A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Curio]

The more I think about the Season 3 finale, the more it seems like a fluke. Was this actually written by A&E? (Half of it, anyways.) Was this actually a 2-hour movie primarily focused on Emma's fairy tale happy ending? Was Regina seriously only in the episode for less than 10 minutes? Was there actually a decent blend of humor, action, and romance? Were both flashbacks actually Emma focused? Were the plot holes actually not terribly noticeable? Was Emma actually allowed to be happy for longer than 2 minutes? Was Captain Swan actually allowed to have fun for longer than 2 minutes? Were we actually allowed to see Snow and Charming interact for longer than 2 minutes?

Like, how did this episode even get made?

[Camera One]

Quote

The more I think about the Season 3 finale, the more it seems like a fluke. Was this actually written by A&E?

It seems pretty within A&E's capabilities to write what they did.  They love time travel and have been aching to do a "Back to the Future" type scenario.  They love adapting/retreading instead of writing new stuff, and this episode actually adapted/retread their own episode "Snow Falls".  They got to replay The Evil Queen and the whole Bandit Snow/Evil Queen time period for the nth time.   There has been little question that A&E love CS.  Even in their angst mode in Season 5, they were sure to write plenty of lovey dovey stuff for Emma and Hook, from the field of flowers, to heart-to-hearts where only Hook (and Regina) can truly understand Emma.  Season 3 was still the honeymoon courtship stage in the Emma/Hook relationship, so they still got to be happy for awhile.  It's only after they've committed to each other fully that A&E had to sap all joy to increase the drama.   Even though the Season 3 finale was good, it still left a lot to be desired for fans who actually wanted to see more of Emma/parents.  There was zero development of the "there's no place like home"/I'm going back to NYC arc, until she suddenly decided she wanted to stay.  There was very little development of Emma seeing Snow and Charming as "mom" and "dad" until she suddenly she did, and her adventures in the past have never been mentioned since.  The adventures did not change how she viewed Regina in any way.  It was not transformative of Emma's character other than she fell in love with Hook.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

The adventures did not change how she viewed Regina in any way. 

I still can't believe Emma watched Regina burn her mother alive (as she thought), and was even able to look at Regina in the face after that. It really made me think less of Emma. As for Regina, that put paid to the fandom theory that Regina never truly intended to kill Snow. She most gleefully did. 

Edited July 29, 2016 by Rumsy4

[OnceUponAJen]

On 07/23/2016 at 0:40 PM, Rumsy4 said:

Here's a gem from the Comic Con panel. Someone asked A&E about Robin's soul being obliterated. Adam prevaricated about that saying it was Hades who claimed the soul would be obliterated and people could "Choose not to believe Hades." 

Except that the graphics they used to show Robin's death appeared to show his soul actually disintegrating, which confirmed what Hades said would happen.

[scarynikki12]

When I was buying artwork at the con I was next to a woman who'd just come from the panel and she interpreted the Robin stuff as confirmation that he was 100% coming back so these showrunners need to just make it clear and stop screwing with their viewers.

[Curio]

41 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

When I was buying artwork at the con I was next to a woman who'd just come from the panel and she interpreted the Robin stuff as confirmation that he was 100% coming back so these showrunners need to just make it clear and stop screwing with their viewers.

Exactly. I've never seen showrunners so wishy-washy with what they put on screen. You guys wrote it, now own it! (Also, I'm jealous you got to go to Comic Con!)

[YaddaYadda]

46 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

When I was buying artwork at the con I was next to a woman who'd just come from the panel and she interpreted the Robin stuff as confirmation that he was 100% coming back so these showrunners need to just make it clear and stop screwing with their viewers.

I don't think they really understand the repercussion of what they say. When I read the comment, I thought they were trying to minimize the fact that they literally obliterated Robin's soul until I started seeing comments about Robin coming back.

Eddie especially has foot in mouth disease. He talked to the media like 4-5 times a year and he always makes a massive mess of things.

[KingOfHearts]

5 hours ago, OnceUponAJen said:

Except that the graphics they used to show Robin's death appeared to show his soul actually disintegrating, which confirmed what Hades said would happen.

I'm sure people see it unfair that Zeus saved Hook but not Robin. Hook gets the hand of God, while Robin just gets disintegrated for protecting Regina.  That's just how the cookie crumbles. 

[Curio]

5 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm sure people see it unfair that Zeus saved Hook but not Robin. Hook gets the hand of God, while Robin just gets disintegrated for protecting Regina.  That's just how the cookie crumbles. 

And then A&E made it worse by mentioning how they decided to redeem Cora and send her to the light even though she was a terrible person, so of course they would never think of ending Robin's life like that and surely Hades must have been lying. But there's still all those other good people on the show they've given terrible endings to. (Graham, Owen's dad, that guy Cora turned into a fish...) 

[KingOfHearts]

2 minutes ago, Curio said:

And then A&E made it worse by mentioning how they decided to redeem Cora and send her to the light even though she was a terrible person, so of course they would never think of ending Robin's life like that and surely Hades must have been lying. But there's still all those other good people on the show they've given terrible endings to. (Graham, Owen's dad, that guy Cora turned into a fish...) 

Look where Robin's "code" got him. All his attempts to be honorable and Cora got a much better fate for having a last minute turnaround. Robin's entire existence was rendered pointless.

