S03.E19: A Curious Thing

[myril]

I get that people are skeptical of True Love's kiss working, but losing a heart doesn't prevent one from loving...In all characters we have seen without a heart, it bareley seems to affect them.  Cora ripped out her own heart to stop herself from running off with Rumple, yet she still clearly loved Regina enough to go to great lengths for hope a reconciliation with her daughter. It didn't make her totally unable to love.   Even without Regina's awkward exposition of that fact, we knew that removing one's heart doesn't make one incapable of love or having other emotions... 

 

 

Right, lack of heart might not make feeling absolute impossible, but at least love and maybe other caring emotions are significantly muted, being ripped of the (metaphysical) center of feelings. Which makes me think, that expressing your love to others doesn't work as much as if you had your heart, thus I find the true love's kiss hard to accept in this episode, the whole caring, empathetic, bonding with Snow and falling in love with Robin Regina. Yes, Regina might still love and develop bit of empathy, but she shouldn't be able to convey it that much while without heart, it has to have a price, effects. The writers made it a point that Cora had a surge of feelings when her heart was put back, so that all of a sudden she expressed, having Regina would have been enough - something I didn't quite buy back then and now after what we've seen just recently find even less believable, because I perceived Cora always as a narcissist, pretty much incapable of loving anyone, but the writers wrote it that way. Heart back meant the full amount of feelings back. All I saw over the course of season 2 was a Cora who wanted to be part of Regina's life again because she never did all what she did for Regina, she did it for herself, and of course wanted to glory in her success, reconnecting with her daughter was driven by selfish motivation. It had something very poetic and strong though, to make even a narcissist like Cora feel deeply all of a sudden for someone else by putting her heart back.

 

The writers used losing a heart, breaking a heart, sharing hearts or darkness growing in a heart rather literrally, and I now take them literally. Regina has no heart, so no feelings, or at best a muted version of feelings. If they did all this to just have some nice visualization on screen and a random plot device without much of a meaning, so be it, but it is confusing people. And I call it mediocre writing.

 

 

 

I get both sides of the "using Emma" argument but Zelena's planned time reversal impacts both Emma & Henry. Emma would likely have been raised with her parents in the Enchanted Forest and Henry would never have been born. The only way they found to even get back was to kill Charming so I can understand why they wouldn't have tried something sooner. It wouldn't be a happy reunion if Emma heard they killed her father to get back to her even though they knew she & Henry were living a good life. In Emma's shoes, I would consider that just as selfish but YMMV. I'll fanwank that they discussed missing Emma offscreen.

 

It's the story of the writers and whatever I might be able to fanwank is then my reading into and not their telling of the story. If it had been Charming and Snow being separated I bet there would have been no off-screen dialogue to fanwank but a moment on screen to let them tell, they will always find a way to each other and won't stop looking. That is not the impression I had concerning Emma, that was more: oh, we can't even think of trying to get back or get Emma here, because it is the price we had to pay to safe all our lives, it's sad, but that's how things are now. While I get, that in the first days leaders like Charming and Snow can't show much moments of doubts, I don't get why they didn't do it for example in the episode "The Tower", it would have been great to insert just one or two lines expressing, we're not giving up to get back to Emma either, and not just, that they're going to do everything to not fail their second child as well (maybe I missed something, then I was not the only one). One or two lines would have been enough to avoid the sore taste I now have, something along the lines, that they're going to start to look for ways to cross the realms again to bring all the family together, so their unborn would some day meet her/his great big sister and nephew. Maybe such lines ended up on the cutting floor, but then that was a bad editing decision.

 

Or maybe Snow and Charming just don't care that much.

Edited April 29, 2014 by katusch

[TexanGal]

It was great to see Baelfire/Neal again, but that scene didn't make sense to me. 1) Why was Baelfire able to separate from Rumple's body? What we had known previously was that Rumple's body would MORPH into Baelfire but still be the same body. AND Baelfire needed Emma to use her magic to separate them, as it was something he was apparently unable to do himself. 2) In that scene, Baelfire was aware of everything that was happening when Rumple was the one "in control". What we'd been shown previously was that Baelfire would "take over" but have no recollection of anything that had happened while Rumple had been in control.

 

When Emma yelled at Henry, was I the only one who thought that was on purpose? The previous scene, it was said that the storybook had appeared when Henry was feeling lost or unloved or something... so I thought Emma was trying to make Henry feel like sh-t so that the book would reappear in this curse. But then Snow was all "you yelled at Henry, that wasn't like you", which blew that theory.

