S06.E12: Murder Most Foul

[RulerofallIsurvey]

I watched this episode again last night.  Hold on - this time I did stop it as soon as I saw Hook walking down the street.  :)  I learned my lesson there at least.  A lot of this is probably what others have already said, but I needed to get it off my chest.  :)  

I really did enjoy most of the elements of this episode, especially Hook and David working together.  The potion making scene was great!  Though, to be honest, David's "You're just a pirate" attitude toward Hook at the beginning was a little confusing and seemed out of place.  (And would have seemed even moreso if I hadn't been spoiled for it.)  I mean, that was SO Season 2.  Damn, they had that fireside chat in the Enchanted Forest, and granted at the time he didn't know it was Hook but I'm sure he found out after Hook and Emma got back to the present.  And after all Hook went through last Season with dying to save the town and then coming back to life (by a god's favor, no less!) and David was pretty much the only one glad to see him in the diner if I recall, the reversion to "You're Just a Pirate" was jarring.  Maybe we were supposed to think it was the sleep deprivation and curse separation from Snow stress weighing on him - and then throw on top of that his father's murder mystery - that made him lash out like that.  I think the press releases even said as much.  I just think it's disappointing that is David's default attitude toward Hook.  So, any other time in the future that David is stressed, is it going to be "you dirty pirate"?  David has the flu: "It's all your fault Hook, cause you're just a pirate."  Emma get pregnant and has to be on bed rest for some reason: "It's the pirate's fault!" (well, technically, it would be. *snicker*)  It's just really old and hackneyed.

On the Hook/Archie interaction - I said before that I liked it.  First I figured that Hook probably apologized to Archie off-screen sometime back in S3 or S4, whenever he apologized to Belle.  But then I thought, it really would have been nice if we'd gotten just a few extra lines like someone else mentioned.  Say: there's a knock at the door and Archie opens it to see Hook standing there.  He's justifiably shaken, given their past.  But Hook says something like "I know I'm not someone you'd ever want to see here and I don't blame you.  I owe you an apology (for what he did in the past).  I really need to talk to someone and I was hoping you'd help me."  Then Archie, because he is a psychiatrist and his job is helping people, recognizes that Hook's apology is sincere and lets him in to talk.  (And maybe Pongo licks Hook, as someone else proposed.)  The rest goes on from there. 

I also really agree with those who oppose the way Hook killed Robert.  I did before, but thinking more about it (that's always dangerous. :) ) it really (really, really, REALLY) doesn't make sense the way the show went about it.  Hook said he'd never been to Pleasure Island, so obviously Robert wasn't killed on the island.  Which means that they had to transport him all the way back to where he was (the Enchanted Forest?) to stage his death.  And as others have pointed out, how did they know to make it look like a supply run?  And why would they be paid ahead of time?  I can't believe King George would trust them enough for that.  But mostly it was wrong because as others have noted, it really went against what we'd been shown previously of Hook's characterization even as a pirate.  When we first meet Killian, he's all prim and proper by-the-book naval officer.  Then, even as a pirate, he claims to have a "code of honor."  He defended Milah from unwanted attention and backed off when she said she was married.  It might not be much, but we do see him offer pre-Dark Rumple a sword, and we don't know (will never know) what would have happened had Rumple actually picked it up.  For all the Hook haters who claim he's a rapist for the remark about passing Milah around with his crew, he obviously didn't as we see them later as lovers.  (Or she enjoyed it because she stuck around, didn't she?)  He was a bully to Rumple in the alley, but he did show up to duel the next day without telling him Milah was alive and her whereabouts in order to keep her safe - and he was willing to die for her.  Even after he became Hook, he was honorable with Ursula until his vengeance against Rumple was threatened.  He saved Bae from Pan, and even though he knew he was the dark one's son, he wouldn't have turned him over if Bae hadn't turned on him first.  

So why kill Robert just to 'not leave a witness'?  I don't believe Hook would want to kill some random peasant who the king was going to have killed for that reason.  If they really wanted to have Hook kill Robert, then he should have found out that Robert made a deal with the Dark One to sell his son.  That would have made Hook mad enough on a couple levels to kill him in a fit of anger.  1. He made a deal with the Dark One and Hook hates the Dark One, so Robert didn't deserve to live.  2. He sold his son and Killian's father sold him so that would have made him angry on behalf of James.  

It could have been so organic with the backstory we already have of Killian instead of some random straight up murder.  And they still would have had Hook kill David's father and so all the ensuing angst would still happen.  

[Selina K]

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

IFirst I figured that Hook probably apologized to Archie off-screen sometime back in S3 or S4, whenever he apologized to Belle.  But then I thought, it really would have been nice if we'd gotten just a few extra lines like someone else mentioned.  Say: there's a knock at the door and Archie opens it to see Hook standing there.  He's justifiably shaken, given their past.  But Hook says something like "I know I'm not someone you'd ever want to see here and I don't blame you.  I owe you an apology (for what he did in the past).  I really need to talk to someone and I was hoping you'd help me."  Then Archie, because he is a psychiatrist and his job is helping people, recognizes that Hook's apology is sincere and lets him in to talk.  (And maybe Pongo licks Hook, as someone else proposed.)  The rest goes on from there. 

