S06.E03: The Other Shoe

[tri4335]

13 minutes ago, Mitch said:

  I also would like a throw off like about Nurse Ratched and the janitor (Snow, "Why are they still here?" Regina, "I don't know, they really LIKE it down here,,,its weird even for me!")

My favorite scene was the end one...EQ and Hyde waltzing out of the jail/crazy house in full Victorian OT finery, cocky crazy looks on their faces as the janitor looks on. It all makes crazy sense for this crazy a** show. 

 

It's funny about Nurse Ratched and the janitor. I know that the show is suppose to be "real fairy tale characters in the real world"  but every time we see the glimpse of those two (and I believe they've been in every season), it makes me think that this is really some committed person's grand illusion. And that the brief appearances of the nurse and janitor are the only "real" moments in the series.

[Mari]

I also had to laugh that Regina's much bragged about lasagna not only never seems to get eaten, but she expected someone else to actually take care of it.

[Mitch]

On 10/9/2016 at 11:30 PM, twoods said:

Hyde is freaking hot- I don't know if it's that voice or the way he carries himself but wow. Him and TEQ look good together. 

I liked the twist that the stepsister was nice, and glad she got her happy ending. 

Captain Swan always make me happy. Don't screw with them for the billionth time, please.

Oh David, this is not good. The killer is probably Regina or Hook so he's going to go all nutso on them. He's just like his daughter, hiding secrets from the ones they love.

Yes...I find Hyde to be a "strangely erotic attraction," to me (as he would say..though creepier with a leer and you would still hit it...) The only thing stopping it all, and I think this is a great make up choice, is that red eye....Hey EQ  that looks like pink eye to me! Also, I think any date with him would involve fine dining, great wine, intelligent but increasingly odd conversation ("No I am sorry, I am not up on the mating rituals of tarantulas..") ..but you would end up tied up in chains and a silk scarf blind fold while Chopin plays in the background, which wouldnt be my thing but I think the EQ would totally dig it.

Like with Cruella I wish they would keep Hyde and the EQ as permanent residents..they could be the Gomez and Morticia of SB.."No Sheriff Swan, I had no idea in this odd world of yours that when a child appears on your porch loudly insisting that they get a Trick or a Treat...that the trick didn't involve electro shock therapy!!"

[honeywest]

On 10/10/2016 at 2:47 AM, InsertWordHere said:

I cannot give enough props to the actress playing Ella's stepmother. I could swear she was channeling Meryl Streep at some points. Over the top sinister Meryl Streep, I mean.

The actress was Lisa Banes. I saw her play Desdemona as a student at Juilliard, probably in the late 1970s, and I remember thinking that people probably told her she resembled Meryl Streep (who was the hottest young Off Broadway actress in NYC at the time). I thought that Banes was terrific as the stepmother (also, that I'm old).

Edited October 12, 2016 by honeywest

[Shanna Marie]

When the Evil Queen poofed Emma, Henry, and Hook away, for a moment I thought they were outside the town line and couldn't see the town. Ever since then, my brain's been following rabbit trails of how that story might have gone -- would they have been able to throw Ingrid's scroll out to let them in, or would the Evil Queen's protection spell that stopped the car at the town line also stop that? -- with the three of them having a kind of "Team Princess" adventure of being stuck in the wrong world and trying to find the way back, only they're in our world, where Emma knows her way around and Henry's at least familiar with customs, but Hook's totally a fish out of water, but then he's the one who's experienced in portal travel and possibly able to find a way for them to get to some other magical world, from which they can then travel to Storybrooke. After all, he was able to get to the World Without Magic via bean portal once Storybrooke existed, so maybe it could work the other way.

While we're wondering about Emma moving, and all that, how did Belle get the stuff to redecorate the captain's cabin? If she's hiding, surely she didn't go shopping. Is that just stuff she found on board, old loot from Hook's pirate days? Or maybe some of Milah's stuff? That would be ironic, if Rumple's wife #2 is using wife #1's stuff.

[InsertWordHere]

39 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

When the Evil Queen poofed Emma, Henry, and Hook away, for a moment I thought they were outside the town line and couldn't see the town.

I had that thought too! Only I think Hook at least would be able to get back in because he cast the latest "curse." Emma and Henry have left before and come back but that was before the scroll entered the story. Actually, the scroll thing kind of confuses me. I'd prefer it if Storybrooke, like Hogwarts, had some kind of "notice me not" charms around it and only people in the know or particularly astute real worlders could get in.

