A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Souris]

Awesome data analysis of screen time for 4A, 4B & 5A, disproving the "Hook steals screentime from everyone else!" whining.

[Shanna Marie]

If you look at what the various arcs are about side-by-side, it starts to look rather ludicrous:

 

3B -- Regina's half sister is so jealous of Regina's life that she literally turns green, and she tries to carry out a scheme to travel back in time so she can have the life Regina got.

4A -- in the subplot, Regina decides that as a former villain she's not allowed to have a happy ending after Robin's wife turns out to still be alive. Meanwhile, hero Elsa spent 30 years trapped in a vase, hero Anna was frozen for 30 years after her crazy aunt turned her against her sister, and hero Emma contemplates giving up her magic because she's afraid of hurting the people she loves.

4B -- all the good guys work together to try to find the Author so he can write Regina a happy ending after Robin has to leave town with Marian. It turns out that this was unnecessary because "Marian" was really Zelena in disguise, so Regina gets Robin back anyway. In the finale, Rumple has the Author write him a happy ending, but this is a bad thing that must be stopped.

5A -- After sacrificing herself to save the town, Emma is made into the Dark One, has to fight against the voices of past Dark Ones in her head, has to hide her identity as the Savior while Regina pretends to be Savior and has a ball given in her honor, and then Hook is mortally wounded while saving Snow, and in desperation, Emma saves him by tethering him to Excalibur, which turns him into the Dark One, and Emma ultimately has to kill him to end the Darkness.

 

But, yeah, having your married boyfriend choose his wife out of duty is totally the most tragic thing ever and something that requires focus and urgency to fix it. And Regina's life is so very awful that she must be suffering because she was a villain. I mean, nothing bad happens to heroes, does it?

[andromeda331]

Yeah, those heroes have it so easy, haven't they? Both of Snow's parents were murdered,
she had to flee her psycho stepmother who murdered her husband, entire villages, stole
her home and everything she had. Had good times constantly saving and losing her boyfriend
as they took turns being kidnapped and rescued. Had to give up her daughter so she wouldn't
be murdered and spent 28 years cursed.
Charming lived on a farm that apparently kept nearly going under, learned he had a twin who
was sold to a king as a baby, and was forced to pretend to be him to slay a dragon and a
bunch of other things, if he didn't the King would kill his mother. Nearly died trying to
get his newborn daughter to safety. Before spending 28 years in coma.
Emma spent her entire childhood in and out of foster care constantly being assigned homes
and sent back. Ran away constantly, turned to petty theft ran into another thief who became
her boyfriend before sending her to jail for his crimes.
Henry spent 10 years being the only one growing up in his hometown. Had no friends because
he was the only one to move up in grade. Was gaslight by his mom and thrown into therapy,
making him feel crazy. And desperate enough he tracked down his own bio mom to try and help.
Then got to see his mom frame his bio mom and grandmother, and everything she could to destroy
and drive her out town. The first person who finally believed him about the Curse, Graham.
His mother murdered him.
Graham, who spent 28 years being raped and forced to do Regina's bidding and some time before
that because he let Snow White escape. He also remembered who he was, dumped Regina and was
murdered.
Good times. Those lucky heroes.

[KingOfHearts]

I have a confession to make - I freaking love the episode In The Name of the Brother. And here's why:

* The frantic panic in the hospital for Team Hero was awesome. Everyone was able to express their own opinions and they all confronted the problem was a group. A lot of humor was incorporated as well.

* Cora. She just creepily snooped through Regina's house than pretended to be her own grandson. Pair that with her semi-romantic encounter with Rumple and her intense manipulation in the car, and you've got some great creepiness.

* As much as I didn't care of the Frankenstein story, the flashbacks did a good job of portraying atmosphere and giving insight into Whale's emotions. Igor's dramatic line reading and Color!Rumple hanging out in noir world were fun.

* Dr. Whale and Ruby. Their scene is one of the few that deals with the aftermath of the curse head-on. It does such a wonderful job of humanizing fantasy characters, making them relateable. 

* Hook and Emma. Their banter is entertaining in their scene with Hook on the hospital bed.

* Props to Greg's casting. He's a fine balance between average joe and sickly creep.

 

There was a lot going on in this fast-paced episode, but I was hooked the whole way through. Definitely one of my favorite 2B episodes and highly appreciated after the horrible Cricket Game and the meh The Outsider.

Edited January 12, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

5A made me wonder why I'm still watching. I just could not get into what was happening. Only three things really grabbed me - Light/Gray Swan, Guinevere (weird, right?) and Zelena. Merlin, Nimue, Arthur and Merida were all very "meh" to me. Most of the time it was as if I wasn't even watching Once. Probably because it was all fantasy shenanigans with very little realistic drama. Even the Captain Swan angst was very manufactured and magic-related. Their conflict was based on magical darkness instead of organic reactions.

4B killed a lot of momentum for me and 5A gave me the impression the story depth was coming back. But for what was revealed, more mystery shrouded. I still have plenty of questions about Dark One mythology and Camelot. Even the promises we had about exploring Emma's psyche remained empty. Are her issues really 80% Hook, 10% Henry, 9% Regina and 1% her parents? Dark Swan spent more time feeding Zelena labor-inducing onions rings than she did talking to Snowing. But I guess it wasn't really about Emma at all - it was about briefly seeing Camelot and Merida, then going full-force into Dark Hook.

I'm really uninterested in the storylines they're going through, since most of them we've already seen a dozen times.

 

Definitely, 5a should've broken the mold with what they were dealing with and instead it became an even bigger mess and more formulaic than ever.

[Camera One]

This is why they should've started building the Dark One mythology a lot sooner than this arc. That's not saying that it wouldn't have been an even bigger mess, but at least more questions would've been answered.

 

Those Dark Ones were a joke. And honestly, looking back, how did Nimue even think that Emma was going to do what all Dark Ones wanted to do for eons, when she saw what happened in the diner, how Emma even as someone who took that final step, and became a "Dark One" didn't want Merlin's heart to be crushed, and tried to convince Hook not to do it, told him his revenge wasn't his happy ending, that she was.

 

Nimue = Idiot. Dude, you knew Emma was trying to save the man she loves, even as the Dark One.

Yes, that needed to be said.  Nimue's plan was stupid.  What happened to the plan of having Emma cut away all the light magic?  Why wouldn't Nimue get Dark Hook to do that first?  Suddenly, the plan changed to what Dark Ones have wanted "all along", which was to resurrect from the dead?  WTF?  

