S05.E21: Last Rites

[Rumsy4]

Rumple's ego was talking when he warned Emma that she shouldn't have made him a pure hero. That was already a sign that he was going to trip over his boasting and fall flat. I see it as an alcoholic who got sober for a month, but went back to the bottle really quick when temptation struck. His grandiose challenge to Emma was as much a power-trip as any he's done as the Dark One. At the end of the day, he disliked being powerless and magicless over being "pure"-hearted.

Rumple's core problems stem from his addiction to Power. not the Darkness itself. He's lived with it for centuries. He never voluntarily chose to give it up and live as a pure-hearted man. He always despised himself when he was powerless, but I don't see him being revolted by himself as a Dark One. 

[Camera One]

Yeah, the glowing heart is what gives me the side-eye.  The theme of this show is always obvious... you can't take out all of the darkness.  But if we actually saw someone getting all the blackness sucked out of them, or we're told 

Spoiler

someone is being split with all of their darkness going into one of the halves.  And yet, the other half/or the "pure" heart still has evil (not just bad, but plain evil) tendencies, then it makes no sense and it's bad writing.

Edited February 19, 2017 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

Rumple got all the Darkness sucked out of his heart. It turned it into a blank slate rather than "pure", IMO. His basic character and personality weren't changed. His act of bravery in saving Belle from Bearida apparently pushed him over the edge into someone worthy of pulling Excalibur out of the stone. That didn't make him purer that everyone else. He simply didn't have any evil or darkness to balance the scales. If Rumple hadn't taken the Darkness back into himself, his heart would have eventually started resembling what other people's hearts looked like--a mix of both good and evil. Instead, he gave-in to his base craving for power and took the Darkness back. 

Quote

Spoiler

someone is being split with all of their darkness going into one of the halves.  And yet, the other half/or the "pure" heart still has evil (not just bad, but plain evil) tendencies, then it makes no sense and it's bad writing.

 

That's a different scenario, as I see it. 

Spoiler

The Jekyll-serum was supposed to actually split the evil tendencies from a person, as opposed to just taking the Darkness out. Clearly that serum was completely useless, as it really didn't do anything of the sort. But we should probably discuss this in a different thread. Not sure which one.

Edited February 19, 2017 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

That's an interesting interpretation of a heart reset.  That would explain why Rumple reverted.  The part that still doesn't make sense to me is Rumple starting out completely lacking in courage (and nothing like his previous personality) and his single action somehow making him worthy to pull Excalibur out of the sword.  

[Rumsy4]

23 minutes ago, Camera One said:

his single action somehow making him worthy to pull Excalibur out of the sword

Agree--it was stupid. Especially as they went nowhere with it. Did that make Rumple the rightful ruler of Camelot, for example? lol

[Camera One]

Just now, Rumsy4 said:

Did that make Rumple the rightful ruler of Camelot, for example? lol

Well, as Adam says, the "fun" is to fill in the blanks.  All one billion of them.

[Hecate7]

On 2/19/2017 at 1:04 PM, Rumsy4 said:

Rumple got all the Darkness sucked out of his heart. It turned it into a blank slate rather than "pure", IMO. His basic character and personality weren't changed. His act of bravery in saving Belle from Bearida apparently pushed him over the edge into someone worthy of pulling Excalibur out of the stone. That didn't make him purer that everyone else. He simply didn't have any evil or darkness to balance the scales. If Rumple hadn't taken the Darkness back into himself, his heart would have eventually started resembling what other people's hearts looked like--a mix of both good and evil. Instead, he gave-in to his base craving for power and took the Darkness back.

Someone with no evil in him, no darkness, would not have made the choice Rumple made. There would be no appeal in it to him. Sure, he'd eventually have made mistakes and become like everyone else, but the point was that he was NOT like everyone else at the time he pulled Excalibur from the stone, or chose to take back the darkness. It still makes no sense. And when, exactly, did he do it? I'm still confused.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Hecate7

[KingOfHearts]

I'm going to mosey on over to the Rumplestiltskin thread.

[Curio]

On February 18, 2017 at 9:38 PM, Hecate7 said:

It's halfway interesting that now he's not the only one running around who's been a Dark One, and that in fact Hook was a worse one in most ways.

Hook was a Dark One for like...48 hours. (That he knew of.) With only Merlin's death on his hands, how is being forced to be a Dark One—even after pleading not to be turned dark—for 48 hours worse than centuries of choosing to be a Dark One with a much higher death toll?

4 minutes ago, Hecate7 said:

Someone with NO EVIL would not have made the choice Rumple made. There would be no appeal in it to him. Sure, he'd eventually have made mistakes and become like everyone else, but the point was that he was NOT like everyone else at the time he pulled Excalibur from the stone, or chose to take back the darkness.

I think the way the writers wanted us to interpret Rumple in 5A is that he was tabula rasa. He may not have had any evil, but he also didn't really have any good either. He was the definition of a blank slate. Rumple was able to pull the sword because he didn't have much time to significantly shift the scales to good or bad in the time that Merida was training him to be brave. Once he successfully pulled the sword, Rumple gained a bit of an ego because of it (as @Rumsy4 already mentioned) and liked the feeling of being powerful again. I think that's what lead him to slipping back into his old persona, which means at his core, a back-stabbing Rumple is just who he is deep down inside.

