A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[KingOfHearts]

So I was thinking about how many times the dagger has switched hands in this show, and it's pretty ridiculous:
 

1. The Sorcerer create the Dagger and the Dark One.

2. Zoso eventually gets it after becoming the Dark One himself.

3. The Duke comes into possession of it.

4. Rumple steals it from the Duke.

5. August manipulates Rumple into giving it to him.

6. Rumple forcefully takes it back.

7. Cora finds it while Rumple is away.

8. Rumple takes it back after Cora dies.

9. Rumple's Shadow hides the Dagger for safe keeping.

10. Rumple gets it back after the Shadow returns it, then kills Pan and himself.

11. Zelena steals it immediately after Rumple is revived.

12. Regina takes it from Zelena after her defeat.

13. Belle is given it back from Regina.

14. Rumple switches the real Dagger with a fake one and takes it back.

15. Belle finds out she has a fake one and grabs the real Dagger.

16. Regina receives it from Belle to perform the fairy rescue ceremony.

17. Belle gets it back some time after the ceremony.

18. Rumple masquerades as Hook to retrieve it from Belle.

19. Emma uses it to take on the darkness after Rumple passes out.

 

The Dagger changes hands eighteen times throughout the show's run! What a game.

Edited July 17, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

The Dagger changes hands eighteen times throughout the show's run!

That we know of!

 

But you forgot when Anna got it briefly and ordered Rumple not to hurt her and made him send her home.

[Camera One]

I guess included in #7 is when Snow temporarily held the Dagger in the clocktower before Cora forces her to let it go.  

[Faemonic]

The Dagger changes hands eighteen times throughout the show's run! What a game.

And yet Rumple doesn't actually suffer from this until Zelena, which I thought was a nice twist...

 

...that they made next to nothing of. If Rumple had kept jolting from his marital bed with nightmares about Zelena or even Hook holding the dagger and commanding him to pole dance or something, then his actions would have been more sympathetic. Instead he only hinted at it with Regina in the car, and as it turns out that wasn't even his motivation but Advanced Stage Dark Heart Syndrome and

 

ngyarrghbleargh NO these two paragraphs did not happen. I only said the first sentence. I am being positive. Zelena's enslavement of Rumple was a nice twist after 228 years or more of nobody else getting to control him but him and he still chooses power/control over love and trust. The Dark One dagger serves its character-developing symbolic purpose. That dagger and Hook's ship deserve all the Freudian psychoanalysis papers written about them.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Faemonic

[KingOfHearts]

 

I guess included in #7 is when Snow temporarily held the Dagger in the clocktower before Cora forces her to let it go.

 

But you forgot when Anna got it briefly and ordered Rumple not to hurt her and made him send her home.

I knew I forgot a couple! ;)

[Shanna Marie]

I just realized, I haven't rewatched the finale all summer. Some of that may be because I've been very busy and there's actually been new stuff on TV this summer, but I think I rewatched last year's finale at least half a dozen times while it was still available OnDemand. With this one, I've rewatched the second part once and only watched part one during the original airing. I don't even have a lot of enthusiasm for rewatching it. The events of the entire episode end up being erased, and the thing with consequences is fairly unpleasant to watch, so I guess there's not a lot of incentive.

 

It's kind of sad. I'm waffling about the season 4 DVDs. There are only a couple of episodes I'd want to watch all the way through. I guess it depends on the bonus features. And I'm going to be out of town the whole week of the initial release, so I won't be able to run to Target while they're on that first week of sale discount price.

 

The season one finale was so great, a buildup to such a climactic, cathartic moment. I didn't have ABC OnDemand at the time, so I didn't get to rewatch it. The season two finale redeemed what had been a bad half season. Yeah, there was the stupid "we must sacrifice the whole town to save Regina" stuff, but we had the pirate ship, Bae and Hook in Neverland, Hook turning the ship around, and ending with that very unlikely crew setting sail for Neverland. I rewatched that one a few times, in part because I finally got HD and ABC OnDemand after the episode aired but while it was still OnDemand, and I think it was one of the first things I watched to see it in HD. The season 3 finale was just so much fun -- a romantic fantasy adventure that gives me some of the same feelings as The Princess Bride and Stardust. It was my happy place thing to watch if I'd had a bad day. There are a few nice moments in the season 4 finale, but it's not something that has me longing to rewatch.

[OnceUponAJen]

I feel the same way about the S4 finale. I watched S3's an insane number of times, but I haven't watched S4's at all. S3 ended in a happy place vs. 4's and I think that plays into it for me. I did like AU Hook, but he didn't show up until the second half. Plus, the pacing for me was off. Like the mid-season finale, I just thought they tried to cram in too much plot.

[daxx]

I've watched the second half of the season 4 finale 2-3 times so far.

I truly have lost count of how many times I've seen the season 3 finale and I would watch it right now but I'm tired of hearing the almost ex's judginess. If all goes smoothly I'll have my own place by Sept 1st so I can watch season 5 without the dark cloud of Hook envy. lol

[YaddaYadda]

I've watched clips of the finale on Youtube.  I have the episode on the DVR, but meh.  The first half was just a bit boring when you're main character (I know Regina is the main character for A&E, but for me, Emma is) shows up in the middle of the story.  The emotional parts of the 2 hours were written for Emma and Hook, so those are usually the clips I look for when I need my emotions to be kicked.

[HoodlumSheep]

I haven't rewatched any of season 4 (I don't have ondemand). Even if I did I wouldn't rewatch the finale again. Once was enough. I'm surprised it's the second half that is being watched more, although all the exciting stuff happens in that one. It was just so poorly paced compared to the first half. Way to fast.AU Hook was dead for like, 5 minutes, and they were rushing through the rest of the episode at hyper speed.

I'd probably rewatch 4a again except 4x05 and 4x11 (I could get pickier but most of the 4a eps were tolerable at least). Then I'd watch 4x15 and 4x18 again.