 

If Nimue was in Emma's head, wouldn't she be able to access Emma's plan to kill Zelena? Was she just not paying very close attention? If all past Dark Ones know all, why didn't HeroRumple immediately catch on to Nimue's ultimate plan?  

 

I don't know... isn't loving someone supposed to mean you would find it hard to kill them?  It sounded like Nimue enjoyed killing Merlin.   I have a hard time believing DarkNimue "loved" Merlin, despite the tragic flashback.  Then again, after Peter Pan was able to use Felix's heart, pretty much anything goes.

 

Dark Ones are supposed to be a group of the most manipulative and evil individuals. Yet they fall behind Nimue like sheep?  How did Nimue "die" anyway?  Is that not relevant?

Edited January 12, 2016 by Camera One

[YaddaYadda]

Yes, that needed to be said.  Nimue's plan was stupid.  What happened to the plan of having Emma cut away all the light magic?  Why wouldn't Nimue get Dark Hook to do that first?  Suddenly, the plan changed to what Dark Ones have wanted "all along", which was to resurrect from the dead?  WTF?  

 

If Nimue was in Emma's head, wouldn't she be able to access Emma's plan to kill Zelena? Was she just not paying very close attention? If all past Dark Ones know all, why didn't HeroRumple immediately catch on to Nimue's ultimate plan?  

 

I don't know... isn't loving someone supposed to mean you would find it hard to kill them?  It sounded like Nimue enjoyed killing Merlin.   I have a hard time believing DarkNimue "loved" Merlin, despite the tragic flashback.  Then again, after Peter Pan was able to use Felix's heart, pretty much anything goes.

 

Dark Ones are supposed to be a group of the most manipulative and evil individuals. Yet they fall behind Nimue like sheep?  How did Nimue "die" anyway?  Is that not relevant?

 

I question how much both Nimue and Merlin loved each other. For me, he clearly had no clue how much she was still hurting, and suffering from what happened to her family. I don't know how much they really knew each other. Living with someone doesn't mean you know them all that well.

 

I've had a difficult time buying that they were this great love, because I really don't think they were in the end. 

 

And the "let's resurrect the Dark Ones" plan relied on one thing, Rumple's blood to open the portal. Were the Dark Ones all lining up in the Underworld, waiting, and then going "aww, not tonight, mate, not tonight."

 

So the plan couldn't have been executed until Rumple was no longer the Dark One (because he wasn't going to do it probably because he enjoys being the most powerful, and doesn't want others to take that from him) since relying on the moon is just too old school, and primitive for them. 

 

Everything else?

 

BECAUSE PLOT! That's why, PLOT...

[Shanna Marie]

BECAUSE PLOT! That's why, PLOT...

It's not even really PLOT because then the sequence of events would make some kind of sense. As it is, the story lurches from SHOCKING!TWIST! to SHOCKING!TWIST! with no real rhyme or reason in between. It's all about creating that one moment, and who cares whether it actually makes any sense from a plot or a character standpoint.

 

As for the screen time and relative roles in the various arcs, I've been discussing this in the writers thread, and I think the writers have become hampered in their weird personal fondness for Regina, which means that she's never going to be able to get enough interesting writing to sustain an arc.

 

Look at 3B -- that should have had room for all sorts of good stuff for her, since she was facing a half-sister she never knew, getting into her first romantic relationship since Daniel, and reuniting with Henry, leading up to her saving the day with light magic after a lifetime of being on the dark side. But what did they do? She barely interacted with her sister, and the relationship hardly mattered other than them spewing the word "Sis" at each other like it was an insult and a retcon making Cora the victim of those truth-telling Whites. Regina didn't really learn anything about herself and her family. Even her heart being needed for the spell didn't amount to much of anything -- if her heart couldn't be used to control her and couldn't be crushed to kill her, then where was the drama, conflict, or crisis? Her relationship was ordained by pixie dust, so there was no doubt or conflict. From her side, she had one "eep" moment, but a pep talk from Snow and then she was all-in, with no doubts or fears, no concerns about moving on from being obsessed with the lack of Daniel. From his side, the fact that she had him on Wanted posters and was the kind of corrupt ruler he was opposed to didn't matter at all. Henry getting his memories back somehow created a relationship they never actually had -- he'd been gaslit by her, with her hurting him to score points against Emma, then she held him prisoner, then he was keeping some distance while coaching her on being good, then there was Neverland, and now they're back, so maybe they could have made a fresh start, but there's no reason they should have just started easily walking arm in arm and talking about how he's doing in school and her new boyfriend. Wouldn't making a fresh start now that he's sure she's really changed have been more interesting? And then her pulling light magic out of nowhere was an Alien Vampire Bunny moment that wasn't set up at all. We'd focused all that time on Emma's magic, only to have her sidelined. Wouldn't it have been a bit more interesting if Regina had tried using light magic or had accidentally used it (other than in a TLK -- without her heart, with the kid she'd been abusing)?

 

Then in season 4, they missed all the inherent conflict in the fact that she was the reason Robin lost his wife. The only conflict was him waffling about his code and his duty to his wife, but that was resolved with him just deciding that his code really said he had to follow his heart. She didn't have to do anything. They didn't have anything else to work out. They built an arc around the quest to find the Author so Regina could get a happy ending, and that was resolved when she made a phone call and found out that "Marian" was really Zelena, so never mind about Operation Mongoose. Meanwhile, all the stuff they did on behalf of Operation Mongoose, like letting the Queens of Darkness (and Rumple) into town and reviving the Author, just caused problems for everyone else. They had to throw in Rumple's scheme to have anything actually going on in the Regina arc because they're apparently incapable of making her struggle for more than about 30 seconds.

 

Regina can be treated like a precious special snowflake who gets everything she wants, or she can get interesting stories and screentime. As it is, there's no way to make an arc centered around Regina interesting without a lot of subplots involving other characters or a real A plot that's working behind the scenes. "Character wants something, is sad for not having it, is given it with no effort on her part" isn't much of a story.

[Free]

Yes, that needed to be said.  Nimue's plan was stupid.  What happened to the plan of having Emma cut away all the light magic?  Why wouldn't Nimue get Dark Hook to do that first?  Suddenly, the plan changed to what Dark Ones have wanted "all along", which was to resurrect from the dead?  WTF?  

