A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Camera One]

I didn't expect they could make The Apprentice look worse, but he didn't think to tell Henry about this "author's powers takes over" / trance hazard of the job?  The Writers pulled something else out of you-know-where which was needless, made no sense, and was a complete waste of screentime.  

Why didn't they just free The Dragon in the last 3 minutes of "I'll Be Your Mirror" and we could have said goodbye to him then, rather than mention him in an off-hand remark.  So where exactly did he go?  Is he around to give any sage advice?  Oh right, no, we need to consult a villain for any answer on this show.

[Tiger]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

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.

Tinkerbell and Ariel's statement last week, that "it doesn't matter" now applies to eveey single aspect/moment/whatever of this show.  

[KAOS Agent]

Someone asked the Once screentime data counter if her graphs include both Regina & the Evil Queen (when they are in the same scene) as a single count or double. The overall time graphs that she's created and that have been posted here before do not double count, but she did keep track. (For the record, I can understand not double counting because of how it can skew things with comparisons to previous seasons) Fun news, Lana's screentime increased by an additional 35 minutes when counting their joint scenes. I'm actually kind of shocked that they had that much time together.  So if you're suffering from Regina/Evil Queen fatigue, you might be justified. On the other hand, if you love Lana and all of Regina's iterations, Season 6 is the best ever. For reference, that puts Evil Queen/Regina's (aka Lana's) total time at 265 minutes with Emma at the next highest with 167 minutes. That's more than two full episodes worth more time than any other character. Lana must need a nap.

Usually on this show, when a character is featured, there are others that are integral to their story. With Gideon, you have Rumpel & Belle and the Black Fairy seems to be after Emma or Storybrooke or something which means everyone is involved. With the Evil Queen plot, the only character involved was Regina. Others were dragged in occasionally, but no one else experienced growth or had their story pushed forward by this plot. Hell, Snowing actually got put to sleep to remove them from the story. That's 14 episodes worth of story where only Regina had a stake in the main plot. Even the random one offs focusing on Aladdin and Hyde were actually in service to the Regina plot. The Shears of Destiny had nothing to do with Emma or her Saviourhood and the serum was meant to set up that the Evil Queen couldn't be killed. Nothing meant anything and no one had anything to do. That's not very effective storytelling. It's so frustrating that this could be the final season (and is definitely the final season for some) and they spent so much time on this plot without building other characters growth into the story.

Edited April 11, 2017 by KAOS Agent

[Rumsy4]

43 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

Fun news, Lana's screentime increased by an additional 35 minutes when counting their joint scenes.

o__o It's like self-incest. 

45 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

With the Evil Queen plot, the only character involved was Regina. Others were dragged in occasionally, but no one else experienced growth or had their story pushed forward by this plot.

Not even Regina experienced growth or had her story pushed forward. This plot only existed to give a clone of Regina her own realm of Happy Ending with no Snowing, no Emma, an orphaned Henry, Dark One Rumple with no Belle, no Zelena, no Cora, and a Robin who had no wife (dead or alive) and no children. The writers truly lost their plot over their obsession with the Evil Queen. 

[Olivia Y]

18 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

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.

...

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...

...

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.

I think the 'prettier than her' motivation as well as the 'Regina doesn't really love Henry' thing was probably changed between the pilot and the next episode, since, for the pilot they needed to include elements of the fairy tale that was recognisable, and then (I assume) after the pilot got picked up the writers had to plan out the rest of the season, so they'd have to work in the stable boy storyline and the fact that Regina was devastated when Henry ate the poisoned turnover. While I can ignore that inconsistency (for season 1 at least) it is a pretty clear indication the writers really didn't think their characters/settings through while they were developing this thing.

(Isn't it lovely how Emma is able to so easily overlook the fact Regina tried to /kill/her - more or less - in that first season, despite her promising to leave Henry to her?)

The portal-crossing thing bothers me a lot more. The whole premise of how difficult it is leads to why he had to go through all that crap and hurt heaven knows how many people along the way. And wasn't it mentioned how it took centuries to get it to work? So he waited hundreds of years to get to the 'land without magic', and then...yeah, apparently now it's as easy as going from one room to the next. I'm surprised they don't have a travel agency in Storybrook to book inter-realm vacations or something.

Didn't he also make that mirror that allowed Regina to trap Cora in Wonderland? Long before the whole dark curse thing? The only handwave I can get on that is that it takes more powerful magic to get to a land without magic...

I think this has been brought up before: but what exactly was the point of this 'dark curse'? I get that it made people forget the ones they loved, but...it's not like they were particularly unhappy either? I'm sure Ruby (despite being tired of working in a diner when the series started) is probably happier without the memory of inadvertently murdering her boyfriend; same with other characters who went through difficult times in the EF. The only one who was really suffering was Jefferson, who could remember his daughter but she doesn't know him. (Which brings up the question of how she coped after the curse was broken, she's still got memories of being part of that other family).

Then there's Snow, who she was trying to get revenge on...and apart from being more meek than her EF counterpart (and being single), didn't seem to have a bad life, she seemed to enjoy her job and had a lovely home. It's not like she was suddenly Fantine in Les Mis or something. She only became miserable after repeatedly being torn apart from David, but that only started after Emma showed up, so...was her life even that bad in the interim? Sure she was living the same year (day?) over and over but she didn't seem to realise it (or age), so the 'punishment' of losing time with Emma only affected her after the curse was broken...which I assume Regina wasn't planning on, so...what was the big deal?

Edited April 11, 2017 by Olivia Y

[RulerofallIsurvey]

3 hours ago, Olivia Y said:

I'm surprised they don't have a travel agency in Storybrook to book inter-realm vacations or something.

You know, if the show would just embrace the camp, instead of trying to be a serious drama (at which it is failing anyway) this could be really funny, like some of the dwarves go on vacation in another realm and get into trouble and Emma has to go save them.  

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

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.

It's sort of true because Regina was jealous of Snow and the admiration the people around her gave her. But, I still count the line as a retcon because Snow probably wouldn't have said that, given the whole apple thing occurred in the same scene with her finding out Cora killed Daniel.