I feel dull and I am blaming the blizzard, but can someone remind me when Hook and Archie had any scenes previously? Would he just be apologizing generally for being a villain in the past, or is there something specific I am not remembering at all?

[RulerofallIsurvey]

27 minutes ago, Selina K said:

I feel dull and I am blaming the blizzard, but can someone remind me when Hook and Archie had any scenes previously? Would he just be apologizing generally for being a villain in the past, or is there something specific I am not remembering at all?

I was thinking specifically of The Cricket Game (I believe?) when Hook kidnapped him as a present for Cora.

[Curio]

I was expecting an apology from Hook too, but I guess compared to the torture Archie has recently gone through this season with the Evil Queen and Zelena, Hook in his office is probably like a breath of fresh air.

[Shanna Marie]

16 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I was thinking specifically of The Cricket Game (I believe?) when Hook kidnapped him as a present for Cora.

That's what I was thinking of -- Hook held Archie prisoner (tied up and gagged) on the Jolly Roger so Cora could fake his murder at the hands of "Regina" to frame Regina in that bizarre plot to make Regina loyal to her by framing her for murder.

2 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

So why kill Robert just to 'not leave a witness'?  I don't believe Hook would want to kill some random peasant who the king was going to have killed for that reason.  If they really wanted to have Hook kill Robert, then he should have found out that Robert made a deal with the Dark One to sell his son.  That would have made Hook mad enough on a couple levels to kill him in a fit of anger.  1. He made a deal with the Dark One and Hook hates the Dark One, so Robert didn't deserve to live.  2. He sold his son and Killian's father sold him so that would have made him angry on behalf of James.  

My theory based on the spoilers was that Hook was the hired assassin, which could also have worked if Hook took the job because he heard that this man needed killing because he sold his son. Murder to avoid a witness so he could steal treasure that shouldn't have been there for a cover story they shouldn't have known about makes no sense.

2 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Though, to be honest, David's "You're just a pirate" attitude toward Hook at the beginning was a little confusing and seemed out of place.

It's right there with Henry's sudden burst of "he's not my father" and resenting Hook moving in -- to the house Henry and Hook picked out together. Their attitude toward Hook changes drastically, depending on what's needed for the plot. Never mind that David was the only person who seemed remotely happy that Hook was back from the dead. David has to conveniently forget that Hook was the one who found a way to get Snow back to her baby from the Underworld, sacrificed himself to save everyone from the Dark Ones, got mortally wounded while saving Snow's life, has jumped through numerous portals to help Emma. When the episode calls for it, we're back to "pirate." I do think a lot of it has to do with sleep deprivation and stress, but that's not really the way the episode treated it. I think Hook's smart enough to recognize if David's just having a bad day. I don't think he'd go to a psychiatrist to talk about worry about David being a bit snippy to him. It was supposed to be a serious concern.

6 hours ago, jhlipton said:

"Emma, you know I've done a lot of bad things -- I've killed people who didn't deserve it.  Last night I found out that a man I killed to get the treasure he was with (never mind about why, since I don't even know) was, in curious and insular way that everybody in StoryBrooke is somebody else's father or sister or whatever... well, he was David's dad.  It's not like I killed the guy to hurt David, and back then, I had no clue who David was, much less who he father was.  But while I'm not the man I was (and thank you for that), I am the man who killed him."

I know not everyone agrees with me about intent mattering in attempted (or achieved) murder, but I do think this is the difference between Regina murdering Leopold and Hook murdering Robert. Regina murdered Leopold because of who he was -- Snow's father -- as part of her effort to destroy Snow -- Emma's mother. It was very personal and intentional and done because she hated Snow and her family. Hook had no clue who Robert was, didn't hold any animosity toward him or his family. It's still terrible, but he wasn't doing it because he hated David and wanted to make David and his family suffer.

[Mathius]

37 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I was thinking specifically of The Cricket Game (I believe?) when Hook kidnapped him as a present for Cora.

No, it was the other way around - Cora kidnapped Archie as a gift for Hook, so Hook could interrogate him about Rumple.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

3 minutes ago, Mathius said:

No, it was the other way around - Cora kidnapped Archie as a gift for Hook, so Hook could interrogate him about Rumple.

Oops!  You're right.  I just remember Hook having him tied up in his hold.  

[Selina K]

53 minutes ago, Mathius said:

No, it was the other way around - Cora kidnapped Archie as a gift for Hook, so Hook could interrogate him about Rumple.

I completely blocked that episode out of my mind, so whichever way it was, definitely more than I remember!

[KingOfHearts]

56 minutes ago, Selina K said:

I completely blocked that episode out of my mind

I wish I could. 

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I wish I could. 

And then you rewatched it, LOL.

Why wouldn't August drive to Charming's loft to drop off the storybook pages?  It's incredibly clunky.  

Couldn't Charming have gone over to Zelena to watch a live action movie of every instant of Charming's father's life?  Apparently, one exists for Cora abandoning Zelena at the side of the road...

