A Thread for All Seasons: This Story Is Over, But Still Goes On.

[companionenvy]

While I think there are still problems with the narrative, Emma did have a good reason not to kill Gideon, so it wasn't simply a matter of stupid self-sacrifice: the way the curse works, if Emma kills Gideon, darkness wins. Which I hate on a symbolic level, because it goes back to the I think destructive idea that the show often espouses that killing, even in self-defense or to save another is wrong and soul-corrupting (unless, apparently, you're EF era Snowing in the midst of battle, or Charming killing Percival). But on a literal level, Emma is working around the BF's trap, not making a principled stand against defending oneself. Plus, unlike Cruella in S4, Gideon actually is an innocent, as it turns out he's been acting under the BF's compulsion the whole time. So, morally speaking, it would at least be a very good thing to avoid having to kill him.

As I said, I'd still have preferred if the story had given Emma a somewhat more active role as savior, and it is of course a narrative choice to stack the deck so that Emma's ultimate act has to be consenting to die rather than compromise her "light." But for what it was, I did think the finale sold both Emma and Rumple's choices reasonably effectively. 

[superloislane]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Rumple saved all the realms by killing the Black Fairy. All she did for Gideon was choose not to fight back. (Was it really impossible to incapacitate him?)

Killing the Black Fairy just broke the curse but had nothing to do with saving the realms since they were all still destroyed when it broke. A big white light shot out of Emma and it showed the realms coming back together and Gideon turning back into a baby

[RolloTomasi]

It’s been annoying how bad the writers have been at writing a Big Moment. I always end up thinking about Buffy. While Buffy was the main focus driving the action, everyone had a part in their season finale showdowns. Willow was needed for some spell, Spike could take on some demon, Xander and Giles would help get people to safety and defend them...no one was left out. In this show, everyone stands frozen on Main Street while one person fights and they call it the Final Battle. It’s lame. 

[Rumsy4]

The "Final Battle" was embarrassingly underwhelming and anticlimactic. The horrible CGI and the 10 extras huddling in one corner of Knifingham Palace just added to the general air of cartoonish ineptitude. 

[KingOfHearts]

5 hours ago, companionenvy said:

As I said, I'd still have preferred if the story had given Emma a somewhat more active role as savior, and it is of course a narrative choice to stack the deck so that Emma's ultimate act has to be consenting to die rather than compromise her "light." But for what it was, I did think the finale sold both Emma and Rumple's choices reasonably effectively. 

Emma's role was still very passive. She didn't need to do anything. Rumple broke the curse. All she had to do was stand there while Gideon stabbed her. I don't think Emma or Rumple's motivations made ill sense, but it was just so stupid. They both had to be forced into a corner to get them to do what the plot needed. The Black Fairy need to give Belle shaft so Rumple would get pissed off enough to murder his own mother, and Emma had to have the fate of multiverse at stake to just stand idly. Given the circumstances, they did nothing weird or out of the character. But it's the contrived scenario that forces puzzles pieces where they wouldn't fit otherwise. 

The stars have to align for most of this show's plots to "work". 

Edited April 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

By the last season, Emma was such a passive wreck, she hardly had anything to do in the Grand Finale. She just spent the season shaking and being miserable, and just waiting to die. Because the whole "Savior" thing was so ill defined, we never really knew what she was supposed to do, what her powers actually are, and the whole "Saviors are all doomed" thing came so out of nowhere, it seemed like everyone was freaking out over nothing. And there wasn't even really an arc for her, where she had to accept for sudden destiny and sacrifice herself or kill someone or fight Voldemort or whatever. She suddenly had shakes with fear, was miserable and quick to fall apart at the first sign of any problem, her personality was practically gone at times, and then she didnt even really do very much, or learn a real lesson. Rumple took the Dark Fairy out, not her. She literally just stood there and got stabbed. Her story didnt even seem to be about accepting death or finally breaking down those stupid walls or being selfless or anything they might have been going for. She was just a sad, shell of her former self, and then she let herself get stabbed, and then was fine. Not much of an ending for your hero. 

[Shanna Marie]

12 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Her story didnt even seem to be about accepting death or finally breaking down those stupid walls or being selfless or anything they might have been going for. She was just a sad, shell of her former self, and then she let herself get stabbed, and then was fine. Not much of an ending for your hero. 

I think that's a big part of the problem. That conclusion had nothing to do with any kind of character arc for her. If they had actually done something that fit with her character/emotional journey and the cosmic lessons she had to learn, then it would probably have had something to do with her learning she didn't have to face her fate passively, that she could change her fate, or perhaps it would have been about her learning not to go it alone, but rather pull together a team. Instead, that ending just seemed to confirm the things she was supposedly wrong about. Plus, it was so anticlimactic and perfunctory, like something they were just trying to get out of the way as an offhand "oh yeah, that." The scenario might have been a better fit if Emma's problem had been that she rushed into things and needed to learn to stand back and let things happen, or if she had a problem with not wanting to be sacrificed, but her role in too many of the conclusions was being passive and/or sacrificial. She'd already sacrificed herself to take on the Darkness, so that wasn't a lesson she had to learn. She'd been forced to stand by passively while Rumple dealt with Pan, while Regina dealt with Zelena, while Belle dealt with Rumple, while Hook dealt with the Dark Ones, and while Zelena dealt with Hades.

Hook's resolution with the Dark One stuff worked better. He'd often been accused of being selfish, and that forced him to be selfless. His pride was in being a survivor, and he had to let himself be killed. He'd always struggled with darkness, and this forced him to overcome not only his own darkness but Darkness. He'd spent a lot of his life battling the Dark One, and he was dying to take out the Dark One.

[Camera One]

Emma's character arc in Season 6 was to just let things be and let fate take its course.  If she has to die, she has to die.  There's no need to fight it, so just let yourself be stabbed.  It's a very important lesson that all the heroes have been learning over the course of this show.  In the episode leading up to the finale, Emma and her family gave up trying to stop the Black Fairy's Curse and danced and sang instead.  Earlier in the season, Snow and Charming just walked up to The Evil Queen to get their Sleeping Curse, and then they just let the lady who cursed them go have her happily ever after in Wishville.  These are life lessons that we can apply to our everyday problems. 

[PixiePaws1]

I think if A&E didn't have a Regina-boner and could admit Rumple was a vicious wife abusing bastard, then Emma could have been in a fight against  the Ultimate Evil combo of psycho Queen and the full on Dark One..maybe Cora in there as well (instead of the bitch getting to go into the light).

