S05.E20: Firebird

[KingOfHearts]

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It's the same issue I had with Hook's flashback in Swan Song. Just because they finally decided to give Emma a centric doesn't mean I have to like what they gave us.

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Lily would have made this flashback so much better (just kidding, I swear).

And the first Young Emma flashback was for Breaking Glass. The only good Emma flashback episode is Tallahassee. I dislike how 90% of Emma flashbacks are used to shoehorn in a character that makes her childhood even nuttier. All these fairy tail people surrounded her and no one but Ingrid tried to take care of her. Pathetic.

Edited May 28, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I remember when we were clamouring for more of Emma's life pre-Storybrooke.   And we got the Retcon of Eggnapping proportions.  I think this episode got some accolades for an Emma flashback WITHOUT someone magical.  Instead we got Law and Order: Dull As Dishwater edition, starring Cleo.  At least we can thank our lucky stars Emma didn't bump into Cleo in the Underworld only to find out she was Cleopatra, who could help them get the cooperation of the Egyptian god Ra in their quest to defeat Hades.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Camera One

[profdanglais]

25 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I dislike how 90% of Emma flashbacks are used to shoehorn in a character that makes her childhood even nuttier. All these fairy tail people surrounded her and no one but Ingrid tried to take care of her. Pathetic.

Replying in the Emma thread. 

Edited May 28, 2016 by profdanglais

[Hecate7]

On 5/1/2016 at 10:26 PM, KAOS Agent said:

- Hate that Milah is forever doomed in the River of Lost Souls. Milah (and Auntie Em) deserved better.

Aunt Em might've deserved better, but Milah didn't really. She wanted to turn an innocent man into a murderer, and was furious when he found a nonviolent way to solve the problem. She was furious about a child that didn't exist and possibly never would have existed anyway, the way that relationship was going, instead of being overjoyed that Rumple had saved their child without committing murder. Rumple says "she made me who I am," and he's not kidding. There was a lot of Lady Macbeth in Milah.

Also, she did abandon Bae to run off with Hook, possibly because she could have no more children with Rumple and in her own words "had grown to hate him." But this means she was eager to take up with someone who killed people to take their stuff, all over the high seas. The idea of watching lots of innocent people walk the plank didn't bother her as long as she got to keep a ring or two. Milah wasn't any better than she absolutely had to be.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I remember when we were clamouring for more of Emma's life pre-Storybrooke.   And we got the Retcon of Eggnapping proportions.  I think this episode got some accolades for an Emma flashback WITHOUT someone magical.  Instead we got Law and Order: Dull As Dishwater edition, starring Cleo.  At least we can thank our lucky stars Emma didn't bump into Cleo in the Underworld only to find out she was Cleopatra, who could help them get the cooperation of the Egyptian god Ra in their quest to defeat Hades.

I remember being hesitant to criticize this episode because it was an Emma-centric, and I didn't want to send the Emma fans into a frenzy. I was surprised to find they actually didn't like this episode. Other than Tallahassee, all her flashbacks have sucked consistently. I don't think it's the magical-versus-non-magical issue that's inherently the problem. It's the retconning that adds nothing to the story. It's always some explanation for her almighty WALLS, but we can easily extrapolate what made Emma Emma. She was sent away as an infant, was raised intermittently by poor guardians, got knocked up by her boyfriend, and got sent to jail. You don't need Cleo to harden her shell after all that. If Cleo was actually The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, it wouldn't have made a difference. It was still a retcon.

I'm not against retconning Emma's past to give her some interactions with the magical world. There's just more creative ways to do it without sacrificing the integrity of her gradual character development. Neal did that well. August, Merlin, Ingrid, and Lily, not so much.

Edited February 23, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I remember being hesitant to criticize this episode because it was an Emma-centric, and I didn't want to send the Emma fans into a frenzy. I was surprised to find they actually didn't like this episode. Other than Tallahassee, all her flashbacks have sucked consistently. I don't think it's the magical-versus-non-magical issue that's inherently the problem. It's the retconning that adds nothing to the story. It's always some explanation for her almighty WALLS, but we can easily extrapolate what made Emma Emma. She was sent away as an infant, was raised intermittently by poor guardians, got knocked up by her boyfriend, and got sent to jail. You don't need Cleo to harden her shell after all that. If Cleo was actually The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, it wouldn't have made a difference. It was still a retcon.

I'm not against retconning Emma's past to give her some interactions with the magical world. There's just more creative ways to do it without sacrificing the integrity of her gradual character development. Neal did that well. August, Merlin, Ingrid, and Lily, not so much.

