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

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, daxx said:

They never used the comedy right in front of them. They could have had an ongoing thing with granny and Hook as he continued to pay in gold doubloons even after granny tells him he can get dollars and not continue to overpay.

And there was the potential for him figuring out a shower (and other indoor plumbing), the TV, the telephone, etc. They had Aurora talking about the "demon box" in her hotel room. I could see Hook privately figuring it all out, then explaining it to the newcomers, kind of like we saw him attempting to explain a cell phone to Elsa. But we didn't get to see his first reaction to a cell phone. He'd have seen Emma use hers enough to kind of get it, but maybe not quite. I guess Tamara would have had to take him to a bathroom while he was a prisoner with her, so he might have figured out the toilet, maybe the shower (otherwise, with all that leather, the back of that U-Haul would have reeked). But it would have been fun seeing him figuring it all out and maybe not quite getting it entirely right but doing it in a way that worked for him. I mean, I can't always figure out hotel showers and I know what a shower is and how it works. I've even had to give up and call the front desk because they used some weird, obscure kind of shower controls that weren't intuitive. Granny's probably isn't that fancy and high-tech, but someone from another world might be baffled by a hotel shower.

[KingOfHearts]

6 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Granny's probably isn't that fancy and high-tech, but someone from another world might be baffled by a hotel shower.

I seem to recall a scene from Enchanted where Giselle was fascinated about the shower, wondering where the water comes from and calling it magical. 

One of the few things I liked from the episode "Awake" was Charming not having his curse download yet and Snow having both personalities. It was funny that she had to show him around Storybrooke and explain it.

(Bringing my further unrelated thoughts to the Should've Happened thread.)

Edited May 8, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Writing Wrongs]

I've started watching reaction videos to OUaT on Youtube.

One thing that I don't get about "Apple As Red As Blood" is when Jefferson tells Regina he wants her to write him and his daughter a new story. I'm confused by what the power of the person who casts the Dark Curse is. When and how would Regina have been able to decide on everyone's new identity and personality and the workings of a modern town? If the Curse was to bring them to a land without magic, why didn't it drop them in a real town? Like how Bae ended up in London.

 

[Camera One]

3 minutes ago, Writing Wrongs said:

One thing that I don't get about "Apple As Red As Blood" is when Jefferson tells Regina he wants her to write him and his daughter a new story. I'm confused by what the power of the person who casts the Dark Curse is. When and how would Regina have been able to decide on everyone's new identity and personality and the workings of a modern town?

That's a good point.  Could Regina just "write" Mary Margaret an even worse story if she got bored of watching the same boring tale of MM teaching about birdhouses and leaving a flower at the hospital for John Doe?   Why not Mary Margaret scrubbing the floors at the Mayor's office for a few years?  

[KingOfHearts]

On 5/10/2020 at 7:59 PM, Writing Wrongs said:

I'm confused by what the power of the person who casts the Dark Curse is. When and how would Regina have been able to decide on everyone's new identity and personality and the workings of a modern town?

Charming, Belle, Henry, and Emma were all given new cursed memories at some point in time before the second curse. Charming and Belle had to focus on something, but Henry and Emma seemed to just consent to Regina altering their memories. Regina seemed to have had the power to rewrite their "stories" but it's unclear what that required or why she didn't do it during all the times it would've benefited her. You can't tell me she wouldn't rewrite Henry's memories so that he thinks she's the best mother in the world or wouldn't rewrite Emma's to make her forget about Henry.

Edited May 12, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

It's time for another adventure into YouTube recommendations!

Saw this clip and had to compare it with Regina learning to love herself in S6. 

First off, there's way more evidence to believe Emma didn't love herself than to think Regina didn't love herself. Emma was abandoned as a child and numerous times growing up, making her feel less than adequate and that something was wrong with her. She hated her magic because it was hurting others. She had all these expectations set upon her as the Savior and felt guilty for putting Henry for adoption (and subsequently abused by Regina). It's the perfect concoction for self-esteem issues, manifesting itself in all the WALLS she put up for years. She was so busy trying to save everyone else, she never saved herself or even thought she was worth saving.

Contrast this with Regina, who was more concerned with her internal conflict than the fact the Evil Queen was terrorizing everyone she cared about. Since Regina never felt guilty about anything except gaslighting Henry, it's safe to assume her crimes didn't translate into self-loathing. She was constantly surrounded by yes men validating and enabling her. There was Cora making her feel like garbage, but Regina always deflected that anger at others. Honestly, if she hated herself so much, she wouldn't be flaunting herself and focusing on herself all the time. Why would she constantly stare at something she hated? It's not even that she used the Evil Queen persona as a front. She reveled in it.

There's also the fact Emma's magic wasn't inherently evil. It was a neutral thing going haywire because she was freaking out. Clone Queen was the picture of the darkness in Regina that led to the slaughter of innocent people. Is it really self-empowering to embrace and love that? There are so many questions to ask there.

Apologies in advance for finding a Swan Queen parallel no one wanted. 🙂

 

[Camera One]

That was a good scene, and that really is a stark contrast to Emma learning to accept/love herself versus Regina supposedly realizing she needs to love The Evil Queen part of her, instead of the logical lightbulb moment that SHE was The Evil Queen and need to take responsibility for all the evil she did as The Evil Queen.  I just wish the path leading to that scene was better than it was.  This show is sometimes good at the climax but not great at the journey leading there.  Even though Elsa was a guest star/shiny toy, her role here really was pivotal in Emma's development.

[KingOfHearts]

 

I really like this scene where everyone is working together to figure out how to break the spell entrapping Merlin in the tree. All the talk about magic, like's some logical thing, makes the world feel more real and grounded. It's one of those rare cases where the heroes are functioning as a group, al a Scooby Gang in the library from BTVS. It's enjoyable to see Belle being included without holding Rumple's arm. It's nice to see Snow with her nose in a book too. I just wish this scene didn't involve Regina being bitchy and so cocky about pretending to be the Savior.

I actually love Belle's hair here. She's stunning in this scene.

It's a crime this show didn't have more problem solving moments where magic wasn't just about jazz hands and contrivances, but something with rules that could be studied.

[tennisgurl]

I always thought it would be fun if they had problems where they would go to different realms that all had different magical rules, and they had to try and figure out problems based around how magic works (or doesn't work) in every world. Then they could do some world building, show the heroes getting creative, show them working together, that would have made use of the whole premise of a fictional world mash up, and just would have been unique and kind of cool. But of course, that would require them to establish any rules about how magic works even in the EF, and lord knows we cant do that, so how could we expect them to even kind of explain multiple magic systems? They cant even both to explain one!

[Camera One]

On 5/31/2020 at 1:45 PM, KingOfHearts said:

I really like this scene where everyone is working together to figure out how to break the spell entrapping Merlin in the tree. All the talk about magic, like's some logical thing, makes the world feel more real and grounded. It's one of those rare cases where the heroes are functioning as a group, al a Scooby Gang in the library from BTVS. It's enjoyable to see Belle being included without holding Rumple's arm. It's nice to see Snow with her nose in a book too. I just wish this scene didn't involve Regina being bitchy and so cocky about pretending to be the Savior.