Let the true evil out and have the Savior actually take down the mongrels in a real knock down drag out magic fight of epic proportions (bad CGI, aside..but I am from the Ray Harryhausen era of fx..so  Once level of CGI never bothered me!)

 

Oh..and Emma wouldn't have smidge of guilt at getting rid of evil garbage.

[CCTC]

49 minutes ago, Camera One said:

and then they just let the lady who cursed them go have her happily ever after in Wishville. 

Well to be fair they were sleeping ...   Did Regina ever do any soul searching that it was part of her that did this to people she now considered family?  I have to admit, even though Regina had long been untouchable by A&E by that point, I never thought the EQ would get a separate happy ending.

I don't mind the idea of Emma sacrificing herself for the greater good, but she was so ineffective the 90 minutes preceding it, that it did seem more of giving up.  Also, how she was quickly revived  it seemed a bit hollow and a bit of a cop-out, predictable, and been there done that.

[jhlipton]

12 hours ago, companionenvy said:

it goes back to the I think destructive idea that the show often espouses that killing, even in self-defense or to save another is wrong and soul-corrupting

Oh dear god, this.  On Gotham Ra's al Ghul was so evil, er killed a 10 year old boy just to mess with Bruce.  Yet killing al Ghul (or the Joker, or Penguin or any of the other mass-murderers in Gotham) is, as you say, wrong and soul-corrupting.

[KAOS Agent]

I always considered Emma's sacrifice to have been made as a baby. Her entire childhood was destroyed when the curse was cast. That was the sacrifice that made her the Saviour able to break the curse.

On the matter of the S6 finale, nothing about that made sense. Good and evil must both make the right choice. So killing someone in a fit of pique is the "right" choice now? Rumpel was pissed that his mother had lied about Belle. He didn't kill her to help others. In fact, he had refused the pleading of his grandson earlier. He killed the Black Fairy because that's what he does. He gets angry, or mildly inconvenienced really, and then he kills people. How is that good or right? 

Meanwhile, the hero isn't allowed to defend herself or simply incapacitate Gideon. No, she must stand there and die. That's the only choice for her. It's so stupid and awful, but it's so very typical of this show. Better you or your loved one or an entire town be dead than for you to consider killing to stop a psychopathic mass murderer. 

Edited April 17, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[companionenvy]

5 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I always considered Emma's sacrifice to have been made as a baby. Her entire childhood was destroyed when the curse was cast. That was the sacrifice that made her the Saviour able to break the curse.

On the matter of the S6 finale, nothing about that made sense. Good and evil must both make the right choice. So killing someone in a fit of pique is the "right" choice now? Rumpel was pissed that his mother had lied about Belle. He didn't kill her to help others. In fact, he had refused the pleading of his grandson earlier. He killed the Black Fairy because that's what he does. He gets angry, or mildly inconvenienced really, and then he kills people. How is that good or right? 

Meanwhile, the hero isn't allowed to defend herself or simply incapacitate Gideon. No, she must stand there and die. That's the only choice for her. It's so stupid and awful, but it's so very typical of this show. Better you or your loved one or an entire town be dead than for you to consider killing to stop a psychopathic mass murderer. 

I think the "right choice" was giving up the chance at even more power, something he has never been able to do in the past (he's been willing to die before, but I think Rumple is a lot more afraid of powerlessness than death).  The BF even offered to bring Bae back, which is Rumple's kryptonite. Although given how much power Rumple already had, it would have worked better to have him have to finally give up his power for good; I suspect they would have done this if RC hadn't signed on for season 7. So I'll agree that it was a very watered-down version of the choice he should have had to make.

As for Emma, sacrificing for others is one type of well-worn heroic narrative, especially for someone known as "the savior." I think there's also an argument to be made that this was another version of Emma having to show belief/faith; there wasn't any guarantee that her sacrifice was going to be a legitimate "third way" as far as the curse was concerned. I mean, Gideon did still ultimately kill her, so light still destroyed light. So it was a case of Emma believing against the odds that doing the noble thing was going to yield cosmic dividends for the people she was leaving behind.

But yeah, I agree that the overall narrative is problematic, even if the circumstances offer some justification for what Emma did in this particular case. It goes back to the thing that bothered me the most about the Dark Swan arc, which I think had a lot of good elements, but also (as usual), some significant issues. 4A was all about Emma's acceptance of her powers. And then half a season later, the show engineers events so that Emma using her powers is the Worst Thing Ever, and even when Emma herself thinks she can responsibly use them, all of her loved ones have to rally to convince her that she shouldn't (unless it is to save Robin, because REC). And again, as with the end of season 6, there is a somewhat logical reason for the distinction: Emma now has dark magic, not light magic. But in the first place, there's a massive disparity between how the Charmings et al have treated Gold, who has been the Dark One throughout, and how they treat Emma. Rumple returned to total villainy in S4, but (against all reason and experience), the town in seasons 2-4A didn't seem all that worried about the presence of the supposed ultimate evil in their midst, and he was generally treated as someone with agency and the potential to change. Even after his history, they're willing to work with him as an ally (albeit an uneasy one); in S4, Henry is even working in his shop, to no one's apparent alarm. But Emma, who does not have a prior history of evil, becomes the DO and suddenly she is a massive threat who needs to be controlled like a rabid dog and told again and again that she can only trust herself if she follows the lead of everyone around her and doesn't use her own power even in the most justifiable of ways.

More than that, even if we were to handwave the contrast with her treatment and Gold's, and accepted everyone else's behavior toward Emma as absolutely legitimate, no one put the Dark One's dagger to the showrunners head and commanded them to create a scenario where Emma was unable to use her powers or exercise any agency without terrible things happening. But that's what they did, and I'm not sure that they ever really made up for it. In the Underworld, Emma has to learn that she can't save Hook and let him go, which winds up being good for Hook's story, but doesn't do much for Emma's, since her problem has never been not being able to let loved one's go, it has been not being able to let them in in the first place. When they return to Storybrooke, Emma's righteous rage against Hades is again treated as proof of instability, and she's asked by everyone to sit this one out. Ultimately, it is Zelena who takes out Hades following Robin's sacrifice for Regina; Emma and Hook, despite Zeus's claim that by getting the necessary information to Emma in his final quest, they've saved Storybrooke, have very little to do with it. And then, of course, we get back to season 6, where Emma again has to follow an arc that requires her to accept that she can't act, and simply has to die.