Don't forget having giving birth in prison and making the decision to give up her son. Emma should have left prison with her walls up where they remained until Henry showed up at the door. As far as she knew at that point she'd been abandoned by everyone and betrayed by the one person she trusted the most and began to believe she could have a normal life. It makes no sense that Emma left still breaking the law and still looking for her parents.

[daxx]

2 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Don't forget having giving birth in prison and making the decision to give up her son. Emma should have left prison with her walls up where they remained until Henry showed up at the door. As far as she knew at that point she'd been abandoned by everyone and betrayed by the one person she trusted the most and began to believe she could have a normal life. It makes no sense that Emma left still breaking the law and still looking for her parents.

This is why I hated this flashback. It made no sense, Emma should have left prison with walls and she should have been a bail bond person longer.

[Curio]

This is the episode that convinced me that Emma isn't truly A&E's main character in their minds. If she were, A) She would have way more flashbacks than she currently has, and B) The one time they finally give us a flashback about Emma, they wouldn't screw it up and disregard her character's motivation and timeline. They had five freaking years to figure out this point in Emma's life and this is the best they could come up with? I can't help but wonder what Jen thought of this episode and if she had any concerns.

[Shanna Marie]

This episode is a microcosm of so much that is good and bad about this show. If you showed someone unfamiliar with this show who was prone to like this sort of thing just the scene of Hook and Emma's farewell, they'd probably want to watch the whole series. It's such a lovely moment, well-written and beautifully acted. Her ugly crying, him trying to be stoic for her with tears streaming down his face. When their fingers scramble for one last touch, it's utterly heartbreaking. Then we also have a nice father/daughter moment with Emma and David as they're leaving, and Rumple turning his wiles against other villains rather than against the heroes, cleverly outsmarting Pan.

On the other hand, we have most of the characters stuck in a room for most of the episode, then easily escaping when the plot needs them to. With Robin, we have yet another instance of a character being treated like they're terrible for raising an issue, then turning out to be right but with no acknowledgment of that.

And then there's that flashback, where instead of using and developing something that's already been set up, they cram in a continuity-busting contrivance. We know Emma was abandoned as an infant, was betrayed by a friend and a would-be mother, got sent to jail by her boyfriend, had a baby alone in jail and gave him up for adoption, and her boyfriend never showed up at the place they said they were going. But what really gave her walls armor was some random woman she met years later. Right. There's so much wrong with this flashback:

1. In season one, Sidney had to dig up Emma's sealed juvenile records to get dirt on her, but here she's been charged with a crime as an adult and skipped out on her trial. Wouldn't the fact that she skipped out on bail rather than showing up for her trial have been a good campaign issue?
2. When did this crime take place? It was in Phoenix, where she was in prison, so did she rob a convenience store right after prison to get the money to go to Tallahassee to wait for Neal, or did she go back to Phoenix after Tallahassee? If it was before Tallahassee, then the bounty hunters are incompetent, given that Regina was able to get records of the fact that Emma lived there, so she must have had a legitimate job and/or apartment or paid bills there
3. What was the crime, really? Cleo says she stole money from a convenience store, but convenience stores don't leave money just lying around. It's locked up. The way to steal it is to threaten a clerk with a weapon. That's armed robbery, which is a felony, and that probably would have precluded Emma having a licensed gun, working as a skip tracer, or being a peace officer. Storybrooke isn't totally normal or connected to the outside world, so she'd probably be able to hold office now, but at the time she was running for office, they were pretending it was a normal place. Regina would have had an easy excuse for why Graham couldn't hire Emma as a deputy and why Emma couldn't run for sheriff. The only other way I can think of that Emma could have stolen money from a convenience store would be if she swiped a tip jar or one of those "help Timmy get a heart transplant" donation jars and, again, that's something Regina surely would have thrown in her face in season one.
4. I don't think these writers understand how bail works. You have to pay a percentage of the bail amount for the bail bond company to then post the bond. This is why there are calls for bail reform, since it means rich people get out while poor people are stuck in jail, sometimes for years, before they're ever even tried for a crime. If Emma was having to steal from a convenience store, I seriously doubt she could have come up with the money to get a bail bond. She'd have been stuck in jail awaiting trial. About the only asset she might have been able to use would have been her car, and she wouldn't still have been driving it then.
5. In the pilot, Emma comes across as very seasoned at what she does, and she seems to be quite successful. She's got a fairly nice apartment in Boston and wears designer clothes. She doesn't come across like someone who just started doing this a year ago, on a trial basis. 
6. Then there's the fact that supposedly Neal and August sent her to jail so she could be the Savior, presumably to scare her straight and get her on the right path. But that's a total waste if she's still committing the same crimes she was with Neal. It's Cleo who sets her on the right path, so what was the point of sending her to jail?

