S06.E16: Mother's Little Helper

[thuganomics85]

I'm not usually all "Yay, violence!" about conflicts, but there was actually something refreshing seeing Emma just not give a fuck for a second, and beat the crap out of Gideon.  I guess I'm just getting tired of the bad guys walking over the good ones, so it was nice to see someone briefly just throw caution to the wind.

Anyway, so it turns out Gideon is, of course, not evil, but The Black Fairy has his heart and is making him do this, in order to bring herself to Storybrooke.  Plan B is to now unleash a hilariously bad CGI Monster Spider, that Gideon sets up to eat Emma.  Rumple of all people, manages to prevent it from happening, but she is still knocked out long enough for BF to now be here.  On one hand, I'm all for Jaime Murray getting to camp it up and look gorgeous doing it, so I'm all for her being the big baddie.  On the other hand.... well, has this show ever really did their great guest stars justice?  No, I don't think so.  So, I'm already prepared for them to squander her somehow.

Great seeing Blackbeard again, and the brief alliance between him and Hook was fun.  Not sure what Hook is going to do now, since Gideon's curse prevents him from going back, and now he's stuck in Neverland full of Evil Lost Boys.

Henry suddenly freaks out, so Regina has a chat with Issac, who informs them that the "Author" part of Henry is taking over or something.  Oh, and the story is about to "come to an end."  He also gets to jet out of there to NYC, although he didn't get the Hamilton tickets...

I get protecting your child, but it's still funny watching Rumple and Belle be like "Well, yeah, he might have tried to kill you twice, but it's not that bad!  It's just a phase!!" about it to Emma.

Not a bad episode, which is actually a compliment more or less.

[adam807]

8 hours ago, Curio said:

I think you mean Nautilus, @adam807. Unless we're calling Captain Nemo 'The Nemo' like we do with 'The Ohio State University.'

I think I would have preferred watching a flashback of the Black Fairy and Malcom meeting for the first time. Now that would be interesting...

Blurgh, yes. Sorry/thank you. I blame the fact that I was just at Disneyland where the old 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride is now a Finding Nemo ride. Shmushed stories everywhere. :-) (They also had some OUAT costumes on display, which was unexpected and cool.)

[adam807]

37 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I don't know if anyone noticed this, but the license plate on the car given to Isaac reads "WED 1901". WED stands for Walter Elias Disney, and he was born in 1901. I recognized it immediately.

Ah, thank you! I almost threw that into the write-up as a question but decided to skip it. They lingered on it long enough that I figured it had to mean something. And that one of you would get it. 

[RulerofallIsurvey]

22 hours ago, superloislane said:

I found it hilarious that they went to the trouble of getting him a car (did Regina talk that over with anyone?) and letting him leave and all he did was tell them to look in the book. The book that Henry is always looking at but he decided not to look in this time.

Yeah, I kind of chuckled at that (and not in a good way.)  He didn't check the book first to see if there was anything in there?  He's always checking the book!  And then he asked 'what happens' in the final chapter - well, der, Henry: Why don't you read the book?!  Or did he forget how to read since he apparently never goes to school anymore?

13 hours ago, Amerilla said:

I'm not saying the story is good, or that Emma is wrong, just that Rumpel and Belle could hardly act otherwise under the circumstances. 

Sure they could.  They could take @KingOfHearts advice below:

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Gideon should be their problem, not Emma's.

That's exactly what I was thinking when Rumple was telling Emma that she had to turn Gidiot back to good - or something like that.  Belle of course is an idiot also.  

I watched it earlier today.  Had to stop about half way through because I was kind of bored.  I did finish it.  Then I tried to rewatch again tonight.  I think I got about halfway through again before I had to quit.  I just don't care about the Black Fairy or Gidiot flashbacks.  And aside from Emma standing up to Rumple (though personally, I don't think she went far enough when he threatened her life if she crossed the guy who already tried to kill her twice....) I didn't care about Rumbelle either.  

