S06.E12: Murder Most Foul

[Shanna Marie]

7 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

Cora referred to him as a cricket when she presented him as a gift to Hook in "The Cricket Game"

Okay, I'll kind of buy that, given Hook's fondness for nicknames. It just seems weird to still be referring to him as "the Cricket" when he might have seen him in cricket form for maybe five minutes a year or so ago and has otherwise only interacted with him as "Archie."

Though, come to think of it, how did Cora know he was a cricket? I guess he was kind of around, but he wasn't running in the kind of circles that would have brought him into contact with Cora. He didn't start becoming part of Snow's crew until well after Regina sent her away. Oh, wait, was she there to watch the party in which he was trapped in Snow's blouse and Regina thought she was crushing Snow's heart? But that was a retcon, and it wouldn't explain how she knew that the cricket mapped to Archie. As of season 2, we'd seen no reason for her to have any idea who he was.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Shanna Marie

[Camera One]

I'm selectively reading some preview interviews (with some spoilers) to see if they pan out.  In regards to this episode:

Quote

INTERVIEWER: At the start of these episode, Snow is still sleeping. When might that change, and what role will she play, in these remaining episodes?

KITSIS: Snow is the heart of the show. We’ve known, since the beginning, that the belief in a happy ending can be very powerful. Her absence and David not waking her up is going to set him down a dark road to find out who killed his dad.

 

David was obsessed about finding out who killed his father before the sleeping curse.  I'm not sure how Snow's absence is what set him down the "dark road".  That's not really the stimulus for this episode.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

David was obsessed about finding out who killed his father before the sleeping curse.  I'm not sure how Snow's absence is what set him down the "dark road".  That's not really the stimulus for this episode.

The reasons for David going berserk are all over the place. First, he was lying to Snow. Then it was because of her absence, and then it was his lack of sleep. This subplot has been clunky from the start. They introduced it in 6x02, and didn't follow up until 6x12. That was a very arbitrary spot to do it too, since Ghost Dad was contrived. They could have easily done it any time in 6A, or later in 6B. It just didn't matter. It was completely separate from everything else going on.

[Virtual]

Definitely think Hook is gonna be in for a rough situation, especially now that he's had a chance to come clean about Emma's grandfather and hasn't. We all saw how enraged David got towards King George; he was to the point of killing him. But David will at least, eventually, be more forgiving than Regina or Zelena would be in the same circumstances.

[Camera One]

On this show, every man is a ticking time bomb ready to explode with suppressed rage.  

[AudienceofOne]

On 12/03/2017 at 9:30 PM, KingOfHearts said:

It taints Captain Swan for me, and I don't think the writers fully realized what they did.

Of course they did. They just don't care. They insist on doing this to Hook every season. It's fucking annoying but par for the course. There's no way Hook would have killed a man tied up who was about to be murdered by the King's Men. That's exactly the kind of person he would have saved. This is bullshit.

Oh, and August? Is as dodgy as ever. That at least is consistent.

[Mathius]

On 3/21/2017 at 2:45 AM, Camera One said:

KITSIS: Snow is the heart of the show.

LOL, no.  This isn't S1 and S2 anymore, Eddy, get with the program.

[Rumsy4]

8 minutes ago, Mathius said:

LOL, no.  This isn't S1 and S2 anymore, Eddy, get with the program.

Considering Snow's heart is halved, and she shares it with Charming, it seems like the perfect metaphor for their diminished importance and interchangeable status in the Show currently.

[Camera One]

You're misunderstanding Eddy.  Snow is the "heart", as in she's buried so deep you hardly know she's there.

[andromeda331]

Or does he mean the heart Regina pulled out and crushed in Wishworld?

[Panopticon]

Oh.

I wish I hadn't watched that.

I let this episode sit on my DVR for a few weeks because I wasn't sure I wanted to stick with the show after the mid-season reveal that everything positive about Emma is a result of Regina's curse. I suppose the end of this episode is my punishment for not checking out when I should have. But now there's officially nothing left for me to like. All shows run their courses I suppose. 

