Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

S06.E02: A Bitter Draught


  • Reply
  • Start Topic

Recommended Posts

I want a scene where the EQ appears to Henry and tells him...."You do know your mother named you after the father she killed? Ripped his heart out right there,..and he was trying to help her.....You do know that she was trying to gaslight you after you found the book, and oh...this might be something to share with your other mother....Regina killed Graham...did you know that? And the reason?? Because he kissed Emma! So, they were like high school girls fighting over the cute guy, and that makes Regina the meanest mean girl of them all!...And here's the thing, since we are the same person, I know she is not that regretful about any of those things. So you Mr. Man, better just stay on her good side. Oh, and Regina has a sling in her bedroom which she liked to use to flog both Graham and Boring Hood...oh look the school bus is here gotta fly! Love you to pieces!!!!BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

I like the idea of a sneaky EQ sitting back and watching the Sh*t Show happen, but why even bother to exchange the revenge list with the Count if she can just pull his heart out and control him? And why not a trained assasin???

Edited by Mitch
  • Love 8
Link to comment
10 minutes ago, Mitch said:

...why even bother to exchange the revenge list with the Count if she can just pull his heart out and control him? And why not a trained assasin???

Good point. EQ Regina was acting like Rumple in the flashback and in present day.

  • Love 1
Link to comment

I just have no idea why they would throw out The Count of Monte Cristo like this, when they clearly has no idea who his character was, or anything about his story. The Land of Untold Stories is actually an interesting idea, but if this is what we have to look forward, I dread seeing which classic character they will make act out of character then get killed pointlessly for a main characters (probably Regina's) story. Hell, the Land of Untold Stories is actually sounds pretty accurate...his story is still untold! 

Its like the first season was the fun, interesting, early League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Alan Moore who provided fun interpretations of classic characters and genres, or showed the darkness underneath what was already there, whereas the last few seasons are the bitter, crazy old man later League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Alan Moore, who wants to bitch about any pop culture created after 1919, and considers making famous characters act ridiculously out of character to prop up his pet characters, or to be "edgy" to be the height of literary talent. 

Edited by tennisgurl
  • Love 3
Link to comment

Her current plan seems to be a little more clever. She's going to seed a bunch of information to make them doubt themselves and each other. The heroes will do her the favour of tearing themselves apart. Sounds a bit like Edmond's plan. Regina is doubting her goodness. Emma is doubting future. David is doubting his father's death and the finger will be pointed at one of his friends.

The Evil Queen is making Regina doubt herself, and David I suppose, but Emma doubting herself has nothing to do with The Evil Queen.  Like many others, I just don't buy the writers' reasons for The Evil Queen sitting around and waiting for everyone to "destroy" themselves.  She has always been impulsive and impatient.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

But this Evil Queen is a different Evil Queen than before. I'm still trying to puzzle out how we're supposed to see the Evil Queen as not Regina, but still see Regina as Regina. She's two people now, so Regina is also not herself. It's all very convoluted and makes zero sense.

  • Love 5
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Like many others, I just don't buy the writers' reasons for The Evil Queen sitting around and waiting for everyone to "destroy" themselves.  She has always been impulsive and impatient.

And wouldn't she be even more so without the good part of Regina acting as her conscience? If a fully integrated Regina that still had a potentially good side in her was impulsive and impatient and not really given to long-term planning (the long game was always Rumple's, and he had to constantly manipulate Regina to keep her on course), then why would a Regina who's fully evil, with nothing holding her back and not even the slightest shred of conscience be more patient and willing to let her enemies destroy themselves rather than just hurling fireballs at them?

  • Love 4
Link to comment

The moral of the story is: If you give your villain the power to easily destroy her enemies, you have to give her a very good reason not to do so right away -- something holding her back, something her enemies do to prevent it, some other powerful person protecting them, some scheme that's at least mentioned. This is especially important if her character has been established as rash and impulsive, doing things without thinking about consequences. Otherwise, you have to put limits on her power so that she hates without being able to actually do anything about it. But the person who has impulsively and rashly killed random people left and right just because she was in a bad mood, they didn't show her the love she felt she deserved, or they dared to get married on a day that was sad for her isn't going to hold back when dealing with the people she hates the most when what little conscience she ever had is removed. She has to at least try and be thwarted. Even Enchanted Forest Regina made multiple attempts to kill the Charmings. I can see her sparing Regina because she wants to turn her dark, but would she have really held back against the Charmings? I guess maybe the plan is to turn Regina so dark that she becomes a twin to her and kills the Charmings, herself, but it's really hard to imagine Regina's bad side denying herself the pleasure of offing Snow.

