S06.E21: The Final Battle Part 1 / S06.E22: The Final Battle Part 2

[tennisgurl]

Apparently Fiona had many skills, but Photoshop was not one of them. Those obviously doctored pictures of Belle around the world were hilariously terrible looking. Could they have looked anymore like an obvious rush job to stick stock pictures of Belle in front of a green screen?

[Shanna Marie]

58 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Seriously, I have no clue why they would end on a Last Supper image, other than because A&E thought it looked cool, and they saw Lost do it in a promo one time. 

It doesn't even track because the Last Supper wasn't a joyous happy victory celebration. It was a tension-filled event in which Christ knew he was about to be betrayed and even pointed that out, and he knew Peter would deny him and pointed that out. Soon afterward, there was the crucifixion. I don't know about Lost, since I didn't watch that far into the series, but that's why they did a similar promo on Battlestar Galactica, because they were going into a difficult phase when they were learning that there might be betrayal from within. A more apt spot for a Last Supper allusion might have been at the wedding reception, when they knew another curse was about to come and that Rumple had sold them out.

The psych ward stuff doesn't really track when you think about it. It's all fake memories, since this has been actually going on for maybe five minutes. Emma hasn't had time to have been believing all this "fake" stuff, only to lose her belief. She's just had her memory altered (again, some more) so that she doesn't remember these events as real. When we join her, she's already not believing. If it was about making Emma not believe, then it should have started with Emma waking up in the psych ward but remembering everything else, knowing what really happened, except that Fiona and some of the other people are able to wear away at her, convincing her that maybe they aren't memories, that they're delusions, since there's never been anyone like the people she's talking about in town and there's no evidence that it ever happened. That would even explain some of the Terminator stuff, like the cell workouts, if she was holding on to belief and keeping herself fit to fight the coming battle.

It seems that an alternate history has been created in which Fiona, rather than Regina, adopts Henry, but since Emma has still come to town, that means she must have come because Henry came to get her, possibly with the same story, except that his mother was the Black Fairy instead of the Evil Queen, but was Emma supposedly the Savior who needed to come to town to save her family (though her family isn't there)? Where was this delusion supposed to have started and got bad enough to get her locked up? And since Emma was already not really believing while Henry was running around shouting about how the storybook was real and Emma really was the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White and had just married Captain Hook, it seems like the wrong person was locked up in the psych ward.

Which could also have been an interesting approach, if the fake memories had it be so that Emma didn't believe after Henry ate the turnover, if they just pumped Henry's stomach, and then Regina was arrested for attempted murder, with Fiona coming in as the new mayor, and Henry, the Truest Believer, was in the psych ward because he kept insisting it had all been real. The others are all back in their curse identities, except for Hook, who gets sent back to the other world because he wasn't part of the initial Storybroooke construct and he'd be likely to be able to TLK Emma to break the curse. Then we've got at least one person on the outside fighting to get back and do something (maybe with Regina, since in the fake situation she'd be off in prison and not expected to be around, and Zelena, who also wasn't in curse one -- actually, the trio of Hook, Regina, and Zelena having to work together while bickering at each other could have been highly amusing), while everything else is callbacks to season one, but playing with the what-if of Emma never believing.

And I'm still mad that Hook didn't survive falling off the beanstalk by throwing the bean and going through a portal back to Emma rather than hitting the ground.

20 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Those obviously doctored pictures of Belle around the world were hilariously terrible looking.

I think maybe they were supposed to be, since they were fake, and wasn't that when Rumple started feeling like something was fishy and then figured out that Belle was actually still around? So our ultimate villain was really taken down by bad Photoshop. How epic.

[Camera One]

8 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

When we join her, she's already not believing. If it was about making Emma not believe, then it should have started with Emma waking up in the psych ward but remembering everything else, knowing what really happened, except that Fiona and some of the other people are able to wear away at her

Yes, they parachuted us in the midst of this scenario, so that definitely added to its ineffectiveness.

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It seems that an alternate history has been created in which Fiona, rather than Regina, adopts Henry, but since Emma has still come to town, that means she must have come because Henry came to get her, possibly with the same story, except that his mother was the Black Fairy instead of the Evil Queen

Ditto for this.  I guess A&E thought it was enough just so the audience is surprised.  Like oh!  Henry was adapted by Fiona, not Regina.  But that made it really difficult to buy into this new scenario with zero setup or explanation.

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And since Emma was already not really believing while Henry was running around shouting about how the storybook was real and Emma really was the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White and had just married Captain Hook, it seems like the wrong person was locked up in the psych ward.

