A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Rumsy4]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

At the very least, bring back Percival and the Fury into play as many have suggested, as a step towards redemption for Regina for the former, and as a reason why Robin Hood died (again) in the latter.

Percival should totally have been in the Underworld and confronted Regina. Lbr, he probably would have ended up in the river of fire, but he could have given an ominous warning that no price had been payed for saving Robin's life. That would have been a callback to Camelot, and a foreshadowing of Robin's death. 

Edited May 15, 2016 by Rumsy4

[Mari]

Well, yes, but then people wouldn't have blamed Hook/Emma for Robin dying, and would minimize sympathy from the audience when they're expecting the Regina Tears to have a serious impact.

[Camera One]

Sadly, that's likely true.  The point was to drum up angst and conflict.  I guess we will find out tonight.

[Camera One]

Their bringing back the Dragon again revealed how pointless their cameos are.  His reappearance does not enlighten what happened back in Season 2.  He didn't actually explain how he survived Tamara's taser.  We still have no idea what the hell he does in NYC, who he is, and where he's from.  He has zero ties to any character (I was thinking maybe he was from the Mulan story).  His whole "Magic is in NYC if you know where to look" might as well be written on some tourism ad.  He just ended up being yet another convenient victim of The Evil Queen.   What was the point?

[scenicbyway]

I can't reconcile Henry's whole "my dad was on a quest to destroy magic and told me all about it in the 2 days I knew him" with Neal having no unfinished business, thus not being in the Underworld. Destroying all magic sounds like a lot of unfinished business and I think it's sad that Neal was so "finished" it never mattered that he said goodbye to his son.

 

*Not a Neal fan but if they're going to keep bringing him back and up for plot, they should think it through.

Edited May 17, 2016 by scenicbyway

[Camera One]

Just commenting on the poll on the best and worst episodes of Season 5.

I see that "The Bear King" got the brunt of the hate and so far is voted the worst episode of the season.  To me, "The Bear and the Bow" was much worse, as Merida was more abrasive, and the utterly ridiculous and unconvincing "Make Rumple into a Hero!" subplot was front and center.  Yes, "The Bear King" was filler and completely disconnected from the previous episode, but I liked the relationship between Merida and her father, while it was fun to see Red and Mulan again.  As a standalone story, it wasn't that bad, while "The Bear and the Bow" was poorly written all-round.

I actually found it very, very difficult to decide which was the "best" episode.  

Edited May 20, 2016 by Camera One

[YaddaYadda]

I wish I could choose more than one episode as the worst of the season. The choice was difficult.

[Camera One]

I forgot that the 2-hour finale was actually two episodes, I think "An Untold Story" (the 2nd hour) was way worse than "Only You".  "An Untold Story" may be a close second for  the worst episode in my books.

Just to clarify, I found it hard to find a best episode, NOT because I loved so many and had a lot of favorites.  More like the opposite, LOL.

[Rumsy4]

18 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I see that "The Bear King" got the brunt of the hate and so far is voted the worst episode of the season.  To me, "The Bear and the Bow" was much worse, as Merida was more abrasive, and the utterly ridiculous and unconvincing "Make Rumple into a Hero!" subplot was front and center.  Yes, "The Bear King" was filler and completely disconnected from the previous episode, but I liked the relationship between Merida and her father, while it was fun to see Red and Mulan again.  As a standalone story, it wasn't that bad, while "The Bear and the Bow" was poorly written all-round.

I agree. the placement of the Bear King was terrible, but it wasn't as bad as The Bear and the Bow. I think Ruby Slippers was worse than either of them. Ultimately, however, I decided not to choose any of the pocket episodes for the "worst" title. It comes down to Her Handsome Hero and Untold Story for me. I ended up voting for HHH, but I may change my vote to the last episode.

For best episode, I went with Birth, but Nimue and Last Rites are a close second. 

[Mathius]

I voted Last Rites for best, though Nimue, Birth and Firebird are all contenders too.

My least favorite would have to be The Price.  Everything wrong with how Regina is written is on full display in this single episode.

[Camera One]

I liked parts of episodes, but it was hard to find episodes where everything was good.  I was trying to find my favorite episode for Snow/Charming/Emma, but really, that was impossible.

So I ended up choosing the episode which I found the most emotionally affecting, and I think that might have been "Nimue".  Which is strange given the main focus were guest stars.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Camera One

[Curio]

For me, it was a toss up between "Birth" and "Last Rights" for best episode. I ultimately had to go with "Birth" because I felt like both the Storybrooke and Camelot plots were equally strong, and the twist of seeing Dark Hook rise from the ground literally made me gasp. Any time a TV show is able to get that kind of visceral reaction out of me, it's good.

Least favorite went to "Only You" just because I've never recoiled at a scene as much as I did during Regina's Pity Party in Neal's apartment. The 100th episode was close behind it.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Curio

[TheGreenKnight]

"Our Decay" was my favorite episode of the season, then "Nimue." "Last Rites," "Birth," and the Fall and Spring finales were other episodes that come to mind. OD just really sold me on Zades, to the point it was hard to see it end in "LR." "Nimue" would be second for me just for the scene of Emma and the vein in her forehead alone.

"The Bear King," and the two Rumbelle episodes (the first with Merida the bear and Gaston) were the worst, imo. I don't like Brave and I hated the over-involvement of it in the show, even if Merida's actress wasn't so bad.

Edited May 20, 2016 by TheGreenKnight

[InsertWordHere]

It was an easy choice for me. Birth is the best episode of the season. I loved everything about it, especially as it managed to surprise even those of us who were spoiled. 

Only You got my vote for worst, even with the great reveal shot and awesome theme music of the Untold Stories World.