[Curio]

19 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Why wouldn't August drive to Charming's loft to drop off the storybook pages?  It's incredibly clunky.  

This is why I hope August is up to something sketchy. Last episode, he just happened to be writing a story about Pleasure Island when Emma interrupted him. And then in this episode, David and Hook coincidentally went to August to ask about Pleasure Island? It seems too fishy. Clearly, August had been thinking about Pleasure Island for a while before David went to him, so was he sitting on the Hook stuff all this time? It felt like August knew more about the situation than he lead on when David and Hook confronted him. Does he want to sabotage Hook's relationship with the Charming family so he can wiggle his way into dating Emma? That's the only reason I can think of for why he'd be going to Emma's house. What if Hook wasn't there? Would August hand the pages off to Emma instead? That makes no sense, unless the true reason he was there was to show Emma all about Hook's dirty past.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Curio

[Camera One]

One line really interested me in this episode.  When Sheriff of Nottingham said, "I'm not that man anymore".  Why?  When?  How?  I guess Questions That Will Never Be Answered, Unexplored Facets of the Premise and Unfulfilled Potential might be more appropriate threads...

Edited March 14, 2017 by Camera One

[Kktjones]

I would like nothing more than learning that August is as smarmy as his face suggests, but I think in this case, clunky as it is, what you see is what you get. I don't think the pages implicate Hook in any way - he just happened to recognize David's father and remember killing him. Even if they do somehow depict the murder, Hook also remembered it, so it can't be false in any way. I honestly don't think they would go the romantic route with August having feelings for Emma at this point.

[Curio]

5 minutes ago, Kktjones said:

I honestly don't think they would go the romantic route with August having feelings for Emma at this point.

Did you watch last episode? That was basically love interest setup 101.

[KingOfHearts]

57 minutes ago, Camera One said:

One line really interested me in this episode.  When Sheriff of Nottingham said, "I'm not that man anymore".  Why?  When?  How?  I guess Questions That Will Never Be Answered, Unexplored Facets of the Premise and Unfulfilled Potential might be more appropriate threads...

When does the Sheriff of Nottingham get his redemption arc?! I want to see how he got his tongue back. Maybe Rumple beating him up scared him into changing his behavior. Regina, marry this man!

[iMonrey]

Did I miss something? How is August an adult again? Last thing I remember, Blue Fairy turned him back into a little boy last season (presumably because Eion Bailey was not available at the time). How is he suddenly a grown-up again?

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Did I miss something? How is August an adult again? Last thing I remember, Blue Fairy turned him back into a little boy last season (presumably because Eion Bailey was not available at the time). How is he suddenly a grown-up again?

4B, "Enter the Dragon", Gold turns him back into an adult to return his memories because he needed to find out where the Author is.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Camera One

[Curio]

9 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Did I miss something? How is August an adult again? Last thing I remember, Blue Fairy turned him back into a little boy last season (presumably because Eion Bailey was not available at the time). How is he suddenly a grown-up again?

Looks like you skipped 4B. You were wiser than most of us.

[iMonrey]

Good Lord, I can't keep up with this show. And that was two whole seasons ago? Thanks for the reminder, although I can't remember the scene for the life of me.

[Camera One]

3 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Good Lord, I can't keep up with this show. And that was two whole seasons ago? Thanks for the reminder, although I can't remember the scene for the life of me.

It was around the episode when the Queens of Darkness and Rumple hung out in a cabin and Gold stuck August's face into the fireplace.

Your mind probably blocked it out.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Selina K said:

I completely blocked that episode out of my mind, so whichever way it was, definitely more than I remember!

I didn't remember it from that episode but from the episode in which Belle figured out that the Jolly Roger was invisible at the docks, found Archie, and freed him, right before Hook caught her, mostly because the confrontation between Belle and Hook was a really intense scene, and it's when he tells her about Milah, and she refuses to believe him. So, I didn't really remember how Archie got there, just that he was tied up and scared on board the Jolly Roger. And I would have liked to see some apology from Hook before he and Archie began interacting normally. I think this was the first direct interaction they've had since then. I don't recall having seen them talking to each other at all before. It is funny that the guy who's died or nearly died a few times, was turned into the thing he hates most, felt like he failed for not being able to resist the darkness, was tortured, learned that his first love's soul was destroyed, learned that he'd been measuring himself against a version of his brother that had always been a lie, resigned himself to death and moving on in the afterlife, and then found himself alive again, not to mention some serious Daddy issues and finding a younger brother who wanted him dead, ended up going to see a psychiatrist about how to talk to his girlfriend's father about proposing to her. There wasn't anything else to talk about while he was there?

[jhlipton]

7 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

If they really wanted to have Hook kill Robert, then he should have found out that Robert made a deal with the Dark One to sell his son.  That would have made Hook mad enough on a couple levels to kill him in a fit of anger.  1. He made a deal with the Dark One and Hook hates the Dark One, so Robert didn't deserve to live.  2. He sold his son and Killian's father sold him so that would have made him angry on behalf of James. 