 

If Nimue was in Emma's head, wouldn't she be able to access Emma's plan to kill Zelena? Was she just not paying very close attention? If all past Dark Ones know all, why didn't HeroRumple immediately catch on to Nimue's ultimate plan?  

 

I don't know... isn't loving someone supposed to mean you would find it hard to kill them?  It sounded like Nimue enjoyed killing Merlin.   I have a hard time believing DarkNimue "loved" Merlin, despite the tragic flashback.  Then again, after Peter Pan was able to use Felix's heart, pretty much anything goes.

 

Dark Ones are supposed to be a group of the most manipulative and evil individuals. Yet they fall behind Nimue like sheep?  How did Nimue "die" anyway?  Is that not relevant?

 

Oh definitely, Nimue is such a waste, give her the backstory with Merlin only to make her a generic villain and then completely drop the ball with the DO army.  The DOs were so poorly executed and handled.

[KingOfHearts]

The hiatus is really starting to hit me. But in the mean time, I've gotten to the episode Tiny on my rewatch. It's a fairy forgettable episode that mostly acts as a filler adventure, but it's got some decent scenes and brings up a few good points. I don't find Anton or the giants very intriguing (even though it's Hurley), but I so want more of James and Jacqueline. They were enjoyably immoral. Fillers can be entertaining if the subject matter is, but I didn't really see that here.

 

Snow and Charming get a romantic stroll toward the end. I miss when they were treated as a couple and not just leaders of the pack, Emma's strained parents or Regina's backup singers. They had a chance here to talk about their feelings in a positive way. They weren't just tools for angst like in S4 or 5A. However, Charming mentions Emma doesn't have to go with them to live in the Enchanted Forest because "she can take care of herself". That's an odd thing to say so soon after meeting her. He adopts the same attitude in 3B, but then they didn't have the option to reunite with her outside of a curse. I guess I just didn't realize how long Snowing have been flip-flopping between wanting to be with their daughter and thinking she doesn't need them.

 

Still love the scenes with Rumple freaking out in the airport. I want to see more fairy tale characters struggle to deal with the real world. 

[Camera One]

Despite its flaws, back in Season 2, I felt that almost every episode had some nice moments or a subplot that I really enjoyed.  The number of these scenes for me have decreased in the recent seasons.  Snow and Charming in particular have ceased to be actual people.  They are treated as plot devices or exposition fairies.  A&E&J will no doubt point to their screentime and number of centrics, but for me, they have been the biggest casualties of these later seasons.

[Rumsy4]

Charming mentions Emma doesn't have to go with them to live in the Enchanted Forest because "she can take care of herself". That's an odd thing to say so soon after meeting her. He adopts the same attitude in 3B, but then they didn't have the option to reunite with her outside of a curse. I guess I just didn't realize how long Snowing have been flip-flopping between wanting to be with their daughter and thinking she doesn't need them.

 

Snow gets all the heat for being ready to leave her daughter behind anytime, but Charming has pretty much been the same. 

[coops]

The hiatus is really starting to hit me. But in the mean time, I've gotten to the episode Tiny on my rewatch. It's a fairy forgettable episode that mostly acts as a filler adventure, but it's got some decent scenes and brings up a few good points. I don't find Anton or the giants very intriguing (even though it's Hurley), but I so want more of James and Jacqueline. They were enjoyably immoral. Fillers can be entertaining if the subject matter is, but I didn't really see that here.

Snow and Charming get a romantic stroll toward the end. I miss when they were treated as a couple and not just leaders of the pack, Emma's strained parents or Regina's backup singers. They had a chance here to talk about their feelings in a positive way. They weren't just tools for angst like in S4 or 5A. However, Charming mentions Emma doesn't have to go with them to live in the Enchanted Forest because "she can take care of herself". That's an odd thing to say so soon after meeting her. He adopts the same attitude in 3B, but then they didn't have the option to reunite with her outside of a curse. I guess I just didn't realize how long Snowing have been flip-flopping between wanting to be with their daughter and thinking she doesn't need them.

Still love the scenes with Rumple freaking out in the airport. I want to see more fairy tale characters struggle to deal with the real world.

I liked the episode Tiny too. I liked how they gender flipped the character of Jack. Back then the show wove fairy tales into the plot with subtle twists here and there but still stayed pretty true to the fairy tales' iconic moments. Contrast that to the farce we got when we FINALLY got round to seeing the Sleeping Beauty story played out with Maleficent and all we got was one scene squished awkwardly into a Regina episode. The rest of Maleficent's story was all centered around the highly contrived 'Snow and Charming baby stealing' plot while all the other characters from Sleeping Beauty, most noteably the ones we'd already met like Aurora and Phillip, were totally ignored. A total waste.

I want to see fairy tale characters struggle with the real world too, indeed looking back that is probably why I love season one so much, that was my 'honeymoon period' with the show when I couldn't help but dream about what would happen when the characters got back their memories and had to deal with the fall out from that. In a way these characters hadn't seen each other for 28 years but apart from the opening scene in the first episode of season 2 (which was perfect) the characters acted as if they'd been cursed for the better part of an afternoon. Also the introduction of magic in Storybrooke literally made any possibility of fairy tale characters dealing with our world null and void. You still get the odd good moment, usually played for laughs, like the hilarious scene with Regina and her mother ("it's not an enchanted box it's a phone tap!") But I honestly expected more than just moments like those considering the whole premise of the show is fairytale characters in our world... the show doesn't really have a premise/theme anymore... the characters just blunder from one shiny new world to another.

[andromeda331]

Snow gets all the heat for being ready to leave her daughter behind anytime, but Charming has pretty much been the same.

You know your right but I think at least for me its because Emma and Snow build a really nice

friendship in season one. Followed by 2a of them in the Enchanted Forest together. We saw it

develop. That's what makes it so hard and kind of shocking to have Snow so easily wanting

to leave her daughter behind, or chatting with Regina as they stroll to save Emma. 

[Camera One]

That's another big missed opportunity during the missing year. It would have been interesting to see Neal and Regina both missing Henry while Snow and Charming were missing Emma. Instead of having them be almost immediately threatened by the Wicked Witch, even though she barely did anything to them for the rest of the year, we could have seen some (completely platonic, I am definitely not advocating for a Queenfire ship here) interaction between characters that rarely interacted.