Edited July 30, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[YaddaYadda]

17 minutes ago, Curio said:

And then A&E made it worse by mentioning how they decided to redeem Cora and send her to the light even though she was a terrible person, so of course they would never think of ending Robin's life like that and surely Hades must have been lying. But there's still all those other good people on the show they've given terrible endings to. (Graham, Owen's dad, that guy Cora turned into a fish...) 

Did they say that about Cora? How was Cora redeemed? She made peace between her daughters? They forgave her? I'm sure forgiveness plays a large role in all of this, but I think an entire village that got their hearts torn out begs to differ. Unpopular opinion, but I think Cora is worse than Rumple and he's lived longer than she has.

[andromeda331]

I'm sure Cora's victims loved seeing her arriving in Heaven or wherever she went. Oh, wait this is A&E so they probably ended up in the Hell with Pervical, Graham, and everyone else.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, YaddaYadda said:

Did they say that about Cora? How was Cora redeemed? 

Yep, Eddy said that, and he didn't explain how she was redeemed.  He just stated it as fact:

Kitsis: So if we saw someone who is as awful as Cora can redeem herself and move on

[YaddaYadda]

8 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Yep, Eddy said that, and he didn't explain how she was redeemed.  He just stated it as fact:

Kitsis: So if we saw someone who is as awful as Cora can redeem herself and move on

Eddy is like the gift that keeps on giving. I wonder how things are in the writers' room. I wouldn't be surprised if he is behind some of the genius ideas we've seen on the show. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 7/29/2016 at 0:52 AM, KAOS Agent said:

I think it's about your definition of dark. To me, the lack of justice or follow through and the lack of joy or "wins" for good people is what makes things dark to me. Season 1 had very dark topics, but they were also mitigated by good things happening.

At the same time, season one can be very hard to watch because the balance was so uneven. Most of the "hope" was implied just because of the kind of story we believed we were watching. Otherwise, there was generally a dark underside to most of the wins. I found season one difficult the first time through because it was so frustrating -- Regina had all the knowledge and power, and while Emma had power because she wasn't subject to the curse, she didn't know the real situation. She may have been told by Henry, but she didn't understand or believe it, so it didn't really work as "knowledge." Because of that, she was seriously outgunned. Regina's power meant that every time Emma got a win or something good seemed on the verge of happening, it got stepped on, or else there was some other thing that happened. Hansel and Gretel was one of the few pure wins. Otherwise, Emma owed Gold a favor because of Ashley, and as I recall, wasn't Thomas's family still not so keen on her? Then in the past, he was still a frog. David woke from his coma and was reunited with Snow, only to have Regina pull a wife out of thin air. He was on the verge of leaving the wife he didn't remember when his memories came "back." Kathryn was on the verge of leaving him when Regina destroyed her note, had her kidnapped, and framed Snow. Meanwhile, Emma kept getting hit by the idiot stick, and suddenly the wary, street-smart woman with walls was trusting people she knew had been Regina's allies I only got through that season with the hope that this was a fairy tale, and the Evil Queen is always going to lose. It was going to be delicious when Emma won and everything came crashing down around Regina. Now, I almost can't rewatch that season as a whole. I can only watch parts because it's hard to get through the worst of it knowing that the hoped-for comeuppance that got me through the season will never happen.

Some writer friends have been talking about a term that's been coming up a lot lately in reader reviews of romance novels: the "grovel." If one of the characters (usually the man) has been a jerk to the other, readers want to see a good grovel before the other character takes him back and they have a happily ever after. If you're reading a romance novel, the couple ending up together and getting a happily ever after is a given, but now readers want some reassurance that if they're reading some real jerky behavior, there's going to be some comeuppance and groveling before things work out. If he's broken things off and assumed she was a slut because he saw her at a restaurant with another man, when he finds out she was having dinner with her brother there had better be some serious apologizing and admitting how wrong he was. That's what this show has been missing -- the grovel. We see one brief pitchforks and torches mob, and then after that, no one really seems to care, so there have been no negative consequences to Regina's evil. Regina has never admitted she was wrong, has never apologized, has barely even admitted that she did anything. Snow just lost her daughter and found her again -- no mention of her role in it.

That's a different kind of darkness from season five. There, Emma does have power -- lots of it -- and knowledge, so it feels a bit more even. It's just tough because she's being rewarded for making right decisions and doing good things by having horrible things happen to her. Karma seems to play no role in this universe, which to me almost makes this show as a whole even darker than Game of Thrones because it pretends to be cute and whimsical and about fairy tales, with lots of speeches about hope and faith and being a hero and doing the right thing, only to show villains succeeding and heroes getting smacked down at every turn. At least Game of Thrones is up front about telling us that winter is coming and the night is dark and full of terrors before showing us that kind of outcome.

[KAOS Agent]

I've come to the conclusion that the show just doesn't see how truly terrible it is with regards to hope/bleakness because the writers think that redeeming the villains is so wonderful and hopeful that they miss all of the people who are screwed over in service to these villainous characters. In 5A, we saw the villain Arthur screw over his wife, his kingdom and Merlin. In 5B, we saw Arthur get a fairly hopeful ending with a new kingdom to rule. Meanwhile, Merlin is dead, Guinevere gets no conclusion (is she still sanded?) and his kingdom is maybe returned to a crappy little village (or not. Are they still sanded? Don't know). Villain gets hopeful conclusion, everyone else is ignored/screwed over/dead. That's super hopeful.

