A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Camera One]

16 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

As Snow pointed out, she just tried to kill them that day

It's interesting how she says this, but it's all in the way the episode is framed.  In this case, the viewers knew Snow (and Charming) were wrong, wrong, wrong to falsely and unfairly accuse Regina.  This was the beginnings of when the show started to become not just weak, but actually infuriating to watch.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

It's interesting how she says this, but it's all in the way the episode is framed.  In this case, the viewers knew Snow (and Charming) were wrong, wrong, wrong to falsely and unfairly accuse Regina.

This was before Archie's "murder," so there were no false accusations yet. It's at the welcome home party that Emma inexplicably invited Regina to because they needed to give her a second chance, like Emma got -- as though a homeless teenager who was set up by her boyfriend to get busted for possession of stolen property is exactly the same thing as a mass murderer who destroyed an entire civilization in a quest for vengeance and tried to kill them not long before, only stopping because Henry caught her and begged her not to. Though I do love how terribly wrong and unfair it is to suspect the known murderer when a murder takes place and all the evidence points to said murderer. I would consider that to be one of the consequences of being known as a murderer: you're always going to be at the top of the suspect list, and you lose all benefit of the doubt.

As I said, it's like there was some kind of change of plans or change of direction sometime during production of "Queen of Hearts" because it's a drastic shift in tone. It's not necessarily in the writing since most of it is nonverbal in that episode, but maybe in editing, and every episode afterward was radically different from the way things were approached up to the end of that episode. Even all of Regina's terror that her mother will show up doesn't fit at all with the way Regina actually behaves when her mother does show up. You could almost believe that the showrunners were fired while that episode was in production, the change in tone and focus is so acute.

[Camera One]

Thanks for the reminder.  I guess it's great Youtube happens to have clips from that exchange in the diner, as well as that conversation Emma and Regina had outside.  Why the heck was Emma running after Regina to tell her there was cake?  Clearly, Regina had no friends there, so let her go.  That really reminded me of episodes like "Breaking Glass".  I get the "doing it for Henry" part, but it's not like she couldn't arrange to give Regina some supervised time with Henry the next day.  Why did she have to be at *that* party?  It was only for unnecessary melodrama.  Regina seemed so apologetic but she sure reverted fast, accusing Emma of not knowing how to be a parent. 

Emma's line about food preparation in the Enchanted Forest and Granny's line about meatloaf reminded me how even back then, it was often the little moments that endeared the show to me.