This pattern even holds true in certain smaller-scale cases, most strikingly her relationship with Lily. Lily's backstory might make us feel bad for her, but tween Emma was 100 % right to steer clear of her. Maybe an adult (or, an adult other than Regina) would have forgiven an obviously troubled child for the lie she had told, but Emma wasn't an adult; she was herself a troubled twelve year old who was rightly furious to learn that someone who appeared to have gotten the loving adoptive parents Emma had longed for had lied to her about being a fellow foster child. It isn't like she owed Lily anything, or like they had years of friendship behind them; it was totally reasonable for Emma not to look back. And then when Lily reentered her life, she had stepped into full-on delinquent mode and ruined Emma's chance with her new foster family; again she may have deserved some sympathy, but Emma would have been out of her mind to want anything to do with her after that. But of course Emma is the one who needs to feel remorse, not only for being the innocent cause of Lily's darkness, but for her absolutely sane and sensible response to everything Lily pulled when they were teens. 

So while I don't necessarily have a problem with Emma's final sacrifice in itself, I do have a major problem with it in the context of what I see as the perpetual sidelining and gaslighting of Emma Swan. 

[Shanna Marie]

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

Emma's character arc in Season 6 was to just let things be and let fate take its course.  If she has to die, she has to die.  There's no need to fight it, so just let yourself be stabbed.

I think a lot of the problem was that there was no reversal in this. We spent all season seeing glimpses of the "final battle," hearing about Emma's fate -- and it ended up being exactly what happened. That's really boring writing. On a character level, it means she doesn't learn anything, doesn't have to change. She spends the season thinking she's got to fight this battle and die because it's her fate, and then that's exactly what does happen. The only "twist" is that Henry is able to save her with a TLK, but that was so quick and perfunctory that there was no drama in it. We didn't even get more than a few seconds to think she was dead, almost no chance at a reaction from her parents or her new husband. It might have worked if it had turned out to be an actual plan, where she knew the way around it was to take the blow and then Henry could save her. But she spent all season facing her fate ... and then faced her fate. You don't have much of a story if the character doesn't have to change in some way to succeed at the end.

They did better in season one, where Emma spent the whole season saying she wasn't a mother and couldn't be a mother, but what saved the day was her being a mother to her son. Or Rumple in 3A, spending a lot of the time pondering that prophecy about Henry being his undoing, only to sacrifice himself. Or Emma in 4B, where they spent the arc trying to keep Emma from going dark while Rumple tried to turn her dark, only for her to willingly take on the Darkness. Even the godawful season 5 finale had Henry going from trying to destroy magic to reviving magic with belief.

On a plot level, it's really boring to have a prophecy and then that prophecy turns out to be exactly what it seems to be. Prophecy in fiction is generally about how by trying to stop a prophecy from coming about, you end up doing exactly the thing that makes it happen. Or else you're missing a part of the picture and the prophecy isn't what you think it is.

2 hours ago, companionenvy said:

So while I don't necessarily have a problem with Emma's final sacrifice in itself, I do have a major problem with it in the context of what I see as the perpetual sidelining and gaslighting of Emma Swan. 

And then there's that. Her being passive and letting Gideon strike her down would have worked better if she hadn't been sidelined so badly through most of the series, if she'd always been the one rushing into action and saving the day with her Savior powers. Instead, she's generally been sidelined or in a backup role -- just giving Regina an energy boost, frozen and helpless while Rumple deals with Pan, stripped of her powers and sidelined while Regina deals with Zelena, frozen and helpless while Belle saves Hook from Rumple, being more or less helpless while Hook takes on the darkness, sidelined while Zelena deals with Hades, etc. That's what made all the "I can't sever my Savior destiny!" stuff so silly, since her Savior powers had only really made any difference in giving backup to Regina and in getting her and Hook back to the future. Her Savior powers didn't make any difference after the time when she could have lost them. In fact, if she'd snipped those threads then, there was a good chance the Black Fairy wouldn't have shown up at all. They were making it seem like Emma was doing the right thing in facing her fate, but there's nothing to suggest that everyone wouldn't have been better off if she'd only done that then.

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

They were making it seem like Emma was doing the right thing in facing her fate, but there's nothing to suggest that everyone wouldn't have been better off if she'd only done that then.

These people have such bizarre standards of morality for what constitutes a "hero" if that person is already not a mass-murdering psychopath. Being a heroic good person is being stupidly passive, moronically hopeful, and just accepting whatever the gods or villians throw at you. A&E never really cared about Emma or Snowing after Season 1. This is their show, and Emma is their original character, but it seems they almost disdained Emma's potential. They preferred to glorify Regina and Rumple, so they let Emma do nothing climactic or lasting past Season 1. 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Mitch]

And let's not forget that it was Rumple that saved Emma from that dumb CGI spider thing last season. She went from S2 telling Hook, "I save myself," to S6 being a helpless heroine being attacked by a monster and having a skinny older guy who is evil incarnate himself save her.

 

19 hours ago, PixiePaws1 said:

he Ultimate Evil combo of psycho Queen and the full on Dark One..maybe Cora in there as well (instead of the bitch getting to go into the light).

Damn, I would have loved to see that... I still think Cora outsmarted, out eviled and outclassed the Dark One and she should have been the final Big Bad..not going to Heaven but resurrecting her damn self...(sisters doing it for herself) to become an Evil god in our world by sucking up all the magic when the realms died...(did anyone ever give three craps about the Black Fairy..even her name was stupid..now Cora doesn't need to announce her darkness, she just is)  Though I would have wanted Cora to start by killing the EQ AND Rump a dump to suck up their power...(I just want a pig like Rump to killed by a woman, be it good or evil.)

Seeing full on Sparkle Dark to get killed in the Main Showdown Street in SB would have been great..

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, XrystalPond said:

She would have been making deals to get out of Underbrooke and exacting revenge on everyone and everything. Instead, she somehow got a pass from it all. I can only hope that once she got to the bright light place that whatever diety they were using pulled a leaver and sent her to the fiery depths. 

The same thing happened with Rumple and Maleficent. They supposedly had a ton of character development after being offscreen for a while. Rumple in S7 no longer cares about power any more, and he's happily willing to give up the Dagger to be with Belle. Maleficent, after being imprisoned for decades, handwaved everything that happened to her except the eggnapping. They as well be different people almost. I don't think it's a stretch that Cora would eventually learn her lesson after being in the Underworld for a long time, but it's much better to see actually see it rather than assume she had a change of heart. 

Quote

And it would have given Snow an actual plot besides sleeping. She could have faced her guilt over having killed Cora and shown some actual concern for her daughter and son in what Cora might have planned next.