Edited July 22, 2015 by HoodlumSheep

[Curio]

I just realized, I haven't rewatched the finale all summer. [...] There are a few nice moments in the season 4 finale, but it's not something that has me longing to rewatch.

I feel the same way about the S4 finale. I watched S3's an insane number of times, but I haven't watched S4's at all. S3 ended in a happy place vs. 4's and I think that plays into it for me. I did like AU Hook, but he didn't show up until the second half. Plus, the pacing for me was off. Like the mid-season finale, I just thought they tried to cram in too much plot.

 

I think you guys hit it on the head describing how I feel about the Season 4 finale. I must have watched the Season 3 finale half a dozen times by now, but I've only watched the Season 4 finale once all the way through. I've watched some of my favorite scenes on Youtube multiple times (basically any AU Hook scenes, Emma and Henry scenes, and some Snowing scenes), but I can't even rewatch the climatic ending scene where Emma sacrifices herself. The whole setup to the scene (and now all the drama surrounding why Emma did it) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Which is sad, because I should be happy that Emma finally said "I love you," but the moment fell flat amongst all the other plot things literally flying around in the scene.

 

I think part of the reason the Season 4 finale failed to deliver is because a lot of the emotional moments weren't built up to properly throughout the 4B half-season. I love Captain Swan as much as the next fanatical Tumblr fangirl, but I was incredibly surprised they got so many big moments together in the alternate universe. Those two didn't interact much throughout most of 4B, so it was strange how the writers flipped a switch and let them have some of the biggest scenes together in the AU. Those moments would have resonated a lot more if they had a bigger relationship arc in 4B. Same with Regina and Robin—Robin was out of the picture for most of 4B, and then half of the finale was devoted to watching him and Regina steal Snowing's love story meet-cute. Based on how the writers set up the 4B relationships, I thought Emma should have interacted with her parents more because of all the egg baby nonsense, but they only shared a few lines together. Basically, the only plot in the 4B finale that was set up throughout the majority of 4B was Emma's weird obsession with Operation Mongoose.

 

Another reason why I didn't like the 4B finale was the unoriginality of literally having the characters flop roles. We know how much the writers love their villains and think writing for the heroes is boring, but then we spend an entire episode watching Regina steal Bandit Snow's (a "hero") story. Why is "Snow" suddenly interesting for the writers again now that she's being played by Lana? Why did they give Snow and Charming such a stupid egg baby plot and then actually spend time writing a fun story for Bandit "Snow" in the finale? I know it's petty, but I really miss fun Snow and it irked me that Isaac's most popular character in his book was actually Once's Snow White character, but our writers can't even bother to give real Snow a decent storyline anymore.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Curio

[Rumsy4]

Season 4B is when I stopped rewatching episodes. It was hard enough getting through some of them for the first time! I did rewatch the finale, but fast forwarded through a lot of the scenes. 

[KingOfHearts]

The only episodes I really made a point in 4B to rewatch were Darkness on the Edge of Town and Sympathy for the DeVil. I didn't care for the rest of it. (Yes, including the Ursula episode.)

[kingshearte]

I'm not quite ready to give up on this show (mostly because I want to know what happens to Emma — with Killian, with Henry, with the Dark One stuff, with life in general), but I kind of feel like I'd be content with a youtube supercut of all of Emma & Killian's scenes, rather than the full DVD set of this season.

[OnceUponAJen]

I will be buying the DVD set for the commentary and extras. I always enjoy that!

[Curio]

From another thread:
 

Once Upon A Time is the one show where people are annoyed that the male characters are used as props. Well this show and Pretty Little Liars.

 
While I do commend this show for creating a matriarchal society where most of the powerful rulers are women and the main character is a super-hero-esque woman (depending on which fan or writer you ask, that main character is either Emma or Regina), I also don't like it when shows purposefully don't develop three-dimensional male characters just to make their female characters appear better by comparison.
 
Even though Once likes to brag about all the "strong" female characters it has, most of the women aren't very well-developed or three-dimensional. Emma is the exception, and in my opinion, is the most fleshed out, well-rounded female character on the show. Then you have Regina, who has many Mary Sue tendencies, but she's given so many backstories that it's impossible to argue she isn't fleshed out. But that's pretty much it. We jump to Snow, who used to be such a great character, but now she's a shell of her former self. Belle takes naps all the time. Zelena is a scene-chewing nightmare. Ruby fell off the face of the Earth after Season 2. And the villains du jours are just that—temporary. Elsa and Anna had the benefit of already having their personalities written for them based on the movie, but even they were only temporary.
 
Rumple and Hook are probably the most three-dimensional male characters, but even Rumple began to drift towards becoming a moustache-twirling villain last season. So that leaves Hook as the only well-rounded male character, and I feel like a good chunk of his three-dimensional qualities come from the acting. Charming is basically Snow's arm candy, Robin is a cardboard cutout who only sings Regina's praises, and Henry is just a kid.
 
So, in conclusion, I wish the writers would take the time to flesh out all of their main characters more.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Curio

[Shanna Marie]

Then you have Regina, who has many Mary Sue tendencies, but she's given so many backstories that it's impossible to argue she isn't fleshed out.

Backstory isn't the same thing as fleshing out or character development, though. The backstory for Regina pretty much just repeats the same thing over and over again without adding more depth or dimension (she hates Snow and wants revenge and can't bear for anyone else to be happy while she's unhappy -- lather, rinse, repeat). She also suffers the most from having to be whatever the writers want her to be for the plot of the week in the present, so it's hard to say that she's actually a character rather than a repository of wishes. She's really a rather paper-thin character with simple motivations, and I think that's what makes her work as a Mary Sue, not just for the writers but for the fans who overidentify with her. It's easy to graft yourself onto her since there's not a lot there to begin with. You just have to feel put-upon and thwarted by life. She's not developed so much as lurched forward to whatever they want for her next.

