A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[YaddaYadda]

There aren't a lot of episodes that I can actually watch for 3B without rolling my eyes.  I really wish they had let Zelena succeed in casting her time travel spell because there would have been a lot more at stake.  And yes, the timeline would have been completely changed had Zelena been dispatched in the past (The heart splitting wouldn't have happened, Hook wouldn't have gone back for Emma, Rumple wouldn't have been under her control, the curse wouldn't have been cast again since there would have been no need for that)  I wish they had let Emma go back to New York if only for a day since things were all about how you should keep running until you miss home.

 

The whole time travel was fun, I enjoyed the 2 hours, but I really hate that they it was a plot device to bring Marian and Elsa (but especially Marian).

[queenbee]

I also agree that the lack of world-building is problematic. On a tangent to that, I have to admit that I was very disappointed with how Glinda was portrayed on this show, which seemed a huge betrayal of the source material. Glinda in the books was an awesome character. Although disappointed, I will also say that I wasn't actually surprised. There is a noted tendency in Once for the writers to "prop up" various characters. Glinda's idiocy props up both their character of Zelena--the most powerful EVAH--and the character of Regina, who can now perform the most powerful light magic ever, even though she was missing her heart. By making Glinda stupid, they can show how awesome Zelena and Regina are. 

 

.

[Curio]

I have to admit that I was very disappointed with how Glinda was portrayed on this show

To be honest, I totally forgot Glinda was even on the show for a second. But I think that has more to do with the fact that all the Oz flashbacks were such a waste of time. As a Wizard of Oz fan, I was so let down by how they decided to incorporate Oz into the show. I know the writers wanted to bring the characters back to Storybrooke after being stuck in Neverland for so long, but it would have been really awesome to see our Nevenger crew trying to navigate around the Emerald City. By only showing Oz in Zelena-flashback form, I just ended up not caring about it at all.

[Jean]

 

3B had a ton of potential--I think the core ideas behind 3B were way more interesting than the core ideas powering 3A, and frankly their best ideas since S1

 

I don't know about that. A&E basically said they came up with 3B because they were dying to answer this one question "What if someone was jealous of Woegina?" That's it. That's the core idea of 3B.

 

I think 3B had the potential to be more fun than 3A since Wicked is built to be campy and fun. The angle they took on Pan was too emo from the get go.

 

As for why 3B looked a lot like S1? Well that's cause A&E are uncreative to the extreme. They are not content with just bastardizing popular fairy tales and other fictional characters, they have now stooped to cribbing off themselves. That's really what 3B is, a bastardization of S1.

 

Let me count the ways. S1 was supposed to answer why the Evil Queen hated/was jealous of Snow White. We got the curse and the mystery (a dumb and dumber version) of who cast the curse and why they did it. We got the mommy TLK and a brand new spanking shinier Savior. The writers claim we got a story of the missing year, like how they laid out the history in S1. We got the magical baby sent to another realm and grew up with parental abandonment issues. Zelena/Rumple slavery looks like Woegina/Graham (except for the rape part).

 

 

[Amerilla]

The more we look at it, the more it's clear the 11-episode arc scheme is killing off whatever is left of the show. A long midwinter break is something that should have been purely about plotting the show to minimize repeats and breaks over the holidays and sports extravaganzas and awards shows - not about coming up with two completely separate storylines per season. It's not easy, but more nimble writers are capable of writing a taunt, dramatic eleven-chapter drama. These writers are not nimble, and so it becomes an exercise in contrivance and plotplotplot-hole-ry.

 

You can come up in the best story idea in the world (not to say that the Meanie Greenie was the best story idea in the world), but if you don't give yourself space to explore it or invest it with any deeper meaning than "envy is bad!" or "there's no place like home!" what you end up with is what we got: a thin gruel of lip curses and mwah-ha-ha-ing villains and a whole lot of regular viewers sitting around going "WTF?" Followed by "Why am I a regular viewer, again?"

[YaddaYadda]

I'm sort of worried about the second half actually with

Maleficent being back

if they might not end up turning this into a OQ "epic" love story.  I might end up turning to clips if that happens.

[Writing Wrongs]

As a Wizard of Oz fan, I was so let down by how they decided to incorporate Oz into the show.

 

The way they threw Dorothy into one episode was really annoying. What a waste.

 

Just like Rapunzel.

[KingOfHearts]

I was rewatching Hat Trick, one of the best episodes of S1. There were definitely some points of interest.

 

First of all, the adaptation of Wonderland was much, much better than Once: Wonderland. The CGI was cheesy, but it was also very whimsical and creative. I love how they did the hedge maze, then finally the Queen of Hearts. You could tell the writers were really trying at this point of the game. Even the twist on "Off with his head!" was neat. The whole sequence had a closeness to the source material that I found Once: Wonderland to be sorely lacking.

 

Emma and Jefferson had some serious chemistry going on this episode. I wouldn't say romantic, but the actors fitted each other so well. I found all the present day scenes to be creepy and unsettling, which was spot on for showcasing the Mad Hatter. This is the episode that really started to hint the curse was getting closer to breaking, and that Emma was getting closer to believing. The suspense here legitimately caught my attention. Stupendous acting.

 

When looking at the series as a whole, what got to me especially was the scene with Mary Margaret and Emma at the very end. Emma calling Mary Margaret family was more more believable than her "home" revelation in 3B to me. Her reasons for staying were so, so much better. She finally had a family she could rely on for the first time in her life. I find it sad that her family is anything but reliable today.

Edited September 8, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[FurryFury]

I choose not to rewatch the best episodes (and "Hat Trick" is definitely one of them) because I don't want to remember how good this show once was and could have been. It makes it much easier to watch its current incarnation.

 

Emma and Jefferson had some serious chemistry going on this episode. I wouldn't say romantic, but the actors fitted each other so well.

 

Not romantic, but definitely sexual, I think. I was totally unsurprised the actors have dated for a while after that.

[Amerilla]

Reading through some stuff on Tumblr last night, I started thinking about the mental gymnastics the showrunners have to play in terms of how violence is shown and interpreted within the story.

 

We've talked a lot about the many sins on the "villains:" Regina murdering Henry Sr to cast the curse, raping and murdering Graham, ordering various villagers and annoyances killed; Rumpel killing Milah, torturing Hood, and all his various and sundry acts of observed and implied murder and violence; Hook beating and shooting Belle, ripping out Aurora's heart, and all his various and sundry acts of observed and implied violence. And we've all seen how pissy Adam & Company get when they're questioned on issues of sexual and other forms of violence and what it says about these characters. They seem genuinely perplexed that we look at what they're showing us and see something far different than what they think they're showing us, and that disconnect has grown as the acts of violence have accumulated over the yea

 

How does that disconnect happen?