We watched Cora skip off to heaven after feeling bad about hurting her daughter. No word on whether she felt a bit bad about all the people she killed. A happy ending for a psychopath. However, there were a hell of a lot of normal seeming people stuck in the Underworld desperately trying to call their loved ones from a phone booth. What about them? What about that poor mute kid who spent years at the diner? What about all of those people who don't know why they are stuck? How about a character like Milah who demonstrated sincere remorse for a very human mistake and was dumped into a river to suffer eternally? What about Auntie Em? Robin had his soul obliterated! What is hopeful about this?  Why should I feel even remotely hopeful about life when people who are clearly not mass murderers are still suffering and will continue to do so?

Edited August 1, 2016 by KAOS Agent

[Shanna Marie]

14 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I've come to the conclusion that the show just doesn't see how truly terrible it is with regards to hope/bleakness because the writers think that redeeming the villains is so wonderful and hopeful that they miss all of the people who are screwed over in service to these villainous characters.

I guess if you identify with the villains and think heroes are stupid and boring, it is a hopeful show -- no matter how awful you are, no matter how many bad things you do, all you have to do is feel sorry for yourself and maybe do one nice thing, and you're considered totally redeemed. You don't even have to give up any part of your villain lifestyle or face any consequences for your bad behavior. So there's hope for everyone.

It's only really bleak if you dare think of yourself as a hero and identify with them. Then you can expect really bad things to happen to you as a consequence of doing the right thing, and you'll be trampled over by the villains on their way to redemption.

I also suspect that they think the show is light and fun and hopeful because they make a lot of speeches about hope, and there are fairy tale tropes, and they've done things to lessen consequences all around, like the insta-healing of even the most severe wounds. That lends it a cartoony air, so it's basically a live-action Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon, with one group of characters taking all the punishment and the other group getting away without a scratch, but everyone's okay by the end of the story, so it's all good.

[Rumsy4]

The concept that redemption is possible for anyone is not one I dislike. However, the way OUAT handles seemed really messed up to me. There is no god who offers forgiveness if you repent. There is no working toward redemption. There is no weighing the good with the bad. In 5B, it was simply framed as "resolving unfinished business". And yet, one can see the writers' puppet strings making sure their favorite charatcers get redeemed, even if they were the worse kind of mass murderer, while other decent or semi-decent characters get tortured or tossed into oblivion. The message is more about the harsh realities of life (and afterlife), and the concept of relentless suffering, than about hope. Unless one is a villain. 

Edited August 1, 2016 by Rumsy4

[YaddaYadda]

5B was framed around whether the people the dead care about can forgive them so that they could forgive themselves in return. Peasant #12 doesn't matter on the show. 

Both Regina's parents moved on. But Pan didn't get to do that because Rumple didn't forgive him. Belle still saw Gaston as a monster so he ended up swimming with the lost souls. James didn't want to forgive David even though he had nothing to do with his parents' choices. Liam got to move on because Hook forgave him and he forgave himself (though he should have grown a pair and apologized to Emma himself for being such a fucking douche), the sailors he drowned didn't matter, though they got to move on. Captain Silver was an asshole, but I'm pretty sure he didn't deserve brimstone and fire. 

Milah and auntie Em were collateral damage which sucks so much because that did not have to happen, they could have moved on.

Hook was tortured, spent his time at the end of a lash, got chewed out by a 3 headed dog.

Neal got to move on right away because he had no unfinished business which I'm still...Pan was a horrible person and he got his just due, Cora was a vile person and got to go to a better place, Robin was wishy washy as hell and didn't get to go anywhere, he just ended.

Sometimes, I wonder what the writers are thinking. There is so much imbalance in the writing and I do find them a bit warped.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

. There is no weighing the good with the bad. In 5B, it was simply framed as "resolving unfinished business". 

It was framed as "everyone wins", but there are apparently losers. The rules were that if you finished your unfinished business, you could move forward. If you didn't, you would  be thrown in hell. But how long do you have to finish your business? Is it simply a guessing game to figure out if you did it or not? If someone believes they've finished their business, then attempts to cross into Olympus, do they go to hell if they're wrong? We only saw one person get damned - Blacktooth. The River of Lost Souls characters are not condemned because they'll supposedly get another shot after they're fully reanimated. We have such a little idea of Blacktooth's life that there's really no basis for his fate's reasoning. A&E deliberately chose not to elaborate because they didn't want to get their hands dirty with philosophy, religion, etc. They just wanted an excuse for seeing dead characters and Underbrooke's existence.

Quote

The concept that redemption is possible for anyone is not one I dislike. However, the way OUAT handles seemed really messed up to me. There is no god who offers forgiveness if you repent. There is no working toward redemption.

OUAT doesn't exactly follow traditional morality, which is ironic considering fairy tales are usually heavily morality-focused. There's always a defined lesson to learn in the old stories. Good wins, evil loses. Do deeds of kindness and reap rewards, do wicked acts and get punished. It all sounds very black and white, and many times it is. It's not always realistic, but it's not intended to be. OUAT wants to put fairy tales in a more realistic, complex context. (As it did in S1 Storybrooke.) But it also wants to retain that childlike understanding of heroes and villains. It's trying to be black, white and gray. 

The moral structure doesn't work because there is no structure to begin with. There is no continuity. Villains die, but then they get to find True Love. Heroes triumph, but then they're punished for self-sacrifice. It's a range of contradictions.

Edited August 1, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, YaddaYadda said:

5B was framed around whether the people the dead care about can forgive them so that they could forgive themselves in return. Peasant #12 doesn't matter on the show. 