I said it was easy, but then I remembered how much I disliked the 100th episode. Hmm. I suppose Cora and the moving Henry I and II meeting makes up for the dreadful Jiminy in Snow's dress scene. Yeah, I still say Only You is worse. I actually liked it more than Untold Stories, but the attitudes of both Regina and Henry, complete with bonus Neal sanctifying, and the lack of reaction to Hook's return, ruined the whole hour for me. The pacing for the portal scene was seriously wacky. And, oh yeah, the cute hobbit left our screens and shared a hug with the woman who killed his mom and pretended to be her. Yeah, it's definitely the worst. 

[KingOfHearts]

It's difficult to put in words why I'm so displeased with the show right now. I've never been so close to quit watching it. (Not even with Merida, Operation Stupid, etc.) Everything just feels so cheap now. The Evil Queen coming back doesn't do anything for me since she's not a product of Regina's regression. She's a contrived scenery chewer standing in for the redeemed Mills sisters. While the literary characters are intriguing, I don't expect much from this show. The finale threw around so much pointlessness and so little substance that my interest was lost altogether. There's no structure, no balance, and next to zero characterization. It's been that way for a while, but not as highlighted as it was in the S5 finale.

It's a fight between Captain Swan, Regina, Rumpbelle and the guest characters for spotlight. Viewers are being jerked around depending on how the writers feel that day. I can't root for these characters because they get sidelined in the rotation so frequently. The different story threads should be working together, but they're all compartmentalized so much that it's like watching several different shows in one sitting. Maybe that's why the fandom is so split. I, myself, feel very cheated. There's nothing about it that's worth watching any more.

Edited May 20, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

It's nearly impossible for me to pick a best and worst episode because there are almost no episodes I like in their entirety. I like moments, but even in the episodes in which I like moments, there are usually other aspects dragging things down. "Birth" may have to be my favorite just because I don't recall anything I really hated. I liked the Underworld part of "Last Rites," but the Storybrooke part was utterly terrible. It was like they knew they needed to wrap things up and get rid of Robin and Hades, so they just did it without any real thought. Hades was never a real threat in Storybrooke because he didn't do anything toward his ultimate plan, and he was so easily taken out. Robin's death was senseless, as it came from him rushing in without a plan on a non-urgent mission to save a baby who was in no danger.

There are so many contenders for worst episode that I can't choose. There was the 100th, which was painfully bad. Even if the scenes between Henry St. and Regina were touching, they were still about one of her victims forgiving her and apologize for wronging her, yet again absolving her from blame (even as we saw her doing awful stuff in the past). There were all the sideline episodes that just wasted screen time without advancing the plot, focusing on characters we probably won't see again. There was the "what the huh?" of "Her Handsome Hero."

This season had a couple of good episodes, some excellent moments, and a lot of nonsense, culminating in the worst season finale in the series to-date. Even the nonsensical "Operation Mongoose" adventure had more going for it, and the ending at least made me curious about and intrigued by the idea of what would happen next. This one just sort of fell flat. I could stop watching now without feeling like anything really important was still pending.

[YaddaYadda]

This show really is about the moments, and who the writers choose to give them to, and depending on who the writers are for any given episode, sometimes there are more moments that stand out, other times, there's just nothing memorable.

I think 5x14 was a fairly solid episode, and the moment that stood out for me was Milah and Rumple in the boat talking about her unfinished business, and  the common ground they found. The following episode, as huge a Hook fan as I am, nothing really stood out for me. Sure there was the angst, and him telling Emma he wanted a future with her, but that episode was not memorable. It was nothing like 3x17 with Ariel, or 4x15 with Ursula (and also Ariel because Joanna Garcia always makes everything better with her effin' cuteness), and there was that moment when she said that villains don't usually get their happy ending because they go the wrong way about it, which sorry to say, it still very much applies to what happened in the finale with Regina.

Huge Emma fan, her centric left me very much blah. I was extremely disappointed by the flashbacks. Also, it just showed how wrong August and Neal were. Prison didn't set her straight. In fact, prison did nothing to change her. But the 24 hour relationship is what had the most impact on her life. The flashbacks didn't gel with the present day, and if we were finding out the origins of the jacket for that little speech at the portal that I did not even understand because it didn't really make all that much sense, then the episode missed the mark. I would also like that jacket to burned in a bun fire.

The finale was boring. I think that's the best way to describe it. It was boring. I didn't think anything would be worse than Operation Mongoose, but I was wrong. The adventure in NYC, the dialogue, it was almost like they wrote something for the sake of writing something to get to the last 5 minutes of the episode. Although I really do like the casting for both Jekyll and Hyde, and they saved the Land of Untold Stories adventure because Snowing, Hook and Zelena really didn't have all that much to do. Being locked up in a magical cell, and then walking around the market place was okay and still better than what happened in NYC.

The level of excitement for season 6 is just not there for me right now. It will probably change once spoilers start trickling, the guys go back to work, and SDCC happens where they'll have an episode or 2 under their belt so that when the actors are asked questions, they might be able to answer without looking extra uncomfortable.

[Kktjones]

28 minutes ago, YaddaYadda said:

as huge a Hook fan as I am, nothing really stood out for me

Huge Emma fan, her centric left me very much blah

It's funny because before they aired, these were the two flashbacks I was looking forward to the most. And both left me extremely disappointed (as did Hook's flashback in Swan Song). I thought the retconning of honorable Liam into what amounts to a mass murderer was not something I saw coming at all. Seems there were so many other ways they could have demonstrated that he wasn't worthy of the hero-worship from Killian. In fact, due to the incredible let down of Liam and the flashback, I would almost say this was my least favorite episode of 5B.

With Emma's flashback, I agree with everything you said. She was basically the same person she was before she met Neal and went to jail - except now she was 26 instead of 16/17. I was excited for Emma's flashbacks in Season 4 as well and hated what they did with Lily (shudders).