 

I think part of it is that they "sanitize" the violence so it's mostly either bloodless or off-screen. I had to laugh the other day (probably inappropriately) when I was watching another show and there was a scene where the main villainess rips the heart out of a lover who has betrayed her. This was not a plastic blob with a red strobe-light stuck inside - it was a gruesomely relistic model of a human heart and it's gooey arteries, and there was an large, chunky hole left in the victims chest. That distance from what it would actually mean to rip out a heart allows the writers to minimize it in terms of the main characters. Same with Flying Monkeys...these are friends, innocents, loved ones, turned into monsters, and yet Our Heroes slash them with swords and "kill" them like it ain't no thang. But we don't see dead monkey men laying there on the ground, and we later find out via a throwaway line in the finale and Adam tweet that they didn't "kill" anyone.

 

Also, I think they tend to look at anyone outside the core characters as either redshirts or catalysts. We never learn much about the peasantry, so how bad do we really feel if they're killed off in bloodless multitudes? They're basically background noise. "Bigger" deaths are only meaningful for what they do to the core characters' stories. Graham's importance was as a point of conflict between Emma and Regina. Milah's importance was limited to Hook and Rumpel. Marian gives every sign of being important only as a spoiler for Regina and Hood. Even Nealfire ended up being primarily a catalyst for Emma and Rumpel angst. These are characters born to die.

 

This wouldn't be a problem if the show was 100% camp, but it's presented as a combination of camp and family-friendly Disney mythology and serious drama, and that's how we end up treating it. That means the fandoms end up getting dragged into the showrunners' worldview. If you're an Evil Regal or a Rumbeller or Hooker, then you're essentially forced to accept the whole packages that go along with those characters. You have to handwave the violence by agreeing with the flawed proposition that they're really good people on the inside, even as they all continue to do morally squicky things on the outside. And because every fandom has an anti-fandom, it ends up encouraging dissent within the ranks.

 

I'm almost willing to keep watching just to see how far my moral compass can be turned by continuing to stick with my perferred fandom. It's like a weird self-psychology experiment.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Amerilla

[Jean]

Hat Trick is easily in my top 5 episodes. But to be honest I'd be hard pressed to come up with a top 10.  Vladimir Cvetko is the writer and he's only written that one episode and nothing else for Once. They probably fired him after they saw his work. I mean it's clear they only want mediocre and crappy writing. The co-writer is Goodman. I wonder what that's all about. That episode probably had the tightest dialogue. I like Jane E. but she can veer towards being sappy.

 

I think Hat Trick is one of those "lightning doesn't strike twice" things. I would give all the credit to Sebastian Stan but his subsequent appearances weren't that impressive. I used to want him as a regular but now I'm glad they weren't able to ruin his character as they have with the others.

 

 

the more it's clear the 11-episode arc scheme is killing off whatever is left of the show.

But how do you explain the crappiness that was S2? I don't think giving these writers more time and space would improve anything. They would just use that time for more Woegina vs Snow flashbacks, Woegina crying over getting victimized, the good guys being stupid etc. Man if Wicked was longer than 11 episodes, Snow would be making friendship bracelets for Zelena before they found out that she was Wicked. And they would have time to squeeze in more Eva is "teh evul" flashbacks.

[ShadowFacts]

 

Also, I think they tend to look at anyone outside the core characters as either redshirts or catalysts. We never learn much about the peasantry, so how bad do we really feel if they're killed off in bloodless multitudes? They're basically background noise. "Bigger" deaths are only meaningful for what they do to the core characters' stories. Graham's importance was as a point of conflict between Emma and Regina. Milah's importance was limited to Hook and Rumpel. Marian gives every sign of being important only as a spoiler for Regina and Hood. Even Nealfire ended up being primarily a catalyst for Emma and Rumpel angst. These are characters born to die.

 

This is one of the big things I don't like about the show.  All of these smaller issues and character moments would be really a lot more interesting to me than the latest shitty thing Rumple has pulled or Regina's next tearful snit, or the fighting and vanquishing of the next big bad.  It has gotten very repetitive and boring. 

[Dani-Ellie]

I don't think giving these writers more time and space would improve anything. They would just use that time for more Woegina vs Snow flashbacks, Woegina crying over getting victimized, the good guys being stupid etc.

 

I agree that it's not necessarily the time they have but how they choose to use the time they have. Oz and Neverland both could have been full season arcs, if they'd use the time differently. Hell, even the 11-episode arcs could have been tighter and fuller and richer had they chosen to use the time differently. I hate to keep harping on "Lost Girl," but it's the easiest example I can think of. Here was an opportunity to fill in some blanks of Emma's past and show us how she came to feel like that lost little girl she finally admitted being, and instead they chose to fill that time with more Snow/Regina/Charming stuff. And the worst part was, the Snow/Regina/Charming stuff was nothing new; the only new bit of information I picked up out of that whole flashback was that Charming was the one who'd helped Snow hone her archery skills.

 

I just wish that instead of giving us retreads, they'd delve into the character issues already inherent in the story. 

[Amerilla]

But how do you explain the crappiness that was S2? I don't think giving these writers more time and space would improve anything.

 

You make a good point.

 

For me at least, S2 was sort of like approaching a sewage treatement plant on the highway - the smell starts out as sort of diffuse, grows stronger as you get closer, and then peaks at the end. S3, on the other hand, was a fresh, sun-warmed carcass deposited on my doorstep every Sunday night.

 

These guys are never going to be Shakespeare. The plotting and pacing issues not going to go away. That's a whole problem in itself. The specific problem with the compressed arcs, however, is that they no longer pay attention to any kind of detail.

 

We have come up with dozens and dozens of unanswered questions, from head-scratchers to obvious retcons to plain old WTFs, that permeate every episode in S3, particularly 3B. That was not true of S2, where there were questions about stuff, but considerably less about the details. Most importantly, the story in S2 didn't have to rely so heavily on cheap contrivances and on characters acting out of character to make the whole plot move.

 

The sloppiness of the two stories in S3 pervaded every aspect of the show: the dialog was generally inferior to even the lowered standards of S2, the directing was uneven, the special effects even cheesier than normal - and ultimately, that filtered down to the acting. There were some really nicely acted moments in S3, and I still love most of this cast to death, but there were also whole lot of funky, off, flat moments  - because if we're confused trying to make sense of the story, can you imagine what it must be like to try to bring it to life? These are a bunch of good actors who want to develop their characters, being written for by a writing staff that doesn't seem able to do character-development. At all. 

