S05.E03: Siege Perilous

[KingOfHearts]

Notes from my rewatch.

* I talked about the Charming/Arthur bromance in other threads, so I won't go into it. But the scene of those two walking in the woods and discovering their common interests still felt silly. "Oh you had a humble background? Omg, me too! Your wife is kind but has a tough side? Omg, same!" It was like the writers were trying to get the audience to see these amazing parallels. Subtle as a freight train.
* Arthur kept an eternally lit torch in a closed box with other precious valuables? The heck?
* Charming just flat out mentioned the Guinevere/Lancelot affair in common conversation with Arthur when he barely knew him. It came off as inconsiderate and forced. Who says, "So I hear your wife was sleeping with someone else"?
* Arthur: "Lancelot and Guinevere weren't the only ones to blame for what happened to them. I was a difficult man to live with, but I made a conscious decision to fix things." I see what you did there.
* Belle mentioned she needed an object Rumple touched before becoming the Dark One in order to perform a healing spell. Whatever happened to Bae's shawl? I'm sure it's explained, but my memory is fuzzy on that.
* LOL. I had just caught that the silver cup was from Doc's birthday party and said "Doctoberfest" on it.
* Arthur driving a truck in a car/horse chase? Quick learner, I guess?
* Something I noticed is that sometimes characters are too good at concealing their true natures. Emma and Arthur both offered quite a bit of elaborate bravado to keep others off the trail. Another example would be Zelena as Marian. It starts to sound like the writers simply lying to the audience.
* Robin said he's a "former thief". When did that happen? We had just saw him steal the Elixir of the Wounded Heart in 4B. Also, it appeared Robin had plenty of free time to spend at Granny's. I wonder why he didn't use that precious time to be with his son.

Spoiler

* There's all this talk about building a new Camelot in Storybrooke, but it goes nowhere. Arthur is nothing but fodder by the end of 5A.

* The Hook/Emma date was so freaking sad. Emma was so desperate to hide the fact that Hook was a Dark One while also attempting to keep their relationship going. There are so many elements incorporated into one scene. The "I loved you" is heartbreaking and make Emma's situation even more depressing.

Edited August 30, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

This episode made it seem like Arthur, Lancelot and their whole story was going to be a big part of Season 5.  I don't know what it is with these Writers.  Did they originally have different plans or were they planning to bounce around like Wisp all along?  

I wonder if they were trying to channel 3A and try again to twist a protagonist into a villain like they did with Peter Pan.  It was just never convincing to me and started a trend of lame and not very enjoyable villains.  

It was also weird how they slotted Snowing into this Arthur flashback storyline for two episodes and then they basically became irrelevant.  It was almost as unnatural as slotting Snowing in with Maleficent in 4B.

I would like to be a fly in the wall for their so-called "planning" sessions because it's just really bad.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Camera One

[daxx]

Jane made a comment about how the writers room for Once upon a time in wonderland was loud and boisterous with everyone throwing out ideas, but the main writers room is very calm and quiet. It almost sounds like the writers didn’t feel comfortable giving feedback or pushback to A&E.

I’ve been in a lot of corporate staff meetings and quiet is a bad sign and is a sign that the head of the meeting isn’t open to suggestions.

Edited April 13, 2019 by daxx

[Camera One]

Or they were all of one mind, which is clear from the warped statements they have all made at one point or another on Twitter.  There is less need to chatter in an echo chamber.  Wonderland was also in its first season and easier to write.

[Shanna Marie]

This episode actually isn't that bad if you look at it out of context. I enjoy the rapport between David and Arthur, and the Arthur is evil twist was a minor surprise (minor because they just love turning heroes into villains and vice versa, so it's no longer such a shocking twist when it happens). It's fun to actually have a quest with a tiny dash of adventure. There's a bit of humor with the scene between Hook and Robin and Hook's reaction to the idea of an ultrasound and what he must have thought getting a picture of the baby inside Zelena involved. The scenes between Emma and Hook are really intense and emotional.

The problem is that none of it makes much sense at all in context. It's meaningless action for no real purpose that doesn't really fit what the characters are trying to achieve.

There's Regina insisting on playing Savior and freeing Merlin herself because they can't let on that Emma's the Dark One. I still wonder if Emma has any access to her own powers. The previous Dark Ones we've seen didn't have their own magic to begin with. And would they know her power had bits of darkness if she did the spell in the middle of the night, or if she slipped away from those nightly balls they supposedly have? It's especially ridiculous that there was that delay in doing something because Regina wanted to be the one to do it when

Spoiler

in the episode after this one, they tell Arthur about Emma anyway and Emma ends up being the one to do the spell. It makes me wonder whether they'd have avoided all the mess they later had if Regina had just let Emma free Arthur right away.