At any rate, would EQ even be able to push them past the town line?  The power of her teleport would just fizzle out at the line, wouldn't it?

As for the Captain's Quarters, it looked to me like Belle just added a tea set and some books and flowers. All those other fabrics were already there, jut draped differently. Maybe Snow or Charming brought her some flowers and packed up the books. The tea set could have already been on board.  

[Rumsy4]

2 hours ago, InsertWordHere said:

As for the Captain's Quarters, it looked to me like Belle just added a tea set and some books and flowers. All those other fabrics were already there, jut draped differently. Maybe Snow or Charming brought her some flowers and packed up the books. The tea set could have already been on board.  

Heh. I did a post on this. I think the tea set at least belongs to Belle. Hook seems to have preferred copper/brass utensils.

[Dianthus]

I think that Moving Day for both Hook and Emma would be more like 15 minutes. Neither one of them has a lot of personal belongings, aside from clothing and toiletries, and the place seems to have come already furnished. IDK. Maybe it's curse-related somehow.

[AudienceofOne]

I have no idea what's happening on this show anymore. Like, literally, no clue.

[AudienceofOne]

The Untold Story concept makes no sense. Jekyll and Hyde? Count of Monte Christo? Cinderella? Not untold stories.

Now Cinderella's ugly stepsister, that was technically an untold story. But by telling it through Cinderella's story it just came off as the same 'twist' on an existing story we already know. I can't see any difference this season to what the show has been about since Day 1 except that they continue to prop Regina and gut punch Emma for no real reason.

I did get me some Captain Swan AND some Hook/Henry. So there's that.

Edited October 13, 2016 by AudienceofOne

[Arnella]

So at least Jane Espenson lets David speak more than a few lines.  Let's hope A&E won't handwave away his storyline when they see a shinier new toy. 

They have an out since Snow is trying to shut it down.  Let's not forget that they were cursed for 30 years so it wasn't a "decades old crime".  There is a MURDERER running around somewhere.  Learning the motive might involve public safety.  

AND why would Snow ascribe vengeance as a motive to David of all people! He might actually need and deserve justice Snow!

[YaddaYadda]

6 hours ago, AudienceofOne said:

The Untold Story concept makes no sense. Jekyll and Hyde? Count of Monte Christo? Cinderella? Not untold stories.

Now Cinderella's ugly stepsister, that was technically an untold story. But by telling it through Cinderella's story it just came off as the same 'twist' on an existing story we already know. I can't see any difference this season to what the show has been about since Day 1 except that they continue to prop Regina and gut punch Emma for no real reason.

You are overthinking this. I don't even know why they're using Henry's book for this when it's the books in NYC that seem to be more relevant.

[Rumsy4]

It wasn't the same book. Maybe a second book appeared in Regina's closet when the Dirigible landed. But why on earth do the stories in that book have endings as they "should" have played out? It made no sense to me.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The most important thing in this episode is we learned that the dwarves are no longer throwing tacos at the Dopey tree because he's off getting a master's degree.

Adorable: Hook putting whipped cream on his nose to entertain little Alexandra.

Jessy Schram will always be Hannah on Veronica Mars to me, so even though she's 30 now I keep thinking she's in high school. In the barn scene, I kept waiting for her to try to take the gun away from her stepmother but she just stood behind her looking helpless. If Ashley's only intention was to fix things for her stepsister, why did she march off with a gun?

Emma, I know you're the savior and all, but no need to be so rude and self-centered that you barge into a therapist's office when you don't have an appointment and then just wait for Grumpy to leave so you can vent to Archie. Have some manners, girl!

Jekyll and Frankenstein working together - ha! Now I can't wait for izombie's season premiere.

[Camera One]

Quote

 

I kept waiting for her to try to take the gun away from her stepmother but she just stood behind her looking helpless. If Ashley's only intention was to fix things for her stepsister, why did she march off with a gun?

It was for the "surprise twist" that the Evil Stepmother also went to the Land of Untold Stories.  Ashley took it to defend herself against the stepmother.  We were supposed to believe that she really was out for revenge against her stepsister instead.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Camera One

[Mitch]

16 hours ago, InsertWordHere said:

At any rate, would EQ even be able to push them past the town line?  The power of her teleport would just fizzle out at the line, wouldn't it?