This would have the added impact that when he met David, he would know that he (Hook) killed his (Davids's) father, not just Some Random Peasant.

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I do think a lot of it has to do with sleep deprivation and stress, but that's not really the way the episode treated it.

I know not everyone agrees with me about intent mattering in attempted (or achieved) murder, but I do think this is the difference between Regina murdering Leopold and Hook murdering Robert. Regina murdered Leopold because of who he was -- Snow's father -- as part of her effort to destroy Snow -- Emma's mother. It was very personal and intentional and done because she hated Snow and her family. Hook had no clue who Robert was, didn't hold any animosity toward him or his family. It's still terrible, but he wasn't doing it because he hated David and wanted to make David and his family suffer.

Have you heard that A&E aren't getting enough sleep?  LOL

Exactly -- in this version, Hook didn't kill David's father; he killed SRP, and he killed so many of them that he didn't realize that this one was special until he saw Robert's face.  TS,TW.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

2 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

This would have the added impact that when he met David, he would know that he (Hook) killed his (Davids's) father, not just Some Random Peasant.

Not if the boys' names were never mentioned and/or it was not mentioned that Rumple gave one of the sons to King George.  (I said "on behalf of James" really meaning 'on behalf of the son who was sold'.)  A generic line like "I sold my son to the Dark One" wouldn't have been a enough to connect that murder to David until Hook saw the picture and recognized David's father as The Random Peasant He Stabbed On A Road Somewhere.

[CCTC]

I meant to mention this earlier, but nice job with the casting of juvenile James/David.  They are pretty good with the casting of the child counterparts (except maybe child and adult Lily, but I tend to pretend she never happened).

It did help explain and foreshadow how screwed up James would become.  It did make me think they really could have mined the David-James story a little more last season.  Not necessarily with more centrics, but it could have been a subplot for a few more episodes.  Dallas showed he has the acting chops to do emotional confrontations.  The couple of the scenes that the brothers were actually in together were pretty short.

[jhlipton]

32 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Not if the boys' names were never mentioned and/or it was not mentioned that Rumple gave one of the sons to King George.  (I said "on behalf of James" really meaning 'on behalf of the son who was sold'.)  A generic line like "I sold my son to the Dark One" wouldn't have been a enough to connect that murder to David until Hook saw the picture and recognized David's father as The Random Peasant He Stabbed On A Road Somewhere.

True.  But it depends on how Hook found out that Robert sold his son.  If he hears the names of the sons, then the connection would be made.  If not, no connection.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, jhlipton said:

This would have the added impact that when he met David, he would know that he (Hook) killed his (Davids's) father, not just Some Random Peasant.

The problem with this is that the writers had no clue about this when Hook met David. At that point, they probably didn't even know that David's father was believed to have died in a drunk carting accident, let alone that he was really murdered or that Hook was the murderer, which means there could have been no impact at the meeting. I guess you could maybe squint really hard and imagine that this, and not Hook's interest in Emma or lingering devotion to Milah via Henry, was the reason Hook's put himself on the line for that family so many times, but then it still looks bad if Hook knew all this time and never said a word. It's going to look bad if he hasn't come clean by the end of the next episode. It's barely within the realm of possible reconciliation with him not having known until now, with him helping solve the mystery, talking David down from murder, and all the other stuff he's done. If he knew all along without coming clean, that's pretty much unforgivable. I'm not sure Hook would have even pursued Emma if he'd known who David was. His self-loathing wouldn't have let him if he'd known he'd hurt her family like that. Even now, he's putting that ring back in his pocket and probably isn't going to propose (unless he comes up with a way to put himself on the line for them yet again).

[RulerofallIsurvey]

3 hours ago, jhlipton said:

True.  But it depends on how Hook found out that Robert sold his son.  If he hears the names of the sons, then the connection would be made.  If not, no connection.

Yeah I guess...?  Maybe?  But I really don't see how.  [I did say "if the boys' names were never mentioned."]  In the scenario I gave: in which Robert is the one to tell Hook that he sold his son to the Dark one, without mentioning names, (perhaps as a part of his begging for his life - 'please let me go.  I have to get my son back from the Dark One.  I sold him by mistake.') how would  a connection be made when Hook first met David in S2 Storybrook when David at that time (as far as I recall) didn't even know that his father had sold his twin to King George through Rumple?  David probably wouldn't have told Hook back then even if he did know.  Did Hook even know that the king from whom he was stealing had a son named James?  (Did he care?  I doubt it.)  Did Hook know David's brother's name was James before this episode?  Hook saw James and David fight in the Underworld, but he might have been too far away to hear his (James') name.  And with the regression to the 'you're just a pirate' attitude in this episode, it's kind of hard believe they ever would have sat down to have the kind of conversation in which that bit of information (and the fact that his father sold him off to a neighboring king when he was young) would have arisen.  Even during the course of this investigation, if David had mentioned that his brother James got sold to the king, but not the king's name, it still wouldn't necessarily trigger Hook's memory of that particular murder, especially considering that Hook is "over 200 years old", so there's a lot more memories to sift through than the usual 30-something year old.  The picture triggering the memory still could have played out the same, even with a better motive - well, at least a more understandable motive as we've seen him lash out in anger with Ursula - from Hook.  