[Rumsy4]

4 hours ago, Panopticon said:

I suppose the end of this episode is my punishment for not checking out when I should have. But now there's officially nothing left for me to like. All shows run their courses I suppose. 

I am sorry. :-( This was the last episode I watched in full. I just watched clips from the last two episodes, but I am planning on watching the next one. It's really sad when people stop watching so late into the run of a Show, but sometimes, that's just how it is.

[kingshearte]

I think the most frustrating thing about this episode (like most episodes, really) was the wasted potential. Dallas and O'Donoghue are much funnier than they're usually allowed to be, and there were flashes of billiance in their physical comedy together in this episode. If they could be legit friends and have entertaining interactions like that more often, it would be so delightful. Instead, we have this constant reset of David's attitude toward Killian. I found David's behaviour in this one particularly egregious. Usually when he has these "you're not good enough" episodes, there's some side-eye, and perhaps a pointed comment or six, but here he was barely even civil.

Props to O'Donoghue though, for his face acting when he realized that David's asking for help wasn't because he respected him as a decent person, but in fact because he didn't. The subtle shift from elation to heartbreak was quite lovely.

[Vader12]

On ‎3‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 9:53 AM, Virtual Side said:

Definitely think Hook is gonna be in for a rough situation, especially now that he's had a chance to come clean about Emma's grandfather and hasn't. We all saw how enraged David got towards King George; he was to the point of killing him. But David will at least, eventually, be more forgiving than Regina or Zelena would be in the same circumstances.

Forgiving? Might take a little longer. And what we saw too episodes later, was a start of David's anger and feeling deceived.

[Virtual]

That's why I said "eventually". Trust me, it won't be right away by any means necessary. Especially if David's reaction to the news is any sign of how he'll react once he and Hook cross paths again.

[Shanna Marie]

I couldn't bring myself to watch the last few minutes. Without their (so totally predictable that we called it months earlier) "shocking twist," it's a pretty good episode. It's nice getting some focus on David. I was kind of rolling my eyes at the Victorian carnival in their quasi-medieval/quasi-18th century world, but I liked the execution of Pleasure Island. Young Ruth did a wonderful job of capturing the speech patterns and mannerisms of older Ruth. Colin knocked everything out of the park. I loved watching his subtle reactions to David's digs, trying not to let on that he was hurt, but being visibly hurt. The potion scene was laugh-out-loud funny, just because of the physical acting of the two guys, and the scene in which Hook talks David down from vengeance was absolutely wonderful. It truly showed that it's not just that Hook has changed because he stopped doing evil, but he changed because he really and truly gets why what he was doing was wrong.

But there's also a lot that doesn't work if you think much about it, even if you ignore the last few minutes -- and that part really, really doesn't work. There's the bad continuity, where David told Anna that he overheard his parents talking about his father going to get supplies, but here we see that he overheard part of a conversation about going to get James, and then his father told him directly that he was going to get supplies. There's the silliness of George not changing the baby's name. If you've bought an infant that young to pass off as your own son, you're not going to ask what the baby's name is and call him that. You're going to name him whatever you want to name him, and you're probably going to want to change the name, just to make sure you're covering your tracks. Then the Omniscience Fairy must have visited George so that he would know that Robert told David he was going to get supplies. How else would he have known what the supposed reason for his journey was to use that as a cover for killing him? And George was pretty trusting in giving his soldiers their reward before they actually did the deed. Ruth knew that her husband was going after James, not going to get supplies, so why did she believe the cover story behind his death? Why did she let David grow up thinking his father had died as a drunk when she knew he was going after James? Even if sticking to the cover story was safer while David was a child, wouldn't she have told him the full truth before he went off to replace James?

Then if we have to consider the events at the end in the least surprising non-twist ever, that doesn't make sense, either. Why would pirates on a cake run for Pan have been inland, looking for people to rob, rather than engaging in, you know, piracy? (Now I'm hearing the Land Pirates song from Galavant in my head.) Why would Hook have stopped the knight from killing Robert, only to kill Robert? Why not just let the knight kill the guy, then kill the knight? It would have been less work. Why would Hook have even cared about leaving witnesses? He's gotten into trouble before because he was so concerned about his reputation as a pirate and wanted to be seen as bad. Killing George's men and taking the king's money would have been something to add to his "fearsome pirate" resume, not something to cover up, especially since they were about to head back to Neverland for a decade or so and George never would have found them, even if Robert had told the world about who did it. It all defied all logic and was done for cheap drama.