Quote

The portal-crossing thing bothers me a lot more. The whole premise of how difficult it is leads to why he had to go through all that crap and hurt heaven knows how many people along the way. And wasn't it mentioned how it took centuries to get it to work? So he waited hundreds of years to get to the 'land without magic', and then...yeah, apparently now it's as easy as going from one room to the next. I'm surprised they don't have a travel agency in Storybrook to book inter-realm vacations or something.

And from 6x17, it looks like the Arendelle portal is still in the Sorcerer's Mansion. The inter-realm travel should have been a larger plot point. In S2, it was a huge deal. Snow and Charming were planning to farm magic beans and take everyone but Regina to EF. After Neverland, that got dropped completely. I wouldn't mind the easier portal-making if there was an explanation for it. The writers tried to do that in 3B, when they stated the Curse tore down the "walls between the realms", but A) that was never mentioned again, and B) there are numerous instances that contradict that.

Let's say the townspeople rallied for Regina to figure out how to get a stable portal working. By the power of A&E, they get some two-way door like Arendelle's. That could open up a whole new world of possibilities with world-hopping. We could do that instead of flashbacks. You have no idea how much I would love to see Storybrooke become sort of a DS9 waystation between worlds. The LoUS people just proved how fun that can be, what with knife-throwing vikings and vindictive stepmothers. Heck, just make SB the new LoUS with people popping in and out on a regular basis.

Edited April 11, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 4/11/2017 at 6:26 AM, Olivia Y said:

I think this has been brought up before: but what exactly was the point of this 'dark curse'? I get that it made people forget the ones they loved, but...it's not like they were particularly unhappy either?

Basically, it's one of the worst revenge schemes in the history of revenge schemes. I don't think that the fact that Rumple engineered it just to get to Bae covers up for that. Regina should have been furious at him that she killed her father in order to go live in a small town in Maine and watch her enemies lead mildly unsatisfying lives in which they were more content than she was. I got the feeling she didn't know what the curse would get her, but she didn't seem all that surprised by it, either. It would have made more sense if they'd stuck with the concept suggested in the first season that there was some kind of cosmic rule in their world that the villains couldn't ever truly win, and so she wanted to come to our world where there were more shades of gray and she'd be able to beat her enemies. But that's not what they did with it. Or they could have used the concept mentioned in the second season, that she couldn't harm Snow in that world, so she needed to come to this world to do it -- except then she never actually did anything to Snow. For a while, they played it like she didn't really want to kill Snow, no matter how much she talked about it, but then they showed her being happy when she thought she was killing Snow. Like so many things, what the curse really was supposed to do and what Regina hoped to get out of it changes season by season.

I was thinking about how many times they've changed definitions of core parts of their mythology, like the curse or the Savior. Or even something as basic as their definition of "darkness."

In late season 4 and 5A, Darkness was an actual entity, created by the warping of Grail magic, that physically transformed the person it was possessing into the Dark One. It might even have been the root of all darkness and evil. Except now in 6B that's supposedly the Black Fairy.

In 4B, the end of season 5, and season 6, darkness is the evil within a person that can be removed, except removing the darkness from a person doesn't actually change anything for that person because they still have the same potential (Emma with her prenatal darkectomy, Regina with the Evil Queen cut out), and it could even turn out that the part without the darkness could end up being more evil than the dark side (Jekyll and Hyde).

But then in 4B we also had darkness not really being evil, more like a dark cloud of bad luck and poor decisions hanging over a person, with Lily, who not only had whatever native darkness she might have had as Maleficent's daughter, but all the darkness that was taken out of fetal Emma. And yet she wasn't actually a bad person. She just made bad choices and had a sucky life.

On the other hand, in 5B we had Liam refer to Killian as having always struggled with darkness, when Killian hadn't done anything evil (that we know of, until we get another retcon in a flashback) while Liam was still alive. What we've seen of him always struggling with darkness looks a lot more like clinical depression. Even when he was very young, he was self-medicating with alcohol and had a horrible case of self-loathing. When bad things happened to him, he sank even deeper, so he projected his self-loathing onto the rest of the world and went evil with it, but then doing bad things made him loathe himself even more, resulting in a downward spiral. Archie's not much of a shrink if he didn't pick up on that. Some Prozac might do Hook a world of good.

But that kind of darkness isn't the same as Lily's darkness, or the Evil Queen side of Regina, or the Dark One, and yet it's all described the same way. What they define as darkness is different with every story line. Ditto with "Savior," "hero," and the rules of the various curses.

[Olivia Y]

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

But that kind of darkness isn't the same as Lily's darkness

I think that's the version that baffles me most of all. I mean (correct me if I'm wrong, I've forgotten a lot of this storyarc on account of how ridiculous and dull it was) the whole egg thing was meant to transfer all of Emma's (potential?) 'darkness' into someone else, and apparently because of this Lily's life was crap. But from what we were shown Lily wasn't really worse off than Emma was. Sure she didn't feel loved (?) in her (foster?) home, but she was at least looked after and not left to fend for herself, or you know, sent to jail. If they'd hinted that she was being abused or something that would've been different, but there was nothing sufficient to suggest that.

Also, I took it to mean that she'd be a bad person (the way Emma is 'good'), so if her life was crap because of stuff she actually /did/ as a result of this 'darkness' then that would make more sense. But nope, it seems like it's just a bad-luck charm or something, which again, doesn't balance out Emma who didn't have a great time growing up either. 

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Killian hadn't done anything evil (that we know of, until we get another retcon in a flashback)

He probably tripped someone as a prank when he was a kid. Darkness like that can't be contained.

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, Olivia Y said:

I think that's the version that baffles me most of all. I mean (correct me if I'm wrong, I've forgotten a lot of this storyarc on account of how ridiculous and dull it was) the whole egg thing was meant to transfer all of Emma's (potential?) 'darkness' into someone else, and apparently because of this Lily's life was crap. But from what we were shown Lily wasn't really worse off than Emma was. Sure she didn't feel loved (?) in her (foster?) home, but she was at least looked after and not left to fend for herself, or you know, sent to jail. If they'd hinted that she was being abused or something that would've been different, but there was nothing sufficient to suggest that.

Apparently, what the evil Snowing did made Lily more prone to making the wrong choices.  Here is the quote:

APPRENTICE: You are not as responsible for your own misery as you would believe.  The deck has been stacked against you, Lilith, and it's not your fault.  Everything you do will be harder.