Both Regina's parents moved on. But Pan didn't get to do that because Rumple didn't forgive him. Belle still saw Gaston as a monster so he ended up swimming with the lost souls. James didn't want to forgive David even though he had nothing to do with his parents' choices. Liam got to move on because Hook forgave him and he forgave himself (though he should have grown a pair and apologized to Emma himself for being such a fucking douche), the sailors he drowned didn't matter, though they got to move on. Captain Silver was an asshole, but I'm pretty sure he didn't deserve brimstone and fire. 

Milah and auntie Em were collateral damage which sucks so much because that did not have to happen, they could have moved on.

Hook was tortured, spent his time at the end of a lash, got chewed out by a 3 headed dog.

Neal got to move on right away because he had no unfinished business which I'm still...Pan was a horrible person and he got his just due, Cora was a vile person and got to go to a better place, Robin was wishy washy as hell and didn't get to go anywhere, he just ended.

Sometimes, I wonder what the writers are thinking. There is so much imbalance in the writing and I do find them a bit warped.

A&E: I'm glad you enjoyed the surprises.  There was a very special bean bag toss which occurred in Writers' Room to determine where each soul would fall.  Of course it was rigged so our favorite Cora would get to enter the Light.  Keep watching since there may be a lot of healing for fans of Aunt Em.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Camera One

[Mathius]

1 hour ago, YaddaYadda said:

Captain Silver was an asshole, but I'm pretty sure he didn't deserve brimstone and fire. 

What he was attempting to do was in direct violation to Hades' plans (plans he knew about because he overheard them), so yeah, I think he deserved it because he was stupid enough to think that he was going to get away with that.  As King of Hearts pointed out above, it was Black Tooth who didn't seem to deserve it (especially unfair given that the one who sent him there, Cora, ends up getting to move into the light.)

Edited August 2, 2016 by Mathius

[Shanna Marie]

I suspect that the real issue is that the writers are focusing so hard on the "anyone can be redeemed" angle that they then realize they need conflict and bad stuff to happen to characters, but if that happens to the villains it looks like punishment, so it falls on the good guys. It looks to us like the heroes are being punished for being good, but the writers are just trying to have conflict and angst in the story without realizing that what they're really doing is punishing the heroes. So all they see is the "hope" without being conscious that it's actually pretty bleak. It just keeps getting worse over time as they keep coming up with new rocks to throw at the characters.

I suppose they also thought they were giving Regina angst and drama when they killed Robin, but they didn't think at all about what that meant for Robin. As always with him, he was just a plot prop, not a real character. His death was calculated in a way that it would be the worst thing possible for Regina, with no thought about what that said about him. A lot of the other awful fates seem to have come from an attempt to have a big, dramatic moment, with no thought as to what it says about the show's world view. Gaston's death (and re-death) had nothing to do with him and everything to do with creating a dramatic moment for Belle.

Though I'm not sure what the hell they were thinking with Milah because a reunion of her and Hook or Hook, Emma, and Milah all being forced together, or her meeting Henry, or her meeting Belle would have been way more dramatic than the moment of her being knocked into the river, especially since her re-death didn't really have any emotional impact on any other character that we got to see.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Though I'm not sure what the hell they were thinking with Milah because a reunion of her and Hook or Hook, Emma, and Milah all being forced together, or her meeting Henry, or her meeting Belle would have been way more dramatic than the moment of her being knocked into the river, especially since her re-death didn't really have any emotional impact on any other character that we got to see.

I wish Milah could have stayed around longer. There was so much drama to be harvested there. Her meeting Rumple and Emma was great and all, but it was so brief. By putting her in the River, A&E were essentially saying it was time for the next toy in the Underworld tour. 

[Amerilla]

On Monday, August 01, 2016 at 10:35 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Though I'm not sure what the hell they were thinking with Milah because a reunion of her and Hook or Hook, Emma, and Milah all being forced together, or her meeting Henry, or her meeting Belle would have been way more dramatic than the moment of her being knocked into the river, especially since her re-death didn't really have any emotional impact on any other character that we got to see.

That's what happens when you don't trust your audience.

All of us know it was a perfect setup for Hook to decide between Emma/Life and Milah/Death, to be confronted with a change to let go of the past and go topside with Emma or to embrace his past and contemplate eternity with Milah. Obviously, Hook would choose Emma in the end, but in the process, it would add some emotional depth to Hook, it would give Emma the interesting experience of literally vying with a dead lover for her man's heart, Milah would get to be the Ultimate Cockblocker, and it was all be quite heartbreaking as a refreshed Milah either walked into the light to reunite with the son she had abandoned, or "died" a second time just as she had the first, protecting her True Love from Rumpel or Hades or Pan or Cora or, hell, a really hormonal Belle.

So, of course, they went to almost comical pains to avoid telling that obvious story. Part of it may be because it was obvious, and they seem to have a aversion to doing the obvious (even though the well-defined rules of storytelling are well-defined for a reason, and their non-obvious approach usually makes no f**king sense and is weak tea to boot). Part of it may be because the overall audience skewes younger than we we tend to think, and the idea that Hook could be equally in love with Milah and Emma struck them as too complex for tweens to grasp. Part of it is that the WRITERS don't seem to grasp that emotional complexity is something people who watch drama actually enjoy. Or that talk/emotion can move the story further down the field than just action. 

