S05.E22: Only You / S05.E23: An Untold Story

[Camera One]

Then the real crisis is mostly caused by a bad case of idiot plotting. While Emma and Regina didn't yet know about the portal when they first talked to Henry, why didn't they explain that they'd come after him to stop him because there was a chance that destroying magic would have very bad consequences for people they cared about?

I don't know if there was a cut scene, but having Emma/Regina/Kids in the library, and then jumping to Henry and Violet by themselves on the street was abrupt and made no sense.  There was no flow.  

And is Rumple stupid?  Bright purple clouds emitting from a high-rise hotel room?  It was solely so they could do the dumb scene with the room service guy.  

Hook coming back from the dead and the non-reaction/lack of questioning was akin to Blue's resurrection.  

There was just so much wasted time and filler, such as Regina going "undercover" again but Rumple seeing through her.  Give me a freak'in break.

It's typical with this show, but this episode had even more than the normal number of coincidences, in a way that the whole thing was utterly unbelievable.  

[KingOfHearts]

Some things I hate about this finale:

• While I found Henry's participation in 4x21/22 tolerable, I just could not here. He wasn't being heroic - he was being a selfish brat who wasn't thinking anything through. 
• The library in New York just so happened to have Author books, as well as the Unholy Grail. 
• The retcon that Neal went on a quest to destroy magic. There was no indication within his character that it ever happened, much less that he went to Henry about it.
• No one in New York questioned any of the obvious magical shenanigans. They seemed really, really dumb or something.
• Henry gets no consequences for his actions.
• Regina falls back into her "woe is me" attitude she should have dropped at the end of season 4.
• It plays with the idea of destroying magic or at least taking Storybrooke's magic away. This is an awesome concept I've been wanting to see for a while. I can't stand that it was wasted on Henry and didn't come to any fruition. 

Honestly, if the finale mostly consisted of Team Wicked Hero, I would have been happy.

Edited August 4, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Cabarb]

If I never hear the words "wanted to give you your best chance" again, I'll be a happy girl. 

[KingOfHearts]

I'm rewatching parts of this episode in (quite unnecessary) preparation for the premiere.

The Regina/Emma feud was childish and manufactured. "Oh the script says we're reintroducing the Evil Queen in this episode, so I have to play up how much I don't trust you."

At least Violet got to react to New York. I'm pretty sure she's the first FT character to react to it somewhat realistically. I guess Zarian and Roland sort of did, but whatever. It's worth mentioning because the main characters have never given a crap. (Even in this episode.

[Camera One]

I don't remember any of the Hyde stuff near the end, after the gang escaped from the Land of Untold Stories.  I vaguely remembered he appeared in Storybrooke at the end, but I don't remember what he said or did.  Did Jekyll escape with them to Storybrooke?  No way in the Underworld I'm going to rewatch this before tonight, LOL.  The Recap special did not review much... I guess at this point, they don't expect any new viewers to jump on the show.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

5 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I don't remember any of the Hyde stuff near the end, after the gang escaped from the Land of Untold Stories.  I vaguely remembered he appeared in Storybrooke at the end, but I don't remember what he said or did.  Did Jekyll escape with them to Storybrooke?  No way in the Underworld I'm going to rewatch this before tonight, LOL.  The Recap special did not review much... I guess at this point, they don't expect any new viewers to jump on the show.

Jekyll went with Wicked Hero to Storybrooke, yes. I believe Rumple jumped through the portal to LoUS and made his deal with Hyde there. Then later we saw Hyde in Storybrooke, threatening Regina and Henry. He said "Storybrooke is mine now" and "Despite what you might believe, darkness is not so easy to snuff out." So Hyde and Jekyll both made it to SB.

[Camera One]

Thanks!  You saved me from going on a quest to get a crystal ball to rewatch those moments.

[Hecate7]

On 5/18/2016 at 2:54 PM, Curio said:

It wouldn't have required much editing to rearrange the script to have the order of events make more sense. All they had to do was make the Hook/Snow/Charming/Zelena portal mishap and the Henry/Violet ditching town events happen at the same time. Then, they don't even have to deal with those pesky normal human reactions because Emma's only option would be to find Henry to save the magic because chasing after Hook and her parents was impossible. And then her parents and Hook wouldn't have the opportunity to react to the road trip or voice their opinion about being separated from Emma again. (Why couldn't we have had a heart-to-heart in the cage where Snow, Charming, and Hook vented about how they always get separated from Emma? Why don't their emotions matter to the writers?)