I like them working together, but the dialogue and their "research" still feels too random.  Snow's like "Well, what if we CAN talk to him"... was that related to something she read in the book?  She just randomly had that idea when Belle said it was nice to have Merlin's own books since it's like they're talking to him.  Snow's lightbulb moment could have been replaced with David or Emma or whoever.  And then Regina randomly announces she knows how, and flips to the mushroom.  Meanwhile, Belle isn't reading a book, since she's relegated to looking for "witchbane" and complaining the labels are too faded.  For some reason, the library sessions in BTVS felt much more intelligent and natural.. not sure I can pinpoint why.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I was watching the beginning of the musical episode again, and the scene where the Black Fairy comes and stains Snow's wedding dress.  

First of all, it's sad that Emma never tried it on and the dress was never mentioned again.  Secondly, the Black Fairy then says, "I know you think you're strong, Emma. But I've spent centuries collecting orphans just like you. And we both know deep down, you're still the lonely little girl you always were."  Emma replies, "I hate to break it to you, but I've grown up."

How unoriginal was that?  It's the same thing as the "Lost Girl" concept in Season 3.  Or are we supposed to think it's a clever call-back and now Emma is no longer that person anymore?  But wasn't the point of "Lost Girl" for Emma to acknowledge her past and the pain she felt?  

[KingOfHearts]

20 hours ago, Camera One said:

How unoriginal was that?  It's the same thing as the "Lost Girl" concept in Season 3.  Or are we supposed to think it's a clever call-back and now Emma is no longer that person anymore?  But wasn't the point of "Lost Girl" for Emma to acknowledge her past and the pain she felt?  

It's almost like the Black Fairy was just a redux of Pan, down to the same character beats for Rumple.

Quote

I was watching the beginning of the musical episode again, and the scene where the Black Fairy comes and stains Snow's wedding dress.  

This scene still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The writers like to pointlessly screw with the Charmings for some reason, especially when it comes to Snow and Emma actually having a moment for once. We didn't need that to show the Black Fairy was "evil." Staining a wedding dress? Really? I think the writers only did it to explain why Emma wore the Grace Kelly version no one really wanted.

Edited June 3, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

23 hours ago, Camera One said:

Secondly, the Black Fairy then says, "I know you think you're strong, Emma. But I've spent centuries collecting orphans just like you. And we both know deep down, you're still the lonely little girl you always were."  Emma replies, "I hate to break it to you, but I've grown up."

The weird thing about this is that it makes it sound like the Black Fairy has a deep, personal gripe with Emma, enough to make her want to destroy her psychologically. But the Black Fairy really didn't have a personal beef with Emma. She only wanted to fight Emma because there was a prophecy that she would fight the Savior. She'd basically destroyed her life and her family over this prophecy, so she wanted it to pay off. Emma as a person didn't matter to her. So why would she waste time trying to hurt Emma emotionally? She had no motivation at all. She'd have really been more likely to just confront her on Main Street and get it all over with.

Never mind that she never actually really fought Emma and she didn't kill her, so the prophecy was wrong.

[Camera One]

Was there any differences between how Rumple dealt with Peter Pan and The Black Fairy?  Rumple was clearly angry at Peter Pan... I don't remember, but he never sided with him?  Whereas, Rumple relented and colluded with The Black Fairy.  Until he was personally affected by her, and then he took revenge, which is totally okay for him and didn't darken his heart much, right?  

[tennisgurl]

Yeah for as much as Emma vs Black Fairy was built up as the big finale battle and the fulfillment of the great prophesy that supposedly set the entire show in motion and was the culmination of Emma as the Savior (and her shaky hands and all) and former lost girl, it ended up really having very little to do with Emma at all. She hardly even knows the Black Fairy, hardly does anything in the big climax, and Rumple, who is the one who actually has a relationship with her, is the one who takes her out. The prophesy was totally wrong, and not even in an ironic twist kind of way. 

Yeah I know, this show pushing the Charmings to the side to focus on their favorite semi reformed villain characters?! Shocking!

[CCTC]

I barely even remember the Black Fairy or anything about her and that arc, and that was one of the more recent seasons.

On my glacially slow rewatch, I just finished the Neverland arc.  It does get a little draggy in the middle, but it ended strong and might be the last time they really ended an arc in a satisfying way (although if I remember correctly, Swan and Hook's time travel was fun).  The Frozen arc was pretty well done for the most part, but the curse was so anti-climatic and they blasted past any aftermath because they were so anxious to start the next arc that they really rushed the finale (my rambling way of saying why the Neverland arc was the last satisfying as a whole).

It was nice to see the whole cast was still being used.  Regina was used pretty well and if they would have not botched her so badly in 2B, at this point her redemption arc would have been going at a decent pace.  She was still snarky, but not yet woe-is-me (although there are signs at the end with Henry that this is coming), and people are still calling her out most of the time rather than being her cheerleader (but again - there are signs that is already changing), and she was not a dominant part of every episode.  

I wonder what the real story with Neal/Michael James Raymond is, because there really seems to be a sudden shift where he is written to be part of a long-term triangle and possibly even the end game to where it is clear the writing is leaning towards Hook.  Hook and Emma did have  a nice banter/chemistry.  It is too bad they did not keep them as a couple wary of each other having fun adventures a bit longer and not being so serious instead of shifting into the star-crossed, angst-filled, true-love couple so soon they did.  

They never really knew what to do with Belle as an individual character.  Her appearances during this arc are pretty contrived.

I am not sure how I did not know Ginny was pregnant at the time.

Pan as Pan was a good villain and was nice to see him get his comeuppance, although I am not sure the character of Rumple's father really worked.  Maybe residual feelings from the later seasons, but I did not really care about their father-son issues (and while I think Carlyle is a great actor --him crying over the straw doll was a little cringe-worthy).  Also, while the resolution of the arc was overall good, Gold's final dialogue before he finished off his father was so long and exposition heavy - I kept wondering why Pan just stood there and did not finally kill him.   You are also starting to see signs of lets just have everyone stand passively in the street while two people banter at each other before someone finally zaps the other one that became a staple of future finales.

That said -- I really do think it was a decent ending to that story and really could have been a somewhat effective ending of the series .   Regina and Gold made legitimate sacrifices, no one got exactly a neat happy ending, but there was hope everyone would put there lives back together and move on with their lives and being back where they really belonged.  I remember thinking that at the time, but glad the show was continuing (and while in retrospect, it maybe should have ended there, I am glad I did get to see more episodes -- easy to complain in retrospect, but I still enjoyed the show for awhile after that).

I have rewatched the first episode of the Wicked arc.  It did do a nice job setting up a mystery and a hint of some great evil.  If my memory is correct, the actual arc largely does not live up to that potential -- except maybe the trip back in time -- but the first episode of the arc showed it had a lot of potential.

Edited June 5, 2020 by CCTC

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, CCTC said:

They never really knew what to do with Belle as an individual character.  Her appearances during this arc are pretty contrived.

Does Belle win the award for Most Likely to Spend a Centric With a Random Guest Character award?  Some of them were surprisingly entertaining, albeit unmemorable one-off's.

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/3/2020 at 8:34 PM, Camera One said:

Was there any differences between how Rumple dealt with Peter Pan and The Black Fairy?  Rumple was clearly angry at Peter Pan... I don't remember, but he never sided with him?  Whereas, Rumple relented and colluded with The Black Fairy.  Until he was personally affected by her, and then he took revenge, which is totally okay for him and didn't darken his heart much, right?  

