line dances that don't have squares. Yeesh.

 

 

I'm disappointed by how dull Emma is as the Dark One. She seems more like she has a headache and people won't stop talking to her.

 

I know. I kind of wished that Hook had said something like "For a so-called Dark Onr, youi're pretty easy-going."

 

Since when has anyone ever had to pay the “price” for magic ever?

Magic has always only had a price when it was owed to Rumple,

[Curio]

I find Lily's absence to be glaring. She's supposedly Emma's friend from childhood that Emma cares about, and 4B tried its darndest to engage us into her story. 

 

I'm the opposite. I honestly didn't even remember her character until you brought it up. She adds nothing significant to the show or the characters in my opinion.

 

It would probably be glaring to go back and re-watch Season 4 and notice all the unnecessary amount of time they spent on Lily's character, but just looking at Season 5, I'm glad they dropped her. She doesn't add anything important to the story, and even though I detest dropped plot lines, I'd be completely content with never seeing Lily again or if we never learn who her dad is. I mean, if the writers are totally fine with dropping Will without any explanation and never telling us what happened to Ana, then they can do the same with Lily as far as I'm concerned.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Curio

[Camera One]

I agree, though since they intentionally fit in that scene about Lily wondering about her dad, I'm sure we will see her again in Season 5.  Maybe 5B is when she gets her focus.  

[KingOfHearts]

Taking this to the Lily thread.

Edit: Nevermind. Apparently it doesn't exist any more. Taking it to the Recurring Characters thread.

Edited October 13, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

Edit: Nevermind. Apparently it doesn't exist any more. Taking it to the Recurring Characters thread.

 

Heh. See, Lily's so irrelevant, her own thread got deleted. ;)

 

And to get this episode thread back on topic, I'll just note that I wish the ball sequence lasted a lot longer. This is probably one of the only times in the entire series that all of the main characters will get to be in a ball setting together, and they only spent like 4 minutes on it. I would have liked a bit more happy ball moments before Percival's unfortunate death by the person who ruined his childhood.

[andromeda331]

It took me awhile to watch this episode because I had a feeling I'd hate it and I was right.
Regina is now the Savoir, of course she is. The writers considered her that for a few
seasons now and now decided to make it official. David got to teach her to dance instead of his
own daughter and not even dance one dance with her. Who cares about Emma? Regina needs to
learn to dance because somehow Cora never had her learn (seems unlikely) and her husband
was too busy dancing with his daughter its not like Regina didn't care and was off pouty.
Poor Regina. That is so much worse and tragic then not learning to dance because your parents
sent you away to keep from being murdered by Regina as a baby.  Yes, Percival deserved to die
its not like Regina slaughtered his entire village and he had legitimate reason to want her dead.
I kind of liked Henry and Violet, mostly I'm happy there's someone his age for him to hang out
with. Its been weird that he's had no friends his age. Of course the only time Regina wants

Emma to use dark magic its to save her own boyfriend. Its all about Regina.

[KingOfHearts]

Is Regina's Savior status still in question? She broke a curse, used light magic, and has gotten to save the day more times than Emma. Besides not being a True Love baby, I'm not sure that there's much difference.

Edited October 18, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

The main reason this episode doesn't work for me is that the subject matter is Regina's consequences. It directly deals with her impulsiveness and desire to be a hero without actually sacrificing anything. It falls short because she doesn't actually pay the "price" in the episode's title. No one does. There's this big deal about a terror coming to Storybrooke and that someone is going to have to die. Regina's task is to step up as a leader and save the town. And while we see she's willing to risk her life to do so, it doesn't service her character well because

Spoiler

it all leads to nothing. She's back to standing around making bitchy comments in the next episode. Honestly I wish Robin's death could have hinted at this more so it could be counted as foreshadowing. But the writing doesn't seem to make the connection very well. It's pretty easy to say his obliteration was Regina's "price" from this episode, but even if that was intended, it still feels disjointed.

[Camera One]

The other thing was... 

Spoiler

Was Dark Emma truly ready to let Robin Hood get taken to the Underworld?  What was her backup plan if they didn't realize to hold hands and sing Kumbaya?  This episode was still trying to convince us that Dark Swan was so dark.

[KingOfHearts]

Other issues I have:

* The timeline does not add up for Percival to be the boy from the burning village. Regina wasn't torching hamlets until only a few years before the curse.

* Why haven't Hook and Emma tried to TLK at all in Camelot? If Hook thought of it immediately after coming back, why didn't he think of it there?

* Why is the price of healing magic suddenly a person's life? We've seen that stuff plenty of times and there's never been a price or Fury.