[jhlipton]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's barely within the realm of possible reconciliation with him not having known until now

As others have noted, his killing Robert in the first place isn't within 50 parsecs of the realm of possibility.  Now we're just quibbling over who killed whom -- Hook proposing to Emma is a joyous occasion, even if she doesn't have huge tracts of land. To justify Hook killing Robert for any reason would take a retcon of about 20 on the Richter scale.

 

2 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

The picture triggering the memory still could have played out the same, even with a better motive - well, at least a more understandable motive as we've seen him lash out in anger with Ursula - from Hook.  

See above.  There's really no good way to make this work, even if we go with the idea of revenge for son-selling/against the Dark One.

Edited March 15, 2017 by jhlipton

[RulerofallIsurvey]

1 hour ago, jhlipton said:

To justify Hook killing Robert for any reason would take a retcon of about 20 on the Richter scale.

No.  It wouldn't have.  And that was my point. 

1 hour ago, jhlipton said:

See above.  There's really no good way to make this work, even if we go with the idea of revenge for son-selling/against the Dark One.

I disagree.  See the quoted part of my previous post below (replacing 'James' with 'the son who was sold' to avoid any name issues):

13 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

1. He made a deal with the Dark One and Hook hates the Dark One, so Robert didn't deserve to live.  2. He sold his son and Killian's father sold him so that would have made him angry on behalf of James.

It wouldn't have been 'revenge' on behalf of the son who was sold so much as Hook killed Robert in a fit of rage, which would be entirely in character according to what we've already been shown, imo.  

[Camera One]

I just dawned on me that the Writers made Hook deprive two young boys of their father.  That's just horrible.  This is just the Captain Nemo episode on a bigger scale.  Seeing this twice in a single season isn't repetitive at all.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Camera One

[jhlipton]

10 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

It wouldn't have been 'revenge' on behalf of the son who was sold so much as Hook killed Robert in a fit of rage, which would be entirely in character according to what we've already been shown, imo.  

I suppose.  You've put more thought into this than I have and 100 times more than A&E

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I just dawned on me that the Writers made Hook deprive two young boys of their father.  That's just horrible.  This is just the Captain Nemo episode on a bigger scale.  Seeing this twice in a single season isn't repetitive at all.

I don't really feel as bad for Hook being abandoned now...

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, jhlipton said:

As others have noted, his killing Robert in the first place isn't within 50 parsecs of the realm of possibility.  Now we're just quibbling over who killed whom -- Hook proposing to Emma is a joyous occasion, even if she doesn't have huge tracts of land. To justify Hook killing Robert for any reason would take a retcon of about 20 on the Richter scale.

I think we're all arguing different things here.

There's the issue that the scenario as presented on the show is both lacking in plausibility and out of character. It doesn't match the previous story David told, it's an unnecessarily complicated way of getting rid of an inconvenient peasant, and the soldiers shouldn't have had the reward money with them. Hook and the pirates wouldn't have cared about leaving a witness, especially when they were going to head back to Neverland, anyway, and we've never seen Hook being that vicious for anything outside his revenge.

So, the idea of giving Hook an in-character reason to have killed Robert is just a way of thinking of ways to fix at least one of these problems. It's easier to imagine Hook losing his temper about a man who sold his son to the Dark One or being willing to take the job of killing a man who sold his son than to imagine him killing a helpless man in cold blood during a robbery. Of course, none of this speculation changes anything on the show.

Basically, this was a character-destroying twist, and because it happened in the character's distant past, it destroys the character going back to the time he was introduced.

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Did Hook know David's brother's name was James before this episode?  Hook saw James and David fight in the Underworld, but he might have been too far away to hear his (James') name.

He learned about the evil twin in "Good Form," but yeah, I don't think we ever knew when or if he learned more. Then again, we never saw Emma learning that her father had a twin.

[jhlipton]

9 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I don't really feel as bad for Hook being abandoned now...

And that's how the writers win. 

Just pretend the last 5 minutes didn't happen and whenever it gets brought up change Hook to Regina.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

11 hours ago, jhlipton said:

You've put more thought into this than I have and 100 times more than A&E

Lol.  Well, putting more thought into it than A&E isn't hard to do, is it?  

38 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

And that's how the writers win. 

Just pretend the last 5 minutes didn't happen and whenever it gets brought up change Hook to Regina.

Unfortunately you're right about this.  And I really dislike that now Hook is going to have to have the same kind of handwaving treatment as Regina gets.  

[darkestboy]

Oh that twist. I really wish they hadn't gone there with Hook being David's dad's killer but eh, more angst I get.

Shame though, because the David and Hook scenes were pretty great this season.

Seeing Pleasure Island was a nice treat. Nice that August seems to have more of a role this season as well.

Liked Regina's scenes with Snow more than her Robin or Zelena ones this week. That said, it's nice we're seeing a bad side to this Robin and Regina realising she might not be in love with him after all.