It would have made so much more sense and would have fit the continuity better if, say, Emma had gone to Tallahassee to wait for Neal, and there she ran into the bounty hunter trying to track Neal by watching Emma. She ended up helping the bounty hunter find another fugitive (like maybe she got a look at the file when the bounty hunter was asking her about Neal, and she spots the person) and the bounty hunter offered to take her on as an apprentice. Emma had to decide whether to stick around in hopes of Neal showing up or give up on him, so she put up her walls armor and went off to start a new life tracking people down. That keeps the continuity while also showing the moment she started shutting down and protecting herself emotionally.

[Camera One]

At the end of the day, the only "planning" behind this episode was A&E and the Writers going "Wouldn't it be cool if we found out where Emma got her red jacket from and when she put it on, she got insta-WALLS?"

I'm trying to put myself into The Other Shoe (aka A&E's) and maybe they thought Emma giving up Henry gave her the push to find out what really happened with her parents.  Maybe she began to think that maybe they didn't want to give her up?  When she realized that hope was futile, she became a Cleo Clone. 

There was also a missing scene where Cleo gave Emma a book called "Everything I Ever Learned About Being a Bailsbondsperson To Pass Onto You Just In Case I Crawled Through A Broken Window And Died".

Edited June 8, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

33 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I'm trying to put myself into The Other Shoe (aka A&E's) and maybe they thought Emma giving up Henry gave her the push to find out what really happened with her parents.  Maybe she began to think that maybe they didn't want to give her up?  When she realized that hope was futile, she became a Cleo Clone. 

I can kind of see that, but it doesn't mesh well with the present-day story in this episode, which is about Emma being urged to let Hook go without putting her armor/walls up again, to move on with her life without letting her pain keep her from living. The flashback seems to be more about her deciding that Cleo was right to put up her armor and not think about her family, or something like that. It's all muddled. Maybe she realized that her caring so much was what led to Cleo's death, so armor was better for everyone?

But as I said, it's not as though we need an origin story for Emma's WALLS, given what her life was like. It's been implied throughout the series that Neal ditching her when she was pregnant and in jail and not showing up in Tallahassee when she got out had a lot to do with her WALLS and her attitude toward relationships, where she didn't get involved, didn't let herself fall in love, until Hook came along. It's a much better parallel to show her building her WALLS because of giving up on Neal, then Hook encouraging her to give up on him but not rebuild her walls.

And I'm not sure what they think is in courthouse files. They would have had birth certificates and marriage records. I really doubt they'd have a file of newspaper clippings. She might actually have had better luck going to the police department to learn about the investigation after she was found. They'd have had files on who they talked to when they were trying to figure out where she came from, and that's where she'd have found the notes about what she was wearing or wrapped in, as well as the kid who found her. That stuff wouldn't be at the courthouse (unless it's a small town and the police department and courthouse are in the same building, but she'd still have to go to the police department, not the courthouse records office).

[Camera One]

12 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I can kind of see that, but it doesn't mesh well with the present-day story in this episode, which is about Emma being urged to let Hook go without putting her armor/walls up again, to move on with her life without letting her pain keep her from living. The flashback seems to be more about her deciding that Cleo was right to put up her armor and not think about her family, or something like that. It's all muddled. Maybe she realized that her caring so much was what led to Cleo's death, so armor was better for everyone?

I'm trying to enter the darkness to see what A&E thinks.  I'm wondering if this was meant to be one of those episodes where in the flashbacks, Emma made one choice (to put up walls) and the present-day was all about how this time, she needed to make the better choice (to keep her walls down).  

I got the sense that Emma took on Cleo's mantle to continue her memory.  But she saw how it affected Cleo's daughter to find out about her mom, so shouldn't she have concluded walls were NOT the way to go?  As you said, it's all muddled.  I guess when the messaging points everywhere at once, it's bound to hit some thematic mark some of the time.

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

I got the sense that Emma took on Cleo's mantle to continue her memory.  But she saw how it affected Cleo's daughter to find out about her mom, so shouldn't she have concluded walls were NOT the way to go?