Something that struck me during this rewatch: They kept having David be antagonistic toward Hook in the annual CaptainCharming Bromance Episode on rather generic "you're just a pirate!" terms, but they never actually used the one legitimate reason for David to be concerned about him dating Emma. David is the son of an alcoholic who David believed died in a drunk driving accident, but in all the accusations he flings at Hook, he never brings up Hook's possibly problematic relationship with alcohol. We may not have seen our present-day Hook stumbling drunk since the 3A finale when he told Neal he was backing off from Emma and then went to drown his sorrows, but the guy carries around a flask of rum and takes frequent sips, so he's probably never entirely sober. You'd think someone with David's background would be really concerned about that, but I guess the whole point of these episodes is that David is wrong about Hook, so they can't give him any legitimate concerns.

I liked the scene between Archie and Hook, but it would have been more meaningful if we'd ever seen them interacting at all before (other when Hook was interrogating him in season 2). It seems like they'd have needed more of a relationship before Hook would have gone to him for advice. It's not as though Hook is familiar with the concept of psychiatry.

[Camera One]

31 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's nice getting some focus on David.

I rewatched this one recently with the friend who's behind.  I did like the Pleasure Island part of this episode... these little mash-ups with fairy tales still get me every time.  The acting with the actors who played David and Hook were good in the present-day, though it was frustrating to watch. 

I was disappointed though that this episode wasn't really about David.  It was more about David's father and also about Hook talking David down, like the flashbacks in "White Out" were more about showcasing Anna than David.  Child David was hardly in this episode. 

Quote

David is the son of an alcoholic who David believed died in a drunk driving accident, but in all the accusations he flings at Hook, he never brings up Hook's possibly problematic relationship with alcohol. 

This would actually have been interesting and more character-based (versus twist-based).

Quote

There's the bad continuity, where David told Anna that he overheard his parents talking about his father going to get supplies, but here we see that he overheard part of a conversation about going to get James, and then his father told him directly that he was going to get supplies. 

And then of course, there were the continuity issues that we discussed when this episode first aired.  Heck, Jane Espenson wrote "White Out" and couldn't be bothered to fact-check herself?  I know they're on a time crunch, but it's either super sloppy or super disrespectful of the audience's intelligence that we would accept a story that didn't even mesh with canon (if she did this knowingly and decided it didn't matter).

Spoiler

And the fact that David never really gets to react to finding out that Hook killed his father shows that they couldn't care less about the character, other than choosing this as his "centric".  The Writers' motives became super transparent.  In hindsight, this episode was solely to create drama in the Hook/Emma relationship.  It had absolutely nothing to do with exploring the Hook/David relationship, or exploring David's past and present and growth.

Edited August 4, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Quote

David is the son of an alcoholic who David believed died in a drunk driving accident, but in all the accusations he flings at Hook, he never brings up Hook's possibly problematic relationship with alcohol. 

This would actually have been interesting and more character-based (versus twist-based).

And the place for it would have been in "Good Form," when it would have given David a reason to be a jerk to the guy who offered up his ship to help save Henry, and it would have tied nicely with Pan's "one-handed pirate with a drinking problem" jab. But I'm sure they hadn't come up with the alcoholic father backstory then. It would also have fit well with "White Out," where David was suddenly hostile to Hook for no good reason, other than the script said he had to be. In that one, they knew about the alcoholic father backstory, so that could have been part of the conflict, with the fact that it looks like Hook and Emma will be getting serious being what makes David worried about his daughter being with an alcoholic, and his sudden hostility could have been all about Hook's drinking, and then we get the revelation about his father.

Spoiler

The fact that they never seriously address Hook's drinking and treat the flask as just a fun character trait while they depict Wish Hook in season 7 as an alcoholic who totally abstains makes Hook's drinking a little disturbing in retrospect. Is he meant to be a high-functioning alcoholic who may not get blackout drunk often anymore, but who maintains a constant low-level buzz by taking a sip of rum every hour or so?