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It still makes no sense. And when, exactly, did he do it? I'm still confused.

Don't overthink it. They had Rumple pull the switcheroo because of an unnamed "vial of magic" that the writers pulled out of their asses for that one episode and then never referenced it again. It's the worst deus ex machina this show has pulled, and they've pulled a bunch of random deus ex machinas over the years.
 

[Hecate7]

22 hours ago, Curio said:

Hook was a Dark One for like...48 hours. (That he knew of.) With only Merlin's death on his hands, how is being forced to be a Dark One—even after pleading not to be turned dark—for 48 hours worse than centuries of choosing to be a Dark One with a much higher death toll?

 

He turned over the entire village of Storybrooke to be killed, remember? The whole place was to die to let Dark Ones take their places. That went nowhere, but it was about to happen and it was on Hook. And unlike Rumple, this was with no coercion or deals in play.  In under 48 hours he was about to match Rumple's body count. Think what he'd have done in a year. He'd have made Rumple look like a cute little peddler. Hades was a fool not to see it.

The switcheroo really makes no sense since Excalibur crumbled and that should have meant no more dagger, either.

[Curio]

30 minutes ago, Hecate7 said:

He turned over the entire village of Storybrooke to be killed, remember? The whole place was to die to let Dark Ones take their places. That went nowhere, but it was about to happen and it was on Hook. And unlike Rumple, this was with no coercion or deals in play.  In under 48 hours he was about to match Rumple's body count. Think what he'd have done in a year. He'd have made Rumple look like a cute little peddler. Hades was a fool not to see it.

Responding in All Seasons because we're kind of straying away from the "Last Rites" discussion...

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, Hecate7 said:

The whole place was to die to let Dark Ones take their places. That went nowhere, but it was about to happen and it was on Hook.

But he didn't do it. He voluntarily reversed his wrong, and sacrificed his life to right the intended wrong. Rumple, OTOH, has sold-out Storybrooke and the people of the EF many times, and has never bothered to stop anything bad he set up to happen. 

[Camera One]

Only one episode this weekend to discuss.

The episode title is appropriate.  This is pretty much Last Rites for the series... the last half-decent episode/arc.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Only one episode this weekend to discuss.

Oh man, I should have checked the schedule before I put myself through the finale, too. Then again, I got it over with and get a week off.

As for this episode, it's the best of the arc, and there's a lot I like about it -- the Hook and Arthur team-up, Robin getting to briefly speak his mind, Cruella, Emma's reaction to Hook's return -- it's still rather unsatisfying. I think that's mostly because both Hook and Robin were essentially fridged. Their deaths were only to give other characters an emotional reaction. I'm certainly glad Hook came back, but his death and resurrection were more about Emma than about him. It doesn't really affect his character.

Spoiler

And after this season, it's never mentioned again. It might as well not have happened, and there's something wrong about something as major as a death and resurrection having no impact on a character.

As for Robin, it's hard to feel too sad about his death when he didn't do anything all season and when he barely interacted with Regina. Regina comes across like a kid who desperately begs for a toy for Christmas, writing multiple letters to Santa and circling it in the toy catalog, then gets it, plays with it for five minutes then gets bored with it, tosses it in the corner, and then has a meltdown when her mother donates it to charity a year later. The only thing Robin did all season that had any impact on the story was die. You could remove him without changing the plot at all, aside from the episode early in the season when he was wounded and Emma had to save him. You know, I think it might have worked better if he had died then, maybe when the Fury came to Storybrooke, so he could have still appeared in Camelot flashbacks. Then there would have been a reason for him to be in the Underworld, since he was dead there, and Regina would have had a good reason to go to the Underworld, since she'd want to take the opportunity to see him and maybe save him.

And that might have fixed the issue with Hook's return being a bit anticlimactic. Hook was truly given up for dead right before Robin died, and the writers knew Hook was coming back but Robin wasn't, so we saw Robin's funeral and they made a big deal out of the grief around his death, but we never really got the full impact of Hook's death. He wasn't "dead" long enough for us to really miss him. We never saw his funeral, so we don't know when it happened. We didn't see anyone but Emma mourn or grieve. It's like the characters knew he'd be coming back, and that diluted the impact of his return.

The other problem is that his return was rather deus ex machina. In fantasy, I'm willing to accept "a god did it" to some extent, but I want to have the sense that the writers had worked it out and know how and why the god did it. Here, it almost feels like when they initially killed Hook they had no real idea how they'd bring him back other than that they would, then when the time came they still didn't know for sure, so they waved their hand and had Zeus just do it. I like that he saved himself, that it wasn't about Emma or true love, or anything else other than his own heroism, but as much as I like Hook, I'm not sure that I buy that what he did here was big enough to merit a resurrection. That's something almost unprecedented, so it seems like it would need to be bigger. It would have helped if we'd ever learned what the deal with Zeus and Hades was, so we'd appreciate why Zeus was that grateful -- like, maybe when Zeus imprisoned Hades, Hades struck back and did something that also imprisoned and limited Zeus, so by helping defeat Hades, Hook helped free Zeus.