That is what I thought...though maybe she meant to push them past the townline but that was as far as the magic would go..(it seemed to be the same road but no "Welcome to.." sign. )

 

9 hours ago, AudienceofOne said:

he Untold Story concept makes no sense. Jekyll and Hyde? Count of Monte Christo? Cinderella? Not untold stories.

Plus, how do these people think their lives are stories? The fairytale characters are freaked out when they learn they are famous in our world. It should have had another name entirely and it was just a land where people went to escape their lives..(also, is time frozen there like during the curse? )How do peoples stories end if they go on living..their stories just take a different turn? The author and book thing was stupid and convoluted so they really shouldn't pursue that further.

 

3 hours ago, Arnella said:

AND why would Snow ascribe vengeance as a motive to David of all people! He might actually need and deserve justice Snow!

I think Snow mistook David for someone who had emotions. Most people would be kind of angry if something like that would happen to them but David needs to come out of the coma he has been in since the show started. I do like the thought of a murder mystery consuming SB...maybe a realm hopping killer was loose and is now hiding there.  Oh no...is Sherlock Holmes in public domain???

[Writing Wrongs]

I hate Sam Witwer's Bane impersonation he is doing for Hyde's voice. It's grating.

[Randomosity]

5 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I hate Sam Witwer's Bane impersonation he is doing for Hyde's voice. It's grating.

Agree. But less grating than Emma's Dark Swan voice. I despised that.

[Camera One]

Jane Espenson's Twitter explains why Clorinda and not Drizella...

Jane Espenson  ‏@JaneEspenson
Mildly fun fact: We took these names for Cinderella's step sisters from the Rossini opera 

Splash Lights Media ‏@Two_Cams25  
I like the Stepsisters' names from the animated film. I'm going to forget who they are in this series. #OnceUponATime #OUAT
 
Jane Espenson  ‏@JaneEspenson
@Two_Cams25 We played with the idea of using Drizella, but Ella/Drizella/Cruella... we have a lot of Ellas.

[Shanna Marie]

This may be material for the Unpopular Opinions thread, but while the scene of Hook and little Alexandra was Awwwww-inspiring and quite reasonably made Emma's ovaries explode, I'm not entirely crazy about it because it seemed somewhat out of character for him. It was one of the few moments when I've felt we were seeing Colin rather than Hook. He protested and seemed dismayed when he was handed the baby, so it wasn't like the running gag on Haven in which the stoic tough-guy cop turned into a cooing puddle of goo in the presence of a baby. Hook has a sense of humor, but he doesn't really do silly or goofy. He always plays it cool. It would have been more in character for him to first go to his usual moves to win people over -- the "I'm so pretty, you've got to love me" smile, batting the baby blues, and charm offensive that generally works on everyone, especially all females. Only when that failed might he have eventually resorted to breaking his cool demeanor and getting silly.

Though I guess they're constrained by the reality of a child too young to understand what's going on and that she's supposed to be acting, so the adult actors have to behave in a way that will elicit the response they need from her. There was probably a fair amount of off-camera work to get her comfortable with the adult actors and figure out how to get her to respond, and that may be why it was more "Colin" than "Hook" in that scene if the child was more comfortable with Colin than "Hook." And I guess they didn't have time in the scene for him to start with the smile and gradually get more desperate when he realized that didn't work on a toddler. Maybe the idea was to show him in a drastically different light. Still, the impression it left me with was "Aw, I bet Colin's a great dad" rather than "Hook was cute with that kid." But I may need to watch it a few times to be sure. For science.

[Camera One]

People should post unpopular opinions where they belong, and this is definitely the right spot for that thought.  I did think the scene was cute, but it was a bit over-the-top to me.  It was a quick and clunky way to make sure Emma was "jealous" that she might be robbed of her future.  The conversation with Archie would have been much better if they left the word "jealous" out of it... Emma would naturally have found the thought of her future painful without the need to be jealous of others (and I still don't buy that she would have been).

[KAOS Agent]

Yeah, I thought the Hook & Alexandra scene was all Colin and it took me out of the scene. If you watch too, you'll see that Colin is paying a lot of attention to the kid when he's out of focus off to the side. It's not Hook keeping a kid occupied, it's an actor who's aware that there is a small child there and working hard to keep her attention while the rest of the scene is being filmed. I was confused about the "doggy" part too. Why would he ask about her dog? I assume the little girl playing Alexandra has a dog and that's what he was using to draw her interest, but maybe she was carrying a stuffed dog and I missed it?