Instead, it was more like Rachel Shelley wandered on set one day, so they threw her a couple of scenes on the fly.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Amerilla
Forgot a half-thought

[Camera One]

Instead, it was more like Rachel Shelley wandered on set one day, so they threw her a couple of scenes on the fly.

That's the perfect way to describe almost all the returning guest appearances on this show!

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Amerilla said:

Instead, it was more like Rachel Shelley wandered on set one day, so they threw her a couple of scenes on the fly.

I suspect that the main reason for her appearance was to do the flashback that was supposed to make her look worse and further woobify poor Rumple because she was the one advocating for killing the healer guy to steal the potion and Rumple couldn't go through with it until he was the Dark One. But I don't think they anticipated that for a lot of us, Rumple making a deal involving her potential future child without even talking to her would make her more sympathetic and further explain why their marriage went downhill and she left him for the hot pirate. Then in the present they didn't go any deeper than the "hee hee, Emma's been with Milah's son and her lover" joke with some slut shaming from Rumple -- again, a possible miscalculation with the audience. Milah and Emma's team-up was so awesome that the two of them working together with Hook had great potential, and then there's also the fact that Henry never got to meet his grandmother (why does he only get to meet the evil side of the family, not Snow or David's side of the family or Milah?). But mostly, Milah was there for Rumple's emotional development. Anything else was incidental.

You could probably say the same thing of Pan in that arc. He wandered onto the set, so they had him make a few vague threats that were easily resolved by the next commercial break before he was re-killed. It gave Rumple the illusion of angst while Pan didn't interact with anyone else he might have unresolved issues with, like Henry or Hook.

[Camera One]

I don't think they were simply trying to make Milah look bad, considering they also made her reflective and regretful in the present-day.  They allowed her to show more growth than many others are afforded.  It was their usual tactic of trying to create a "complex" scenario where everyone's actions were understandable and no one was completely wrong or right.  They did not assassinate Milah's character to the extent they did Liam, and they tried to retcon a reason why she would run off with Hook.  

Even longer arc characters don't resolve long-standing issues they should be having.  Look at Maleficent having zero issues with Regina "punishing" her for 28 years, or Rumple using her to store the magical egg knowing the Savior would have to slay her to retrieve it.  

[YaddaYadda]

42 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

But I don't think they anticipated that for a lot of us, Rumple making a deal involving her potential future child without even talking to her would make her more sympathetic and further explain why their marriage went downhill and she left him for the hot pirate. Then in the present they didn't go any deeper than the "hee hee, Emma's been with Milah's son and her lover" joke with some slut shaming from Rumple -- again, a possible miscalculation with the audience.

I disagree. I think this is one episode they didn't miscalculate anything. Milah and Rumple reached a good place until Hades pulls the baby card. Them sitting in the rowboat was probably as close as they had been since before he went to fight the ogre war. And Emma and Milah had a really good rapport with each other. Yeah, the slut shaming was too much, and Rumple was being an ass, likely trying to sabotage the rescue mission from the onset because he thought Milah was still in the UW waiting around for Hook to arrive. And here's his girlfriend who came here to get him back. 

Rumple is a master manipulator. He was probably trying to turn the whole thing to his advantage so that he could get out of the Underworld ASAP.

Otherwise, I thought Devil's Due was one of the better written episodes that allowed to flesh out the relationship between Milah and Rumple even more. It was clear she was the one wearing the pants in the couple, and I think he was the more nurturing parent, and we knew she was tired of living that life, and he took away her choices, and she walked out on him in the end.  And as far as a character who is shut off emotionally, Milah is up there on that list. 

That being said, I still have no clue why they condemned the character to the River of Lost Souls especially when she opened up about her regrets and her mistakes. Her ending was just so abrupt and sucked so much.

[Shanna Marie]

I'll agree that "Devil's Due" was probably the best of the arc, but the context combined with my TS;TW cynicism has me wondering how much was their intention. I'm always coming away from episodes with messages they didn't necessarily mean. But the way they tend to handle things, I have to wonder if Milah's fate combined with her being shown to be the one advocating murdering the healer and stealing the antidote was meant to show that she was wrong. Meanwhile, we're shown how meek and inoffensive pre-Dark One Rumple was in comparison, with him being the good dad while his wife was a shrew. In the present, we get the Rumple who does horrible things with sad eyes, which supposedly makes him complex, and then he's doing awful stuff for a good reason, to protect his child. It seems like if Milah's redemption and perspective had been at all important, she would have had a different fate, or the others would at least have learned the truth about her fate, or they might have made it explicit at the end of the season that the souls were rescued somehow. The result is their usual muddled moral mess.

A meeting of Emma, Hook, and Milah wouldn't necessarily have ended up with him being torn or the women playing tug of war over him. Milah might have earned her redemption by giving him up so that her grandchild wouldn't lose a potential father figure -- she'd rather go on her own into the afterlife and be reunited with her son while Killian is there to look after her grandson. That would balance out her decision to leave her son alone to run off with Killian.