I think the difference was that the Black Fairy had Gideon, and didn't she promise something about Rumple getting him back if he cooperated? Though Pan had Rumple's grandson, so it's similar, but he was planning to kill Henry no matter what Rumple did and he didn't at all try to buy Rumple's cooperation.

What I didn't understand was why the Black Fairy was tormenting Rumple so much. With Pan, you could kind of get it (though it was still crazy) because the single father abandoned by his wife was stuck with a kid who cramped his style, and then once he found an escape, he didn't want to be reminded that he wasn't still a kid. In retrospect, it makes even more sense because his life got blown up because his son was born. His wife went nuts and left because she was obsessed with the kid's fate, and that left him alone with the kid. It's a variation on the "my wife died in childbirth because of you" issue. But Fiona supposedly got into this whole mess because she loved her son so much that she wanted to destroy the evil that would kill him. And because of that she wants to hurt her son as much as possible and take his son away from him?

It seems it's cool and badass for a man to kill a villain. A woman gets a dark spot on her heart and can never come back from the horror of what she's done, even if killing that villain saved hundreds of lives.

On 6/4/2020 at 1:08 PM, tennisgurl said:

The prophesy was totally wrong, and not even in an ironic twist kind of way. 

This show really sucked at prophecy. Either it was literal and on the nose or it was wildly wrong. I guess the only ironic twist was when Fiona became the evil that would kill the Savior through her efforts to find the evil that would kill the Savior, except she ended up not killing the Savior, unless you count her having ordered Gideon to do it. I also don't get why she was willing to do everything she did to stop the prophecy from happening, but when she realized she was the evil, she was like, "Well, guess I have to do it because prophecy," even though she didn't actually care all that much about Emma.

5 hours ago, CCTC said:

Hook and Emma did have  a nice banter/chemistry.  It is too bad they did not keep them as a couple wary of each other having fun adventures a bit longer and not being so serious instead of shifting into the star-crossed, angst-filled, true-love couple so soon they did. 

I was going to say that it would have gotten ridiculous if Emma had still been so wary of Hook after all he'd done, but then I remembered the glacial pacing of this show. They spent maybe a week in Neverland, and then there were about five days between the end of the Missing Year when Hook showed up at Emma's apartment and their time travel adventure. That makes things ridiculously rushed. It would have made perfect sense for her to take more time to warm up to him, given that it had been a couple of weeks of time around him since he'd been willing to abandon them all to die. Their time travel adventure should have happened later, but I guess it was pinned to the Zelena story, not only for the time portal but also for the "there's no place like home" theme. Maybe they could have slowed things down after that, but then we can't really have Emma being snarky and suspicious of him after learning he gave up his ship to reach her. The trick would be to find a middle ground where she likes him and is warming up to him and realizes how much he's done to help her but isn't necessarily ready to jump in to a romantic relationship with him. We could have had some actual dating, play with the culture clash. What would it be like for a 21st century American woman to start dating a storybook pirate? Their past loves both died tragically and they're both making an attempt to move on. That seems to have happened during the six-week gap between 4A and 4B, so It Happened Offscreen. By 4B they were an established couple, so it was time to unleash the angst. If we'd seen the growing together and getting in to a relationship phase, we might have been able to skip some of the "will this tear them apart?" angst.

36 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Does Belle win the award for Most Likely to Spend a Centric With a Random Guest Character award?  Some of them were surprisingly entertaining, albeit unmemorable one-off's.

I'm trying to think of what we got. We had Ariel in the present in this arc, and then there was Anna in the past. Who else? Oh, and Merida in Camelot. I liked her with Ariel. Really, I think Belle had far better chemistry with just about everyone else in the cast than she had with Rumple. She could be funny and smart with others. With Rumple she was generally kind of whiny. I usually disliked her character, but I liked her when she was with other people and not talking about Rumple (other than being mad at him. That I liked).

[Camera One]

14 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm trying to think of what we got. We had Ariel in the present in this arc, and then there was Anna in the past. Who else? Oh, and Merida in Camelot. I liked her with Ariel. 

I guess that wasn't really too many.  There was also Mulan. 2 M's and 2 A's.... secret meaning?  Mama issues?

Edited June 6, 2020 by Camera One

[CCTC]

Some of this should probably go in individual episode discussions, but my general thoughts on season 3B so far...

How did I forget about Zelina caging and insane Gold?  Wow - I really blocked that out, and so far it is creepy and not in an entertaining horror film way.  Given her treatment of Gold what happens at the end of the arc, I am not sure how Gold was ever in the same room with her again without trying to kill her.  I don't remember any strong animosity between them at the end of the series, but am assuming it must have existed for a while.  It is not like Gold is Snow -- I just can't see him ever forgiving her much less sitting down to the Last Supper with her.  A this point, I just want to see Zelina melt - no desire to see her redeemed (although I like the actress and some point was ok with her as a gray character later - maybe because she was not too whiny.)

The sacrifice Regina made at the end of 3A that at the time seemed like a good redemption had the series ended there in reality was the start of the self-pity side of Regina.  It is all about her pain and how much she misses Henry.  Sadly, the martyr side of Regina never really leaves after this if I remember correctly.  She and Robin had a little bit of chemistry in their first meeting when there was a little bit of antagonism, but he starts commenting on what a great Mother she is pretty early.  The first encounter reminds me a bit of Wish Robin, when he was more of a challenge to her and they actually had a bit of a spark.  I am not sure why they thought Robin telling her how great she was would make a great romance.  Regina would have worked much better with someone who called her out when needed and not someone who thought she was some fair maiden.

I know the Tower is not a popular episode, but the dream-dance sequence with Emma and Charming was well-done, and to repeat what has been said 1000 times, it is a shame that any meaningful scenes with her parents happened less and less.  Before we knew that the shrouded figures were a simplistic - you have to face your worst fear - there were some nice atmospheric creepy imagery (in a good way not a Zelina-Gold creepy way).  It is too bad they did not explore the spooky haunted Brother's Grimm influenced forest more in the later part of the series instead of going full Disney influenced characters.  I really enjoyed some of their original fairy tale inspired takes of the first few seasons, but after Frozen (which they did a pretty decent job casting) they seemed a lot more tied to the Disney version if it existed.  The who knows what mysterious things lurks between light and darkness deep in the Grimm Enchanted Forest could have been explored more.

Edited June 16, 2020 by CCTC

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

How did I forget about Zelina caging and insane Gold?  Wow - I really blocked that out, and so far it is creepy and not in an entertaining horror film way. 

It was just so tedious to watch, and boring.  It felt like killing time, akin to 3A when Rumple was wandering around Neverland looking for his doll.  

Quote

The sacrifice Regina made at the end of 3A that at the time seemed like a good redemption had the series ended there in reality was the start of the self-pity side of Regina.  It is all about her pain and how much she misses Henry.  Sadly, the martyr side of Regina never really leaves after this if I remember correctly. 

Yes, 3B really irked me right from the start.  Going back to the Enchanted Forest had such great potential, but it was all about Regina losing Henry while Snow had to comfort her while no one acknowledged she had lost Emma AND Henry.

Quote

I know the Tower is not a popular episode, but the dream-dance sequence with Emma and Charming was well-done, and to repeat what has been said 1000 times, it is a shame that any meaningful scenes with her parents happened less and less. 