That would have been interesting. There was so much material to mine with everyone returning to the EF, but clearly, A&E couldn't care less for organic character stories. They couldn't spare more than a minute on Snow and Charming dealing with losing Emma again, or Snow being back in her father's castle, or the two of them ruling again. With Neal, I think they were all about the "twist" that Neal was trapped in Rumple. They just wanted to dispose of the character as quickly as possible.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

That's another big missed opportunity during the missing year. It would have been interesting to see Neal and Regina both missing Henry while Snow and Charming were missing Emma. Instead of having them be almost immediately threatened by the Wicked Witch...

I just can't with how the characters handled the Missing Year. Years before, the kingdom(s) is terrorized by Regina. Then a conquest happens, then Regina curses everyone. Then for nearly 30 years, everyone is oppressed under the Dark Curse. After Emma breaks it, Regina attempts to kill everyone. Then when they're about to get cursed again, Regina rips the original curse thereby forcing everyone to go back to their homeland. (Which is now in shambles.) So after all that happens, nobody bats an eye at Snow and Charming leading the kingdom with Regina by their side. And what's even stranger is that she was totally fine with hanging out and following their command for a year. How did all that work exactly?

Think about how fast-paced story development is in the present. Everything happens within a matter of days and all the characters sort of forget what just transpired because they've already moved on to the next thing. The Missing Year was 52 weeks, so a lot should of happened. A few things did, like Snow got pregnant and Neal resurrected Rumple, but only within the first three months. Did nothing happen in the other nine? Why aren't the characters closer to each other since they've all been living under one roof for that long? How the heck did they run a kingdom with Snow, Charming and the Evil Queen working together?

Sometimes the writing is too stupid to live.

Edited January 16, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

From the Unpopular Opinions thread:

Personally I don't think S2 gets enough credit. Most of it is miles above 3B, S4 and 5A. In some ways, I find it more enjoyable to watch than some S1 episodes. The character balance is usually on par, which I really can't say for what's happening nowadays. More importantly, the story is much closer to what the show is about and the "magic" is still there. It introduces new tales while following up on old ones. Overall it's much better this rewatch than I remembered it to be.

I'm not sure why it gets all the flack it does after all the crap that's happened since. It does have three major flaws - Woegina, the lack of Snowing/Emma payoff, and the Greg/Tamara plot. All of that comes into play in 2B, though.

I think the sidelining of Emma in 2B left the main story a mess because they didn't have a focus for their non-existent overarching story. Emma's large amount of screentime in the show happens because she's the facilitator of the story. Unlike most of the other characters, Emma's role is usually less about her and more about furthering the plot and when she was removed from having a major role, they lost the ability to tell a cohesive story. 2B had Lacey and Neal and Greg and Tamara and Pinocchio and Hook and Cora and Tiny and there was no Emma tying it all together. S1 had a bunch of random characters' stories, but Emma was always there to tie them into the main plot, even if it was only done tangentially. The stories were very rarely about Emma herself, but she was necessary to maintain coherency in the main plot.

2B didn't really have a main plot at all and that's why it struggled. The story lines were all disparate and there really wasn't a major plot. What was the main goal or theme of 2B? There wasn't one. It was just a jumble of random stories. 2B was further derailed by the lack of payoff for Emma's story and the betrayals by August, Neal, Geppetto, Jiminy and the Blue Fairy, as well as by completely ignoring the Rumpel/Bae relationship, which had been the impetus for the entire freaking story in the first place.

Edited January 16, 2016 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

The advantage of having a full year in 3B, is that they could have shown day-to-day life, compared to the condensed timeline in Camelot. There were tons of problems that Snow, Charming, Regina, etc. would all have been dealing with. The post-apocalyptic world from 2A would have needed a lot of rebuilding. Why did they need to immediately eliminate the Ogre problem? So they could have Aurora and Philip betray everyone and then be turned into Winged Monkeys? With all the practical (and emotional) challenges of returning to the EF, they wouldn't have needed to create dumb irrelevant dead-ends like "The Tower", completely skipping any adjustment back to life in the EF.

They didn't even need to have Zelena muahahahing away within the second episode of 3B. They could have revealed her to be the villain midway through the half-season, and then tell her story without the snoozeworthy oversaturation. By skipping the other nine months, the plot was even harder to swallow, like saying that Snowing and Regina tried "everything" so the only alternative left was to cast the Dark Curse. The Apprentice didn't feel like stepping up and offering a Door because...? Again, it was obvious that A&E thought little beyond the "twist" that Snow cast the dreaded Dark Curse.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

2B didn't really have a main plot at all and that's why it struggled. The story lines were all disparate and there really wasn't a major plot.

Before Cora's death it was pretty straightforward like 2A. 2B would have been a lot stronger if Cora had stuck around clear up to 2x22. She was a strong enough Big Bad to hold her own for a full season, imo.

I think the sidelining of Emma in 2B left the main story a mess because they didn't have a focus for their non-existent overarching story.

Emma got shuffled off to Hallmark Movie World with love triangles, evil fiances, and old flame issues. She didn't have any real angst going for her other than conflicting feelings about Neal. Besides being suspicious of Tamara, she had no substantial involvement in the main crisis. In fact, no one did besides Regina and Hook. They could have at least given her a subplot revolving around her parents wanting to move to EF and how she felt about it. That's barely touched on with what we actually get.

Why did they need to immediately eliminate the Ogre problem?

If we actually saw Aurora and Philip's dealings with Zelena it could have been interesting. The "betrayal" is heavily downplayed and really had no point other than to explain why they didn't say anything immediately about Zelena. (To prolong the Wicked Witch reveal.) Who gives a flip that they got turned into Flying Monkeys, anyway? Snow and the gang didn't, so why should we?

Again, it was obvious that A&E thought little beyond the "twist" that Snow cast the dreaded Dark Curse.

"Ooo - wouldn't it be cray cray if Snow White cast the curse? She'd be as dark as Regina!"

"But wait - she has to give up the thing she loves most. We can't kill off Charming."

"What if we gave her a long-lost lover?"

"Do we really want to waste money on casting someone? Lumiere is more important."

"I know! She splits her heart in half and gives a piece to Charming. True Love conquers all."

"Shocking twist and no consequences? We're so brilliant. No wonder they call us Master Storytellers."

Edited January 16, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

With Cora returning, it's a good time to bring up the circumstances of her departure. I believe we're all pretty one-note when it comes to how awful the aftermath was. But I actually think 2x16 itself handles Snow's conflict well. Snow White, one of the most iconically pure figures in pop culture, was contemplating murder. This wasn't some faceless guard, either - it was the mother of someone she's known her whole life. So whether the killing was justified or not, it was going to be taxing on the human spirit. At the time, Snow was also dealing the fact that goodness doesn't always turn things for the better. It was as if everything she knew was a lie. For these reasons I can see why this was so upsetting for her.