I'm actually really hoping that they do away with the flashbacks from here on out. It made sense for the first couple seasons when we were learning about the characters and their histories, but now they all feel forced and very retconny. I'm thinking now that the Evil Queen is alive and well, they won't need an excuse to put her onscreen.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Kktjones

[Curio]

I was also really looking forward to Hook and Emma's flashbacks this season, and you'd think with how much there is to explore with their characters' pasts, there would be a plethora of awesome flashbacks to show us. But no, those were the best they could come up with? Seriously? I agree, they should just stop with the flashbacks altogether if they can't even be creative enough to come up with entertaining ones anymore. I'll stick to mental fanfic to fill in the rest of their histories.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Curio
Grammar.

[YaddaYadda]

33 minutes ago, Curio said:

I was also really looking forward to Hook and Emma's flashbacks this season, and you'd think with how much there is to explore with their characters's pasts, there would be a plethora of awesome flashbacks to show us. But no, those were the best they could come up with? Seriously? I agree, they should just stop with the flashbacks altogether if they can't even be creative enough to come up with entertaining ones anymore. I'll stick to mental fanfic to fill in the rest of their histories.

Flashbacks mean nothing anymore. They feel forced most of the time. 

They can just tell us the character's experience if they feel it will help along with whatever plot point they're trying to get to, or whatever. We didn't need the Evil Queen flashback in the 100th episode. We already knew that Henry enabled Regina. I mean he was okay with her taking his heart because he "understood" so it doesn't get worse than that. I think they did that flashback to show us how much of a perv Jiminy was since he was drunk, and in Snow's blouse for some reason.

Captain Silver wasn't needed in 5x15. That was such a waste of a character. Captain Silver from Treasure Island. That sounds so promising!!!!!!! Except, it really wasn't.

With Emma's flashback, I was really hoping that Cleo was the person that gave Emma a chance like she had mentioned back in season 2 as the reason she was giving Regina a chance when she invited her to the welcome home party. That would have tied in so nicely. 

Anyway, if the flashback is something that really ties in with the present, then sure, show me the flashback. I thought 5x14 did that nicely. If it's a flashback to fill in airtime, then no thanks! Let's move it along and maybe give characters more, I don't know, interaction, like maybe Belle can talk to someone who isn't Rumple, and vice versa, and Snow and Hook get to have a conversation because you know, they've never spoken outside of the odd line. I think they have a total of 3 lines. Or David gets to have an uncomfortable conversation with Regina because it's his turn. Zelena and Emma, enemies. What about now though with this sort of "detente" because Zelena looks to be part of the team?

Someone can maybe put Henry under the sleeping curse, and send him to a different realm, but they think he went to Hogwarts, and everyone is just cool with it, and doesn't look for him.

Edited May 20, 2016 by YaddaYadda

[Shanna Marie]

I don't mind the idea of the flashbacks. I do mind when there's clearly no overall plan for a character and they make up something on the fly to fit with their theme for an episode, and it feels like a retcon. Like with Hook. "Good Form" was fun because it was such a twist -- our rum-swilling pirate used to be an upright naval officer. There was the hint about his father abandoning him, and we got all kinds of mental fanfic around that because there were so many possibilities, but then they went with it being very straightforward, exactly what he described. Then they twisted all story logic to allow him to meet his father again -- never mind that he was alive for about a hundred years and could have run into his father at any point along the way without the need for a sleeping curse and a TLK with someone he'd never met. And then because they needed something thematic about forgiving yourself, they dragged Liam through the mud and undermined "Good Form." It's like the more they show us about Hook's backstory, the less interesting it turns out to be. Ditto with Emma's backstory, as we've seen lately.

It feels increasingly like they really are just making things up as they go, and then they either go super-obvious, to the point we don't need to see a flashback to know what happened, or they retcon their own story in a way that doesn't fit with what we've already seen.

I think the "centric" structure is more of a problem than the flashbacks. It's having to center the flashbacks around the centric character that causes most of the problems. They could use the flashbacks to set up the current situation, and then let different characters deal with it in the present.

[Camera One]

The problem is they use flashbacks not as a way to deepen characters, but as a way to produce a twist or surprise of some sort, and/or to push the plot to the next hole on their random golf course of a season.  The character beats they do try to hit are so utterly exaggerated or clunky, like having Liam be responsible for killing a shipload of sailors or having Emma emulate EVERY single aspect of Cleo's demeanor, to make the main character come to some "realization" in the present (often a realization they already came to several times in the past).  Meanwhile, for characters they couldn't care less about (eg. Snow or Charming), the flashback seems to be less about them and more about something or someone else.  

The centric issue is also a problem since they need to artifically make, let's say, episode 3 ALL about a certain character, both in flashback and in present-day, even if it doesn't fit the sequence of the story they're telling.  And often, whatever character development happens is neither followed up or developed gradually.  Unless it's their current favorite, which seems to be Zelena in 5B.  I was almost impressed that she gradually showed redemptive qualities episode by episode, to the point that she's just a member of the team now.

[Camera One]

22 hours ago, YaddaYadda said:

I doubt this opinion will be that unpopular, but let's not make every character that comes on the show related to someone else. That's probably why they decided to keep Violet, to avoid accidental inbreeding.

 

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

A&E probably took their familial relation cues from Star Wars. There's plenty of joking around about that too. Now that I think about it... a LOT of Star Wars characters share elements with Once. You could write a whole post about the parallels.

Three reasons for this:

1. Surprise twist!

2. Easier to write overarching storylines involving multiple characters when you make them related.

3. Forced reason why they need to cooperate or forgive one another, "because we're family".

Edited May 21, 2016 by Camera One

[maryle]

Reading this thread is like reading my own mind.

Honestly, next season should be the final season with some final battle and end game for the core character, most of them just are running in circle anyway. 

I think it is just because I like reading the stuff from tumblr and loyauty for the cast, the characters ( Emma,Hook, Snow,Charming) that I have not already quit this show.

I binge watch agent Carter season 2 and Its a fun little show.  But there was a plot and the character are not perfect and the grey' one still grey until the end.  The bad,  even if they have a rough  childwood are not totally excuse because of it. 