 

Short version? I think the compressed format is more horrible than their usual horrible because it magnifies all the things they're really, really crappy at. A more leisured approach to the plotting would at least cover up some of those flaws.

[Curio]

The sloppiness of the two stories in S3 pervaded every aspect of the show: the dialog was generally inferior to even the lowered standards of S2, the directing was uneven, the special effects even cheesier than normal

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed some of the more technical issues this season, especially some of the directing and editing decisions. It might all come down to writing, but there are many instances where I had to scratch my head at why a specific scene was filmed the way it was. A good director is supposed to improve what's on the page, and it makes me wonder if there isn't much collaboration between the writers and directors on this show.

 

For example, in the episode where Zelena is choking Henry to death near the docks, why was Jennifer directed to make a constipated squatting position to create her white magic? Why was Zelena taking so slow to choke Henry in front of everyone? Why was Zelena even choking Henry at all? Couldn't she have just magic-ed them away and killed him quickly with the snap of his neck? As a director, I would have called up whoever wrote that script and negotiated a way to film it differently. Have Zelena freeze everyone to prevent them from moving -- then it would make sense to choke Henry in front of Emma because she's now purposely making it slow to torture Emma. But then Emma somehow overcomes the freezing spell, throws a cool white magic bolt at Zelena, and that scares Zelena enough to run away temporarily.

 

And then there's the scene where Emma and Hook are talking about New York while walking up to Zelena's farmhouse. As a director, wouldn't you want these two quietly stalking the house and at least attempting to be sneaky about it? It's like the director just saw the dialogue and told them to walk and talk and then stop near the convenient water bin and that's it. There are a lot of other examples that bug me, but I won't list them off here (unless y'all want to see me rant for 1000+ more words...).

Edited September 8, 2014 by Curio

[Jean]

Well is the issue really that it has gotten that much worse in S3 or is it that we've gotten that much more nitpicky because we're no longer that immersed in the story and characters anymore?  I feel like the patience and willingness to overlook some dumb ass things have decreased as time goes by. A&E pretty much treat their audience like idiots or brainwashed cult members that are supposed to take everything they say as holy truth. I mean in S2 I think they were absolutely flabbergasted that they got so much flack for having WoodAugust die by taser or that anyone thought the thing Tamara was using was a taser.

 

 

sanitize" the violence so it's mostly either bloodless or off-screen. That distance from what it would actually mean to rip out a heart allows the writers to minimize it in terms of the main characters.

 

I don't think that's the problem. They have no problem calling Snow a killer and murderer onscreen. Repeatedly. You will never hear that word onscreen in relation to Woegina post S1. Cora and Daniel are meant to be dead characters also, yet it's forever a strike against Snow. It's a matter of how they want to frame the story, full stop. And that story is Snow and Eva are "teh evul" and Woegina is the victim saint. If it was Snow who killed an entire village, she would've been stoned to death and off the show by now.

[KingOfHearts]

When a show is entertaining, viewers tend to overlook the nitpicky plot holes. That's not only true with Once, but also with popular shows like Doctor Who. I glossed over many problems through most of S2 because I was still enjoying what I was watching. In 3B, I analyzed it to death because the main content wasn't enough distraction for me. I was looking for something more, and all I found was giant plot holes and writing issues.

 

I found The Tower, Quiet Minds, It Ain't Easy Bein' Green, The Jolly Roger, and Bleeding Through to all be incredibly boring. I kept telling myself, "I'm sure next week's episode will be better!" The momentum didn't pick up again until A Curious Thing, and even then the "climax" was very disappointing up to the end of the season.

 

Most of 3B was a major retread of what we've already seen in the past, so there was more allowance for inconsistencies from what the show has already provided because they had to change certain things to fit the plot. If they had creatively introduced new mechanics and ideas, then they'd be able to fill in whatever they needed without tainting what's already been in the show. 

Edited September 8, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[stealinghome]

Well is the issue really that it has gotten that much worse in S3 or is it that we've gotten that much more nitpicky because we're no longer that immersed in the story and characters anymore? I feel like the patience and willingness to overlook some dumb ass things have decreased as time goes by.

I think this is a good point, but I'd add also that the inconsistencies are like a snowball: the more we accrue, the worse and worse they get. I mean, there were already plot holes in S1 (someone back on twop made a post in the middle of S1, even, about how the show's timeline with respect to Regina, Rumpel, and Maleficent and the curse/apple doesn't work), but in S1 they had a mostly blank slate. The more the slate becomes filled up, however, the more we notice the cracks and inconsistencies and retcons and the worse and worse it seems. The writing flaws have gotten worse at an exponential rate, so the later we go, the more you just can't ignore them. Edited September 8, 2014 by stealinghome

[KAOS Agent]

 

I'd add also that the inconsistencies are like a snowball: the more we accrue, the worse and worse they get.

 

I think a big part of my problem with Season 3 is not so much because they created gaping plot holes, but because they destroyed the entire premise of the show. Twice. The Dark Curse was originally supposed to be so horrid and terrible that no one would cast it because of the terrible toll it takes on the caster. Then they made it clear that the permanent hole in Regina's heart was not so permanent and in fact, casting the curse and destroying an entire kingdom was all cool because she found true love with her son. Oh and her victims are the ones apologizing to her and praising her for being a decent human being. The Dark Curse is the best curse ever!

 

Next, Pan casts it and the thing he loves the most is not someone he truly cares about and Pan doesn't really have a heart, so any hole in his heart is not relevant. If his curse goes into effect, Pan would be happy as can be with his new kingdom.

 

Lastly, we have the final nail in the coffin of the idea that the Dark Curse is the worst thing ever: Snow White cast the Dark Curse. This time they didn't even try to pretend like the hole in the heart was even a thing and as for sacrificing the thing you love the most? Eh, we'll make heart splitting a thing and now there's not even a price to pay by losing the thing you love the most. What the everloving hell? I can handwave a lot of things, but when your entire story is built on the Dark Curse and you negate that premise multiple times in the same season,  I'm left with zero faith in any future storylines and extreme annoyance that I ever believed they would actually deal with the story they had created rather than pulling some bullshit magical story out of their ass. As this show becomes more and more about plot, plot, plot and less about the characters, the terrible storytelling becomes really apparent because there is nothing to look at or discuss outside of the terrible plot. 

[FabulousTater]

Amen, KAOSAgent! I'd also add that they made breaking curses with True Love's kiss and having pure light magic easy enough to achieve that even a heartless, remorseless, homicidal sociopath can do it. Weeeee!