I'm trying to decide if this season is Blu-Ray worthy, or if I'll get the regular DVD that's less expensive. The decision generally comes down to whether there's something in it that would be much better in HD and if I'm likely to rewatch. I got season one in regular DVD, mostly because that was all I could find at the time. I think I've rewatched all the way through once and watched a few select episodes beyond that. I got season 2 on Blu-Ray mostly because of "The Crocodile" and the gorgeous shots of the ship. There's also some good location shooting in the Team Princess segment, and there's some nice stuff in the finale 2-parter. I've watched the Team Princess stuff and the finale multiple times, but there are huge chunks of that season that I tend to skip. I got season 3 on Blu-Ray mostly because of the finale movie -- costumes and location shooting. I've watched the finale multiple times, have watched the whole thing at least once, hit or miss in rewatching select episodes. Season 4 I got on regular DVD. I've watched a couple of episodes on the discs but haven't yet rewatched the whole season. In season 5 there are just a few things that are pretty enough for HD, like that field of flowers. For the most part, it's all too depressing for much rewatching. The red filter Underbrooke is ugly enough to not care about perfect HD, and there's a lot of bad CG settings, which usually show up better when it's not in HD.

[KingOfHearts]

Devil's Die tried to meet the in middle between Milah and Rumple, imo. It portrayed Milah as shrewish but still somewhat sympathetic through her POV. From a more meta perspective, it was all really to fuel the baby contract and the meeting between Emma and Milah. Even though the flashbacks had some serious character moments, it was very half-baked. I like that they explained why she left Rumple, but all the other baby drama became a moot point after Hades later tore up the contract. The whole episode could have been more important than it ended up being in the grand scheme of things.

If Hook had met Milah, we would have been left wanting to see more of her story. The writers intended on moving through as quickly as possible. That goes into the overall pacing and focus issues of the show though, which is a broader subject altogether. Within the context of their goals, I don't fault them for the call they made.

Edited August 6, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

2 hours ago, YaddaYadda said:

Otherwise, I thought Devil's Due was one of the better written episodes that allowed to flesh out the relationship between Milah and Rumple even more. It was clear she was the one wearing the pants in the couple, and I think he was the more nurturing parent, and we knew she was tired of living that life, and he took away her choices, and she walked out on him in the end.  And as far as a character who is shut off emotionally, Milah is up there on that list. 

I'm with you. This was one of the better episodes of 5B. If Milah's fate had been resolved by the end of the arc, it would have elevated the episode even more. As such, we're left with the disgusting feeling of seeing Rumple murder his wife twice over for the sin of abandoning her son, even though Rumple himself did the same thing. The Emma slut-shaming was typical of Rumple, but it makes me mad that it was played for laughs in the episode, and how many viewers were gleeful about Emma being "deservedly" called out like that.

When it comes to Milah, the writing for her character tends to be sexist, and feeds into people's misogyny. Her independence is always portrayed in a negative light, and her "shrewishness" is used as a device to mitigate any sympathy people might feel for her. Rumple could have done a memory wipe on Milah after he burned the boat. Instead, he pushed her into the River of Lost Souls. The so-called heroes were morons to not suspect that Rumple would have no qualms betraying them and murdering Milah again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll have a special UW episode in S6 where Ruby and Dorothy go on a rescue mission to the UW free Auntie Em and other lost souls from the river. If it leads to a cameo of Arthur and Cruella, bring it on! 

19 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

A meeting of Emma, Hook, and Milah wouldn't necessarily have ended up with him being torn or the women playing tug of war over him. 

There's no way either Hook or Milah would have wanted to get back together in the afterlife. I greatly appreciated the fact that the writers didn't make it into a dumb underworld love triangle. It's clear from the episode that Milah was completely okay with the fact that Killian had moved on (I loved how well she teamed up with Emma). She was focussed on reconciling with her son. And even though Killian still must respect and love Milah, he too has moved on and found another love. The love he has for Emma is True and their bond is strong. It would have been off for Killian to feel a pull toward Milah at this point. The writers were too afraid to even let them meet, which I think was a cop-out. I liked the fact that Killian's dilemma was between moving on with his brother over his insecurities, or going back with Emma for a second chance at life. But the Brothers Jones episode messed that concept up on so many levels. Liam was always a bit head-strong and TSTL, but did they writers really need to make him a mass-murderer? Sigh... TSTW.

[KingOfHearts]

I'm debating on whether or not I want to do a rewatch of S5 when it comes out on Netflix later this month. One the one hand, I haven't seen the episodes as a binge watch. (Binging has been known to make better viewing.) But on the other, I would probably want to do a soft rewatch and fast forward through everything I shouldn't have had to watch in the first place. You know - Henry, Merida, Zelena's romance with Hades, Team Princess, etc. I wouldn't find any joy in the Captain Swan suffering either. So, all things considered, I'm stuck with very little to actually rewatch.

[Shanna Marie]

In rewatching via DVR, I find that 5A is more rewatchable and bingeable than 5B. There are some annoying things (Henry, the setups that didn't go anywhere, like all Merlin's warnings), but for the most part, it holds together pretty well, and it's fun to look for clues to what was really happening. 5B gets worse if you binge because there are so many things that are set up but that never really go anywhere and so many things that come out of nowhere. There's all that Hook torture that doesn't really have anything to do with anything in the long term, just there for shock value, and Hades' plans and schemes lurch from one thing to another at random. But then all the stuff with Zeus and Hades isn't set up at all. I just rewatched the last couple of episodes prior to the finale, and it would have worked so much better and had so much more impact if we'd ever seen anything of what went on with Zeus and Hades. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that Zeus brought Hook back to life for helping kill him -- and it was his own brother. It seems like we should have seen that, as well as what the crystal could do. 5A isn't perfect, but it has internal consistency. 5B almost seems like the writers of each episode hadn't even read the scripts for the other episodes in the arc and were just making up something on their own.