Edited October 14, 2016 by KAOS Agent

[Shanna Marie]

32 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I did think the scene was cute, but it was a bit over-the-top to me.  It was a quick and clunky way to make sure Emma was "jealous" that she might be robbed of her future.

I think maybe that's what was bugging me about it. It wasn't a character moment for Hook. It wasn't really even a character moment for Emma. It was just a clunky way to set up her talking to Archie about her fears for the future, leading to her asking Hook to move in with her. And to get that, they did a scene that could have been ripped from a bad fanfic, so that it was a very generic "woman sees her boyfriend being cute with a baby and starts thinking of their future" moment rather than really a moment that had anything to do with Hook or Emma or Ashley. Like, why would Ashley plunk her baby down with a near stranger (he's Emma's boyfriend, which gives him some credibility, but has Ashley ever so much as spoken to this guy?) with a sharp, pointy object for a left hand when all she was going to do was read a book? The whole thing was very inorganic, and the term "jealous" also didn't seem to fit. Besides, Emma sure is putting a lot of stock in a vision and a warning from someone she was sent to by a villain, especially considering her last vision didn't play out to be at all what she thought it would be, and didn't she learn then that sitting around hiding from the vision didn't do any good? Based on a vision and a cryptic warning, she's jealous of something that up to that point she hadn't even thought of having or tried to have?

1 minute ago, KAOS Agent said:

I was confused about the "doggy" part too. Why would he ask about her dog? I assume the little girl has a dog and that's what he was using to draw her interest, but maybe she was carrying a stuffed dog and I missed it?

As I recall, she had a stuffed toy with her. (In spite of saying I needed to watch it again for science, I haven't. I usually rewatch the previous week's episode right before watching the new one, and so far this season there hasn't been anything that had me rewatching the good parts during the week.)

[Camera One]

I'm trying to figure out why the Archie-Emma conversation didn't hit me when it affected so many others.  So I was reading the transcript of it.

This conversation was pretty long.  Will we ever get a solo scene with Emma/David or Emma/Snow of this length?  When was the last time?

EMMA: You know that I'm not a jealous person.
ARCHIE: But?
EMMA: But seeing Ashley today with her perfectly happy family.
ARCHIE: Made you jealous.  Because you're not happy?
EMMA: No, because I am happy and I know it's going away.  That vision of my future.  My number is up.  And every time I think about it, then that thing happens, and my magic goes away.
ARCHIE: The mind has a profound effect on the body.  Whenever I get nervous, I get hives.
EMMA: My magic doesn't have hives.  My magic is failing! 

----------

I remember when watching this, I was really annoyed at the jealousy part and I still am.  That hives line made me groan.  Do therapists interrupt their patients and finish their sentences for them?

--------

ARCHIE: Um let's just say it is, okay? Is that a reason to stop striving for what you want? Emma, any day, I-I could walk out that door and I could get hit by a bus, but that hasn't stopped me from walking out the door.

-------

The bus thing wasn't a similar situation at all.  Emma KNOWS she will die soon, and how.  At least give a response which matches the problem.

-------

EMMA: This is not about a bus.  It's very hard to keep this secret from my family.  Like Hook and me, we should be living together.  He wants to, I want to.  Hook's waiting for me to ask him.
ARCHIE: So why don't you?
EMMA: Because he deserves a future and I can't give that to him.  I feel like a fraud.  This happiness is an illusion.  I went and fought for everybody else's happy endings, and then I don't get mine.
ARCHIE: Emma, maybe it's not about how you end things.  Maybe it's about how you live them.

------

Is it supposed to be funny to have Emma take everything literally?  I'm also not a fan of these super short staccato sentences, though when watched, the actress actually makes them sound fine.  That keeping the secret from her family line was just thrown in there and felt out of place.  This whole "Hook deserves a future and [she] can't give that to him" bit... didn't she already feel this way as Dark Swan?  Wasn't she feeling the same at this exact time last season?  That whole "I fought for everybody's happy ending and I don't get mine" line sounded like a whiny villain speech in reverse.  And then that last line felt like a repeat of David's line to Emma in 3A about living the moments in between the fights.  

Edited October 14, 2016 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

Archie is a terrible therapist who ends up being the mouthpiece for the writers in explaining the themes they'd like you to see for Emma's story this season. It's very clunky and annoying. I also find it annoying that Emma's "secret" is such a big deal. She's getting help, help that her family specifically suggested, to work through this issue, so I will not be happy when her family gets angry and feels betrayed when it inevitably comes out. 

