A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[CCTC]

12 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm certain Merida was meant to be the "fun" part of 5A, and that's unbelievably sad.

The thing that bugged me about Merida (OK besides how obnoxious she was) is that they already had too many characters that were not getting much time, because they threw in everything and the kitchen sink.  I remember when Emma stole her heart and made her train Rumple, thinking how much more of an impact it would have had if she had chosen her Mother or Father for the task.  It would have made Dark Swan actually seem menacing and dark, there could have been a good use of history, it could have given two core characters something to do, and it could have explored the strange parent-child dynamic between Emma and Snow and/or Charming.

[Mathius]

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

I remember when Emma stole her heart and made her train Rumple, thinking how much more of an impact it would have had if she had chosen her Mother or Father for the task.  It would have made Dark Swan actually seem menacing and dark, there could have been a good use of history, it could have given two core characters something to do, and it could have explored the strange parent-child dynamic between Emma and Snow and/or Charming.

THAT should have been what David was utilized for in 5A, instead of the go-nowhere bromance with Arthur.  They had even set it up in the earlier seasons that Rumple envied David for being the kind of brave hero he could never be.  It would have been an organic development, but instead we get a new character in the role, a character who otherwise has her own thing going on that has nothing to do with Rumple and Emma at all.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Mathius

[Rumsy4]

Or Lancelot...

[Shanna Marie]

I guess there is hope if you identify with Regina or Rumple. Then no matter how awful you've been, there's unconditional forgiveness, no apology necessary. Even when people get mad at you, they get over it really quickly. Regina got to reconcile with her dead parents, make up with her sister (repeatedly), and even a horse. When bad things happen to her, it's actually bad things happening to people she cares about, which makes her sad and keeps her from getting what she wants. Everyone's very concerned about her feelings and goes out of their way to help her. In Rumple's case, he gets to kill some of his enemies twice and gets away with it. He's still rich, still a member of the community (sort of), and no matter what he does, eventually Belle will come back to him. It's only if you relate to the heroes that the story gets really oppressive because of all the doom, gloom, and suffering.

Camelot was such a wasted opportunity. It could have been a fun swashbuckling adventure. I was even okay with the Evil Arthur twist. They could have freed the kingdom from Arthur and allowed Lancelot and Guinevere to be together. I liked this presentation of Merlin, aside from the bizarro Dark One mythology and his ultimately utter uselessness. But they buried that story under all the Dark One doom and gloom and then just dropped the plot entirely, with no real resolution other than Arthur's death and afterlife fate. We still don't know if Guinevere and the kingdom were de-sanded, if Gwen got together with Lance, if they figured out that it's not a sword that makes a kingdom great, that by actually working on it, they could create the Camelot of their dreams.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Camelot was such a wasted opportunity. It could have been a fun swashbuckling adventure. I was even okay with the Evil Arthur twist. They could have freed the kingdom from Arthur and allowed Lancelot and Guinevere to be together. I liked this presentation of Merlin, aside from the bizarro Dark One mythology and his ultimately utter uselessness. But they buried that story under all the Dark One doom and gloom and then just dropped the plot entirely, with no real resolution other than Arthur's death and afterlife fate. 

I'm rewatching 5A, and these lines made me laugh:
Hook: "Who is Nimue? How can she defeat the darkness?"
Emma: "Nimue doesn't matter any more."

Charming: "[Arthur's] a king without a kingdom. As much as he hates it, he's not important any more."

All these came from 5x08, the episode where Camelot became completely irrelevant. It's about as meta as Rumple saying "your questions are pointless".

[Mathius]

18 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Hook: "Who is Nimue? How can she defeat the darkness?"
Emma: "Nimue doesn't matter any more."

Seriously, how CAN she defeat the Darkness?  She literally IS the Darkness.   Maybe the original plan behind the whole "Find Nimue" line was that they could overcome the Darkness by reaching the humanity of Nimue still buried within, but instead they decided it was best to keep the Darkness around and give it back to Rumple, since they had written themselves into a corner with the dumbass "hero Rumple" plot as they can't write him heroically. 

Edited March 29, 2017 by Mathius

[Shanna Marie]

14 minutes ago, Mathius said:

Maybe the original plan behind the whole "Find Nimue" line was that they could overcome the Darkness by reaching the humanity of Nimue still buried within, but instead they decided it was best to keep the Darkness around and give it back to Rumple, since they had written themselves into a corner with the dumbass "hero Rumple" plot as they can't write him heroically.