It was also strange to see Emma so nonchalant about getting Hook and her parents back when she was in NYC. It was like she knew they'd be reunited at the end of the episode, so instead she had to feel sorry for Regina the whole time. Why would the woman who just got back from failing her heart-split idea in the Underworld be so certain about restoring magic? It's like it never crossed Emma's mind that she wouldn't ever see her family again. The script for the stupid episode where Regina didn't check in after one fucking hour of Queens of Darkness shenanigans had script directions for Emma to freak out over a tiny incident like that, so why wouldn't Emma act just as freaked out in this instance? Just because Emma's walls are lowered now doesn't mean she's not allowed to still act emotional and be scared about losing her family.

New theory: all of this is a spell by Regina, similar to the first spell by Regina. Remember how Storybrook's residents all forgot who they were? How only Rumple had the slightest clue that they were all under a spell?

What if Regina cast another spell when we weren't looking? Henry doesn't seem to care much about the Charmings or Emma next to Regina. Emma doesn't care about Hook or Henry or the Charmings, next to Regina. The Charmings prioritize Regina's feelings over anyone else's. The only one who doesn't seem to care that much about Regina is Rumple, which fits since he had made himself immune to her first curse. Why not make himself immune again?

More likely it's just appallingly bad writing, but I like to hope.

I haven't liked Rumple's arc since they stopped giving him redemption stuff and let him just be unredeemably bad. Unredeemably bad is boring, and it doesn't fit with the rest of his story, or with Belle. It ruins Belle because she's stupid to "know what I was getting" and love Rumple anyway. Turns her into some kind of gross Eva Braun figure almost. Bleah. It also ruins the entire Beauty and the Beast story, because as someone else already pointed out, the Beast only appeared bad. Belle was brilliant and pure and saw past the appearance of things. So where's that in our story? It fit for two seasons then fell away. Now neither one of them deserves a happy ending. It's terrible. The only advantages are that it makes Hook and Regina look good by comparison. But if Rumple is unredeemable because of Milah, then Regina should be unredeemable because of her father, and Graham, etc...

Worst of all is what the show has done with Snow. She is the show's moral compass, but she's nowhere. I think if the last two seasons turn out to be a spell cast by Regina, it will explain Snow as well--they've styled her badly and written her feebly and given her very little to do lately, and she is the one who really ought to be seeing through Regina's shenanigans and talking to Emma about it. Perhaps they haven't given them a scene because they don't want to let the cat out of the bag? Or maybe they've just flat out lost interest in Snow and hate the character or the actress. She was Henry's lifeline even when Regina was his only Mom. The show seems to have forgotten that. So has Henry...oh, Henry. I can't even.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Hecate7

[kingshearte]

On 5/18/2016 at 3:54 PM, Curio said:

It was also strange to see Emma so nonchalant about getting Hook and her parents back when she was in NYC. It was like she knew they'd be reunited at the end of the episode, so instead she had to feel sorry for Regina the whole time.

This bit quoted in the post above suddenly made me think of one of the tips in a really good book on directing theatre. Basically, the gist of it is that one of the ways to keep a scene from feeling flat and predictable is to make sure the actors behave like they could be interrupted at any moment. Obviously, there is in fact a very definite known moment when the next character will enter a scene, and the actors all know exactly when that will be, but the characters don't, so they should act like they know exactly when the next person will arrive. It's kind of the same thing here. Morrison and Parilla presumably know that everyone will be reunited in the end and hooray and all that, but Emma and Regina don't, so you're absolutely right, that behaving like they do rings false.

[Shanna Marie]

11 hours ago, Hecate7 said:

New theory: all of this is a spell by Regina, similar to the first spell by Regina. Remember how Storybrook's residents all forgot who they were? How only Rumple had the slightest clue that they were all under a spell?

What if Regina cast another spell when we weren't looking?

That would explain so much! If she cast a spell to make everyone love her around the time she was all teary eyed because she didn't get invited to dinner, then it would make sense for everyone to become devoted to her, especially if she was smart and made it gradual rather than something so instantaneous that they'd have noticed the switch. Hook is somewhat immune because he wasn't yet in town at that time.

19 minutes ago, kingshearte said:

Morrison and Parilla presumably know that everyone will be reunited in the end and hooray and all that, but Emma and Regina don't, so you're absolutely right, that behaving like they do rings false.

That's an ongoing problem with this show, that the characters act like they've read the scripts, so they know when things are going to work out or when things are going to become big problems.

[Curio]

36 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

That's an ongoing problem with this show, that the characters act like they've read the scripts, so they know when things are going to work out or when things are going to become big problems.

Indeed. See Season 6's midseason finale where

Spoiler

Hook is totally nonchalant about Regina going off to save Emma in another realm, and Emma is totally nonchalant that she can return home to Storybrooke.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Curio

[Camera One]

3 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

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?