 

However, the ending of the episode was a total misdirect. Regina is holding her mother's dead body, looks up to Snow in fury and says, "You did this." To me that is a catalyst for a reignited revenge plot. Heck, earlier they even directly refer to the Stable Boy through flashbacks. But that's not what we get. We get Snow groveling and Regina doing nothing because of the dreaded black spot. It's a lame cop-out to avoid a storyline that would distract from Greg and Tamara. Snow's guilt isn't explored beyond weeping and self-loathing. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think Cora's death could have been interesting if it wasn't made to assassinate Snow or give Regina the reason to use the failsafe because plot demanded it.

 

It's everything after 2x16 that's quit-watching level bad. However, I don't hate the base concept of Snow making a difficult decision and dealing with the consequences. The execution just failed it.

Edited January 17, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

 

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think Cora's death could have been interesting if it wasn't made to assassinate Snow or give Regina the reason to use the failsafe because plot demanded it.

 

It's everything after 2x16 that's quit-watching level bad. However, I don't hate the base concept of Snow making a difficult decision and dealing with the consequences. The execution just failed it.

 

That seems about right, I'm disappointed in where it all ended up, Snow and Charming got sidelined so badly and they barely even interact with Emma anymore.

 

2x16 was definitely a turning point for the worse for them.

[Shanna Marie]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think Cora's death could have been interesting if it wasn't made to assassinate Snow or give Regina the reason to use the failsafe because plot demanded it.

Was Cora's death even the reason for the failsafe? I thought that largely came about because Regina discovered the bean field and assumed it meant they were all going to go back to the Enchanted Forest with Henry and leave her behind. I'm sure the death also contributed, as it meant Regina felt justified in killing everyone, but her rationale when the plot was revealed was that they were going to leave her behind.

 

Anyway, that particular plot line seems to have been a turning point in the show. They'd already started the Victim Regina stuff, but this story seems to have been a pivotal point between what it had the potential to be and what it turned out to be. I may be a terrible person, but I was thrilled when Snow decided she would have to kill Cora. There may even have been a fist pump. That seemed to be a sign that they were going to deal with the idea of fairy tales vs. reality (though, actually, in fairy tales the villains were given horrible fates by the heroes, so the whole "heroes have to be pure" thing is new), that Snow had finally wised up and realized that hope and faith and being nice wasn't going to cut it, and she owed it to her people to take out the villain instead of being a doormat. Fairy tale Snow White is one of the most passive characters around, always needing to be rescued, first by the huntsman and then multiple times by the dwarfs and finally by the prince because she was so dumb and trusting that she kept ignoring all the precautions that came from knowing there was someone out there who wanted to kill her and fell for the evil queen's schemes every single time. They made our Snow a bandit, but she actually wasn't much better. She must have succeeded in something, since they managed to capture Regina at least once and won the war, but all that happened offscreen. What we saw was Snow caving every single time with Regina. She apologized and groveled and showed mercy, and it never did any good. With Cora, there was an immediate threat to the entire community, and Cora had proved she couldn't be trusted or negotiated with. Snow had finally got her head out of the happy dream world clouds, wised up and was toughening up enough to deal with reality.

 

That showed so much promise in the "these aren't the fairy tales you thought you knew" realm. The most passive princess was stepping up and rescuing an entire community from a villain instead of being so sweet that someone else had to swoop in and rescue her (and do the dirty work of dealing with the villains for her). There's a lot of talk lately about the "strong female character" and "Trinity syndrome," in which Hollywood thinks they're creating strong female characters by having women with martial arts skills who get to do something really badass as a character introduction, but then from that point on they mostly just provide set decoration and make no decisions and take no actions that affect the plot. "Bandit Snow" is a lot like that -- she gets that badass introduction. Aren't they daring and modern, making Snow White into a bow-wielding bandit? Except she doesn't actually do much of anything "strong." She makes sappy speeches and lets the villains go after apologizing for her own wrongs. Snow killing Cora before Cora could become the next Dark One or control the Dark One actually made Snow a strong character.

 

But instead of going that route, they had her grovel, did the dark spot stuff, made Regina out to be the victim and wronged party. Snow still would have felt bad because she's a good person and killing shouldn't be easy, but although she talked about how there should have been another way, there really wasn't. We got trite moralisms like "heroes don't kill people" and Victim Regina, and acting like a normal human being with normal human emotions and responses to being wronged was a sign of a dark heart. And we got the show we got.

[KingOfHearts]

Killing Cora was an early-on contribution to the failsafe reasoning is what I meant. Directly after her mother dies, Regina proclaims over her coffin that "I will find a way to have everything!" and begins a quest to get Henry back while also getting revenge. It all escalates from there.

Edited January 18, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

I do agree that season 2 gets a bad rap. 2A, the Team Princess arc, is one of my favorite arcs in the series now. I was a bit disappointed with it when it first aired because it wasn't what I wanted to see at that time. I was looking forward to the fairy tale characters living in modern America now that they knew they were fairy tale characters, Regina getting a big comeuppance, and the Charming family being reunited, so I was disappointed when none of that really happened. In retrospect, now that my expectations have been adjusted, I quite like that arc. We got some good fairy tale mashup stuff with Mulan, Snow White, and Aurora having an adventure together and running into Captain Hook. We got Emma and Snow bonding and the culture clash with Emma seeing the fairy tale world. I liked the ogre-ridden postapocalyptic landscape of the post-curse Enchanted Forest. Cora made a good villain, and Hook kept us guessing while adding a ton of energy. Back in Storybrooke, it was good to see David getting a role out of Snow's shadow, and I loved his bonding with Henry. Regina seemed to be on a good redemption course with some self-awareness.