I was wondering about that as well.  Why wasn't Henry locked up?  So they're implying Henry convinced Emma to the point that she needed to be locked up.  But he still believes it but he walks free?  Huh?

Quote

Which could also have been an interesting approach, if the fake memories had it be so that Emma didn't believe after Henry ate the turnover, if they just pumped Henry's stomach, and then Regina was arrested for attempted murder, with Fiona coming in as the new mayor, and Henry, the Truest Believer, was in the psych ward because he kept insisting it had all been real. The others are all back in their curse identities, except for Hook, who gets sent back to the other world because he wasn't part of the initial Storybroooke construct and he'd be likely to be able to TLK Emma to break the curse.

Yes, they needed to choose a point in the past to launch off from, and then the "timeline" diverged from there. 

34 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Apparently Fiona had many skills, but Photoshop was not one of them. Those obviously doctored pictures of Belle around the world were hilariously terrible looking. Could they have looked anymore like an obvious rush job to stick stock pictures of Belle in front of a green screen?

LOL.  The Curse still had to use '80s technology.

Edited September 7, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

57 minutes ago, Camera One said:

So they're implying Henry convinced Emma to the point that she needed to be locked up.  But he still believes it but he walks free?  Huh?

And they even had the opportunity to tie this back to season one, since Regina had Henry in therapy and was gaslighting him. Henry having to be institutionalized because he was still convinced that they were all fairytale characters would have fit. So, Henry believed enough to go bring Emma to town and make her believe all this stuff, and he's not locked up? If Emma's wrong, then Henry should be, too. I guess they were implying that Henry couldn't be affected by the curse, since he was from the Land Without Magic and was born outside the curse. But his DNA is 100 percent Enchanted Forest, since both parents were from there, and if he's immune, wouldn't Emma be, too, like in the last curse? Even if he is immune and Emma isn't, because of reasons, couldn't Fiona have locked him up after the curse hit? He was knocked out, since he woke up on the roof. Poof him into a psych ward cell, and then he's not a problem.

One of the other issues was Emma being able to go right back to her Boston apartment after being away for two years. Yeah, Neal's apartment was still available in New York all this time (which also didn't make sense), but Emma moved out of that apartment in season one, didn't she? And what about the timeline? It seemed like minutes were going by in Storybrooke and in the Enchanted Forest, and yet she had time to drive to Boston and back. Or was that also part of the curse construct and Emma only thought she was going to Boston?

[Camera One]

19 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Even if he is immune and Emma isn't, because of reasons, couldn't Fiona have locked him up after the curse hit? He was knocked out, since he woke up on the roof. Poof him into a psych ward cell, and then he's not a problem.

And just the episode prior, Fiona neglected to freeze Henry along with everyone else, and he helped Emma to find the song in her heart.

I thought maybe Henry had his memories because of the book, but he wasn't holding the book at the wedding.  I suppose Fiona didn't know Henry had his memories?  Until he was dumb enough to make it obvious.  He is less stealth at 14 years old (or whatever age he was supposed to be) than at 10 years old.

Now, does Fiona care more about Henry because he's biologically related to her?  Who knows, right?

19 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

It seemed like minutes were going by in Storybrooke and in the Enchanted Forest, and yet she had time to drive to Boston and back. Or was that also part of the curse construct and Emma only thought she was going to Boston?

Not to mention Snowing, Regina and Hook just woke up, and Zelena had already escaped destruction from Oz with that "extra" hat.  She also knew exactly where they were going to be.  The timeline was not thought through.

If the Final Battle was supposed to be "the battle for Emma's belief and soul" all along, then why wait until 6pm to enact The Curse?  What was The Black Fairy going to do with Emma's heart in the previous episode anyway (aka "the easy way", whatever that was supposed to mean)?  Force her to not believe?  

Edited September 7, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

23 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

But I guess it's typical for this series that Emma's last real episode involved her being totally passive and "winning" by not doing much of anything.

It was especially frustrating because we already had to watch Emma go through most of S1 not believing.

22 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I remember being super annoyed by the whole bit where the dwarfs give Regina a Queen sign on her mayor door and all bow to her, and how offensive that was to me. Oh, how little I knew...

LMAO.

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Actually, the trio of Hook, Regina, and Zelena having to work together while bickering at each other could have been highly amusing.