One of the few bright spots of 3B was a bit more Emma and David, since they had to limit Snow's screentime.  

Quote

It is too bad they did not explore the spooky haunted Brother's Grimm influenced forest more in the later part of the series instead of going full Disney influenced characters.  I really enjoyed some of their original fairy tale inspired takes of the first few seasons, but after Frozen (which they did a pretty decent job casting) they seemed a lot more tied to the Disney version if it existed.  The who knows what mysterious things lurks between light and darkness deep in the Grimm Enchanted Forest could have been explored more.

A&E and the Writers didn't seem to like reading, and by this point, I think they had already used most of the "famous" Grimm tales.  If they couldn't even use a Disney film to its full potential, I think using Grimm was too much for them to handle.

[CCTC]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

It felt like killing time, akin to 3A when Rumple was wandering around Neverland looking for his doll. 

I think Carlyle is normally a great actor, but I cringed and even laughed at some of his scenes emoting with that stupid doll. 

[Camera One]

I was thinking about the origin story for the Dark Curse.

If Blue stopped the Black Fairy, who was promptly sent to that Dark Realm (where she could still kidnap children?  I mean, that was problematic right there), then why was there a scroll with the Dark Curse out there?

Why was it being guarded by the Chernobog?  

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/15/2020 at 10:10 PM, Camera One said:

Yes, 3B really irked me right from the start.  Going back to the Enchanted Forest had such great potential, but it was all about Regina losing Henry while Snow had to comfort her while no one acknowledged she had lost Emma AND Henry.

"I regret nothing" and the 2B flip-flopping aside, they'd done a semi-decent job on Regina's redemption arc up to that point, with it not being instant friendship and her having to make sacrifices. There was so much potential in the 3B setup, with her having to go through what she'd put everyone else through in separating them from their loved ones. It was a chance for her to learn some empathy, to recognize that other people also had feelings and suffered. But that was the arc when they completely trashed any semblance of redemption, with Regina making it all about her, Snow having to comfort her and there being no real acknowledgment that Snow was going through just as much. Then she got magically gifted a love interest, had a TLK without a heart, and Henry instantly went to being super keen on her, even though he'd been wary of her before Neverland. It was a complete reversal on anything resembling redemption and totally turned me against the character.

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

If Blue stopped the Black Fairy, who was promptly sent to that Dark Realm (where she could still kidnap children?  I mean, that was problematic right there), then why was there a scroll with the Dark Curse out there?

If she'd just burned that scroll right then, it would have avoided a lot of problems. I think this was an epic case of Retconitis -- they were trying so hard to neatly tie everything together that they destroyed it all.

[KingOfHearts]

16 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If she'd just burned that scroll right then, it would have avoided a lot of problems. I think this was an epic case of Retconitis -- they were trying so hard to neatly tie everything together that they destroyed it all.

There's also the fact Rumple said point-blank in 1x22 that he created the Dark Curse. But in 1x08, it's implied the Curse already existed and Blue knew about it. And at one point, the Black Fairy implies she knew everything about Storybrooke, as if it were in her plan to begin with, but all she wanted was to transport all the children to the Land Without Magic, so what does a small town in Maine have to do with that? At least with Regina, although it was a stretch, she wanted an idyllic place to live where she was in complete control. The Black Fairy's ploy to stop a prophecy by kidnapping/banishing children probably had a better solution.

Quote

Why was it being guarded by the Chernobog?  

Makes Blue look a little shifty. Was she planning on using it some day to banish the Dark One or something? Was it Plan B in case the whole Last Magic Bean thing failed?

Edited June 19, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

On 6/19/2020 at 10:21 AM, KingOfHearts said:

And at one point, the Black Fairy implies she knew everything about Storybrooke, as if it were in her plan to begin with, but all she wanted was to transport all the children to the Land Without Magic, so what does a small town in Maine have to do with that? At least with Regina, although it was a stretch, she wanted an idyllic place to live where she was in complete control. The Black Fairy's ploy to stop a prophecy by kidnapping/banishing children probably had a better solution.

If there had been a Season 11, we would have met a mysterious man/woman called The Architect™.  Sorry I can't reveal more - no spoilers!

[daxx]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

we would have met a mysterious man/woman called The Architect™. 

Played by Ted Danson? 😂 

[KingOfHearts]

42 minutes ago, daxx said:

Played by Ted Danson? 😂 

When Cora went up to the light, Ted Danson walked up to her and said, "Hello, Cora. Welcome to The Good Place." But it was not, in fact, the good place.

Edited June 22, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

The Black Fairy as the supposed Big Bad Behind It All never made sense and just screamed of "we need to make our final boss for this part of the show seem really scary, but instead of making her a big threat, lets make her another retconned relative of a main character and throw more retons about how she fits into all of this". Not only does it raise a bunch of questions about the nature of the story, yet again, with her even creating the Dark Curse out of nowhere, but her character motivation really fell apart in a lazy kind of way. It wasn't even that she sort of fell into evil or went insane or anything despite her good intentions, its just like "well I did want to save my son, but now I want to do stuff because prophesy said so" which is a really lame reason for your main villain to be doing villain stuff. Making her Rumples mom has made her more about Rumple and his family drama, and not about Emma, the freaking main character of this show, no matter how often the show forgot that, and her being Rumples mom didn't even really add much to the plot or their dynamic. The show really thought that making a character related to another character automatically made them more interesting, and it really, really didn't. The more interesting aspects of her being Rumples mother, like how she and her husband would both independently become magical creatures that steal children due to their shoddy parenting, are never really explored, so it just becomes more recycled plotting to keep trying to connect every new character to an old one, and it all becomes an excuse for more Rumple angst and for the story to be about him, and not Emma, despite the prophesy being about her...or something.

Edited June 23, 2020 by tennisgurl

[CCTC]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The Black Fairy as the supposed Big Bad Behind It All never made sense and just screamed of "we need to make our final boss for this part of the show seem really scary,

I wish for the last arc of the original recipe cast they would have had Rumple/Gold go all out Big Bad and really give Carlyle  a chance to go truly menacing and have a villain's demise.  It would have been more entertaining than him going through another redemption (hours after he was more than happy to sacrifice Emma).   Plus, they had gone the route of a vampy, low-cut dressed villainess so many time, that not only was the Black Fairy ill-defined, she seemed like a retread of so much of what we had already seen.

I know they let Wish Rumple go evil, but that seemed like such a cop-out and was for about a half an episode.  To see Rumple truly terrorize the town for multiple episodes could have been interesting (not that they would ever have given him anything other than a reformed villain turned hero happy ending).  I think he could have done both moments of cold, quiet menace and gleeful, over-the-top evil well.

[Speakeasy]

10 hours ago, CCTC said:

I wish for the last arc of the original recipe cast they would have had Rumple/Gold go all out Big Bad and really give Carlyle  a chance to go truly menacing and have a villain's demise.  It would have been more entertaining than him going through another redemption (hours after he was more than happy to sacrifice Emma).   Plus, they had gone the route of a vampy, low-cut dressed villainess so many time, that not only was the Black Fairy ill-defined, she seemed like a retread of so much of what we had already seen.

The Black Fairy was a big mistake. She'd never been mentioned before season 6, she was barely referenced until the second half of the season when she was suddenly the worst evil ever, and she was created for the show do she couldn't draw on any pre existing reputation or resonance.