I'm surprised there wasn't a Snow/Cora scene. I know everybody hates the "Snow murdered Cora" plot, but it never seemed to come to any conclusion. In 3B, Snow and Regina had a heart-to-heart about it, but then in 4A, Snow mentioned she lied when she said she was sorry. It got a mention in 4B, too. I don't know. It's a horrible plot that could lead to Snow groveling at Cora's feet, and Cora offering forgiveness because she's supposedly changed, but it comes back around to Regina hogging the "Underworld goodies".

Most of the characters in the Underworld were vastly underused and compartmentalized. It's a tragedy that only Hook got resurrected. Bringing something unwanted back (other than Hades) could have setup the Big Bad for S6. As much as I like the Land of Untold Stories, its introduction was completely random. The Underworld was probably too broad of an idea to squish into one half-season arc. Maybe one half could be the heroes in the Underworld, then the other half could be villains returning from the dead to Storybrooke?

Edited April 17, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's a tragedy that only Hook got resurrected.

I don't know about that. It's already a bit iffy that Hook got resurrected, and I don't think they really justified why him and no one else, and it established a precedent that required a lot of handwaving to explain why no one else could be brought back. That's why they had to do that "soul obliteration" thing for Robin. Bringing even more people back would have made it even more difficult to justify why some people stayed dead. Bringing back villains would have added to that sense that the villains get rewarded while the heroes suffer. Villains get to come back from the dead, while good people stay dead.

There certainly could have been justification created for Hook's resurrection -- the fact that he died to end the Darkness but the Darkness was taken from him, it wasn't his time (the justification they used for Ana on the Wonderland spinoff), plus him doing good deeds and setting things straight in the Underworld might have worked. His role in defeating Hades was pretty minimal to get something as huge as being brought back from the dead. I liked it was it was based more on what he did and had nothing to do with Emma, but I felt like he needed to have done more or they needed to have named different deeds as the reason.

3 hours ago, XrystalPond said:

Instead of shaking hand syndrome, I would have let Emma keep that weird whisper she was hearing as the Dark One dagger called to her.

And yet they totally dropped it. Does she still hear the dagger? Did Hook have the same thing going on? Could he still sense the dagger or the Dark One? Would they have felt the dagger return to our world when the Hyperion Heights curse was cast? There was some interesting potential there, and yet none of that was ever mentioned again. I don't think Hook's death was so much as mentioned after season five. The PTSD from being Dark Ones and him being dead should have been more than enough internal conflict for them to work through in season 6 without the shaking hands, prophecy of doom, or long-ago murder of David's father.

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

We didn't even get more than a few seconds to think she was dead, almost no chance at a reaction from her parents or her new husband. It might have worked if it had turned out to be an actual plan, where she knew the way around it was to take the blow and then Henry could save her. 

Deleted scene from the wedding:

SNOW: When this is all over, we should go on a family vacation.  All of us together!

HOOK: If Emma survives, I can take you all to Neverland.  If Emma dies, we can all vacation in Underbrooke.

CHARMING: Great idea.  I've been dying for some of the Blind Witch's hot wings!

Edited April 17, 2018 by Camera One

[jhlipton]

22 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

he had refused the pleading of his grandson earlier.

You mean the one who "was always his favorite"????

[Camera One]

I was reading Lana Parrilla's interview about directing last week's episode, and it seemed to give some insight into how production of this show works.

Quote

TVLINE | What’s a specific level of detail that the director gets involved in that we regular folk might not even consider?
It varies because, as they say, film is the director’s medium, TV is a producer’s medium and stage is the actor’s medium. But what really surprised me was how open my producers were to my ideas — and I came with a lot of ’em. Especially with the gingerbread house and how I wanted the children to look, ideas for Rebecca [Mader]’s look and what happens at the midpoint in the script, and the energy and vibe I was looking for. And also visually what I wanted — color schemes, etcetera, the ambiance and the feel of a place, working with the art department…. I didn’t think that I was going to have as much input, but on Once Upon a Time they trusted me with the creative process more than I thought they would, and I was really taken by that. And very grateful.

So is this laissez-faire attitude, with the director having the power to adjust the look of an episode, a contributing factor to the lack of consistency?  This type of thing could have been the reason why in previous episodes, the way the Tower looked didn't mesh with the timeline, or Tiana going out to fight a monster wearing a dress.

Can anyone guess what changes she made to the "midpoint in the script"?  Really, when the script is all written, how much can you affect the "energy and vibe"?

Quote

TVLINE | Were there any specific directing challenges for this episode? Any stunt work or effects-driven scenes?
Chilton Crane, who plays our Blind Witch, is an older woman, and there was a stunt that she had to perform. I was a bit concerned about her athleticism, whether this was something she had ever done before…. I envisioned the Blind Witch leaping into the air and landing in front of the Wicked Witch and holding a candy cane, threatening to stab her, and I wasn’t sure if Chilton could actually do that. I designed this whole stunt in my head and worked with the coordinator, and while there were a few little things we had to shift, at the end of the day it came together really, really well. I was very pleased, and very impressed with Chilton. She did an incredible job and really hung in there. A total trouper!

So the script didn't specify the Blind Witch would go leaping into the air and land in front of the Wicked Witch?  I mean, it looked quite comical (not sure if that was the desired response), but it contributed to the inconsistency of Zelena being so pathetically weak with that all-power green pendant. 

[KingOfHearts]

4 minutes ago, Camera One said:

So is this laissez-faire attitude, with the director having the power to adjust the look of an episode, a contributing factor to the lack of consistency?

Well, remember - this isn't just some random director. This is Lana. She tells A&E to jump, and they ask how high.

Edited April 19, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

Lana also basically said that she had zero idea what directors really did other than what she'd seen while working with them as an actor. My guess is that at this point they don't really care about much anyway, so if it was something basic and made Lana happy, they let it happen. Notice that nobody fixed the part where the witch took fully decorated cookies out of the oven. No one is even trying anymore. Most of what she mentioned are surface details. If Director!Lana wants a bunch of geometric shapes or a certain color scheme or for a stunt to play out a certain way, why would they say no? It's not like the scripts have any consistency anyway.

If she had been directing in 5B and wanted to abandon the red filter (a plan I would have fully supported. I despised that filter), that would have been shot down because that filter was Underbrooke. That look needed to be consistent since the Underworld was essentially its own character just as Storybrooke was in S1.

[Camera One]

7 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

Lana also basically said that she had zero idea what directors really did other than what she'd seen while working with them as an actor.

That comment really struck me as well.  How could she not know what they were doing?  Did she never have a conversation with one?

[PixiePaws1]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

That comment really struck me as well.  How could she not know what they were doing?  Did she never have a conversation with one?

There is a great gif set on tumblr somewhere, contrasting Lana & JMo in director mode..Jmo looks focussed and involved and professional while hard at work.