-------------

She had it SO much worse than Emma, you see... 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

5 hours ago, Olivia Y said:

Also, I took it to mean that she'd be a bad person (the way Emma is 'good'), so if her life was crap because of stuff she actually /did/ as a result of this 'darkness' then that would make more sense.

I still think this was a total fail because you'd think that someone with a double dose of innate darkness -- which they generally equate with evil -- would be some kind of evil sociopath -- like worse than what you'd imagine the Evil Queen would be like if she'd grown up in our world. In our world, that tends to make people more successful rather than less, as long as they're smart enough to stay on the right side of the law. That kind of person would either be in prison or running a company or working in government or being a lobbyist, somewhere where utter ruthlessness and selfishness without caring about others would make you go places. "Darkness" doesn't mean to me being a sad sack or making low-level bad choices.

If the Dark One is darkness personified as an evil entity, then you can't also talk about darkness being bad luck, poor life choices, or depression. You need a different word for it than "darkness" if you want to talk about these things. But what Lily had really was supposed to be that kind of darkness, where Emma had the potential to be a great hero or a great villain, which means Lily should have been a villain because she got all Emma's villain potential. That's more than bad luck or making "hanging out with the wrong crowd" kinds of bad choices.

[Camera One]

It's so sad Young Emma kept rejecting Lily because she deprived Lily of being closer to her innate light that Snowing had stolen from her and put into Emma.

Quote

"Darkness" doesn't mean to me being a sad sack or making low-level bad choices.

I suppose we might be expected to believe that this "darkness" increased into revenge and planning murder once Lily grew up. 

All because that helpful Apprentice told Lily her life story even though "I'm not supposed to."  

Talking about Lily makes me sad.  I think I might throw a Lily and Gideon Pity Dinner Party tonight.  

Edited April 14, 2017 by Camera One

[superloislane]

I saw someone on Twitter wondering why they brought Robin back and it made me realise that I actually forgot Robin was in this season! It's only been a couple of episodes since he was in it but it was so pointless that I already forgot about him. That's kind of crazy.

[Rumsy4]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

Talking about Lily makes me sad. I think I might throw a Lily and Gideon Pity Dinner Party tonight.  

Regina can be guest of honor at the table, because she's had the hardest life of everyone. Zelena can burst in half-way through dinner, and whine about how her sister gets everything.

3 hours ago, superloislane said:

It's only been a couple of episodes since [Robin] was in it but it was so pointless that I already forgot about him. That's kind of crazy.

Don't worry. The writers had the same problem when Sean actually was a series regular.

[Dianthus]

Operation Cobra was Emma and Henry from s1. Operation Dumbass was Mongoose. They kill cobras (like Riki Tiki Tavi).

Sorry. Late to the party. Signing in with Facebook wasn't working for me for a few days.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Dianthus
stuff

[jhlipton]

On 4/4/2017 at 3:01 PM, KingOfHearts said:

I don't doubt tumblr would praise the show until it started blatantly offending minorities or something.

Wouldn't they actually have to cast minorities before they could offend them (Jasmine, Aladdin and Jafar as exceptions)?

On 4/11/2017 at 11:00 AM, RulerofallIsurvey said:

You know, if the show would just embrace the camp, instead of trying to be a serious drama (at which it is failing anyway) this could be really funny, like some of the dwarves go on vacation in another realm and get into trouble and Emma has to go save them.  

Legends of the Fairy Tales!

[Shanna Marie]

This whole "Hook's realm-hopping adventure with all the Disney princesses" plot has been the biggest letdown. It takes "it happened offscreen" to whole new levels. What actually happened?

Hook, Little Liam, and Nemo stand in the Nautilus and talk about how they can get back to Storybrooke.

Offscreen, they go on a Kraken hunt, find one, and track it down.

Hook, Jasmine, and Aladdin hang around in the Nautilus and talk about Jasmine and Aladdin's relationship.

Offscreen, the crew of the Nautilus desperately tries to repair or contain the damage from the encounter with the Kraken.

Later, Nemo and Little Liam join Hook and the others to talk about the damage to the ship. They get transported to the beach, where they stand around and talk about what to do.

Offscreen, Nemo and Liam head back to the Nautilus to try to save it, or go down with the ship.

Hook, Jasmine, and Aladdin go into the hut, where they stand around talking. Ariel joins them for more talking. They get Jafar out of the jar, he knocks Hook, Aladdin, and Ariel out. Jasmine and Jafar talk. She throws dust on him. There's more talking on the beach, a kiss, and we're in Agrabah, where Hook and Ariel walk around and Hook tries to reach Emma via shellphone (getting her on the first try, during the one moment when she's around his stuff).

Offscreen, Hook gets enough jewels to buy a magic bean, finds out where Blackbeard is, and somehow gets there from Agrabah, all in less than a day. Maybe he gets help from Jasmine or Ariel. Does he use a magic mirror, ride a magic carpet, find an intraworld portal? Who knows? We don't, because we don't get to see the actual adventure part of this adventure.

Hook finds Blackbeard in a tavern. They talk about playing cards for a magic bean. We see the end of the game. They go to the dock, talk about where the Jolly Roger is, and jump through a portal. Then we actually get an onscreen adventure! They get chased by Lost Boys, Blackbeard knocks Hook out and heads out in a rowboat, and Hook has to flee from Lost Boys before he's finally surrounded. He gets out his sword. But we've had enough action for one day, and Tiger Lily shows up to knock out all the Lost Boys and then Hook. Now we can get back to our important sitting around and talking. Hook and Tiger Lily talk about the errand she needs him to run, and isn't it convenient that she has a weapon she needs him to take to the Savior, and it just so happens that he's trying to get back to the Savior? He easily proves it by showing her that he's carrying a diamond ring. They sneak into the Lost Boys' camp, Hook uses the sap to detach his shadow and send it with the weapon to Emma, tries to ride the shadow, but is pulled down.

Offscreen, he's captured by the Lost Boys, beat up (so he must have at least tried to fight them off), and tied up to be burned at the stake.

Emma opens a door, Hook gets down from the stake, and runs away through the door.