Then there's the Arthur stuff. In the flashback, it makes sense that he'd go along on the toadstool hunt so he could snag it and keep them from communicating with Merlin. I can't think of a reason for him to have faked the theft and set up the squire in the present. It all seemed to be done just to show the audience that Arthur was evil, but why did Arthur do it within the story? All it did was give the heroes the toadstool, which they wouldn't have found if he hadn't played that game.

Spoiler

I don't remember anything coming from him pretending they had a magic bean that got stolen.

Then with Hook and Emma, as good as those scenes are, they don't make much sense in light of what Emma's really trying to do.

I guess some of her guilt tripping Hook about not accepting her the way she is now was setting him up to tell her about putting the sword to Rumple's throat so she'd know which item of his had touched Rumple before he was the Dark One, but it's a pretty convoluted plan if she didn't have a good idea what happened. She needed something that had touched Rumple before he was a Dark One, and she thought Hook might know, since Hook is the only person around who knew him then, so she got Hook talking about what happened by claiming that she and Rumple were improved, knowing that he'd argue against it and claim he was the villain. Then maybe he'd describe the scene and give her a clue? It's all kind of a stretch.

Spoiler

Plus, the conversation doesn't work so well once you know that she's really trying to save Hook from being a Dark One, that she doesn't want him to accept her. But she's playing mind games and guilt trips like she's testing his love, and that doesn't fit with the real situation.

And I guess both Emma and Belle forgot about the shawl Rumple used to maintain his memories after he crossed the town line. Considering it had belonged to Bae and Milah made it, Rumple would have touched it before he was Dark One. There were two whole episodes focusing heavily on that shawl. Even if Emma didn't know its history, Belle did, so there was no need for her to be tearing up the shop looking for an item Rumple had before he was Dark One.

And Emma being able to look and act totally normal here makes all her Dark Swan flouncing look awfully silly. She's met Hook. If he thinks there's something wrong with her, he won't stop digging until he solves it. If she had just pretended they'd saved her, she'd have made her life a lot easier.

[Camera One]

33 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

And I guess both Emma and Belle forgot about the shawl Rumple used to maintain his memories after he crossed the town line. Considering it had belonged to Bae and Milah made it, Rumple would have touched it before he was Dark One. There were two whole episodes focusing heavily on that shawl. 

That's a good point.  I guess that's what comes of no one in the writing team bothering to re-read their old scripts.  Even the ones they wrote themselves.  

Spoiler

And the fact that all the red herrings don't actually fit the big reveal later reveals how flawed their long-range planning is.  Assuming they work backwards, which sometimes it seems like they do, but if they did work backwards, you would think the pieces would fit together a tad better.

[tennisgurl]

Sorry, did Regina just tell Zelena to stop "painting herself as a victim" and that it was "absurd"? Ummmm, what now? Thats literally all Regina has done, does, and will ever do. Are you kidding me, lady?

So Arthur shows his colors as the true bad guy. Wow, what a totally shocking twist...said no one, because this show has already done this exact same twist around thirty million other times by now. And its too bad, because the actor actually is quite good, and its nice to see Charming actually getting to hang out with someone who "gets" him, even if their hanging out and bonding over how similar they are was way too on the nose. At least he is actually bothering to help Emma, which is a nice change of pace.

So Arthur really has no follow up questions to finding out that in other lands, he is considered a mythical legendary figure? I mean, its consistent because no one else is particularly interested in that fact, but you would think that the affair that your wife and best friend had being splashed all over the multiverse would be kind of a bigger deal. That other Author and his creepy unmarked magical white van sure did get around!

Isn't there a better place to keep priceless magical artifacts than some dusty old chest? Also, its pretty impressive how they manage to do a whole story set in Camelot, mentioning the burning bush and the freaking Holy Grail, and somehow never mention God or religion, or even show any religious imagery anywhere. Yeah A&E refuse to touch any religion, real world or imaginary, with a ten foot pole (despite Snow and Charming being married in a church looking place by a Bishop looking guy but whatever) but isnt that kind of a giant, cross sized elephant in the room when it comes to Arthurian lore? Isn't that basically like doing an arc set in Hogwarts without mentioning magic wands? Or doing Mulan without mentioning China, or an arc involving Hades without doing anything with the other Greek gods, or...

[Shanna Marie]

On 4/13/2019 at 3:06 PM, tennisgurl said:

So Arthur really has no follow up questions to finding out that in other lands, he is considered a mythical legendary figure? I mean, its consistent because no one else is particularly interested in that fact, but you would think that the affair that your wife and best friend had being splashed all over the multiverse would be kind of a bigger deal.