Yeah, that doesn't really track. It was a year after her encounter with Cleo, and if she'd been all WALLS, would she have bothered tracking down the daughter? Then she saw how the daughter reacted and that she probably would have been open to meeting her mother, so Cleo had been wrong about needing armor -- and that's when Emma puts on the red leather jacket and her emotional armor?

The whole thing is kind of bizarre -- Emma grows up in foster care after being seemingly abandoned, there's the failed adoption, waiting for adoption that never happens, all the stuff with Lily and with Ingrid, then Neal and giving up Henry, then realizing Neal isn't going to meet her after she gets out of prison, but that's not what causes her to put up her WALLS. That happens years later when she briefly encounters a woman who tells her she needs to put on armor so she won't care about who her parents were and why they abandoned her and then dies after Emma still tries to find out about her parents. But even that really isn't why she puts up WALLS. That happens when she finds the woman's daughter, and the daughter is happy to learn about her mother and seems to wish she could have met her. So, it's not all the abandonment and betrayal that leads to Emma putting up the emotional walls that keep her from being able to tell someone she loves him unless one of them is about to die. It's something to do with how caring why her parents gave her up ends up getting someone killed, and she decides to live by that woman's life lessons even though she's proved wrong.

Oh, I forgot one more thing wrong with the flashback: Did Emma ever go back and face those charges? You'd think she'd have to if she's working for a bail bondsman, given that there's a bounty on her. She seems to be living under her real identity, since Henry was able to find her. But if she did face those charges, how is she in Boston a year later? Even if she ended up being acquitted, it could have taken a year for the case to go to trial, and after she skipped out she's not going to get bail again, so she'd have been in jail all that time. And even if she's acquitted of robbing the convenience store, she did skip out on her trial, which would be separate charges and possibly jail time. There's no way she'd be in Boston, working for a bail bondsman, a year later. Also, how did she afford the red leather jacket? It sounded like she hadn't yet caught anyone and was still on a trial basis, so where did she get the money for the jacket? Those are not at all cheap.

[Camera One]

37 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

It was a year after her encounter with Cleo, and if she'd been all WALLS, would she have bothered tracking down the daughter? Then she saw how the daughter reacted and that she probably would have been open to meeting her mother, so Cleo had been wrong about needing armor -- and that's when Emma puts on the red leather jacket and her emotional armor?

I had forgotten that was meant to be a year later.  

I think we've happened upon the actual brilliance of the storytelling in this episode.  This flashback is like the classic stories where a budding apprentice loses their master.  But before they can take on the mantle of their master (like before a new Batman can wear the Batsuit), they must fulfil their master's final UNFINISHED BUSINESS.  And in the case of Master Cleo, the unfinished business was her daughter not knowing about her.  Once Emma accomplished that, she felt she could take on the mantle and wear the Leather Jacket of Walls™.   

[Kktjones]

7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If you showed someone unfamiliar with this show who was prone to like this sort of thing just the scene of Hook and Emma's farewell, they'd probably want to watch the whole series. It's such a lovely moment, well-written and beautifully acted. Her ugly crying, him trying to be stoic for her with tears streaming down his face. When their fingers scramble for one last touch, it's utterly heartbreaking.

If I'm being totally honest, this scene alone was enough to make this one of my favorite episodes of S5. By this time I had gotten good at compartmentalizing and ignoring certain parts of canon (I'm looking at you egg-napping). So here I can sort of hand wave away the weird Cleo flashback and focus on the fact that Emma & Hook were confirmed to be true love and that they shared one of the most beautiful, heartfelt scenes of the entire series. 

Please allow me just a few minutes to gush about the acting choices here. I recall Colin talked about this in a meet & greet. He and Jen spent a lot of time deciding how to approach it and I think the end result was pretty perfect. Instead of staying stoic, Hook cried for the first time in front of Emma. In fact, this was one of the only times we've seen both of these characters let their walls (TM) down and be completely vulnerable with each other. Both of them were so selfless and the actors really sold the heartbreak. Even Emma's conversation when she gets to the top of the elevator continued the feeling of their moment.

Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion - I'm off to rewatch this scene just one more time :).

Edited June 9, 2019 by Kktjones

[profdanglais]

8 hours ago, Kktjones said:

If I'm being totally honest, this scene alone was enough to make this one of my favorite episodes of S5. By this time I had gotten good at compartmentalizing and ignoring certain parts of canon (I'm looking at you egg-napping). So here I can sort of hand wave away the weird Cleo flashback and focus on the fact that Emma & Hook were confirmed to be true love and that they shared one of the most beautiful, heartfelt scenes of the entire series. 