That and she had a confused motivation and a bad wardrobe (it takes some doing to make a dress that looks bad even when you put it on Jaime Murray, but they did it) and even though Jaime Murray is a decent actress she really had nothing to work with-whrn she was a part-time-antihero-part-time-villain on Warehouse 13 she could be intensely menacing, but this part did not let her do that.

10 hours ago, CCTC said:

I know they let Wish Rumple go evil, but that seemed like such a cop-out and was for about a half an episode.  To see Rumple truly terrorize the town for multiple episodes could have been interesting (not that they would ever have given him anything other than a reformed villain turned hero happy ending).  I think he could have done both moments of cold, quiet menace and gleeful, over-the-top evil well.

Season 6 had two food options for villains, either have Rumple go Full Bastard after burning all his bridges and deciding he'll just take what he wants, or you have the Evil Queen actually make good on the promise that she's all the worst bits of Regina with NOTHING holding her back. Either of those could be a terrifying Final Boss, you just need to let one of your breakout villains go all out.

[CCTC]

4 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

, or you have the Evil Queen actually make good on the promise that she's all the worst bits of Regina with NOTHING holding her back.

They showed a touch of that potential in the episode where she cursed Snow and Charming - she was cold and ruthless and actually did something evil.  Instead of building on that they returned to her being campy and not really doing anything else except make snide remarks.  They even gave her a happy ending without even doing anything to help save the Charmings or even showing any real remorse.  

[Camera One]

12 hours ago, CCTC said:

They showed a touch of that potential in the episode where she cursed Snow and Charming - she was cold and ruthless and actually did something evil.  Instead of building on that they returned to her being campy and not really doing anything else except make snide remarks.  They even gave her a happy ending without even doing anything to help save the Charmings or even showing any real remorse.  

Reading that made me think what it would be like if someone watched the pilot, and then the final scene in the series finale.

It would go something like... Once upon a time, the Evil Queen vindictively cast a Curse on Queen Snow and Prince Charming, tried to kill their baby, separated them from their child for 28 years and gaslighted their grandchild.  Years later, Snow and Charming and Emma gave up their crown to The Evil Queen, now dubbed The Good Queen, as if she never did anything to them.  The End.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Camera One

[Camera One]

So I was watching this Youtube clip.

It reminded me again that sometimes, this show is good when you watch isolated scenes.  Heck, I almost forgot what episode this was from.

This was a nice 2 minute long scene with character moments.  It's one of the reasons why I eventually bought into Emma and Hook.  Though it also highlighted what a shame it was that they didn't build these types of one-on-one scenes with Emma and Snow, or Emma and David, more often.  Heck, I think an entire episode could have been built around Snow seeing a video of Emma as a teenager and reflecting on what she missed out on, and wanting to learn more.

I also liked how Hook's language generally did remain more "old-fashioned".  I felt the linguistic differences went by the wayside the longer the show was on.  He asked, "Are you vexed?"  Though, a few lines later, the Writers had him ask "Are you ok?"  

[KAOS Agent]

That scene is one that demonstrates at least one writer understood how friendships work although maybe it was a fluke given other friendships in the episode. Hook is supportive of Emma, doesn't push her for information she doesn't want to share, asks for permission to look through her mementos and never once makes a snarky comment or makes it about himself. Removing the romantic elements from their relationship and you still have a very strong, supportive friendship. It's exactly the kind of thing Emma needed. It's horrific that we see Emma begging Regina to be her friend and feeling like she was to blame and a horrible person for cutting Lily out of her life (and since we see Lily do a lot worse later on, it's doubly awful) in the same episode as we see such a healthy depiction of friendship for Emma.

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/27/2020 at 12:22 PM, Camera One said:

I also liked how Hook's language generally did remain more "old-fashioned".  I felt the linguistic differences went by the wayside the longer the show was on.  He asked, "Are you vexed?"  Though, a few lines later, the Writers had him ask "Are you ok?"  

The "okay" thing on this show drove me nuts. It wasn't just Hook. Everyone used it, even pre-curse in the Enchanted Forest. Aside from their fondness for "fear not" and some of Hook's more ornate language, they made no attempt to distinguish between pre-curse and post-curse (after years in America) speech or to distinguish between those who had Storybrooke identities and those who didn't. Though I think that having people in a fairytale world talking about "dating" and going on "dates" was even more annoying since that's not just a possible translation thing. The very concept is fairly recent. There was wooing and courting and "calling on," but an unmarried man and woman going out in public together to eat at a restaurant or go to a performance without any kind of chaperone is a 20th century thing.

15 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Hook is supportive of Emma, doesn't push her for information she doesn't want to share, asks for permission to look through her mementos and never once makes a snarky comment or makes it about himself. Removing the romantic elements from their relationship and you still have a very strong, supportive friendship.

I do like that scene. That arc is one that works in a highlight reel. It has some great moments. It just doesn't work well overall. It's funny that they can write a supportive friendship that's also a healthy romantic relationship, but then they wrote so many "friendships" that were so toxic, and most of their other romantic relationships were either toxic or lacking substance (pixie dust). And then they dragged even this relationship through the mud. Would you believe that the couple in this scene would have had that whole crazy season 6 mess?

One detail I love is that Hook swallows hard, like he's got a bad lump in his throat, when he sees the picture of Neal, like he's still mourning him (and the boy he used to know).

[CCTC]

I finally finished season 3.  I was debating on watching the Frozen arc, because except for the rushed ending and a let-down of a curse, if my memory serves correctly, I thought they did a decent job with that material.  However, the early scene with Regina being upset for bringing back one of her murder victims might have driven me away.  There were some moments in 3B that reminded me of how the treatment of the character irritated me in the later seasons, but for the most part I still liked her.  I think the big turning point was her constant martyrdom due to the return of Marion.  It was written that her two day love affair being interrupted was a bigger tragedy than the murder of a mother of a young child.  Since I believe this disappears from Netflix in the fall, I might spend any of the remaining time watching random episodes I liked from remaining seasons and possibly watch the season 1 premiere and finale one more time (it might be worth buying the season 1 DVD) rather than try to finish watching every episode of seasons 4 to 6 (I think 7 can remain off of the rewatch list either way).

I did like the two part time travel episode.  Not having many flashbacks and staying in one realm really allowed a bit more flow and action.  I wish they would have done that more often.  After season 1, not every episode needed a flashback to explain the motivation for the main character of the episode.  I think the worst might have been 5A -- they had Camelot scenes with Gray Emma -- flash forward scenes in Story Brooke with Dark Emma, sometimes still had a character flashback, and then need to have some Meridia time.  Nothing got the time it deserved.  Even in Oz, if they wanted to create the feeling of a new world, they needed an episode or two where a lot of time was there.  Maybe have an opening and closing scene in Story Brooke, but then have the heart of the episode be all in Oz - not cutting back and forth between realms and then only spending about three somewhat short scenes in Oz (and maybe have some better sets for the Emerald City etc).  

The time travel episodes were also a nice change of pace, because it seemed to remember it could be an adventure show with some swashbuckling and not take itself too seriously and have some fun with the situation.  I thought the untold stories of early season 6 had potential to do that - have some random one-offs with colorful characters - that were just some silly fun.  That was not meant to be. 