* Why did the Fury wait six weeks to collect? Was that the only opening in its busy schedule?

* Snow held hands with Regina and risked her soul being sucked away as well. That showed no consideration for her other loved ones or her baby.

* Emma used light magic to cure Robin, but it counted as dark magic. I don't get it. Please explain, show.

[Camera One]

Speaking of which, Arthur was also holding hands with everyone.  How nice of him, eh?

[Curio]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Why haven't Hook and Emma tried to TLK at all in Camelot? If Hook thought of it immediately after coming back, why didn't he think of it there?

I thought Emma tried to TLK Hook immediately after she revived Robin?

[YaddaYadda]

41 minutes ago, Curio said:

I thought Emma tried to TLK Hook immediately after she revived Robin?

Yeah, she did. Clippy said the reason it failed was because she loved the power.

I still don't understand how a TLK works. I can understand why it didn't work in 5x02,

Spoiler

but 5x04? Emma wasn't hanging on to anything when they kissed then.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Curio said:

I thought Emma tried to TLK Hook immediately after she revived Robin?

I watched that, but from what we had seen, she was trying to avoid Clippy!Rumple invading her head again. Every time she had kissed or hugged Hook, he would disappear. It wasn't necessarily a TLK attempt. But even if it was, you have to wonder why none of the characters formally suggested it. Even freaking Belle.

Edited August 27, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

During the summer before last season, when I was playing speculative mental fanfic about how the season would go, I had this whole thing worked out about why they couldn't try a TLK with Emma and Hook, something about how Emma didn't have just the Dark One darkness, but also Rumple's, which had turned it into a different entity, and they had to find a way to destroy or contain it before they could safely get it out of Emma because they weren't sure what would happen to it if they just broke the curse on her. That meant that they couldn't kiss at all until they figured it out, which led to all kinds of romantic and sexual tension, but it also played into that forehead lean thing they do, so that became their version of a kiss until they could safely kiss. But they didn't try even that much handwaving.

I find it kind of amusing just how much contrivance was involved in getting Robin injured and having his fate still be in question when they have so many people now who can heal anything with the wave of a hand. They had to create a weapon that could cause an injury Regina, specifically, couldn't heal. But the whole "price" thing doesn't fit the rest of their storytelling. Rumple healed left and right without any Furies coming. Was it because Regina asked Emma and the Dark One is required to ask a price if they've been asked to do it instead of doing it on their own? Does that mean Emma could have made Regina give her a penny and the Fury would never have been an issue? And then we have everyone just holding hands, and that's enough to make the Fury give up.

[Shanna Marie]

I reread the thread after rewatching the episode, and we were so adorable with all our speculation about what was really going on. Plus, our speculation turned out to be far more interesting than the actual show.

This really is the "Shut up, Regina" episode. If this were any other show, this episode would have been setting her up for a huge downfall or twist back into villainy (like, she and not Dark Emma turns out to be the real threat), with her posing as the Savior, enjoying being able to control Emma with the dagger (with evil crazy eyes to match), one of her past victims coming back to confront her, and her deciding that she's the Savior in Storybrooke because she saved her boyfriend's life. But on this show, it really is just an ode to Regina's greatness and the townspeople really do decide that she's a Savior because she wanted to save her boyfriend's life.

Spoiler

I guess they hadn't come up with the season 6 Savior mythology yet, where it's all "there is one born in every generation" and is some kind of destiny thing, since they seem to be saying here that saving someone makes you a Savior.

Real ick that Emma's being psychologically tortured for saving them all from the Darkness and has had nothing but grief from being the Savior, since she's expected to put her own life on hold or disrupt her life to go saving everyone, but Regina declares herself Savior and gets a ball thrown in her honor and then gets all kinds of reverence from the townspeople in the present. Has anyone ever actually thanked Emma?

There's way too much out of nowhere contrivance in this episode, with the Percival timeline that doesn't work at all -- if he was a child when Regina was slaughtering villages, then depending on when in her timeline she torched his village (during the Bandit Snow era when Snow realized she was slaughtering villages or during the time after Snow caught her and let her go), he should be between 8 and 12 or so years old if he was frozen during the curse, or late 30s-early 40s if he wasn't. There's no way to make it work for him to be late 20s-early 30s as he seems to be here. Then there's the "sword that makes wounds Regina can't heal" and the out-of-nowhere "you have to pay for healing with a life." I mean, what's the point of healing if the cost of the healing is that the healed person dies? We've seen the magical characters healing left and right with no cost whatsoever, other than Rumple sometimes demanding something.