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I was disappointed though that this episode wasn't really about David.  It was more about David's father and also about Hook talking David down, like the flashbacks in "White Out" were more about showcasing Anna than David.

But in the present, David had some good stuff and I feel like we learned a lot about him. Not that what we learned really meshes with the David we know. I guess the murder stuff is news to him, but he's always known George ordered the murder of his mother, and he hasn't gone after him for that.

And I guess the Omniscience Fairy visited Rumple and the Evil Queen, too, since they somehow knew that Hook was involved in David's father's death, even though there were no witnesses. I guess maybe Rumple could have been holding the coin and the information on the real cause of death as some kind of evidence he could hold over George's head, whether or not he knew Hook was involved, though I'm not sure how he would have known the real cause of death. You'd think George would have covered that up thoroughly. But the Evil Queen I'm sure knew, or she wouldn't have bothered spilling the beans to David (unless maybe her actual goal was to get him to go all murdery on George rather than tearing apart Hook, Emma, and the Charming family). How she knew any of it is rather odd, given that she would have been a teenager at that time and not yet evil. Why would she have bothered getting info on David's father's death?

[Camera One]

Maybe The Evil Queen borrowed a DVD/Hologram of Season 15 of "How I Killed Your Father", the way Zelena watched how Cora abandoned her and how Regina got everything while she got nothing.

I am curious how this story would have played out, if it had occurred in 6A, since this was teased before Season 6 started and it was pushed to 6B.

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

. You'd think someone with David's background would be really concerned about that, but I guess the whole point of these episodes is that David is wrong about Hook, so they can't give him any legitimate concerns.

I'd bet you money that the writers never even made that connection. Even though David was an indirect victim of alcoholism, we still saw him happily drinking on multiple occasions and he never once had a problem with people drinking alcohol. The writers gave zero thought to that when they slotted in his dad's death.

[Camera One]

13 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'd bet you money that the writers never even made that connection. Even though David was an indirect victim of alcoholism, we still saw him happily drinking on multiple occasions and he never once had a problem with people drinking alcohol. The writers gave zero thought to that when they slotted in his dad's death.

I'm sure David and the Count of Monte Cristo had a very deep conversation about alcohol that had to be cut out due to time.

[Shanna Marie]

19 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'd bet you money that the writers never even made that connection. Even though David was an indirect victim of alcoholism, we still saw him happily drinking on multiple occasions and he never once had a problem with people drinking alcohol.

He might not have a problem with drinking in general, considering he comes from a world where, if they're being at all accurate (ha!), alcohol consumption was pretty common, since the water might not have been safe to drink, so ale or beer was what you drank with your meals (though it was lower in alcohol than our beer is). But Hook goes beyond drinking ale with his meals to carrying around a flask of hard liquor at all times, and drinking from that flask throughout the day, especially when he's in an emotionally difficult situation. That looks a lot like a problem or potential problem, and if David is looking for reasons to object to Hook, that one would be pretty obvious and more legitimate than a general "pirate" accusation or "you're just trying to do nice things for Emma" accusation (which is an odd thing to be angry about -- how dare you do good things for my daughter! But I'll name my kid after the guy who got her pregnant and abandoned her).

But I guess there's that issue of them coming up with the alcoholic father late in the game, and even if they only revealed it in season 4, David would have known it all along, so he couldn't suddenly be opposed to Hook on those grounds when he hadn't been before, unless there was a specific incident that was more problematic than just the flask, like if Hook got seriously drunk and did or said something stupid. That, at least, would have given a reason for David to abruptly change how he feels about Hook after having been a friend for a while. Given David's background, seeing Hook really drunk might make David suddenly be opposed to him.

I would have said that they were just treating the flask like an aspect of the pirate costume, on a par with the cutlass, without thinking through the implications of someone who drinks rum throughout the day, except for the fact that

Spoiler

in season 7, they portray Wish Hook (and his curse persona Rogers) as a recovering alcoholic who gave up alcohol entirely, with Rogers even facing the temptation of taking one drink and the consequences that might result. So they know the potential result of Hook's habits, unless they don't think our Hook is in danger of being as far gone as Wish Hook ever got.