Knowing how things continue to go with Belle and Rumple, their wedding seemed especially not romantic, knowing it is all based on deception.  Belle is so trusting and Gold is such a manipulative older man.  It does not help that often Belle is dressed like she is heading back to her dorm room to pick up her fake ID so she can go out with her friends after the big game.

Despite all of my negativity, I still have more positive than negative feelings about the show, but there were certainly times of wasted potential.  

Edited July 9, 2020 by CCTC

[CCTC]

One more general 3B observation.  There were a number of times when Charming had no problems with Hook and even defended him to Emma.  Not sure why they felt they needed to fall back to the antagonistic "He is a Pirate" later as if season 3 never happened, especially when the actors had a good odd-couple type of chemistry.   They should have had them do a few more buddy adventures, such as heading up the beanstalk.  Not everything in the later years needed to be about people agonizing about walls or being a hero or being a savior or being misunderstood.   Take the fairy tale setting (or if in Story Brooke) the fairy tale characters and just have some fun with it from time to time.

[Camera One]

10 minutes ago, CCTC said:

One more general 3B observation.  There were a number of times when Charming had no problems with Hook and even defended him to Emma.  Not sure why they felt they needed to fall back to the antagonistic "He is a Pirate" later as if season 3 never happened, especially when the actors had a good odd-couple type of chemistry.  

That's a good point, and I think the Writers never understood the difference between writing a complex, nuanced relationship versus writing a character flip-flopping between one far extreme and the other, nor did they have the skill or put the work into attempting it.  When they needed to create a conflict in a character's centric episode, they immediately went to Easy & Shortcut™ mode, and simply reset someone's personality, ignoring anything else that had happened to them in the past.  The most obvious and almost satirical was with Snow alternating between "I'm Mary Margaret!" to "I don't want to be Mary Margaret anymore!", but it also happened with Henry/Hook, Emma's WALLS™, Belle's feelings towards Rumple, etc.

[tennisgurl]

9 hours ago, CCTC said:

I finally finished season 3.  I was debating on watching the Frozen arc, because except for the rushed ending and a let-down of a curse, if my memory serves correctly, I thought they did a decent job with that material.  However, the early scene with Regina being upset for bringing back one of her murder victims might have driven me away. 

4A is such a weird arc, its practically two different shows going on simultaneously but are almost unconnected, where one is quite good and the other one really sucks, and that really hit me during the last re-watch. The Frozen stuff and most everything with Emma was all really good, maybe some of the best stuff the show had done since the better part of the Nevengers, while just about everything with Regina and Marian is just awful, and really cemented the shows attitude of "Regina is the hero and anyone who speaks against her is evil, even when they have totally legit reasons to be pissed at her" which basically destroyed the show. To me, Regina never fully recovered as a character from this arc, its so full of her being horrible and the show taking her side for no reason, that it makes her later being declared Best Hero Ever seem so painfully hallow, and this totally destroyed Robin. His constant rambling about his "honor" or whatever is even more hallow now than Regina's supposed hero cred. What a pair of assholes these two are, they deserve each other. Its such a hard arc to watch, it gave me such whiplash. I can go from enjoying Frozen hijinks and Emma and Elsa bonding to cringing over Crypt Sex and Regina screaming about how Emma ruined her life by saving one of her billion victims, its exhausting. Even the lamer parts of the Frozen arc, like the introduction of Lily (that was during that arc right?) or Anna Forrest Gumping around the EF fixing everyone's problems, arent terrible or anything, especially compared to the Regina story. They are fun and offensives, unlike the horribly offensive and horrible Regina plot, one of the shows worst subplots ever. 

Of course, it helps that 4A is followed by the Queens of Darkness/Author arc, which had some good moments, but is generally a total mess, especially the reality wrapping clusterfuck that is the Author plot, so I probably have extra found memories of it as the good that was followed by the awful. Kind of the reverse of season two, where I went into the re-watch remembering really not liking it, but watching it again, 2A is a good, if flawed, story, that I totally forgot about after I drowned in the horror and misery of 2B, which had a few good one off episodes, but which also had a run of some of the worst episodes that this show ever made, and thats saying something!

Edited July 10, 2020 by tennisgurl

[CCTC]

30 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

cringing over Crypt Sex

Oh yea - that really happened didn't it?

 

31 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Queens of Darkness/Author arc, which had some good moments

Cruella by herself almost makes 4B worth it.  It is too bad they did not just make her the main villain/foe in the Underworld, but then we would have missed the "true love" of Hades and Zelina...   And really, you have the four dark queens, that you did not even fully utilize -- did you really need to bring in the half-baked author mess into that half season?

 

34 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

2A is a good, is flawed, story,

I had remembered 2A being decent, but was surprised even the first part of 2B was not bad.  The season overall was better than I remembered, but when it went bad in the last third -- it really embraced the badness.

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

I think the Writers never understood the difference between writing a complex, nuanced relationship versus writing a character flip-flopping between one far extreme and the other, nor did they have the skill or put the work into attempting it.  When they needed to create a conflict in a character's centric episode, they immediately went to Easy & Shortcut™ mode, and simply reset someone's personality, ignoring anything else that had happened to them in the past.

I've seen some screenwriting advice that you should give each character an obvious "tag," something that's clear about them that carries through the whole script. Part of the idea is for someone reading the screenplay to be able to instantly picture that character and maintain that picture as they read so that they can keep a cast of characters straight in their head without other visuals and long before there's casting. This is advice for beginning screenwriters who are trying to get scripts read in the first place (and these tags tend to get edited out once the script sells and they do a pre-production draft), and it isn't something that should apply in a long-running TV series when you'd hope the characters would evolve, but it seems like these guys kept doing it and it's something they fell back on when they felt they needed to re-establish a character who'd been relegated to the background for a while and had to come back to the forefront for a centric. So, David is super-honorable, so that he looks down on the shadier Hook. Most of their centric interactions are very much Prince Charming Meets Captain Hook, with no consideration for the evolution both of the characters have had and their previous interactions. That actually ends up backfiring and making David look less honorable, since he's being nasty and suspicious of the guy who keeps saving his life and his family. With Snow, it always seemed to be about her learning to Hope or finding her strength. How many times did Emma learn to reach inside herself and find her magical power? Or have WALLS?

8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

4A is such a weird arc, its practically two different shows going on simultaneously but are almost unconnected, where one is quite good and the other one really sucks, and that really hit me during the last re-watch. The Frozen stuff and most everything with Emma was all really good, maybe some of the best stuff the show had done since the better part of the Nevengers, while just about everything with Regina and Marian is just awful, and really cemented the shows attitude of "Regina is the hero and anyone who speaks against her is evil, even when they have totally legit reasons to be pissed at her" which basically destroyed the show.