Lana is posing in front of signs with her name under the title 'Director'...wearing a beret like she's Cecil B.

[Rumsy4]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

Chilton Crane, who plays our Blind Witch, is an older woman, and there was a stunt that she had to perform. I was a bit concerned about her athleticism, whether this was something she had ever done before….

I'm sure Chilton Crane loved being labelled old and frail in a media interview by a fellow actor/first-time director. 

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

I'm sure Chilton Crane loved being labelled old and frail in a media interview by a fellow actor/first-time director. 

The actress doesn't even seem that old. I couldn't find a birth date anywhere, but it's pretty clear they dressed her up to look much older on the show.

[superloislane]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

The actress doesn't even seem that old. I couldn't find a birth date anywhere, but it's pretty clear they dressed her up to look much older on the show.

I'm pretty sure that actress is only in her fifties which is only about 10 years older than Lana herself...or around the same age as Robert Carlyle but I wouldn't say he's not fit enough to do his own stunts

[ParadoxLost]

Lana's directing reminded me of when Greg Nicotero (in charge of special effects) directs the Walking Dead.  Nicotero does nonsense like making the viewer part of the action by pretending the audience is the camera.  Rick, Michone, Carol, and Daryl are all stabbing you...audience you are the zombie.  I can pick out any episode he directs because he is the only one to do stuff to try to replicate an art house film and it comes across as amateurish.  It screams, look at me I'm directing which is about the worse thing a director can do because breaks the fourth wall and sacrifices the work for their ego.

With Lana, I was constantly seeing things like the camera angles on Zelena's ring.  She did one of those dumb camera pans through a wall to go to another scene.  Then she did a zoom into phone in one scene and zoom out to another scene to the recipient of the text message.  That wasn't all but it was all before the first commercial.  It was not typical direction for the show and it bugged me. 

 

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

Can anyone guess what changes she made to the "midpoint in the script"?  Really, when the script is all written, how much can you affect the "energy and vibe"?

That seemed to be connected to Zelena.  The mid point of the episode was Roni coming in with the crow bar to give Zelena the we are sisters and we can be both pep talk. I'm guessing that got rewritten to suit Lana's view of things.

19 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

 Notice that nobody fixed the part where the witch took fully decorated cookies out of the oven. No one is even trying anymore.

That was either deliberate or a continuity error.  She dropped the fully decorated cookie from the oven on top of a plate of fully decorated cookies with one undecorated cookie on top of the pile.  Maybe they couldn't work out how to have the cookie on top of the dish be decorated when given to the kids.  Budget cuts don't allow a snap of the witch's fingers to decorate the cookie after its placed undecorated on the plate.

[Shanna Marie]

20 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

20 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

 Notice that nobody fixed the part where the witch took fully decorated cookies out of the oven. No one is even trying anymore.

That was either deliberate or a continuity error. 

It's not entirely uncommon on TV. There was one of those ION Christmas movies a year or so ago (starring the actress who played Ana on Wonderland, incidentally), in which the heroine was a baker/caterer, and the opening scene of the movie was her taking cookies out of the oven -- and they were very obviously Pepperidge Farms cookies. Like, she took a pan full of fully assembled Milanos out of the oven and put them on a plate.

[KingOfHearts]

Sometimes during the day, I'll be going about my business when all of a sudden some thought about the show will infiltrate my brain. While grocery shopping, it occurred to me why the show is "interestingly bad". Normally in the case of something bad, there's multiple factors that make it that way. i.e. poor storytelling, lousy acting, crappy visual designs, low production quality, etc. However, with OUAT, everything is done right except the writing. You've got compelling actors, a flawless premise, great costumes, a beautiful score, and an overall awesome atmosphere. The only issue is with the writers, and it's a big issue. How can a show do so many things correctly, with everything aligned so well, yet still manage to botch up one of the most important aspects? The next Lost was practically handed to A&E on a silver platter.

Edited April 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

That was either deliberate or a continuity error.  She dropped the fully decorated cookie from the oven on top of a plate of fully decorated cookies with one undecorated cookie on top of the pile.  Maybe they couldn't work out how to have the cookie on top of the dish be decorated when given to the kids.  Budget cuts don't allow a snap of the witch's fingers to decorate the cookie after its placed undecorated on the plate.

Why was it necessary to have her remove cookies from the oven? Or if it was necessary, have her remove the cookies, place it on the counter and pick up a plate with decorated cookies on it. It's not a huge deal, but it was such an obvious error that I am surprised no one made an effort to fix it. That just seems like something a more experienced director would address simply because they would be more keyed into details and getting things right rather than taking "cool" shots because it's their one shot at directing a TV show.

Lana said in her interview that she brought out some things in some of the actors that no one ever brought out in them before, which is a claim I won't address, but it does get me wondering if there were some directors on Once who were able to improve episodes by bringing out something others couldn't. Once frequently used the same directors, so I'm wondering if they had an effect that we didn't know about. For example, there are times Rumpel has more spark in later seasons even though it was clear Robert Carlyle was over the show. Is it possible that a certain director had a better vision for him? Or do some of them do a better job of showing characters' reactions in some way? Maybe their vision of the script actually allows the characters to react correctly because they are focused on the one episode story they are telling while the writers are lost in plotville and that's why things get really out of whack with the characters from episode to episode.

[jhlipton]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

You've got compelling actors,

Two obvious exceptions..

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KAOS Agent said:

Why was it necessary to have her remove cookies from the oven? Or if it was necessary, have her remove the cookies, place it on the counter and pick up a plate with decorated cookies on it. It's not a huge deal, but it was such an obvious error that I am surprised no one made an effort to fix it. 

I suppose it was more dramatic to see actual flames.  As you said, the fix was easy.  Though a non-baker friend of mine said he didn't notice when I mentioned it.  Maybe the script said "An unseen hand removes gingerbread cookie from the fire and places it on a plate" and the prop department did exactly that.  A&E could always claim magic icing that doesn't melt that makes children especially plump.

Quote

Once frequently used the same directors, so I'm wondering if they had an effect that we didn't know about. 

I suppose it's possible, but what's that expression?  It might be like putting lipstick on a pig.  In a movie, a director might help an actor by explaining the motivation or reminding them of some relevant past experience in the character's life, because they know the full picture.  On this show, a director might not have any idea why a character is acting the way they are, or how they're supposed to react and maybe they themselves can't keep the timeline straight because in some cases, it's literally impossible.  If they only direct a few episodes a season, would they even bother reading the rest of the scripts or know the minutiae of each character's history?  A lot of the time, the scripts are written such that characters are acting in misleading ways to trick the audience into believing one thing when it's another.  So I imagine the directing is all over the place just like the writing and often the acting, especially this season.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

6 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Two obvious exceptions..