Two quick things, and that's as much I've got the energy for/interest in tonight.  (I've got a bad case of 'really don't care' when it comes to this show lately.)

• Is Hook really that bad of a poker player?  He knew Blackbeard had 6 aces, so obviously knew he was cheating - so did he lose on purpose?  Why?  Wouldn't he have gotten the bean if he'd won and not owed Blackbeard his ship?
• Where did Blackbeard think he was going to go in that row boat?  It took a magic bean portal to get them to Neverland, so did he think he'd just row all the way back to the Enchanted forest?  And if he had another bean in his hat (Seriously - does Tiny know about this?) why bother taking the boat at all?  Throw the bean and jump in.

Edited April 11, 2017 by RulerofallIsurvey
wrong word and redundancy

[Curio]

14 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Is Hook really that bad of a poker player?  He knew Blackbeard had 6 aces, so obviously knew he was cheating - so did he lose on purpose?  Why?  Wouldn't he have gotten the bean if he'd won and not owed Blackbeard his ship?

 

It was a win/win situation for Hook. Either he won the game and got to keep his ship and get the magic bean, or he lost and had to force Blackbeard to use the magic bean to retrieve the ship and get back to Storybrooke. Hook knows how often pirates cheat at games (Hook has a pair of loaded dice too), so he probably knew going in he was going to lose somehow.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

11 hours ago, Curio said:

I think I would have preferred watching a flashback of the Black Fairy and Malcom meeting for the first time. Now that would be interesting...

We might get that in a future episode.

It just occurred to me to wonder how it could be Gideon's birthday in a realm where time moved differently.

7 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Why would the mother of all darkness want to send people to a quaint postcard town in Maine? Makes you wonder.

Well, the town is built from the desires of the caster, or so they said in "Going Home" when Pan was going to use the curse. As for why she'd send people to the Land Without Magic, perhaps she wanted to burst in (like she now has) and use the town as a starting point to take over the planet.

3 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

About 11 Merlin made the curse when Dark Hook took over and threw Merlin's heart in. Why Merlin was doing that and for what was never answered. 

No, Merlin was making a magic brew to leave the pre-recorded message that told whoever saw it that if they were seeing it then he was dead and they needed to find Nimue. Why he would say that has never been explained. And then for some reason Hook putting Merlin's crushed heart into the brew turned it into a Dark Curse brew despite the absence of all the other ingredients. Urgh.

10 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

But, we have spent the last few seasons acting like there are tons of Saviors running around. Why is Emma so specifically needed for this curse then? Technically, couldn't Gideon just get Aladdin or another Savior from another world to end the Dark Curse if they couldn't find Emma? or do Saviors exist just to save their home town? Do the writers just not talk to each other? How have they taken something that started out so simple end up so complicated?!?!

No, we haven't. Aladdin was the first time we ever heard of a Savior other than Emma existing, past or present. Not counting the time Regina tried to fill her shoes, but that wasn't official. Emma was always *the* Savior. We've heard about multiple heroes, not multiple Saviors. As for why they don't get another one, there's no evidence of more than one existing at the same time. Emma was born after Aladdin made himself no longer a Savior.

[legaleagle53]

13 hours ago, kili said:

Who else laughed when Emma told Gidiot that opening a portal to another realm would be hard? Didn't Regina open one just a few weeks ago to not only send Robin home, but her evil self too? 

Actually, no.  The Evil Queen sent Robin home, not Regina, and Henry wrote the Evil Queen to be where she could get a fresh start -- which just happened to be the wish realm that Robin was already in.  Regina herself never opened so much as an envelope.

And wow.  The Black Fairy makes Cora look like Mother of the Year.  It's no wonder Rumple and his descendants are so messed up, considering who both of his parents were.  I have to wonder what the Black Fairy's endgame is, though, and why she created the Dark Curse in the first place.  I hope we get more of her backstory soon.