Which brings us to this travesty of a finale.  It's all the same beats we've seen before, except executed much more poorly.  Has Regina learned anything from the last time she was trying to pursue the Author because life was so unfair, or when she lost Robin Hood to Zarian and became all mopey, blamey and snarky with her BFF?  

And then, we had a replay of the episode that destroyed Henry back in Season 2.  Of course he wasn't going to succeed in destroying magic, so there was no real suspense.  

Though having no magic in the final season would have been a welcomed return to the Season 1 situation where Rumple and Regina and the magical villains weren't so overpowered.

The steampunk stuff didn't impress me much the first time around, but 

Spoiler

knowing it was ultimately pointless with the laughably undefined concept of "untold stories" makes this episode even more worthless in hindsight.  Who knew they could top the undefined nature of "unfinished business".

From this episode on, there was pretty much zero redeeming value left in the show.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

This is an episode in which the writers' strings were painfully visible because the plot goes against all character development, established worldbuilding (what little they've done), and normal human behavior. If the characters act like real people and remotely like themselves and if the world works the way they've told us it works, the story doesn't work at all.

For starters, Hook has returned from the dead after being dead for some time and given up for lost in the Underworld when a god told them he couldn't be saved because he'd been dead too long. And yet no one acts like this is a big deal. Emma's love that she'd just been crying over at his grave shows up, and she casually strolls with him to the town diner. It is dark and he's changed from his Dark One clothes to his regular clothes, so maybe they didn't go straight from the cemetery to the diner, but then that means this is the world's longest wake for a guy most people in town would barely have known. Normally I'm very much on Team Emma and not on Team Regina, but in this case, I have to say Emma was rather tacky to bring Hook to Robin's wake. Even leaving him outside so she could go in and tell Regina was iffy. I think Emma or any other person would have spent quite a bit more time at home alone with him, then gone to Regina's house the next day to talk to her in private instead of springing the news about her boyfriend being back from the dead on Regina in public at Regina's boyfriend's wake. But the episode makes Emma do this for the drama.

Oddly enough, no one acts like it's a big deal that Hook is back from the dead, I guess in part because we never got to see most of them react to him being dead. David gives him a hug in the background, and Regina says "What's he doing here?" like she told Emma she couldn't bring a plus-one, not like this person stepped out of his grave and looks none the worse for wear. No one else reacts at all. There's no suspicion -- are we sure it's Hook? Could he be an imposter? A zombie? A ghost?

Then there's Henry worried that Regina will go evil and blaming magic for that. This is the same kid who spent season 4 claiming that the book was wrong about Regina being a villain and looking for a magical solution to make her happy. It also seems out of character for Neal to have been researching ways to destroy magic. He was more likely during that part of his life to have avoided magic entirely. He wanted nothing to do with it. Researching ways to destroy magic would have required him to deal with magic more than he was comfortable with. And if he'd wanted to destroy magic, Tamara wouldn't have had to pretend with him to get him involved in her scheme.

And then we have Emma ditching the guy who just came back from the dead to go running off with Regina. If I'm Emma, I'm not letting him out of my sight, and you'd think he'd want to be joined at the hip with Emma.

Possibly the weirdest and creepiest thing in the episode, and that's saying something in an episode in which Rumple delivers emotional monologues to the box representing his comatose wife, has to be the scene with Zelena and Roland, in which the adorable child hugs his mother's murderer and kisses his rape baby sister. They seem to have forgotten that Roland only knew Zelena as Marian, and he doesn't even remember that because they wiped his memories so he wouldn't be upset or confused. Zelena was the one who nearly killed him with a flying monkey and forced Rumple to use him as a hostage against his father. I guess he might have been aware of her at Camelot, where they were keeping her prisoner. There was no reason for him to hug her or interact with her at all, other than fleeing in terror from her. And I'd love to know how they explained his baby sister to him.

We have a bad case of idiot plotting when Regina and Emma find Henry, and yet they don't seem to have bothered telling him that bad things might happen to the town and some of the people in it if he destroys magic. They didn't yet know about the Charmings and Hook being trapped in another world, but they were chasing after Henry because things could go horribly wrong with a town built by magic. But I guess Henry wouldn't have destroyed magic and we couldn't have had that cringeworthy "believe in magic!" scene if Emma had bothered to tell him the danger when she had the chance.

The Land of Untold Stories adventure isn't bad, though I'm not sure how some of the most famous stories in literature count as "untold," but it unfortunately brings in the Jekyll Juice and the idiocy of suggesting that Regina split herself. Emma's not well educated, but surely she's heard how the Jekyll and Hyde story worked out. Snow recognized the story, so she must be familiar with it. If you're familiar with that story, this is not something you'd recommend as a way of resolving personality issues.