[KAOS Agent]

5B was really the end of my enjoyment of the show. I hated 4B with a passion, but that was because the storyline made absolutely zero sense and we knew what the ultimate outcome of the whole author thing was going to be. With 5B, they just solidified that the star villains on this show will never answer for their crimes and that has put me on the fence as to whether to watch Season 6. If Regina had faced just one innocent victim whose life she'd ruined when she was in the Underworld and actually showed understanding and remorse, I'd be willing to maybe go along with the redemption/Regina gets a happy ending idea. Instead, Regina gets all kinds of apologies and closure with her family and never once met a Percival or a murdered groom or Random Villager #4948 who suffered under the Evil Queen. If a character is going to skate on horrific crimes, I need to see them acknowledge the horror and understand that their little pity parties about how sad their life is is nothing compared to what their victims have suffered. This was the perfect opportunity to give Regina some self awareness and they didn't even try. I don't even want to discuss Regina's confession that she hates being good. Wtf, show?

Then there was Rumpel. Devil's Due was my favorite episode in 5B. This was Rumpel facing his most personal victim, seeming to deal with/acknowledge that their issues were not all Milah's fault and then facing karmic blow back for murdering Milah again. It was a good set up for forcing Rumpel to face the consequences of his decisions. Then the rest of 5B happened. The contract was wiped out quite easily and due to the evil act of kidnapping/threatened murder (glad to see Rumpel rewarded for his evil), no one ever found out about Milah and we have no real idea just how/when/if she'll get out of the river or be able to crossover and Rumpel skips back home, refuses to help with the Hades situation and later sells out Storybrooke to Hyde.

After the events of 5A where Rumpel watched the most painful sacrifice two people can make to end the Darkness for good all while aware that the sacrifice was for nothing (except for his own gain), I just can't deal with watching him continue to skate. In my opinion, his stealing back the Darkness rather than letting it end was his most heinous crime and it was done when he was a non-tainted, pure hearted hero. It's not even fun to watch him be evil anymore because there isn't the delicious thought that eventually he'll get his comeuppance. Redemption for him isn't even remotely possible in my mind.

I have no faith that this show will ever deal with the heinous acts of its star villains. I know they won't be punished in the normal sense of justice, but the fucked up morality where mass murderers will get their happy ending without facing at least some sort of serious karmic payback is not a hopeful message. I can't continue watching regular people be murdered or suffering because of these two with total disregard from the writers about their victims' pain. If Charles Manson suddenly started acting like a human being, would this show try to convince me he's deserving of a happy ending and that the pregnant Sharon Tate and all the other murder victims of the Manson Family were just unfortunate collateral damage due to his sad, sad past? It feels like they want me to cheer for Manson and I'm just not capable of even understanding that kind of thinking.

[Mathius]

Oddly, I still prefer 5B to 5A because I feel 5A's internal consistency worked against in by the end.  It made the lack of pay-off and pointlessness of the majority of its plot all the more glaring.  5B didn't have as much of a pretense to it, it's obvious from the start that they're only in the Underworld because the writers want them there in order to do whatever shit they want, so it comes off as less of a shock and an insult when much of it is pointless and the pay-off is lacking, I expected it this time.  It doesn't make the arc good, but it makes it less frustrating to me personally.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Mathius

[Dianthus]

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 3:25 AM, Rumsy4 said:

And people like Cora get redeemed.

And Liam gets trashed.

[Rumsy4]

I watched the S5 deleted scenes. All round nothing too significant. There is a flashback scene between Regina and Hook after the latter kills Brennan. Suddenly, bizzarely, they're back in their original S2 clothes. Regina is wearing the blue dress, and Hook is back in the black velvet vest with no coat. Then, Regina asks for his hook and pours a potion on it to help him take Cora's heart. The whole costume issue makes the Brennan-incident seem like some kind of magical quest or a fever dream. lol Maybe it will be revealed in S7 that the incident never happened. Please god!!

Edited August 13, 2016 by Rumsy4

[YaddaYadda]

They seemed to wanna fix the whole potion thing on the hook from 5x01 with that other retcon in 5x11. The whole thing was bizarre.

Also, that Regina scene that was cut in 5x12. Thank you whoever edited that out because I can't imagine having to sit through 2 minutes of that. It was some serious eye roll inducing stuff, an ode to Regina and her suffering, from Adam and Eddie. Bitch, please! So you killed the only person that had given you hope? How fucking grand of you! 

We know they cut more than what's on the DVD. There's that bit of scene they edited out in 5x11 where everyone is telling Emma they'll go to the UW with her.

[Camera One]

I just watched the deleted scenes too.  Unlike in previous seasons, almost all of these scenes deserved to be cut.  The only one which answered any questions was that 10 second scene where Lancelot sees the Curse coming.  Well, I suppose it doesn't actually answer any questions since we don't know where he went, but whatever.  The Merlin/Nimue one does make the jump to the burnt out village less abrupt, but the conversation was pointless.  I'm not sure why we had to see Charming taking care of the baby except to explain where the baby went in Camelot.  

The longer scenes were pretty much all repetition which were unnecessary.  Rumple talking to Belle in the box for example.  Regina and Hook's scene was one of the longest, and most deserving to be cut, because it was all exposition of stuff we already knew.  We didn't have to see Regina promising not to speak of Hook killing his father, or Regina getting his hook.  That scene should never even have been written.  The scene where Snow declared it was all her fault they were in the Underworld was hard to explain, and an obvious setup for another unbelievable Snow/Regina moment... the Hercules episode was supposed about Snow but so peripherally.  I still don't buy the "I don't want to be MM anymore" epiphany at the end since the Writers didn't earn it and the deleted scene offered nothing more.