[companionenvy]

Oh, this episode. You were doing so well before that last scene. Shanna has detailed why it is dumb from a logistical perspective (Hook flaunts his crimes, rather than hiding them; there's no reason for Hook to be there at all; if he wants Robert dead, he shouldn't have saved him in the first place, etc), but I'm more concerned about how bad it is from an emotional perspective. 

Yes, I get that "I killed your father/grandfather" isn't generally the kind of thing you just say "my bad" about and move on. So, in emotional terms, it should theoretically work as a conflict. But in the first place, we have the background in which these people are best buddies with Regina, who killed Snow's father, among a host of others. So even if Hook feels terrible about what he did, as he should, it doesn't work for the show to try to wring serious drama out of it, as there's never any doubt that this is something he'll be forgiven for, as every other villain has been repeatedly forgiven. This is especially true when you add in his more recent history of saving Charming and his loved ones one multiple occasions.

But more than that, it is an idiotic conflict for the show to raise now. Hook has proven himself again and again. David has gone to pretty much literal hell to save him. He and Emma are confirmed true love. That doesn't mean that a bombshell like this -- at least in a show that didn't feature everyone being besties with Regina -- wouldn't, in real life, still generate real emotional turmoil. But it simply isn't interesting to watch. For comparison, there are occasions in which, tragically, a person suffers multiple losses of loved ones in a short time period. And, naturally, they're going to grieve for each of them. But if I'm writing a family drama, I'm not going to have my character lose his mother in the first half of season 1, and his sister in the second and his father in season 2, because that would be repeating the same emotional beats over and over again. Similarly, Hook did something terrible/we can't trust Hook/actually now he's a hero and a good man is a plot that has been thoroughly played out by now.

If the show had to do this plot, they should have made David and Hook together experience the memory of Hook killing his father (ideally in less stupid circumstances). David's immediate, hot-blooded impulse might have been to kill Hook, who wouldn't fight it. Then he calms down, and tells Hook something along the lines of "I know you've changed. And it isn't like I didn't know you had killed before, or that you're the only person in this town with a lot to atone for. That one of the people you killed is my father doesn't change who you were, and who you've become.  But Killian, you have to talk to Emma. Not to tell her that you killed one of the grandfathers she never knew, but to really tell her about your past, so that she can confront what it means to be with someone who has done so much bad." Then, while the viewer wouldn't have had to hear most of the confession, we could end with Hook talking to Emma. Emma, in the next episode, forgives him but tells him she needs a little time to process all of this - emphasizing that she is not rejecting him --, but Hook in the interim decides to go off on another quest to prove himself.

This would create a dramatic scenario and give pretext for delaying the Captain Swan resolution while staying true to the characters and the show, and without cheap attempts to wring false tension out of more lies and deceit.

[Writing Wrongs]

Whenever they throw in these past crimes of other characters, all I can think about is how Regina..oh excuse me.. The Evil Queen, did so much worse and she gets forgiven and apologized to.

[Camera One]

The Evil Queen teased David with the coin in 6A.  But at the end of the day, the whole secret about what happened to David's father was revealed to Hook by accident and due to coincidence.  I mean, what a joke.  If she knew the whole story, she could also have tortured Hook by revealing to him what he unknowingly did.  

Edited August 5, 2019 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

Whenever they throw in these past crimes of other characters, all I can think about is how Regina..oh excuse me.. The Evil Queen, did so much worse and she gets forgiven and apologized to.

Same here and its really the same every time they introduce a new Big Bad villain no matter how "bad" he or she is Regina and Rumple have done worse and got off scot free. I really don't care.

[Camera One]

I was just thinking... In 5B, David had now met James in the Underworld and now knows his fate.  And now, in Season 6, we got an episode with King George.  Does David mention James to George?  Nope.  I mean, there could seriously have been an interesting conversation there.  Did Season 5 happen or not? 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

I was just thinking... In 5B, David had now met James in the Underworld and now knows his fate.  And now, in Season 6, we got an episode with King George.  Does David mention James to George?  Nope.  I mean, there could seriously have been an interesting conversation there.