[Jean]

Yes! That's what I was saying earlier that their new bs episodes aren't only crappy but they also taint the good older episodes/stories.  The thing about the Dark Curse that bothers me too is that, it clearly isn't the only option to get to land with no magic. Both times, they acted like Rumple and the Charmings had no choice but to cast this big horrible (but not) curse. I know with the Charmings, they had Hook throw in that line about the "walls" being down after the Storybrook curse which is how he got the bean to work. But as far as we were shown, traveling to the land of no magic has never been a constraint of the beans and Hook knows this. It was only a constraint of Jefferson's hat, that it only works between magical worlds.

 

Bae used the first bean that we saw to get to London. Rumple wanted Hook's first bean, which Hook tricked him and then used to get to Neverland. Hook and Cora used Hook's 2nd bean and both had no idea that Rumple had already brought magic to Storybrook. Hook used a 3rd bean to get to NYC. That's 3 freaking additional beans after we were told that Bae got the last one. Oh and apparently you can grow the plants. Don't even try to tell me Rumple's magic couldn't replicate the "perfect" soil conditions on Earth that was needed to grow them.

 

Then on top of all infinite supply of beans (for Hook anyway) there are other ways besides the beans. Flying monkeys, shadows, silver shoes, a magical tree/wardrobe, tornado, and however the tasered Dragon got here.  Maybe mermaids can too. Can't say for sure cause Ariel swam to magical Storybrook.

[FabulousTater]

Then on top of all infinite supply of beans (for Hook anyway) there are other ways besides the beans. Flying monkeys, shadows, silver shoes, a magical tree/wardrobe, tornado, and however the tasered Dragon got here.

No kidding. The Dark Curse from S1 seemed to be the only recourse Rumpel had and the curse came at a great cost at every point (from getting the elements together to casting). But now, 3 seasons later, they've watered everything down to the point that The Dark Curse is just the (hilariously consequence free) Rube Goldberg Machine of inter-dimensional travel. Yeesh...

Edited September 9, 2014 by FabulousTater

[KAOS Agent]

The biggest wtf with the 3B curse/lack of portals was that they said oh, the price of reversing the curse is no more travel between worlds. There's a giant wall and we can't get there without another curse. And then within the same episode, we see Walsh the Flying Monkey who had been in NYC for at least eight months with a scar he had received on his neck from Robin Hood's arrow after everyone had returned to the Enchanted Forest. So much for this wall between worlds. 

[FabulousTater]

So much for this wall between worlds.

That's really representative of this show's modus operandi now, isn't it --

Travel between worlds is impossible (because "walls") except when it's not.

All magic comes with a price, except it doesn't.

Magic is different in Storybrooke, except it's not.

Feeling love (or full emotions) requires a heart, except when it doesn't.

Dead is dead except when it isn't.

Time travel is not possible, except it totally is.

You can't break the laws of magic, except you totally can (thx, OUaTiW).

 

I don't know why the writers bother writing these "rules". They must think finding loopholes in their self-proclaimed absolute truths is how you make clever story "twists", but it's not clever or a twist. The writing has overused this "trick" so many times it's not at all interesting and we can all see it coming miles away. It's boring, predictable, idiotic, and extremely lazy. I for one don't believe them for one single second and instead start counting down minutes until they present the super lame "twist" that breaks their own "rule". 

Edited September 9, 2014 by FabulousTater

[Curio]

I don't know why the writers bother writing these "rules". They must think finding loopholes in their self-proclaimed absolute truths is how you make clever story "twists", but it's not clever or a twist. The writing has overused this "trick" so many times it's not at all interesting and we can all see it coming miles away. It's boring, predictable, idiotic, and extremely lazy. I for one don't believe them for one single second and instead start counting down minutes until they present the super lame "twist" that breaks their own "rule".

 

I don't know which is more frustrating, their constant rule breaking or the completely random deus ex machinas they create out of thin air. If they were better at world building, we would have had mentions of things like the black fairy's wand, Rumple's secret vault with no doors, or a magical cure for dreamshade and memory loss way back in Seasons 1 and 2.

 

The sad thing is that they have the potential to incorporate more continuity into the show... they just seem allergic to it. Like, I'd bet dollars to donuts Regina's sleeping curse needle she made in 3B will never be brought up again; if they ever need a new sleeping curse in the future, they'll just make one up using random ingredients at hand instead of looking back into their own established history.

[FabulousTater]

I don't know which is more frustrating, their constant rule breaking or the completely random deus ex machinas they create out of thin air.

For me it's most frustrating when they do both -- when they use a deus ex machina to break one of their own rules -- and what really makes me rage and want to go find a baseball bat to beat the TV with is when they do so to thrust Woegina to even higher exalted heights of sainthood and hail her as the most Holy and Beloved Queen of "Give me an effing break" Mary Sue-dom.

 

That said, this is all secondary to the most maddening, rip your hair out and set your house and the whole neighborhood on fire, bullshit habit of these writers: When they go around telling the audience the opposite of what they've shown on screen. You know, when they have the characters saying the sky is purple when everyone in the audience can clearly see that it's blue! (e.g. "Regina is the victim here." -- Ya, bullshit. "Eva was the villain" -- Oh look, more bullshit. "Douchefire died a Hero saving us all!" -- Oh, what's that? You wanted bullshit with douchesauce? Here you go. ) 

Edited September 9, 2014 by FabulousTater

[KAOS Agent]

That said, this is all secondary to the most maddening, rip your hair out and set your house and the whole neighborhood on fire, bullshit habit of these writers: When they go around telling the audience the opposite of what they've shown on screen.

 

I hate how the showrunners say Emma doesn't have magic outside of Storybrooke except that she sort of does. We've actually seen Emma's magic affect things in this world. More than once. Don't try to say she doesn't have magic here.

 

The only thing I've ever considered to be a rule on this show is that there is not magic in the Land without Magic. It's in the name. That's the point. It does not mean this is the land without magic except for flying monkeys and kidnapping shadows and magic dragons and emotionally charged magical outbursts that affect electrical systems. It's the Land without Magic. Can they not just stick to one freaking rule?  It's just so frustrating that we can't even depend on something so simple as the Land Without Magic = No magic.

[FabulousTater]

It's just so frustrating that we can't even depend on something so simple as the Land Without Magic = No magic.

Yep. This is the Land without Magic, except when it isn't. Though, I was/am willing to let this one go from the get go because the exception was in some ways built into the show's pilot episode. If magic didn't work here then there's no way that baby Emma and August would've made it through the magical tree/wardrobe into this world. Magic had to have some influence to allow them to pop into existence in a tree just outside of Storybrooke. Also, magic has some influence in this land if a magical curse can poof an entire town into existence out of nothing and transport all the people from another world here. So I was, and still am, willing to wave this away by saying that there is no naturally existing magic in this land (magic isn't a naturally occurring phenomenon) but inherently magical items/people from other realms can use their magic mojo here.