Wasn't the greatest episode for Emma though, 7/10

[Shanna Marie]

12 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I don't really feel as bad for Hook being abandoned now...

Though isn't that sort of putting the cart before the horse? He stabbed long after he was abandoned. That small child didn't deserve what happened to him. The adult who's been killed multiple times, tortured, lost a hand, etc., may have deserved those things, but the kid didn't deserve to be sold into slavery. And in keeping with this show's "evil isn't born, it's made" theme, the abandonment could be considered a contributing factor to the evil. After all, that small child who was abandoned was brought up by an older brother with a very sketchy moral compass who liked to present himself as being the perfect role model and by a captain who thought that buying children and using them as slaves was an okay thing to do. It's not like he had great role models or moral guidance.

I still think this killing was wildly out of character and bad writing, and the irony is that Archie was involved in this episode when he's a case study in how out of character it was. Hook had far more reason to kill Archie back in season 2 than he had to kill Robert. Robert was merely a witness to a crime who had no incentive to tell anyone who had killed the guards, and the pirates could escape back to Neverland even if George ever learned who killed the guards. On the other hand, Archie's death had been faked and Hook had the information he needed from him (since he'd already acted upon it). Keeping Archie alive was a huge risk and a loose end that could have got in the way of Hook's revenge. It would have made perfect sense for Hook to have killed Archie and dumped him in the ocean, and Cora's scheme and Hook's role in it might never have been found out. Belle wouldn't have found Archie tied up and freed him, and Archie wouldn't have been able to spill the beans. And yet, Archie was still alive.

Alas, it did happen and is canon. Ugh.

[Mathius]

32 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Though isn't that sort of putting the cart before the horse? He stabbed long after he was abandoned. That small child didn't deserve what happened to him. The adult who's been killed multiple times, tortured, lost a hand, etc., may have deserved those things, but the kid didn't deserve to be sold into slavery.

Agreed.  That's like saying Rumple deserved to be abandoned by Malcolm because he would later abandon Baelfire.

Quote

And I really dislike that now Hook is going to have to have the same kind of handwaving treatment as Regina gets.  

I don't think he's going to.  Was this flashback a Regina-level retcon murder?  Yes, it was.  The difference is that they're going to have Hook agonize over it and actually work to atone for it.  It won't be handwaved like with Regina and Leopold, or not confessed to like with Regina and Graham, or just plain never dealt with like Regina and, say, that random groom she murdered.  As horrible as this retconned murder is, Hook is still going to deal with the ramifications of it in the present-day, which is something Regina seldom if ever does.  Hook is going to actually have to earn forgiveness. 

That's where the writers' goal to drag Hook to Regina's level gets screwed up, because the aftermath of their crimes is written very differently.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Mathius

[Camera One]

Though isn't that sort of putting the cart before the horse? He stabbed long after he was abandoned.

I think these new retcons often can't help but tarnish the character and how you think about them, even if you know they don't make sense.  

[KingOfHearts]

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Though isn't that sort of putting the cart before the horse?

I still sympathize for pre-Hook Killian. I can't feel sorry for him in the present, though, because every time I remember his father abandoned him, I also recall him killing his father, killing another father, and leaving two boys fatherless. As @Camera One said, it's more about character assassination. Morally, it's still tragic that Killian's father left him. But now his character, as a whole, has come to a darker shade of gray than he was before.

When Rumple takes pity and Hook doesn't, you know something's up.

Edited March 15, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

18 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

When Rumple takes pity and Hook doesn't, you know something's up.

Rumple can see the future. Maybe he saw that Robert was going to die anyways so he let him go, which is why the hair strand was useless.

[Camera One]

Rumple was being nice because he sympathesized with Robert as a father.  It shows he is sooooooooooo complex you see.  You can tell because after Robert left, he said to himself:  "Someday may we all be reunited with our sons."

May we all forgive Rumple for his minor trespasses.

[Curio]

8 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Rumple was being nice because he sympathesized with Robert as a father.  It shows he is sooooooooooo complex you see.  You can tell because after Robert left, he said to himself:  "Someday may we all be reunited with our sons."

How often have we seen Rumple do something kind for someone else on screen just because he was feeling warm that day? And how often have we seen Hook kill someone on screen for a reason that doesn't involve his revenge? It just seems odd that an episode written by Jane had to twist multiple characters into acting OOC to fit the plot needs.

[woolmintons]

2 hours ago, Mathius said:

I don't think he's going to.  Was this flashback a Regina-level retcon murder?  Yes, it was.  The difference is that they're going to have Hook agonize over it and actually work to atone for it.  It won't be handwaved like with Regina and Leopold, or not confessed to like with Regina and Graham, or just plain never dealt with like Regina and, say, that random groom she murdered.  As horrible as this retconned murder is, Hook is still going to deal with the ramifications of it in the present-day, which is something Regina seldom if ever does.  Hook is going to actually have to earn forgiveness. 

That's where the writers' goal to drag Hook to Regina's level gets screwed up, because the aftermath of their crimes is written very differently.