[3dog]

I was afraid that it was going to be some quirk of the curse keeping him alive and that he was going to keel over once it was broken. (No, really, all the way up until the splitting-heart scene, I was on David Collapse Watch.)

Me too! But then when Regina magically woke up, I thought we'd just seen a "everything I was dreaming about while I was unconscious" Regina-dream. The whole thing was a little weird-- there was something about the scenes showing Snowing enacting the dark curse that just felt like it wasn't going to end up being real, so it took me a while to catch up.

Edited April 29, 2014 by 3dog

[iluvobx]

I'm going to assume it happens via the same mechanics that allow Regina to pump blood through her system even though Zelena has her heart.

 

Finally, a thought I had throughout the episode: why hasn't anyone tried to throw water on Zelena?  Belle, with her book-knowledge, is pseudo-genre savvy, and both she and Emma should know about that if they know the OZ stories. I began wondering if there was some reference I missed in the last few episodes, indicating that water is not her weakness (my damn wiener kids often keep me from catching everything that happens on this show), or whether they were saving it for the finale.  But in the previews, we see Dorothy and the water scene, so I guess they have not forgotten it; it's just not a permanent solution, apparently.

Grumpy asked which witch she was.  When asked why he wanted to know, he said that to kill one, you needed to throw water on her and to kill the other, you needed a building to fall on her.  So the answer has always been available to them on how to get rid of her.  From Grumpy no less!

[DigitalCount]

I think my favorite part was probably when Snow was on the ground, pleading with Regina to split her heart between herself and Charming, with Regina telling her it was too dangerous. It was almost the loving mother-daughter relationship they didn't get to have.

[mindbird]

I am thinking that the flying monkeys disappear in sparkles just before they're shot, and that they are really just beaming back into a Great Flying Monkey Catacomb, as part of the flying monkey curse. Otherwise the Captain Swan-ings Family would be realizing they might have already killed a hideous number of friends, and Zelena wouold have rubbed it in.

I love Hook. He is enough of a pirate and drunk to settle on leaving town as The Way to save Emma, but enough of the New Hook to take Henry with him to try to protect him.

And of course Henry watched "Peter Pan" in New York. They allow single mothers to rent DVDs.:)

Edited April 30, 2014 by mindbird

[legaleagle53]

Did anyone else get creeped-out by seeing the upcoming scenes for next week?  They have Henry in a wig playing Dorothy---I had to replay it several times to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.

 

Actually,

that's not Henry in a wig.  It's a girl whose name escapes me at the moment.

When Emma yelled at Henry, was I the only one who thought that was on purpose? The previous scene, it was said that the storybook had appeared when Henry was feeling lost or unloved or something... so I thought Emma was trying to make Henry feel like sh-t so that the book would reappear in this curse. But then Snow was all "you yelled at Henry, that wasn't like you", which blew that theory.

 

She was trying to keep Henry out of harm's way, and Henry was having none of it because she wouldn't answer his direct questions.  Because there wasn't really any time to debate the issue, Emma had no choice but to play the parental "because I'm your mother and I said so!" card.

Edited April 30, 2014 by legaleagle53

[TexanGal]

She was trying to keep Henry out of harm's way, and Henry was having none of it because she wouldn't answer his direct questions. Because there wasn't really any time to debate the issue, Emma had no choice but to play the parental "because I'm your mother and I said so!" card.

Yeah I know, but at the time I thought it was planned for her to act like that so the storybook would be in Snow's closet. Maybe it wouldn't have been there otherwise, since it originally didn't show up until Henry felt like crap.

Edited April 30, 2014 by TexanGal

[FineWashables]

Loving this season's Regina.  The writers are doing the right thing there by not letting her become one-dimensional.  Love the pairing of Regina and Robin Hood, and Henry's reaction when he met him.

 

What the hell is going on with the wigs on this show?  For a show with amazing costumes, I'd think they'd appreciate a good wig to go with it.  Snow White looks like a wookie with that thing on her head.  Anybody -- everybody -- on RuPaul's Drag Race would put her to shame.

 

Speaking of wigs: I didn't think that Dorothy is Henry in a wig, but maybe I didn't look closely enough.

 

If we're going to get Dorothy, I wonder if there will be more of the Oz crew with her.  I vote they cast Gary Busey as the Cowardly Lion.  Come on, who wouldn't want to see that?