Likewise, how does learning that James wanted to get away from George but was taken back against his will affect how David feels about James's ultimate fate? Snow had told David he wouldn't have ended up like James because he was different, but then we learn that James as a child didn't want to be the kind of son George wanted, so maybe David would have turned out the way James did if the coin flip had gone differently. (Never mind that all the animosity between George and James was a total retcon because in season one they seemed to have a good relationship and George seemed to genuinely love James.)

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

Did Season 5 happen or not? 

Clearly not, since no one remembers anything they learned in the Underworld, and Hook was entirely unaffected by dying and being brought back to life after months in the Underworld.

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

The Evil Queen teased David with the coin in 6A.  But at the end of the day, the whole secret about what happened to David's father was revealed to Hook by accident and due to coincidence.  I mean, what a joke.  If she knew the whole story, she could also have tortured Hook by revealing to him what he unknowingly did.  

Yeah, she didn't do much to progress her dastardly plan. For much of this time, David wasn't doing anything at all to look into it. Was she not getting frustrated about nothing happening? Or was she sidetracked with spa days, making out with Rumple, and engineering the sleeping curse? She couldn't be bothered with a snide remark to Hook? She didn't try goading David into action?

Since we know they were planning this during the summer, considering the actors seemed to know about it back when they'd only seen the scripts for the first couple of episodes, I really wonder what they originally had planned and why this got moved. I know they reshot a lot of the premiere. Did that cause a written episode to be booted to later in the season?

19 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Similarly, Hook did something terrible/we can't trust Hook/actually now he's a hero and a good man is a plot that has been thoroughly played out by now.

That's why their "twist" ruins what would have been a good episode. We've seen guilt-stricken Hook over and over and over again. We haven't seen Hook being the "good" one bringing someone else back from the brink of villainy. How would that affect the dynamic between David and Hook without throwing in the monkey wrench of the father murder? Throwing that in kept them from being able to explore this potential new twist in their relationship. David can't very well go on sneering about Hook being a pirate and being bad when Hook was the only thing holding him back from murdering in vengeance. The secret that David had actually been dying before Hook cured him was big, but if David swore Hook to secrecy about nearly murdering George, how big would that be? Making Hook ultimately be the murderer sent things off down a sidetrack.

Spoiler

And then it ended up not mattering at all. Emma was mad about Hook not telling her, not about the murder itself, then after Hook's little jaunt, all was forgiven and forgotten. They could just as easily have cut those last few minutes, then for drama had Gideon send Hook away while he was on the Nautilus saying good-bye to Liam 2.0 and Nemo before he proposed, and it looks to Emma like he just took off for good, so she's sad (though that whole tear of the Savior nonsense was really bad), and it wouldn't have changed anything else about the show going forward.

[Camera One]

After this backstory, one also has to wonder why David and James' father didn't have Unfinished Business™ after he died.  

I guess Emma, uh I mean Emma Margaret decided to be sunny and defeatist today by going for a relaxing canoe ride with Henry while her assassin does whatever.  Maybe Gideon never learned how to swim, right?

Edited August 6, 2019 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

This week on Once, David makes a murder board!

I forgot that I actually liked a lot of this episode, the horrible stupid ret-con bullshit of an ending just poisoned the whole thing in my memory. Before that, I actually didnt mind the flashbacks, as lacking in subtlety as they were. Having James end up in Devils Carnival Pleasure Island, with a cameo from Pinocchio, is actually a pretty good way to bring the stories together, and while I dont totally get ghost dad showing up (magic coin?) it is nice to see David get something to do, and Josh does a great job with all his regret and anger and burred sadness over his dads death. 