 

But at the same time, I think this initial exception to their rule also became a slippery slope that let the writers feel like they could pull exceptions out of their butts left and right. It was habit forming. The tree/wardrobe can transport people across magicless realms, but (as Jean noted up thread) Jefferson's hat can't. Well gee, isn't that convenient, writers. Beans work across worlds (walls be damned) until a "super wall of (in)convenience" pops into existence that makes bean travel suddenly and inexplicably impossible. No one can realm hop across the "super wall of (in)convenience", except of course for the flying monkey (by way of the writers' butts). And so on and so forth...

 

It's like they got away with saying "Aha! But there's an exception here that you don't know about, audience, so HA!" this one time at the beginning of the series (the audience was willing to handwave it away because S1 was good enough that we were willing to overlook it) and they got addicted to this solution like junkies. And now it seems to be the only way they know how to solve anything.

Edited September 9, 2014 by FabulousTater

[Amerilla]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed some of the more technical issues this season, especially some of the directing and editing decisions. It might all come down to writing, but there are many instances where I had to scratch my head at why a specific scene was filmed the way it was. A good director is supposed to improve what's on the page, and it makes me wonder if there isn't much collaboration between the writers and directors on this show.

 

The worst-done scene in S3, IMO, was Gold killing Pan in "Going Home" - in part because it should have been one of the best scenes in terms of Rumple's personal journey.

 

Bobby and Robbie (just too fun to type) and everyone in the cast did the best they could, but the dialog in the scene was mostly a) bad and b) too long. I understand that they wanted to have Gold say goodbye to Bae and Belle, and that they were aware of what was happening, but the action stalled out while he was talking, and the emotion of his words were diminished by Pan's nasty mocking.

 

 

 

Pan: Look at you all. A captive audience. I could play with you like a pack of dolls, couldn't I? I think I'll start with these two. (Walks over to Belle and Neal) Hmm. You both look so adorable. Hard to tell who to kill first. No, it isn't. (Points to Neal) You. You first.

(From behind, Mr. Gold clamps a hand on Pan's left shoulder and tugs him away from Belle and Neal.)

Mr. Gold: Stay away from them.

Pan: How about this? The worm has teeth. (In a mocking tone) You're here to protect your "wuved ones"?

Mr. Gold: I'm not gonna let you touch either one of them.

Pan: Oh, I'd like to see that.

Mr. Gold: Oh, you will. Because I have a job to finish, and I have to do whatever it takes. No loopholes. And what needs to be done has a price. A price I'm finally willing to pay. (Looks to Neal) I used the curse to find you, Bae, to tell you I made a mistake. To make sure you had a chance at happiness.

(Pan openly laughs at his words.)

Mr. Gold: And that happiness is possible. Just not with me. I accept that.

Pan: Pretty, pretty words.

Mr. Gold: (To Neal) I love you, Bae. (Looks to Belle) And I love you, Belle, you made me stronger.

Pan: Stronger, yes. But still no magic.

Mr. Gold: Oh, but I don't need it. You see, you may have lost your shadow, but there's one thing you're forgetting.

Pan: And what's that?

Mr. Gold:  So have I. I sent it away with something to hide. (He raises his hand into the air; summoning his shadow back with the dagger. As Mr. Gold takes hold of the dagger, the shadow goes back into him. Then, he forcibly holds Pan against himself.)

Pan: (Struggling to get free) What are you doing?!

Mr. Gold: You see, the only way for you to die, is if we both die. And now... now, I am ready. (He stabs Pan in the back with the blade, but also impales himself with it in the process. Pan screams in pain while Mr. Gold remains silent.)

(A cloud of black smoke covers Pan, who disappears. As the smoke dissipates, Malcolm appears in his place.)

Mr. Gold: Hello, Papa.

Malcolm: Rumple, please. You can stop this. Remove the dagger. We can start over. (Smiles) We can have a happy ending.

Mr. Gold: Oh, but I'm a villain. And villains don't get happy endings. [/i]

 

The scene would have been a lost crisper if they had just had just done:

 

 

Pan: Look at you all. A captive audience. I could play with you like a pack of dolls, couldn't I? I think I'll start with these two. (Walks over to Belle and Neal) Hmm. You both look so adorable. Hard to tell who to kill first. No, it isn't. (Points to Neal) You. You first.

(From behind, Mr. Gold clamps a hand on Pan's left shoulder and tugs him away from Belle and Neal.)

Mr. Gold: Stay away from them.

Pan: How about this? The worm has teeth. (In a mocking tone) You're here to protect your "wuved ones"?

Mr. Gold: I'm not gonna let you touch either one of them.

Pan: Oh, I'd like to see that.

Mr. Gold: Oh, you will. Because I have a job to finish, and I have to do whatever it takes. No loopholes. And what needs to be done has a price. A price I'm finally willing to pay.

(He raises his hand into the air; summoning his shadow back with the dagger. As Mr. Gold takes hold of the dagger, the shadow goes back into him. Then, he forcibly holds Pan against himself.)

Pan: (Struggling to get free) What are you doing?!

Mr. Gold: You see, the only way for you to die, is if we both die. And now... now, I am ready. (He stabs Pan in the back with the blade, but also impales himself with it in the process. Pan screams in pain while Mr. Gold remains silent.)

(A cloud of black smoke covers Pan, who disappears. As the smoke dissipates, Malcolm appears in his place.)

Mr. Gold: Hello, Papa.

Malcolm: Rumple, please. You can stop this. Remove the dagger. We can start over. (Smiles) We can have a happy ending.

Mr. Gold: Oh, but I'm a villain. And villains don't get happy endings.

 

We already know how Rumpel feels about Belle and Bae, and since we never figure out anything about how the shadow gets there with the dagger, or how the "death" scene actually works in terms of killing them, most of what was acutally said was pointless information. It just confused matters more. So just stab the smarmy little bastard and be done with it.

 

I know it was a technical scene, with special effects to add and switching Robbie for Stephen Lord, but the blocking was totally weird as well. Having the cast line up across the span of the street looked really silly (especially since you could almost make out the tape on the street that they ran up to to hit their marks) and lacked a lot of the intimacy it might have had if they had been arranged more randomly and more around Pan and Gold than in a straight line.