[MedievalGirl]

Jared does have a twin sister. Maybe it is her as Dorothy. LOL

[shapeshifter]

Jared does have a twin sister. Maybe it is her as Dorothy. LOL

Seriously? *Looks it up* Wow he does. But whoever is Dorothy looks more like him than his fraternal twin sister, who it seems does not act.

[KAOS Agent]

Shut up, Henry! I hate how this show continuously lets him act badly and then wants to make the adults in the wrong for telling him off. Too bad the monkeys didn't get him.

[Shanna Marie]

There's so much to hate about this one.

I didn't feel like Emma believed in season one because of the book. Something magical did happen because of the book, but she looked at the book because she was believing, ever since Henry collapsed after eating the tart. It seems like a copout that they had Henry get his memories back just from touching the book when he wasn't believing before he touched it. Even after he saw the flying monkeys, he wasn't saying he believed in magic. It would have been such a better story if he'd figured it out for himself from the clues around town and then maybe found the book on his own. Or else he shouldn't ever have got all his memories back, since supposedly losing him was the price Regina had to pay, and he should have just learned about magic separately from that. Henry getting his memories back just by touching a magic book was probably the dullest way they could have resolved things.

Then there was the TLK between Regina and Henry that broke the memory spell. This is where they really retconned their relationship. They'd barely reconciled before the curse reverse. Henry hadn't lived with Regina in ages. They'd never talked about Henry's day or his school work other than whether he'd done his homework. If there'd been any doubt that the show had totally tilted in a Regina direction, this would have ended that doubt.

We had another wacky weather day. When Hook is talking to Henry by the Bug, it's a bright, sunny day. There are a few bits of snow up against the buildings, and you can see melting snow dripping in some of the shots. Then they walk across town to the docks, and it's dark and cloudy with snow coming down furiously and several inches of snow on the ground.

If Henry needed to steal a car to drive to the bus station to leave Storybrooke, then how did he get out of town in the pilot?

Has anyone done a count of the number of episodes that began with someone riding furiously on horseback?

I bet they all feel a bit silly after learning

Spoiler

that Regina can cast the curse at any time with her blood after she made the initial sacrifice.

[tennisgurl]

What is going on with Emma lately? She is being written really weirdly the last few episodes, but its hard to put my finger on what is exactly going on with her. Maybe its because her constant going on about how awesome New York is has started to become not only old, but its looking increasingly insensitive to her family who she seems excited to leave behind to get back to their "real" life. I know that the Charmings have done the same thing to Emma before, but I guess I expect more from her. Of course, some of that is her being a victim of lame plotting. 

I mean, the book was the thing that made her believe? No, show. The book gave her context, but what made her believe was when Henry went into a magic coma after eating the apple turnover of death that Regina made her, and, you know, fighting a freaking dragon! Chuck a sword at Henry and send him to fight a dragon somewhere, then he can totally believe! It wasn't about just holding a stupid book, he didnt even read the damn thing! And dont get me started on Henry and Regina getting True Loves Kiss this time around. The never ending fawning of Regina gets worse and worse every day, and the retcon of Regina and Henry as the best mother/son team ever is just so lame. I wish they would have spent more time with them building their relationship up again, instead of just pushing the "healthy parenting!" button with them. 

Gee, Hook and his cursed lips sure did serve so much of a point, other than creating another roadblock for Captain Swan to finally just hook up. So much of a point...it was so pointy...

The flashbacks actually have some nice Snowing stuff (like Charming giving Snow a flower on their mission) but Glinda was as useless as every good magic user is in this universe (until the last episode and someones jazz hands will save the day) and while the door to nowhere was kind of cool, the "lets do the dark curse" idea is all kinds of stupid. They really had no other ideas? Really? They even mentioned the beans and Jefferson's hat, but with a hardly explained "Oh no, that wont work! Because of reasons!" they now have to change the rules of this universe and the dark curse yet again! Why can they just change the rules like this?!? And why does Zelena know freaking everything? This is when the villain of the show is in full on Villain Sue mode, who knows everything and is five steps ahead of the heroes, because they're omniscient and the heroes are idiots and just react to things and stand around looking like morons half the time. 

Also, I love how half assed Aurora and Philips fates are. They told Zelena information she probably knew anyway, then instantly told the truth, and were turned into monkeys, and no one cared or reacted to any of it. I mean, no reaction to your friends being turned into monkey slaves of the villain? I mean, thats pretty consistent with their treatment of Regina's victims, but you would think they could at least throw in a sentence or two at this new villain. 