I also don't feel like the writers had any idea how Zeus actually brought Hook back. Did Zeus send his soul body to Storybrooke and make it corporeal (like the Dark Ones seemed to be when they came through the portal), or did he heal and re-compose his physical body and take it out of the grave? It's confusing because it's ambiguous. Zeus sent him "where he belongs," and he came straight to Emma, but he was also standing near his grave, and it doesn't help that he's wearing the Dark One clothes. His soul body wasn't dressed like that when he left Zeus, and although he died in those clothes, I would hope they didn't bury him as the Dark One. I'd have thought they'd have buried him in his pirate coat. If he was buried in the clothes he died in, then Zeus not only healed him but cleaned up and healed his clothes.

The seeds of something really great were there in this episode, but it was lazily written.

Also, as much as I enjoy Zelena's snark, when she gets all histrionic and whiny about no one wanting her to be happy and not having what Regina has, she gets on my last nerve.

[KAOS Agent]

Still waiting for that hopeful ending where the people in the River of Lost Souls aren't lost anymore. The writers claimed that this episode showed that Auntie Em and Milah and all the rest weren't doomed forever to be mindless husks, but I don't see how a bunch of wraiths from the river actively working against the guys who were trying to get the book that could potentially save them demonstrates that. If anything, it proves the opposite. 

[andromeda331]

I do like Hook and Arthur teaming up which is surprising given how horrible Arthur had been all season. It always reminds me if what I really wanted to see in the series. The different fairytale and literary characters teaming. I like Robin finally speaking up. I like Hook earning his chance and reuniting with Emma.  But as always the rest of it is just so bad. 

[KingOfHearts]

13 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Also, as much as I enjoy Zelena's snark, when she gets all histrionic and whiny about no one wanting her to be happy and not having what Regina has, she gets on my last nerve.

It's annoying because Zelena's character doesn't have to be written or acted out this way. She has legitimate grievances against people like Regina, meaning she can be taken seriously when she brings them up like a normal human being. She doesn't have to snarl. The way she whines is closer to Regina, but she has a completely different background. Growing up as the daughter of an abusive woodsman wouldn't make her an entitled heiress who feels everything belongs to her. If the flashbacks in "Sisters" are any indication, she would be grateful for any kind of acceptance or recognition. 

I don't think the "jealous bitch" persona, which is supposed to be pivotal to the character, fits her story. Rebecca Mader can act really well when she's directed to act like an adult. I truly think the directors and writers made a mistake when they hired her to play someone so unlikable. Zelena's got the potential to be a sympathetic character, but making her the green-with-envy Wicked Witch of the West was just dumb.

Spoiler

Zelena in S7 was actually a delight across the board. She seemed like a real person.

[Camera One]

I agree.  Zelena's childhood story doesn't really match with the whole "green with envy over Regina" Wicked Witch origin story.  And then subsequently, the character is all over the place.  She whined through the entirety of 3B, was revealed to have committed an atrocity in 4B, was mistreated in 5A to justify her return to villainy and then is given this ridiculous Hades love story in 5B. 

Spoiler

Then, she's painted as the protective mother being blamed by Regina in Season 6.

The episode description hails the ending as an "epic" climax.  It fizzled because the whole setup was so unconvincing.  This episode had Robin Hood's death, but I have zero interest in rewatching any scene with him at this point since he was so devoid of a personality.

It was a surprise they remembered Arthur and gave him a semi-redemption in this one.  It was the unexpected freshness of the Arthur/Hook mash-up which saved this episode.  

The pull-out-of-nowhere search for the lost storybook pages was an example of how the deux-ex-machinas just became tiresome and pointless.  The Olympian crystal could be added to the list of throwaway props.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

The pull-out-of-nowhere search for the lost storybook pages was an example of how the deux-ex-machinas just became tiresome and pointless. 

While I enjoyed Arthur and Hook's dynamic and the fact that Hook got over his hunger for revenge enough to be able to work with the man who was largely responsible for his death, it was a rather boring quest when you think about it. Hook decides that the pages Hades stole contained information about how to kill him (why? Why would how to kill Hades even come up in the storybook that's telling about his past deeds?). He and Arthur go to the throne room and Hook looks around for about 15 seconds before declaring that the pages aren't there. Arthur says he knows where to look, and he's right, and Hook was right that the pages tell how to kill Hades. Hook decides that the way to get the pages to Emma is by putting them in the storybook, so he and Arthur ask Cruella where it is. She tells them. It's exactly where she said it was, in plain sight. They have a minor struggle to get to the book, then put the pages in, and it works. That's hardly the sort of thing you'd think would be so big that it would merit a resurrection.

I think part of the problem is that they tried to cram too much into one episode, and that made all these major events perfunctory and lacking in emotional impact. In one episode we had Arthur's death and adjustment to the Underworld, Emma returning to Storybrooke and breaking the news about Hook staying dead, the crisis with dealing with Hades, Zelena not wanting to hear the truth about Hades, Robin wanting to get his daughter back and angry with Regina about going against his wishes, Rumple threatening Moe about Belle, Emma being sidelined because she's grieving, Emma trying to get Rumple to cooperate, Rumple trying to make a deal with Hades, Hook and Arthur getting over their mutual animosity and going in search of the pages, then trying to find the book to get the pages to Emma, Regina and Robin trying to sneak into the office without a plan, Emma doing research and taking a mourning break, Emma finding the pages and confronting Zelena, Hades killing Robin, Zelena killing Hades, Robin's funeral, and Hook meeting with Zeus then returning from the dead. Many of these are major events, but they aren't given much more time than I gave them in just listing them.