Agreed. I do still side-eye the True Love Tackle as pretty half-assed when everyone else gets a TLK, but that elevator scene is one of my all time favourite CS moments. 

[Shanna Marie]

14 hours ago, Kktjones said:

Instead of staying stoic, Hook cried for the first time in front of Emma. In fact, this was one of the only times we've seen both of these characters let their walls (TM) down and be completely vulnerable with each other.

"Stoic" was probably a bad choice of words on my part. "Brave" is probably better. He was trying to show no fear or regret to Emma, showing that as much as he hated to part with her, he was at peace so that she could move on and find happiness, but he was also brave in being utterly vulnerable and openly crying. I think what I was going for with "stoic" was that although he had tears running down his face, he didn't look upset or heartbroken. He knew he was doing the right thing.

And I think I've figured out my alternative version of the flashbacks (if we actually need to see her getting WALLS instead of it being depressingly obvious how and why someone with her life would have emotional defenses). It's not long since she got out of prison, and Emma is in Tallahassee, working in a diner while she looks for Neal. She's got a regular customer, Cleo, who tips well and seems to actually care about Emma, asking her friendly questions about herself. She teases Emma about how someone as pretty as she is should have a boyfriend, and finally Emma trusts her enough to tell her about Neal and how she'd expected him to meet her there, but he hasn't shown up. She's wondered if maybe he hasn't been able to find her, so she's been looking for him. When Cleo leaves, Emma notices that she forgot something, so she runs outside to bring it to her before she gets in her car, and she overhears Cleo on the phone, talking about it being a dead end. She realizes that Cleo is a bounty hunter looking for Neal who hoped that Emma would be the key to lead her to him (it wouldn't be a skip trace, since Neal didn't get arrested, but he's wanted and has a price on his head, and maybe some of the same people might be looking for both kinds of fugitives. That makes as much sense as their view of how bail works or what records courthouses keep). Emma feels betrayed (yet again) by someone who pretended to care but screws her over. She confronts Cleo, who gets tough love on her, telling her Neal isn't going to show up and she needs to give up on him and move on with her life. She's impressed by how well Emma did in looking for him and thinks she might have potential. If Emma's willing to give up on Neal and come with her to be an apprentice bounty hunter/skip tracer, she could have a future. So she has to choose to walk away from the place Neal will be able to find her, and she shuts herself off to the pain.

That parallels better with the present-day story, since it mirrors it in some ways, but with a different outcome, as this time she's trying not to put up the walls, and she knows the person she's leaving behind does love her.

6 hours ago, profdanglais said:

I do still side-eye the True Love Tackle as pretty half-assed when everyone else gets a TLK, but that elevator scene is one of my all time favourite CS moments. 

I don't think I'd have minded the True Love Tackle so much if they'd ever been given a TLK. Everyone else on the show seems to get one, without them even having much of a relationship. If Dorothy and Red can have one after one conversation, if Brennan Jones and Wife 2 can have one without having actually met while he was conscious, then it's just weird that they seem to go out of their way to avoid letting the couple that's gone through so much, that has a more established relationship than just about anyone we've seen have a TLK have one.

Spoiler

And they never get one in the course of the series.

[Camera One]

I really like that alternate flashback.  5B had so much potential, and so much of it could have been rewritten to make a better arc... the flashback with Snow, the stuff with James and David (maybe flashbacks of David's dad could have been here), the return of Red, Hook and Liam, a final scene with Neal and Henry instead of that dumb scene in the car with Emma or the Henry/Apprentice crap, and an alternate set of guest stars who had died instead of Regina's dad, Regina's mom and Regina's horse (that could all have been in one episode, minus the horse).  Heck, even Belle and Gaston's story could have been rewritten so it was actually more palatable and less rage-inducing.

Spoiler

I'm just sad that we are getting close to the point in the show where it is not even possible to re-write to make it better.  

"Firebird" was the second last (or maybe the last) "good" episode.  Next week is essentially the last decent episode.  The 2-part finale marked the beginning of the end, and Season 6 is pretty much unsalvageable.  

Edited June 9, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

29 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

And I think I've figured out my alternative version of the flashbacks (if we actually need to see her getting WALLS instead of it being depressingly obvious how and why someone with her life would have emotional defenses). It's not long since she got out of prison, and Emma is in Tallahassee, working in a diner while she looks for Neal. She's got a regular customer, Cleo, who tips well and seems to actually care about Emma, asking her friendly questions about herself.