 

Snow gets a lot of this same treatment, but they're tearing her down instead of building her. She's lost all her spunk and fire. Current Snow bears almost no resemblance to season one Snow, even in flashbacks that are set around the same time. They've reduced her to being the one who believes in hope. Except when she doesn't.

 

So that leaves Hook as the only well-rounded male character, and I feel like a good chunk of his three-dimensional qualities come from the acting.

I think this is definitely a case where casting against type gave the character more depth than was originally on the page. If an actor who was naturally that larger than life, with lots of swagger, who was well aware of his own charms had been cast to play Hook, I think he might have come across as a cardboard standup, with no dimension other than the swagger. But casting shy, geeky Colin in the role automatically gave Hook some dimension because while he acts the swagger, you get the sense of something else within. I wonder if they'd always planned Hook's backstory to be the nerdy Lt. Jones or if that was in part inspired once they saw the way Colin played the role and what he's really like. I do think that they're rather consistent with Hook, and they've given him a solid enough redemption arc to give the character depth.

 

There's so much potential for David based on the character's background and his journey so far, but they haven't even touched on how his background affects his current life, and we never really saw any of the transition from farmboy to prince. He went straight from slaying the dragon to being someone nobody would guess wasn't born a prince. We didn't even see any awkwardness at what had to be his first royal ball.

[Curio]

Backstory isn't the same thing as fleshing out or character development, though. The backstory for Regina pretty much just repeats the same thing over and over again without adding more depth or dimension (she hates Snow and wants revenge and can't bear for anyone else to be happy while she's unhappy -- lather, rinse, repeat).

I completely agree—I was saying "fleshed out" in the sense that Regina gets the most screen time and backstories; therefore, we technically "know" the most about her. But like you said, what we "know" about her is all superficial and repetitive. On screen, we know way too many unimportant details of her past, like how she put a horse to sleep because she was jealous over some ribbons, she flew on Maleficent in dragon form, she killed an innocent man who was about to be married, she mass murdered an entire village, she went on a date with Nottingham, she got stabbed in the neck with a fork by Ariel, etc. While these are all technically "details" we had to watch on screen, they aren't very substantive. Compare this to Emma and Hook's backstories where we get few and far between, but the ones we do get on screen generally do a good job of giving their characters more dimension.

 

But casting shy, geeky Colin in the role automatically gave Hook some dimension because while he acts the swagger, you get the sense of something else within. I wonder if they'd always planned Hook's backstory to be the nerdy Lt. Jones or if that was in part inspired once they saw the way Colin played the role and what he's really like.

I'm curious about this as well. In the beginning of Season 2, I got the sense that the writers were totally fine keeping Hook as the flirty, snarky, villain with swagger and a sob story. But by the end of Season 2 and they introduced the Bae backstory, I think they realized Colin worked a lot better when he could be more subtle and vulnerable with the character. Circling back to the flashback-with-substance vs. flashback-just-for-filler discussion, it's amazing how just one backstory about Killian serving in the navy gave so much more depth to the character. Just by knowing that tiny detail, you can write an entire novel around how a character can go from being an uptight Lieutenant to a carefree pirate.  

 

There's so much potential for David based on the character's background and his journey so far, but they haven't even touched on how his background affects his current life, and we never really saw any of the transition from farmboy to prince. He went straight from slaying the dragon to being someone nobody would guess wasn't born a prince. We didn't even see any awkwardness at what had to be his first royal ball.

I think in order for the show to develop Snow more, Charming had to take a backseat in the character development department. That, and the writers don't like writing backstories for characters who don't have any ties to Regina's story, so Snow got the benefit of sharing her flashback episodes with Regina while showing Charming's transition from farm boy to prince wouldn't involve any other main characters. It's a shame because there could be a lot of meat there with the character, but the flashbacks he ends up getting fall more into the "filler" category than the "substance" category.

[Camera One]

I think in order for the show to develop Snow more, Charming had to take a backseat in the character development department. That, and the writers don't like writing backstories for characters who don't have any ties to Regina's story, so Snow got the benefit of sharing her flashback episodes with Regina while showing Charming's transition from farm boy to prince wouldn't involve any other main characters. It's a shame because there could be a lot of meat there with the character, but the flashbacks he ends up getting fall more into the "filler" category than the "substance" category.

 

I don't blame Snow for Charming not getting the character development he deserved.  Ginny becoming pregnant was the perfect opportunity to give us more depth with David, but they gave us "White Out" and how Anna was a formative influence on his life after the suicide of his alcoholic father.  The writers probably thought that was depth and character building.  

 

I think you're right on with the second reason, though being tied in with Regina certainly didn't do Snow any favors in terms of character exploration or depth past the first season.

 

Snowing have been solely used as props of the worst kind in recent seasons.  4B was the most egregious with the egg-napping, but this also occurred with 3A with the pointless dreamshade subplot.  The other alternative is when they stand around doing nothing, such as 4A where Snow's fear of Emma's magic was an open and shut, and ooh shiny fireworks (or cue filler where Snow goes walking along the beach to give Will something to do), while 3B they didn't even get to mourn the loss of Emma and we got zero insight into their transition back "home" and back to their roles as rulers (or cue filler where David goes walking in the woods and helps the blandest Rapunzel in history).

Edited July 23, 2015 by Camera One

[Panopticon]

Backstory isn't the same thing as fleshing out or character development, though. The backstory for Regina pretty much just repeats the same thing over and over again without adding more depth or dimension (she hates Snow and wants revenge and can't bear for anyone else to be happy while she's unhappy -- lather, rinse, repeat).

 

This is so very true. This summer I rewatched the series in its entirety. For the most part I hadn't seen the episodes since they first aired.

 

One of the things that struck me was that while I had periodic bursts of sympathy for Rumple, I had none for Regina, the other heavily-backstoried, none-too-reformed villain.