  • Love 7
Link to comment
35 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

But the person who has impulsively and rashly killed random people left and right just because she was in a bad mood, they didn't show her the love she felt she deserved, or they dared to get married on a day that was sad for her isn't going to hold back when dealing with the people she hates the most when what little conscience she ever had is removed.

 
 
 
 

It's especially bad when they showed a flashback of Regina casually killing a black knight while learning how to sword fight. But in the same episode in the present timeline, when she apparently has no conscience, she doesn't just kill people left and right? What? It would all make so much more sense if Evil Queen Regina wasn't actually corporeal and was more like a ghost who can't physically harm people, but she can mentally manipulate them.

Edited by Curio
  • Love 2
Link to comment

Did anyone else notice that Snowing were leaving town without their infant? Wouldn't they want to take him with them? Who's taking care of the baby anyway? Are they prepared to protect him from the Evil Queen? 

  • Love 1
Link to comment

It seemed to be Emma's spur-of-the-moment plan to drive them across the townline.  Snow and Charming didn't even know where they were going.

The other question is why she was driving them.  Why not just poof them to the Town Line.  

And why were Snowing wandering the docks later?  Shouldn't they have been safe at home with a protection spell around it?

Edited by Camera One
  • Love 2
Link to comment
16 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The moral of the story is: If you give your villain the power to easily destroy her enemies, you have to give her a very good reason not to do so right away -- something holding her back, something her enemies do to prevent it, some other powerful person protecting them, some scheme that's at least mentioned. This is especially important if her character has been established as rash and impulsive, doing things without thinking about consequences. Otherwise, you have to put limits on her power so that she hates without being able to actually do anything about it. But the person who has impulsively and rashly killed random people left and right just because she was in a bad mood, they didn't show her the love she felt she deserved, or they dared to get married on a day that was sad for her isn't going to hold back when dealing with the people she hates the most when what little conscience she ever had is removed. She has to at least try and be thwarted. Even Enchanted Forest Regina made multiple attempts to kill the Charmings. I can see her sparing Regina because she wants to turn her dark, but would she have really held back against the Charmings? I guess maybe the plan is to turn Regina so dark that she becomes a twin to her and kills the Charmings, herself, but it's really hard to imagine Regina's bad side denying herself the pleasure of offing Snow.

Agreed..and if they were clever...(hahahaha) they would do two things..first of all, explain that the EQ is not flesh and blood...she is more of a projection of Regina or a Freddy Krueger type character that can only hurt you if you give them the power. Her magic should be limited..and they had a good start when they had her mention that she used up all the Dragon's magic things to get to SB (but I suppose that was because she was in the LWOM) and then having to go raid Regina's crypt to get enough magic to put up the barrier. So she needs to play mind games and this time wait and plot you know, like a good villain and not a cartoon like she usually is. This would also explain how Hyde is not effected by magic...he's not real, just a projection of the other's evil desires and wishes. Because, really why not pull David's heart out right there and if not kill him, make him kill Snow???

Second...EQ only has a limited life span and she NEEDS to reignite the Evil in Regina to actually live. Again, this gives her a reason to turn Regina evil, not just cause she is a villain and you know, they do bad things.

Actually, at this point I would have magic dying in SB..little by little. Magic doens't belong here as they have said and Rump's original spell to bring it back is no match for our world which quaranteed the magic before, and is actually destroying it like as if it was a cancer cell. This would be a good lead into the end of the show.

  • Love 1
Link to comment

I'm actually #TeamEvilQueen if only because she's the one with a brain. While Regina's pitying herself, she's getting crap done and totally owning it. EQ doesn't demand everyone love her. She's not Mary Sue. She's an entity with a mission, and I respect that more than Regina's tears falling into her lasagna. Even though she's evil, she's just so much more tolerable to watch.