I really like this because it alludes to Emma's lie to Henry in S1 about being a waitress and Neal being a regular customer. 

[Camera One]

53 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

She's impressed by how well Emma did in looking for him and thinks she might have potential. If Emma's willing to give up on Neal and come with her to be an apprentice bounty hunter/skip tracer, she could have a future. So she has to choose to walk away from the place Neal will be able to find her, and she shuts herself off to the pain.

Would you kill Cleo off in this flashback?  And how would you incorporate Emma putting on the red leather jacket?   

[Shanna Marie]

14 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Would you kill Cleo off in this flashback?  And how would you incorporate Emma putting on the red leather jacket?

I wouldn't kill Cleo off because I'm tired of people in Emma's life being killed off. Maybe the end of the flashback sequence would be Emma moving on from Cleo a few years later to strike out on her own and Cleo being a bit hurt, but Emma has WALLS and wants to move on before she gets too close. She's learned Cleo's lesson too well.

I'm not sure I care about the red jacket. I know it's iconic for Emma, but do we really need a backstory for an article of clothing? We didn't see the origin of Hook's pirate coat, any of Regina's wacky ensembles, or David's flannel shirt. They only had to do the jacket thing in this episode because the rest of the flashback was so muddled that the only way to make it really clear that this was Emma putting on her emotional armor was to link the idea of armor to the red leather jacket and have her putting it on. If we've clearly seen a rational development of the WALLS, there's no need to get explicit about the origin of the jacket itself.

44 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I really like this because it alludes to Emma's lie to Henry in S1 about being a waitress and Neal being a regular customer. 

I totally forgot about that! I was just thinking about something a high school dropout (who maybe got a GED in prison) teenager straight out of juvie could do that would also give her an opportunity to develop a relationship with a stranger who wanted to get information out of her. But it does fit that story and would add a germ of truth to it if she actually was a waitress, and meeting Henry's father in the diner could map to her fantasy while she worked there of finding Henry's father.

[Kktjones]

While I don't love the Cleo flashback, I at least appreciate that Cleo is the first "regular" person we've seen in an Emma flashback. Everyone else featured in her flashbacks has been a fairy-tale character (August, Neal, Lily, Ingrid, Walsh). However, thought the connection between the flashback and present was really weak (and I didn't like the way this retconned a lot of Emma's background). So I really like your idea for a flashback much more and I also don't care about the red jacket. 

[profdanglais]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

We didn't see the origin of Hook's pirate coat

I can't help feeling that would have been a better story.

[Camera One]

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

We didn't see the origin of... David's flannel shirt.

This could be a fun one too.

[Shanna Marie]

56 minutes ago, profdanglais said:

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

We didn't see the origin of Hook's pirate coat

I can't help feeling that would have been a better story.

It's a story we really needed to see because it's not just symbolic or a metaphor, but a big part of his transformation from uptight naval officer to full-on pirate. We see him throw his uniform coat off and swear to fight against the king he thought betrayed them, and then I think the next time we see him (chronologically, not show time), he's in full pirate mode, flirting with Milah. We needed to see the transition, when he gave up all semblance of being a naval officer and put on the garb of a pirate. Did he steal the coat from someone he raided? Did he just buy it? With Emma, the jacket may have had metaphorical meaning, but it's not like it was actually an article of clothing that represents a certain life and profession, and it's not like in putting it on she literally rejected and turned her back on her past in a way that would be immediately visible to the rest of the world. It's not like people would see her in the red leather jacket and immediately know that she was a bounty hunter with strong emotional armor, while Hook wearing that coat was an immediate sign that he was a pirate, not a naval officer.

[tennisgurl]

This is when the shows flashbacks have gone full blown "what do Jacks tattoos mean?" territory when it comes to reiterating character beats that have been beaten into the grounds, and giving backstory to things that we clearly have no interest in knowing its backstory. It also raises a lot of questions about Emma's backstory and how long she has been a bounty hunter, how long she lived a life of crime, etc. I also have to note that apparently all Emma needed to be put on the right path was to have someone be nice to her for like three seconds. Didn't exactly need to abandon her as a pregnant teen to have her baby in jail to teach her to be a good person, now did you August and Neal?!

Calling Pan and Rumple The Skilstkins is hilarious to me. Everything with Hook and Emma is super angsty and beautiful and wonderfully acted, and it just makes me wish we spent more time with them.  I also liked seeing Stealthy, it makes me continue to wish that we had really gotten to see more old character in UnderBrooke, which seemed like it would happen all the time in this arc, but it turned out to be kind of meh in that regard. The references to ambrosia and Orpheus makes me wish we had gotten more into Greek mythology here, which of course we never really did. That might actually be interesting, and I guess we cant have that.  