 

It's not that Rumple is a magnificently fleshed out, multidimensional character. The basic character sketch when the show was originally developed probably had one word: coward. But we saw the people he loved call him a coward when they were hurt by his cowardice. We saw the people he hated gleefully taunt him for his cowardice. We saw him loathe himself for his cowardice. The man may have been omnipresent and omnipotent and excused for heinous acts, but he was followed around by his major character flaw. And the character flaw happens to be a realistic one that many people have to varying degrees.

 

Regina doesn't even have that much. She's not self-reflective enough to ever look at herself and think "gee, I suck" the way Rumple did when he let Bae go. She's never been down long enough to have "kiss my boot" or "yeah, your wife was just telling me what a loser you are so she's running off with me" moments where the thing that she hates about herself is on display for the world to mock. (No, not getting invited to the first family dinner the family she kept apart for 28 years ever had is not at that level of humiliation.) When Regina is unhappy, the people who love her tend to blame outside forces ("the author!"). If they do suggest that there's something about her that influences the life she leads ("Forgive me if I don't take advice from the woman who held a grudge for half her life because a ten year old spilled a secret.") it's played off as snark, not a gut punch moment.

 

It's hard to root for a character who is too perfect to have a character flaw... especially when she's obviously not perfect what with all the killing and cursing and raping.

[Souris]

Snowing have been solely used as props of the worst kind in recent seasons.  

 

I wonder how Ginny & Josh feel. They were SO front & center in S1 and into S2. Now, they're little more than glorified extras. I understand them being lighter in 4A because of Oliver, but it's less understandable in 4B.

[Camera One]

Actors love being able to do emotion, but I'm not sure the fallout from the Maleficient/Lily stuff gave them anything that challenging or interesting to work with.  I'm not sure looking guilty for half a season is one of those rewarding parts every actor wants to play.

[Shanna Marie]

Circling back to the flashback-with-substance vs. flashback-just-for-filler discussion, it's amazing how just one backstory about Killian serving in the navy gave so much more depth to the character. Just by knowing that tiny detail, you can write an entire novel around how a character can go from being an uptight Lieutenant to a carefree pirate.

I was thinking about this and about David's backstory, and you know, there are a lot of similarities between "Good Form" for Hook and "The Shepherd" for David because they're both about showing how their background is the total opposite of what they seem to be now. What's odd is that David's background has been mentioned more and even has been shown again, but I think Hook's background is more integrated into the character.

 

They tell us every so often that David used to be a shepherd, but we don't really see that in his character. We don't see any tension between the shepherd and the prince. He doesn't take the part of the common people or remind the royals about the commoners, he never seems to feel all that awkward in his role as prince. I'm not sure we'd know about this background if they didn't tell us.

 

On the other hand, I don't recall Hook's military background coming up other than in "Good Form." I'm not sure anyone else knows about it -- it depends on how much he told David when he was explaining about Liam. But it seems like that tension between rigid officer and roguish pirate is at the core of his character. That rigid sense of duty and justice may have been part of the reason he snapped so badly when things went wrong. It was like he just couldn't cope when someone else showed such terribly bad form and he felt like this wrong absolutely must be put right. We've also seen that his instinct is to do the right thing, except for the automatic override where his revenge was concerned or for his temper. In what we've seen with his crew, he's still very much an officer.

 

I love the twist that gave us David's backstory, but in retrospect it seems like yet another one of their Shocking!Twists that's all about the revelation moment but that isn't incorporated into the fabric of the series. Hook's background may or may not have been a retcon planned after the fact, but it makes sense for him and seems to be woven into his character, even if the fact of it hasn't come up. Or I guess if it was a retcon, it was based on the way the character was portrayed.

 

I do think they could get a lot more story material out of both of them. It would be interesting to use David as the voice of the common people (goodness knows, someone needs to remember them), and I'd like to see Hook go into officer mode in dealing with a situation. He should certainly know a thing or two about battle strategy.

[Camera One]

I love the twist that gave us David's backstory, but in retrospect it seems like yet another one of their Shocking!Twists that's all about the revelation moment but that isn't incorporated into the fabric of the series. Hook's background may or may not have been a retcon planned after the fact, but it makes sense for him and seems to be woven into his character, even if the fact of it hasn't come up. Or I guess if it was a retcon, it was based on the way the character was portrayed.

 

I agree with your assessment, and it is very unfortunate.  I think A&E just enjoy writing Hook's story more, and also it's more defined writing for a character struggling to be a good person and fighting against reverting to the "villain" they used to be.  His episode with Ariel in 3B was struggling to not slip after he lost Emma and returned to the Enchanted Forest, and then redeeming himself in the present.  His episode in 4B was about facing his past with Ursula and again, to see if he would slip or redeem himself in the present.  

 

What was David like as a shepherd?  A&E doesn't know and they don't care.  The easiest go-to was to have David be a coward who needed Anna's motivational speeches.  It could have been way more nuanced, but they don't do nuanced.  

Edited July 25, 2015 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

What was David like as a shepherd?  A&E doesn't know and they don't care.  The easiest go-to was to have David be a coward who needed Anna's motivational speeches.  It could have been way more nuanced, but they don't do nuanced.

I think that was also a sign of their failure to consider the social issues. We had a princess telling a peasant that it was his own fault he was being oppressed because he just wasn't brave enough. Meanwhile, we've got a peasant being brutally oppressed by a warlord with magic powers, and the warlord is apparently being allowed to run amok by whoever was ruling that area. Was David a subject of George's or was he in the Enchanted Forest where Regina was ruling as usurper at that time? David really should be the voice of the common people, the one who remembers what it's like to feel like there's no recourse because the powers that be don't care. He should be arguing against high-handed decisions that affect people who aren't given a say. He does push up his sleeves (or take off his shirt) and work alongside the dwarfs, but he's not even at Ross Poldark levels of remembering the plight of the common folk and he actually was an impoverished peasant.