People want to believe next season will be different but I doubt it. The biggest problem are they want to please all fans, fandom. So we end up with  two or tree story who dosent bled well together. 

[Rumsy4]

I liked S5 a lot compared with S4, but now I feel mostly cheated. S4 was my least favorite season, and the S5 finale is giving me S4 vibes what with Emma coddling Regina and Operation Stupid Part II: Jekyll Juice.

I loved Emma's "I am not nothing" moment in 5A. It's one of my all time favorite moments in the series. But, I feel like it was undermined by the way she took Regina's and Henry's abuse in the season finale. No one with a healthy sense of self would let themselves be talked to like that.

Emma took on the Darkness to destroy it. Hook sacrificed his life to do that. Both failed becasue Rumple betrayed them.

Rumple got a clean heart and a second chance. He threw it away and took the Darkness back.

Belle broke up and made up with Rumple times infinity.

Emma let her Walls down and fought tooth and nail to bring Hook back. Felt guilty Hook is alive becasue Regina lost Robin.

Emma bought the house Hook wanted them to start a life together in. We are left with no idea if the moving-together plan is still on or not.

Regina made right choices in the Underworld and looked happy making them. We found out that Regina hated every minute of it, and still blames Snow.

Henry decided to use his author powers as intended. Misused it for a foolish plan to destroy magic.

Timelines truly became a joke, and the number of retcons too many to count.

First LGBTQ relationship was terribly done. Mulan got cheated out again.

I know this is a very negative post. I did enjoy quite a bit of the season. I loved all the CS moments we got, and we got quite some epic ones this season. It's nice to have Snow White back (fingers crossed). I liked the way Arthur's plot was wrapped up (I won't mention the rest of Camelot). It was also great to see some of the older charatcers in 5B. Cruella and the Blind Witch were a hoot! I loved the Milah episode, though I'm still disappointed with the lack of resolution about her fate. But the finale makes me feel like many of the Season's milestones ended up being pointless in the long run. It makes me less and less invested in the Show. I would have loved Season 5 more if Last Rites had been the season finale. The so-called finale was more of a S6 premiere. A&E were even more ADD than normal in their wish to introduce new arcs and charatcers that they left S5 with a bad aftertaste. 

Edited May 22, 2016 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I liked S5 a lot compared with S4, but now I feel mostly cheated. 

The show follows the Status Quo is God trope. Whenever there's a change, it's reset to normal shortly after. The writers are terrified of breaking the current formula because they don't know how to write anything else for these characters. There's very strict roles in place that will forever remain still. Regina will always have a silly dichotomy and never get her happy ending. Belle will keep going back to Rumple because the script tells her to. Emma will be the punching bag and Hook will be the brooding pirate. Everything will stay the same until the final conclusion. I despise that. It's always teased that things will change, but they never do, even with the best setups.

Edited May 22, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Exactly.  The most egregious example of this was the mind-blowing finale to 3A, "Going Home".  There was so much potential for a reset but within an hour, by the end of the 3B premiere, Emma had her memories back and everyone else was back in Storybrooke.

Likewise, at the end of 4A, Rumple was finally kicked to the curb and had to leave Storybrooke.  Once again, by the end of 4B premiere, Rumple was back in Storybrooke with magic.

Other resets take half a season, but they always bring us back to the exact same spot.  Rumple was no longer the Dark One for 5A, but by the end of the arc, he was the Dark One again, even though the whole concept has now been played out to death.

[andromeda331]

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

Exactly.  The most egregious example of this was the mind-blowing finale to 3A, "Going Home".  There was so much potential for a reset but within an hour, by the end of the 3B premiere, Emma had her memories back and everyone else was back in Storybrooke.

Likewise, at the end of 4A, Rumple was finally kicked to the curb and had to leave Storybrooke.  Once again, by the end of 4B premiere, Rumple was back in Storybrooke with magic.

Other resets take half a season, but they always bring us back to the exact same spot.  Rumple was no longer the Dark One for 5A, but by the end of the arc, he was the Dark One again, even though the whole concept has now been played out to death.

So much potential wasted.

[Shanna Marie]

I don't mind some degree of reset when it looks like there are major changes, since some of the changes would take it from being a show I want to watch. Like, there needed to be some resetting after 3A because what kind of show would we have had if Emma had stayed in New York and all the fairytale folks were in the Enchanted Forest? There had to be some kind of return to Storybrooke. I'm not sure I'd even have wanted that resolved with Emma traveling to the Enchanted Forest because Storybrooke is a big part of the concept. I'm kind of okay with Rumple being returned to the Dark One, since I'm not sure what they'd have done with him otherwise. He wasn't interesting as his powerless self and would have been too easily defeated. If they weren't going to make him actually be good and commit to that, he needed to be powerful evil.

The problem is in how they do the resets. They're too quick, too easy, and too complete. You can return to the status quo, but with some changes as a consequence of what happened. It should have taken longer for Emma to get back to Storybrooke. Maybe we should have seen the transition back before she got there. They seemed to be building up to the "OMG! Snow's nine months pregnant!" revelation, but we already knew it was a year later. Emma knew it was a year later. That wasn't as shocking for us. The revelation we needed to see was Snow waking up and finding herself nine months pregnant when just a split second earlier she was standing on the town line. Then something needed to have changed in the second iteration of Storybrooke.

Rumple could have come back to town after 4A, but we should have seen more of his process of adjusting to the outside world and pulling himself together to find a way back, and Belle shouldn't have taken him back after everything he did to her. Their relationship should have changed permanently. There's no coming back from what he did. Even more so with him becoming the Dark One again. That should be a "you're dead to me" from all involved. Henry shouldn't be calling him "grandpa."

They have a bad habit of creating life-changing events that don't change anything. But that comes back to their problem of being so concerned with moving their pieces around the board than they forget to let the characters act like human beings and respond in anything resembling a realistic way.