If they'd spread it into two episodes, then we could have had backstory on Hades and Zeus, which might have explained why the info on the crystal was in the book, and maybe something else that might have helped, like something about Hades figuring out that he just needed to make the other person love him to make the TLK work to free him, which Emma could have used as evidence to get Zelena to flip. Hook's quest could have been bigger and more complicated, like maybe Hades wasn't an idiot and didn't bring the one thing that could kill him with him, so not only does Hook have to find out what kills Hades, but has to find that thing and find a way to get it to Emma. Maybe it's not all as simple as just finding the pages, but he has to find and talk to people and help them. Like I said in my previous post, maybe by helping defeat Hades, he also frees Zeus from a spell blocking his powers, so Zeus really owes him (maybe have Zeus mention that Poseidon had good things to say about Hook, to remind us that he's helped two gods). And then we might have had time to show Hook's funeral as well as Robin's and let the loss of Hook sink in so it would be a bigger deal when he returns.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

If they'd spread it into two episodes, then we could have had backstory on Hades and Zeus, which might have explained why the info on the crystal was in the book, and maybe something else that might have helped, like something about Hades figuring out that he just needed to make the other person love him to make the TLK work to free him, which Emma could have used as evidence to get Zelena to flip. 

It's too bad there wasn't a pointless useless episode in this arc that could have been eliminated so we could have gotten an actual meaningful climax for 5B.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

Hook decides that the pages Hades stole contained information about how to kill him (why? Why would how to kill Hades even come up in the storybook that's telling about his past deeds?). He and Arthur go to the throne room and Hook looks around for about 15 seconds before declaring that the pages aren't there. Arthur says he knows where to look, and he's right, and Hook was right that the pages tell how to kill Hades. Hook decides that the way to get the pages to Emma is by putting them in the storybook, so he and Arthur ask Cruella where it is. She tells them. It's exactly where she said it was, in plain sight. They have a minor struggle to get to the book, then put the pages in, and it works. That's hardly the sort of thing you'd think would be so big that it would merit a resurrection.

When you break it down like that, it does seem like a very simplistic easy solution... plotting with no sophistication.

[Shanna Marie]

24 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It's too bad there wasn't a pointless useless episode in this arc that could have been eliminated so we could have gotten an actual meaningful climax for 5B.

And it's a pity that the two-hour season finale

Spoiler

wasn't a total waste of time that was an insult to viewers' intelligence that could have been used better to actually wrap up the season's storylines.

But that's mostly a topic for next week. Still, the "wrap up the season in the next-to-last episode, then do a two-hour finale that has little to do with the previous arc, with a cliffhanger that sets up the next arc" pattern didn't serve them well here. That's not what they did in the first two seasons, where the season finales were about wrapping up the season storylines. The pattern only started in season 3 and was repeated in season 4, so at this point, half the seasons were done that way and half weren't. They could have used the finale time to really wrap up the arc in a satisfying way rather than cramming it all into one episode so they could do an unrelated story for the finale. Instead, we ended up having a weirdly rushed and undeveloped main story. Hades' story was never developed or explained, there was no resolution for all the lost souls stuff, Hook's death and resurrection were skimmed over, and no one from Camelot got to react to Arthur's death. We don't even know if his death de-sanded Guinevere.

[Camera One]

I wonder if Arthur got to talk to The Apprentice in Underbrooke.  Did Merlin get to bypass the underworld because he had no unfinished business, LOL.

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

I wonder if Arthur got to talk to The Apprentice in Underbrooke.  Did Merlin get to bypass the underworld because he had no unfinished business, LOL.

I'm starting to think it's completely arbitrary who has "unfinished business" or not and that the writers just couldn't or didn't want to bring back certain characters. The only characters who've died on the show that didn't really have unfinished business were Graham and Ingrid.

[Shanna Marie]

18 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The only characters who've died on the show that didn't really have unfinished business were Graham and Ingrid.

It's hard for me to imagine just about anyone being able to die without unfinished business, unless maybe you die of old age at about 100 and did everything you ever set out to do. Anyone dying before that is probably going to leave unfinished business. The real unfairness is that murder victims are most likely to have unfinished business because their deaths are so unplanned (well, by them) and unexpected. So the people who get victimized in life end up getting victimized in the afterlife. Take Milah -- she and Hook had returned to the place she was from, for what seems like the first time since they left. Were they coming back for Bae? But she got killed before she could learn about Bae or do anything to help find him again (since Rumple didn't bother to tell her why he needed the magic bean), so she was stuck in the Underworld with unfinished business that she couldn't resolve because Neal/Bae apparently bypassed the Underworld (in spite of leaving a fair amount of unfinished business). The whole unfinished business thing was so arbitrary, and since it was purely based on which characters they wanted to use, it came across as unfair.