So, onscreen we got a lot of standing around and talking. All the action was offscreen. And the talking wasn't even all that interesting. It didn't develop the relationships, didn't reveal anything about the characters. Hook had learned his Valuable Lesson before he was sent away, so he didn't grow or change through his adventures, didn't gain new perspectives by running into old foes, didn't have to do anything to prove to them that he'd changed (which reminds him how much he's changed and maybe shows him that he deserves forgiveness).

The whole arc was a bunch of nothing -- and was still more interesting than what was going on in Storybrooke.

[Rumsy4]

25 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

The whole arc was a bunch of nothing -- and was still more interesting than what was going on in Storybrooke.

Perfectly put. And I agree. 

[Shanna Marie]

Come to think of it, the whole season has been a lot of nothing. Paradoxically, I think it's been boring because there's been too much going on -- they just touch on the surface of a lot of stuff without actually dealing with it, so it ends up being pointless. There was the Jekyll and Hyde stuff, but it turns out that Hyde wasn't much of a threat and didn't have a real agenda. All that "there's nothing more dangerous than an untold story" meant nothing. The writers had a purpose for bringing the Untold Stories people to town -- they needed Jasmine to get to town but she couldn't have been in Storybrooke all along without having run into Aladdin -- but Hyde had no purpose in doing so.

The Evil Queen just did the sleeping curse, and now that's over, so it'll be like she was never there. Regina wasn't changed by the experience. Her meddling didn't turn the heroes dark, didn't turn them against each other. Her ending was like "oh well, never mind."

Jasmine and Aladdin and Jafar were rather pointless. I guess we needed Aladdin for the shears that the Evil Queen used, but for all the good that storyline did, they might have been something she stumbled across in Gold's shop. The conflict with Jafar was all in the past. In the present, he made one speech and got dust thrown in his face. Their past wasn't well-developed, but without their past there was no context to their present. We didn't know why Jasmine thought she needed to choose duty over love, we never saw anything in the past that looked like love, we never saw Aladdin really being a Savior or saw it wearing on him.

The murder plot was a waste of screentime since it amounted to "eh, it's in the past." That was a mistake to begin with because there was no way to create real drama -- they couldn't exactly get too mad at him about something that happened about 60 years ago when they already knew he'd killed in the past, when they're already best buds with Regina, who killed other members of their families and tried to kill them, and when Hook has already died for them (and David has already killed him).

Hook's side trip was pointless. They could have got entire episodes out of the parts that were left offscreen. Wouldn't it have been more interesting to watch him trying to find Blackbeard and travel the world to get to him than to have him unconscious in the background while Jasmine and Jafar stood and talked? And/or they could have made his journey meaningful for his character, like "The Captain Hook Farewell Tour" as he finally put his wicked past behind him by encountering people he'd wronged, helping them, and in turn getting help, so that he proved to himself that he really had changed and he could forgive himself.

Really, they should have picked one or two things and developed them fully rather than throwing in everything and barely skimming through it, then moving on as though it never happened.

[Camera One]

Many seasons on this show have been a lot of nothing, with episode upon episode of characters spinning their wheels and chasing MacGuffins that mean nothing.  This season was worse for me because most of those pointless arcs lacked a convincing premise and I could not buy in right from the start.  This reminds me most of 4B, when I couldn't believe in the concept of the Author being able to write someone a happy ending.

In this season, we started with "there's nothing worse than an untold story", which made zero sense to me from the start.  So I really couldn't take it seriously and I didn't join the Hyde Fan train since I didn't buy him as a leader in that land.  What little we saw of the characters from that Land only reinforced how lame the concept was.  The Evil Queen, again, as a separate entity from Regina was something else I couldn't buy from the beginning.  Nothing she did indicated she was any more evil than Regina in the flashbacks, so everything she did I could only take with a grain of salt.  Then, we had the newly discovered "Savior always dies" Law, which always felt like it was pulled out of someone's behind and if I couldn't take it seriously, how could I care about Emma's death visions.  Coupled to this subplot was Jasmine's #SaveAgrabah except I couldn't buy into why I should care.  Then, we got Gideon, 28-year-old son of Rumbelle raised by evil, and how we were supposed to believe that Rumple and Belle were now on the same side because of it.  After the hiatus, we got Wish Robin, who was somehow real even though the other characters in that realm were "fake".   Then, the coincidence with Hook killing David's father.   And now, we have The Black Fairy, who suddenly was the inventor of all dark magic.  It's hard to name one subplot this season which I could really buy into and get caught up in.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Camera One

[jhlipton]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

 And/or they could have made his journey meaningful for his character, like "The Captain Hook Farewell Tour" as he finally put his wicked past behind him by encountering people he'd wronged, helping them, and in turn getting help, so that he proved to himself that he really had changed and he could forgive himself.

My Name Is Hook, and I have a list!  (Any number of the characters are dim-witted enough to be Randy, but known of them are nice enough).

[asabovesobelow]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

Many seasons on this show have been a lot of nothing, with episode upon episode of characters spinning their wheels and chasing MacGuffins that mean nothing.  

How does this affect rewatch? 

I've  rewatched episodes, but not entire seasons. When you view the last episode of a season and it sets up next year for the evilest evil everrrrrr...do you totally cringe?

I remember thinking untold stories was going to be boring and a waste of time, and then I kinda dug Hyde, and then the whole storyline lasted for eight minutes before morphing into something else entirely.

[Rumsy4]

I used to watch each episode twice, but stopped rewatching episodes starting sometime around 4B. Exceptions were episodes that I particularly liked (for example, Last Rites, and The Other Shoe). I rewatched quite a bit of the Camelot arc as it was airing as well. I haven't gone back to do a series rewatch in years, except when I'm looking up scenes on netflix when writing fanfic. I actually barely paid attention to some of the episodes this season, and completely skipped two episodes in 6B.

IMO, the Show lost its essential rewatch value in 4B with the eggnapping. It fundamentally changed the way flashbacks were written. Flashbacks became retcons that made little to no sense wrt characterization. And the writers became even more sloppy with timeline and continuity. All these issues have been there from the start, but I feel like they stopped caring around 4B for some reason. 

[Curio]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

IMO, the Show lost its essential rewatch value in 4B with the eggnapping. It fundamentally changed the way flashbacks were written. Flashbacks became retcons that made little to no sense wrt characterization. And the writers became even more sloppy with timeline and continuity. All these issues have been there from the start, but I feel like they stopped caring around 4B for some reason. 