 

And then it completely cratered. I don't know what happened, if the dropping ratings made someone panic, if the ADD kicked in, or what, but the second half of the season is mostly a mess. There were some good things, but they were thrown into the blender with a bunch of other nonsense. There were too many plotlines that were only loosely linked, and each of these plotlines involved totally different characters, so it's like there were about four different shows playing out. They lost the plot entirely in turning Regina into a victim, and pairing her up with Cora ruined her redemption arc. That scene in the clock tower where Cora killed Johanna in spite of Snow giving her what she demanded and then confessed to having set everything up, going back to Eva's death, should have been a turning point for Regina, in which she realized that it was her mother who'd been behind everything all along, and Cora, not Snow, was responsible for Daniel's death and that Snow had been manipulated just the way she had been. But for her to be there for that moment and still blame Snow for Cora's death and Daniel's death, it makes her look really bad (and how was it okay for her to want revenge on Snow for Daniel's death but not okay for Snow to kill Cora when Cora killed Snow's mother and nurse?). There was promise in the anti-magic plotline, but that got turned into poor victim Regina. After all the buildup about Rumple doing all this to find his son, he found him and then got sidetracked by his girlfriend with amnesia. So in the second half of the season we had:

1. Cora scheming to manipulate Regina and take the Dark One Power
2. Hook trying to get his revenge on Rumple
3. Rumple trying to find his long-lost son
4. Rumple struggling with Belle's amnesia and new personality
5. Neal turning out to be Rumple's son, and Henry's biological father now being in his life
6. The bean field growing, with discussions/debates about going home
7. Greg and Tamara and the Home Office
8. Snow killing Cora and getting the dark spot on her heart
9. Regina scheming to kill everyone with the failsafe

 

It makes 4B look logical and coherent.

[Free]

 

I do agree that season 2 gets a bad rap.

 

IA, I was fine with 2a, it's 2b where it became messy but that pales in comparison to how it is now.

[andromeda331]

and how was it okay for her to want revenge on Snow for Daniel's death but not okay for Snow to kill Cora when Cora killed Snow's mother and nurse=

Oh, yes that drives me crazy. Cora killed her mother and her nurse, then was going to kill her family, 

the only way to stop her was to kill her. And yet somehow that's taking the easy way out? And later

when Snow goes to Regina's house and offers up her heart, to kill her. To the woman who murdered

her father, stole her kingdom, ripped her away from her husband and daughter, cursed an entire

town and murdered who knows how many millions of people. And recently had joined her mother

to murder her son's entire family again and take him.

[Free]

Oh, yes that drives me crazy. Cora killed her mother and her nurse, then was going to kill her family, 

the only way to stop her was to kill her. And yet somehow that's taking the easy way out? And later

when Snow goes to Regina's house and offers up her heart, to kill her. To the woman who murdered

her father, stole her kingdom, ripped her away from her husband and daughter, cursed an entire

town and murdered who knows how many millions of people. And recently had joined her mother

to murder her son's entire family again and take him.

 

Whatever was left of Snow's character plummeted since then, she's barely even relevant anymore as it is.

[Shanna Marie]

Thinking more on the relative ranking of seasons, I've realized that as bad and disjointed as 2B was, at least it mattered. If you skipped the entire half season, you'd be pretty lost for a lot of stuff that comes later. Rumple found his son and they learned that Rumple's son was Henry's father, which affected both Rumple's and Hook's feelings about Henry. Hook thought he got his revenge on Rumple and decided revenge was pointless. Snow killed Cora (and we'll never hear the end of that). Regina made her final turn to good (she may not have a satisfying redemption arc and she may still say awful things and be totally lacking in empathy and self awareness, but I have to admit that after the end of season 2, she's been firmly on the side of the good guys). Belle getting a cursed personality meant she went from "OMG! They put ice in tea here!" to being an expert Internet researcher.

 

But you could skip all of 4B -- heck, all of season four -- up to that last couple of minutes in which the Darkness is sucked out of Rumple and Emma takes it on, and the only thing you might find mildly confusing in season five would be how Zelena came back and why she's pregnant with Robin's baby. The one other thing might be Henry talking about being the Author, but that hasn't actually mattered other than him being able to access Merlin's voice mail. Hook and Emma's relationship would seem to jump from first real kiss to "I love you" and he's changed into modern clothes, but that's the kind of thing you would assume if you knew about three months had passed since the end of season three. Nothing else that happened in the entire season had any lasting impact. Belle may have caught Rumple red-handed in an evil scheme and kicked him out of town, but she's right back with him and all worried about him at the end of the season. Regina may have been horrified at Marian's return at the end of season 3, but things are all okay with her and Robin and Marian's out of the picture at the end of season 4.

 

None of 4B's plots really went anywhere, other than Rumple's darkening heart resulting in free range Darkness. Regina's situation that led to Operation Mongoose was resolved with a phone call that had nothing to do with Operation Mongoose and an epiphany related to Regina's past that she could have remembered at any time. Her search for the Author and even finding the Author ended up meaning absolutely nothing to her. The only way the Author plot had any impact was Rumple's version of Operation Mongoose, which was bad and had to be stopped (even though it was the exact same thing Regina wanted, and his reasons were actually less selfish since he was trying to make it so that the Darkness wouldn't just kill him and take him over to be an even bigger threat). The "make Emma dark" plot went nowhere. Emma's pre-natal darkectomy ended up not mattering at all and wasn't even mentioned as a factor in her ability to hold off the Darkness. Maleficent and Lily dropped off the face of the earth without a single mention. I hold out hope that we'll run into Poseidon and Ursula again as powerful allies now that Hook has helped them, but they haven't been mentioned since then. Snow had to take over as mayor but then that was reset in a montage. I guess Emma's more in control of her powers after the Elsa arc, but even that wouldn't confuse someone who'd watched season 3, with the episode about Emma learning to control her powers.

 

Plus, there were good episodes in 2B, even if the arc was kind of a mess, while there's not much to salvage from 4B. I liked the Ursula and Cruella episodes, but even the big finale was mostly annoying. In 4A, there were good scenes, but there wasn't one particular episode I'd point to as outstanding.

 

So I have to rank all of season 4 as the worst so far.

[coops]

Season 4 was the worst. In 2B I still tuned in live every week in 4B I didnt and even bow I haven't caught up with all the episodes, a few I've totally skipped.

[Curio]

You're not missing much, coops. In hindsight, I wish I could have skipped straight from 4x04 to 5x01. 

[KingOfHearts]

I agree that most of S4 was a complete waste of time. Frozen was watchable for the first half, but then it began to drag once you realized how irrelevant it was to everything else. The momentum walks straight into death in 4x05, then the important story elements resume in 4x08/4x09. But by then, the audience was pretty much done with Frozen and got sick of the lack of focus on our main characters. By 4x10, when we get the Ingrid/Emma flashbacks (which I had been waiting for), the ship had very much sailed. Shattered Sight was disappointing and added nothing but forced giggles. I'd only recommend watching 4A if you're a fan of Elizabeth Mitchell or Frozen. It really did nothing for the show as a whole except develop CS and OQ a little more.