The only thing about the conversation that worked for me was Emma feeling like a fraud because the happiness and ideas of a happy future are an illusion if she's going to die soon. That's the part where I can finally understand her guilt about not telling anyone. It does protect them and keeps them from obstructing her from living her life as she wants, but it also denies them the opportunity to prepare for the loss and essentially gives false hope of a bright future. 

[Shanna Marie]

57 minutes ago, Camera One said:

The bus thing wasn't a similar situation at all.  Emma KNOWS she will die soon, and how.  At least give a response which matches the problem.

At the same time, I still think it's kind of vague how she thinks she knows. She's being awfully fatalistic about it and basing this idea on what someone she doesn't know told her, after she followed the advice of someone she knows she can't trust. Did Archie not think to mention this to her and ask if maybe there's a part of her that kind of wants it to be true, and that's why she's treating it as a foregone conclusion? This whole situation strikes me as a very contrived way to get Emma to be seeing Archie, which is a contrived way for us to know what's going on with her when she's not talking to any of the people she'd normally talk to. She could use a therapist to deal with her crappy childhood, her abandonment issues, and, yeah, the burden of having everyone expect her to solve their problems. Dealing with prophecy seems out of a therapist's area of expertise.

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

This whole "Hook deserves a future and [she] can't give that to him" bit... didn't she already feel this way as Dark Swan?  Wasn't she feeling the same at this exact time last season?

I don't really get that line of reasoning, but it's not just this show that constantly trots it out as an excuse for conflict. So, say she is going to die. Does shutting Hook out now make it any better for him? Will he be glad he spent their last days/weeks together sleeping on the Jolly Roger rather than being with her? Will that make it easier for him when she dies? Or is he going to be left wishing he could have spent that time with her? Wouldn't it be better for him to have some more memories of her? I could see never approaching him to start a relationship in the first place if she knew/believed she was about to die, so he could remain blissfully ignorant and never get involved, but they're already about as emotionally involved as it's possible to be. He's already died for her. Now matter what she does now, he's going to be gutted when/if she dies. Nothing she does now is going to change that, but he might feel somewhat better if he felt like they made the most of their time together than he would if she'd kept him away and he was aware of missed opportunities. That's where the bus line was probably not the best response by Archie. It's not about whether she might live or die, whether or not she has a prophecy. It's whether she's really helping Hook by shutting him out, and maybe forcing her to consider why she's really shutting him out.

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

That whole "I fought for everybody's happy ending and I don't get mine" line sounded like a whiny villain speech in reverse.

I'd actually find it interesting to explore how it sucks to be the hero of a fairy tale or fantasy story. That would be a cool fairy tale deconstruction. Yeah, they generally get that happy ending, but they go through utter hell to get there, and they only get the happiness at the very end. Meanwhile, the villains are happy and successful until the very end. In life, you don't get to the very end until the very end, so if you're living a life instead of a story, you've got to wonder when the suck stops, when they get to enjoy that happily ever after. However, it doesn't really work on this show when they've already spent an entire year exploring how villains don't get happy endings after Regina's boyfriend decided to go back to his wife. Now we've got Emma, who put her life on hold and nearly lost the man she loves after she voluntarily took on the Darkness to save the world, and she's had about 30 seconds with him after he came back from the dead before she gets whammied with the news that she's going to die. In that respect, nothing she says is actually all that whiny. I'd love her to be able to unload on Regina about rallying around her minor setback that was treated like a world crisis when it turns out that being a Savior is worse than being a villain.

I'd love it if the resolution for this story line is that Emma is no longer a designated "Savior" but just an ordinary hero who helps save the day because she wants to, not because it's some kind of fated cosmic duty. The town is full of heroes who can help carry the load.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

At the same time, I still think it's kind of vague how she thinks she knows. She's being awfully fatalistic about it and basing this idea on what someone she doesn't know told her, after she followed the advice of someone she knows she can't trust.

We, as an audience, take the prophecy more seriously because we know the narrative wouldn't introduce it if it weren't going to happen in some way. It would be awfully anticlimactic if the Oracle was totally wrong or Hyde lied. We trust the dialogue to clue us in on key information, and if a character has no presented motivation for lying, we just take it. My point is that Emma should be taking a greater grain of salt than the viewers.

Quote

 Dealing with prophecy seems out of a therapist's area of expertise.

Archie is in no position to deal with Emma's magical Savior disease.