[KingOfHearts]

It's not so much the circumstantial resets as it is the character development ones. Like what Shanna Marie said about Rumpbelle and Emma being the Dark One, life-changing events should actually change their lives. The characters don't evolve as much as they should be, which makes them rigid and two-dimensional. They fit a criteria and they don't move from that. 

[Curio]

Emma's character should have been a lot more impacted by becoming a Dark One than what 5B showed us. Did she gain any extra magical knowledge? Is she much more powerful when she wields magic now? Is she willing to be a little more grey when it comes to solving problems? (She clearly didn't take with her Dark Swan's willingness to scream at Regina and call her out on her hypocrisy...) We didn't really see any of that in 5B. Heck, 5B Hook showed he had more of a personal impact from his 48-hour stint of being a Dark One than Emma did.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Curio

[Camera One]

Quote

I'm kind of okay with Rumple being returned to the Dark One, since I'm not sure what they'd have done with him otherwise. He wasn't interesting as his powerless self and would have been too easily defeat.

 

The Dark One with Rumple being all powerful is a writing crutch and I think there are multitudes of other angles they could have pursued, from Rumple struggling to be completely without magic, or Rumple trying to make do with limited magical powers and objects, to Rumple actually having a progressive redemption arc if they're going for Rumbelle.  Do we really need to see someone controlling Rumple with the Dagger yet again? 

 

Quote

Like, there needed to be some resetting after 3A because what kind of show would we have had if Emma had stayed in New York and all the fairytale folks were in the Enchanted Forest? There had to be some kind of return to Storybrooke. I'm not sure I'd even have wanted that resolved with Emma traveling to the Enchanted Forest because Storybrooke is a big part of the concept.

 

For sure, there has to be some return to Storybrooke, but the status quo did not need to be re-established within 40 minutes of Storybrooke being completely obliterated.  They could have had Emma helping each person to remember one by one, while raising an underground battle against Mayor Zelena, since they never did that in Season 1.  They could have had Henry gradually regaining his memories since that was the reverse of what happened before.  They could have had Storybrooke transported to the Enchanted Forest, where Emma's "kingdom" had to contend with the other magical kingdoms, helping her friends and family to remember the missing year from there.  There are many ways to "reset" without making the situation exactly the same.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

The Dark One with Rumple being all powerful is a writing crutch and I think there are multitudes of other angles they could have pursued, from Rumple struggling to be completely without magic, or Rumple trying to make do with limited magical powers and objects, to Rumple actually having a progressive redemption arc if they're going for Rumbelle.  Do we really need to see someone controlling Rumple with the Dagger yet again? 

Replying in Rumple thread.

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The characters don't evolve as much as they should be, which makes them rigid and two-dimensional.

Yes, even if the situation is perfectly reset or remains the same, the characters should be different after going through life-changing experiences, which in turn should alter the situation somewhat. The Emma who now has memories of bringing up Henry on her own should be a slightly different person than the Emma she was before 3A. The Henry who spent a year in New York and who has fake memories of growing up with Emma in addition to his real memories should be a lot more worldly (though I still think he shouldn't have had his memories restored and instead should have figured out what was going on the way he did in the first place, not just by touching a magic book). That alone should have made Storybrooke 2.0 subtly different. We never did learn what the rest of the town thought about being jerked back and forth between worlds.

They did a big one in the life-changing events department this year. Emma and Hook should be different after having been Dark Ones and everything else they went through lately. She killed him. He died. He was horribly tortured. I don't necessarily want an in-depth exploration of PTSD, but there should still be some effect. He may be able to forgive himself for what he did as Dark One enough to believe he merits life and love, but I can't imagine he wouldn't be having nightmares. Then there's the fact that they've now actually verified that there's an afterlife. That's getting into cosmic territory. Mankind has debated and speculated about that since the beginning of time, with no real definitive proof. Now this group of people has seen it for themselves, has seen the Underworld and watched people going into something like heaven. How can that not change everything? On another fantasy show that shall remain nameless due to spoilers, a character was killed and returned, and it's changed him and the way he sees the world. On this show, as far as we can tell it's the same old Hook, and no one's life philosophy seems to have changed after they experienced the afterlife. Regina gave all that talk about evil and its effect on her, but is she not now driven to really reform after seeing that there is a heaven and hell of some sort? (Then again, Cora got to go to heaven after a post-death change of heart, so there's not exactly much incentive to change her ways now.) Even if they don't have the traditional good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell afterlife, they have learned that having a bucket list that's not fulfilled gets you stuck in the Underworld. Wouldn't that change how everyone goes about their life now? You'd think they'd all be living with the idea of leaving no unfinished business.

[YaddaYadda]

7 hours ago, Curio said:

Emma's character should have been a lot more impacted by becoming a Dark One than what 5B showed us. Did she gain any extra magical knowledge? Is she much more powerful when she wields magic now? Is she willing to be a little more grey when it comes to solving problems? (She clearly didn't take with her Dark Swan's willingness to scream at Regina and call her out on her hypocrisy...) We didn't really see any of that in 5B. Heck, 5B Hook showed he had more of a personal impact from his 48-hour stint of being a Dark One than Emma did.

She can translocate now?

She seems to wield her magic with a little more confidence, and she seems to be more used to it now. It doesn't seem like she forgets that she has it, and has to be reminded that she has it, and can use it.

Otherwise, yeah, no consequences from being the Dark One. I wish the writers explored this more. Like with Rumple losing the magic. Instead of having him run around in the wounds with Merida, maybe give us the impact he feels because he is "normal" for the first time in centuries. It's not like he should be able to turn off the switch. Centuries of using magic. Why not show him forget that he doesn't have magic, and do something, and be like, oh right, especially since he seemed accepting that that part of his life was done, until he apparently really wasn't, and decided to take it back.

And Emma, for someone who had the darkness sucked out of her, she now had to deal with it on a whole another level. It's like going from 0 to 100. Even the impact of gaining all that darkness wasn't really explored all that much, because she was mostly in control. Is it because she is a being with light magic? 