 

ALL OF THIS. (Apologies for the following essay)

I want to be naive and believe that they're contrasting their "redemption arcs" SO MUCH on purpose. It's just TOO MUCH of a difference in the way they're handled that it has to be deliberate. That they show us Hook killing a nameless, completely innocent person, then give them a name, and have their victim's loved ones (or the victim themselves) face their murderer, and that they're going to spend multiple episodes dealing with his guilt, remorse, and DAVID AND EMMA'S FEELINGS ABOUT IT.

I still can't say with any sort of certainty that Robin knew that Regina killed Marian. Regina's first responses were to victim blame (Maybe she deserved it!), insult her (She can't possibly be expected to remember all of the pathetic vanilla peasants she slaughtered), plan to murder her again, and then act like she was the biggest victim in the situation instead of, you know, Robin, Roland, or Marian herself? Marian never got to call Regina out on her murdering an innocent, and even before they pulled the Zarian reveal out of their asses they never focused on the real victim, just had Robin BASICALLY CONFESS HIS LOVE TO REGINA NEXT TO MARIAN'S FROZEN BODY AND THEN GIVE US TWO ROUNDS OF CRYPT SEX???

Like, we never learned the groom's name, we never saw his widow face Regina, and we'll never see or hear anything about either of them ever again as some reminder to Regina of the things she's done and needs to atone for. If Hook tried to place some blame on Robert, that none of what David learned changed the fact that he was a drunk and a shitty father for the first 5.99 years of David's life or that he deserved to die because he sold his own kid to the Dark One, he would 100% deserve to be hit by a car again and then kicked in the nuts by every member of the Charming family. Not to mention, the only thing I'm sure about is that we're not going to get a "Breaking Glass" type Captain Charming episode where David's running after Hook in the woods at night begging him to marry his daughter.

That's how absurd the REC is.

We just had an episode where Regina had to act like the Evil Queen again, and had NO problem doing so. No problem murdering the Wish!Charmings or victim blaming/threatening/forcing/terrorizing Emma into remembering. She slipped into it so quickly. That she wouldn't physically hurt Henry, but so easily emotionally hurt him, which is exactly what we've seen The Evil Queen do with the dragon episode, or saw Regina do it all throughout seasons 1 and 2? Then we almost immediately have an episode with Hook having to lie to and steal from his True Love and he's outright telling David he doesn't want to do it? That Regina can so easily give those hearts back, and somewhat atone for taking them in the first place, but brushed them off as no big deal? Regina's "so redeemed" that she is just always using a combination of light and dark magic!!! but Killian Jones is always going to be haunted by his past and forever be on the path to redemption? It would drive me insane if I didn't (probably naively) believe that they're doing this on purpose. I choose to have hope that they're doing this on purpose.

So on one hand, I 100% hate that they went there. That it doesn't mesh very well with what we've seen of Hook and other people he's hurt or the fact that, as others have said, they had to handwave so many details in order for it to happen in the first place. On the other hand, my second favorite character is going through an actual redemption arc, that's also the best on the show IMO, so I'll take what I can get. I would rather have repetitive victim-remorse-atone/atone attempt than victim-pity party-victim dies without anyone knowing the truth-more pity party/victim coddles abuser or victim-no fucks given-remurder-field in which I plant my fucks is still barren.

Also, this probably means we'll get more meaty emotional scenes between Colin and Josh, and I'm ALWAYS here for that. Josh was so, so great in this episode.

[KingOfHearts]

4 minutes ago, Curio said:

How often have we seen Rumple do something kind for someone else on screen just because he was feeling warm that day? And how often have we seen Hook kill someone on screen for a reason that doesn't involve his revenge? It just seems odd that an episode written by Jane had to twist multiple characters into acting OOC to fit the plot needs.

Rumple needs to be a loving father this week because we're in the Gideon arc. If this were 2B or 4B, he would have killed Robert right then and there.

Quote

Rumple was being nice because he sympathesized with Robert as a father.  It shows he is sooooooooooo complex you see.  You can tell because after Robert left, he said to himself:  "Someday may we all be reunited with our sons."

That's such a Jane thing to write, though. She thinks Rumple's puppy eyes are adorably pitiable. 

Edited March 15, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, Curio said:

It just seems odd that an episode written by Jane had to twist multiple characters into acting OOC to fit the plot needs.

She's an expert at this... she also wrote "Best Laid Plans"/"Mother", "Bleeding Through", "The Evil Queen"... all of those were designed to make a bigger villain look sympathetic while a hero gets rapped on the knuckles.

[Curio]

23 minutes ago, Camera One said:

She's an expert at this... she also wrote "Best Laid Plans"/"Mother", "Bleeding Through", "The Evil Queen"... all of those were designed to make a bigger villain look sympathetic while a hero gets rapped on the knuckles.

Wow. I guess I've been giving Jane too much credit over the years.

[Mathius]

24 minutes ago, Curio said:

Wow. I guess I've been giving Jane too much credit over the years.

I've always said that Jane is overrated.  David Goodman's the best writer on the staff, not Jane (although even he can't do much to improve S6.)