And after the whole arc of them trying to be careful to avoid saying "heaven" or "hell" and treating it just as being about whether or not they'd completed their unfinished business when they tried to move on, in spite of the imagery of fire below and glowing clouds above, and in spite of the writers pushing the unfinished business angle to justify Cora going to heaven, in this episode Hook talks about the possible post-Underworld outcomes as being about whether you did good or evil. Or was he just manipulating Arthur into helping him by scaring him about his potential fate?

[Melgaypet]

18 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The only characters who've died on the show that didn't really have unfinished business were Graham and Ingrid.

Ingrid, yes. But Graham? He was murdered. By his abuser and rapist. I'd say that's unfinished business, besides his cut-off-before-it-could-start romance with Emma.

Graham being Sheriff of Underbrooke (Instead of James, since they did nothing with him anyway, and come to think of it, he didn't really have unfinished business. I mean, the show said he did, but it didn't really make sense.) could have been a way to FINALLY expose Regina's crimes against him. But as we all know, the writers avoided that at all costs.

[tennisgurl]

There are probably tons of Regina and Zelenas and Rumples victims hanging out in Underbrooke, who will never get justice or get out if they expect any of them to ever get their just desserts. Really, the whole jaunt to the underworld is just such a waste of amazing potential, and everything you think could happen that could really be interesting is ignored. We never see Regina have to confront her past victims to prove how much she has "changed" or whatever, hardly see any past characters or got closure with them, besides Saint Neil showing up to tell Emma to leave Hook to rot so we can hear how awesome he is again or Charming killing his evil twin without any real closure or development, we never see Snow getting to meet her parents or Johanna or any of the countless people she has lost tragically, nothing like that.Regina however, gets to make peace with everyone she has ever met ever, including possibly her fucking horse. But yes, lets do a whole episode based on Bells favorite book and more crying from the Mills family. 

This episode had a lot going for it, but it just crammed so much crap into it to really work as an episode. I loved Emma and Hook reuniting, and Jen did great work throughout, especially when she was crying about Hook at his grave, the Hook and Arthur quest was fun and even if it happened super fast, I liked his turn to good, and poor Robin got a few moments to express actual emotions before he was fridged. But there was so much happening, the actual arc of the season seemed amazingly half assed. And Robins death was so quick and lacking in drama and gravitas, clearly more about giving Regina more tears and getting Zelena on their side, it was just sad. He has basically done nothing beyond cheer leading for Regina and standing around in group shots, and now he not only dies, killed by a villain he had nothing to do with, but his soul is eviscerated! I never really got their relationship in general, even beyond the super nasty Marian stuff. He was basically a prize that Regina won for being good, they never really seemed to be on equal footing or to have a real connection, so of course even his death is mostly all about her. 

When Merida showed up I actually cracked up. Like, oh yeah, your totally a thing still. And while I am happy that Arthur is going to work for redemption and finding some meaning in his bullshit prophesy, and the underworld will start working again, we all know that no way was that prophesy always meant to be about the underworld. That prophesy existed to dick with Arthur the whole time. Whatever, at least he and the others dead people will get some peace, which is certainly better than most people on this show get. He and Hook had a nice dynamic, and Hook showed that he had moved on from wanting revenge on people who wronged him, and dying apparently gave Arthur some perspective on what a bad king he was, and made him want to do better. 

Edited June 16, 2019 by tennisgurl

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

When Merida showed up I actually cracked up. 

LOL.  She should definitely get a place in "Twenty Gems That Made "Last Rites" A Great Episode (and Twenty Things That Made It Not)".

[Shanna Marie]

Because I spent the morning herding small children and had to escape mentally to survive, here's my "fix" for this episode, though it requires going back in time to the episode early in the season when Robin was nearly killed by Percival. Since Robin's going to die anyway, he actually dies in that episode, in Storybrooke when the Fury comes after him. That way, he can remain a series regular as he stands around in the background of the Camelot flashbacks, and his death while everyone's memories are wiped would be even more traumatic and emotional since they won't know why all this happened. His funeral and wake would happen in this episode. There can be a nice bit of foreshadowing as we see Dark Emma on the fringes of the funeral scene, and upon rewatch we realize that she's actually staring sadly at Hook because she knows he's dying, that it's only the Darkness keeping him alive.

Then after Hook's death when Emma decides to go to the Underworld, Regina wants to go because if Emma can save Hook, she can save Robin. After all, they're guaranteed soulmates, so surely they can share a heart. Once they're in the Underworld, Robin has an actual purpose in being there, since he can serve as their local guide. He gets an emotional reunion with Regina (I suppose it's too much to hope that she blames herself for his death once she remembers what happened), which dramatically increases the amount of screen time devoted to their relationship, and then there's also an emotional scene when Zelena and the baby show up and he gets to meet his daughter. (Yes, this is the odd case where killing the character earlier would actually give him more material and screentime.) Near the end of the arc, when the heart splitting thing doesn't work for Hook because he's been dead too long, Robin realizes it won't work for him because he's been dead longer. That's when the "moving on" portal opens, and he realizes his unfinished business was seeing his daughter, getting some kind of closure with Regina, and knowing Regina won't be alone now that she has her sister (never mind that her sister is his rapist). He moves on. Hook starts to go, as well, since he can't be brought back to life, but the portal closes. Since Hades wants to get Emma out of the way and trap them all in the Underworld, he says that maybe Hook wasn't meant to die when he did and tells them about the ambrosia. They go off on their little quest, and all that happens the way it originally did.