I should've noted that S7 doesn't follow the same logic. It's not "interestingly" bad as much as it's "laughably" bad. Every aspect took a hit, including the acting. It's only fun to talk about because of the context.

Edited April 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Mitch]

On 4/17/2018 at 4:42 PM, KingOfHearts said:

The same thing happened with Rumple and Maleficent. They supposedly had a ton of character development after being offscreen for a while. Rumple in S7 no longer cares about power any more, and he's happily willing to give up the Dagger to be with Belle. Maleficent, after being imprisoned for decades, handwaved everything that happened to her except the eggnapping. They as well be different people almost. I don't think it's a stretch that Cora would eventually learn her lesson after being in the Underworld for a long time, but it's much better to see actually see it rather than assume she had a change of heart. 

I'm surprised there wasn't a Snow/Cora scene. I know everybody hates the "Snow murdered Cora" plot, but it never seemed to come to any conclusion. In 3B, Snow and Regina had a heart-to-heart about it, but then in 4A, Snow mentioned she lied when she said she was sorry. It got a mention in 4B, too. I don't know. It's a horrible plot that could lead to Snow groveling at Cora's feet, and Cora offering forgiveness because she's supposedly changed, but it comes back around to Regina hogging the "Underworld goodies".

Most of the characters in the Underworld were vastly underused and compartmentalized. It's a tragedy that only Hook got resurrected. Bringing something unwanted back (other than Hades) could have setup the Big Bad for S6. As much as I like the Land of Untold Stories, its introduction was completely random. The Underworld was probably too broad of an idea to squish into one half-season arc. Maybe one half could be the heroes in the Underworld, then the other half could be villains returning from the dead to Storybrooke?

Yes, why go to the Underworld without bringing anyone back (besides Hook?) The half half thing would have been good, (combining other ideas here)  all the villains running rampant in SB and each episode one gets killed...but their magic get absorbed by Cora..who was faking the change of heart all along letting the heroes kill the bad guys.  I would have also liked it if Hades was just a puppet for Cora or she tricked him into created Underbrooke to bring Regina and the group there.  I always thought Underbrooke was a section of the Underworld Hades created just for the occassion..so its creation somehow screws things up and lets the villains out, like the Phantom Zone in Superman.

The Snow/Cora thing was one of the first and only times I liked Snow since S1..she used Regina to stop a villain that needed to be stopped, and got some revenge on R at the same time...win/win...but her wuss of a husband has to be all..."Aww. ya shoulda let her kill us all poopsie!!!" and ruined it.,,well that and the black spot on her heart, which was dumb and turned out to make her cranky for a few scenes.  I wish they had used that plot for these dimbulbs from Disney World to figure out that sometimes good people have to use force to stop someone from hurting them and others, and its not bad.

[kingshearte]

10 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Why was it necessary to have her remove cookies from the oven?

If they didn't show it, how would you know where the cookies came from? You can't just have a plate of cookies; people will be confused.

I just hope it's a bit of an exaggeration for her to say she had no clue. Because the concept of walzing onto a set to direct something without having done any research into what the role entails, or how to do any of it is just... Well, among other things, it's disrespectful. The implication that there's so little to it that you don't need to do any prep work beyond showing up with "ideas" is just so mind-bogglingly dismissive of the work done by good directors. Ugh.

[andromeda331]

25 minutes ago, Mitch said:

The Snow/Cora thing was one of the first and only times I liked Snow since S1..she used Regina to stop a villain that needed to be stopped, and got some revenge on R at the same time...win/win...but her wuss of a husband has to be all..."Aww. ya shoulda let her kill us all poopsie!!!" and ruined it.,,well that and the black spot on her heart, which was dumb and turned out to make her cranky for a few scenes.  I wish they had used that plot for these dimbulbs from Disney World to figure out that sometimes good people have to use force to stop someone from hurting them and others, and its not bad.

I loved it even though I didn't really see it as revenge against Regina even though it easily could have been after all Regina put her through and because Cora murdered her mother and just recently Johanna. But Snow seeing a villain that needed to be stopped and this was the only way to do it. She definitely felt like the Snow who decided to take her kingdom back from Regina.  

[Mitch]

1 hour ago, andromeda331 said:

I loved it even though I didn't really see it as revenge against Regina even though it easily could have been after all Regina put her through and because Cora murdered her mother and just recently Johanna. But Snow seeing a villain that needed to be stopped and this was the only way to do it. She definitely felt like the Snow who decided to take her kingdom back from Regina.  

When I said revenge I meant that Snow would feel a sense of satisfaction about it after the fact...all the horrible things that have happened really got kick started with Cora, and with Regina killing her father, etc, it would be normal and natural though not necessarily pleasant or cartoony for Snow to revel in it for a bit...as in maybe in one scene I would have her say, "Yes Regina, I killed your mother and it felt good, not because I am evil or like killing or get off on it like a loon like you,  but it is good to end that monster..and bitch, there is more where that came from!"

I actually wanted Snow to take on Regina right after Cora's death when Regina went to that ugly loft but they had that sh*t Rump relunctantly guarding her.  I would have loved Snow to have acted all scared and then pull a sword out and pin Regina against the wall....that was the time for them to have it out and kind of come to some conclusion..which would make a natural transition to an "outside" force threatening them all and having them to reluctantly band together.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Mitch

[Rumsy4]

59 minutes ago, Mitch said:

I actually wanted Snow to take on Regina right after Cora's death when Regina went to that ugly loft but they had that sh*t Rump relunctantly guarding her.  I would have loved Snow to have acted all scared and then pull a sword out and pin Regina against the wall....that was the time for them to have it out and kind of come to some conclusion..which would make a natural transition to an "outside" force threatening them all and having them to reluctantly band together.

The writers gave Snow White a sword and then turned her into a doormat. 

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, Mitch said:

When I said revenge I meant that Snow would feel a sense of satisfaction about it after the fact...all the horrible things that have happened really got kick started with Cora, and with Regina killing her father, etc, it would be normal and natural though not necessarily pleasant or cartoony for Snow to revel in it for a bit...as in maybe in one scene I would have her say, "Yes Regina, I killed your mother and it felt good, not because I am evil or like killing or get off on it like a loon like you,  but it is good to end that monster..and bitch, there is more where that came from!"