I think we've talked about this before, but that aligns with when the show "officially" jumped the shark in my opinion—4A finale's "Heroes and Villains." The eggnapping was introduced right after that episode. 4x11 was the huge pendulum shift in the show's quality, the types of characters A&E wanted to focus on, and the types of flashbacks they did. 4A was a mixed bag of good and bad episodes, but for the most part, I still have mostly positive feelings for that half season. But something fundamentally changed after "Heroes and Villains" and the show has never gotten its mojo back. I feel like they were close to getting that mojo back with the Dark Hook reveal in "Birth" (the Camelot flashbacks anyways...the Dark Hook stuff in Storybrooke fell flat), but the botched "Oh, I didn't know I was a Dark One the entire time," "Let's make the Dark Swan in Storybrooke plot super repetitive and boring," "Hey, let's have Hook kill his father even though it makes no sense," and "Let's do this weird plot with Rumple and Merida" brought everything else down.

I wonder if the meddling the Disney execs did with the Frozen arc impacted that shift. If they were there supervising 4A but left before 4B, that would explain the drastic quality drop-off.

[Rumsy4]

45 minutes ago, Curio said:

If they were there supervising 4A but left before 4B, that would explain the drastic quality drop-off.

But the quality dropped lower than what it had been before the network meddling. Maybe A&E got used to someone telling them how to structure their show (ala Lindeloff for S1), and then couldn't figure out how to manage the Show by themselves. This could also explain the quality dropoff in S2.

[Curio]

8 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

But the quality dropped lower than what it had been before the network meddling. Maybe A&E got used to someone telling them how to structure their show (ala Lindeloff for S1), and then couldn't figure out how to manage the Show by themselves. This could also explain the quality dropoff in S2.

Yeah, that's what I meant. A&E do well with someone telling them what to do, but when they're on their own, the quality drops. Season 1 they had their LOST mentor, but Season 2 they were on their own. 4A they had Disney overseeing a lot of the plot, 4B they were on their own. 

[Rumsy4]

3A still seems the best half-season arc so far, despite the running around potted plants. S5 also had some really good moments/episodes. So, it's as though it takes the writers half a season to auto-correct after losing some kind of oversight/mentorship. But that still doesn't explain the bland and boring retconny mess that is Season 6. I do think network meddling resulted in the introduction of Aladdin, but without actual oversight like with 4A. So, A&E passive agaggressively derailed the whole thing by not putting any real effort into integrating Aladdin into OUAT. Btw, that arc got resolved without explaining a single thing about what it means to be a savior. Aladdin did nothing to help Emma except pass her the Shears in 6A, which ultimately EQ!Regina ended up using to separate from her other self. 

[Shanna Marie]

Season 4 was also when all the major moments started being anticlimactic. That's when we got the Shattered Sight curse that was so dire but looked like a Marx Brothers movie. That was resolved by Ingrid changing her mind. Then we had the Rumple plot resolved by contrivance, Hook's part (and related relationship issue) dealt with in the infamous 20 seconds in the hallway by the bathrooms, and the Arendelle plot resolved offscreen and told in a line of dialogue. Most of the Queens of Darkness came down to "oh, never mind," and Regina's happy ending plot was resolved by her remembering something she did ages ago. The epic separation from Robin was handled with a phone call and a trip to New York. The AU was resolved by writing a line. They were a little better about allowing the big moments to be big in season 5, though that also got us the "make a wish if you believe in magic" scene. And then there's season six.

I think part of the anticlimax problem, especially this season, is that they're overreaching. They make the obstacle so absolutely impossible to overcome that the only way to resolve it is with some magical thing out of the blue that then makes it too easy. So they spend however many episodes being thwarted at every turn because their enemy is so overpowered or the magic is utterly unbreakable, but then when it has to be resolved they get or find something that makes it way too easy, and the result is that it's anticlimactic. Like with the Hook stuff recently, where there's all that struggle for him to get back, which is impossible because of Gideon's curse, and it's resolved by Emma opening a door that's apparently not affected by the Savior's tears curse. He doesn't even have to do anything much to escape. The sleeping curse is so dire that they spend weeks (months for us) being unable to do anything, then it's resolved with something they could have done at any time. It didn't even require the info the Evil Queen gave Regina. The murder plot was an impossibly thorny moral and emotional dilemma, resolved with a "hey, it was a long time ago."

[Curio]

11 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

The sleeping curse is so dire that they spend weeks (months for us) being unable to do anything, then it's resolved with something they could have done at any time. It didn't even require the info the Evil Queen gave Regina.

Seriously, why didn't Regina think of that resolution sooner? It's not like she learned anything in the past few weeks that would have made her realize her plan would have worked. It would have been one thing if seeing Hook's shadow jogged her memory of a cure, but having everyone drink from the cup was something she should have thought of right away when Snow and Charming were cursed. 

[jhlipton]

8 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

But the quality dropped lower than what it had been before the network meddling.

It's like they said "We're free at last!  Now we get to make up for lost time with all our crap!!!!  Ha!"

[KAOS Agent]

3A was a course correction after the ratings dropped precipitously in 2B. I suspect there was network input to get the show back on track. They put all of the mains on an adventure together and forced them all to interact rather than the random storylines that the audience was subjected to in 2B. I wasn't a huge fan of 3B, but it continued with a cohesive narrative of the mains vs a single villain. 4A again featured a similar storytelling method and obviously was heavily influenced by the network. 4B is where they returned to the random disconnected stories of 2B this time with a hopeless, depressing tone to them. We've been stuck with that kind of storytelling since then and quality continues to erode. 

[Camera One]

I'm just playing what-if.  It would have been fun to see Snowing raise Young Emma.  So let's say they did that, and told her that she will break a Curse when she turns 28 years old.  So she turns 28 years old, and a happy and well-adjusted Emma, Snow, Charming, maybe with Neal and Henry enter Storybrooke... then what?  How exactly would Emma break the Curse?  Could they just cross through the town line and Emma could kiss Henry and that's it?  I mean, 6 years of worldbuilding and I have no idea who needs to kiss who and under what circumstance.

[Shanna Marie]

55 minutes ago, Camera One said:

So she turns 28 years old, and a happy and well-adjusted Emma, Snow, Charming, maybe with Neal and Henry enter Storybrooke...