Then in this episode, since we don't have to deal with any Robin scenes, they can flesh out what Hades is up to in Storybrooke, with him doing more to be a threat than just killing Arthur (since, really, there was nothing that made that situation so urgent), and Hook and Arthur's quest can be bigger so that Hook really earns his resurrection (they not only have to find the pages, they also have to find and send the crystal). Instead of it being Robin's funeral Hook shows up to, it's his own funeral, so they can kind of fake us out that Hook really is dead and gone. I'd really like to ditch the finale and expand this episode, but just changing this much doesn't change the outcome at all. It just makes it all make more sense and have more emotional impact.

[Camera One]

I like that rewrite.  A&E would probably still have insisted on their way.  They wanted Regina to go to the Underworld for her BFF Emma.  That supposedly showed that she had changed and they were one big family.  The 100th episode was about how proud Henry Sr. was that Regina was now so selfless.  They also didn't want the heroes to have a true guide in Underbrooke, because they wanted to parcel out various surprises throughout the arc.  They also wanted the sense of unfairness that Emma got her happy ending with Hook but poor Regina didn't.  

Spoiler

They also needed Regina's grief to drive the next arc (motivate her to split herself), and to generate conflict with Zelena.

Wouldn't it have bee awkward if Marian was in Underbrooke too?

[Shanna Marie]

34 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Spoiler

They also needed Regina's grief to drive the next arc (motivate her to split herself), and to generate conflict with Zelena. 

Spoiler

I think you'd still get that if Hook came back after Robin didn't, and I'd think that Regina would have had even more motivation to split herself if the Evil Queen was largely responsible for Robin's death. But I suppose that would have meant Regina taking responsibility for her actions rather than being the underdog who always gets the short end of the stick, and we can't have that. As for Zelena, it wouldn't take much for her to have conflict with her. The conflict they had was contrived, so any little thing might do. Just Zelena having a baby and somewhat gloating about it when Regina is barren could do it.

But as I said, this was about making more sense but still getting to more or less the same place, and the problem is that what A&E wanted didn't make much sense. You really have to shift reality to get to their perspective. For instance ...

39 minutes ago, Camera One said:

They wanted Regina to go to the Underworld for her BFF Emma.  That supposedly showed that she had changed and they were one big family. 

Then maybe they could have had an interaction or two in which Regina wasn't snarking at Emma or criticizing her. I'm not sure I recall an actual scene between Emma and Regina in the Underworld, and there certainly wasn't a lot of support for Emma going through everything she did, only to have to leave Hook behind, in this episode. It's one of those weird things where they think they're writing this wonderful, supportive friendship, but what appears on the screen is more like frenemies, with a lot of abuse from Regina to Emma.

[Shanna Marie]

Thinking more about this as I herd small children from activity to activity this week ...

On 6/17/2019 at 8:33 PM, Camera One said:

They also wanted the sense of unfairness that Emma got her happy ending with Hook but poor Regina didn't.  

I think it's more of an apples-to-apples comparison with the rewrite than it was in the aired version. In their version, it's hard to really compare the situations. Hook was mortally wounded when he successfully saved Snow from imminent death (and he would have totally succeeded if Excalibur hadn't been a magical death weapon, which Merlin completely neglected to mention), then died sacrificing himself to end the Darkness and save everyone, except Rumple hijacked his sacrifice. Emma's mission to save him from the Underworld failed, and Hook earned a resurrection by doing something really heroic in the afterlife. Meanwhile, Robin rushed in without a plan to a situation that wasn't a crisis (the baby was never in any danger) to take on a god and got his soul obliterated. The two situations don't compare at all and have nothing to do with each other or with the relative merits of their girlfriends.

But in the rewrite version, both of them are dead and in the Underworld, and they go after both of them, but Robin gets sent on to "heaven," which leaves Hook behind to come up with the way to defeat Hades and earn himself a ticket back to the land of the living. It comes closer to a sense of why one and not the other (though, when you think about it, who came out ahead? It's good for Emma and bad for Regina, but who comes off better, Robin getting to go to heaven or Hook having to return to life?). And since in that version, Robin dies due to someone wanting revenge against Regina, there's reason for Regina to think his death is some kind of judgment on her and a "villains don't get happy endings" thing. Maybe Zeus could say something to imply that Hook's not entirely being rewarded, that he has work he's still expected to do in life, like maybe he's done too much evil in his life to make it to heaven now, but he's done too much good to be condemned elsewhere, so he gets another chance to make up for his old wicked ways -- except then there's Cora, who probably did more evil than Hook and who didn't even start doing anything remotely good until after she was dead.

[KAOS Agent]

7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

They also wanted the sense of unfairness that Emma got her happy ending with Hook but poor Regina didn't.  

I'm not sure why this is a thing. It's not a zero sum game. Hook's and Robin's deaths are not connected in that way. It's not like only one could live and the other had to die. I get that a lot of people immediately jumped on the poor Regina just can't win bandwagon with Robin's death because it's all about Regina and not about Robin or his children. The guy had his soul obliterated. That's horrible for him. However, it was due to his own actions. He attacked a god. It had little to do with Regina.