I noticed in the thread that the writers were tweeting about how the TLK didn't work between Emma and Hook because Emma loved the power too much, but in all of this they seemed to have forgotten that Emma already has power of her own. If she stopped being a Dark One, she'd still have the most powerful light magic. Does being the Dark One stop her from being able to tap into her light magic?

Spoiler

And it really doesn't work once we know what's really going on. Emma should have wanted the kiss to work because it would have solved all her problems. If she was kissing Hook with the intent of saving him, and he was kissing her with the intent of saving her, not knowing that he also needed saving, wouldn't that have done the trick? And if it didn't, then Emma should have looked sad and disappointed, not smirking. I still say she handled him all wrong, given what was really going on. It seems like it was stuff that was all done for effect in this episode, not done because it's what makes sense for the characters to do.

I love Emma's ball look, and even more when you see the explanation. But if they put all that thought into her outfit, I still don't get why they keep putting Hook into more or less the same pirate outfit when it doesn't fit what's going on with the character or the situation. Everyone else is in medieval-ish Camelot clothes, but he's in an entirely different style. He's no longer a dark, evil pirate, but he's still in all black. He's more or less playing the angel on Emma's shoulder to Head Rumple's devil, so his wardrobe should reflect that. If not white, then at least some other color than black.

Spoiler

And then there would have been even more contrast when he showed up in the black Dark One garb.

[Camera One]

On 10/6/2015 at 11:53 AM, Amerilla said:

I thought that was stupid. She looked like a flower child who got a job handing out giant turkey legs at a Rennaisance Faire. 

Spoiler

LOL, wait 'til you see the real Flower Child in Season 7.  

[KingOfHearts]

Even the title of this episode is full of irony. "All magic comes with a price" is one this show's taglines, yet it's almost never true. The danger the writers incite here are merely to up the stakes. Really, the motto should be "No good deed goes unpunished". Again, a hero tries to do something good, only to be slapped for it. Helping victims seems to consistently be a bad thing. But when a "villain" like Regina steps in, it's a moment of triumph. In the past, Emma can't use a simple healing spell to save Robin. But in the present, Regina et al can pull a Guardians of the Galaxy and save him with zero consequences. It's truly sad when the writers have outright contradictions within the same freaking episode.

Spoiler

If you really want to tilt your head, you could say Robin's death was foreshadowed here and Regina ended up paying the price anyway. However, I think that's giving the writers too much credit. If they wanted to hint at his future death, it would've been more obvious. That's just how A&E roll. Someone would've said something like, "You'll pay the price eventually," or, "We only stopped the Fury for now", or something would've been mentioned after his actual death. 

[Shanna Marie]

If both Robin and Regina were smart and if Regina were less selfish, they should maybe have taken this incident as a sign that karma won't let them be together and broken up for his good. I guess it sucks for Robin that he's always the one paying the price, but bad stuff keeps happening when they try to get together, and the fact that the reason he was available for her to date was that she imprisoned his wife and in timeline 1 executed her and in timeline 2 would have executed her but she was rescued and then killed by Regina's sister as part of her revenge scheme against Regina pretty much would suggest that this is a relationship that karma is never going to bless. Robin and Regina have maybe had, what, a week or so together, all told, when you count just the time they've been able to be together without being separated and his son has been held hostage, he's had to leave town and live in a strange world, he's learned that all that time he was living with his wife's murderer, who raped him, and now that he and Regina are back together he's been nearly killed by someone mad at her and in spite of him being healed, he's in danger of being dragged off to the Underworld. All of these things happened to him because of his association with Regina.

Even though I've seen this whole series and know it how ends, I wasn't playing super-close attention to the episode, glanced up when Rumple was doing his monologue and we saw the scene of Hook and Belle together, and for a moment I actually thought, "Oh, they aren't going there, are they? They're going to have Hook and Belle turn to each other for support while Emma is the Dark One and Rumple's in a coma, and it develops into more, then complications ensue."

Spoiler

I guess they did at least avoid that soap opera cliche. Hook remained entirely committed to Emma, even though he couldn't deal with her while she was the Dark One.

[daxx]

So much irritates me about this episode. I hate Regina using the dagger on Emma repeatedly and her obvious joy at being able to control her.

I hate the guilt trip Regina uses to get Emma to use dark magic to save Robin. I hate the whole Regina is the savior nonsense.

Mostly I hate the entire scene before the ball where Regina pretends to not know how to dance for attention because there is no way someone raised as she was by Cora wouldn’t have had hundreds of hours of dance lessons.

I think this is where I truly started to hate the way Regina was written.

[Shanna Marie]

Emma's healing of Robin here was very similar to Rumple healing Belle when Hook shot her. But nothing came to drag Belle to the underworld as a price for magic, so what's the difference? Was it because Rumple just wanted to do it, and therefore there was no price, but Emma had to be asked?