But I doubt happy, well-adjusted Emma who grew up with both parents would have ever even met Neal. He'd have been off stealing cars while Emma would have been going to high school, probably involved in a lot of after-school activities like dance and music classes, and likely watched like a hawk by her overprotective father. She might have been married to someone else and maybe had a different child by the age of 28, but the odds are really slim that it would have been Neal, so no Henry.

58 minutes ago, Camera One said:

How exactly would Emma break the Curse?  Could they just cross through the town line and Emma could kiss Henry and that's it?  I mean, 6 years of worldbuilding and I have no idea who needs to kiss who and under what circumstance.

It really makes no sense that Emma could have broken the curse by kissing Henry, when you think about it. Neither of them were even affected by the curse, so how could a kiss between two unaffected people break the curse on other people? Thematically, as well as logically, Emma should have had to kiss Snow. The curse targeted Snow, with everyone else being collateral damage, so breaking the curse on Snow should be what breaks it for the rest of the town, plus that would have required Emma to really believe all of it and accept Snow as her mother. She already knew Henry was her son, so that was a much smaller leap of faith. So happy, well-adjusted Emma could have returned to town on her 28th birthday and kissed her mother, breaking the curse on the whole town. Really, her presence started weakening the curse, then it was really falling apart when she started believing. The kiss just finalized it, so if she'd grown up being taught who she was and already believed, the curse might have actually been ended a lot sooner.

[Camera One]

But I doubt happy, well-adjusted Emma who grew up with both parents would have ever even met Neal. He'd have been off stealing cars while Emma would have been going to high school, probably involved in a lot of after-school activities like dance and music classes, and likely watched like a hawk by her overprotective father. She might have been married to someone else and maybe had a different child by the age of 28, but the odds are really slim that it would have been Neal, so no Henry.

There has to be Henry, though.  Peter Pan had a sketch of him when Baelfire was a teenager.  How old would Neal be 10 years into the Curse?  I can see Snow and Charming bumping into him via fate, and steering him back towards good, maybe even helping him to work through his Rumple issues. 

[Shanna Marie]

9 minutes ago, Camera One said:

There has to be Henry, though.  Peter Pan had a sketch of him when Baelfire was a teenager.

Maybe he was born to someone else Neal knocked up -- it was the Rumple side of the family that was probably important -- and he still looked like his father's side of the family. Goodness knows, he takes more after his father than his mother. Hey, maybe Neal ran into Lily, who also has some of Emma's essence, and the result is something enough like Henry to match the sketch.

If the age given for Neal on the Wanted poster was accurate, he was 24 around 16 years into the curse, and if he was 15-16 when he went to Neverland (Rumple became the Dark One when Bae was turning 14 and about to be drafted, then there was however long after that before Bae bailed, and then the six months or so he was in London), then I think he'd have arrived maybe a couple of years before this. The Charmings might have taken in 17-18 year-old Bae, but then they'd have expected him to be like a brother to Emma. It would have been even creepier than what did happen if he still slept with her while she was 16 and he was 24.

But I suspect the sketch is meant to show that what happened is what always would have happened. The Charmings weren't meant to go get young Emma because prophecy and destiny. More than a hundred years ago, it was determined that Emma would be enough on her own to run into Neal, get pregnant, and have Henry.

[Curio]

Going back to this for a second...

On 4/18/2017 at 10:04 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Come to think of it, the whole season has been a lot of nothing. 

 

You could go straight from "Last Rights" to "Awake" and not really miss a whole lot. All you'd need is someone to catch you up on the new sleeping curse and the Hook/Robert retcon. Literally nothing about Hyde is relevant anymore. Robin isn't relevant. August isn't relevant. (Aren't we glad we spent most of the spring premiere focusing on him?) Jasmine and Aladdin aren't relevant. 

Does anyone else feel like each episode hour flies by way too fast? I've found that with most shows I watch, I'm really impressed by how much they can fit into 20, 30, 40, or 50 minutes. With those shows, I generally don't look at the clock to see how much time is left because the pacing is natural. But with OUAT, I always seem to find myself looking at the clock and thinking, "How is it 7:45 already? There's still so much plot left they have to fit in!" And then usually those special scenes I'm waiting for are the rushed scenes during the final 10 minutes. It's like the show spends 90% of its time on meaningless nothingness, and then 10% of the time is actual important scenes, but because those scenes are always crammed into the final minutes, they're always anticlimactic and rushed.

[Rumsy4]

3 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

4B is where they returned to the random disconnected stories of 2B this time with a hopeless, depressing tone to them. We've been stuck with that kind of storytelling since then and quality continues to erode. 

Yes. 4B is when the overall tone turned grim and joyless. Despite what A&E claim, the Show is bleak and dark, and no wonder people stopped watching in droves. 

If Snowing had gotten to raise Emma and brought her back to Storybrooke when she was 28, there's no reason why Regina would not have tried to stop them the same way she did in S1. She could still have managed to curse Snow with the Sleeping Curse or something else, and Emma could have TLKed her mother awake. Henry was not a necessity. He was just one "path".

[Camera One]

50 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

It really makes no sense that Emma could have broken the curse by kissing Henry, when you think about it. Neither of them were even affected by the curse, so how could a kiss between two unaffected people break the curse on other people? 

The only thing we can go by is some of the subsequent Curses.  I don't quite remember... was the 3B Curse broken by Regina kissing Henry?  I don't even recall what broke the 5A Curse anymore... I just remember they all got their memories back using those evil dreamcatchers.

8 minutes ago, Curio said:

Does anyone else feel like each episode hour flies by way too fast? I've found that with most shows I watch, I'm really impressed by how much they can fit into 20, 30, 40, or 50 minutes. With those shows, I generally don't look at the clock to see how much time is left because the pacing is natural. But with OUAT, I always seem to find myself looking at the clock and thinking, "How is it 7:45 already? There's still so much plot left they have to fit in!" And then usually those special scenes I'm waiting for are the rushed scenes during the final 10 minutes. It's like the show spends 90% of its time on meaningless nothingness, and then 10% of the time is actual important scenes, but because those scenes are always crammed into the final minutes, they're always anticlimactic and rushed.