[CCTC]

I appreciate what Jamie Murray was trying to do with her interpretation of the character, and in a lot of ways it was how you would imagine an evil fairy, but I am in the minority here and did not really care for her (although I do think it captured how an evil fairy would be).   I ended up being distracted by all the mannerisms and voice inflections.

A big part of the story requires you to feel bad for Rumple and Belle - and I just don't anymore.  I groaned when Belle said there was good inside Gideon and when she and Gold were holding hands at the end.

Another minority opinion - I don't hate Issac.  I would not want him around a lot, but I thought he was kind of amusing tonight.

The stolen heart seemed like a bit of lazy writing.  It takes out any real conflict or pay-off.  Plus, while I like the actor, I really don't care about Gideon.  

I like Emma and Hook, individually and as a couple, but I am kind of over their angst.  If the show does get a season 7, I am not sure the powers that be are going to know what to do with them.  They will either have more contrived separations or get the Snowing treatment. 

[Camera One]

Article: "Gideon isn't the villain, he's the antihero".  Cue the song "We Don't Need Another Anti-Hero".

[legaleagle53]

13 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I'm not usually all "Yay, violence!" about conflicts, but there was actually something refreshing seeing Emma just not give a fuck for a second, and beat the crap out of Gideon.  I guess I'm just getting tired of the bad guys walking over the good ones, so it was nice to see someone briefly just throw caution to the wind.

It was also the first time we've ever seen her force-choke someone the way Rumple and Regina do.  I, for one, was shocked to see that she had it in her to do that to him.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  As you said, it's rare to see the heroes dish it out like that as well as take it.

Edited April 11, 2017 by legaleagle53

[RulerofallIsurvey]

12 hours ago, Curio said:

It was a win/win situation for Hook.

Yeah, I understood that part.  What I don't understand is why not go for the win?  Like you said, he was probably prepared for Blackbeard to cheat - he's cheated himself.  He even knew BB was cheating.  I just don't buy that BB is a better cheat/poker player than Captain Hook. ::shrug::  ymmv.

@CCTC: me too, me too, me too, me too.  Except that I would add: I really don't think the Dark Fairy was all that dark.  She didn't actually kill Roger at first, as a child.  Rumple's done darker things, imo.  So has Regina.

10 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Actually, no.  The Evil Queen sent Robin home, not Regina,

Semantics.  If you're one of the denizens here like me who believe the EQ and Regina always were the same person - it doesn't matter which 'one' opened the portal.  They both should have the same knowledge.  It's not like they have separate life experiences from each other or it's a Sybil situation where the Regina personality was asleep while the EQ was committing murder and learning all her dark magic evil tricks.  Same deal with the sleeping curse.  If the EQ knew how to cast it, Regina should know how to break it.

[Curio]

5 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

What I don't understand is why not go for the win?  Like you said, he was probably prepared for Blackbeard to cheat - he's cheated himself.  He even knew BB was cheating.  I just don't buy that BB is a better cheat/poker player than Captain Hook.

It's not about Hook being a bad poker player. Honestly, he's probably a much better poker player than Blackbeard. But if he went for the win, it would come across as Hook being selfish by wanting his ship and Emma. It's kind of a Rumple move to try and win it all and have everything, but Hook doesn't care if he loses an inanimate object at this point. It probably would have been nice to keep the Jolly, but Hook knows his life is with Emma and Storybrooke now, so he's fine with sacrificing his ship. By not caring what happens to his ship, he's showing that Emma is his priority over everything else, and that his ship is just a ship he's willing to lose. Again.

[CCTC]

19 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

 If the EQ knew how to cast it, Regina should know how to break it.

Or they could have maybe had the "reformed" EQ stick around for a little while and help break it, instead of deciding her happy ending was more important than breaking the curse, and send her on her way afterwards.