Dark Emma was goading Regina about not being up to being a Savior, and how they were going to need a Savior because something worse than her was coming. I don't think she was talking about the Fury, since that only threatened Robin and not the town.
 

Spoiler

It seems like she's talking about Dark Hook, but she was planning to deal with him herself, hopefully by getting the darkness out of him before he even remembered or noticed it was there, so why would she be goading Regina about whether or not she's up to dealing with him? She wouldn't have wanted Regina playing Savior against Hook.

Is she warning them that Arthur's shady? And why didn't she? It would have solved/prevented a few problems if they'd known from the start that they couldn't trust Arthur. She remembered it, so she could have told them. They might or might not have believed her, given what they know about the legend of Arthur, but given that he was a big reason they were in this mess, you'd think she'd have taken preemptive action against him.

[Camera One]

Even though it was satisfying to see Dark Swan drop the truth bomb to Regina, I agree it's unclear exactly what dire threat she was referring to.  After seeing the full story, I'm not sure Dark Swan's actions in this episode was natural consequence of the events in Camelot. 

On first watch, I assumed Dark Swan was angry because Regina's request to heal Robin was to blame for Emma becoming Dark Swan in the first place.

[tennisgurl]

I kind of love Dark Swan showing Hook their nice perspective house with her more low key Dark One outfit. "I might have chosen eternal darkness, but that doesent have to effect us baby! Look I even bought you a house!" 

This is a big "fuck off Regina" episode, both because of her attitude, and the shows attitude towards her. The whole Sir Percival plot is just so messed up on so many levels. So Regina gleefully slaughtered yet another village, taking everything from this guy as a young child, but when he tries to get justice for his murdered family and friends...he gets unceremoniously run through with a sword, and no one talks about it again, except for Arthur being all "who cares that you killed one of my knights and is apparently a mass murderer, YOLO!" at least in public. And of course no one freaks out about Charming killing a guy in defense of someone else, but when its Emma? Her soul is darkened and she is heading down a dark path obviously! On any other show, Regina coming face to face with one of her victims would be a moment of reflection on her past crimes, or trying to make amends, but here? Its just a brief plot point to get Robin in danger so that Emma can be guilt tripped by ungrateful dick Regina into using her magic and saving him, even knowing what it could do to her. RIP Percival and his dead friends and family. They should have known that not falling to their feet to worship Regina is a sin worthy of death. 

And she of course smiles evilly when she realizes she has power over Emma, and she just LOVES it, instead of reaction like a normal person and being creeped out over the control she has over her supposed friend. Yeah, they cant remember any major aspects of this world and timeline, but they DO always have Regina's love of having control over others as a consistent part of her character! 

I do like a few moments here and there. I really like Belle and Hook being friends and bonding over loving Dark Ones, the little moment between Grumpy and Belle at the ball (the show remembers that they knew each other!) and Charming playing matchmaker with Henry and Violet. They're little puppy love flirting was cute, although what is up with Henry's musical choices? I know plenty of kids who like older music, but THATS what he shows the girl he has a crush on? Who has never heard recorded music ever? This is when Henry as A&Es surrogate starts to get weird, like he is a grown man in the body of a kid. 

This is when Robin is really starting to get his role of "Regina cheerleader and damsel in distress to create Regina angst" and thats about it. I mean, that was always his job, but its more and more obvious as time goes on. And hasn't it been like two days since he found out his wife was dead? Well I guess that was a big win for him, getting rid of that loser mother of his children to be with Miss. Bold and Audacious! Such honor he has!

And yeah we all see your copying Guardians of the Galaxy, show. We all see you. Except here, it wasnt earned at all, and just makes me mad that everyone is constantly gushing over and running to help Regina, while Emma is left twisting in the wind, yet again.

[daxx]

7 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

while Emma is left twisting in the wind, yet again.

Literally the only people that care at all about Emma in the Storybrooke portions are Hook and Henry, no one else even tries.

[KingOfHearts]

13 hours ago, daxx said:

Literally the only people that care at all about Emma in the Storybrooke portions are Hook and Henry, no one else even tries.

I feel like Snowing were thinking, "shes a villain now, not our daughter any more". They have a warped, hypocritical mentality that falls in line with most of their actions 3B-onward. If they really cared about Emma, they would've tried to make amends for the eggnapping. Yet, their reputation mattered more than what their own child thought of them. They're always quick to blame Emma for running away, but they dont bother to ask themselves why shes running or part more than a minimal effort into chasing after. They never try to meet her halfway on anything. They just berate her for every decision that isnt "heroic".