 

I was very Team Anna in the Frozen movie, but this episode irked me because it was awfully rich for a freaking princess who probably never had much to fear in her life because the whole reason she knew how to fight with a sword was that she had an entire royal guard devoted to keeping her safe to tell a peasant that he should stand up to the people oppressing him. Then again, the Arendelle royal guard pretty much caved at the first sign of opposition, first to Ingrid and next to Hans (must. not. make. France. joke), so maybe she did know something about fear and no one having her back.

 

So we're back to the problem of underdeveloped characters, where they've created something potentially interesting but don't manage to mine their own creation. It's easier to throw in half a dozen new characters than to take a look at what they've created and find new aspects to use.

[daxx]

I just finished a rewatch of season 3 and even though I rolled my eyes a few times I didn't fast fwd through anything or skip any episodes

Now starting season 4, I forgot was an amazing Elsa Georgina was.

[HoodlumSheep]

I thought Georgina rocked as Elsa too (and I despise Frozen). Somehow the Frozen ouat cast was a million times more likable than the characters in the Frozen movie. It was probably the biggest surprise for me in season 4.

I always think about rewatching the series, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I think I might rewatch a few select episodes, but otherwise...*shrugs*

The last time I tried to rewatch Ouat I think I managed to watch up to about where Mary Margaret is revealed to have cheated with David (so..."Dreamy"ish) and then I skipped right to Hat Trick and then to Tallahassee because I was losing interest, and then I sort of stopped. I never picked it up again.

[daxx]

I was packing and watching, so there is that. I have actually done a complete rewatch through season 3 a couple times already. I have found I still very much enjoy season one and 3a best.

[YaddaYadda]

I think we did a ranking of  the seasons before the end of season 4 and my personal conclusion is that 4B was pretty much on par with 2B in terms of fuckery.  

 

It's sort of interesting how 4B for Snow mirrors 2B for her.  In 2B, she killed Cora or tricked Regina in doing it, though she had very valid reasons to do it.  Cora was batshit crazy, she wanted to become the new Dark One and really, the devil you know is better than the one you don't.  

 

Then in 4B, we have the whole eggnapping and how evil Snowing is.  

 

3B for me, was largely redeemed by the 2 hour season finale which if you're a Captain Swan shipper, if you love Emma and Hook together or separately, was great.  I mean, I was served.  If you don't like the couple or the characters, then you're shit out of luck, which basically was my issue with the 4B finale.  I don't care about Regina, I really don't like Robin.  The whole line from that fan about how Bandit!Regina was her favorite character just didn't sit well with me.  While Bandit!Snow is a really awesome character, the writers don't care enough about the character and are too busy trying to bring her down to the "villain" level, so whatever...

 

4B focused on the wrong things.  Did we really need more than Maleficent?  Ursula was not really required and her story went completely against the narrative of needing the Author for a villain to get a happy ending which she did not.  The Author did not write her a happy ending, Ditto for Maleficent.  Emma went out of Storybrooke and brought her her daughter back.  That was not even acknowledged by the writing.  The writers gave two villains their happy ending without the Author intervening and then they and decided to ignore what they wrote completely.  

 

Instead of Emma releasing the Author, it should have been Rumple or even Cruella thought that would not really have worked since she would never have gotten what she wanted no matter what.  

 

Then I see a comment from Comic Con about how there are too many characters and writing for them takes away from Regina's story and it makes me wanna bang my head on a wall, and it's not even because of the Regina comment (because hey, Regina FOREVER! or whatevs), but it's like who keeps bringing in all these new characters?  No one is forcing new characters on you.  Nobody!

[Panopticon]

When I rewatched the whole series straight through this summer, the worst slog for me was 3B. I didn't like it the first time and it wasn't any better for me on rewatch. Zelena is the one and only character I've never gotten any enjoyment from, and I've never cared for the casting. (It bothers me to have the quintessentially American Wicked Witch of the West played with an English accent even though I'm fine with French princess Belle having an Australian accent and the other accent weirdness of the show.) So throughout 3B I was checking to see how many episodes were left before I could get to the Frozen arc.

 

Meanwhile I loved just about everything in the Frozen arc. I've read legitimate criticisms of 4A and my reaction is generally "that's not wrong but I don't care." I loved the casting of the three Frozen characters. I loved that David knew Kristoff in his shepherd days. I loved Emma getting to bond with another princess/queen who knew what it was to feel unprepared for her position and scared of her own magic. I loved that non-magical Anna was able to use her love and her exuberance to stop the magical madness (again). I'm always happy to get a flashback to Emma's foster care days. I got way too much enjoyment out of Charming basically shoving Emma into Hook's arms once they freed her from Elsa's ice prison, and out of Hook scooping Emma up bridal-carry style. I even enjoyed the silly take on the shattered sight spell (I! WAS! TEN!) enough that I could handwave issues like how irresponsible it was to leave cursed Regina running around while everyone else was restrained. The letdown of the hard cut from Emma returning Hook's heart after half a season of buildup to gushing over Regina... well, I did say I liked almost everything. 

 

The show is obviously a completely different entity from what it was in season 1. I don't entirely object to that. I actually think it's great that the writers said "we're ending the curse when it feels right for the narrative, not when we've wrung as much money and as many seasons out of that plot as possible." In season 1, everything was connected and the more closely I watched the better my experience was. In later seasons, watching closely is more likely to lead to frustration, and my enjoyment level is intrinsically tied to how much I like a particular arc. I loved Team Princess, Neverland, and Frozen. I didn't love Anti-Magic Government, Wizard of Oz, or the Author. 

 

If rumors of a change to the A/B structure turn out to be true, I wonder how that will affect my pattern of enjoying the A arcs and slogging through the B arcs. I guess I'll see.

[daxx]

I am very much enjoying my season 4a rewatch, more than I thought actually. I committed to myself to watch the whole thing, no FF or skipping eps. I am now to Breaking Glass and I am having a hard time to keeping my commitment. Ugh.

[Curio]

I am now to Breaking Glass and I am having a hard time to keeping my commitment. Ugh.

 

If you're truly committed to not fast-forwarding through anything, just play Charlie Brown's teacher's "wah wah" horn noise on a loop any time Regina and Emma share a scene together.