I actually wanted Snow to take on Regina right after Cora's death when Regina went to that ugly loft but they had that sh*t Rump relunctantly guarding her.  I would have loved Snow to have acted all scared and then pull a sword out and pin Regina against the wall....that was the time for them to have it out and kind of come to some conclusion..which would make a natural transition to an "outside" force threatening them all and having them to reluctantly band together.

That would have been a really good scene. Snow definitely deserved it after all Regina put her through and it would have made sense for her to go after Regina after killing Cora. To finally let out all the anger she had to have towards Regina for casting the Curse and ripping her apart from her husband and her daughter, and ruining the lives of so many people, and murdering her father.  And just for once to say this out loud what happened to Daniel wasn't her fault! It was Cora's and they both know it.       

[jhlipton]

14 hours ago, kingshearte said:

I just hope it's a bit of an exaggeration for her to say she had no clue. Because the concept of walzing onto a set to direct something without having done any research into what the role entails, or how to do any of it is just... Well, among other things, it's disrespectful. The implication that there's so little to it that you don't need to do any prep work beyond showing up with "ideas" is just so mind-bogglingly dismissive of the work done by good directors. Ugh.

Compare that with what Alex O'Loughlin said about his Hawaii 5-0 directorial debut: http://ew.com/tv/2018/03/29/hawaii-five-0-alex-oloughlin-interview-directing/

Ht used what he had seen from other directors.

And here http://tvline.com/2018/03/27/hawaii-five-0-season-8-alex-oloughlin-interview-directing-danny-flashback he talks about all yhe prep work that he did beforehand.

Edited April 21, 2018 by jhlipton

[Camera One]

Quote

 

 ?♕Amy Hood♕ ?‏ @Amylia403 Apr 15

Just wanted to say that one thing I have truly loved about ONCE is how the "teams" on each episode, even though different, always have such a clear & wonderful grasp on the characters & their voice/stories. It's seamless even though written by different people.

Brigitte Hales‏ @InkTankGirl

Replying to @Amylia403 @GeofreyHildrew and 5 others

We all work very closely together and the script goes through many drafts in a short period of time.

 

So they pass their drafts off to each other? 

Maybe the Writers get all mixed up because they remember stuff from previous drafts, like how A&E don't remember which scenes were cut.

[jhlipton]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

always have such a clear & wonderful grasp on the characters

Like Tiana the Type-A workaholic, or Nick / Hansel /Jack, or Jacinda, or...

[Shanna Marie]

On 4/19/2018 at 10:48 PM, KingOfHearts said:

However, with OUAT, everything is done right except the writing. You've got compelling actors, a flawless premise, great costumes, a beautiful score, and an overall awesome atmosphere. The only issue is with the writers, and it's a big issue.

Oh, but they're master storytellers!

But, yeah, the writing is what kills the show. They do some really bizarre things, like having the most interesting stuff happen offscreen, not letting the characters react like actual people, haphazardly developing the core mythology of the series, and being so afraid of people figuring things out that they avoid all clues. They can sometimes competently execute a fairly basic, straightforward story, but then they also take on some expert-level stuff, only to botch it even more than usual.

For instance, gods. If you've got a world in which the gods make physical appearances and talk to people, that's some pretty complicated worldbuilding because it's going to alter the fabric of society. If this is a known thing that happens regularly, so that most people will at least know someone who's met a god in person, you've got a world in which you'd have to be pretty stubborn to be an atheist. You might hate the gods, but you're going to believe they exist. There's no faith required. You might have people worshiping even more because they absolutely know that the god will hear them and may show up, or you might get less worship because the gods are too familiar. These writers should never have gone near gods because they have no idea what they're doing with this sort of thing. It wasn't quite so bad when it was just that one bit of the goddess Ursula or Poseidon. Poseidon wasn't so much like a "god" in a deity sense as he was a magical being, maybe on a par with Rumple (actually, Rumple might even have been more powerful, given that he could incapacitate Hook with a wave of his hand, while Poseidon required henchmen). Hook certainly didn't act like you'd expect a sailor to respond to meeting the actual god of the sea. But then we went to the Underworld and met Hades and Zeus, and Zeus was a real god who had power to bring a person who'd been dead for weeks/months back to life. Was this something they believed all along? Had Zeus shown up around their world before? Would Hook having met Zeus and been brought back to life by him have made everyone believe in and want to worship Zeus?

Learning absolutely what the afterlife is like is another one of those expert-level things because you'd think it would alter people's worldview. These are people who now know for certain what happens to them when they die. They've seen the Underworld and learned the specific criteria for going to the "good" place. That should change the way people behave. If you know that the way you get into "heaven" is by not having any unfinished business, then you're going to live your life with no unfinished business. If there's something you need to tell someone, you're going to tell them. You're not going to procrastinate about anything. (Meanwhile, the fact that whether you're actually good or evil makes no difference to how you spend eternity should also have some pretty big societal implications.)

Bringing someone back from the dead is another one of those tricky things. You have to establish why it hasn't happened before and won't happen again and is a special case if you want to ever be able to kill anyone and keep them dead, and if it's a one-time thing, it needs to be a big deal. I don't think they thought through any of what they did with Hook. Like, why did his "soul" have a hook , and why did the soul hook still have the magical properties the magical hook had been given? The hook that had been enchanted was in the morgue in Storybrooke (or with Hook's personal effects). I never figured out how Emma's heart sharing plan was supposed to work. It worked with David and Snow because he'd died from having his heart ripped out and crushed, and his body was right there. Giving him a new heart was what was needed to save him. Hook died from being stabbed with Excalibur (and already had a wound from Excalibur), which was an unhealable wound. How would sticking a heart in his soul save him? I guess they could have handwaved that by saying the heart made his Underworld soul body corporeal so that it could go to the living world, but then they said that it didn't work because he'd been dead too long and his body was too far gone, but his body was already too far gone because of those serious wounds that wouldn't be fixed by giving him a living heart. I get the feeling they were just throwing things out at random as needed by the plot without having any kind of idea how it was all supposed to work. We still don't know exactly how he was brought back to life. Was his actual body healed and reanimated, so that he came out of the grave, and that's why he was there when Emma was at the cemetery? That would explain how he had the hook still, and he was wearing the Dark One version of his clothes that he'd been wearing when he died. But his clothes would have been all damaged and bloody. Did Zeus heal his clothes, too? And did that mean they just dumped his dead body in a coffin the way it was? They didn't even put him in his pirate clothes or something other than what he died in when they had his funeral? Or did Zeus give him a new body as a vessel for his soul, bringing that soul body to life, and he showed up at the cemetery because Zeus sent him where he belonged, which meant he was sent straight to Emma? But then why would he have had a hook if he had a whole new body, and why was he wearing the Dark One clothes?