 

4B did a lot more while also accomplishing less. It had so many plots going at one time and jumped back and forth between them every week. It's about the Queens of Darkness! No wait it's about Eggnappers! Lily! Isaac! The writers had so many ideas but had no idea how to go about them. They wanted to introduce new characters, like Cruella and Ursula, but they also wanted some old ones to return. (Like August and Maleficent.) However, so much time was wasted on pointless flashbacks (4x13, 4x14, 4x20) that the audience was totally turned off. What's funny is that the entire point of 4B was Operation Mongoose, but Regina ended up getting sidelined hard. And at the end of it, she didn't even care about the Author. So her entire subplot through all of S4 was for nothing and did squat for her development.

 

This is just speculation (not spoiler-influenced), but I believe 5B will work similarly to 4B.

[Curio]

What's funny is that the entire point of 4B was Operation Mongoose, but Regina ended up getting sidelined hard.

 

Do you mean sidelined as in lack of screen time or lack of a decent storyline? If it's amount of screen time, I have to disagree. (The 4B premiere was all about Regina fearing the Chernabog was after her, there was that pointless Maleficent flashback with Regina—not to mention her whole subplot with Maleficent in Storybrooke, there was that entire episode where everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off because Regina didn't check in after her evil slumber party, there was an entire subplot about Regina working undercover, every other sentence uttered by Emma or Snow was about giving Regina her happy ending, she got to go on a road trip outside of Storybrooke, and then a huge portion of the finale was about Regina playing the lead role of "Snow" after spending the entire season looking for the author. 4B was huge on Regina.) But if we're talking about a genuinely good storyline that helped her character development, then yes, that got sidelined.

[Camera One]

I wonder if the events of 5A would even matter in the long-run.  By the end of the 5A finale... Emma was back to her old self, and Rumple was The Dark One again, back with Belle.  Regina, Snow and Charming did not change or develop in any way.  Robin had a new baby, but you wouldn't know it since he's off-screen.

 

Someone could have skipped the 4B finale and 5A, and all they would need to know is Hook "died" and they are going to the Underworld to save him.  They wouldn't need to know about Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, Nimue, Merida, The Broken Excalibur, The Fake Helmet, The Big Mushroom, The All-Seeing Dreamcatchers or The Gooey Black "Darkness".

Edited January 22, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

 

Do you mean sidelined as in lack of screen time or lack of a decent storyline? .... But if we're talking about a genuinely good storyline that helped her character development, then yes, that got sidelined.

Very little of 4B was actually about Regina herself, is what I mean. She almost always was there to prop up other storylines. She spent most of her time brooding over losing Robin. 4x20 and her dream were about all the focus she got. Her scenes with Maleficent were only to give Maleficent a centric and the Zelena drama was just that - Zelena drama. 

[YaddaYadda]

4B from 4x12 all the way to about mid-4x20 was a huge filler. 4x20 gave us the ink made from Lily's blood, and that was the end of that. I still don't understand how no one pointed out that Ursula got her happy ending. 4B made the characters look like a bunch of morons for buying into the whole OM, and thinking someone will write you your happy ending.

[Rumsy4]

The fact that none of the characters questioned Regina's idiotic plan made the whole premise beyond stupid. And at the last minute, a random flashback with Cora is used to give Regina her epiphany.

[YaddaYadda]

So question; because I started a re-watch of 5A, and I'm literally at the start of 5x01 when Merlin is warning little Emma not to pull the sword out of the stone.

 

Did they ever explain why she wasn't supposed to pull it out? Because he did warn her once more not to do it, I think that was at the end of 5x06.

 

So that brings me to this. If he knows that she shouldn't be pulling Excalibur out of the stone, then he must know putting it back together in 5x08 will fail. What was that production all about?

 

The only thing I'm getting as far as consequences for Emma pulling Excalibur out of the stone is that she reforged it into the sword it was before Nimue broke it, and Hook died because of it, and Gold sucked the darkness back into him and is now a super powerful Dark One.

 

I still don't get it.

 

I'm questioning my decision to do this re-watch.

[KingOfHearts]

 

The fact that none of the characters questioned Regina's idiotic plan made the whole premise beyond stupid.

Geppetto did, but only because plot demanded conflict so Regina could get a sticker. Five minutes later his opinion didn't matter.

 

 

Did they ever explain why she wasn't supposed to pull it out? Because he did warn her once more not to do it, I think that was at the end of 5x06.

I was wondering the same thing. When Emma finally pulls it out (5x07), she's like, "Wait - didn't Merlin tell me not to do this?" then she does it anyway. But I don't see how it would have been any better if she left herself and Hook as Dark Ones. 

Edited January 25, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

The way it should have turned out, Emma was right to reunite the blades. With Hook's (or Emma's) death, the Dark One would have been gone forever and the mess Merlin created would have been fixed. None of the Merlin stuff makes any sense. If he saw many different paths for Emma, why would he tell her as a young child not to pull Excalibur? If he only saw bits and pieces, why was he even inserting himself into anything? Why did he have a mansion? Why did he leave the hat sitting there? Why did he send Ingrid to mess up Emma's life? Why did he create the author? How was he planning the removal of the Darkness without killing Emma? Rewatching 5A must be very frustrating if you try to make any rational sense of Merlin's actions. I liked him, but he was a massive fuck up and I feel less bad about his death since he was responsible for the original Dark One and the destruction of countless lives. He needed to be stopped.

[Camera One]

And if he could astro-project out of the tree to the World Without Magic to warn Emma about the Sword, why didn't he astro-project to give Arthur a bit more info about the broken sword?  Why didn't he astro-project to warn his own Apprentice about half the bad things that was going to happen?  It's beyond nonsensical.  

[YaddaYadda]

Rewatching 5A must be very frustrating if you try to make any rational sense of Merlin's actions. I liked him, but he was a massive fuck up and I feel less bad about his death since he was responsible for the original Dark One and the destruction of countless lives. He needed to be stopped.

 

Merlin for me is a case of I liked the character because the actor really brought it. Elliot Knight is a very talented young actor. 

 

But Merlin is a total douche and failure as the most powerful sorcerer ever. He tried to manipulate people and events to fit his visions. He tried to fill in the blanks, and everyone was a piece of chess he moved. For me there isn't a huge difference between Rumple and Merlin. 