[Shanna Marie]

12 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Maybe its because her constant going on about how awesome New York is has started to become not only old, but its looking increasingly insensitive to her family who she seems excited to leave behind to get back to their "real" life.

I found it amusing that Henry used the exact same phrasing to talk about his New York life that Emma has been repeating when he and Regina had their catching up conversation (which was entirely unlike any interaction Regina and Henry have ever had before). It's like the writers had a macro. Even now, when I hear someone talk about living in New York, I hear "It was good, really good" in my head.

14 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Gee, Hook and his cursed lips sure did serve so much of a point, other than creating another roadblock for Captain Swan to finally just hook up. So much of a point...it was so pointy...

And meanwhile, the other things that did exist that might have been obstacles for them were more or less ignored. Like the fact that less than a week ago, she was on the verge of getting engaged to someone else. Yeah, he turned out to be a flying monkey, but she still apparently had serious feelings for him. Then there's the fact that this would give her a seriously gun-shy track record. She's had two serious relationships in her life. One of those guys got her sent to jail and vanished on her and one turned out to be a flying monkey spying on her for a villain. That's bound to make her stay entirely away from getting involved with anyone else, with or without a kiss curse, and especially not with a (former) pirate who's only just started turning his life around. And, come to think of it both of those things happened in the "real" world, even if they involved fairytale world people. So why the urge to go back to New York to get away from the weirdness? It seems like Storybrooke's been the one place she's been emotionally safe and has any kind of support system in case another lover screws her over. Meanwhile, Neal just died a day or so ago, and both Hook and Emma are mourning that. It makes Zelena's curse really silly because it's not as though they were likely to have been kissing anytime soon, what with recent events and having to deal with Zelena, and all. One of the other conflicts is that Emma hasn't seen Hook in a year and wasn't thinking about him (because she didn't remember him) all that time, but he spent that time thinking of her and using her as his motivation to do better. They're totally out of sync, and that could have made for some good stuff, some with deep emotional potential and some with comic potential.

23 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

And why does Zelena know freaking everything? This is when the villain of the show is in full on Villain Sue mode, who knows everything and is five steps ahead of the heroes, because they're omniscient and the heroes are idiots and just react to things and stand around looking like morons half the time. 

We still don't know how Zelena knew all these things. Were Philip and Aurora dumb enough to report to Zelena about Snow's pregnancy? Come to think of it, how did Zelena even know that Regina returning to the Enchanted Forest was a possibility so that she would have set up Philip and Aurora as unwilling spies in the first place? We never saw her using the magical iPad away from the Emerald City. Did she bring it with her to the Enchanted Forest? Is it in Storybrooke? How does she communicate with the flying monkeys when they're spying? She talks to them, but how do they let her know what they've seen? Does she turn them back into humans to report? If so, if they retain any free will as humans, why would they report honestly? Does she read their minds? How long was Zelena in Regina's castle? When the curse is reversed, it's probably only been a couple of months (at most) since Snow and Emma were in the Enchanted Forest, and only about a week since Neal was there, and there were no signs of flying monkeys then, and Philip and Aurora were okay then. If you're going to make your villain so omniscient that she's privy to things that were discussed in private, you have to show how she does it. One glimpse of her using some kind of magical observation device in the farmhouse or Rumple's castle would have done the trick, but they have her just knowing everything at random.

[Camera One]

16 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I didn't feel like Emma believed in season one because of the book. Something magical did happen because of the book, but she looked at the book because she was believing, ever since Henry collapsed after eating the tart. It seems like a copout that they had Henry get his memories back just from touching the book when he wasn't believing before he touched it. Even after he saw the flying monkeys, he wasn't saying he believed in magic. It would have been such a better story if he'd figured it out for himself from the clues around town and then maybe found the book on his own. Or else he shouldn't ever have got all his memories back, since supposedly losing him was the price Regina had to pay, and he should have just learned about magic separately from that. Henry getting his memories back just by touching a magic book was probably the dullest way they could have resolved things.

 

That was what I was expecting during 3B.  It would have been interesting and rather humorous if we kept seeing Henry walk in on strange situations that everyone would try to cover up.  Having him figure it out himself would have been a contrast to Season 1 with Emma.  Maybe he could have been the one to encounter Neal and helped to figure out that Zelena was the Wicked Witch.  

The mythology of The Book hadn't been truly explored yet but its random appearance felt like a deus ex machina rather than giving us something new and intriguing about that vital object which propelled the whole story from the beginning.