This show really is best enjoyed with liberal use of the fast-forward button, and I think that's the arc where that becomes most true. I can mostly watch season one straight through, though there is stuff I prefer to skip, like "Dreamy" and the parts where street-smart, suspicious Emma totally trusts Sidney. 2A I can generally watch straight through, though I tend to skip the Rumple/Belle stuff. I only watch the flashbacks of "The Crocodile" because otherwise my head explodes. There are decent episodes early in 2B, with some tedious scenes, but then there's the Poor Regina stuff like "The Cricket Game." I can mostly get through 3A, though I tend to skip Rumple weeping over his doll and the Snow vs. Regina flashbacks. I can even get through much of 3B, though I generally just watch selected scenes. 4A works much better if you only watch the Frozen side of the story. 4B is another "scenes" arc. None of the storylines are that great, but there are some nice scenes -- almost any scene with Cruella, most of the scenes with Emma and Hook. I can generally get through 5A but I skip most of the Henry scenes. I skip around in 5B, avoiding most of the Mills family drama, most Henry stuff, and most Zelena stuff (she's particularly annoying in that arc). Season 6 is another "scenes" season. There are some good scenes, but no overall good stories or episodes. I think there are a few scenes in season 7 I'd be willing to rewatch, like a lot of the WHook/Rogers and Alice/Tilly stuff.

8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Kind of the reverse of season two, where I went into the re-watch remembering really not liking it, but watching it again, 2A is a good, is flawed, story, that I totally forgot about after I drowned in the horror and misery of 2B, which had a few good one off episodes, but which also had a run of some of the worst episodes that this show ever made, and thats saying something!

I was surprised by how much I liked 2A the first time I rewatched, since I had a such a bad impression of it. I think it failed to live up to my expectations following season one the first time around. Season one ended on a big high, and I had a lot of anticipation for what would come next. We had the Charming family all reunited, everyone getting their memories back and Regina realizing that she was screwed. I was really looking forward to her comeuppance. And that fizzled out, the family was quickly separated, and there was very little reckoning with the aftermath of the curse, so I was really disappointed. Then 2B happened, with all the Poor Regina stuff and Snow treated like a villain for getting rid of an immediate threat, plus all the Home Office nonsense. That soured my impression of the season. But when I rewatched, expecting it to suck, I was pleasantly surprised by 2A, and now I think that's my favorite arc of the series. It has flaws, but there was real adventure, they used the fairy tale characters, they still remembered that the characters had cursed identities that would clash with their real identities, and I liked the bonding between Emma and Snow and Emma getting to see her mother in her element.

Funny how the only signs of Mary Margaret in Snow immediately post-curse were the short haircut and the pink sweater. That made it weird when in season 3 they went all-in on the "here I'm Mary Margaret" idea and then later had her having to find her inner Snow again. I guess they forgot that she was all Snow right after the curse broke, when Mary Margaret should have been freshest. She shouldn't have had to figure out how to be Snow again more than a year later, and she definitely shouldn't have reverted back to Mary Margaret after that.

7 hours ago, CCTC said:

And really, you have the four dark queens, that you did not even fully utilize -- did you really need to bring in the half-baked author mess into that half season?

The problem was that they brought the dark queens into the author mess. The author mess was what they started with, and then they threw in a bunch of random other stories, some of which could have been their own arcs with a little development. It was like they knew they'd never really get an arc out of the search for the author, so they tried to play with the heroes vs. villains concept and brought in a bunch of villains with no real tie between them other than that they were villains, then did nothing with them. I imagine there were some scheduling conflicts with the Maleficent actress that kept them from using her more frequently or setting her up to be a real recurring character, but while they had her they could have actually done something with her backstory and how the Sleeping Beauty story played out with her. They managed to get Aurora back for the flashback but couldn't reunite them in Storybrooke? Sleeping Beauty is one of the major fairy tales and Disney princesses, but they just sort of forgot about it after establishing the characters in their world.

[KAOS Agent]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

When they needed to create a conflict in a character's centric episode, they immediately went to Easy & Shortcut™ mode, and simply reset someone's personality, ignoring anything else that had happened to them in the past.  The most obvious and almost satirical was with Snow alternating between "I'm Mary Margaret!" to "I don't want to be Mary Margaret anymore!", but it also happened with Henry/Hook, Emma's WALLS™, Belle's feelings towards Rumple, etc.

I think the only one that ever made sense to me being a constant presence was Emma and her WALLS™; as tedious as it got that they seemingly could not manage to actually let her have feelings about events that should have driven the conflict and the building of said walls. Emma was psychologically traumatized as a young child and as a teen - all of it based on her lack of love and self worth. That's not something she would ever truly get over no matter how much therapy she attended and how much love was showered on her by her family. But the show generally had her family distrusting her/sacrificing her happiness/screwing her over time and again, and then presented Emma having any negative reaction to that as wrong. They almost never showed the good side of the Charming family bonding, mostly all we saw were all kinds of triggers for Emma in her parents' various reactions and their distrust and lying and outright choosing everyone else over her.  It doesn't really matter to me that half the time they had Emma just accepting things, it wasn't realistic. Or if I go with her accepting things, then I see it as a reflection of her still believing she has no value, which is horrible for someone who should be gaining confidence in herself and her self-worth. Hell, Emma's big Saviour moment at the end of the show was to literally just stand there and let someone kill her. Her entire role in life was to do nothing and die. She has no value except in death. The whole thing is just gross.

Edited July 10, 2020 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

7 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I think the only one that ever made sense to me being a constant presence was Emma and her WALLS™; as tedious as it got that they seemingly could not manage to actually let her have feelings about events that should have driven the conflict and the building of said walls. Emma was psychologically traumatized as a young child and as a teen - all of it based on her lack of love and self worth. That's not something she would ever truly get over no matter how much therapy she attended and how much love was showered on her by her family.

I agree.  I think this is why the Emma Walls bothered me a lot less than the relapses of the other characters.

[Shanna Marie]

On 7/10/2020 at 4:20 AM, KAOS Agent said:

I think the only one that ever made sense to me being a constant presence was Emma and her WALLS™; as tedious as it got that they seemingly could not manage to actually let her have feelings about events that should have driven the conflict and the building of said walls. Emma was psychologically traumatized as a young child and as a teen - all of it based on her lack of love and self worth. That's not something she would ever truly get over no matter how much therapy she attended and how much love was showered on her by her family.

I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd presented it that way, that she wasn't going to just get over something like that, but it was always treated as some kind of failing on her part, like she was the one handling things the wrong way and needing to learn a Valuable Lesson -- and then that lesson was quickly forgotten the next time they wanted to focus on her WALLS. Plus, even though she had plenty of reason to have walls, given the way her childhood went, and then being abandoned by Neal, instead of developing those things, they threw in random additional stuff, like Lily and Cleo, and made her be the one who was in the wrong in those relationships.

I think a lot of the problem was that the show never really acknowledged and honestly dealt with the trauma that all the characters had been through. They kept adding all this crazy stuff to their backstories but didn't consider how these things would really affect them psychologically in the present. For instance, Snow should have had some serious psychological issues after her mother died and she felt somewhat responsible because she was given an option of saving her but couldn't bring herself to do so, then there was Regina, the stepmother she loved who turned on her, killed her father, kicked her out of her home, stole her crown, and tried to kill her while telling the kingdom she was a murderer. But the only psychological trauma she was allowed was guilt over killing Cora and fear of letting go of Snowflake (for one episode) after Zelena took him for her spell. You'd never have any idea that Snow had been through much of anything.

Not that I'd have wanted to spend the whole series wallowing in the psychological trauma of the whole cast, but it would have subtle effects in the present in the way they dealt with people, aside from Emma's WALLS in those particular episodes but not in other episodes. And maybe they could have skipped some of the trauma in some of the characters. Like, did David need a tragic backstory beyond being a poor farmer forced to impersonate a prince to save his mother? Did he also need the alcoholic father who seem to have died in a drunk carting accident but who was really murdered?