Charming being all "you stupid pirate!" again for no reason (even being sleep deprived) is stupid and contrived, as at this point David seems to have accepted Hook as a friend and member of the family who he literally went to Hell for, ages ago, but it does set up for lots of good interaction between the two, and we can see how much Hook has learned and grown since his days obsessively chasing the crocodile. Davis crying onto Hooks shoulder is one of my favorite parts of the season, its a real and earned emotional moment in a season where emotions often seem to happen at the whims of the plot and are then forgotten. The scene where Hook asks for Charmings blessing, following by Charming teasing Hook for being old fashioned and Hook reminding him that he is actually over 200 years old, is really sweet and funny, Colin and Josh really do have great chemistry and it shines throughout the episode, even when the dialogue isn't always amazing.

Honestly though, some of the most interesting character beats are from minor characters who have basically nothing to do with the story anymore, with James and the Sheriff of Nottingham. James was shown, ever since the giant episode, to just be a cold an heartless asshole, with his whole appearance in the underworld seemingly existing to remind us over and over that he is a Bad Guy who basically only exists as a worst case scenario for Charming if he ever goes too far. This episode posits that at one point James was a sweet little kid who didn't want to hurt people (something the adult James loved to do) and just wanted to go to the farm and play with his long lost brother. So at some point, due to George pushing him or harshly training him or whatever happened, he became the cold hearted guy we met, which adds a lot of retroactive tragedy to his extra death in the underworld, and the person he could have been and the brother David could have had. This would have actually have been interesting to know before we met him in the Underworld, maybe allowing him to have some redemption or a re-connection with Charming. Its also interesting that the Sheriff of Nottingham, an unrepentant villain in most stories,  has apparently happily given up evil and is happy to just be a normal guy in Storybrooke now, especially considering how old enemies the Merry Men were around for so long without him apparently ever even stopping by. And the comment that "nobody calls me that in Storeybrooke" makes me wonder how many people from magical lands are happy to embrace their modern American identities and really have used this curse as a fresh start. Its a whole interesting character arc that happened all off-screen. 

Bad Robin is fun, and its clear that Sean is having a blast playing this version of his normally bland flavorless donut Robin he got stuck with for so long. Regina is an idiot for this whole "its totally the same guy!" refrain even as he is so clearly not. I did enjoy when he called her out on her hypocrisy, lecturing him on being a good guy in the middle of her heart collection. Also, has Regina thought about giving those hearts back to their owners? Maybe? 

And then this stupid fucking ending. Its not only totally out of character for what we know about Hook in the past, even at his worst, it just creates more drama where there doesn't have to be any, especially this close to what could have been the end! For one thing, since when did Hook ever have a "leave no witnesses" code? He would have killed those guys and told Charming Sr to tell all his friends that it was Captain Hook that sent them to their maker! Since when has Hook EVER just been shown randomly killing people? Most of his most evil deeds were in his quest for revenge, not just randomly killing dudes on the side of the road! It so clearly exists to create drama for Hook, the Charmings, and Emma, and to throw in another road block to the Hook/Emma romance, so that instead of letting them be happy together for two fucking episodes in a row, they can create most angst because thats how lazy writers handle romance. Happy relationships are boring, lets throw in some contrived bullshit to keep them apart until the last episode or two! Its all so lame, it boggles the mind.

[Writing Wrongs]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

This week on Once, David makes a murder board!

[tennisgurl]

@Writing Wrongs Murder Board! Murder Board! 

Really, the idea of everyone losing their shit about Hook killing Charmings dad decades ago is ridiculous when you have Regina, who everyone knows killed Snows dad just a few years after Davids dad died, as well as countless other innocents who certainly have loved ones in Storybrooke, being best friends with Snow, is ridiculous in its double standards. "Oh no, how will they forgive Hook? What do you think actual rapist and mass murderer bestie Regina!?" Yeah its certainly something that would need to be dealt with and and its not something you shake off, but people in this show shake off the terrible crap they do to each other all the freaking time! Regina cant even  remember all the people she has killed, but everyone is cool with her now thanks to her minimal efforts of being good, at least Hook has actually been trying to atone and does really feel bad about what he did! Considering all the former villains running around who have done much worse than Hook did (Zelena killed an innocent woman in cold blood and raped her husband like two weeks ago and she is just chilling in town) this should be resolved in less than a day. 