 

Then, too, there was the emotional tone-deafness of it. There was no reason Gold wouldn't have reached out to touch Belle or Bae while saying goodbye, rather than standing out of reach and talking at them.  The whole thing with Belle laying there on the street, sobbing her heart out while Snow turns around and asks Regina if she's ok....We talked this to death on TWOP, and yes, the story needed Regina to keep her shit together so she could save them all - but that doesn't change the fact that the director's choice was to have Belle keep crying while attention turns to Regina. He could have had Belle stop crying, or had Snow or someone else comfort her while taking to Regina, but just leaving her there made the other characters seem strangely unfeeling. (One of the things that sticks in my mind was something a bystander noticed while they were filming the scene: they had to do a few takes, and Emilie had to keep herself cry-ready for each take, and at one point she was sitting off to the side sniffling and teary, and MRJ came over to ask if she was ok and gave her a little squeeze on the shoulder - why not just have Neal do that in the scene?)

 

TL;DR - this was just a classic example of the actors doing their absolute best, but being let down by shabby writing and directing.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Amerilla

[stealinghome]

What's frustrating, too, is that we KNOW the show has the ability to do better. The Tower didn't have a great script, but that was a legitimately creepy episode in part because the director did some really interesting things with camera angles and so forth. (The "burying Neal" scene also comes to mind as one that was powerfully shot.) So it's not like the show *can't* do better.

Edited September 9, 2014 by stealinghome

[FabulousTater]

From the Regina thread:

[...]
I hate being manipulated too. It's as if the showrunners think I'm stupid enough to accept whatever the characters say, even when it's obviously not true. ("There are four lights!" - Picard)

YES! KingOfHearts, that's it exactly. The show runners are determined to get us to believe and say that there are two lights, or none, or whatever it is they are hallucinating is happening on this show. But I can see it with my own eyes, you sonavabitches, there are FOUR LIGHTS! I don't care what your delusions tell you, writers, there are four damn lights!  (perfect use of ST:TNG reference +1000 points, KoH).

Edited September 9, 2014 by FabulousTater

[KAOS Agent]

The Tower didn't have a great script, but that was a legitimately creepy episode in part because the director did some really interesting things with camera angles and so forth. (The "burying Neal" scene also comes to mind as one that was powerfully shot.)

 

I was really happy to see that Mario Van Peebles is returning to direct another episode this season because I really liked how visually interesting the Neal burial was. As relatively lacking as "It's Not Easy Being Green" was in terms of story, he did a great job in making it fun to watch. Admittedly, it helped that Zelena was throwing Regina on her ass, but interesting camera angles/shots and direction can help massively to cover the lame storytelling.

Edited September 10, 2014 by KAOS Agent

[KingOfHearts]

 

As relatively lacking as "It's Not Easy Being Green" was in terms of story, he did a great job in making it fun to watch. Admittedly, it helped that Zelena was throwing Regina on her ass, but interesting camera angles/shots and direction can help massively to cover the lame storytelling

Don't forget the awesome shot where Regina crashes through the clock tower and glass shatters! Oh, and it may not have to do with cameras and directing, but the Emerald City was easily one of the best CGI sets on the show!

Edited September 10, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

Yeah, if Zelena gave us nothing else, she gave us that shot of Regina flying out of the glass tower. That was awesome on so many levels.

Personally, I always prefer when the show uses practical effects when it can. Yeah, some of the CGI turns out well (Emerald City), but sometimes...not so much. Like, I didn't care for any of the twisters that whirled in this season. Maybe they were supposed to look magical, but to me, they just used kind of silly. If they stick with practical effects a bit more, at least I don't feel like everything going on around me is just a cheap green screen. Honestly, its kind of weird that I don't think all that much about the directing and the technical aspects of the show (unless I see sometimes especially good and/or bad). I guess all the wonky storytelling and characterization distracts me :)

 

No kidding. The Dark Curse from S1 seemed to be the only recourse Rumpel had and the curse came at a great cost at every point (from getting the elements together to casting). But now, 3 seasons later, they've watered everything down to the point that The Dark Curse is just the (hilariously consequence free) Rube Goldberg Machine of inter-dimensional travel.

 

That's the perfect way to put it! Inter-dimensional travel was, at first, a big freaking deal. But now, traveling through dimensions is more like waiting a long time for the L train. Kind of inconvenient, but just sit and wait around, and it will take you pretty much anywhere. At this point, I`m surprised random people aren't just stumbling into puddles and wardrobes, bumping into other realms.

Edited September 10, 2014 by tennisgurl

[stealinghome]

Honestly, its kind of weird that I don't think all that much about the directing and the technical aspects of the show (unless I see sometimes especially good and/or bad). I guess all the wonky storytelling and characterization distracts me :)

No, I'm the same way though. I notice when the technical aspects are really good--like the directing and camera angles in The Tower or Neal's burial--or really bad, like the CGI in 3x01 or the Wonderland pilot, or the super awkward blocking in 3x11. Most of the time, though, the technical elements are kind of like wallpaper to me; serviceable, but not something I notice one way or the other.

[Camera One]

If Robin lived near or in Regina's kingdom, he would know firsthand about her tyranny. He wouldn't have any excuse for dating a psychopath. If he had just heard tales about Regina, as he says, then he could be thinking they're just hyperbole or embellished. Which, from the farmhouse scene, seems to be the case. But since Sherwood seems to be in the same area as Regina, it doesn't make sense to me because his cause was to oppose dictators like Regina and stand up for the poor.

 

As I mentioned in another thread, I think the problem is related to world-building, or lackthereof, since everywhere seems really close together, and it's very unclear the actual distance and the political relations among the various kingdoms.   If Sherwood Forest is very far away from Regina's, then it is slightly possible Robin Hood didn't hear about Regina's specific atrocities.

 

There is Leopold/Snow/Regina's kingdom, which is in walking distance of the Cora Dome area, which also covered Aurora's kingdom.  Which seems to indicate they're side by side.  Neal and Mulan walked from Aurora's palace to Rumple's Castle (whose kingdom is Rumple's village in?), which is presumably close to Sherwood Forest, unless Belle and Rumple took a very long trip to track Robin.  In the Wonderland series, Robin Hood and the Knave go to Maleficient's castle from (I assume) Sherwood Forest.  

 

Snow's kingdom is also close to the Maritime Kingdom, where Prince Eric rules and where she meets Ariel.  Then, there's the kingdom of Henry Sr's father, which is where Cora is from, but also close to Leopold/Snow/Regina's kingdom.  

 

And then there's King Midas' kingdom and King George's kingdom which are close enough to go by carriage, but somewhere in between(?) is Snow/Regina's kingdom.  