I can forgive maybe one or two out of character or non-normal responses to make a story work, especially if the situation is extreme enough to make characters do crazy things, but this many in one episode makes it seem like the writers aren't even trying to make sense.

[Camera One]

13 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I can forgive maybe one or two out of character or non-normal responses to make a story work, especially if the situation is extreme enough to make characters do crazy things, but this many in one episode makes it seem like the writers aren't even trying to make sense.

The scary thing is it probably did make sense in A&E's own heads and they didn't see a problem with any of it.  Apparently, we all want another Emma/Regina roadtrip.  And who remembers Marian?  So you should feel touched how motherly Zelena had become.  Ultimately, the episode's purpose was to set up their most anticipated arc of having The Evil Queen.  Can you imagine double the Regina's?  What could be better?

[Shanna Marie]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

The scary thing is it probably did make sense in A&E's own heads and they didn't see a problem with any of it.  Apparently, we all want another Emma/Regina roadtrip.

I think a big part of the problem is that after the season 3 finale, they seem to have decided that ending the arc early and then doing a semi-related two-hour movie was the way they do things, and as we were discussing in the "Last Rites" thread, that was a poor choice for this arc. They could really have used these two hours to actually deal with all the stuff in the arc -- to establish what was going on with Zeus and Hades and actually give Hades a clear motivation for all the stuff he was doing and give Zeus a reason why what Hook did was big enough to merit a resurrection, to let us see that they were feeling Hook's loss so his return would have any impact, to actually deal with the Camelot stuff they left hanging (and not just shooing them through a door -- is Gwen still sanded? Did she take over as queen after Arthur died? Did she get together with Lancelot finally?), to give some kind of satisfying closure to the lost souls.

They seem to have taken the wrong lesson from the success of the season 3 finale movie (I believe the ratings were good and it was critically well-received, and it seems as though fans generally liked it, aside from a certain faction). To a large extent, that episode worked because it had been such a weak arc, and it was a relief to get something fun that had little to do with what preceded it. Since it took place in the past, we got to see the more fun versions of the characters, the way they were in season one, there was swashbuckling and romance and humor, along with some genuine emotion. I've wondered if that episode was the result of them realizing that there wasn't enough material in the Zelena story to make a whole arc, so they wrapped it up and did something different, or if the whole Zelena story was just an excuse to set up Emma for a big "there's no place like home" moment. From that point, they seem to have decided that this was the way they do finales. It worked, sort of, in season 4 because that's another arc with no "there" to it and they ran out of stuff to do. On paper, the idea of the AU could have worked if they'd had some kind of organizing principle to it.

But this one is just kind of random. I never figured out why they catered so heavily to the SwanQueen faction when they had no intention of ever making that happen (and given the number of times they had to step in and defend cast members from the slander and abuse that group spread -- in their shoes, that would have sent me into "screw you" territory, and I'd have gone out of my way to make sure Emma and Regina never shared a scene again). In this case, it defied character and human logic for Emma to leave Hook's side, and I think it was also a poor story choice. There's far more story material if Emma and Hook and Emma's parents are stuck on an adventure together and if Zelena and Regina are the ones going after Henry together. Zelena and Regina have all kinds of conflict going on with Robin's death, and their sisterly relationship is still somewhat new. Zelena lived in New York for a couple of months, so she'd kind of have the local knowledge, except I don't think she got any kind of modern life memory download, so she might be a bit unclear about some things, while Regina is up on modern life. Meanwhile, the Charmings hadn't had a chance to really cope with the fact of Hook in their daughter's life yet, so being stuck together and all of them having to work together without any of the others around could have been interesting. These are all new dynamics that hadn't been explored. But instead we got round 48573 of "with all due respect, Miss Swan" with Regina wanting to take charge even though Emma's the expert and them butting heads over what's best for Henry.

Though for the Untold Stories part to be interesting, they'd have had to do more than sit in a cage and then spend two minutes running through the streets, followed by one fight with Hyde.

And there's just no way to fix the splitting Regina thing. That was so dumb. As was the "believe in magic!" routine. I guess if Regina and Emma aren't together, Regina doesn't get to give her monologue about hating being good, but that might actually have been an interesting discussion for Zelena and Regina to have, two former villains talking about what it's like to become good, and Zelena thinking Regina's got it figured out, only to be dismayed that it doesn't get any easier.

[Camera One]

That's a really good hypothesis about why we got these unrelated two-hour finale "movies" that set up the next arc from 3B onwards.  