Quote

So on one hand, I 100% hate that they went there. That it doesn't mesh very well with what we've seen of Hook and other people he's hurt or the fact that, as others have said, they had to handwave so many details in order for it to happen in the first place. On the other hand, my second favorite character is going through an actual redemption arc, that's also the best on the show IMO, so I'll take what I can get. I would rather have repetitive victim-remorse-atone/atone attempt than victim-pity party-victim dies without anyone knowing the truth-more pity party/victim coddles abuser or victim-no fucks given-remurder-field in which I plant my fucks is still barren.

Agreed with your whole essay. Character-assassinating retcon aside, Hook at least still has this going for him.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Mathius

[Shanna Marie]

This really is one of the drawbacks of the flashback-heavy narrative in which there isn't any real character bible and they make up the backstory to fit the needs of the current plot. They seem to keep forgetting that anything told in backstory has always happened. It's not new information to the characters. Present-day Hook has always killed David's father. I guess, on the other hand, that means that all the redemption and repentance he's been through includes that deed. If you want to get coldly logical about it, why should it change anything? Emma has always known that he's killed people for stupid and selfish reasons. These people were somebody's fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. She knows he feels bad about the people he's killed and that he's not like that anymore. He's died more than once to save her and her family, has put himself on the line for her and her family even more times. Should it make a difference if it turns out that one of those people he killed was a grandfather she never met, when he had no idea who he was killing and wasn't trying to target her family? In contrast to Regina, who was specifically targeting Emma's family? And then there's the Graham issue, where Regina killed Graham in part to hurt Emma and hasn't come clean about that, even while acting as Emma's friend and trying to make Emma feel bad about messing up her relationship with Robin.

But emotionally, it does make a difference. This will be new information that they might not consider covered by all of his other redemption, dying for them, etc. He, at least, doesn't seem to believe it's covered by his past redemptive acts. How this affects all their relationships will depend on how up-front he is, how David and Emma learn (please, let's hope they avoid the cliche where he starts to tell them and gets interrupted, then they find out another way and are angry that he didn't tell them himself). They might have to do a cost-benefit analysis about the effect of Hook on their lives -- how are they better or worse off because of him?

If Hook didn't show up where Robert was about to be killed, Robert would still have been dead, killed by George's men. If Hook had spared Robert and let him go, would things have been much better? Odds are, George would still have gone after him, maybe pinning the murders of the soldiers on him. Instead of having a dad who died in a drunk carting accident, David would have had a dad executed as a murderer. The best-case scenario might have been if Hook took Robert with him to ensure his silence, and David just had a dad who'd disappeared, and they might have been reunited in Storybrooke (since some of Hook's crew was there). Or he might have died with a lot of the other crew members in Neverland or might have returned just in time for the war and got killed with Ruth.

On the other hand, if there's no Hook, then would Emma and Snow have made it back from the Enchanted Forest? (Didn't they use and need that compass he helped them get?). Henry might have been stuck in Neverland and killed by Pan (yeah, Hook helped create the situation that allowed him to be taken, but that was Greg and Tamara's mission, so it probably would have happened somehow). Or David would have died in Neverland if they'd found another way there. They wouldn't have been able to save Neal to find out how to get back and, again, wouldn't have had a ship. Emma might have been separated from her family for good, never knowing about them and never being returned to them. Without her and Henry being in Storybrooke, they might or might not have been able to stop Zelena, so the whole family line might have been wiped out (even if Emma did nothing, they seemed to need Henry to break the memory curse). Without Hook, Emma might have been stuck in the past on her own, without help getting her parents together and without anyone to get her to realize she had the power to get home. Without Hook, Emma might not have reconciled with her parents about the eggnapping. Without Hook, evil Charming and Snow might have killed Emma and Henry and kept them from undoing the AU. Without Hook, Snow gets killed by Zelena and Arthur. Without Hook, David becomes a murderer and then can't live with himself. (I'm leaving out the Dark One and Underworld-related things, because those probably wouldn't have happened in the first place without Hook.) If you're playing It's a Wonderful Life, things get much worse for the Charming family if there's no Hook, and there's only a slight chance that this one part might have been somewhat better.

But, yeah, he'll probably have to do something big, nearly get himself killed (again), find the way to reunite Snow and David and break that curse, save Emma from Gideon, and save the whole town -- on top of a groveling, tearful apology -- before they're grudgingly willing to even speak to him after they learn what he did.

[Camera One]

 Should it make a difference if it turns out that one of those people he killed was a grandfather she never met, when he had no idea who he was killing and wasn't trying to target her family?

I agree that emotionally, it does make a difference.  Because this particular killing was emotionally devastating for her father.  But the thing is - they've never bothered to show David opening up to Emma about his childhood, and Emma doesn't even know about this whole "daddy was murdered" plotline.  So they're making it big deal without laying the groundwork for it to be a big deal.  We just have to assume it's a big deal because Emma cares about her father.  

On the other hand, if there's no Hook, then would Emma and Snow have made it back from the Enchanted Forest?

The danger of that argument is it equally applies to Regina.  If she had died in Season 2, Snow, Charming and Emma would have died thirty times over.