I'm not sure there ever was a plan. It was just a case of them writing for big, dramatic moments, and to hell with plot logic or context. So we get the big, dramatic, and mysterious "Find Nimue" message, and oh no, what does it mean, but that was the only reason for it. I guess it was partly just a contrived setup to reveal that Arthur was crooked with them learning that he'd sabotaged the attempt to message Merlin, and Merlin had to be saying something in the message, so they threw something in that was ultimately meaningless. It's like the once per arc moment of "we have to take the fight to them!" or "now we've got to stop them!" after which they go right back to basically doing nothing. But they needed a dramatic scene to put in the promos.

[Free]

44 minutes ago, Mathius said:

Seriously, how CAN she defeat the Darkness?  She literally IS the Darkness.   Maybe the original plan behind the whole "Find Nimue" line was that they could overcome the Darkness by reaching the humanity of Nimue still buried within, but instead they decided it was best to keep the Darkness around and give it back to Rumple, since they had written themselves into a corner with the dumbass "hero Rumple" plot as they can't write him heroically. 

They clearly did not care, Rumple went back to being the DO in the end, making it completely pointless anyway.

[Rumsy4]

46 minutes ago, Mathius said:

Maybe the original plan behind the whole "Find Nimue" line was

...and it stopped right there with the writers. It was a namedrop, and nothing more. 

31 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm not sure there ever was a plan. It was just a case of them writing for big, dramatic moments, and to hell with plot logic or context.

Exactly. It was as pointless as Merlin's warning to wee Emma.

[Camera One]

Guess who said this line and in which season?

"Well then, prove me wrong. Pick hope over anger. Choose love..."

I'm beginning to think seasons and characters are interchangeable.

Edited March 30, 2017 by Camera One

[Camera One]

Once aficionados or crazies would know Regina uttered that line in "Quite a Common Fairy" and now she's once again telling someone to choose love.

The Split Regina plotline is now concluded but is still nonsensical.  Regina is fine if half her entire being is completely separate from her body?  Jekyll's potion in combo with the Shears can easily split anyone in half if they want?  

Did The Evil Queen have ALL of her darkness?  That couldn't have been since she has been much less murderous in Storybrooke than in the past.  So the whole transfer some love to her and take some of the darkness heart meld didn't make sense.

Isn't Regina EXACTLY the same level of darkness she was before?  But now, she's learned a valuable lesson, but only because some of that darkness was separated from her?  So did she like doing good during 6A?  

Edited March 31, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Finishing up the 6A rewatch. Regina didn't mention Robin once from 6x02 to 6x08. Makes it hard to believe that Regina's speech to Zelena in 6x09 could be explained away as emotional grief.

Also, I found it highly suspicious that Blue went to save Belle while Rumple was on his way to the Black Fairy. She claimed her magic couldn't save the baby. I'm guessing she was trying to prevent her dark half from getting the child.

[Camera One]

25 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Finishing up the 6A rewatch.

If anyone on the forum is in trouble in the future, this can be our secret mayday signal.  :)

Edited April 4, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

If anyone on the forum is in trouble in the future, this can be our secret mayday signal.  :)

I haven't met one person who likes S6. Not one.

[daxx]

14 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I haven't met one person who likes S6. Not one.

You apparently haven't been on tumblr. A bunch of people are saying how much they love season 6 and last episode in particular and the rest of us whiners just don't understand character development and the nuanced way that Emma et al are being written. As I watch them do mental gymnastics to make these actions fit the characters previous canon personalities.

You know the man who said "a man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets" even contemplating leaving town when his true love is in mortal danger and Emma  "I will find you Hook I will always find you"  giving up on him when he was gone for a day when she has all his dearest possessions and his ship is still moored at the dock. Sorry, walls and self loathing don't explain these actions.

[oncebluethrone]

13 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I haven't met one person who likes S6. Not one.

I actually love it. I've never paid attention to the quality of the show so maybe that's why. But more likely because    I have loved or at the very least enjoyed every single episode so far.  Even the ones considered "bad" such as 5, 6, 10, 13, and 15.

[Curio]

12 minutes ago, oncebluethrone said:

I've never paid attention to the quality of the show so maybe that's why. 

Ignorance is bliss...stay in that bubble as long as you can. Because once it's popped, you'll never be able to view the show the same way again. (That's what happened to me anyways.)

[CCTC]

It has been an uneven season, but there have been a number of episodes I have enjoyed this year.  I also don't think I am as invested in Hook and/or Emma or as anti-Regina as a lot of people on this board, and have stopped expecting the show to return to its potential and just watch it like some old-school adventure show.  I think I have lower expectations than many of the posters here and have stopped sweating the details and inconsistencies.  