A&E didn't recognize that the 3B finale and to a lesser extent the 4B finale had major differences from the 5B finale.  Both the 3B and 4B finale told one story, with all the characters in one place, so there was coherence.  In the former, Emma and Hook were the only travellers while all the other characters appeared in their past forms.  In the 4B finale, everyone was trapped in the book together.  In this finale, we had a split narrative in NYC and the Land of Untold Stories, leading to two completely disconnected narratives.    The 3B and 4B finales had a singular goal - 3B had Emma/Hook needing to go home and "fix" the timeline, while 4B had Henry needing to save everyone from the book to defeat the single villain Isaac.  The 3B/4B finales also had the novelty factor - time travel and alt versions of characters, while 5B's NYC part was boring retread.  The Land of Untold Stories portions had better reception because at least it as a new location but I still didn't like it because the "untold stories" concept was so undefined and arbitrary.  

Even the 4B finale was sort of like this too... "Frozen" was wrapped early.  Though I guess the 4B finale did continue the Rumple/Hat Box subplot.  

It's hard to fix this episode because the ultimate conclusion and setup for Season 6 was just that bad.  But this episode might have worked better if Henry and Violet had run off to the Land of Untold Stories to ??? (I'm at a loss... of course, something to help Regina get over her grief) and everyone followed them there and the goal was to stop Henry from making things worse and to get everyone home again (maybe their goal was to "save" everyone from the Land of Untold Stories before realizing they were tricked by Jekyll/Hyde).  Regina could have met Jekyll/Hyde herself and drank the potion, and The Evil Queen travelled back with them to Storybrooke.  Heck, Henry could have made a fountain speech to the Land of Untold Stories people about not giving up and letting their stories continue because hitting pause on your life is never a solution.  Of course, that wouldn't have been as "effective" as doing it in NYC and getting ordinary people to believe in magic.

Edited June 22, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

48 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It's hard to fix this episode because the ultimate conclusion and setup for Season 6 was just that bad.  But this episode might have worked better if Henry and Violet had run off to the Land of Untold Stories to ??? (I'm at a loss... of course, something to help Regina get over her grief) and everyone followed them there and the goal was to stop Henry from making things worse and to get everyone home again

Since Rumple ends up going to the Land of Untold Stories at the end, maybe he's the one who sets it off -- something he's doing to try to get there makes the portal go haywire while they're sending the Camelot people home (which they needed to do anyway, regardless of the magic drain issue) and everyone gets sucked through the portal into the Land of Untold Stories, where they have to try to find a way to get back, and meanwhile Rumple is scheming with Hyde. Regina can take the potion there or they can bring it back with them when they escape with Jekyll and she can take it in Storybrooke (if we have to do that plot). We can skip the fountain speech entirely, since that's probably the worst moment of the entire series.

I like the idea of the Land of Untold Stories, especially the look of it, but, yeah, the problem is that it was so undefined and those were generally extremely told stories.

Spoiler

It kind of works as the place where people go to press pause on their lives, like with Nemo, or with the characters from famous stories whose stories aren't told, like the stepsister. But I guess it doesn't matter because they got bored with that concept a few episodes into the next season.

It might have been fun to have our main characters running into the side characters from their stories, like is maybe a former member of Hook's crew there, or did some of Regina's victims escape there?

[Camera One]

Yeah, it should either have been "Land that Time Forgot" if it were storybook characters going there to pause their story.  That would have made more sense for someone like Cinderella's stepsister/stepmother.  

Alternative, it could have been "Land of Literature" which could have been a mix of different eras in history together and that would be why Nemo, The Count of Monte Cristo and Jekyll/Hyde would have been there... that could have been where Dorothy and Spinoff Alice could have come from.

Spoiler

They could also have gone to the Wish Realm in this episode and spend a 2-hour finale on a "What Might Have Been" scenario.  Since they did such a crappy job of this in Season 6.

[Shanna Marie]

There was a lot of potential in the Land of Untold Stories being a kind of refuge for people wanting to escape their own stories/lives (I'm not crazy with the idea of these "story worlds," since I liked the way they set it up in season one that the stories were real, that these were real people in a real place, and things didn't necessarily go the way you've read in the stories, and having "worlds of story" ruins that). That land as a mishmash of cultures because people come there from all over, where they might have conflicts with each other or make unlikely teamups, could have been fun -- sort of a literary Island of Misfit Toys. Would any of our characters have been tempted to stay there? Zelena feels like a misfit, so would she have felt less out of place there?

It's that idiot savant writing thing again, where they come up with some potentially great stuff and completely miss what they set up, instead going off on the least interesting tangent and repeating the same character and plot beats over and over again (Regina vs. Snow, "With all due respect, Miss Swan," Hook does something bad in the past and feels bad about it in the present, David hates Hook but comes to respect him, Henry will do anything to save/destroy magic, Emma has WALLS).