Instead of giving me Merlin's useless voice mail twice, that led to nowhere really fast, give me something that outlines to me why Emma is a different Dark One from Rumple and Nimue, because she is the Savior, she has light magic, she was born out of true love. Shouldn't these things make her a very unique Dark One, and perhaps a very powerful one too?

And what does it mean when they say that Rumple has the power of all the Dark Ones combined? Didn't he have that before as well? And what does that mean exactly? How does having Emma's powers in addition to what he had before make him powerful exactly?

But nope, half-baked it is instead.

[Camera One]

And what does it mean when they say that Rumple has the power of all the Dark Ones combined? Didn't he have that before as well? And what does that mean exactly? How does having Emma's powers in addition to what he had before make him powerful exactly?

I suspect that's for the future when they can explain why Emma is powerless against Rumple.  

[Camera One]

In Season 5, 12 episodes out of 22 had more traditional flashbacks to the distant past (not counting flashbacks to Camelot).

Every regular character got a flashback episode with the exception of Charming and Robin Hood.  Regina and Zelena got a double dose since they also shared "Sisters".  And the major guest stars also got their flashback episodes: Arthur, Merlin, Merida, and then Hades sort of shared one with Zelena.

Out of the regular cast members' flashback episodes, which ones do you think serviced the characters the best, if any?  Which had the best present-day/flashback tie-in?  Which gets docked points for retconning and repetition?

[YaddaYadda]

I don't know that any of them serviced the characters all that well. 

The Regina flashbacks do nothing for her anymore, and that is if they ever did anything for her.

I thought the 2 Hook flashbacks were not all that great. I was thinking about it after seeing your question @Camera One, and I think that for instance, Hook in 5x11 would have been better served as a character if that flashback was with Liam, because Liam was supposed to be this stand up guy. I think the plot point would have made more sense had it been Liam who had asked his brother what kind of man he wanted to be, because the guy raised him, as opposed to having Regina doing that (I guess they needed to fill the EQ quota). Liam at least earned the right to go there with his brother. And Hook in sacrificing himself becomes the hero he aspired to be, and reaches that bar his brother set for him. 

Deadbeat father could have appeared in 5x15, in the Underworld instead, with his unfinished business and kid Hook in the flashbacks. 

I really think they chose the wrong characters for the episodes, and that flipping Liam and the father would have made all the difference in the world.

Plus, you know, in light of what happened in the finale with Regina telling Hook that he had changed in 5x11, and asking him what kind of man he wanted to be while he has the Dark Ones inside of him, and him pretty much overcoming that, while Regina takes the easy way out by getting rid of something that is fundamentally her and part of her, I mean seriously, awkward!

Emma's flashback did nothing for her either. If anything, it reinforced how stupid Neal and August were.

Zelena's flashback served the "love" story between her and Hades more than anything else.

Regina's flashback in the 100th episode was not needed because we already knew all of that. 

Snow's flashback I guess made her realize who she really was. 

While Nimue and Merlin were super adorable, the flashback actually served Emma more with her own character growth (I am not nothing, I was never nothing).

5x14, Milah is the one who got something out of it. Unless someone hates Milah very viscerally, I came out of that understanding the character much better.

Merida, both episodes pass.

Arthur, pass, especially when the writers choose to not revisit something like the Sands of Avalon which were a big deal.

Belle's flashback, I don't even know where to start with her. 

Maybe I'm biased too because I just can't with flashbacks anymore. It doesn't which character they are at this point. They don't even serve the story all that well, or the characters. The writers need a flashback, and they come up with something that may or may not fit the episode, and that's the end of the story.

Edited May 24, 2016 by YaddaYadda

[KingOfHearts]

Zelena was the only main or regular character that the flashbacks did any service to, imo. Her love story with Hades was not great and her sisterly bond with Regina was pretty contrived, but at least we got to see more vulnerable sides to her character. Her biggest flaw before 5B was that she was always a sneering menace with little else going on. Now she feels like less of a flat antagonist and more of an actual personality. I don't believe anyone else really developed from the arc. Whether you liked her centrics or not, at least she moved somewhere.

Edited May 24, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[RadioGirl27]

1 hour ago, YaddaYadda said:

Emma's flashback did nothing for her either. If anything, it reinforced how stupid Neal and August were.

Firebird was such a wasted opportunity. Both the timeline and Emma's motivation were wrong. If you change the date for one closer to her prison strecht and you have her looking for Neal instead of her parent, and the difference would have been massive.

[Camera One]

I miscounted, and forgot that Hook got a second flashback this season.  This puts him in the class with Regina and Zelena, I guess, though Regina still wins overall since she got a role in Hook's flashback.

[Shanna Marie]

Rating the flashbacks ..

I think the "worst retcon" goes to the Emma flashbacks in "Firebird" because they directly contradict other information we have. Yeah, the facts that she was only two years before the pilot and only just getting into the bail bonds business and that prison wasn't what turned her life around were annoying, but if she'd been arrested and/or indicted as an adult and had skipped bail, wouldn't that have shown up in all Regina's background checks on her, rather than having to go into sealed juvenile records? And wouldn't a record like that have made her ineligible to be a law-enforcement officer? In current Storybrooke that may not be an issue, but wouldn't Regina have brought that up during the election in season one? Even if she'd ultimately been acquitted on those charges, she'd have faced separate charges for failure to appear.