[YaddaYadda]

I committed to myself to watch the whole thing, no FF or skipping eps.

 

You're a braver person than I am.

 

So I deleted episodes 5 and 6 from 4A.  I sort of starting doing a rewatch last week and then stopped.  I skipped over a lot of Anna stuff, most of the Regina/Robin stuff because i realize some of this stuff presses buttons I didn't even know I had.  I got to 4x08 and I was like crypt sex and Mary Margaret rationalizing cheating and that made me put a stop to my rewatch altogether.

 

Once was enough, thankyouverymuch!

[KingOfHearts]

I liked most of the Frozen stuff in 4A. It benefited from being its own thing, staying fresh and mostly untainted. Besides that though, I hated everything Storybrooke-related. The hat, Rumpbelle, The Love Triangle of Doom, the Author hunt, etc. The only story remotely interesting was Emma and Ingrid, but that was left untapped.

[Joanh23]

I did a rewatch of S4 and what annoyed me the most was Regina's constant whining about how the author ruined her life - it started in Ep1 and it went all the way through to Ep20.  But what struck me most while watching 4A is how many story lines were either started or hinted at but never went anywhere - Henry working in Golds shop went nowhere, Emma said 3 times in ep4 that she needed to get her own place but it's never mentioned again, and the most glaring of all was the several scenes of Emma knowing something was wrong with a dehearted Killian and yet nothing happened..  Obviously Frozen was an even bigger juggernaut than A&E anticipated.

[YaddaYadda]

and the most glaring of all was the several scenes of Emma knowing something was wrong with a dehearted Killian and yet nothing happened..  Obviously Frozen was an even bigger juggernaut than A&E anticipated.

 

Yeah, I liked how Ingrid who I'm sure (offscreenville and all) knew that Hook was the only person in the town who corresponded to the hat criteria and said nothing about it.  The woman knew everything. She knew Rumple tried to put Emma in the hat, she knew he took Hook's heart, she knew the reasons behind that.  She knows Hook is part of a whole for Emma, she doesn't say a peep about it.

 

Leave it to awesome detective Anna, journeywoman extraordinaire, positivity fairy, solver of problems, wielder of swords, maker of heroes! (yes, I hated her a lot)

 

It's all good and dandy that Ingrid tried to fix her joke curse, but the other big thing?  Nope!

[Camera One]

Did we really need more than Maleficent?  Ursula was not really required and her story went completely against the narrative of needing the Author for a villain to get a happy ending which she did not.  The Author did not write her a happy ending, Ditto for Maleficent.  Emma went out of Storybrooke and brought her her daughter back.  That was not even acknowledged by the writing.  The writers gave two villains their happy ending without the Author intervening and then they and decided to ignore what they wrote completely.

 

Ursula's story I believe was meant to be a fake-out so we would be more surprised by Cruella's twist.  

 

Ultimately, even Maleficent served no purpose.  Rumple needed to resurrect her because??? She was pretty much acting as Rumple's unnecessary henchman for the first half, and then she suddenly changed sides.  The fact that we didn't see why or how she made that decision showed she was just a prop.  I mean, look at "Enter the Dragon", where her backstory was mainly to service Regina's.  No wonder King Stefan and Aurora got nothing to do... I mean, prop of a prop means 10 milliseconds on screen.

 

Maleficent apparently let go of all her anger towards anyone except Snowing.  But then she promptly forgot about her plans for even Snowing.  I mean, look at some of the things she said in "Unforgiven":

 

MALEFICENT: Hurt you? No.  That would be far too easy.

SNOWING: You're going to tell everyone what we did first.

MALEFICENT: I don't care about your secret.  You can keep it as long as you like.  I only care about one thing - your pain.  And that it be as long and terrible and unyielding as my own.

The pain you caused.  I'm gonna revel in every torturous moment.  And you? You're gonna watch your world crumble.

 

-------

 

Riiiight... what happened to that exactly?  Even within a half-season arc, what's with all this misleading stuff that ramps up anticipation but leads nowhere?  If they knew they weren't going anywhere with that, then why include it at all?  They basically count on the fact that this show is so full of new info and developments, that even as a fan, it's easy to forget the previous episode's cliffhanger once you get through with the next hour.  But it's all crystal clear on rewatch.

Edited August 7, 2015 by Camera One

[HoodlumSheep]

I thought the Queens of Darkness were completely unnecessary to the plot. They didn't accomplish anything. Rumple brought them along to help out, but he could have easily accomplished everything by himself. Cruella could have stayed just to help explain part of the author's backstory (she was the best part of 4b).

I actually liked 4a as a whole almost as much as 3a. The biggest problems to me was that awful, rushed finale and as some have mentioned, the millions of plot lines that go nowhere or were forgotten.

I actually liked the hat despite the flaws. And Ingrid was pretty awesome. And I was happy that Emma finally got some more back story.

I didn't mind Anna, but I can understand why Anna stomping around the EF getting inserted into everyone's stories could bother people.

I don't think I hated 3b as much as everyone else though; I liked 3x12-3x14 well enough, I liked 3x17 too (besides the fact that the Cursed lips plot went nowhere after that) but after that it became a hot mess until the finale. Colin's acting helped save 3b for me too.

The evil vs wicked showdown in 3x16? was a total let down though compared to Amara vs. Jafar in Wonderland.

Edited August 7, 2015 by HoodlumSheep

[Joanh23]

For me from S2 onwards I've always preferred the first half of the seasons.  I also liked 3B more than most people seemed to, and the S3 finale is tied with the S1 finale as my favourite of the show.  But overall I did really like 4A, I loved watching the Emma/Hook romance continue to grow, and that Emma got a new friend in Elsa, Elizabeth Mitchell was great as Ingrid and I did like that she was tied into Emma's past.  Despite the disappointments with 4B I am still uber excited about S5 and I can't wait to see the Dark Swan.