[Mitch]

So its official...Emma is the worst "savior" ever..(when was the last time she did any "saving") Having to be saved by the Dark One himself.  What happened to the Emma of..."I save myself!" Stupid plot point to make Rump seem like a better person then the sh*t he is, if anyone had to save Emma it should have been her mother..thought I can't remember when she did anything proactive.  Why didn't Emma just poof out earlier (before her hands were bound) and think something up and then come back and get the spider, instead of running around that house...(who cleans that house since no one lives there..is it that magic broom because I want one of them...)

Could have cared less about Hook and Blackbeard (and what is with people craving a "bromance" for Hook all the time..Archie passes him on the street and people are cooing about a "bromance") and I think pirate things in TV and movies are stupid..pirates stole, tortured, killed and raped...they didn't prance around in feathered hats saying cliche lines like "Eh, I'll be ye rum there is something afoot!" Pirates are just too precious on TV shows.

So this week is Prince Charming actors week off to take care of the kid..that is why Regina can't find the antidote.. I like possessed Henry and the empty pages of the book but it is so tacked on that you can tell they took one look at the ratings and finally decided they needed to wrap things up. The runners should have just decided to end it this season anyway, and then we could have had the Black Fairy...(I think I love her..) and wrapped everyone's story up leading to the end. As someone else said, I would love to have a "Day in the life of Storybrooke" and not the usual Charming spouting about heroes...but the extra characters, Archie, Granny, the Fairies, Jack the Pumpkin Eater, Dr. Doolittle, Bo Beep, etc doing their thing in town.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

12 hours ago, CCTC said:

Or they could have maybe had the "reformed" EQ stick around for a little while and help break it, instead of deciding her happy ending was more important than breaking the curse, and send her on her way afterwards.

Then again, that would have just been that much more EQ - and I'd already had as much as I could take!  ;)

12 hours ago, Curio said:

But if he went for the win, it would come across as Hook being selfish by wanting his ship and Emma.

Well, call me crazy, but I don't see anything wrong with this.  I wouldn't have thought it was selfish or a Rumple move, because Hook isn't Rumple.  We all know that he traded the ship for Emma before, but I'm assuming that was when he didn't have jewels from Agrabah also, so I didn't need to see him lose his ship AGAIN for her.  Not after she gave up on him so easily just last episode. 

12 hours ago, Mitch said:

Why didn't Emma just poof out earlier

I wondered the same thing.  Or use that Beowulf sword she was toting around to cut through the webs, maybe?  She didn't even try.

Edited April 11, 2017 by RulerofallIsurvey
what was that random apostrophe for?

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

Once Upon A Time Reveals The Season's True Big Bad

It's not Hamilton jokes or bad child actors, but both are right up there.

[Rumsy4]

I too expected Emma to poof out of there. And apparently, being unconscious is the same as mostly dead. lol

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

What I don't understand is why not go for the win?  Like you said, he was probably prepared for Blackbeard to cheat - he's cheated himself.  He even knew BB was cheating.  I just don't buy that BB is a better cheat/poker player than Captain Hook.

My guess is that Hook figured he had a better chance of Blackbeard actually coming through if he felt like he won and was getting everything he wanted. If Hook won the game, yeah, Hook would get to keep the jewels and the Jolly Roger, but what are the chances that Blackbeard would have come through with the bean instead of skipping out or having his crew attack Hook or finding some other way of cheating him out of it? Or even just accused Hook of cheating and refused to pay up? But Blackbeard winning the ship and then having to use a bean to get to it guaranteed that Hook would get to Storybrooke (well, if it hadn't been for Gidiot's spell).

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

I too expected Emma to poof out of there. And apparently, being unconscious is the same as mostly dead. lol

The spider was a soulsucker like its father, The Wraith?

[superloislane]

20 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Is Hook really that bad of a poker player?  He knew Blackbeard had 6 aces, so obviously knew he was cheating - so did he lose on purpose?  Why?  Wouldn't he have gotten the bean if he'd won and not owed Blackbeard his ship?