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

There was a lot of potential in the Land of Untold Stories being a kind of refuge for people wanting to escape their own stories/lives

It could have had some potential and would have been a way to have connections between people there and our main characters (allowing for more tedious flashbacks, which was probably the initial thinking behind this concept). 

Though the land was mis-named if the intention was to have a land frozen in time.  It does explain why there was a mishmash of different cultures.  

Spoiler

But the mechanics really needed to be better thought through.  The 6A "explanations" were so lame (eg. people came here through some magic door with random keys they found or with a magic door that Rumple could create out of thin air).  

The fact that characters here were often people at death's door and they came here to avoid death wasn't an interesting concept.

[Camera One]

I just rewatched the promo to this episode and it's just so bad.  "She lost the love of her life... re-igniting a hatred so strong... there's no telling what... will happen next.  The breathtaking two-hour season finale of "Once Upon a Time""

That doesn't even make any sense.  And again, they were teasing that Regina would go crazy and become evil.  Didn't they do that before?

[KAOS Agent]

15 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I've wondered if that episode was the result of them realizing that there wasn't enough material in the Zelena story to make a whole arc, so they wrapped it up and did something different, or if the whole Zelena story was just an excuse to set up Emma for a big "there's no place like home" moment.

You're giving them an awful lot of credit there in believing they realized there was nothing more to Zelena's story. Considering they brought her back the next season, I thinking that wasn't their thought process. It would have been just as easy to send Emma and Hook to Oz through the portal than to the Enchanted Forest past.

Mostly, I think they just get bored with their season arc and like to bring in a shiny new toy for the finale. It's where the "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" writing process takes flight because it's really easy to apply this in a two hour block and not have to put any thought into stretching it out over a whole season. It's also why the newly introduced storylines for the next season fizzle almost instantly. They aren't thinking about it long term when it's introduced and are bored with it by the time the new season starts.

This episode encapsulates every major problem the writing team had. There's little conclusion to tie up loose ends, there's no follow through on what should have been deeply emotional events in characters' lives, shiny new toys are introduced in a new world with nonsensical world building, repetition of events we've seen ad nauseum, characters act completely contrary to real world people simply because the plot dictates it, etc. All of it made for a really lack luster and frustrating finale. 

And, because it must be said, especially for  this episode, Shut up, Henry! 

[tennisgurl]

Henry and his “believe in magic!” speech at the fountain might be the most second hand embarrassment I’ve felt watching a television show...ever. It’s so cringeworthy and goofy, I practically have to watch it with my hands over my face, it’s that stupid.

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Henry and his “believe in magic!” speech at the fountain might be the most second hand embarrassment I’ve felt watching a television show...ever. It’s so cringeworthy and goofy, I practically have to watch it with my hands over my face, it’s that stupid.

And no one questioned it, LOL.

[Camera One]

I guess we had been hoping for more reactions of regular humans to magic, so we got some in this episode.  Thanks A&E for warping our wishes beyond all recognition.

[tennisgurl]

Yeah you can really tell how much Regina has "changed" considering how everyone acts like she is a ticking time bomb anytime something goes wrong for her. And it sucks that Robin is dead, but how is that tied into Hook coming back? Those are two random events that are in no way connected, but because Emma got her true love back, everyone has to act like Hook being around is this big slap in the face to Regina and no one, not even Emma, is allowed to even be happy that Hook is back. And while I would normally cut someone who just lost their boyfriend some slack, it sucks that Regina cant even pretend to be happy that Hook is alive or that Emma got her true love back after everything they went through. Again, if this was someone else I would cut them some slack, but this is just such classic Regina. Of course SHE never gets her happy ending and SHE always suffers and EMMA gets everything she wants, even though literally every flashback ever has said the complete opposite. I will say though, bringing Hook to the wake is probably not the best idea, I feel like Hook and Emma would just want to be alone together for awhile, with maybe Emma texting her parents to let them know whats up. 

The Land of Untold Stories is a cool concept and has an interesting look and vibe, and I remember just being so excited to finally be in a land that was actually different, and not just another European castle or a forest. The people from different cultures and times and the steampunk look was really cool, and I like their take on Jekyll and Hyde here as well. With Henry and Violet finding a bunch of new stories and the new Land, and even the Dragon showing up, the show actually seemed to be finding some of that old magic again, and that we might actually get to explore this whole weird "world of stories" concepts in a way thats kind of cool. 