[Shanna Marie]

35 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

This is when the shows flashbacks have gone full blown "what do Jacks tattoos mean?" territory when it comes to reiterating character beats that have been beaten into the grounds, and giving backstory to things that we clearly have no interest in knowing its backstory.

I found it amusing that the writing advice for the day tweet from Robert McKee (who wrote one of the key books about screenwriting) is about how you don't need exposition for things the audience can figure out for themselves. So, we needed to see the Neal and Emma backstory because we knew she'd been in prison as a teen and had a baby, but we didn't know it was because she was because she got set up by her boyfriend and we didn't know the real story about Henry's father. I'm not sure we needed a specific event to see how she got her WALLS since that's built into her character backstory, like, duh, given all she'd gone through. The only twist or surprise here is because it goes against continuity and makes no sense for the character.

On another note, the whole "giving Hook half her heart" thing never really made sense, and while the explanation for why it doesn't work is rather obvious, the whole thing really is a muddle. Emma based that plan on what happened with David, but that was using David's actual body within seconds of his death -- as Hades said, before his soul appeared in the Underworld, while it was still attached to his body. I'm not sure why Emma thought that putting a heart into Hook's soul was going to work. Once they ran into Hook's soul in the Underworld, it should have been obvious that his soul had separated from his body.

And yet, Pan still thought that he could go back to the land of the living with Robin's heart, and he was dead longer than Hook. I guess he didn't have a body rotting, since he and Rumple just vanished, so I don't know how that was going to affect things. And then there were the Dark Ones, with apparently their soul bodies coming out of the Underworld, and they could have stayed if they'd sent a living body down to replace them. In that case, would having a heart have tricked whatever gateway into letting Hook's soul body go back, regardless of how long he'd been dead? That seemed to be what Pan was doing, so Emma's trick should have worked in that case. Or they could have just made Rumple stay in exchange for Hook (which is where I thought they were going with that).

As long as they were dealing with anything that would involve Hook's physical body in Storybrooke, there was the issue that he died of an unhealable wound, so putting a new heart in him was only going to revive him so he could die again. Until they found a way around that wound, there was no bringing that body back to life. With David, he died of having his heart removed, so putting in a new heart right away saved him. With Hook, the heart wasn't the problem. It was the gaping neck wound and the stab wound through the gut from a sword that causes wounds that won't heal.

[tennisgurl]

That scene where Regina forces Robin to give his nameless baby to Zelena, even though he is clearly uncomfortable with it, is really uncomfortable to me. Robin is the person who has suffered the most at her hands of the main cast, this is a woman who raped him and murdered his wife not very long ago, but his girlfriend just blows off his feelings with an annoyed "trust me!" and hands the baby over even though he clearly doesn't want to. She acts like him being upset about giving the baby to his rapist is an insult to her, and seems shocked that he isnt just doing whatever she says like a good lapdog for once. But because Regina had a nice moment with Zelena and because she wants a sister, now Robin just has to pretend to be cool with all of this and shove his feelings down. What a soulmate connection they have!

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

That scene where Regina forces Robin to give his nameless baby to Zelena, even though he is clearly uncomfortable with it, is really uncomfortable to me. Robin is the person who has suffered the most at her hands of the main cast, this is a woman who raped him and murdered his wife not very long ago, but his girlfriend just blows off his feelings with an annoyed "trust me!" and hands the baby over even though he clearly doesn't want to. She acts like him being upset about giving the baby to his rapist is an insult to her, and seems shocked that he isnt just doing whatever she says like a good lapdog for once. But because Regina had a nice moment with Zelena and because she wants a sister, now Robin just has to pretend to be cool with all of this and shove his feelings down. What a soulmate connection they have!

That's such a horrible scene. I am happy that the actor at least showed how uncomfortable he was because he should. It was so messed up.

[Shanna Marie]

10 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

But because Regina had a nice moment with Zelena and because she wants a sister, now Robin just has to pretend to be cool with all of this and shove his feelings down. What a soulmate connection they have!