I figured that since the deck was rigged, Hook knew it was impossible to win so just pretended to play along in the rigged game - so his plan was always to lose

[PixiePaws1]

2 hours ago, superloislane said:

I figured that since the deck was rigged, Hook knew it was impossible to win so just pretended to play along in the rigged game - so his plan was always to lose

That's the smart tricky priate I expect..:o))

[Tiger]

21 hours ago, CCTC said:

I appreciate what Jamie Murray was trying to do with her interpretation of the character, and in a lot of ways it was how you would imagine an evil fairy, but I am in the minority here and did not really care for her (although I do think it captured how an evil fairy would be).   I ended up being distracted by all the mannerisms and voice inflections.

A big part of the story requires you to feel bad for Rumple and Belle - and I just don't anymore.  I groaned when Belle said there was good inside Gideon and when she and Gold were holding hands at the end.

Another minority opinion - I don't hate Issac.  I would not want him around a lot, but I thought he was kind of amusing tonight.

The stolen heart seemed like a bit of lazy writing.  It takes out any real conflict or pay-off.  Plus, while I like the actor, I really don't care about Gideon.  

I like Emma and Hook, individually and as a couple, but I am kind of over their angst.  If the show does get a season 7, I am not sure the powers that be are going to know what to do with them.  They will either have more contrived separations or get the Snowing treatment. 

I thought Jaime Murray's performance way was too cartooney, but I have a suspicion that she realizes the story makes no sense and purposely played it WAY over the top.  

Edited April 12, 2017 by Tiger

[AudienceofOne]

On 10/04/2017 at 10:02 AM, KAOS Agent said:

- Not impressed with the Stiltskin/Charming feud. Is Emma just supposed to stand around doing nothing while Gideon continues to try to kill her? She gave him a second chance and he screwed her over again.

Belle: How dare you defend yourself when my son repeatedly tried to kill you?

Me: Oh Belle, don't change. Or maybe do. Or die horribly in a fart. One of those.

So, to recap. At this point in the season, Hook and Emma are separated after a manufactured argument based on 'thsecrats and liesth', Henry is in a different show, Charming and Snow are weird plot afterthoughts and the original bad guy has turned out to be the pawn of a worse bad guy, who is in some way related to the main cast. 

Welcome to season 2. Or 3. Or 4. 

This show officially sucks. 

On 11/04/2017 at 5:13 AM, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I watched it earlier today.  Had to stop about half way through because I was kind of bored.  I did finish it.  Then I tried to rewatch again tonight.  I think I got about halfway through again before I had to quit.  

I fell asleep in the last 15 minutes. Twice. I finally finished it this morning.

[Rushmoras]

So, is Emma stupid or something? I mean, the bloke wanted to kill you all of this time, and you have a change of heart and think that he's all good, just because he "promised" you to bring back Hook? Really? Is her character on purpose this dense this season or something?

Edited April 12, 2017 by Rushmoras

[RulerofallIsurvey]

I completely forgot about this after the ep: Rumple said the BF was doing all this (sending Gideon to kill Emma so she could get into their realm) because of him.  Why?  What did Rumple do?  Is it because he stole the Dark Curse?  As far as we know, BF abandoned him as a child, right?  So why would she even care about the son she abandoned?  She's got plenty of Dark Fairy dust, she could just cast another curse, right?  Unless it was Rumple that banished her to the Dark Realm - but that doesn't make sense because he would have had to have been the Dark One first in order to do that, I think.  And since All Darkness comes from the BF, I also think that she would have had to been in the Dark Realm first to become the Black Fairy.  Unless she was already the Black Fairy before she got banished to the Dark Realm.  Curious that Emma didn't ask what he meant by that.  (Oh, I know - it's so there can be a SURPRISE! later on.  But it just makes Emma look stupid for not getting all the information she could.)