Quote

Or else he shouldn't ever have got all his memories back, since supposedly losing him was the price Regina had to pay, and he should have just learned about magic separately from that. Henry getting his memories back just by touching a magic book was probably the dullest way they could have resolved things.

Yes, that made the whole return of Henry's memories fall flat, with no satisfaction or payoff, even if I had wanted it to happen (which I didn't).  

3 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Were Philip and Aurora dumb enough to report to Zelena about Snow's pregnancy? Come to think of it, how did Zelena even know that Regina returning to the Enchanted Forest was a possibility so that she would have set up Philip and Aurora as unwilling spies in the first place?

This bothered me on first watch too.  There's no way anyone would be expecting Snowing returning to the Enchanted Forest, so why would Zelena be asking Philip and Aurora to tell them when they came back?  If they are going to throw a bunch of former heroes under the bus as they did Philip and Aurora, at least give us the complete story instead of using it as a convenient plot point via cameo.

On 4/27/2014 at 9:41 PM, Camera One said:

Though I really liked Regina throughout the flashback

I need to enact a time travel spell to go back and slap myself.  If anyone has a baby I can borrow along with a figurative brain, a literal heart and a sword handle, I'll be eternally grateful. 

[PixiePaws1]

For me, heartless Regina TLK with the kid who previously went to such extremes to escape her and find his bio mum, was vomit inducing..

Spoiler

..nice lead in to her to suddenly having powerful Light magic rendering dragging Emma back, pointless for defeating Zelena.

Once again (!) the writers missed an op to explain Killian's dilemma. There was a great fan fic that had Zelena put a geis on him which physically prevented him from telling, writing or attempting to communicate that he had been cursed. They could have some amazing gut wrenching scenes with him trying to get around it ...but writers always went for cheap, shalllow angst.

[profdanglais]

3 hours ago, PixiePaws1 said:

There was a great fan fic that had Zelena put a geis on him which physically prevented him from telling, writing or attempting to communicate that he had been cursed.

If this is the one I think it is, it's still going on, and it's wonderful. It's everything I wish 3B had been. 

[Shanna Marie]

5 hours ago, PixiePaws1 said:

There was a great fan fic that had Zelena put a geis on him which physically prevented him from telling, writing or attempting to communicate that he had been cursed.

Yeah, I keep getting mixed up which is the actual series and which is the fanfic when I think about this arc because the fanfic is more logical and has fewer plot holes. While watching the episode, when Emma started griping at Hook for not telling her, I was thinking, "But he couldn't because Zelena put a spell on him," then remembered that was the fanfic. Which makes you wonder why Zelena didn't make it part of the spell. She's all-seeing and all-knowing, super-powerful, and can do anything with the wave of a hand, but she couldn't put a spell on Hook to keep him from being able to tell Emma what was going on? She was just going to rely on a vague threat to keep him quiet?

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

The mythology of The Book hadn't been truly explored yet but its random appearance felt like a deus ex machina rather than giving us something new and intriguing about that vital object which propelled the whole story from the beginning.

It was way too easy a way to resolve the memory curse -- just hand Henry a book, and then once he believes, magic TLK! Even without his Storybrooke memories, you'd think Henry would still be the kind of kid who'd come up with something like Operation Cobra. He wouldn't just be sulking around with video games. If he got curious or suspicious about what Emma was up to, he'd investigate. He'd sneak around to watch things, which would make him see magical stuff. He'd do research. If we're going by the way things seemed to work in season one, he might have stumbled across the book on his own, and it wouldn't be just touching it that would make him believe. It would be like season one, where he'd match what was in the book to the people he saw in town, and he'd figure it out like he did the first time around. It wasn't touching a magic book then. He figured it out from reading the book and observing.

They had a talent for choosing the least interesting way of doing just about anything.

[Camera One]

Quote

GLINDA:  I'm sorry.  My magic is not powerful enough to defeat Zelena.  It never has been.

So is light magic weaker than dark magic?  What about the power of love and all that?  

Quote

CHARMING: You know her?

Why would Charming ask that question?  It's an example of how characters say stuff to evoke answers that the Writers want the viewer to know and nothing more.

Quote

GLINDA: We were friends.  A long time ago.  When things were different.

I'm so intrigued by this.  I wonder how close they were.  

Quote

GLINDA: She was born with great power.  Long ago, I gave her a pendant to focus it.  Her magic has resided inside it ever since.

Snowing forgot to ask her why she was so stupid to give her the pendant in the first place.