Meanwhile, they went out of their way to explicitly mention Hook's torture at the hands of Hades in this episode. He suffered immensely in the Underworld. He worked with his enemy to help those in Storybrooke and then chose to walk into the light. His actions led to a higher power deciding to send him back. Maybe Zeus felt bad that the gods' idiocy with the grail led to Hook's death. He fixed his mistake after Hook had proved himself worthy of it. It had nothing to do with Emma.

This is TV, so obviously they need conflict for their characters, but it's funny to read so many comments about poor Regina after this episode aired. Regina was in an extremely positive position throughout the season. She had all the power and was feted as the Saviour in Camelot. Robin was by her side and they seemed to be happy together the entire season (except for when he inexplicably ran off to the woods with the baby). She reconciled with both of her parents, got closure with Daniel by seeing he'd moved on, regained a relationship with her sister and even saved her horse. Poor Regina just suffers so much doesn't she?

Emma spent the entire first half of the season being mentally tortured in Camelot and also controlled by Regina with the dagger, was rejected by her family due to the Dark One-ness (they didn't even try with her), suffered about the Hook being a Dark One thing and then had to kill Hook herself. She went to the Underworld to fix things where she was guilt tripped by her idiotic parents because they'd ditched their young son to go along (their choice, not hers). She was told off by her boyfriend's brother for her actions that led to Hook's predicament. She was confronted by her "victim" and physically assaulted by her. Only Emma was confronted by a victim in this manner (Rumpel/Gaston was all a game set up by Hades).  She then had to once again leave Hook having failed to save him. Oh and then her parents criticized how she chose to grieve and sidelined her from getting justice on Hades. Emma lives a super charmed life.

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I'm not sure why this is a thing. It's not a zero sum game. Hook's and Robin's deaths are not connected in that way. It's not like only one could live and the other had to die. I get that a lot of people immediately jumped on the poor Regina just can't win bandwagon with Robin's death because it's all about Regina and not about Robin or his children. The guy had his soul obliterated. That's horrible for him. However, it was due to his own actions. He attacked a god. It had little to do with Regina.

Exactly! Yes, thank you! Robin died due to his own stupidity. He suddenly decided to go after Hades when there was no reason to. Yeah, he had his daughter but she wasn't in any danger and died because of it. It was Robin's fault. It had nothing to do with Regina. They couldn't even bother to give Robin a real reason to suddenly go get his daughter.

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Meanwhile, they went out of their way to explicitly mention Hook's torture at the hands of Hades in this episode. He suffered immensely in the Underworld. He worked with his enemy to help those in Storybrooke and then chose to walk into the light. His actions led to a higher power deciding to send him back. Maybe Zeus felt bad that the gods' idiocy with the grail led to Hook's death. He fixed his mistake after Hook had proved himself worthy of it. It had nothing to do with Emma.

This too. Yes, Hook was the reason he got to live again. Not Emma. It had nothing to do with Emma. She and Hook said their goodbyes, he went into the light and she went home.  It was Hook's doing all himself. I would hope Zeus felt bad given the stupidity of Hook's death. Killed saving Snow's life and because God forbid Merlin warn anyone before the consequences of being hit with Excalibur. 

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This is TV, so obviously they need conflict for their characters, but it's funny to read so many comments about poor Regina after this episode aired. Regina was in an extremely positive position throughout the season. She had all the power and was feted as the Saviour in Camelot. Robin was by her side and they seemed to be happy together the entire season (except for when he inexplicably ran off to the woods with the baby). She reconciled with both of her parents, got closure with Daniel by seeing he'd moved on, regained a relationship with her sister and even saved her horse. Poor Regina just suffers so much doesn't she?

Those comments confused me then and still do now. Its still the same crap that Regina supposedly suffers the most even thought she's suffered the least or at least tied with Rumple. She's gotten everything she wanted except killing Snow and the Curse ending. She held all the power all those years as Queen in the Enchanted Forest, raped Graham all she wanted, murdered God only knows how many people, cursed everyone, yeah it broke but except for a couple rough days or weeks in the beginning of season two she's still got everything she wanted. She got away with all her crimes, she still has all the power, her mansion, no one holds anything against her especially her victims who are now her stanch supporters, Henry's forgotten completely about the crappy childhood he had at her hands, she even got to make up with her parents, people who dare manage to still be pissed at her ended up murdered for daring to kill her or by someone else. She got a new boyfriend who didn't care that she murdered his wife in the past or was frozen, sure she lost him for a couple weeks, but that didn't last long did it? She spent this whole season getting everything she wanted, including making up with her parents and her horse. When exactly has she suffered? When her boyfriend was dumb and decided to go after his daughter? However long she defeated in the Enchanted Forest to the Curse? Yeah, if only everyone else suffered as much as she had.  

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Emma spent the entire first half of the season being mentally tortured in Camelot and also controlled by Regina with the dagger, was rejected by her family due to the Dark One-ness (they didn't even try with her), suffered about the Hook being a Dark One thing and then had to kill Hook herself. She went to the Underworld to fix things where she was guilt tripped by her idiotic parents because they'd ditched their young son to go along (their choice, not hers). She was told off by her boyfriend's brother for her actions that led to Hook's predicament. She was confronted by her "victim" and physically assaulted by her. Only Emma was confronted by a victim in this manner (Rumpel/Gaston was all a game set up by Hades).  She then had to once again leave Hook having failed to save him. Oh and then her parents criticized how she chose to grieve and sidelined her from getting justice on Hades. Emma lives a super charmed life.