[darkestboy]

Not a bad episode but rather predictable. That said, unlike Gideon, the Black Fairy at least has some menace as a villain whereas Gideon just comes across as a petulant child though.

Emma has every right to defend herself against Gideon, regardless of what Belle and Rumple have to say on the matter.

Flashbacks were decent enough and I guess we've got a good antagonist for the remainder of the series with the Black Fairy.

All the Isaac stuff did was heavily hint that this show really could end this season with that last bit of dialogue with Henry and Regina.

The Hook/Blackbeard/Neverland stuff was amusing enough, 7/10

[jhlipton]

On 4/9/2017 at 9:03 PM, Curio said:

Emma really sucks at identifying when people have controlled hearts, doesn't she?

Her so-called super-power (knowing when people are lying) was conveniently on the fritz again too.

 

On 4/10/2017 at 3:10 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Jaime Murray, though, is bringing her own spin to the role. The writing for the character is meh at best, but you can tell she loves it. She has the charisma of Sparkly!Rumple, but her performance leads me to believe her character is more layered than what may be initially apparent.

Jaime Murray was pretty much the star of Defiance.  Stahna was such a cool character.  So I've come to expect good things from her.

[Shanna Marie]

Rewatching this one earlier this evening, and I have to say that it's a real waste that they didn't go with Blackbeard being Hook's father, or at least having a character played by Charles Mesure be Hook's father. Looking at them side-by-side, you could easily imagine them being father and son, and they have a great dynamic. The story they eventually went with for his father ended up being so blah, but there was some potential there -- say it was a young Blackbeard who abandoned his kids and ended up joining and later taking over a pirate ship. He's much older when something happens to freeze him timewise to where Hook encounters him again. Hook doesn't recognize his father after all these years, and his father doesn't recognize his son, plus, with his whole reputation being "Captain Hook" rather than "Killian Jones," Blackbeard doesn't realize that his pirate nemesis is actually his son (and neither would expect that the other would still be alive). That would have been more fun and interesting (and far less pointless) than the bizarre sleeping curse/true love kiss/patricide thing they went with.

[jhlipton]

On 4/16/2017 at 11:26 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Rewatching this one earlier this evening, and I have to say that it's a real waste that they didn't go with Blackbeard being Hook's father

The one thing there's far too little of is people being coincidentally related!  I wouldn't mind if Blackbeard was Hook's mentor, but the StoryBrooke family tree is knarled up plenty, I think.

[Daisy]

catching up.
 

Biggest cop-out that Gidiot is controlled with the heart. Cop-out. because now everything/anything he does can be hand-waved to "no heart! not my fault." you are banging this drum of "evil isn't born, it's made." HERE you. go. Kid turned bad due to being raised/tortured by darkness. 

Also. would have been nice to understand WHY the Black Fairy was torturing said Gidiot. 
 

[Shanna Marie]

11 hours ago, jhlipton said:

The one thing there's far too little of is people being coincidentally related!  I wouldn't mind if Blackbeard was Hook's mentor, but the StoryBrooke family tree is knarled up plenty, I think.

Well, this would involve going back to 3B, when Blackbeard was introduced, and not having Zelena turn out to be Regina's sister and the Black Fairy not turn out to be Rumple's mother. It would also mean Hook not having the father and younger brother that he was given. Hook's father was a character, as it was, so why not make him an interesting character?

[jhlipton]

Zelena and Regina being sisters would be OK if they actually had them act like sisters more than once a season.  There is no reason at all for BF to be Rumple's mother.

Edited April 19, 2017 by jhlipton
Can't spell

[Shanna Marie]

21 hours ago, jhlipton said:

There is no reason at all for BF to be Rumple's mother.

It's a retread of the Pan as Rumple's father plot, where the parent seems to hate and want to destroy the child for Reasons and needs the child's son/grandson in order to gain power, or something. We don't yet know what the Black Fairy's agenda is, other than being evil, but I can't help but feel like Gideon is serving as a mashup of Bae and Henry here, only he aged faster rather than having his aging stopped, like Bae did.