[The one thing that I can't let go is the romanticism of Belle and Rumple when she should have a restraining order against him.  I have enjoyed the season less since they shifted from the animosity Belle showed earlier in the season to her believing he can be good again.]

[Curio]

5 minutes ago, CCTC said:

just watch it like some old-school adventure show.

I wish I could enjoy the old-school adventure aspects of the show, but even those episodes tend to be letdowns. Last episode, Jasmine and Ariel teaming up should have been epic, but most of the time was spent on random monologues and confusing plots. Captain Nemo could have been an awesome recurring character, but he has hardly been on screen to really make an impact. The Cinderella episode was kind of fun, but it was a one-off and we'll never see her again. It's frustrating watching a show when the characters and plots you're most invested in never seem to get the time of day, but the characters and plots you hate take up all the screen time.

[oncebluethrone]

2 minutes ago, daxx said:

You apparently haven't been on tumblr. A bunch of people are saying how much they love season 6 and last episode in particular and the rest of us whiners just don't understand character development and the nuanced way that Emma et al are being written. As I watch them do mental gymnastics to make these actions fit the characters previous canon personalities.

You know the man who said "a man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets" even contemplating leaving town when his true love is in mortal danger and Emma  "I will find you Hook I will always find you"  giving up on him when he was gone for a day when she has all his dearest possessions and his ship is still moored at the dock. Sorry, walls and self loathing don't explain these actions.

This is what I think. I am one of those tumblr people and while I have never thought for a minute that Emma and Killian were out of character (because I don't really think about that), I respect other's opinions. However, reading those posts on tumblr have shaped my opinion of them lately, which is they are both facing enourmous personal and relationship challenges and that their actions are perfectly in character.

On Emma's side, the main problem is her issue of abandonment. She knew he left (Grumpy told her) and her initial, emotional, reaction was that he was gone for good. She didn't know Killian was planning on coming back and at the moment, her instinct of her not being good enough kicked in. I think that her saying "I need to move on" meant moving past her misery, not on from Killian and her packing up his stuff was because she didn't want to be reminded of him constantly, but wasn't giving up on him. Plus, she was just putting the sea chest in the shed, she wasn't getting rid of it. For the past two episodes, Emma has been hurting, a lot. And when you are in pain, emotion and instinct often overtake logic and reason.

On Killian's side, he was struggling with the fact that he killed her grandfather and that if he told her, she wouldn't want him anymore. She of course, found out after he proposed and ended the engagement based on the fact that he was keeping a giant secret from her and didn't believe enough in her love for him. This caused Killian to want to leave Storybrooke to find the man Emma fell in love with. He was going to leave, but changed his mind at the last minute. I believe he was always fighting for what he wanted, he was just planning on going about it the wrong way.

[CCTC]

I agree they really wasted the potential of Jasmine, Ariel, Aladdin, and Jafar and that whole world. 

I would love to see Lady Tremaine as a recurring character even if she just popped in from time to time and said something cutting.  While the bar outing last week was probably the wrong time and place for that scene, in general I wish they would have more scenes like that.  A glimpse here and there of the absurd blend of real and fairy tale.  

[oncebluethrone]

13 minutes ago, Curio said:

Ignorance is bliss...stay in that bubble as long as you can. Because once it's popped, you'll never be able to view the show the same way again. (That's what happened to me anyways.)

I have noticed some inconsistencies, such as the whole Baelfire ordeal of episode 13, but that was blatantly obvious. However, in the end, it doesn't bother me because I never cared about his character.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

You apparently haven't been on tumblr. A bunch of people are saying how much they love season 6 and last episode in particular and the rest of us whiners just don't understand character development and the nuanced way that Emma et al are being written. As I watch them do mental gymnastics to make these actions fit the characters previous canon personalities.

Many of my friends who are less critical than I am have hated this season more than the others. They weren't phased by 2B or S4, or even Merida, yet S6 is what has really turned them off. They don't sweat details nearly as much as we do on the boards. I've seen a lot less positivity on social media like Facebook. But, I don't doubt tumblr would praise the show until it started blatantly offending minorities or something.

I thought S4 was stupid and S5 was boring, but S6 was the first season where I was truly done.

Edited April 4, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

5 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Many of my friends who are less critical than I am have hated this season more than the others. They weren't phased by 2B or S4, or even Merida, yet S6 is what has really turned them off. They don't sweat details nearly as much as we do on the boards.