Quote

GLINDA: But only a purveyor of the strongest light magic will be able to accomplish such a feat.

But you don't have it, right Glinda?

Quote

SNOW: Light magic.

Oh Snow, are you looking for a textbook definition?

Quote

GLINDA: If [Emma]'s as pure and powerful as you say, then yes, she and only she can defeat Zelena.

Spoiler

Uh, Glinda didn't know that everyone and their dog can TLK and bring about a baby borne of true love and that there are multiple Saviors running around and even Regina could toss out light magic even though she was barred from going through the door to Glinda?  I love the contradictions on this show.  It makes things as muddled as the puddle in Eeyore's backyard.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Camera One

[CCTC]

For some reason the rewatch of this arc is requiring me to look up the old show threads more, since I am curious of the reactions (and think I had forgotten more about this half-season than the first 2.5 years).

Episode was not bad in general, but I have to say one of the top questions on my mind was "why does Snow's EF wig get worse and look more fake as the show continues"?  It seems like each appearance takes something out of it, so it looks worse every time it shows up.

I had no problem with Emma yelling at Henry.

I think they needed to show more of how evil Zelina was in the EF and do more to heighten that they were in great imminent danger that they had no choice to cast the curse.  Sure she popped in from time to time - make some "wicked" comment and turn someone into monkeys, but so did Endora and Samantha never had to cast a dark curse.   They did not show enough of really working to defeat her, and the "oh - I guess we need to cast the curse" seemed a bit premature.  Did they even know what Zelina was planning to do at that point?  It doesn't appear that in the EF she had done any of her prep work (stealing courage, brains, and heart).    There needed to be some sort of heightened desperation to justify the drastic action of turning Emma's life upside down and endanger her and Henry.   Instead, that was more of an afterthought - if that.

The Charming/Snow scene was touching, although you already know Charming is alive in Story Brooke, so you already know he is not dead-dead.  I do think they had good chemistry, and when written well, the Charming-Snow-Regina dynamic could show a lot of history and subtext.  At their best, they did come off as a relatively real dysfunctional extended family - when they did not completely disregard or whitewash their past.

Spoiler

Again -- while I liked her in later seasons -- the Zelina character in full Wicked mode is more annoying than anything.  I am pretty sure during my original watch when this season first aired, I was hoping she would truly melt and meet a final, permanent come-uppance to end her arc.

 

[Camera One]

24 minutes ago, CCTC said:

The Charming/Snow scene was touching, although you already know Charming is alive in Story Brooke, so you already know he is not dead-dead. 

I think I was afraid that we will find out the Storybrooke Charming wasn't really him, or he was only resurrected for a limited time.  

26 minutes ago, CCTC said:

For some reason the rewatch of this arc is requiring me to look up the old show threads more, since I am curious of the reactions (and think I had forgotten more about this half-season than the first 2.5 years).

When I rewatch, I am always curious about the reactions, so I'm glad these old threads exist.  

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

I think they needed to show more of how evil Zelina was in the EF and do more to heighten that they were in great imminent danger that they had no choice to cast the curse.  Sure she popped in from time to time - make some "wicked" comment and turn someone into monkeys, but so did Endora and Samantha never had to cast a dark curse.   They did not show enough of really working to defeat her, and the "oh - I guess we need to cast the curse" seemed a bit premature.  Did they even know what Zelina was planning to do at that point?  It doesn't appear that in the EF she had done any of her prep work (stealing courage, brains, and heart).    There needed to be some sort of heightened desperation to justify the drastic action of turning Emma's life upside down and endanger her and Henry.   Instead, that was more of an afterthought - if that.

I think that's the biggest weakness of this arc. Zelena didn't look like a real threat at the time they made the desperation move of the Dark Curse. I don't think they knew what she was doing, just that she was vaguely threatening the baby. It doesn't help that the way the season was structured, they threw most of the passing of time into one episode. A few months passed, which we saw in other flashbacks, then the rest of the missing year goes by in this one episode, which made it look like they weren't doing much of anything, like they just sat around all year without making any progress. I suppose that's consistent with them spending nine months waiting for Regina to cast her curse and not taking any direct action against her. She hadn't even done the spell yet, and all they were doing was coming up with ways to counter the spell.

In this case, the fix was so easy. All they had to do was have Zelena threaten Emma and let the Charmings know that she had one of her agents with Emma. Then they'd have had a real reason to want to be able to reach Emma, since she wouldn't have her memories and would be defenseless against Zelena's agent. Instead, they just had some vague plan that Emma would fix everything.