We could've had Team Captain Mills, a worthy successor to Team Wicked Hero. Hook, Regina, and Zelena are probably the most "redeemed" villains on the show, so to see them working together to save the heroes would've been a nice bookend. (I don't count Rumple because I never bought him as a redeemed villain.)

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, we see it Cursed. 

One of the biggest mistakes this finale did was throw most of the main characters into the Enchanted Forest and separate them from Storybrooke. I would've much rather seen the return of the cursed personalities than everybody running around doing nothing helpful in another realm. 

Spoiler

S7 did the Curse more justice than any other season after S1, surprisingly. 

Edited September 8, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 9/7/2019 at 4:12 PM, Camera One said:

Not to mention Snowing, Regina and Hook just woke up, and Zelena had already escaped destruction from Oz with that "extra" hat.  She also knew exactly where they were going to be.  The timeline was not thought through.

I guess Zelena's super-efficient. While the Charmings, Regina, and Hook were still waking up and wondering where they were, Zelena managed to figure out what was going on, convince the Oz residents that she was good now and could be trusted, and somehow find an "extra" hat (never mind that what drove the Hatter mad was the fact that he couldn't make another magical hat, no matter how much he tried) to take everyone from Oz (all five of them, I guess) to the Enchanted Forest.

On Emma's side of the story (not necessarily in the right order because I refuse to rewatch again), we have her meeting with Henry and Fiona in the asylum, going back to her room and pretending to be Sarah Connor, then Henry springing her to take her around town to try to jog her memory. Henry confronts Fiona and gets pushed down the stairs (how is Henry like a Slinky? He's basically useless, but it's fun to watch when he falls down the stairs), goes to the emergency room, gets released, Emma decides to burn the book, gets released from the asylum, drives from Maine to Boston, goes through the box of stuff she brought back from Boston, sees the book Henry made (and he managed to draw a whole book, apparently not using the magic pen, sometime between Emma burning the book and her leaving town) and drove back to Maine.

Meanwhile in the Enchanted Forest, they're acting like they're in a frantic rush. Hook and David walk to the beanstalk and climb it, which I guess did take some time, and then Snow has time to run there. Those back at the castle are just standing around all this time, watching the universe shrink? Would walking from the castle to the beanstalk and then climbing the beanstalk take as long as driving to and from Boston? It feels like more events should have happened in the Enchanted Forest side of the story to balance things out.

On 9/7/2019 at 4:12 PM, Camera One said:

What was The Black Fairy going to do with Emma's heart in the previous episode anyway (aka "the easy way", whatever that was supposed to mean)?  Force her to not believe?  

That was her goal for that episode, to give them the excuse for the musical. It's not important in this episode, where she has a different goal and plan because they wanted to do callbacks to season one with the curse.

[Camera One]

I found it interesting how Jasmine (and Aladdin) showed up when our heroes asked "How far is this nightmare spreading?" and Jasmine answered, "Far".  

Except Agrabah is also in the Enchanted Forest along with Arendelle, isn't it?  So if anything, Oz is the furthest since it's in a different realm completely.  

How did Aladdin, Jasmine and their "people" get to Snowing's castle so fast?  Unlike Zelena, they didn't have magic nor a hat.  Could the entire city fit on the magic carpet?  What about the people from Arendelle?  They arrived with snow on their coats.  Isn't it a few days' ship journey to the Enchanted Forest?  Yet they knew to go to Snowing's palace?  The portal to Arendelle only existed in the Sorcerer's Mansion, not just anywhere.

The more you think about this episode, the more holes show up.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

I still have not watched this episode. I made it through six seasons and they lost me at the last episode (yes, S7 exists, but it's not really Once without the Charming Family). I've thought about watching it now that there's some separation and maybe it would be like fun new bonus content for a show I miss, but after reading through the comments again, I realized I would just be annoyed and disappointed at what could have been. After going through the S6 part of the rewatch, I also know that I don't really miss the show. The early seasons were must see TV (except for that part in S2 where I quit), but man the later seasons were a drag.

This finale episode was just the cherry on top of a terrible season. A hearty thanks to Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas for wanting out and sparing us from God knows what horrors they'd have put Snow, David and Emma through in a S7.  

[Camera One]

I think the biggest crime of this episode is that it was boring.  The stuff in Storybrooke was dull the first time, but just tedious upon rewatch (knowing the outcome).   With the exception of the last 5 minutes, this episode wasn't as insulting as some other Season 6 episodes.  The other crime of course is this episode's storyline was sloppy and made little sense.  They had one last episode with some of these characters, and they were separated and the main character had amnesia for the sake of a bad plot.