 

Another kingdom we've seen are Ancient China (which Belle gets to from the tavern).  Also Cinderella and Thomas' kingdom.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Then there's also Rapunzel's parents' kingdom and Xavier's kingdom.

Edited September 12, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

If Sherwood Forest is very far away from Regina's, then it is slightly possible Robin Hood didn't hear about Regina's specific atrocities.

It shouldn't be too far away because the nightroot (? -- the plant that was supposed to help people overcome fears) grew in Sherwood Forest, and David just popped over there from Knifingham Palace (the place Regina stole from Snow). He was gone maybe a day, including the time he was in the tower with Rapunzel and trying to fight off the witch for her. I would say that if you can get there in a day's ride, then people living there would have heard of the Evil Queen and would have known what she was up to. We don't even know if Sherwood Forest is a separate land or is just the name of a forest.

 

Is The Enchanted Forest the name of an actual kingdom or is it more of a region? Like, say, the Alps, which cover multiple countries. Snow's kingdom, Midas's kingdom, George's kingdom, etc., might all be within the Enchanted Forest. There are places in Germany where you can just about walk from (ruined now) castle to castle, and while those weren't distinct kingdoms, there was a time in history when the one country we now call Germany was made up of a bunch of little kingdoms, principalities, duchies, baronies, etc. That's the part of the world the Grimms' fairy tales came from, so I could see this world being kind of like that. In the general area the Grimms focused on, there's a castle on just about every big hill.

[Camera One]

It shouldn't be too far away because the nightroot (? -- the plant that was supposed to help people overcome fears) grew in Sherwood Forest, and David just popped over there from Knifingham Palace (the place Regina stole from Snow). He was gone maybe a day, including the time he was in the tower with Rapunzel and trying to fight off the witch for her.

 

Exactly.  The places seem very close together.  I meant that if the writers wanted to make Robin Hood not know much about the Evil Queen, they should have spaced them further apart.

 

 

 

Is The Enchanted Forest the name of an actual kingdom or is it more of a region?

 

They've almost been using the Enchanted Forest as a realm or "world".  Versus other realms like Wonderland, Oz, Neverland, Black and White Land, and Fake Victorian England.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Camera One

[regularlyleaded]

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point it's revealed that the Enchanted Forest is just The Hundred Acre Wood wherein everyone's castle and principalities are just a few acres across and they are all presided over by Winnie the Pooh. Each fiefdom pays tribute to Overlord Pooh with several pots of honey which they deliver when they hear the rumbly from his tummy which resonates throughout the Enchanted Forest/Hundred Acre wood. Winnie the Pooh will also be revealed to be Merida's mother from Brave. Everyone, I give you the final season of OUAT.

[Shanna Marie]

And, of course, this version of Winnie the Pooh will be evil, because they love their shocking twists.

[Amerilla]

And, of course, this version of Winnie the Pooh will be evil, because they love their shocking twists.

 

 

I can see it now: Pooh and all the other bears in the Forest were turned into ManBearPig-like ogres because Cora's great-great-great-grandmother was peed on by her pet bear cub when she was a child.

[Crimson Belle]

I can see it now: Pooh and all the other bears in the Forest were turned into ManBearPig-like ogres because Cora's great-great-great-grandmother was peed on by her pet bear cub when she was a child.

Well, in reality, it only peed on her because Snow's great great great grandmother accidentally scared it, so it's all Snow's fault.

[tennisgurl]

And then Snow begs for forgiveness, while Regina defeats the menace of Pooh with the power of Goodness.

 

And THEN we discover that Piglet is actually the reincarnation of Hooks dead brother Liam!

[Shanna Marie]

I finally got to the end of 3A in my rewatch, and wow, there are some issues there. The "Save Henry" flashbacks were entirely unnecessary because we already knew how important Henry was to Regina, and the flashbacks only made a mess of things. The episode contradicted itself -- Regina has a hole in her heart she can never fill because she killed her father, but wait, she can fill that hole by adopting a baby! Up to a point, the idea that this was an attempt to fill a hole she couldn't ever fill because she was too selfish to really love kind of worked because she treated the baby in her usual narcissistic control-freak way, where it's all about her and why isn't this baby listening to her and doing her will like everyone is supposed to? But then they undermined that by having her have second thoughts instead of giving the baby back in order to preserve her curse and apparently actually feeling the love that she's never supposed to be able to feel (and that doesn't end up changing her actions at all), and then the weird "I'll just forget about who you really are so I can love you" bit. We won't even get into the Tree of No Regrets.

 

Then we have a classic case of Idiot Plotting, in which the characters have to act like idiots for the plot to work. Here's a puzzle for you: You've just rescued a child from an evil, magical being who's full of tricks and who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. On board the ship with you are the enemy's former associates, at least one of whom still refuses to renounce the enemy. Also on board are the child's adoptive mother, who's a powerful magic user; his birth mother, who has magical powers she's learning to use and who is good in a fight; his father, who knows how to fight and who is well-acquainted with the enemy; his paternal grandfather, who's a powerful magic user who knows a lot about this enemy; his maternal grandparents, who are skilled fighters; a sort of step-grandfather who's a skilled fighter well-acquainted with the enemy; and an ex-fairy who knows a lot about the enemy. While you're still in the enemy's territory, who do you leave to guard the rescued child? Trick question! On this show, it's nobody! While Regina, Neal and Hook were needed to get the ship flying back home, you'd think they'd have bothered sending someone to guard Henry, or at least kept him on deck where everyone could keep an eye on him. But they needed him to be alone for the body swap to happen, so the people who'd just spent the whole season trying to save this kid turned their backs on him the moment he was in their hands.

 

The Medusa flashback was absolutely awful and they really had to stretch to tie it to the present-day story. It's like they had this idea for a flashback and randomly found an episode to stick it into. I'm not even sure where Emma's whole "I'm the Savior, I don't get a day off" thing came from so that she needed to learn from Snow to enjoy moments (not that the "moments" thing ever went anywhere). It was really being a mom she doesn't get a day off from, since it was about her noticing that something was wrong with Henry and backing down instead of putting her foot down. I'm not sure what a good flashback might have been to tie to the present day -- maybe something on Neverland with Hook and Bae to show what friendship existed that would explain Hook stepping back to give Neal a chance, with maybe a bit of Pan trying to come between them and play them off each other, the way Pan was playing Regina and Emma against each other.

 

Regina actually showed some self-awareness in the final farewells in the way she talked to Henry about what she'd done and to Emma about how she was the one who made the curse terrible. Why can't she say these things to Snow? But then they undermined this scene by later giving her Henry back to the point of having True Love. I still think that part of the curse should have required him to not get his memory of her back. I think Emma's reaction here has a lot to do with her 3B attitude -- she lost everything just when she thought she had a home, so she might have put up newer, stronger walls to avoid losing everything again. This must have been like that adoption situation, where she seemed to have a family, only to lose them. Even if that family changed their minds and took her back again, she'd resist letting herself be a part of them.