We'd still have the problem of Zelena's stupidity. If she'd kept her mouth shut instead of gloating to them about how wicked she was and creeping all over the baby, they'd have had no idea that there was a threat until the last minute. And then she did it again in Storybrooke. Why did she care if people left town? As long as she had the stuff she needed, it shouldn't have mattered. She'd have needed to keep Snow around for the baby, but just about everyone else could have cleared out without disrupting her plans. Having the monkeys patrolling the borders just alerted everyone to the threat. Let the Merry Men and dwarfs leave. It shouldn't have bothered her. Turning them into monkeys or attacking them just put everyone on high alert.

[KingOfHearts]

15 hours ago, CCTC said:

I think they needed to show more of how evil Zelina was in the EF and do more to heighten that they were in great imminent danger that they had no choice to cast the curse. 

There was also that retcon that the "walls between worlds" prevented travel between the Enchanted Forest and the Land Without Magic unless a curse had been cast. But there were so many characters that ignored that rule that even headcanoning to reconcile the exceptions is dicey. There's even an exception in the same arc - Walsh.

Spoiler

It also never comes up again after 3B. 

Other exceptions include: The Shadow, Bae, Wendy, Cruella, Ursula, The Apprentice, and Ingrid. 

I don't think the writers did a very good job of conveying that the characters exhausted all their other options. While the heroes casting the curse seemed novel at the time, it still should've been Zelena using the Dagger to force Rumple to cast it using Bae's heart. That would've been way more gutwrenching than whatever the hell happened in "Quiet Minds". 

As romantic as it was, the splitting of Snow's heart in two so Charming could cheese death really weakened how serious the Curse was. (Besides being hella contrived.) There was nothing "dark" about Curse 2. The writers did a lot of mental gymnastics and pretzel twisting to make it all work when they didn't have to.

Edited July 8, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

51 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

There was also that retcon that the "walls between worlds" prevented travel between the Enchanted Forest and the Land Without Magic unless a curse had been cast. But there were so many characters that ignored that rule that even headcanoning to reconcile the exceptions is dicey. There's even an exception in the same arc - Walsh.

It is quite galling (and telling) that the Writers immediately contradicted the rule they themselves set in the last episode of 3A.   Viewers can't predict anything on this show if the rules are constantly changing.  It's no wonder we were seriously losing faith in the show by this point.  

I find it ridiculous that a bunch of smart intelligent writers could be brainstorming the next arc and then complete ignore that crucial plot point of walls going up between magical worlds and the Land Without Magic.  Okay, I get that someone probably said, "Oh what if Emma was dating a Flying Monkey in New York!" but no one asked, "So how did the Flying Monkey get there, then?"

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I don't think the writers did a very good job of conveying that the characters exhausted all their other options.

This was definitely one of the major problems with this setup.  As usual, the "heroes" seemed like they were sitting around in the castle doing nothing.  That's why setting the Missing Year in Oz would have been better in many ways.  At least they would constantly need to be either on the offensive or defensive in a new dangerous land.  A twister should have appeared in the 3B premiere, taking them away from the Enchanted Forest.

There was a lot to explore with Snowing back in the Enchanted Forest... Snow going back to her father's palace for the first time since he died should have been heartwrenching, but nope.  Since they weren't going to explore any of that stuff anyway, they might as well be exploring Winkie Country dodging flying monkeys trying to find a way to the Emerald City in Oz, or trying to find Glinda to help them, or helping Tip become Ozma, or finding the Scarecrow/TinMan/Lion, etc. etc. etc.  The possibilities were endless.

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While the heroes casting the curse seemed novel at the time

Knowing them, it was all about the shock value of finding out Snow cast the Curse, and also the equalization of Snow and Regina, and none of the actual details were worked out... now Snow too has cast the Dark Curse and was willing to sacrifice someone she loved, so how can we say she was any better than Regina?  Snow already killed someone's parent in 2B.  I wonder what else they could Snow do which would make her on Regina's level?  

Edited July 8, 2020 by Camera One

[daxx]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

still should've been Zelena using the Dagger to force Rumple to cast it using Bae's heart. That would've been way more gutwrenching than whatever the hell happened in "Quiet Minds". 

This would have been better in every way possible. And would explain Rumple’s descent into madness better than the whole two people in his head.
 

Spoiler

I would also understand his nonsense with the dagger and Belle better with that kind of trauma.