It shared some similarities with the boring Season 5 finale where Emma was segregated from Hook and her parents.  

[tennisgurl]

On 9/7/2019 at 3:43 PM, Shanna Marie said:

So our ultimate villain was really taken down by bad Photoshop. How epic.

So she is the most badass magic fairy/ultimate bad guy/most powerful villain ever was taken down because her amazing magic couldn't do something a CVS employee could do. She can create an entire pocket universe, but cant fake a picture to fool Rumple. 

This might be just more complaining about this shows world building/lack of imagination, but it always bothers me. Why is it that in every scene with tons of people from different parts of the multiverse, why is everyone from worlds that are seemingly set in the past? Everyone looks like they're from some kind of steampunk Victorian era or medieval court or carrying are spears around or something, are there no stories set at any point after the 20th century, other than Cruellas 20s world, or Dorothy 30s Kansas world? We never seem to see any of these people in these kind of shots anyway, and it just makes no sense that there are no stories set in more recent times or in the future, no science fiction stories or romantic comedy's or urban fantasy style stories in this universe? You could say its because they arent fairy tales, but neither are Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein! Its a pretty small thing in the grand scheme of screw ups on this show, but its indicative of this shows utter lack of creativity in a show thats supposed to be a celebration of stories!

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Why is it that in every scene with tons of people from different parts of the multiverse, why is everyone from worlds that are seemingly set in the past?

We never got a futuristic or sci-fi world. Less of that is public domain of course, but it's funny how the writers of Tron: Legacy didn't display any interest in weird sci-fi.

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

We never got a futuristic or sci-fi world. Less of that is public domain of course, but it's funny how the writers of Tron: Legacy didn't display any interest in weird sci-fi.

I suspect the public domain thing is a big part of it. Most of the space stuff is trademarked/under copyright, and even though Star Wars fell under the Disney umbrella during the run of the show, I suspect the Star Wars people still have a lot of control over what can be done with it, and they're protective of how it's used. I doubt they'd have wanted to imply that their universe is part of some "worlds of story." And these writers used the "hey, it's that familiar character" as such a crutch, without bothering to flesh it out or do anything else to make the character interesting, that creating a generic original "space adventure" was probably beyond them. Look at how weak most of their original mythology was, especially later in the series. The Black Fairy wasn't from any existing story, not even spun out of an existing story (like Ingrid came from Frozen), and look how that came out.

[Camera One]

On 9/7/2019 at 10:13 AM, Shanna Marie said:

he just stands there while Henry pops down and gives her a perfunctory peck. The whole thing is so anticlimactic. Heck, at least put her in something akin to the glass coffin and give it a sense of occasion.

Really, "anticlimactic" is the best word to describe this episode.

I jumped to Emma's "epic" sword-fight scene with Gideon, followed by the TLK, and "anticlimatic" really describes it all.  Emma "died" for 5 seconds and then woke up again.  I mean, who cares?  I didn't even feel like Emma sacrificed herself for a good cause.  It had none of the emotion of Emma taking on all the darkness at the end of Season 4.  

This episode lacks something the audience is looking forward to, so there was nothing satisfying about how it turned out.  

And I had forgotten Henry wrote in the book, "When Good and Evil both did the right thing, faith was restored."  Huh?  I don't understand.  And then Ms. Happy Beginnings asked why the book didn't write "The End" so Snow could say something hopeful about how this isn't the end.  If this had been just another season, five minutes later, something bad would happen.  Why was this situation any different?

The Writers should be embarrassed by this pathetic ending.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

39 minutes ago, Camera One said:

"When Good and Evil both did the right thing, faith was restored."

Evil doing the right thing means killing the evil villain to stop them. Good doing the right thing means standing around and letting yourself be killed. What a lovely world these characters inhabit. What the hell kind of morality is that?

[Camera One]

It really is messed up.

I also watched a few more clips.

First of all, Emma wasn't the only one who sacrificed herself in this episode.  There was also the noble Evil Queen sacrificing herself in a much more dramatic and epic moment amidst fire and brimstone.  That sacrifice was framed and presented in a way that was much more effective than the later scene with Emma allowing herself to be killed. 

Second of all, before Emma faced The Final Battle, guess who gave her the pep talk.  Nope, not Hook.  Nope, not Snow or Charming.  Nope, not even Henry.

REGINA: Remember when you first came to Storybrooke?  We hated each other.  (You mean you hated her and wanted her dead?)