[jhlipton]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's a retread of the Pan as Rumple's father plot

Exactly why I don't think we need it.

[Camera One]

Yeah, nothing that The Black Fairy or Rumple has done so far has needed her to be his mother.  I suppose that might change when we see her sob story.

[KingOfHearts]

23 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Yeah, nothing that The Black Fairy or Rumple has done so far has needed her to be his mother.  I suppose that might change when we see her sob story.

If the writers wanted to do this whole "mother of all darkness" thing, perhaps make it so not even Rumple knows much about her outside history. Make her a legend only Blue would be well-acquainted with. But even then, why have her the inventor of dark magic? I'll buy she created the Dark Curse, but Nimue seems much closer to an origin of dark magic. The Black Fairy is pretty intimidating, but she doesn't appear to be any worse than her son. 

A little off subject, but it just dawned on me that Merlin and Nimue share some threads with Adam and Eve. Nimue was the one tempted by the darkness, but the outcome is the opposite - they both gained immortality.

Edited April 21, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

37 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

A little off subject, but it just dawned on me that Merlin and Nimue share some threads with Adam and Eve. Nimue was the one tempted by the darkness, but the outcome is the opposite - they both gained immortality.

Lead-up to 7A with stories from The Bible?  

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Lead-up to 7A with stories from The Bible?  

As interpreted by the Church of A&E.

A&E: "We thought Regina would be perfect as the Messiah."

Edit: Apologies for going off-topic. I thought I was posting in the All Seasons thread.

Edited April 21, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[kitticup]

On 4/16/2017 at 8:26 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Rewatching this one earlier this evening, and I have to say that it's a real waste that they didn't go with Blackbeard being Hook's father, or at least having a character played by Charles Mesure be Hook's father. Looking at them side-by-side, you could easily imagine them being father and son, and they have a great dynamic. The story they eventually went with for his father ended up being so blah, but there was some potential there -- say it was a young Blackbeard who abandoned his kids and ended up joining and later taking over a pirate ship. He's much older when something happens to freeze him timewise to where Hook encounters him again. Hook doesn't recognize his father after all these years, and his father doesn't recognize his son, plus, with his whole reputation being "Captain Hook" rather than "Killian Jones," Blackbeard doesn't realize that his pirate nemesis is actually his son (and neither would expect that the other would still be alive). That would have been more fun and interesting (and far less pointless) than the bizarre sleeping curse/true love kiss/patricide thing they went with.

They should make Black beard also be Davey Jones.

[KingOfHearts]

All the creative directions they could have gone with the Dark Realm, and the writers chose some dingy mines. Got to reuse those sets!

Edited April 30, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

I really don't have a lot to say about this one because I drifted off when I was rewatching. I think it didn't help that they were splitting between three stories -- the flashbacks, the Storybrooke side, and the Hook side. I loved the Hook side because his interactions with Blackbeard are always gold, and Charles Mesure is so very good as Blackbeard. I'd be up for an entire arc of the adventures of Blackbeard and Hook. I still like my idea (posted above from when the episode first aired) that Blackbeard should have turned out to be Hook's father because there are a lot of physical similarities.

Spoiler

Having seen an episode of The Magicians in which Charles Mesure sang, I wish he could have been in the musical episode because he has a lovely bass voice. I also found myself wondering about the Blackbeard we saw in season 7, who seemed to be Wish Blackbeard, but he hadn't aged even though he should have been 28 years older (I was going to ponder whether Blackbeard might have been from an area outside the time effects of the curse, so that he was young when it was cast and aged normally, so he wouldn't be any older in the Wishverse, but didn't we see Blackbeard before the curse in the season 3 finale? And Blackbeard still should have been about 15-20 years older than in this episode when we saw him in season 7). And Wish Blackbeard, strangely, seemed to be friends with WHook, which makes me wonder about that backstory. Going down that mental rabbit trail was why I didn't notice most of the rest of the episode.