Yeah, for some reason, Season 6 has turned away some of my casual viewer friends as well. One tried to watch the first two episodes but got bored, and another was so turned off by the Season 5 finale that she totally quit the show. These people don't know each other, but both of their reasonings were that the show just isn't "fun" anymore. 

[KingOfHearts]

16 minutes ago, Curio said:

Yeah, for some reason, Season 6 has turned away some of my casual viewer friends as well. One tried to watch the first two episodes but got bored, and another was so turned off by the Season 5 finale that she totally quit the show. These people don't know each other, but both of their reasonings were that the show just isn't "fun" anymore. 

The complaints I've gotten have had to do with the plots. They didn't like the Evil Queen split, Emma's tremors, the Rumpbelle baby drama, Aladdin, or Fake!Robin. There's just been too many "twists" and "shocking moments" that make you want to pull your hair out. I watched 6x10 for the first time with a friend, and the Gideon reveal made them scream into a pillow. Not because they were fans of Rumpbelle, but because it was such a stupid idea. 

The writers are terrified of not being dramatic enough. I think the lack of "fun" has to do with the overuse of drama and angst. After a while, it becomes tediously exhausting. Imagine a book with something traumatic and abrupt in every single chapter.

Edited April 4, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

Even the fun moments have to have some kind of underlying dread. Emma and Snow going out to drink should have been the highlight of the series, but Emma spent the entire time completely depressed and sad while Snow got to have all the fun. Sometimes, it's okay to have fun moments without any strings attached. Zelena and Regina got to have a spa day together, but even that wasn't entirely fun to watch because the dialogue is just boring.

I don't know why TS;TW are so afraid of writing casual conversations, but the constant plot talking really drags the show down.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

It has been an uneven season, but there have been a number of episodes I have enjoyed this year.

I actually pretty much enjoyed many of the early episodes (at least they didn't overly annoy me, so there's that) until it got to be too much EQ all the time.  And then the Wish Realm mid-season finale completely turned me off.  Now that and the EQ stupid resolution has tainted everything that came before.

1 hour ago, oncebluethrone said:

Plus, she was just putting the sea chest in the shed, she wasn't getting rid of it.

I believe he was always fighting for what he wanted, he was just planning on going about it the wrong way.

Putting someone's box of belongings out in the shed is what you do when you think they might come back for them and don't want to get into a fight/lawsuit over throwing them out but you don't want to let them in your house either.  

I think you can make the argument that Killian was fighting for what he wanted, even if he had left 'to find the man Emma fell in love with'.  Plus, I choose to believe that if he'd actually left, he'd have left Emma a note explaining what he was doing and why so she wouldn't think he abandoned her, since that is his first worry in the last ep.   But I don't think there's any way you can twist Emma's actions into something other than she gave up on him (based on the word of an over-excitable Dwarf! - "The end is near!" anyone?) much too soon.

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

While the bar outing last week was probably the wrong time and place for that scene, in general I wish they would have more scenes like that.  A glimpse here and there of the absurd blend of real and fairy tale.  

Exactly.  The bar scene with drunk Snow challenging the vikings was one of my favorite parts of the episode.  The show really needs more lighter moments like that.  As others have noted, it's just gotten too angsty and depressing.  I won't even say dark - it's not that it's terribly dark, it's just depressing.  

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I actually pretty much enjoyed many of the early episodes (at least they didn't overly annoy me, so there's that) until it got to be too much EQ all the time.

I thought the first four episodes were just okay. After Jekyll and Mr. Hyde died, 6A lost most of its identity. When Jasmine and Aladdin took the scene, what little plot the arc had got derailed. (Much like with Merida in 5A.) So far, 6B has been worse than 6A. Every single episode has offended me in some form or fashion, and 6x10 is what really started it. 6A, on the other hand, was mostly just boring and uninteresting

As a side note, 6x08 was one of the most pointless episodes this show has ever produced.

Edited April 4, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, daxx said:

You know the man who said "a man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets" even contemplating leaving town when his true love is in mortal danger and Emma  "I will find you Hook I will always find you"  giving up on him when he was gone for a day when she has all his dearest possessions and his ship is still moored at the dock. Sorry, walls and self loathing don't explain these actions.