EMMA: Regina... (her face is pained that Regina might say something bad about herself)

REGINA: No, it's true.  I was Henry's mother and you said you were. (so Emma just "said" she was but you really were her mother... is that the reason for that phrasing?)  And we fought.  And boy, did we ever fight. (insert audience nostalgia about Emma being treated like crap!)

REGINA: (still talking) But you found a third way.  We were both his mother.  And earlier today, I saw my evil half be selfless.  She saved us all.  I never saw that coming. (Huh, aren't you also her?  Wasn't that the lesson?)  Just like however you are going to get out this.  (Yes, wing it and it will always turn out fine, since you only had 22 episodes to prepare for this)  You haven't seen yet.  But you will.

EMMA: Sounds like you're talking about hope. 

REGINA: Something you taught me all those years ago.   (I thought Snow taught you that?  No?)  When you didn't give up on me.  

EMMA: What should I do?

REGINA: You'll know when the time comes.  (Thanks, that's helpful)

Conversation lasted 1 minute 4 seconds.  (longer than any Emma/Snow conversation since "Lost Girl").

The above conversation had 113 words.  101 of those words were spoken by Regina.  That's 89%.  

Edited September 12, 2019 by Camera One

[Kktjones]

On 9/11/2019 at 11:37 PM, Camera One said:

The above conversation had 113 words.  101 of those words were spoken by Regina.  That's 89%.  

I'd love to see the stats on the Regina/Emma "conversation" from 5x22 in Neal's apartment.

I guess I'll never understand why they always sacrificed conversations between Emma and her loved ones for interactions with Regina. My guess it was trying to placate a very loud and critical faction of the online fandom, but it sure was annoying.

[daxx]

1 hour ago, Kktjones said:

My guess it was trying to placate a very loud and critical faction of the online fandom, but it sure was annoying

Ding, ding, ding! You win!

Loudest fandom gets the goodies apparently.

[Shanna Marie]

On 9/11/2019 at 10:00 PM, Camera One said:

And I had forgotten Henry wrote in the book, "When Good and Evil both did the right thing, faith was restored."  Huh?  I don't understand. 

Even after the rewatch, I still don't understand what happened. Was the "evil" there Rumple? But what did he do? Him getting Gideon's heart didn't change anything, since the Black Fairy put some kind of spell on it to keep the compulsion to kill Emma from being changed. Him even trying to get the heart was a bare minimum attempt to help after Rumple was previously refusing to take any action, not even to help his grandson. Gideon hit Emma with a sword, so shouldn't she have been ordinary dead, not magic dead of the sort that can be cured with a True Love's Kiss? It was like there was some big handwave of "everything works out" for no reason other than Plot. Just because they needed a happy ending, suddenly Gideon's an infant again and Emma's magically brought back to life, and there's no explanation other than hope and faith and doing the right thing. This time, they didn't even bother bringing some some random magic object. But how many times have people done the right thing on this show, only to have it come back to bite them? Why was it different this time, to the point of it making absolutely everything work out perfectly? Or did I miss something? I tend to zone out around this point out of self preservation.

And it all happened so quickly, it was like they were working their way down a checklist rather than doing the grand finale of this phase of the series. Rumple actually decides to help, check. It doesn't do any good because the Black Fairy anticipated this, check. Emma figures out that it would darken her heart to fight Gideon, check (funny, it didn't seem to darken Regina to outright kill the Count even though she was the one who sent him after the Charmings to begin with and it was her evil half controlling his heart). Gideon kills Emma and gets turned into an infant, check. Henry does a TLK, check. Okay, it's all over. They could have at least have let everyone react to Emma's death, but it was like they'd read the script and knew all it would take was a quick kiss to bring her back, so they weren't too bothered.

[Camera One]

I never expected to watch this again, but the friend I watched with is in town, and she suggested we finish Season 6.

She had no memory that Emma and Hook got married in the musical episode, which we watched about 9 months ago, I think.  

The episode still wasn't good, but there were a handful of moments I didn't mind, maybe because now it's been so long since the show has ended.  Surprisingly, even that Regina/Emma pep talk that I quoted back in September, wasn't as bad in context.  That's the weird thing with this show, I guess.  It sometimes can really mess with you to believe whatever A&E wants you to believe, LOL.

My friend asked about 45 minutes into the episode where the heck Snow White went.  She had no idea which Regina was which, so was confused which Regina was sacrificing herself.  She also laughed when Belle twisted her ankle near the end of the episode.  I'm not sure that was meant to be a laugh-out-loud moment.  She also found it annoying how Henry was trying to convince Emma when it was clearly not working. 