Spoiler

Oh and what a fool I was to think that they might actually take advantage of all of this potential! The whole thing is never really explored and they toss the idea of Untold Stories or any of the cool new possible characters like Jekyll and Hyde away for more Evil Queen crap and Emma and her shakes and the nonsensical Savior mythology. It was the last real gasp of creative energy that this show had, and they blew it.  

We got so close to Regina actually have some real self actualization and taking some responsibility for her awful actions, and instead we went full on into this whole ridiculous "its not me, its the evil queen! The split personality that I never had but will now use as an excuse!" thing. You dont have to love with your guilt over bad things you've done and try to become a better person, you can take a potion and literally get rid of all of your sins and kill it! Makes it easy! And am I the only one who thinks its pretty messed up for Regina to basically create a new sentient just the express purpose of killing her to ease her temporary guilt? And of course that guilt has never shown when Regina had to deal with her former victims, only now when she thinks she has accumulated some bad karma points that are affecting HER. 

Violets father being the main character from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a cute reference, but then of course they have to spell the reference out just in case any of us missed it. Speaking of, this is a prime Shut Up Henry episode, what a little shit. Its all so random, like he just woke up that morning and decided to kill magic, no matter how that might effect anyone else, because of how it might effect him and his moms. And I dont at all buy that Neal was plotting to destroy magic too, it just screams pointless retcon. But of what a saint that Neal was, destroying magic, which could destroy lives for all he knew, all for himself. 

This episode has some good moments and cool idea (I could watch Charming hug Hook in the background over and over) but its also very much classic A&E style "wouldn't it be cool if..." storytelling, without any thoughts to what it would actually mean for the story, world, or characters.

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/24/2019 at 10:38 AM, tennisgurl said:

Yeah you can really tell how much Regina has "changed" considering how everyone acts like she is a ticking time bomb anytime something goes wrong for her. And it sucks that Robin is dead, but how is that tied into Hook coming back? Those are two random events that are in no way connected, but because Emma got her true love back, everyone has to act like Hook being around is this big slap in the face to Regina and no one, not even Emma, is allowed to even be happy that Hook is back.

The freaky thing is, no one seemed to be at all worried about Regina going evil after Robin died. That only became a concern after Hook came back. So it's not really bad things happening to Regina that they think will set her off (actually, bad things happening to other people that cause Regina to lose something), it was something good happening to Emma while Regina was sad. What a wonderful depiction of friendship. And I guess that's why no one reacted to Hook's return. They all had to pretend not to care, lest it hurt Regina's feelings.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

And I guess that's why no one reacted to Hook's return. They all had to pretend not to care, lest it hurt Regina's feelings.

That's the only head-canon that makes me able to stomach this show past 2A.  Everyone is basically walking on eggshells because they don't know how The Unstable Queen will respond.

I just rewatched the scene where Snow says, "I was there when The Evil Queen was born.  I kind of helped bring her into the world."  It's amazing how that statement completely dissociated Regina from "The Evil Queen", and it was as if the blame for Regina turning evil fell at least 50% on Snow.

You have to focus on the little things.  Like when the worried Emma steps forward towards the 2 separated Queens and says, "Regina!" and Snow pulls her back with a "I hope they both die" expression on her face.  Okay, maybe I imagined that last part.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

It always amazes me how the show will heap tons of blame on most of the characters for their actions, but when it comes to Regina, they love to have a ton of others act like it's their fault. No, Snow, you had zero to do with the Evil Queen being born. That's entirely on Regina. Direct actions by Cora and Rumpel helped her on her way, but she was given chance after chance and a crazy number of different life choices. Multiple people tried to help her and reason with her including her father and Maleficent (and even Rumpel when he marveled at her idiotic actions).

Did anyone ever offer excuses for the poor choices Dark Emma made that she was infected with an evil presence and being mentally tortured and so it wasn't really her fault? Did anyone blame Rumpel for Emma being the Dark One? Or blame Zelena/Arthur for Dark Hook? Nope, it's all on Emma and her choices. 

[andromeda331]

On 6/25/2019 at 8:31 PM, Shanna Marie said:

The freaky thing is, no one seemed to be at all worried about Regina going evil after Robin died. That only became a concern after Hook came back. So it's not really bad things happening to Regina that they think will set her off (actually, bad things happening to other people that cause Regina to lose something), it was something good happening to Emma while Regina was sad. What a wonderful depiction of friendship. And I guess that's why no one reacted to Hook's return. They all had to pretend not to care, lest it hurt Regina's feelings.

But you know she really is good! Regina has changed! She's grown! She's good! She's better! That's why everyone still has to worry about Regina's feelings just like when she was the Evil Queen. Why they worried about her after Hook's return. They all remember what happened to the bride and groom who she ran into when she was feeling "sad".