The problem is that no one has been acting like Emma was in mortal danger after that first fight with Gideon. Emma went off on a canoeing trip and David spent his time tracking down a murder from decades ago. During her wakeful time, Snow had coffee with Regina and counseled her on her love life. Regina was sidetracked with dealing with fake Robin and her worse half, and Hook was busy keeping David from killing anyone while also apparently buying (or stealing) an engagement ring and making therapy appointments with Archie. Emma had time to go through Hook's chest and find the ring. While Hook was in the Enchanted Forest, fretting about Emma, she was hanging out in a bar and having drinks with her mother and "friend." It's like they all forgot entirely about Gideon. There was no sense of urgency, possibly because Belle and Rumple didn't bother to tell anyone what Gideon was up to (not that it matters because what he did ended up having nothing to do with reforging the sword). Hook didn't seem to think that Emma was in danger until Gideon sent him away as part of some scheme against Emma. Hook's worry was not just that Emma would think he abandoned her, but also that she needed to be warned.

In short, no one really acted like Gideon might be a problem or like Emma was in any particular danger that they were worried about.

You know you've got a problem plot/villain when you can go several episodes without any of the characters acting like they're aware there's a problem -- in spite of knowing about the villain and his goals -- or taking any action toward dealing with the villain.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

In short, no one really acted like Gideon might be a problem or like Emma was in any particular danger that they were worried about.

All the characters probably got the memo that he would decide not to kill Emma after all, and just needs her help to kill the Black Fairy.  

Chalk this up to another instance of the Writers knowing what is going to happen and ignoring how the characters would be acting or thinking or feeling.  

[KAOS Agent]

I'm was thinking of all the problems they could have solved if Emma had just cried more often. If Saviour's tears close/seal portals or whatever, then that would have solved the S3 Zelena portal issue. And wasn't she crying when Neal got shot and she was trying to keep him from falling into the portal in S2? Clearly, Hook needs to carry around some of her tears so that he doesn't get shipped off to other lands when saying goodbye to old friends. This is a seriously stupid thing to decide is a special thing now.

[Camera One]

In a single episode, they not only came up tears that can close portals, but also a compass that points to whoever you're looking for who's out for revenge (the ultimate Smart Compass, since there must be a billion and one vengeful people in all the realms), plus yet another way to open portals, with Kraken's blood (here's another thing you missed, dear Rumpie).  And don't forget the red powder in a glass flask that turns people into walking sticks (Jafar needed that powder in a flask because?).

Can someone explain to me Jasmine's reasoning for why the TLK would work?  Maybe I'm dense but I don't understand it:
My father used to tell me that duty had to come before love.  So I told myself that losing Agrabah meant that I could never have love until I won it back.  But when Jafar told me the same thing, I finally realized that the way to get Agrabah back was with the kind of magic that could break any curse.

Huh?  

Edited April 5, 2017 by Camera One

[Camera One]

9 minutes ago, Corvino said:

So that whole enormous fuss about the cloaked figure stabbing Emma as her inevitable destiny has now just faded out with that little fight in the street where, well, she wasn't stabbed, and now Gideon has the more rational idea of just asking her to help him (with the unnecessary and character-damaging stratagems to force her to). Okay, then. It would be a promising storyline to see the Black Fairy's realm and how she has imbued it with unspeakable evil, get a sense of how Gideon suffered growing up there (with Flashbacks!!), and have our main characters nobly fight there to defeat the Black Fairy and make the place good, but do they have enough time left to do justice to this? If they were building up to this as the plot of next season, it would be a good one in my opinion, but I don't trust them these days to sustain any plot competently over more than one or two episodes.

Agreed.  For so much wasted screentime in 6A, they sure seemed to have concluded The Evil Queen arc and the Aladdin/Jasmine in a huge hurry.  Not that I enjoyed either of them, but each were pulled back out of the "hat" and then promptly had a conclusion jammed into a single hour.  Their pacing puzzles me.  Why not conclude The Evil Queen stuff in the 6A finale by bringing on the Wish Realm a little sooner?

Notice that Aladdin's Savior status actually had zero relevance to the outcome of the "Find Agrabah!" arc.  

Edited April 5, 2017 by Camera One

[Curio]

14 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Notice that Aladdin's Savior status actually had zero relevance to the outcome of the "Find Agrabah!" arc.  

 

Did Gideon even interact with Aladdin? Wouldn't a Plan B be to talk to Aladdin since Gideon is apparently obsessed with this stupid Savior stuff?