I don't know if we will watch Season 7 together because she felt Lucy coming up to Henry's door was an uncreative way to reboot. She did ask which characters were staying and was curious how they would write out the Charmings, though.  I didn't tell her.

Personally, it was still super frustrating to see Emma not believing for 3/4 of the 2 hours.  I was also struck again by what a jerk Rumple was, and that made me angry when the Beauty and the Beast music went on at the end.  

Rewatching "Wonderland" lately, I had forgotten that The Black Fairy intended to gain enough powers to ignore the Laws of Magic after killing the Savior.  If that were the case, why couldn't Jafar in Wonderland have simply have murdered Aladdin The Savior to get what he wanted?

Edited July 21, 2020 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

16 hours ago, Camera One said:

, I had forgotten that The Black Fairy intended to gain enough powers to ignore the Laws of Magic after killing the Savior. 

I completely forgot about that. That seems like it should be an important plot detail.

[Camera One]

It almost seemed like that tacked that motivation for the Black Fairy at the end to justify what the hell she was trying to do, or something.

Charming, the kid and the dog on the farm with the big red barn reminded me of Jonathan Kent.  Maybe Charming and Snow are the ones who found and raised Clark Kent in Storybrooke.  

[Inquirer]

On 9/13/2019 at 11:11 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Even after the rewatch, I still don't understand what happened. Was the "evil" there Rumple? But what did he do? Him getting Gideon's heart didn't change anything, since the Black Fairy put some kind of spell on it to keep the compulsion to kill Emma from being changed. Him even trying to get the heart was a bare minimum attempt to help after Rumple was previously refusing to take any action, not even to help his grandson. Gideon hit Emma with a sword, so shouldn't she have been ordinary dead, not magic dead of the sort that can be cured with a True Love's Kiss? It was like there was some big handwave of "everything works out" for no reason other than Plot. Just because they needed a happy ending, suddenly Gideon's an infant again and Emma's magically brought back to life, and there's no explanation other than hope and faith and doing the right thing. This time, they didn't even bother bringing some some random magic object. But how many times have people done the right thing on this show, only to have it come back to bite them? Why was it different this time, to the point of it making absolutely everything work out perfectly? Or did I miss something? I tend to zone out around this point out of self preservation.

And it all happened so quickly, it was like they were working their way down a checklist rather than doing the grand finale of this phase of the series. Rumple actually decides to help, check. It doesn't do any good because the Black Fairy anticipated this, check. Emma figures out that it would darken her heart to fight Gideon, check (funny, it didn't seem to darken Regina to outright kill the Count even though she was the one who sent him after the Charmings to begin with and it was her evil half controlling his heart). Gideon kills Emma and gets turned into an infant, check. Henry does a TLK, check. Okay, it's all over. They could have at least have let everyone react to Emma's death, but it was like they'd read the script and knew all it would take was a quick kiss to bring her back, so they weren't too bothered.

I recently did a rewatch and this is what I came away with:

The "evil that did the right thing" was indeed Rumple, and him getting Gideon's heart actually did change something in spite of what his Dark One side made him believe - he specifically says "Don't kill Emma Swan" when holding the heart, and while the Black Fairy's failsafe spell made it so that Gideon couldn't lose the compulsion to kill her, Rumple's order is what made it so that he made her "magic dead" instead of "ordinary dead". It didn't fully break the control he was under, but it made him land an ultimately reversible blow at the moment of truth.

Emma, meanwhile, did the right thing by allowing Gideon to stab her rather than stabbing him or getting stabbed by him in mutual combat, which is more iffy...I agree that Emma shouldn't kill him since he's under control and remorseful about what he's doing (also, Regina WAS darkened when she killed the Count, the Evil Queen outright pointed that out and mocked Regina for basically splitting herself in two for nothing), but I feel there could have been ways to non-lethally defeat and detain him rather than just letting herself get killed.

But yeah, they really needed to slow the Hell down and make this stuff clear.

Quote

Rewatching "Wonderland" lately, I had forgotten that The Black Fairy intended to gain enough powers to ignore the Laws of Magic after killing the Savior.  If that were the case, why couldn't Jafar in Wonderland have simply have murdered Aladdin The Savior to get what he wanted?

Because it only works if the Savior is killed within the "perfected" Dark Curse, apparently, which Jafar didn't have.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Inquirer