Hello Curio.  This is Adam and Eddy replying directly to your message.  We're flattered that time flies when you're watching our show.  We know your feeling.  This show is like a gourmet dessert, so much goodness and packed into a single spoon!  The comment you made which struck us the most is when you compared our show to Buddhism's highest point of Enlightenment, nothingness, otherwise known as nirvana!

Edited April 20, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Does anyone else feel like each episode hour flies by way too fast? I've found that with most shows I watch, I'm really impressed by how much they can fit into 20, 30, 40, or 50 minutes. With those shows, I generally don't look at the clock to see how much time is left because the pacing is natural. But with OUAT, I always seem to find myself looking at the clock and thinking, "How is it 7:45 already? There's still so much plot left they have to fit in!" And then usually those special scenes I'm waiting for are the rushed scenes during the final 10 minutes. It's like the show spends 90% of its time on meaningless nothingness, and then 10% of the time is actual important scenes, but because those scenes are always crammed into the final minutes, they're always anticlimactic and rushed.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Nothing is ever important or worth watching until the last few minutes. Most of the time is spent with characters reciting flavorless dialogue or flashbacks that add nothing. This show is infuriatingly pointless. Nothing ever freaking happens... well, except for two things. Rumple and Belle gave birth to an annoying son, and Captain Swan had a lackluster proposal. S6 in all its glory, everyone.

Edited April 20, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

The most egregious examples are when characters often spend 2/3 of the episode working towards a goal that turns out to be pointless, such as The Sapling of True Love, or last week's Emma and Gideon's adventure which only had the purpose of getting her trapped in a spider web, 

[jhlipton]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

How exactly would Emma break the Curse?

Let's stop the nonsense that you need a Twu Wuv (applied very loosely) Kiss to break a curse.  Maybe one curse, but each curse requires a different solution. 

In the case of the Dark Curse: Emma finds her magic and she uses it to restore the hearts in the vault to anyone still alive.  That's enough to break the curse (and no Henry needed).

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, Curio said:

You could go straight from "Last Rights" to "Awake" and not really miss a whole lot.

You could go straight from the 4B finale to "Awake" and not miss a lot. Nothing that happened in season 5 matters at all. You might wonder where Robin was, but that's supposing you remembered that Robin was around. I guess the only updating you'd need is why Hook was being sheepish around David and who Gidiot was.

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

I don't quite remember... was the 3B Curse broken by Regina kissing Henry?  I don't even recall what broke the 5A Curse anymore...

The problem is that they keep conflating the Dark Curse with the memory spell. The Dark Curse itself seems to be just the part that punches through the barriers between worlds and creates Storybrooke, turning the non-human characters like the fairies, dwarfs, and Jiminy, into humans. That part has never really been broken, other than when Regina reversed the curse and they returned to the Enchanted Forest. Emma broke the memory part of the curse that kept everyone from remembering their true identities. But the memory part doesn't seem to have been part of the Dark Curse, since it wouldn't have been in Curse 2 that Snow cast. Zelena added the memory spell to the curse. It was the memory spell that Henry broke with the TLK with Regina (never mind that her sacrifice to make reversing the curse possible was supposedly giving up Henry). Curse 3 in season five made no sense, since it only seemed to be a transportation spell. The barriers were already down, with multiple methods of inter-realm travel possible, and Storybrooke already existed, so it didn't need to be created by the curse. The memory spell there wasn't even related to the curse. The curse had been cast when Emma used the dreamcatchers to wipe the memories. That wasn't resolved with a TLK.

[Amerilla]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

I'm just playing what-if.  It would have been fun to see Snowing raise Young Emma.

14 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

But I doubt happy, well-adjusted Emma who grew up with both parents would have ever even met Neal.

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

There has to be Henry, though.

I think any of this hinges on whether you think Emma's story is about destiny or fate. 

If breaking the Curse was Emma's destiny, then the conditions of her life before her 28th birthday don't matter so much. She could have been raised by Snowing as the all-American girl. She could have married Neal and raised Henry in Tallahassee.  She could have left her graduate program at Yale to become the lesbian leader of a badass motorcycle gang called The Red Jackets. Destiny dictates that she ends up in Stoybrooke at age 28. How she gets there is irrelevant.

If breaking the Curse was Emma's fate, the lead-up does matter. If the idea is that Emma has to be so broken and shut down by life that opening her heart to Henry creates an emotional shift big enough to destroy the Dark Curse, then bad shit has to happen to break her. Snowing dies in a car crash shortly after coming through the portal because Charming only knows how to drive horses. Snowing survives but Emma runs away as a teen because they're too protective. Neal gets nabbed by police and he goes to jail without Emma knowing it and she ends up giving up Henry. Fate dictates that all this has to happen to bring her to Storybrooke, and the details can only change in minor ways.   

Even though it sometimes calls it destiny, the show really leans towards Fate. Neal, Snowing, August, etc all believe that what they do at these pivotal moments is the only choice they can make to get Emma to where she needs to be to the savior (which I refuse to capitalize at this point because it's become so lame.) In a show with stronger worldbuilding, that complete belief in fate, even when it causes pain, is one of the ways these characters are truly other-worldly.

 

14 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If the age given for Neal on the Wanted poster was accurate, he was 24 around 16 years into the curse, and if he was 15-16 when he went to Neverland (Rumple became the Dark One when Bae was turning 14 and about to be drafted, then there was however long after that before Bae bailed, and then the six months or so he was in London), then I think he'd have arrived maybe a couple of years before this. The Charmings might have taken in 17-18 year-old Bae, but then they'd have expected him to be like a brother to Emma. It would have been even creepier than what did happen if he still slept with her while she was 16 and he was 24.

1

IF being the operative word. Since we know most of what's on the Wanted poster beyond height and eye color is a lie, why assume his age is correct? Knowing how this show rolls, I'm sure the prop person that designed the Wanted poster didn't really get any guidance on it. 

It's one of those things that's always irked me: A&E investing less than the bare minimum in characterizing Neal created this vacuum where people who just hate Swanfire can latch on with cries of statutory rape and how he was sooooo much older than Emma he should have known better than to do what he did. But there's really nothing in the story that confirms Neal was somehow much older or more mature. Indeed, there are no details of his life AT ALL.