[oncebluethrone]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I have come up with a few ideas to improve Season 6.  It mainly involves not having the Regina/EQ split arc. The major components are Saviorology/Gideon/The Black Fairy and the Land of Untold Stories  Going back to the end of Season 5, Robin doesn't die, which would eliminate Regina feeling the need to split herself and probably the Wish Realm as well.  In the season finale, the LOUS and Jekyll/Hyde are introduced, but also Aladdin and Jasmine. In the premiere, Emma gets her vision and Aladdin is revealed to be a savior whose battle was put on hold for some reason (he didn't use the shears of destiny).  The episodes up until episode 5 switch between Saviorology-focused, plot-developing episodes and Untold Story, character-developing episodes. At the end of episode 4, Hyde releases Jafar (who broke the genie curse) from his bottle before he and Jekyll die. Episode 5 is similar to what it is, except that the flashback is a combination of Episodes 5 and 15 and Jafar begins his big plan (no idea what that would be). Episode 7 is still a Snowing centric, but there is no dual sleeping curse (the flashback is the same). Episode 8 is an Untold Story. Episode 9 is exactly the same as it is. Episodes 10 and 11 don't involve the Wish Realm, but instead focus on Gideon and the Black Fairy (who comes to Storybrooke by the end of 10) and Emma's Saviorness. The rest of the Season focuses on Saviorology/GIdeon/The Black Fairy/Jafar (whose last master was the Black Fairy and they now work together). Episodes 12 and 13 are similar to what they are meaning Charming centric with Captain Charming adventure in 12 and Rumple centric with Hrunting reveal in 13 (without Baelfire retcon and memory tea or proposal). In episode 14, the Black Fairy and Jafar do stuff that causes Emma, Killian, Aladdin, and Jasmine to go on an EF/Agrabah adventure in Episode 15. While on the adventure, Killian proposes and there isn't any issues with it. Jafar dies and when Emma and Killian try to get back to Storybrooke, Gideon closes the portal before Killian can get through.  This next part is spoilerly/possibly spoilery.

Spoiler

Episode 16 will most likely be the exact same as it is going to be and at the end of the episode, Emma opens a portal in the Sorcerers mansion and goes to Neverland where Killian is. Episode 17 involves Emma and Killian trying to get back to Storybrooke. While in Neverland, they meet Tiger Lily. The flashbacks involve Killian's history with her. Episodes 18 through 22 don't change.  The finale involves all the EF characters going back to the EF, including Emma. While there , her and Killian find their True Love Sapling near the beanstalk or at the top of the beanstalk they climbed. Everyone gets back to Storybrooke and the final battle happens. The ending is a happy ending montage.  The new guy and new girl are involved in some way in the finale, but aren't big enough that their presence would be weird if there isn't a season 7.

Ok, this was more than a few ideas.

[Rumsy4]

On 4/5/2017 at 1:52 AM, KingOfHearts said:

Every single episode has offended me in some form or fashion, and 6x10 is what really started it.

I completely agree. It's not merely a question of boredom or dislike. All the episodes in 6B (starting from the 6A finale) have been actively offensive. Do A&E actually want to turn off most of their audience, and root for the Show's cancellation? Because I'm serious hoping abc will put the Show out of our misery.

[andromeda331]

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I completely agree. It's not merely a question of boredom or dislike. All the episodes in 6B (starting from the 6A finale) have been actively offensive. Do A&E actually want to turn off most of their audience, and root for the Show's cancellation? Because I'm serious hoping abc will put the Show out of our misery.

I'm wondering that too. Is their plan is to turn off most of the audience and get the show cancel? If it is, its working for me. I think I'm dreading it being renewed more then anything. I really hate what they've done to the show it could have been so good and in the beginning it was so good. They've thrown so many characters under the bus, villains and ideas that could have made for great stories and made the show last for years. They've blamed Bae for Rumple becoming a villain, killed Charming and Snow in Wishworld which isn't real except it is, and gave the Evil Queen a happy ending. I really don't want to keep watching and I think I only really keep watching because of this thread.

[KingOfHearts]

19 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I completely agree. It's not merely a question of boredom or dislike. All the episodes in 6B (starting from the 6A finale) have been actively offensive. Do A&E actually want to turn off most of their audience, and root for the Show's cancellation? Because I'm serious hoping abc will put the Show out of our misery.

It's very reminiscent of 2B, where every episode was trying to provide some shocking revelation. (At least after 2x16.) Snow killed Cora! Greg is Owen! Tamara met August in Hong Kong! 

[Rumsy4]

2B is a masterpiece compared to 6B. I've actually skipped episodes in 6B, which haven't done until now.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Rumsy4

[andromeda331]

Plus, 2B you still had hope the show would get better. Now we know it won't and yes A&E can make it worse. And they do.

[CCTC]

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Greg is Owen!