The Gideon and Emma stuff made little sense. It's particularly annoying watching this whole episode about Gideon needing to kill Emma in order to open the portal for the Black Fairy to come to Storybrooke -- and they're very clear that this is the plan and what the Black Fairy expected to happen -- when we know that

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the Black Fairy needed to come to Storybrooke so she could fight Emma in the Final Battle. What was she planning to do, dig her up and do the zombie spell? Do they pay no attention to what they've already written? Do they do no planning whatsoever?

And I love (not) how no one is at all surprised and doesn't ask any questions when Emma goes straight from being ready to move on from Hook to desperately trying to make it possible for him to get back. I guess she explained it all offscreen, but then isn't it awkward that they were talking about never liking him the night before? Then there's Belle and Rumple being all "how dare you be mean to our darling baby?" when their darling baby has tried to kill Emma twice.

But Hook playing mindgames with Blackbeard (I'm pretty sure he lost on purpose in order to force Blackbeard to use the bean to take him to Storybrooke) and the two of them running through Neverland together while snarking at each other may have been some of the better stuff of the season (which is damning with faint praise). At least there was something going on other than standing around and talking.

[tennisgurl]

The Hook stuff was at least decently fun and engaging, and he and Blackbeard are always a great mix, their banter is hilarious and the actors have great chemistry with each other. And them showing up at the potted plant factory I MEAN NEVERLAND is decent continuity that we rarely get at this point in the show, and its nice to see Captain Hook back where he started. 

The actor playing Gideon is pretty good, but his scenes are all retroactively pretty pointless because it turns out he was basically a puppet for the Black Fairy the whole time. It might have actually been kind of interesting if a life of abuse led to him having a kind of Stockholm Syndrome thing for the Black Fairy, or he was just deeply damaged and messed up after a life of abuse that his ideas of right and wrong are seriously twisted, but of course we cant have interesting, lets have it that he totally isn't evil and is controlled with his heart the whole time, which we have already seen about 7 billion times by now.

The Black Fairy is a pretty meh villain, especially for what they thought was possibly their ending (as much as Jaimie Murray is trying) but it is funny how, even though they seemingly never actually met, she and Rumple have a lot in common, especially while he was Imp Rumple. Calling people dearie, trafficking in children, turning people into bugs and stepping on them, they even have a lot of similar evil gestures. 

Emma really didn't have much fight in the CGI spider fight did she? Not even a few decent fire balls? And I would have liked some more reaction from Snow when she told everyone that Hook didn't ditch her on purpose. Like, "oh no, we misjudged him again!" or whatever. 

Henry gets weird Savior powers, so thats yet another plot in this already busy as fuck season. At least we know The Dragon got out, and...Doctor Dolittle was in a cage? Why do I always feel like a much better show is happening right off-screen of the show we are actually watching? Also, Hamilton? Seriously, when the hell is this show set?!

[KingOfHearts]

13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The Black Fairy is a pretty meh villain, especially for what they thought was possibly their ending (as much as Jaimie Murray is trying)

Could we've had her as the Wicked Witch instead? She brought the same kind of energy Rebecca Mader was going for, but even more. I love Rebecca Mader, I just wished she played a different character on the show.

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Emma really didn't have much fight in the CGI spider fight did she? Not even a few decent fire balls?

We rarely see Emma use her magic effectively on this show. Like, if you can poof anywhere or summon objects at any time, why are you walking all the time and making your own pancakes?

It's also funny how Regina's fireballs have never been useful. Ever. (Yet that's her trademark.)

Edited August 18, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

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Henry suddenly freaks out, so Regina has a chat with Issac, who informs them that the "Author" part of Henry is taking over or something.  

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Did we ever find out why Henry was still A-Ok in Season 7 despite Isaac's dire predictions for his health?  Shouldn't he have been dead by then?