 

Incidentally, Merlin was also a shit boyfriend who projected his failed relationship onto Emma. If the character was played by a less capable actor, I would probably have hated his ass.

[Curio]

Did they ever explain why she wasn't supposed to pull it out? Because he did warn her once more not to do it, I think that was at the end of 5x06.

They never actually came out and said Merlin's exact reason, but because Adam challenges us to "fill in the holes" all the time, this is the best I can come up with:

I have a feeling Merlin could see brief glimpses of the future, and in one of his premonitions, he saw a future path where Hook and Nimue had control of Excalibur and were ready to bring about destruction. However, his vision went fuzzy after that because that's when Hook's heel-face-turn comes in and controlling his own destiny changed the course of the future. So Merlin sees this terrible plan about to happen, sees the bad guys holding Excalibur, and sees Emma about to die. Obviously, all of these visions can be avoided if no one freaking pulls the sword from the stone in the first place, so I'm guessing that's why Merlin was so adamant about telling Emma that she shouldn't pull it.

 

And if he could astro-project out of the tree to the World Without Magic to warn Emma about the Sword, why didn't he astro-project to give Arthur a bit more info about the broken sword?  Why didn't he astro-project to warn his own Apprentice about half the bad things that was going to happen?  It's beyond nonsensical.

Another viewer-fills-in-the-blank moment brought to you by Adam & Eddy:

Merlin had a very limited capacity for magic when he was stuck inside the tree for centuries. It probably took him years and years just to build up enough magical energy to visit Emma when she was in that movie theater, so he put all his eggs in one basket and decided to only show up then. Ideally, he probably wanted to visit Emma when she was older, but realm/time travel is a bitch.

Edited January 25, 2016 by Curio

[PixiePaws1]

I was rewatching "Think Lovely Thoughts " and was reminded of what an outstanding job Stephen Lord did, and the astounding gravity that Robbie Kay gives Pan in the confrontation with his son...this is a young man playing a character with a very complicated psyche that includes major pieces of a much older man he once was and pulling it off beautifully .

.......and then there was the moment that the show turned into Saturday morning cartoonland...at least for me..

because it was just so damn STUPID! !! Instead of going with a perfectly credible option of moving clouds in front of the sun....Emma and Regina cause an eclipse? ???!!!! I can only imagine what the actors thought of that ridiculousness! !

Edited January 26, 2016 by PixiePaws1

[HoodlumSheep]

I was always confused about the excalibur warning too. Because he was aiding them to put excalibur back together. Why would he do that if excalibur wasn't supposed to be removed from the stone and he literally reminded Emma about his warning in the previous episode.?

[Curio]

I was always confused about the excalibur warning too. Because he was aiding them to put excalibur back together. Why would he do that if excalibur wasn't supposed to be removed from the stone and he literally reminded Emma about his warning in the previous episode.?

 

Merlin can see bits and pieces of the future, but he can also see the different paths the future can take. In one path, he saw Emma forging the sword and dagger together, which was technically a good thing for her because it meant she could be freed from the darkness. That was Premonition #1 he was trying to make happen to help Emma, but he didn't see the detail about Hook being scratched with the sword. That Premonition #1 plan failed because Emma decided to tether Killian to the sword instead of freeing herself of the darkness. (There might have even been a premonition he foresaw where Emma allowed Killian to die and she freed herself of the darkness.) Merlin also happened to see a darker path where Dark Emma pulled the sword out of the stone in Storybrooke (a path he was trying to avoid by trying to convince Emma to forge the sword and dagger together back in Camelot), which lead to all the chaos with Nimue and Hook nearly destroying everything. That was Premonition #2 he was trying to avoid.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Curio

[YaddaYadda]

I still think his ass lied, saw Hook become the Dark One and decided he should let him die after his neck wound started to bleed. I think he underestimated the lengths Emma was willing to go to to save Hook's life.

[Dianthus]

Well, damn A & E anyway! It's literally their fcking job to make this shit work, not ours. They're the ones getting paid for it! Assholes.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Dianthus

[Camera One]

My friend is back in town for a visit, so we marathoned two episodes tonight. "The Bear King" and "Broken Heart".  My friend commented that the Merida episode seemed like quite a detour.  Her reaction was pretty similar to mine the first time... who the hell is that other woman with Merida (WTF that's her mother?) and she found it unrealistic how Zelena didn't get rid of Merida, Red and Mulan easily before they said Boo.  

 

"The Bear King" wasn't horrible.  I still think Merida would have been fine if this were her only episode, since the scenes with her father were pretty good.  She was back to being abrasive and pointless in the next one.  

 

I liked "Broken Heart" the first time I think, but it really bored me this second time.  All the screaming between various characters were giving me a headache.  None of the character interactions were enjoyable.  My friend asked out loud how Nimue was supposed to help (since they replayed Merlin giving that "Find Nimue" Obi-Wan Kinobe message AND had Snow repeat that Merlin wanted them to find Nimue... why include that dialogue if it was nonsensical and surely they knew one episode from the finale that it would come to nothing?).  

Edited January 31, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

 

"The Bear King" wasn't horrible.  I still think Merida would have been fine if this were her only episode, since the scenes with her father were pretty good.  She was back to being abrasive and pointless in the next one.

I didn't think all the Bear King was bad either. Fergus and the Witch were done pretty well and fairly respectful of the movie. The episode suffers from its placement in the line-up of episodes, the fact its Merida's second centric, and shoehorning in characters that have little to do with the main plot or even the plot of the one-off. (Ruby and Mulan.) At the time of its airing, we were all still flabbergasted by the events of 5x08. 

 

 

I liked "Broken Heart" the first time I think, but it really bored me this second time.  All the screaming between various characters were giving me a headache.  None of the character interactions were enjoyable.

 

That's how I feel about Manhattan. If you're not anticipating the shocking meeting with Rumple, Emma and Neal, it's really just a bunch of yelling about soap opera drama. Everyone gets mad at everyone and the flashbacks are just as disheartening. 

[KAOS Agent]

Huh. I like "Manhattan" because it felt like the only time Emma (or any character not named Regina) was actually able to have angry feelings and express them without the show acting like it was a bad thing.  Granted, they didn't let it last, but she at least got to yell at someone who screwed her over. And Neal got to call out his father for the crap he pulled too. Compare that with 4.05 where Regina screams at Emma for the entire episode claiming that Emma ruined her life and Emma just takes it. I'll take the yelling in "Manhattan" any time. At least it was deserved.