Funny - I completely forgot that.  I have pretty much blocked out anything related to Greg and Tamara and if there names were not posted here, that would include their names.

[Rumsy4]

I just remembered that the dumb Operation Stupid plot from Season 4 was actually named Operation Cobra. It was about getting Regina her Happy Ending with Robin by making the author write her one. And in Season 6, EQ!Regina got turned into a cobra, and we've already discussed how Operation Dumbass was actually used to give her a HE with Robin. :-p

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

I just remembered that the dumb Operation Stupid plot from Season 4 was actually named Operation Cobra. It was about getting Regina her Happy Ending with Robin by making the author write her one. And in Season 6, EQ!Regina got turned into a cobra, and we've already discussed how Operation Dumbass was actually used to give her a HE with Robin. :-p

I thought it was named Operation Mongoose?

Something I noticed was Emma calling her mission with Henry in 5x10, "Operation Cobra Part II". Then later in 6A, Henry called helping the LoUS people the same thing. The writers forgot what they already did.

Edited April 7, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

6 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I thought it was named Operation Mongoose?

Never mind. Not enough sleep.

[Camera One]

16 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

The writers forgot what they already did.

They do a lot of that, don't they.  Too much Memory Tea in the Writers' Room?  

Maybe they get amnesia every hiatus and that's how they keep writing the same story fifteen times each.

Edited April 7, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

I mentioned this in the recent episode thread, but I've been thinking even more, and it seems like this Hook plot is an eerie repeat of Regina's season 4 plot -- probably entirely unintentional. They just can't help repeating themselves.

In the season three finale, Regina hears Robin talk about the impact of losing Marian. She sees his pain. Then she learns that she was actually the cause of his pain because she was the one who killed Marian.

In season 6, Hook hears David talk about the pain of losing his father and sees how hurt and angry he is. David ends up crying on Hook's shoulder about that loss and how close it took him to the brink. Then Hook learns he's actually the cause of David's pain because he was the one who killed David's father.

Then things kind of diverge while still being rather parallel. In season 4, Robin and Regina's relationship is threatened -- but not because he's mad at her about killing Marian or because she feels bad about having done so. She gets reminded of what she did by looking in the magic mirror, but mostly she snarks about how "vanilla" Marian is, and she even contemplates killing her again. She never seems to make the connection between Robin's pain and her actions. The relationship is really just threatened by Robin feeling obligated to return to his long-lost wife.

In season 6, Hook and Emma's relationship is threatened not because of him having killed her grandfather in the past, but because of the way he handles the revelation. He's so ashamed of it that he worries she won't want to marry him, and he fears he can't be forgiven. Even if he is forgiven, he can't bear to face Emma and her family, knowing what he did. It's actually that lack of faith rather than the murder itself that damages the relationship.

In season 4, Regina takes the loss of Robin as proof that villains don't get happy endings. She sets out on a quest to find the Author of the storybooks and make him rewrite her ending.

In season 6, Hook fears that this incident proves that villains don't get happy endings because their past acts continue to have consequences. He may be a hero now, but he still did a lot of bad stuff in the past that hurt the people he now cares about, and he continues to deal with things in his old villain ways, by lying about them or hiding them rather than facing them directly. He initially plans to set out on a quest to learn from Nemo how to handle things better and be the kind of man he wants to be, but changes his mind to go try to face his problems -- only to be hijacked by Gideon.

If they wanted to play with the "villains don't get happy endings" thesis, then Hook's season 6 plot seems to do more to make that case.

[tennisgurl]

You know what gets me? If you look back at the first episode, they've basically thrown away almost everything they set up about the backstory, and how this world works.

First of all, there's Snows comment about how Regina is doing this because she was jealous of Snow being prettier then her, which is probably the most obvious retcon. This doesn't really bother me that much though, because you could say Snow was making a dark joke or just didn't want to talk about what really happened because she felt guilty. What does bother me is some of the other things, like how its established that Emma is the Savior because she is destined to defeat Regina and save her people from the Dark Curse, and this is a special Emma thing, she isn't the most recent in a long line of chosen ones. Then there's how the whole thing is clearly the mechanisms of Rumple to find his son in the Land Without Magic, because its so super hard to find portals to other worlds. Now, it looks like its the Black fairy who was calling the shots from behind the scenes, AND we have found out that its actually super easy to cross helms. With all Rumples knowledge of magic, its weird he didn't hear about mermaids, or magic beans, or magic mirrors, or Pegasus hair, or... Also, it was actually the Dark Fairy who created the curse, even though this episode seems to imply it was Maleficents curse. We also got Emma sticking around when she realized that Regina didn't actually love Henry, which obviously got whipped away when Regina became the shows new hero, despite it being the whole reason Emma stuck around in the town and didn't just go right back to being a bailsbond person. Its just ridiculous. Oh, and Regina was actually pretty badass and intimidating here, not yet revealed as the single pettiest person in the entire multiverse, who has basically been a pawn of her mothers and Rumples evil plans for most of her life.