[Camera One]

Then we have a classic case of Idiot Plotting, in which the characters have to act like idiots for the plot to work. Here's a puzzle for you: You've just rescued a child from an evil, magical being who's full of tricks and who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. On board the ship with you are the enemy's former associates, at least one of whom still refuses to renounce the enemy. While you're still in the enemy's territory, who do you leave to guard the rescued child? Trick question!

 

I noticed that re-watching 3A again too.  Did they forget Peter Pan was still out there?  

 

And I don't remember why they just left Peter Pan's shadow on the sail.  Why didn't Rumple extract it?  I mean, Peter Pan is still in Neverland with his army of Shadows who could still come to kidnap Henry... again.  Can we please be more complacent?  

[Shanna Marie]

And I don't remember why they just left Peter Pan's shadow on the sail.  Why didn't Rumple extract it?  I mean, Peter Pan is still in Neverland with his army of Shadows who could still come to kidnap Henry... again.  Can we please be more complacent?

Once they were back in Storybrooke, they believed that they had Pan trapped in Pandora's box after they caught him trying to steal Henry's shadow (and swapping bodies), and only Pan could remove the shadow. Someone did ask why they were leaving it there, and this was the answer. Though I'm paranoid enough that in their shoes, I'd have taken extra precautions and locked up the shadow somehow. But Pan was no longer in Neverland at that time since they'd caught him on the ship.

[Camera One]

Oh right. Thanks for the reminder!  I now remember imagining the Blue Fairy went out to investigate the Black Sail and that's how she became a target.

Edited September 13, 2014 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

I'm now in the middle of 3B in the rewatch, and wow, but it's pretty bad. I remember enjoying it on the first go-round, probably just because I like spending time with these people and I wanted to see what happened. But on a second look after seeing how it all played out, the writing is just so, so awful. I want to edit it so badly. I won't even get into the Woegina Mary Sue propping and the painfully bad writing for the Robin and Regina relationship, since we've analyzed that to death. But for a show that's all "plot!plot!plot!" they kind of suck at plotting. If you wrote a synopsis of the plot events of this arc like it was a novel synopsis, it would read like the attempted first novel by a beginning writer who learned everything she knows about writing from watching television. If I were critiquing it, most of the critique would be along the lines of "Why did he/she do this? 'Because it's cool' isn't a good enough reason. It has to make sense for the characters, and there has to be a reason in the story." (And then they'd be the kind of writers whose response to the critique would be along the lines of "You don't know anything, you're just jealous of my talent. I'm going to publish this on Amazon and make a million dollars and then you'll see who's right!")

 

There's just so much in this arc that seems to have been put in to create a shocking moment but that makes zero sense whatsoever in the story. Take Walsh. I can kind of see where they were going with that, making it clear that Emma's idyllic time in New York was an illusion, that she wasn't safe. Then there's the shocking moment when he turns into a flying monkey and we learn that Zelena was watching Emma all along. But that really doesn't work if you think about it. If Emma's safely in the World Without Magic with no memory of her identity, why does Zelena need to keep an eye on her? It would seem like that would actually raise the risk of something sparking her memory. If Zelena just wants to make sure Emma's out of the way, why not kill her? How complicit was Walsh? Was he doing any of this of his own free will, or was he under some compulsion by Zelena? He sounded pretty mean when he revealed himself, but if he was Zelena's slave, might he have tried to warn Emma or help her? Why the romance? Was it a ruse or was any of it real? Was the proposal a panicked reaction to the curse or Hook's arrival, or was that part of the plan all along? And what did any of this have to do with him being the Wizard? But it seems like the writing here boiled down to "OMG! Emma's boyfriend's a flying monkey! And OMG! He's really the Wizard of Oz!" That's all there was to it.

 

Then there's Zelena's whole scheme, which is a raging example of Idiot Plotting on everyone's part. Zelena ruined her own plan by showing herself to her enemies well before things were ready so they knew she was up to something and knew to try to stop her, and then she did it again after they lost their memories and went to Storybrooke. Sending the monkey to get Regina's blood made no sense when it later turned out the blood magic worked for her because of their blood relationship. Regina got all excited about having purpose in life because of having someone to destroy, then did absolutely nothing about it. Snow had no problem with trusting this new person she didn't remember meeting and who was conveniently cozying up to her during the second curse. Nobody noticed the stranger jumping up and running out of the diner when Leroy announced that Regina was working on a memory potion -- and he even did that to try to flush out the person who might be reacting (maybe when doing something like that, you should actually look at the people you're testing). Neal thought it was a good idea to go through with raising the Dark One using the device he'd learned was a trap by Zelena. The gang thought that Zelena not being in the farmhouse meant it was safe to go into the cellar (instead of thinking that her not being in the house might mean she was in the cellar). Hook, who's been good about telling Emma anything an enemy wants him to keep secret, suddenly clams up about the kiss curse. Emma doesn't know how to do CPR on a drowning victim (you have to get the water out before doing mouth-to-mouth, and often, getting the water out means you don't have to do mouth-to-mouth).

 

I think I strained the muscles around my eyes from rolling my eyes so hard when I was marathoning last night (I think I wanted to just get as much as possible over with).

[FabulousTater]

I'm now in the middle of 3B in the rewatch, and wow, but it's pretty bad. I remember enjoying it on the first go-round, probably just because I like spending time with these people and I wanted to see what happened. But on a second look after seeing how it all played out, the writing is just so, so awful. I want to edit it so badly. I won't even get into the Woegina Mary Sue propping and the painfully bad writing for the Robin and Regina relationship, since we've analyzed that to death. But for a show that's all "plot!plot!plot!" they kind of suck at plotting.

[...]

Word. But you know what's really scary? After acknowledging some "missteps" in S2 (which is a mesmerizing understatement), S3 was the writers actually trying to do better!

 

I think I strained the muscles around my eyes from rolling my eyes so hard when I was marathoning last night (I think I wanted to just get as much as possible over with).

I admire your fortitude. I haven't even been able to force myself into rewatching episodes 3.14 thru 3.20 outside of very specific clips (And really the same is true for 3A. There are easily 4 episodes worth of crap in 3A that I like to pretend never happened 'cause they just make me stabby angry). There really just isn't enough alcohol in the universe for the giant ass drunk goggles I would need to rewatch the majority of S3.

Edited September 15, 2014 by FabulousTater