[Camera One]

At the same time, I still think it's kind of vague how she thinks she knows. She's being awfully fatalistic about it and basing this idea on what someone she doesn't know told her, after she followed the advice of someone she knows she can't trust.

Oh absolutely.  I could not buy that Emma would just believe Hyde or that vision.  And what she SHOULD have been doing in Episode 2 and 3, was not to talk to Archie, but to find out everything she could about Saviors and the Oracle and red birds, etc.   What makes sense would be to talk to Blue about what she knows about the Savior lore.  And Jekyll since he's Hyde's other half.  And then when Belle came back, get her researching.  Emma could have done this together with Snow, after she asked her to help her find the Red Bird.

And then regarding that coin, instead of that pointless conversation with Snow, David could have talked to Emma about being obsessed with the coin.  Emma would understand what it felt like to want to know what happened in the past, and this could have been a father/daughter search.

Then immediately, you could have Emma working with both her parents on two different fronts, instead of psychobabble.

[Rumsy4]

I don't get why Snow was so insistent that David should not try to figure out how his father had died. She's bulldozed her opinions over his so much, he doesn't even get to decide on matters that primarily concern him.

[Camera One]

It's only to create tension.  Oooh, David's doing stuff behind everyone's back.  Who needs organic character building when you can have cheap suspense.  We didn't even get to see David tell Snow about the coin so we don't even know what she knows about it.  If she does know that the coin came from The Evil Queen, it makes sense for him to take a step back and think about whether he wants to fall right into her trap.

[InsertWordHere]

3 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It's only to create tension.  Oooh, David's doing stuff behind everyone's back. 

And then when he does find out the truth about whoever stabbed his father, he'll be justifiably angry about it, and Snow will be mad because he lied about burning the note, and they'll all be doing exactly what the Evil Queen wants them to do. 

[Rumsy4]

Heh--these are good reasons, but they're metatextual. In-story, I can't help feeling that Snow was being dismissive of David's feelings. But then, she's also BFFs/surrogate mother to the woman who killed her father. So, I guess she thinks David should let it go as well.

[Camera One]

There is no nuance in the character writing, especially for Snow, so there's no surprise.  I was more bothered that the conversation was thrown in there as a D plot with no context.

They could have done the exact opposite conversation too.  

SNOW: David.  If you want to find out what happened to your father then I'm with you.  I've been thinking... I don't want to be Snow White anymore.  I don't want to be Mary Margaret either.  I want to be Nancy Drew.  I want to open a detective agency and help people find their untold stories.  Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Frankenstein will be perfect forensic experts."

DAVID: Are you sure, Snow?

SNOW: I'm pretty sure this mini-filler-arc only lasts two episodes, so who cares.  Let's get my bird painting to hang up in my new office.

[Shanna Marie]

14 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

We, as an audience, take the prophecy more seriously because we know the narrative wouldn't introduce it if it weren't going to happen in some way. It would be awfully anticlimactic if the Oracle was totally wrong or Hyde lied. We trust the dialogue to clue us in on key information, and if a character has no presented motivation for lying, we just take it. My point is that Emma should be taking a greater grain of salt than the viewers.

Yeah, this is yet another case of the characters acting like they've read the scripts for the episode and the next few episodes and are aware of narrative structure. We know we're only seeing the important stuff. Emma shouldn't have as strong a sense of what's meaningful. All she knows is that the last time she had a vision like this, of a beast killing her mother, it turned out to be Red in wolf form joyously greeting Snow, so it was accurate in a sense, just not what she thought it was, and she'd spent all that time hiding out trying to keep it from coming true. And then Hyde, a not very trustworthy person, tells her to follow the red bird, which leads her to the Oracle, who presents zero credentials or proof that she isn't just messing with Emma. It even seems out of character for her to be more focused on coping with the awareness of her impending doom than trying to find a way to fight it or understand more about what's going on.

Of all the times they've gone to Rumple for help when that wasn't even the wisest course of action, this is one case where he might be of some use, since he has seer abilities of his own. Or bring Belle some books to dig through while she's hiding out on the Jolly Roger. See if Henry can find reference to other Saviors in the Untold Stories book. Find out what Jekyll knows.

16 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

If you watch too, you'll see that Colin is paying a lot of attention to the kid when he's out of focus off to the side. It's not Hook keeping a kid occupied, it's an actor who's aware that there is a small child there and working hard to keep her attention while the rest of the scene is being filmed.