Edited by KingOfHearts
  • Love 6
Link to comment
18 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The moral of the story is: If you give your villain the power to easily destroy her enemies, you have to give her a very good reason not to do so right away -- something holding her back, something her enemies do to prevent it, some other powerful person protecting them, some scheme that's at least mentioned. This is especially important if her character has been established as rash and impulsive, doing things without thinking about consequences. Otherwise, you have to put limits on her power so that she hates without being able to actually do anything about it. But the person who has impulsively and rashly killed random people left and right just because she was in a bad mood, they didn't show her the love she felt she deserved, or they dared to get married on a day that was sad for her isn't going to hold back when dealing with the people she hates the most when what little conscience she ever had is removed. She has to at least try and be thwarted. Even Enchanted Forest Regina made multiple attempts to kill the Charmings. I can see her sparing Regina because she wants to turn her dark, but would she have really held back against the Charmings? I guess maybe the plan is to turn Regina so dark that she becomes a twin to her and kills the Charmings, herself, but it's really hard to imagine Regina's bad side denying herself the pleasure of offing Snow.

Actually, you know what would have been interesting?  If they had gone the whole hog on this and had the Evil Queen point out that she hasn't killed a single person all this time she's been split from Regina (even the Dragon will be showing up still alive later on), but that Regina just killed Edmond out of impulse rather than try to find another way.  The conclusion being that it was never the Evil Queen side of Regina that was the impulsive killer, but the Regina side of her, the so-called "good" side!  Maybe that is what they were going for, but it didn't really come off that way in the episode.

Edited by Mathius
  • Love 11
Link to comment
Quote

 The conclusion being that it was never the Evil Queen side of Regina that was the impulsive killer, but the Regina side of her, the so-called "good" side!  Maybe that is what they were going for, but it didn't really come off that way in the episode.

Someone's been watching too much Dead of Summer. ;)

  • Love 1
Link to comment
20 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm actually #TeamEvilQueen if only because she's the one with a brain. While Regina's pitying herself, she's getting crap done and totally owning it. EQ doesn't demand everyone love her. She's not Mary Sue. She's an entity with a mission, and I respect that more than Regina's tears falling into her lasagna. Even though she's evil, she's just so much more tolerable to watch.

She seems to also be the only one having any fun..the only Rumple I like is SolidGoldRumple as at least he has a sense of humor and enjoys playing with people. Snow and Charms have always been boring blocks of seriousness, Emma and Hook use to have a bit of spark, back when Hook was "bad," and Emma was giving it back to him..now they are in LURVE..and lost all their fun as the next angst comes there way, Henry opens his mouth and big yawning hole of dull, sanctimonious stupidity opens up, Zelena is fun when she gets a zinger or funny line "I was all for running..." but now she is sad and moping around with that baby...Belle....is Belle. I like Regina but I am tired of her sliding back and forth and whining...just let her be a gray character that the others don't totally trust and she doesnt give a damn and just likes to look great and toss of bitchy one liners.

I just hope she continues to mess with people's heads as she struts down main street with a martini in hand like Karen Walker in full drag get up.  If only she could diss Henry ("Fairy tales and HEROES how the hell old are you anyway?" )I would be hers completely!

Edited by Mitch
  • Love 2
Link to comment

The Count of Monte Cristo, I really liked the casting but it felt like they wasted him a bit even if was just get the Evil Queen to get one over on Regina.

Hook's scenes with Belle were great and I liked him making amends with her and taking responsibility for his past actions too.

Did not need to see Evil Queen flirting with Rumple at all. Zelena seemed too easily swayed by her as well.

Regina will 'kill' Emma then? 7/10

Link to comment
16 minutes ago, AudienceofOne said:

I know I'm echoing a previous sentiment but I'm hoping somebody could explain to me how 'Untold Stories' are any different from what the show has been doing since Day 1?

Replying in All-Seasons.

Edited by Camera One
  • Love 1
Link to comment
Just now, Camera One said:

The concept is so undefined that I don't think even A&E knows.

I mean, the entire point of the show is that we see a fairytale we think we know subverted and told differently. That's literally the premise. 
I admit I was confused at the end of last season when we went to the Land of Untold Stories and met Jekyll and Hyde. Because... not an untold story.  And that has continued this season. Counte of Monte Christo? Not an untold story.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

I replied in All-Seasons, but their "concept" was that the Monte Cristo story was stopped in the middle.  I agree, yeah, that's more an Unfinished Story than an Untold Story, but they already did Unfinished Business last arc, so...