The "why, just why?" award goes to the adult Hook flashbacks in "Swan Song" (I'm okay with the wee Killian flashback). It was such a convoluted bit of contrivance, just to shoehorn Regina into the plot. For one thing, it doesn't fit the continuity of what was already established for that incident. For another, the reasoning behind it doesn't make much sense. How does Hook killing his father prove anything about his ability/willingness to kill Regina's mother? (answer: it didn't, considering he switched sides in about 30 seconds) If Regina knew about the abandonment and his awful backstory, then him killing a man who ruined his life proves nothing about his ability/willingness to kill Cora. If she didn't know, how does killing his father prove anything other than maybe that he's willing to do anything if it will help his revenge? Which might actually be more dangerous, because what ended up happening was that he was willing to switch sides to help his revenge. The test was supposedly about his ability to stand up to Cora's manipulation, so the only way the scenario makes any sense at all is if it was some kind of spell and only took place in his head, with the father's turnaround and the existence of the motherless little brother being part of the kind of emotional manipulation she was testing him about. Then there's the fact that while the flashback was apparently to set up Regina's involvement in the present story, the flashbacks skipped the part that explained how she knew anything about the "what kind of man do you want to be?" mantra and his anger and pain about it. We didn't see that she was spying on him, watching in her magic mirror or that they talked about it. They skipped straight from her not being present to her knowing all about it. And then that wasn't what ultimately turned him around. It was Emma in danger, so it was ultimately pointless. And for that they ruined the very concept of a True Love's Kiss, as well as had Hook acting somewhat out of character in being willing to orphan and abandon a child.

The "it doesn't directly contradict anything, but it just feels wrong and is stupid" award goes to "The Brothers Jones."

I didn't actually mind the flashbacks in "Her Handsome Hero." The problem there was the present-day story.

I think maybe my favorite flashback of the whole season might have been "Devil's Due," though maybe that was more because I liked a lot of the present-day stuff, too. I liked the "Labor of Love" flashbacks because I love young Snow.

Really, most of the distant past (as opposed to the six weeks ago in Camelot) flashbacks this season were rather pointless.

[KingOfHearts]

5B is difficult to judge as a whole because it's not offensively bad, but it's not good either. There's nice moments, but there's no shortage of craptasticness either. It's the most centric-oriented arc we've had in a while. The oddity is that we dissect the characters, but there is hardly any real development. It's like the arc wants to go there, but it doesn't go all the way. Like nearly every season, there's decent concepts at play, but their potential is not fully realized. You have to sit through a lot of meh-ness to get to the few good scenes of an episode.

Examples of what I mean:
* Milah meets Emma, but she's quickly thrown into the River of Lost Souls and Hook doesn't see her.
* Snow decides she wants to stop being Mary Margaret, but nothing comes of this and she goes into the background.
* We get a flashback of how Hook joined the navy, but it's an eggnapping Liam-centric.
* Belle reveals her dark side by killing Gaston, but she later regrets it and turns into a Box.
* Regina finally apologizes to her father, but we have to sit through awful and pointless flashbacks to get to it.
* Greek mythology is brought to the show, but Hades' centric is focused on Zelena and we only see Zeus very briefly.
* We learn how Emma got to be a bailsbondsperson, but it's a huge retcon.
* Hook is finally revived, but his return is interrupted by Robin's death and finale antics.
* The Camelot crew return, but the only person who gets any sort of conclusion is Arthur. (And it has little to do with the events of 5A.)

[Curio]

I'm still astonished Robin didn't get a single flashback all season even though the writers knew they were sending him to his death, yet Regina got three flashback appearances in the span of 9 episodes. They were definitely only interested in one side of that Outlaw Queen duo.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Curio

[Shanna Marie]

Poor Robin didn't even get the "we'll make you really like him just before we kill him" treatment. He was barely onscreen for the whole arc and was made to look like the unreasonable bad guy for not being instantly on board with trusting his rapist/his wife's murderer after she supposedly turned good 30 seconds ago. By the time he was killed, it was hard to remember that he'd ever been around. Regina had barely spoken to him in weeks other than to tell him he should trust Zelena. I guess they were breaking tropes by not giving him a big send-off centric, not making him look super-heroic in the episodes leading up to his death, and not giving him a bunch of unfinished business, but the result is the viewers going, "Wait, was he still on the show?" when he died. As I recall, the only flashbacks we saw of him were the one when Marian was pregnant (when he was played by a different actor), the one in the spinoff about Will stealing the mirror, the one where he was being showered with pixie dust in the tavern, and the one where he decided stealing was heroic when you gave away what you stole. That last one was the only time the flashback was actually about him rather than him playing a role in someone else's story.

And yet we get dozens of Evil Queen and Evil Queen vs. Snow flashbacks that pretty much tell the same story over and over again when there are characters who've gone unexplored.

[3dog]

18 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Poor Robin didn't even get the "we'll make you really like him just before we kill him" treatment. He was barely onscreen for the whole arc and was made to look like the unreasonable bad guy for not being instantly on board with trusting his rapist/his wife's murderer after she supposedly turned good 30 seconds ago. By the time he was killed, it was hard to remember that he'd ever been around. Regina had barely spoken to him in weeks other than to tell him he should trust Zelena. I guess they were breaking tropes by not giving him a big send-off centric, not making him look super-heroic in the episodes leading up to his death, and not giving him a bunch of unfinished business, but the result is the viewers going, "Wait, was he still on the show?" when he died. As I recall, the only flashbacks we saw of him were the one when Marian was pregnant (when he was played by a different actor), the one in the spinoff about Will stealing the mirror, the one where he was being showered with pixie dust in the tavern, and the one where he decided stealing was heroic when you gave away what you stole. That last one was the only time the flashback was actually about him rather than him playing a role in someone else's story.

And yet we get dozens of Evil Queen and Evil Queen vs. Snow flashbacks that pretty much tell the same story over and over again when there are characters who've gone unexplored.

Yes! Totally agree. I saw a "Shows That Killed Off Main Characters" kind of story the other day on yahoo, and I clicked on it, expecting to read about Sleepy Hollow (I'll never get over that one), and I swear I was kind of surprised to see Once mentioned. I was like, "Who....oh yeah." Poor Robin. I couldn't even retain that info for 2 weeks, even while reading this board non-stop..