I was thinking more about this overnight, and I guess I'm just going to have to accept the real-world limitations to filming a scene like this with a toddler. In a book, you can control a toddler character, so you could write a totally in-character scene of Hook trying his usual charm on the child and then eventually having to resort to doing something out-of-character, and you'd also have more time for setup and payoff. In a TV show, they're dealing with a child at an age when taking direction isn't her strong suit, so it's not like they can tell her that she needs to ignore Mr. Colin when he smiles at her at first but then laugh when he does the funny thing with the foam. They have to do whatever it takes around her to get the reactions they need and keep her from crying, and they have a very limited amount of time she can be on the set (maybe a little more if they're using twins), so they have to do this scene in as few takes as possible (which is probably why Colin's keeping her attention in the background -- if he can keep her occupied and not crying, it salvages the take). My main gripe is that the writing around it was clunky, so that it all came across as a contrived way to contribute to Emma's angst rather than as a natural event that affected Emma in her current state of mind.

[andromeda331]

12 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Heh--these are good reasons, but they're metatextual. In-story, I can't help feeling that Snow was being dismissive of David's feelings. But then, she's also BFFs/surrogate mother to the woman who killed her father. So, I guess she thinks David should let it go as well.

This is another one of the times where their not allowed talking about certain things is a problem. David just learned his father was murdered. So you'd think Snow would be completely understanding, after all her own father was murdered too. So you think she'd be sympathetic, understanding and commiserate over how horrible it is to have your father murdered. Except they can't do that, Snow can't say that because it casts A&E's hero Regina in a bad light.  So instead they have Snow be completely dismissive and act like its nothing.  Its ridiculous because that's not what someone who's own father was murdered would say. And the conversation could have and would have been so much better if Snow was allowed to answer the way she would....if not for the fact Regina can't be show in a bad light, that Snow can't express anything but hearts and rainbows about the woman who murdered her father.

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

David just learned his father was murdered. So you'd think Snow would be completely understanding, after all her own father was murdered too. So you think she'd be sympathetic, understanding and commiserate over how horrible it is to have your father murdered.

I have to admit, I was coming close to siding with Snow on this. It's not like he just found his father's body or just learned about his death. His father has been dead since he was a small child. When you add in the curse years, his father probably died close to 60 years ago. The only thing that's changed is learning how his father died. It's closer to being the equivalent of Ava's death than Leopold's, where it happened when Snow was a child, and then she learned as an adult that it was murder. She did end up getting the killer, but it wasn't just about revenge but because the killer was an imminent threat, and she's had no end of grief about that, including a bit if judginess from David, himself, who didn't back her against all those "heroes don't kill people" claims.

The fact that the Evil Queen tipped him off about this would indicate that the killer wasn't some random person who's been dead for decades, and is likely someone whose identity means something to him. But at the same time, they know the Evil Queen is stirring things up. Maybe she is sending him off on a revenge quest in an effort to darken his heart and it has nothing to do with the identity of the killer. Snow's not totally out of line to say that running off on a revenge quest over a death that happened so long ago when they have so much else going on would be a really bad idea.

[KingOfHearts]

It's sad that EQ seems to care more about Henry than Regina. I loved when she told him to straighten up his posture. Somebody has to call him out, and it hasn't been Emma or Regina... EQ definitely raised Henry more than Regina did.

Edited October 15, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Dianthus]

As usual, they went the lazy/quick/easy way with the scene between Hook and Alexandra. We're lucky we got what we did, really. Perhaps he was inspired by vague memories of the clowns/jesters from his own youth (pre-abandonment).

[Camera One]

Quote

 

Also, did Clorinda ever apologize for being a brat?

She did in the scene where she tells Cinderella that they were both "prisoners" of Lady Tremaine.  I guess on this show, a "I'm sorry" is actually a gargantuan step.  Though it hardly makes up for doing cruel things like burning Cinderella's dress and generally going over-and-above in treating her like crap.  She also didn't waste any time calling Cinderella a rat at the guard-tower.  Yep, and Cinderella was the real "evil" stepsister, LOL.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Though it hardly makes up for doing cruel things like burning Cinderella's dress and generally going over-and-above in treating her like crap.  She also didn't waste any time calling Cinderella a rat at the guard-tower.  Yep, and Cinderella was the real "evil" stepsister, LOL.