[Camera One]

What if David's father got turned into a sheep in Pleasure Island and came back to the farm and saved David from the Big Bad Wolf, and in this episode, David found out his favorite sheep had been his father all along, and Blue turns him back into a man at the end?

Edited August 6, 2019 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

Yeah, the murder is so stupid for all the reasons already said. Ah, he was a pirate, pirates leave witnesses to spread their reputation, there was no reason to kill him since Hook was about to leave for a long period of time, it makes more sense for George to have killed him since he wanted to take James home and George still needed him as his heir, or the could have used the reason that made the most sense for Hook to kill him have him find out the man sold his son. Given his own dad did the same thing, it would make sense Hook heard that and killed the man for it. The "drama" of it despite zero drama over everyone Regina's killed including Snow's daddy, and their BFFS. And of course it ends exactly how you think it would. No one cares.

Ooo Wish Robin got to call Regina on some shit. How was that ever allowed to happen? Not that it really did anything or anything happened. But still it was nice. 

I really do hate they changed George and James relationship. George was an asshole but he loved James and James loved him. They had a good relationship way back in season one and now suddenly, nope George was horrible, James was a sweet boy who just wanted to go home. I wish they had kept it. Or just had James over hear the truth and get curious deciding to head out to meet his other family. They didn't need to throw the relationship under the bus. George could have had James's memory whipped and offed his real father because he still needed an heir for his kingdom worrying about what would happen to his people.

I loved Pleasure Island and Pinocchio was a great touch. Even with all the flaws except for the last minute its a really good episode. Even in the terrible season six they can do really great stuff. But they don't. They always chose not too. So much potential wasted.

[Shanna Marie]

23 hours ago, Camera One said:

After this backstory, one also has to wonder why David and James' father didn't have Unfinished Business™ after he died.  

That really was a dumb idea for an afterlife because there are so many people who should have been there, especially since they established that Hades wasn't letting people move on. Brennan Jones should have been there, given that he left one kid an orphan because of the way he betrayed his other kids and he never reconciled with his older sons. And David's father, who died while trying to rescue the son he sold before he really got his act together, should have been there. As should David's mother, who apparently let her son grow up believing his father died as a useless alcoholic who failed in getting his life together when he had a drunk carting accident during a supply run, when she knew he wasn't on a supply run, but rather had gone to try to rescue their other son.

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

while I dont totally get ghost dad showing up (magic coin?) it is nice to see David get something to do, and Josh does a great job with all his regret and anger and burred sadness over his dads death. 

I've never been sure if there really was a ghost haunting the coin and appearing to David or if that was all in David's head due to emotions and sleep deprivation. If it really was a ghost, you'd think that he wouldn't have gone happily away while his son was hanging out with his actual murderer. From Robert's perspective, dealing with George wouldn't have resolved everything because George's men didn't actually kill him (though they would have if Hook hadn't shown up). This would have been a case where the ghost hung around even after David thought things were resolved and David wouldn't know why because he thought he knew the whole story.

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

What if David's father got turned into a sheep in Pleasure Island and came back to the farm and saved David from the Big Bad Wolf, and in this episode, David found out his favorite sheep had been his father all along, and Blue turns him back into a man at the end?

I do remember thinking during this episode the first time I saw it that there really would be a twist, and it would turn out that Hook rescued Robert from George's men, faked his death, and took him with him as a member of his crew, half in kidnapping because his crew was depleted and half because George would have come after him anyway even if Hook saved him, so the only way to keep his family safe was to play dead. And then once Hook put the pieces together and realized who that guy was, we'd find out that he was still alive somewhere. Maybe not in Storybrooke (unless maybe he was watching his son from afar and was afraid how he'd be accepted), but somewhere out there, and him not being in the Underworld was actually a clue that he was still alive. I guess then Ghost Dad would have just been in David's head, not a real ghost.

[daxx]

I could have bought Hook killing David’s dad if he’d overheard him talking about selling his son. A very simple fix, have them both be at a tavern and David’s dad drunk bemoaning the loss of his son a second time. Maybe Hook saves him from George’s men and takes him to the tavern. The end of the episode is now fixed. 😂