If you take it from the opposite end and say that, like the actors that portray them, Emma and Neal were a couple years apart in their LWM age, he couldn't have been out of Neverland all that long. If he's 19-20 to her 17, he's only been in this world 4-5 years when they meet, assuming he was still 15 when he arrived in Neverland and began to age at a normal rate when he arrived here. Then we get into the big unknowns about how he learned how to navigate this world with no download, no frame of reference, and as far as we know, no support.    

But we'll never know, will we?

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I think any of this hinges on whether you think Emma's story is about destiny or fate. 

This show has flip-flopped so much between the two and put both under the same label. Sometimes, "fate" is unchangeable, ultimate, and absolute. Other times, it's relative. If you happen to have a pair of fate shears, then it's easily mutable. If Emma breaking the curse after 28 years hinged on everyone playing their cards correctly, then it's not the same "fate" as Emma's imminent death. One requires shears, the other doesn't. Other than with the shears, I don't think we've ever seen the characters successfully change fate or directly contradict a prophecy.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Amerilla said:

But there's really nothing in the story that confirms Neal was somehow much older or more mature. Indeed, there are no details of his life AT ALL.

If you take it from the opposite end and say that, like the actors that portray them, Emma and Neal were a couple years apart in their LWM age, he couldn't have been out of Neverland all that long. If he's 19-20 to her 17, he's only been in this world 4-5 years when they meet, assuming he was still 15 when he arrived in Neverland and began to age at a normal rate when he arrived here.

That whole thing was badly handled. If he was supposed to be 19-20, then he's not that much older than when we last saw him as Baelfire, so they would have done better using the teen actor and casting a teen to play Emma. But doing that would have blown the Shocking!Twist that Neal was Baelfire, so they had to use the adult actor. But then they made no attempt to make him look any younger, like they did Emma. They didn't even dye the gray out of his hair or change his wardrobe, and he didn't change his mannerisms (though there it doesn't help that he'd had one brief scene of "adult" Neal, so he didn't have a basis of comparison). And MRJ looks a lot older than he is, and he doesn't have the kind of look that can be easily aged downward. He looks like a mature man who's been through stuff (probably why in guest spots on other shows, he seems to keep getting typecast as a troubled military veteran). So with Emma aged down and playing young and girlish, he looks about a decade older than she does in that episode. I don't know that I really buy her as a teen, but we at least have an age stamp on her because we know how old she is at that point, so we can squint and say, yeah, she's about seventeen. But we have no age stamp on Neal, no visual clues, no dialogue, just that wanted poster, which, accurate or not, is all we have. I'm not sure what they meant to convey there, but what we see looks like a skeevy older guy preying on a teen.

But Neal got robbed, in general, by the writing and production. We should have seen more of his life in Neverland, should have seen his escape, should have seen his arrival in modern America, should have seen his transition from Bae to Neal. He should have been a pivotal character, but he was reduced to a human McGuffin.

[Amerilla]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

That whole thing was badly handled. If he was supposed to be 19-20, then he's not that much older than when we last saw him as Baelfire, so they would have done better using the teen actor and casting a teen to play Emma. But doing that would have blown the Shocking!Twist that Neal was Baelfire, so they had to use the adult actor.

 

I don't think it was entirely about the Shocking!Twist! They couldn't use Dylan Schmid and cast a younger Emma because Dylan back then wasn't old enough to play an older teen -- in the season 2 finale episodes, months after the filming on Tallahassee, his voice is barely done changing -- so you'd have to recast an older Bae and cast a younger Emma. Then you're inserting a third Bae into the mix. It's a lot for a one-off episode and a lot for an audience that skews young and/or doesn't obsess about this stuff like we do to keep track of. So they went with what they had. Could they have done it better? Sure. "We Could Have Done It Better" is the show's unofficial motto.

 

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

So with Emma aged down and playing young and girlish, he looks about a decade older than she does in that episode. I don't know that I really buy her as a teen, but we at least have an age stamp on her because we know how old she is at that point, so we can squint and say, yeah, she's about seventeen.

 

Everyone came at it in their own way. For me, the fact that I didn't find Jen particularly convincing at playing a teen made it easier to just go with the idea that they were BOTH supposed to be in the same age range.

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

But Neal got robbed, in general, by the writing and production. We should have seen more of his life in Neverland, should have seen his escape, should have seen his arrival in modern America, should have seen his transition from Bae to Neal. He should have been a pivotal character, but he was reduced to a human McGuffin.

 

On this point, I agree wholeheartedly. 

[Camera One]

I didn't know that Neal's age had been established by a wanted poster.  I can't say I trust stuff made by the prop department, especially on this show, where the head doesn't communicate with the tail.  Baelfire could have picked a date at random or he could have taken someone else's ID info.  A&E may be dense, but I seriously doubt they intentionally wrote a statutory rape scenario.  Of course, there's the additional point that they can't be bothered to use a calculator to establish dates.  

[Shanna Marie]

15 minutes ago, Camera One said:

A&E may be dense, but I seriously doubt they intentionally wrote a statutory rape scenario.

Intentionally, no. Cluelessly? Maybe. See Graham. It might not have crossed their minds that the ages involved would have meant statutory rape, just as it didn't occur to them that a man who was unable to consent to sex was being raped. They've written some very skeevy things and then have been surprised that people saw them as skeevy because they didn't think through the implications when they wrote them. They were going for cool or shocking or funny or what the plot needed and didn't think beyond that.

[Curio]

21 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

See Graham. 

 

And Robin...

[Camera One]

31 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Intentionally, no. Cluelessly? Maybe. See Graham. It might not have crossed their minds that the ages involved would have meant statutory rape, just as it didn't occur to them that a man who was unable to consent to sex was being raped. They've written some very skeevy things and then have been surprised that people saw them as skeevy because they didn't think through the implications when they wrote them. They were going for cool or shocking or funny or what the plot needed and didn't think beyond that.

Robin and Graham both fell into the same category.  Female raping a man.  I can see them not seeing that as all that bad.  Regina/Graham was written intentionally as a "deliciously evil" moment "Take him to my bedchamber".  Zarian/Robin was written intentionally to be a shocking twist body switch!  

The Neal thing I think is just bad math.  You seriously think they went, "Wouldn't it be cool if an adult slept with an underaged girl?"  

Edited April 21, 2017 by Camera One