[KAOS Agent]

 

They basically count on the fact that this show is so full of new info and developments, that even as a fan, it's easy to forget the previous episode's cliffhanger once you get through with the next hour.  But it's all crystal clear on rewatch.

 

That's kind of a funny thing because Once is supposedly one of the most watched shows on Netflix which implies quite a bit of bingewatching. I tried to rewatch 4A and found myself bored with the Frozen stuff which I had enjoyed the first time around (although less so Anna's tour of the Enchanted Forest). Knowing that the Frozen stuff would come to nothing and also noting all of the dropped plots really brings down the enjoyment of a rewatch.

 

I hated 4B so much that I won't subject myself to it again, but I'm somewhat tempted to give it a shot to see if it might improve on rewatch. I feel like it can't possibly be as bad as I remember it. 

[Camera One]

I think for someone binge-watching through Season 4 the first time, it's okay.  It becomes really a blur from information overload and so much seemingly happening, even though in hindsight it's just filler and fireworks.  I know my friend was always itching to watch the next episode.

 

When I rewatched 4B marathon-style with her, I found it was okay.  It feels slightly more coherent, but the same things still made me mad, so that doesn't change.  Plus knowing what was going to happen, as you said, the stuff that clearly went nowhere stuck out, plus the repetitive dialogue amplified and became more noticeable.  I just had so little patience for the monologuing by characters like Rumple or Zelena.

Edited August 8, 2015 by Camera One

[daxx]

I found the scenes where Emma was looking concerned at heartless Hook table flippingly irritating as I knew that never went anywhere. Why even have those scenes, she never followed up.

I let it run wile I cleaned and packed so missed bits and pieces. Makes some of it more palatable although I did miss a few good CS scenes that way. I may re-rewatch the fall since I missed the not a goodbye kiss person scene.

[daxx]

I thought the worst point in my rewatch would be Breaking Glass but I actually found Heart of Gold to be the hardest to sit through. My eyes may roll back into my head and stay there.

[HoodlumSheep]

Positive things I can say about Heart of Gold: I appreciated the change in setting. I like how Will was finally utilized and we finally got to see more of Oz (even though those flashbacks should have either taken place in 3b OR they should have hinted at Robin knowing Zelena beforehand in 3b).

The Robin/oz flashbacks could have easily taken Bleeding Through's place.

Positive things about Breaking Glass: the first and last few minutes (the CS scenes).

Was Breaking Glass the same episode as when Snow was chasing Will? If so, I liked that too. I thought they had a fun chemistry, despite that plot line being unnecessary.

[KAOS Agent]

The only thing I remember about Heart of Gold is that Zelena would. not. shut. up. She's like nails on a chalkboard for me. I'm seriously hoping that her status as a regular in S5 is Will levels of regular, but I doubt it.

 

One of the things you really get out of a rewatch of this show is that the villains in particular have generally worn out their welcome with me by the end of an arc. I've had about as much scenery chewing and annoying over the top-ness as I can handle. Robert Carlyle understood this from the beginning and stressed that a little Rumpel goes a long way and tried to keep him from being overused. Four seasons in and I'm so done with Rumpel and the Evil Queen. As characters portrayed in the past, they don't/can't change like their present day counterparts so it's just the same damn thing over and over and over again. Now the show has added Zelena to the overdone, but regular mix. She's one note, we've seen enough of her and it takes screen time away from possible new storylines that I haven't already seen. Also, have I mentioned she doesn't shut up? 

[KingOfHearts]

 

Now the show has added Zelena to the overdone, but regular mix. She's one note, we've seen enough of her and it takes screen time away from possible new storylines that I haven't already seen.

Zelena has potential on paper. She could have been someone to call Regina on her crap as in, "You think your life is horrible? Gurrrl you're so ungrateful! Look what I had to go through in Oz!" That all went out the window in 3x16 when we learned of her uninteresting backstory. Being Regina's sister would have done a heck of a lot more for Regina's redemption arc than Robin and Zarian. I thought, after their conversation in the jail in 3x20, that could have been a good option.

 

The main annoyance with her is that she has no other mode besides "cackle". She's so bizarrely one-dimensional that no one can understand her. The only logical explanation is severe mental illness, but that doesn't seem to be the angle A&E want to go with. They want her to be a toy that totally needs sympathy before they dump it after 5 minutes. She's the embodiment of 3B's lack of delivery.

Edited August 9, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I agree on paper, she's a fun villain.  I always get a kick out of the Wicked Witch in the 1939 film.  But on this show, Zelena's jealousy of Regina made no sense and was all played out within half an episode or so.  I mean, the whole "green with envy" motive was paper thin in the first place and really couldn't sustain half a season.  And yet now they've brought her back and it's even more nonsensical than before, because her dumb impersonating Marion plan didn't even mesh with the jealousy motivation.  I seriously thought we would at least get an episode where Zelena continued to masquerade as Marion to Robin, but not to Regina, just to twist the knife a little more.

 

It's boring to rewatch her monologues because it's meaningless to hear her gloating about Rumple when we know she's not going to do anything to him.  "Heart of Gold" was all empty threats and since it was obvious she wasn't going to pull the plug on Rumple, it was blatantly a waste of time to rewatch.  I mean, those drawn out scenes in 3B with Zelena and Rumple playing their psychological games with meat pies already put me to sleep, so it was just more of the same.  I felt zero sympathy for Rumple and his health problems despite those flat heart-to-heart scenes he had with Robin.  

Edited August 9, 2015 by Camera One

[HoodlumSheep]

I really wish they would have upped the miserable factor for Zelena's past. Because, despite "turning green with envy" being the ultimate cheese-fest, I would have been fine with it if Zelena's past was worse.

Her past:

Cora ditched her

Has a not-so-nice adoptive father, but her adoptive mother loved her (so her younger years couldn't have all been bad)

Rumple preferred Regina over Zelena (mainly due to Dark Curse shenanigans)

She sees Regina living in a big empty castle (which apparently equates to having the best life ever)

She believed the witches were going to replace her with Dorothy after they invited her into their clique, so she pretty much mucked up that situation herself

And that's all she needed to turn green from envy.