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd presented it that way, that she wasn't going to just get over something like that, but it was always treated as some kind of failing on her part, like she was the one handling things the wrong way and needing to learn a Valuable Lesson -- and then that lesson was quickly forgotten the next time they wanted to focus on her WALLS.

This show does seem to write episodes based on the "lesson" that a particular character is supposed to learn as it parallels an error they made in the past.

Quote

For instance, Snow should have had some serious psychological issues after her mother died and she felt somewhat responsible because she was given an option of saving her but couldn't bring herself to do so, then there was Regina, the stepmother she loved who turned on her, killed her father, kicked her out of her home, stole her crown, and tried to kill her while telling the kingdom she was a murderer. But the only psychological trauma she was allowed was guilt over killing Cora and fear of letting go of Snowflake (for one episode) after Zelena took him for her spell. You'd never have any idea that Snow had been through much of anything.

Exactly.  They didn't need to dwell heavily on the psychological damage, but they hardly even acknowledged that any of this would be scarring.  But they seemed deadly afraid of seriously showing the full impact of Regina and Rumple's actions.  I feel like they spent more time showing how Regina was emotionally damaged by Cora.   

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

Like, did David need a tragic backstory beyond being a poor farmer forced to impersonate a prince to save his mother? Did he also need the alcoholic father who seem to have died in a drunk carting accident but who was really murdered?

That was pretty much addressed in only the episodes in which those events were relevant, which were only a handful.  The arc with David's drunk dad was particularly poorly done.  It felt manufactured to give Anna something to do in one episode, and Hook something to do in another.

[KAOS Agent]

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

They didn't need to dwell heavily on the psychological damage, but they hardly even acknowledged that any of this would be scarring.  But they seemed deadly afraid of seriously showing the full impact of Regina and Rumple's actions.  I feel like they spent more time showing how Regina was emotionally damaged by Cora.   

That was pretty much it. Regina gets tons of focus on how damaged she was as a child and it's presented as an excuse for her actions in the present. As if reveling in mass murder is just the effect of having an abusive parent. Meanwhile, people who have serious reason to have massive anger and resentment towards her with much more damaging pasts are presented as horrible people if they so much as throw a glare at anyone responsible for their traumas. They definitely couldn't focus on Emma's damage unless they transferred that onto other people besides Regina. So they ignored her responsibility for why Emma was in the situation in the first place and threw in people like Ingrid, Lily and Neal for Emma to blame and then made Emma the bad guy for having feelings about how they treated her. Additionally she practically begged the woman responsible for her miserable childhood (and who attempted to murder her as a newborn) for her friendship all while Regina basically mocked and denigrated her at every turn. 

Edited July 12, 2020 by KAOS Agent

[Shanna Marie]

20 hours ago, Camera One said:

I feel like they spent more time showing how Regina was emotionally damaged by Cora.   

Worse, the focus was on how Regina was emotionally damaged by Snow, both by Daniel's death (which was all Snow's fault, no mention of the fact that Cora actually killed him) and by having a life and being loved by the kingdom and by Leopold while Regina was married to Leopold (no mention of the fact that, all this time, Regina hated Snow and was scheming to hurt or destroy her, put her horse under a sleeping curse, etc.). The only damage by Cora that was acknowledged was that she kept Regina from knowing her sister. I guess if they'd admitted to how much Regina was damaged by Cora, then it would be hard to make Snow look like the ultimate villain who horribly wronged Regina by killing Cora.

20 hours ago, Camera One said:

The arc with David's drunk dad was particularly poorly done.  It felt manufactured to give Anna something to do in one episode, and Hook something to do in another.

It would have been so much better if David had managed to teach Anna something. She was an incredibly sheltered princess, so surely there was something she could have learned from a farmer. David and Kristoff knew each other, so they could even have had fun with her trying to hit up David for inside scoop on her fiance. They could have teamed up to do something together. Evil Warlord Bo Peep was one of the best things this series ever did, so I wouldn't want to lose that entirely, but the "David won't fight Bo Peep's mafia because his father being a drunk made him feel helpless to do anything about his situation, so Anna has to teach him to have courage, and after an afternoon of sword training he's able to fight off all of Bo Peep's thugs" plot was stupid, and it didn't even track with the present-day story that well. I don't think there was anything in the present that matched with the "don't give up" stuff, since David wasn't giving up on Emma. The backstory mostly just worked to set up that David had met Anna and that Bo Peep's staff was linked to her, so they were able to tell Elsa that Anna was still alive.

And don't even get me started on the later plot, which seemed to be entirely about yet another thing for Hook to feel guilty about (another case of them adding stuff rather than exploring what they had) and setting up a reason for Hook to be out of the way so other parts of the plot could progress, plus making waking the Charmings from their curse more challenging after the dilemma about using the magic flower to reach Hook or using it to wake the Charmings.

[CCTC]

Not really adding anything here, but if they decided to revive the show just to give Evil Bo Peep an arc as the main foe -- I would be there.  

[tennisgurl]

For a show that lasted for seven seasons, its hard to really find character arcs for the main characters that make sense, at least partially because characters could only have so many character traits or issues that they can work through, despite the fact that these characters should have tons going on and they should have tons of issues to work through, but they so rarely get explored. The characters with the most consistent arcs that worked well were probably Hook and Emma, who do show pretty consistent growth throughout the show, but even those had all of these weird hiccups because every character was only allowed to have so many "things" so Emma still had her walls going until basically the end of her time on the show in season six, even though at that point she had already either worked past a lot of those issues, or the show had clearly decided they didn't want too go hard on the really big stuff (we cant let people remember how much Saint Regina ruined Emma's life!) so it felt like we were going backwards. Other than them, what were Snow and Charmings arcs? They got some smaller arcs, like Snow being driven insane with guilt over killing Cora (bleh) or Charming getting over Hook killing his dad (Snow is already over Regina killing her dad after all!) but its really hard to chart their development as characters over the show, because the show either got bored with them and gave them either boring plots or nonsense ones (eggnapping! They're just like Regina except for not at all!) instead of giving them the arcs that you might expect giving their backstories, like Snow learning how to be a good leader or Charming dealing with his regret over losing out on watching Emma grow up and moving past it. They have so much tragedy in their backstories, but its never really explored, both because the writers got bored with them, despite being main characters, and because so much of that would mean they have to acknowledge that Regina did terrible things to them, and we cant have that. 

I swear, plenty of shows struggle with what to do while redeeming a formally villainous character while dealing with their past actions, but this is the rare show that actually creates plot holes and cuts away obvious stories all in the service of whitewashing Regina and Rumples crimes, even as they are still actively committing them! We cant talk about how miserable and unloved Emma felt, or how the Charmings lost out on raising their daughter while Snow was in a time loop while Charming was stuck in a coma for almost 30 years, or talk about all of the lives lost and destroyed by Regina and Rumple, or Snows feelings about losing her parents and her throne and having to survive on her own or deal with plots that seem inevitable like everyone finding out that Regina killed Graham in Storeybrooke or that Rumple threw Milah into the soul river, which just leaves all of these abandoned plot threads that can never be touched again because it would remind the audience that they're supposed heroes are actually mass murdering psychopaths or force them to face some actual consequences for their actions.