Yep, once again we're suppose to see poor Regina and how bad she's had it while being shown how bad Emma really has been having it. But oh no remember Emma has a charmed life. She lost the one person who didn't treat her like shit, act like she was the worse Dark One to ever life, who did try hard to help her in Camelot and when they got back kept trying. No wonder she went to the Underworld to try and get him back. Only for that to not work out. But because she's Emma with the charmed life it didn't work out. 

[Shanna Marie]

16 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I'm not sure why this is a thing. It's not a zero sum game. Hook's and Robin's deaths are not connected in that way. It's not like only one could live and the other had to die.

This is probably a topic more to do with events in the finale, which those who are particularly brave, masochistic, or obsessive will be discussing this week, but the characters kind of act like there's some sort of connection, with Emma being worried about how Regina will take Hook's return, and then with Regina's reaction.

It's kind of weird that they did set it up as though there's some connection or comparison, with Hook's return coming at Robin's funeral, even though they also made it very clear otherwise in the way it played out how different the circumstances were and how neither Hook's return nor Robin's death had anything to do with Emma or Regina. But I guess it's kind of like the way they set up the situation so that Snow could in no way be held responsible for Daniel's death, with her being obviously manipulated by Cora and her trying to help Regina when she told the secret, except the show frequently made it sound like Snow really was in the wrong and Regina had good reason for a vendetta against a child.

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

This is probably a topic more to do with events in the finale, which those who are particularly brave, masochistic, or obsessive will be discussing this week, but the characters kind of act like there's some sort of connection, with Emma being worried about how Regina will take Hook's return, and then with Regina's reaction.

It's kind of weird that they did set it up as though there's some connection or comparison, with Hook's return coming at Robin's funeral, even though they also made it very clear otherwise in the way it played out how different the circumstances were and how neither Hook's return nor Robin's death had anything to do with Emma or Regina. But I guess it's kind of like the way they set up the situation so that Snow could in no way be held responsible for Daniel's death, with her being obviously manipulated by Cora and her trying to help Regina when she told the secret, except the show frequently made it sound like Snow really was in the wrong and Regina had good reason for a vendetta against a child.

It really is and that's what bugs me. They easily could have set things up so Robin's death had something to do with Regina. Easily, any and everyone she victimized murdering Robin for revenge or him taking a bullet, attack, etc. meant for her. But they don't do that while making it sound like that's exactly what happened. Usually when shows do that its because at some point later the character will have to realize their wrong and accept it. But on this show they don't do that. Why bother not to set up a scene or death the exact way you want it?  

[Camera One]

That's the weird thing about the writing of Robin Hood's death.  The focus was more on the timing of the death (coinciding with Hook's return, which is meant to create "story" for Regina/Emma) and the fact that Robin was killed by Zelena's true love (to create "story" for Regina/Zelena).  Because of that, the whole showdown felt contrived and lacking in any impact.  Robin had nothing to do with Hades.  The episode wasn't about him in any way.  

[KAOS Agent]

Hades killing Robin can/should create conflict between Zelena and Regina even though Zelena killed Hades, but it shouldn't do anything for Regina/Emma because they are unrelated. Yes, Emma understands that Regina may be upset that Emma has her boyfriend back and understandably want to break it to her gently, but that's it. The only way a story comes out of it is if Regina makes it all about her again. It sucks that Regina's boyfriend is dead, but it should be a happy thing that Hook and Emma are reunited. Emma is frequently presented with other people who get their happy ending while she is suffering from loss and expresses some modicum of positivity to it. Regina always reacts negatively. If that changes, then Regina is making progress. If she reacts like she always does, then what does that say about Regina?

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/20/2019 at 9:57 PM, andromeda331 said:

They easily could have set things up so Robin's death had something to do with Regina. Easily, any and everyone she victimized murdering Robin for revenge or him taking a bullet, attack, etc. meant for her.

The crazy thing is, they did set that up earlier in the season. Robin was killed/nearly mortally wounded when Percival attacked Regina in revenge for her slaughtering his village, then after Emma was pretty much forced to heal him, even though it was at great risk to her soul because doing so might give the Darkness more of a hold on her, it turned out there was a price to pay and Robin was supposed to be carried off before Regina and the others stood against the Fury and saved him. So he's been on borrowed time this whole time, just as much as Hook was after he was killed/mortally wounded by Arthur and Emma "saved" him by making him a Dark One. But none of this is mentioned when Robin actually does die. They seem to have forgotten that he was supposed to have died weeks/months ago because of Regina's evil and was miraculously saved, in part by Emma.

[daxx]

On 6/21/2019 at 9:10 PM, Shanna Marie said:

They seem to have forgotten that he was supposed to have died weeks/months ago because of Regina's evil and was miraculously saved, in part by Emma.

If they were offing him this season they should have offed him in the first half of the season, he had no purpose all season. 

I hate the way Regina treated Emma when Hook showed back up as if the whole thing was Emma’s fault. If Robin dying would have been Regina’s fault it would have been more dramatic and an actual consequence for her.