Edited May 24, 2016 by 3dog
Grammar is my friend

[YaddaYadda]

1 hour ago, Curio said:

I'm still astonished Robin didn't get a single flashback all season even though the writers knew they were sending him to his death, yet Regina got three flashback appearances in the span of 9 episodes. They were definitely only interested in one side of that Outlaw Queen duo.

And the one centric Robin got last season made very little sense to me. In the end, I think it's better that he didn't have a centric because it would likely have ended up being all about Regina, and her pain. 

I still think that the way they made away with the character by erasing was them just wanting to erase his existence completely. They sent away Roland, and the Merry Men, and if they could send away Pistachio, they probably would have too. This is probably the moment where they really regretted ever writing in the pregnancy.

[KingOfHearts]

So here is the list I promised of my top three best and worst episodes of each arc. They are all in reverse order. It was calculated by a combination of personal opinion and the quality of the writing itself. (Meaning an episode may not feature something I'm quite fond of, but it could still be written well.) It's in a spoiler tag because it's a little long and I don't want to force people to scroll. Be sure to share your thoughts or ask questions about my selections.

Spoiler

S1:
Best: Land Without Magic > Pilot > Hat Trick
Worst: The Stranger < Fruit of the Poisonous Tree < Dreamy

2A:
Best: Queen of Hearts > We Are Both > The Doctor
Worst: Child of the Moon < Into the Deep < Lady of the Lake

2B:
Best: The Miller's Daughter > Lacey > The Queen is Dead
Worst: The Cricket Game < Selfless, Brave, and True < Tiny

3A:
Best: Going Home > Dark Hollow > Good Form
Worst: Nasty Habits < The New Neverland < The Heart of the Truest Believer

3B:
Best: Snow Drifts/There's No Place Like Home > Witch Hunt > New York City Serenade
Worst: Bleeding Through < The Tower < Quiet Minds

4A:
Best: Rocky Road > Tale of Two Sisters > Smash the Mirror
Worst: Breaking Glass < Heroes and Villains < Family Business

4B:
Best: Sympathy for the DeVil < Poor Unfortunate Soul < Darkness on the Edge of Town
Worst: Enter the Dragon < Operation Mongoose < Best Laid Plans

5A:
Best: Birth > Nimue > The Dark Swan
Worst: The Bear and the Bow < Dreamcatcher < Broken Heart

5B:
Best: Sisters > Devil's Due > Our Decay
Worst: Only You/Land of Untold Stories < Her Handsome Hero < Souls of the Departed

Note to mods: If you believe the spoiler tag is unnecessary, feel free to remove it.

Edited May 25, 2016 by KingOfHearts
Fixed "Sympathy for the DeVil" appearing twice

[KAOS Agent]

@KingOfHearts Is Sympathy for the De Vil both better and worse than Poor Unfortunate Soul for you? I could actually list that episode as one of the best and one of the worst for 4B, so I can understand, but perhaps you have another episode for 4B's best? I loved how Cruella was just unrepentantly evil, which is such a rarity on this show of poor misunderstood villains (and I greatly appreciated that that carried over into her life in the Underworld), but the whole part where Emma is super evil for pushing her off a cliff because she was holding a gun to Henry's head destroyed the entire episode. If I were ranking the episodes, I'd just throw all of 4B into the "Worst" column and be done with it.

For 3A, I know that "The Heart of the Truest Believer" gets little love, but I liked all the scenes on the Jolly Roger because it was one of the few times where we got to see the Nevengers all have real thoughts and personalities. Hook still hates Rumpel, Rumpel denigrates everyone else as idiots (which they usually are), Snow actually gets to vent a bit at Regina for her ridiculous accusations about life ruining, and Emma & Hook get to have a nice quiet conversation that calms some of their adversarial ways and leads them into the early stages of friendship. Plus, I appreciate Emma's speech on the beach about how everyone's talents, Hero, Villain & Pirate, will be needed to defeat Pan and basically tells Regina to step off. I think if I were to pick the worst episodes of 3A, I'd go with "Nasty Habits" as the worst followed by "Think Lovely Thoughts" and "Save Henry" I will say that it's hard to pick out three episodes in that arc that I didn't really enjoy, especially compared to arcs like 4B.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

@KINGOFHEARTS Is Sympathy for the De Vil both better and worse than Poor Unfortunate Soul for you?

That was a typo. The third best is actually Darkness on the Edge of Town. Thanks for pointing that out. It's fixed now.

Quote

For 3A, I know that "The Heart of the Truest Believer" gets little love, but I liked all the scenes on the Jolly Roger because it was one of the few times where we got to see the Nevengers all have real thoughts and personalities.

My main issue with it is that it's mostly just the main characters yelling at each other in a storm. It's dialogue is not easy to hear. That being said, it still presents the concept of a variety of characters working together well. But other than that, the only really positive thing to note is Greg and Tamara's quick deaths. It's still the least bad out of the three.

Quote

I think if I were to pick the worst episodes of 3A, I'd go with "Nasty Habits" as the worst followed by "Think Lovely Thoughts" and "Save Henry" I will say that it's hard to pick out three episodes in that arc that I didn't really enjoy, especially compared to arcs like 4B.

"Think Lovely Thoughts" and "Save Henry" were... alright. (Although, the former is superior.) They fall into the "meh" category for me. I did enjoy the Papa Pan flashbacks, however Save Henry is incredibly bland. I don't really hold a strong disliking for either of them. Nasty Habits, OTOH, is sinfully boring and pointless. It takes up time from other more potentially interesting stories. Unlike the others you mentioned, it holds very little purpose in the grand scheme of things.

Quote

 but the whole part where Emma is super evil for pushing her off a cliff because she was holding a gun to Henry's head destroyed the entire episode.

Whenever I rewatch Sympathy for the DeVil, I ignore the present and just watch for the flashbacks. It becomes a great episode when you take out the stupidity.

Edited May 25, 2016 by KingOfHearts