Only on this show is telling a secret worse than years of abuse and destruction of valued personal property. And somehow, needing to hide a secret relationship and prevent becoming a target is considered a valid excuse for the abuse, but self-protection after a lifetime of abuse isn't considered an excuse for telling a secret.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

On 10/9/2016 at 10:26 PM, bmoore4026 said:

Also, what happened to the other stepsister?

According to Jane Espenson on Twitter, Tisbe met a duke at the ball.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Noneofyourbusiness

[Noneofyourbusiness]

On 10/10/2016 at 4:29 PM, kili said:

Why does Nurse Cratchet have the lasagne?

Where is Dopey going to college? Did he leave town before the latest curse? Can't say I blame him.

How did they even figure that out? Did they call Thomas and he mentioned that Ella's step-sister's boyfriend lived on the farm

Nurse Ratched, from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The long-haired floor-sweeping man is Chief from the same book.

Dopey must have left town because the actor's no longer on the show. The latest curse was the one that turned him into a tree at the beginning of Season 5. There hasn't been another curse since then.

The last thing they did before that was check her story, so it would seem they then went looking for or asked about Jacob.

On 10/10/2016 at 6:59 PM, Camera One said:

They never explained how the Evil Stepmother automatically knew about how to use the Key to the Land of Untold Stories.

Since she used the same "pausing" line as Clorinda, she must have overheard Clorinda telling Jacob about it.

[bmoore4026]

31 minutes ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

According to Jane Espenson on Twitter, Tisbe met a duke at the ball.

Oh, so she wasn't Anastasia?  Was there a reason why they weren't named Drizella and Anastasia?

[Camera One]

6 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

Oh, so she wasn't Anastasia?  Was there a reason why they weren't named Drizella and Anastasia?

She explained (also on Twitter) that they chose not to use Drizella because there would be too many Ellas, what with Ella and Cruella.

According to Jane Espenson on Twitter, Tisbe met a duke at the ball.

I love how this show tells you everything important in-episode.  

Edited October 17, 2016 by Camera One

[Noneofyourbusiness]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

I love how this show tells you everything important in-episode. 

She said it was one too many plotlines to focus one.

7 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

Oh, so she wasn't Anastasia?  Was there a reason why they weren't named Drizella and Anastasia?

Nope, in fact Clorinda was the one dressed like Anastasia from the animated movie and Tisbe was dressed like Drizella. I think they didn't use the names Anastasia and Drizella because they'd already used Anastasia for the Red Queen and they've decided she's actually not one of Cinderella's stepsisters. The names Clorinda and Tisbe are from the opera La Cenerentola.

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

She did in the scene where she tells Cinderella that they were both "prisoners" of Lady Tremaine.  I guess on this show, a "I'm sorry" is actually a gargantuan step.

Well, she did say, "I'm *so* sorry."

On 10/13/2016 at 11:05 AM, Mitch said:

Oh no...is Sherlock Holmes in public domain???

Yes. In fact, Graham was originally going to be Sherlock Holmes instead of the Hunstman, and his curse was not being able to figure out what was wrong with the town.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

18 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Only on this show is telling a secret worse than years of abuse and destruction of valued personal property.

To be fair, telling this particular secret could have gotten Jacob killed.

[Rumsy4]

There was no reason to suppose Clorinda's mother would have killed Jacob. Her murderous tendencies weren't revealed until later.

As for Espenson's answer that the other step-sister had met a Duke at the Ball, I suppose it means she was going to marry a Duke. That makes Lady Tremain's decision to pause her story even more ridiculous. It's a good thing they didn't include it in the episode, though it is weird even for Lady T to so easily abandon her other (presumably single) daughter.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

11 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

There was no reason to suppose Clorinda's mother would have killed Jacob. Her murderous tendencies weren't revealed until later.

Ella said to Clorinda that her mother would never stop hunting them down, which sounds like she thought it could get pretty dangerous.

[Camera One]

That likely referred to Lady Tremaine forever pestering Clorinda and verbally abusing Jacob.  That's pretty much all Cinderella has seen Lady Tremaine do, from what we can tell.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Camera One

[Noneofyourbusiness]

13 minutes ago, Camera One said:

That likely referred to Lady Tremaine forever pestering Clorinda and verbally abusing Jacob.  That's pretty much all Cinderella has seen Lady Tremaine do, from what we can tell.

The way she said it sounded more serious than that. And she sent them to another land. Just because she'd never seen it, doesn't mean she wouldn't assume she meant physical harm and be correct on a show as fond of such narrative leaps as this.