Edited June 28, 2019 by andromeda331

[KAOS Agent]

It doesn't really help that she told Emma that she hates doing good. You only need to watch her when she's doing evil to see how happy it makes her. Percival described her laughing amid the murder and destruction of his village, so it's not like anyone should believe that she wouldn't revert simply because it makes her happy. There's not much tying her to being a better person when being bad feels so much better. 

I  have such a hard time dealing with Regina's poor me attitude about how doing good is so difficult for her. Let's all cry for the woman who can't enjoy herself now that she's not allowed to murder and terrorize her subjects.

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I  have such a hard time dealing with Regina's poor me attitude about how doing good is so difficult for her. Let's all cry for the woman who can't enjoy herself now that she's not allowed to murder and terrorize her subjects.

It's interesting how the Writers thought that would work to make the audience sympathesize with her.  The addiction to magic in 2A was a more valid reason for feeling sorry for Regina. 

And the solution for resisting doing evil deeds was to cut out the evil tendencies instead of you know, suffering through it or something.

[KingOfHearts]

The problem with doing good on this show is that everyone only does it for glory or obligation. It's not about true selflessness or legitimately caring about others. It's all a game about becoming a "hero". The morality is so bland because there's no heart behind it. Regina doesnt do good because she cares about the Charmings or feels bad for doing evil. She does it because she's forced to and needs validation. Her intentions are still selfish, hence why doing good is such a chore.

[tennisgurl]

One of the big problems with Regina and her "redemption" is that she never really seems to feel much empathy for her victims, or really seems to understand that she did horrible unspeakable things to them. She can vaugly say that she did "terrible things" but she never does much to try and make up for them or try to really apologize to the people she has wronged, especially when it comes to the random masses who differed under her. Its all about her and what benefits her the most. She thinks that her terrible deeds has led to her having bad karma and will never get a happy ending because of it so she hates that she did bad things. Not because murdering and raping people is bad, but because its been bad for HER and she thinks that its made HER life harder. Like remember how she reacted to Percival, just one season ago? He told her about how she gleefully murderered everyone he ever knew and loved, and she just gets defensive and asks if he plans on telling anyone, and then when he tries to get revenge he dies instantly and Regina never thinks about him or his dead family again, because he no longer affects her and her own plans. She never even shows shame at being called out, just annoyance that he might mess with her plans, but he is somehow the villain here because he had an issue with the woman who ruined his life. I mean, even in this very episode she is still going on about Snow "telling a secret" and she is crying and whining about how her evil deeds have made her life harder, its just ridiculous. She didnt just do some naughty things or some nasty things to survive that she now regrets, this is a person who gleefully and happily sent children to their deaths and slaughtered whole villages for no real reason, and she barley seems to care, has never suffered real punishment for what she did, and shows no remorse when called out by her former victims. Its always about her.

[Shanna Marie]

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The problem with doing good on this show is that everyone only does it for glory or obligation. It's not about true selflessness or legitimately caring about others. It's all a game about becoming a "hero". The morality is so bland because there's no heart behind it. Regina doesnt do good because she cares about the Charmings or feels bad for doing evil. She does it because she's forced to and needs validation. Her intentions are still selfish, hence why doing good is such a chore.

That's part of why I hate that they made "Savior" a general-purpose thing for Emma rather than being Curse-specific. She's the kind of person who would want to help others who needed help, whether or not that was her job title/destiny. She was doing that in season one before she even knew or believed that she was a Savior. She'd probably still be doing it. But making it her job and her destiny takes away from it because it's like it's an obligation and duty. She even has those moments of "I can't let myself enjoy myself because I'm the Savior and I don't get time off," which makes it like a burden. It would be so much better if there was a crisis and she jumped in to help because she wanted to help, not because she's the Savior and it's her job.

I think that's also part of why I enjoy redeemed Hook in the last few seasons. He's not trying to earn the title of hero (he even seems embarrassed when someone else brings it up, and he quips about the others being heroes, as though he's not in that group) and doesn't seem to feel like he should get any special benefits because he's being good. He may feel a bit obligated to help in cases where he's atoning for or trying to undo his own past evil, but otherwise he just jumps in to help because it's the right thing to do. There are no speeches about it being the right thing, there's no expectation of recognition or reward. He treats it like it's the obvious thing to do that anyone would have done. He just happened to be there and have the ability to help.

[Writing Wrongs]

On 6/23/2019 at 2:15 PM, Camera One said:

I guess we had been hoping for more reactions of regular humans to magic, so we got some in this episode.  Thanks A&E for warping our wishes beyond all recognition.

I thought it was weird that not one person had their smartphones out filming and taking pictures.