Link to comment

Maybe they mean this version of the Monte Cristo tale has been untold thus far.  But yeah, that is the case with every story since Season 1.  Like the Bandit Snow story was previously untold, or the Young Evil Queen story was previously untold.  Definitely agree with you that this is nothing new.

Edited by Camera One
Link to comment

This one was almost as hard to make myself watch as the previous one. I think the Count of Monte Cristo wins the series-wide award for "Series character that entirely misses the point of the original character." The book character was about the long game, getting his revenge subtly and behind the scenes, destroying his enemies' lives without them realizing what was going on. Not walking up to his enemy at a ball, announcing his revenge, and stabbing him.

I did like the scene between Hook and Belle because it's nice to see a former villain admit responsibility for his past actions and express remorse, but it's strange that she didn't react at all to seeing him in the diner, considering that when she went into the sleeping curse, he was dead. I guess she had so much confidence in Emma's plan to save him that she just assumed it would work and she wasn't surprised to see him alive again. Actually, everyone seems to have forgotten that Hook was dead.

Seeing the setup with the coin makes me want to tear my hair out. The one time they actually bother to set up a plot in advance, and it's this one (though it sounds like they originally planned to do that story much earlier in the season, considering they were discussing it at ComicCon, so it must have been part of the frantic rewriting that was apparently going on).

  • Love 2
Link to comment
(edited)

I still have to thank this episode for giving me motivation for reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" that summer.  I mean, if I had watched this episode first, I would never have read it. 

Spoiler

I also read "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and "Jekyll & Hyde" too.  It really paid off, LOL.

Edited by Camera One
  • Love 1
Link to comment

The Savior shakes look even sillier out of context when they're in a montage in the "previously on" segment before this episode. I really hate this plot. It's yet another example of the way this show ignores the situations it's already set up and never really deals with them in favor of throwing on some new thing (that also won't be dealt with). If they wanted to throw a monkey wrench in the relationship between Emma and Hook (since apparently happy couples are boring and they can't be happy and do stuff like team up with the Three Musketeers to fight Mr. Hyde), there was plenty of material there. We just did the Emma WALLS storyline a couple of episodes ago, and she was supposedly cured, so it's boring to do it here. But Hook just came back from the dead due to divine intervention, was horribly tortured in the underworld, died horribly, was made the Dark One against his wishes by Emma and had to deal with Emma being the Dark One. Plus, he learned that his whole self image of being the bad one while his brother was the good one is a lie, since his brother sacrificed a ship full of men to his own ambitions and he was apparently good enough for a god to give him a second chance at life. He's got nightmare fuel there, as well as probably being in need of therapy. I could imagine that he'd be waking up in the night from some bad nightmares and that might make him want to avoid moving in with Emma for a while. He might use hosting Belle as an excuse.

And I'm tired of Emma having a dark cloud of doom hanging over her. That gets old.

  • Love 3
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If they wanted to throw a monkey wrench in the relationship between Emma and Hook (since apparently happy couples are boring and they can't be happy and do stuff like team up with the Three Musketeers to fight Mr. Hyde), there was plenty of material there.

That's what I wanted to see. You're right that there was angst to be mined from the previous season, but after all that sturm und drang I wanted Emma and Hook to be in a good place, happy together and kicking ass, enjoying their new lease on life, to use a cliché.

  • Love 3
Link to comment
(edited)

So Regina walks into the diner and tells the Untold Stories people that they ran away because they were afraid "whatever was in this book is going to play out."

I thought the Author wrote what he or she observed.  So why would there be un-played out stories in that book?  And what was the Count of Monte Cristo's story in there anyway?  It's clearly different than the actual novel's ending, where the Count is just fine.  Didn't that storybook just tell the story of what happened before they went to the Land of Untold Stories?

Knowing what's going to happen just made the story weaker.  Though Regina's inspirational speech to a bunch of strangers wearing random costumes from a Halloween shop was just as bad.  "Whatever's going to come next - we're going to face it... together!"  