 

[CCTC]

On 7/7/2020 at 6:59 PM, Camera One said:

I think I was afraid that we will find out the Storybrooke Charming wasn't really him, or he was only resurrected for a limited time.  

Now that you mention it, I did think it would somehow come back to bite them.

Spoiler

To give the writer's credit, the effect of the split heart by the season 6 sleeping curse was a nice twist.  I think the episode of the Evil Queen attacking them and casting that curse was the one time she really did come across as evil and dangerous and not campy.  Tie that with the strangely touching musical montage at the beginning of the following episode, I thought that they might really have some nice momentum for the rest of the season.   Instead it kind of got pushed in the background and they lost whatever dramatic suspense and momentum that it had building not really substantively revisiting it again until Charming's breakdown episode months later (which actually was well done until the last minute twist). 

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by CCTC

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I find it ridiculous that a bunch of smart intelligent writers could be brainstorming the next arc and then complete ignore that crucial plot point of walls going up between magical worlds and the Land Without Magic.  Okay, I get that someone probably said, "Oh what if Emma was dating a Flying Monkey in New York!" but no one asked, "So how did the Flying Monkey get there, then?"

 

That's honestly something they should've established in the writing room while initially planning the show or early on in the show's run. The entire show hinges on the fact the Dark Curse was absolutely necessary to get to the Land Without Magic. We can of course handcanon why Rumple ignored other paths, but the significance of using a curse for mass travel had to be established to justify its subsequent reuse. If you go back and watch S1, it was pretty clear that other than The Last Magic Bean, only the Curse could take people to a Land Without Magic. That was kind of the point of it. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

The hat was introduced in S1 and could get you to this world too, but the point of the Dark Curse was that Rumpel wanted to get to this world and have magic to go back. This explanation works for rejecting some of the various methods of transport, but not others. And considering Bae was in Neverland, an easily reached magical realm, for at least a century and Rumpel had a crystal ball that could have showed him exactly where Bae was, the whole thing falls apart. I did enjoy Zelena taunting him with the silver slippers. All he needed to do was ask and she would have given them to him.

Edited July 10, 2020 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

I always assumed Jefferson's hat would not have worked to transport someone to the Land Without Magic *before* the Curse broke down the walls between worlds.  

[andromeda331]

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

I always assumed Jefferson's hat would not have worked to transport someone to the Land Without Magic *before* the Curse broke down the walls between worlds.  

I thought he could because of how Jefferson described it in season one to Emma about how each world has its own rules some with magic and some without. 

Emma Swan: This is it. This is the real world.

Jefferson: *A* real world. How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one? There are infinite more. You have to open your mind. They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last. All have their own rules. Some have magic, some don't. And some need magic. Like this one. And that's where you come in

I love how he describes it.

Edited July 10, 2020 by andromeda331

[Camera One]

13 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Jefferson: *A* real world. How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one? There are infinite more. You have to open your mind. They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last. All have their own rules. Some have magic, some don't. And some need magic. Like this one. And that's where you come in

I forgot about that line.  Interesting that there are other "worlds without magic", and that was never explored.

Spoiler

And then of course, we eventually found out the real origin story of our Earth, LOL.

Rumple used Jefferson before the Curse, so if he had been able to bring him to Neal all along, Rumple truly cared for his power and magic more than his son.  I think it would work better for the story if Jefferson's Hat could not penetrate the barrier to "our" world yet.

Edited July 10, 2020 by Camera One

[CCTC]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

Rumple used Jefferson before the Curse, so if he had been able to bring him to Neal all along, Rumple truly cared for his power and magic more than his son. 

Which really is not hard for me to believe - same with Belle.

[KingOfHearts]

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

I always assumed Jefferson's hat would not have worked to transport someone to the Land Without Magic *before* the Curse broke down the walls between worlds.  

It was said at one point it could only take people to worlds with magic, iirc. It only worked to summon the apple in Storybrooke because Regina had a little magic left from the locket she had with Daniel's picture in it. 

I'm pretty sure it's explained in "The Doctor" flashbacks. It's the scene where they're in Rumple's library and Regina overhears their conversation. Rumple had a deal with Jefferson to get the slippers from Oz, which would've worked to take him to a Land Without Magic. However, Jefferson failed to get them and asked Rumple why he couldn't just use the hat. Rumple replies it can't take him to Lands Without Magic, to which Jefferson asks, "Why would anyone want to go to a land without magic?"

Edited July 11, 2020 by KingOfHearts