And then it didn't seem to even matter that he'd died. It didn't change anything. That whole arc pretty much epitomizes the writing on this show. They went way above their skill level, seemingly without any planning or development, did some things that should have altered their world but that had no impact, and did some things that should have been major but that ended up not changing anything. Not only was the arc badly executed, but you could cut it from the series without altering much of anything or creating a gap that would need to be explained. As long as you know Robin died (but it doesn't matter how he died), there's nothing of lasting importance in all of season 5, a season that sent some of the characters through life-altering events.

[Rumsy4]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

As long as you know Robin died (but it doesn't matter how he died), there's nothing of lasting importance in all of season 5, a season that sent some of the characters through life-altering events.

That's what killed the true heart of the Show. Season 6 not just made Season 5 meaningless, it practically turned most of the charatcers into caricatures. I don't feel the same magic with the original characters or relationships, which is a real tragedy. 

I think this is why I'm enjoying Season 7 (at least the second half). It's so divorced from the original series.

[KingOfHearts]

7 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I think this is why I'm enjoying Season 7 (at least the second half). It's so divorced from the original series.

Sometimes I'll watch clips of earlier seasons, and seeing the old characters just reminds me of all their baggage. I groan internally from all the unpleasant memories. S7 is an oddity in that in some respects, it's a direct continuation, but in others, it's isolated. Henry, Regina, Rumple, and Zelena are there, but they act so differently that they might as well be different characters. (Or at the very least, Wish versions.) 

It's crazy to me that S7 isn't the worst thing ever and actually turned out to be better than S6. At the beginning, it really seemed like it was going to suck.

Edited April 24, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

When I watch old clips, I can often divorce my mind from what came after.  Or the performances can be so good it makes me forget what these characters became later and recaptures the feeling I got originally.  

I can't say I'm actually enjoying this season, since it's very extreme.  There are some good moments, but there are so many more really bad moments or characters I couldn't care less about.  But I find it freeing to not be constantly reminded of lost potential, like I was in Season 6.  That season made me angry since sometimes, they actually did further damage to the characters I liked.  I don't really care much about the characters who made it to Season 7, so if Rumple backslides or Regina stands around wiping the counter, I can just laugh.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

15 minutes ago, Camera One said:

But I find it freeing to not be constantly reminded of lost potential, like I was in Season 6. 

It’s liberating! lol

[companionenvy]

6 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

And then it didn't seem to even matter that he'd died. It didn't change anything. That whole arc pretty much epitomizes the writing on this show. They went way above their skill level, seemingly without any planning or development, did some things that should have altered their world but that had no impact, and did some things that should have been major but that ended up not changing anything. Not only was the arc badly executed, but you could cut it from the series without altering much of anything or creating a gap that would need to be explained. As long as you know Robin died (but it doesn't matter how he died), there's nothing of lasting importance in all of season 5, a season that sent some of the characters through life-altering events.

This didn't actually bother me all that much, because I look at most of the half-season arcs as somewhat akin to a single episode on a procedural. There's an obstacle/Big Bad, and the heroes have to solve/defeat it. What 5B is missing is the one big plot turn that winds up generating the plot for the next half series -- in 4A, Rumple getting banished leads directly into the QoD arc, which ends with Emma accepting the Darkness and leads into 5A, which leads to Hook dying and the trip to the Underworld. There's not as direct a connection between 5B and 6, but for the most part, most of what happens in any given half season ceases to matter much once the quest is over. Like, the Snow Queen was a problem, but by the end of that arc, the problem is solved, and all the Frozen characters are back to Arendelle never to be seen again. 

I'm more with you on emotional continuity. Once isn't the only genre show that is guilty of this, but it does always bother me when characters get absolute confirmation of how the cosmic order works, and seem totally unaffected by it. There's also specific things that happened in the Underworld that should have caused more lasting repercussions. I hate on a personal level that the show just left characters like Auntie Em and Milah in the River of Souls, but the latter should also have been a big enough deal to Hook that if you were going to do it, there had to be more of a payoff than "Hades has much to answer for." In my opinion, the showrunners did what they did to Milah in part because they were worried that if Milah and Hook actually interacted, fandom would hit the roof that it was undermining his relationship with Emma. Whereas I'd hope that Emma would have the maturity to recognize that even though Killian was with her now, Milah was a major part of his life and someone he would always love. In my head-rewrite of the series, Hook winds up helping Milah move on, which would have been a lovely payoff emotionally for his whole revenge arc: he's spent centuries giving into darkness trying to avenge this woman's death, but ultimately, he honors her memory by helping her soul find peace. But since the show didn't go there, and instead wrote a scene in which Rumple obliterates Milah's soul, we need some reaction from the man who, only a couple of years earlier, had still been on a centuries long quest to avenge Milah's death at the hands of the same man who just damned her. Instead, IIRC, no one even finds out what Rumple did to Milah, right?

What happens in S5 also makes the attempt to generate conflict between Hook and Emma in S6 kind of ridiculous. Once you've gone through everything they did in S5, you're way past the point of "I guess he didn't love me, after all," and frankly, even way past the point where something like the killing of Charming's father and the lie over it should have caused major angst for either. Like, I could see if, hypocritical as it was, David couldn't quite relate to Hook in the same way after learning the truth, because that would be an emotionally honest reaction, but it is really ridiculous to imagine Killian thinking that Emma's reaction would have been "Well, a few months ago I gave into the Darkness and then went to the Underworld to save you, where we passed the true love test before having our latest highly emotional parting and reunion. One of the people who accompanied me to the underworld, by the way, was my good friend Regina, who, aside from trying to kill me multiple times and wrecking my childhood, happens to have killed my maternal grandfather. But it's cool; she's changed. On the other hand, while I could totally accept that, in the course of centuries of piracy, you presumably engaged in a lot of casual slaughter, and am totally over the whole trying to kill us all while you were the Dark One thing,  finding out that one of your anonymous victims was actually the paternal grandfather I've never met is the straw that breaks the camel's back."

Of course, Emma's actual reaction to the lie was almost equally silly: "Killian, I recently neglected to tell you for months that I had turned you into the Dark One to save your life, but I guess we worked past that during the whole killing you and then saving you deal. But now I find that you were considering not telling me that one of your victims was my grandfather, so take back your ring. Because we need to be honest with each other, and I have walls."

That's not to say that I don't think you can ever have conflict between two characters who have been through what Emma and Hook have, even potentially relationship threatening conflict. But this didn't work at all as an inciting incident.