It's like they're compartmentalizing (the way they do with Rumple). There's the storyline in which Regina and Zelena are sisters, and the only thing standing between them was Cora taking their memories of their day together in childhood. And there's the storyline in which Zelena murders Marian so she can take her place and steal Robin from Regina, then she rapes Robin and has his baby. And because they've resolved the Regina/Zelena storyline, that apparently wipes out the other storyline, so we all have to pretend it didn't really happen. I'm not sure which is more uncomfortable, this bit, or later, when

Spoiler

Roland hugs Zelena good-bye before being taken back to the Enchanted Forest with Little John. Such a sweet, touching moment between a child and the woman who murdered his mother, made even weirder by the fact that Roland shouldn't have any idea who Zelena is, since he only knew her as Marian and his memory of all that was supposedly wiped. And how did they explain to him that her baby was his sister?

This is also a pattern of theirs, where a character raises reasonable objections, those objections are brushed aside as unreasonable, and the character turns out to be right, but it's never acknowledged that they were right. See also Emma knowing something was wrong with Panry but being told she was just jealous of Regina.

[KAOS Agent]

On 6/11/2019 at 9:01 AM, Shanna Marie said:

And because they've resolved the Regina/Zelena storyline, that apparently wipes out the other storyline, so we all have to pretend it didn't really happen.

This is a pretty consistent pattern the writers have with the "reforming" villains. It's like they think that because one issue is resolved and forgiven, everyone else is supposed to do the same only without any effort on the villain's part to resolve their heinous actions. I have zero satisfaction with the Regina/Snow issues, but Snow seems fine with it (or is suppressing everything and in complete denial of how devastating Regina's actions were to so many others including her own child), so now everyone is supposed to also get over it and has no right to demand justice. Just ask Percival. He confronted Regina and her immediate reaction was not remorse and regret, it was whether he'd shared his tale of her laughing at the murders of his friends and family with anyone else. But he dies and no one cares. We're supposed to feel bad for Regina.

Here we have Zelena, for whom I actually have much more sympathy, having the slate wiped clean because her problems with Regina were resolved. Let's just skip over the part where she murdered a young mother and raped that woman's husband. No consequences there. Of course, since this story involves Regina, this will only last until Regina has another hissy fit about something and it's all Zelena's fault because it's always someone else's fault to Regina.

[andromeda331]

On 6/14/2019 at 12:50 AM, KAOS Agent said:

This is a pretty consistent pattern the writers have with the "reforming" villains. It's like they think that because one issue is resolved and forgiven, everyone else is supposed to do the same only without any effort on the villain's part to resolve their heinous actions. I have zero satisfaction with the Regina/Snow issues, but Snow seems fine with it (or is suppressing everything and in complete denial of how devastating Regina's actions were to so many others including her own child), so now everyone is supposed to also get over it and has no right to demand justice. Just ask Percival. He confronted Regina and her immediate reaction was not remorse and regret, it was whether he'd shared his tale of her laughing at the murders of his friends and family with anyone else. But he dies and no one cares. We're supposed to feel bad for Regina.

Here we have Zelena, for whom I actually have much more sympathy, having the slate wiped clean because her problems with Regina were resolved. Let's just skip over the part where she murdered a young mother and raped that woman's husband. No consequences there. Of course, since this story involves Regina, this will only last until Regina has another hissy fit about something and it's all Zelena's fault because it's always someone else's fault to Regina.

That sums it up really well. Zelena is more sympathetic especially with Regina always flipflopping and her crimes being so much worse. But Zelena still murdered Marian and raped her husband and gets away scot-free for that one. They gloss over the rape and act like its no big deal to the point Robin's girlfriend stops carrying, Robin's forced to hand his daughter over to her and treated like a jerk for not wanting to, and giving her that scene with Roland as if she's his stepmother or father's old girlfriend instead of his mother's murderer and father's rapist. Its hard to keep sympathy because of that crime. Just like with all Regina's crimes she gets away with. Listening to Regina complaining how hard she has it to Snow, the target of rage for decades and who's life's she destroyed. Wanting us to feel sympathy for her when another one of her victims tries to kill her (Percival) or has the nerve to still hate her (Marion) while also giving us more reason to be more sympathetic to them. Listening to Snow of all people trying to explain to Marion why their friends with Regina is insane and infuriating to listen to. Marian's not the only one who doesn't understand. We're suppose to side with Snow and Regina and think Marian's wrong or a sign she's bad when really she's exactly right.  

Edited June 16, 2019 by andromeda331

[daxx]

This flashback undermined all the coolness of our introduction to Emma in the pilot. Timeline means Emma was a thief still a few years before the pilot.

I actually need to actively forget this flashback to continue to enjoy Emma Swan.