I forgot the line with Emma telling Belle that she would not "wish Granny's mattresses on anyone" immediately after they gave rooms to the Untold Stories people.  Are these Writers as insensitive and selfish as they make the characters seem?

Edited by Camera One
  • Love 2
Link to comment

Oh yay! Another episode where someone actively chooses to do the right thing and gives up his revenge only to be punished with death and no one caring in the least. But the best way to fight the Evil Queen is to be happy, right? Snowing are the worst.

Charlotte's death adds another to Rumpel's body count in his pursuit of getting to Bae. This will never be mentioned again and he'll suffer zero consequences for a young girl's death. Not to mention her poor sick mother whom she was leaving court to go take of, who probably never knew what happened to her. 

I still don't understand why Regina is immediately absolved of killing Edmond Dantes. He was not magical, he was not holding a gun directly to Snow's head such that a split second could end in her death and Regina has complete control of her magic. Just poof his sword away and throw Edmond to the ground. Or poof him to the jail. There was zero need for her to kill him.

  • Love 2
Link to comment
15 hours ago, Camera One said:

I forgot the line with Emma telling Belle that she would not "wish Granny's mattresses on anyone" immediately after they gave rooms to the Untold Stories people.  Are these Writers as insensitive and selfish as they make the characters seem?

I suspect that line was a combo of them trying to be "funny" (like the various jokes about Hook's hand, Snow's weight during pregnancy, etc.) and them trying to explain why Belle would live on the Jolly Roger rather than get a room at Granny's, which was unnecessary since the influx of Untold Stories people perfectly explained why there was no room at the inn for Belle.

6 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I still don't understand why Regina is immediately absolved of killing Edmond Dantes. He was not magical, he was not holding a gun directly to Snow's head such that a split second could end in her death and Regina has complete control of her magic. Just poof his sword away and throw Edmond to the ground. Or poof him to the jail. There was zero need for her to kill him.

It's interesting how Henry says she had no choice. I guess this isn't a "heroes don't kill" situation, huh? That only applies to stopping an evil person. But a good person being forced, well, what're ya gonna do?

Link to comment
(edited)

Oh yeah, thats exactly what the Count of Monte Cristo would do to get his revenge. Spend decades on his revenge and then just give a rambling speech explaining his whole plan like a damn Batman villain and just stab the guy in the middle of a crowded room. I have frequently complained about the show not using their premise to show different kinds of stories outside of fairy tales and other medieval magic stories, but maybe its for the best as these guys clearly have no clue how any story works, the characters in them, and how they should actually act. He might as well have been any random guy the little this episode had to do with the novel  Count of Monte Cristo or its main character.

But when Emma had to kill Cruella to save Henry? Clearly her soul was tainted and she did an evil horrible thing and its all her fault. 

The poor guy though, yet another person dead because of Regina and her bullshit. He really didnt want to do evil and was trying to move on from revenge, and he gets killed because Regina couldn't bother to come up with a way to stop him from stabbing Snow beside killing him. He was just a normal guy with a normal sword, she could have poofed the sword away, poofed him to prison until they can find a way to help him, poofed away Snow and Charming, there were literally a billion other options beyond killing him. She did that because killing people is what she goes for first because its easier for her than thinking of other ideas. As much as everyone kept repeating that hallow "you had no choice, it wasnt your fault" platitude, it was her fault, plain and simple. And its hilarious (hilariously sad) that even as an innocent man is laying there dead with a sword in his stomach, everyone's first response is to run over and comfort the woman who just stabbed him.

Oh, and lets add poor never before mentioned and will never be mentioned again Charlotte to Rumples body count of people he killed as part of his stupid convoluted plans. And maybe her sick mother who lost her daughter and source of income when Charlotte died/disappeared, she presumably died alone never knowing what happened to her daughter. Such hope!

It is funny how any episode where someone from Regina's past shows up to remind her of her evil deeds, it usually ends up with them dying pointlessly and violently and never mentioned again while everyone cries about Regina. While in, say, the episode where Hook ran into Ursula, a person he hurt in his dark past, he worked super hard to help her, reunited her with her estranged father, and she left evil behind and everyone got a happy ending. Just saying.

Edited by tennisgurl
  • Love 2
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...