It's also weird that the Storybrooke people only seem to know about Arthur and Camelot via the legends from our world, even though the kingdoms seem to be in walking distance from each other (it's not that far from Camelot to the Dark One vault, which was close enough to Rumple's castle for Belle to walk to the vault in hot pants in a snowstorm, and Rumple's castle was close enough to Regina's castle that it looks like Hook was able to walk there from Regina's castle with "Marian" slung over his shoulder). And David actually knew Lancelot, but he's acting like he only knows about Camelot and Arthur based on legends.

As we see in the next episode ...

Spoiler

All the Lancelot and Guinevere stuff must have happened before the war against Regina and George, since Lance was exiled when he ran into Snow and David. It looks like Arthur spent some time obsessed with the sword, so he must have been king for at least a few years, long enough for royalty from neighboring lands to have heard of him.

But then again, these were the people who apparently had never met the queen of a nearby kingdom or even heard of her, so only Percival knew that the Evil Queen from the Enchanted Forest was among them.

This story line would have worked better if Camelot had been in another realm instead of in their same world, but I guess they'd already introduced Lancelot, so they were stuck with it.

On 4/13/2019 at 3:06 PM, tennisgurl said:

Also, its pretty impressive how they manage to do a whole story set in Camelot, mentioning the burning bush and the freaking Holy Grail, and somehow never mention God or religion, or even show any religious imagery anywhere. Yeah A&E refuse to touch any religion, real world or imaginary, with a ten foot pole (despite Snow and Charming being married in a church looking place by a Bishop looking guy but whatever) but isnt that kind of a giant, cross sized elephant in the room when it comes to Arthurian lore?

Yeah, the burning bush thing struck me, as well. And David seemed to know what he meant, like it was obviously THE burning bush, so it's not like it has some other significance here

Spoiler

like they do with the Holy Grail, where it ends up being something different than in the legends

so is there some kind of folklore they have about a burning bush that everyone knows about? And if it's different from our burning bush, then they need to make that clear. There's some wiggle room with the Grail because the Christian stuff was added to the Arthurian mythology later and the origins of the Grail story might actually be more pagan (it was only later that they decided that this life-giving magic cup was magic because it was the cup Christ used). But if you're talking about the burning bush, that's straight out of scripture. Are they saying that happened in their world, too, since there's an actual artifact from it?

[Camera One]

Coming this fall... get ready for the most offensive season of "Once Upon a Time", as it tackles religious stories from around the world!  Who's the hero and who's the villain... you'll NEVER guess!

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Coming this fall... get ready for the most offensive season of "Once Upon a Time", as it tackles religious stories from around the world!  Who's the hero and who's the villain... you'll NEVER guess!

Herod was misunderstood. One of those children under the age of two might have blabbed a secret, so he had no choice but to have them all massacred, just in case. Also, Pharaoh just wanted his building projects to work, and then that upstart Moses lured away his workforce with fancy magic tricks and then drowned all the soldiers.

Why couldn't they have just said it was a magical flame that never goes out rather than trying to get clever and opening up a can of worms they had no intention of dealing with by claiming it was from the burning bush? As I recall, there's some Grimm tale that involves a magical fire that can be carried in a pocket, or something like that.

It's frustrating how half-assed this show is. It's like they always just went with the first thing they came up with, with no thought or development. They just congratulated themselves for their cleverness and then moved on before they considered what they'd done. That's how we get random stuff like the bit of burning bush in a story that also uses Arthurian legend and the Holy Grail but changing all the religious implications, as well as their many, many, many rapes via lack of consent or removal of agency. The spell or whatever sounds cool, and they didn't stop to think that what they were writing was actually a rape.

[Camera One]

31 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Why couldn't they have just said it was a magical flame that never goes out rather than trying to get clever and opening up a can of worms they had no intention of dealing with by claiming it was from the burning bush? As I recall, there's some Grimm tale that involves a magical fire that can be carried in a pocket, or something like that.

Jane Espenson wrote this episode, so maybe she would be so kind as to explain?  

Maybe the writing staff loves burning plants?  There was also Maleficent's pointless burning tree in 4B.  

The Apprentice could have helped by telling them something, anything...  Now, they're stumbling around with no idea what's going on. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

21 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Why couldn't they have just said it was a magical flame that never goes out rather than trying to get clever and opening up a can of worms they had no intention of dealing with by claiming it was from the burning bush?

Its just them throwing out some random thing that they think sounds cool, or are like "this thing has a name that people know!" and sticking it in there, without any kind of follow up. The world building on this show is just so awful and half assed, it raises about a thousand questions and answers preciously zero of them. If anything, it raises further questions! So, who saw the burning bush in this universe? Bambi? There are so many great opportunities to explain how this world functions, or what makes each kingdom/world different from the next, and it just never happens. 

[daxx]

All I have to say about this episode is that Regina is a complete hypocrite and Snowing are the absolute worst.