[tri4335]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

You know what gets me? If you look back at the first episode, they've basically thrown away almost everything they set up about the backstory, and how this world works.

 

A & E show-running/world-building reminds of little kids on the playground. You know the ones' who change the rules so they're never out and always seem to win and whose stories need to be taken with a truckload of salt!

Taken by itself an episode may be entertaining and even well written but it falls apart when you try and dock it into the larger continuity of the show. It fails and fails epically.  The only thing that has saved this show over the years is the efforts of the cast who have managed to make a blossom out of the excrement they've been handed.  But over the course of the last two years, there have been more times when the cast has remained at the level of the writing instead of elevating it.

[Shanna Marie]

The really annoying thing about this season is that nothing really matters. Yeah, they're bad about no lingering consequences from past seasons (like not a single mention this season that Hook died last season), but at least they usually wait until the next season to forget the past season. This season, it's like nothing matters for more than an episode, that the major events only happen to set up entirely unrelated things.

So, there was the Jekyll-and-Hyding of Regina to bring the Evil Queen to town. It didn't change Original Recipe Regina at all and was resolved by having Regina and her darker half split their goodness and darkness, and sending Evil Queen away. I guess you could consider the murder plot a consequence of the Evil Queen being in town, but I'm betting that's forgotten with a hug, and then there's the sleeping curse, which mostly seems to exist as a ploy to give parental leave, and I doubt it will have lasting effects. They even had a scene this week in which we learned that all the consequences of the Evil Queen's presence were undone offscreen. So, Regina didn't change. It didn't change anyone's attitudes toward Regina. The only person who changed was the Evil Queen, but she's gone. What was the point?

There was the death prophecy and the Savior shakes. Those are all gone and forgotten. The shakes and the weariness of the battles was apparently bad enough for Aladdin to snip away his destiny -- and that may not have mattered because what defeated Agrabah turned out to be Jasmine giving Jafar the ring, not Aladdin giving up his Savior status -- but Emma seems to be over it entirely. Would it have changed the plot at all if none of that had happened? I guess all that was done merely to get the shears and to create the Wishverse for Robin and Evil Queen Regina to have their happy ending in. So, the only payoff for this plot was something entirely unrelated, while there's zero impact on the character it was actually about.

We can pretty much forget that Jekyll and Hyde were ever around. The influx of Untold Stories people has ceased to have much of an impact, other than random stuff like the Vikings. Until that, you could almost believe they'd sent them all home. They certainly don't matter much to the main stories.

Now the murder stuff is more or less forgotten because the focus is on the Hook and Emma breakup and getting Hook back home. I really hope there's some point to Hook being separated beyond the Black Fairy's extremely convoluted scheme to get Emma killed. He needs to bring something back or learn something that helps. If he's just gone for several episodes and then comes back, and we never again mention the fact that he was gone, then it's yet another pointless plot. We've also more or less forgotten the Hook and Emma breakup. This week, everyone seems to have entirely forgotten that just the night before, Emma had declared she was going to move on from him. Now she's working with Gideon because she has to get him back. No one's asking about what changed her mind? Suggesting that maybe she's in denial? There's no discussion at all? At least Hook is still frantic to get back to her.

Rumple's scheming against Belle and his hijacking Hook's sacrifice to be the Dark One again also apparently doesn't matter anymore.

[Curio]

15 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

We've also more or less forgotten the Hook and Emma breakup. This week, everyone seems to have entirely forgotten that just the night before, Emma had declared she was going to move on from him. Now she's working with Gideon because she has to get him back. No one's asking about what changed her mind? Suggesting that maybe she's in denial? There's no discussion at all? At least Hook is still frantic to get back to her.

If you had skipped all of Season 6 and only started watching this episode, you would have literally no idea Hook and Emma were technically "broken up" and that Emma gave an engagement ring back to Hook and was ready to move on from their relationship. When Hook gets back to Storybrooke, he should be apprehensive about how the Charmings feel about him because the last time he saw Emma, she was pissed and walked away. But I have a feeling that none of that will be addressed and it'll be like the fight never even happened.