???Really?

Take any of the good guys (or heck, even the side characters), and look at their far more tragic pasts. How have they not managed to turn green from envy all these years???

Either she should have had a more miserable past, or they should have upped the number of times she saw Regina having an oh-so wonderful life that she could be envious of (like rub the pretty dresses, jewels, people bowing to her in the streets in her face).

Heck, show her spying on some Cora/Regina "bonding time" to help fuel the sister rivalry more.

And this my own opinion, but I wish they would have kept Rumple dead just a little bit longer in 3b. Which would then screw up a chunk of the season, but I don't care. I wish we would have had one or two more episodes where they (or the audience) actually believed he was dead, dead. Then bring back Neal/Rumple a little later on, so maybe in 3x18 or so and still have Neal die and Rumple "kill" Zelena.

I don't know. I still ponder the idea that Wicked would have worked better as a whole season or even like season 2 where Cora was the main big bad for a little more than half.

I don't know. Concept-wise I think Wicked had the most potential (and thus disappointed more people).

Edited August 9, 2015 by HoodlumSheep

[Amerilla]

Zelena really shows the flaws of villains who "own it." Cora, Pan, Zelena....these are reprehensible figures on every level, with nothing really to lighten them or to explain their pathology, and combined with the fact that they monologue endlessly and end up losing in the end, it makes for one-dimensional characters. Cora and Ingrid only worked because Barbara and Elizabeth are such talents; Bex is a great person, and Robbie certainly has some promise, but I'd rather chew sand than watch Zelena or Pan in a scene.

 

I mean, those drawn out scenes in 3B with Zelena and Rumple playing their psychological games with meat pies already put me to sleep, so it was just more of the same.

 

This was one of the great failures of Zelena - there are no psychological games, really. She shows up when Regina or Rumpel are at a low point (or in Rumpel's case, completely helpless), says nasty things, and that's pretty much it. She could be used more effectively to build their characters, to illustrate some recurring themes in their stories, but....she's just bitchy.

 

They lost a real opportunity with Rumpel to carry over that psychological wound from 3b into 4. More than anyone we've ever seen, Zelena has inflicted real damage. She enslaved him, caged him, nearly forced him to kill against his will, threatened to kill Belle, and worst of all, put Neal in a position to be killed. While we can argue about how direct her culpability was, the fact remains that Rumpel had to watch the son he had spent centuries trying to find die because of Zelena. He should have ended 3b curled up in a fetal ball in the corner of the shop, not getting married. The events of 4a should not have been weirdly de-coupled from 3b...his actions should have been driven by what he had suffered. Instead, they turned him to the one-dimensional, monologuing villain, and he has become almost insufferably boring as a result.

[Shanna Marie]

I forced myself to rewatch "Operation Mongoose" last week, and based on that, I'm kind of iffy about whether I'd want the season 4 DVDs because I'm not sure I could tolerate rewatching without liberal use of the FF button. The main issue for me is that it's a really, really bad idea to build a season-long arc around a concept for which the entire audience can see the inevitable outcome from the moment it's first mentioned. As soon as Regina says, "I could make, er, ask, the author to write me a happy ending," the entire audience shouts, "You write your own happy ending!" At that point, the only way to salvage that story arc is to do something unexpected with it, and I don't think that what they did qualifies. There was all the nonsense about the book being wrong about Regina and making her unhappy, when we've seen her do the things the book says she did, and she made herself unhappy. We didn't even see Isaac playing the slightest role in her life to prove the "it's the book's fault" thesis. Yeah, it would have been table-flipping time if we'd learned that Isaac had been manipulating events in her life so that she was absolved of all wrongdoing and it really was the book that made her that way, but at least that would have made a kind of sense in context. Then there were all the mixed messages about what happened with other villains, and getting to see even more of how bad Regina used to be, which made it seem even more ludicrous that everyone was moving heaven and earth to get her a happy ending they thought she deserved. And then we finally get to the conclusion of the arc, which is, wait for it, her learning that she writes her own happy ending. To which the entire audience says, "Duh! We've been saying that since last fall."

 

And worse, she doesn't really seem to have learned anything from all this, given that in the opening of the finale, when they're worried about what Isaac might do, she actually says this isn't her fault. Really? She started the hunt for the Author, it was all done to give her a happy ending, she physically attacked Lily to get the Dark Savior blood for ink and gave that to Isaac to write her a happy ending, and him running off with the ink to do goodness knows what isn't Regina's fault at all? True, she's not directly culpable for specific evil he chooses to do, but a decent person with an ounce of self awareness would feel some responsibility because none of it would have happened without Operation Mongoose.

 

Then "Operation Mongoose" as the capper for an entire season arc is a hot mess. Not that I want everything to be an Afterschool Special level of "valuable lesson," but it would have been nice if an episode that carried out what the characters had been trying for all season had imparted some kind of lesson for someone. Getting what you want (when what you want turns out to be a bad idea) should carry with it some sort of epiphany. But Regina doesn't seem to have learned anything, not even how unjust she was to Snow now that she's walked in her shoes -- not that this lesson has anything to do with the arc. Henry didn't seem to have learned much, though I guess breaking the quill was a good sign, but it's not like at any point he showed any sign of realizing that Operation Mongoose had been a wrongheaded idea. The closest anyone comes to having come out of the experience with a change might be Emma knowing she needed to tell Hook she loved him, Hook finally being able to see himself as a hero, and possibly David having some acceptance/appreciation of Hook (I noticed just how strong his "Oh thank God" reaction was in the loft when Hook finally appeared at the end), and none of that had anything to do with Operation Mongoose, where David and Hook were tertiary to the insanity. The people who spent the season obsessing over Operation Mongoose don't seem to have come away with all that much, so it didn't even work as a character arc.