And the longest scene of all from the 100th episode was totally unnecessary.  LOL when Regina declared "We're not going" and Robin goes, "What?!"  I mean, that was unintentionally funny.  "The first Henry was just like me.  He believed in you too".  How do they come up with such atrocious lines.  Though I thought the Henry actor's acting in that scene was pretty good, despite the Regina propping that he had to do.  The scene made Regina's regret all about her father, and not about her bigger crimes, once again reinforcing the Writers' warped sense of morality, justice and redemption.

Good point about the exclusion of the deleted scene from the 5A finale where everyone told Emma they would go to the Underworld with her.  Did they feel that one couldn't be canon, so it was excluded or what?

Edited August 13, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Then, Regina asks for his hook and pours a potion on it to help him take Cora's heart. 

Which would have been a 100% retcon since in 2x09 we saw Regina enchant it. As it stands without the deleted scene, Regina could have said, "Oh wait. In case the enchantment doesn't work, here's a backup potion" or something.

[Rumsy4]

I agree about the Regina scene being eye-roll inducing. It was more of the usual self-indulgent crap from Regina about her own happiness, her suffering, and Henry parenting her and propping her up. And Robin standing there awkwardly. Good thing it was deleted. 

And as yadda yaada pointed out on tumblr, Charming looked really bored having to take care of his son. He clearly would have prefered to have handed the brat over to Granny. It kinda fits his occasionally slightly sexist bent though. But it would have been overkill for the episode. So, again, it was a good scene to cut. 

Edited August 13, 2016 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

Oh yes, I see this was from his unflattering centric.  I didn't think he looked bored though, more like he was trying to smuggle a baby.

I did like the bit with Regina going to the Sheriff's office and seeing the red jacket.  Though it would have been more touching if Snow and Charming had that scene instead.

I guess there were some deleted scenes they never shot?  Like one Adam posted on Twitter awhile back:

LOL at the added notes... "Yeah, despite everything, there are still sparks."  Oooooookay...

Edited August 13, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

I'm surprised by how, erm, colorfully casual some of the script notes are. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be any flips given.

[Rumsy4]

Based on a discussion from the Relationships thread, I was wondering what OUAT characters' taglines would be like.

Regina: I deserve to be Happy.

Snow: True Love is worth fighting for.

Charming: Honor.

Emma: I need to save everyone.

Hook: Emma. <3

Henry: I want to be a hero. 

Zelena: I want everything my sister has.

Robin: I have a code.

Belle: I need to save Rumple.

Rumple: World Domination.

[TheGreenKnight]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Though I guess the point of that episode was Cora was actually looking out for Regina... since Regina is her own worse enemy, not Cora.

That didn't seem to be the point of the episode to me...? I think Regina had raised the family to the highest level by marrying the King, but she was on her way to ruining it all by making the entire kingdom hate her and oust her for Snow eventually. To me, it seemed like Cora thought she could better control things with Regina out of the way now that she'd fulfilled her purpose, since Cora would be running things until a possible grandchild could come of age. Nothing about Cora trying to make Regina queen throughout the series seemed to have anything to do with Regina specifically so much as Cora's own ambition. The only time Cora even seemed to see Regina as anything more than an object was just before she died when her heart was returned to her chest and in the Underworld.

Edited August 15, 2016 by TheGreenKnight

[sharky]

So I'm rewatching 5A and holy cow, it seems worse than I remembered. What the hell was the point of having Merida? I just finished The Bear and the Bow, which was dumb (the Rumbelle stupidity didn't help) and I'm dreading the upcoming Merida hour. It just seemed so pointless and a perfect example of A&E trying to shove too much shit into o e little space instead of telling an actual fleshed out story. I'm so looking forward to deleting these episodes off my DVR and getting to the Underworld. 

[KingOfHearts]

I'll be rewatching S5 start to finish when it comes on Netflix in a week. I'm interested in seeing how it holds up for binge-watching. I don't know if I can muster up the courage when I get to the finale, though.

[YaddaYadda]

This is my problem with the centrics. Merida got 2 that made no real sense, especially the second one which was a complete stand alone episode. The only thing it did was that we weren't weirded out seeing Ruby and Mulan together in 5x18. Meanwhile, Hades who seemed to have this extensive history with his brother, who might have done something so bad, his brother stopped his ticker from beating, shut him off in the UW, and made sure he couldn't hurt anyone or drag anyone to the UW with him didn't get that backstory. Zeus shows up, sends Hook back to the land of the living and that was the end of that.

They could have used episode 9 for more Merlin, and answering a whole bunch of questions instead of Merida. Again, I get that the episode was ordered and the writers had to scramble a bit, but that was such a terrible choice!

[sharky]

4 minutes ago, YaddaYadda said:

This is my problem with the centrics. Merida got 2 that made no real sense, especially the second one which was a complete stand alone episode. The only thing it did was that we weren't weirded out seeing Ruby and Mulan together in 5x18. Meanwhile, Hades who seemed to have this extensive history with his brother, who might have done something so bad, his brother stopped his ticker from beating, shut him off in the UW, and made sure he couldn't hurt anyone or drag anyone to the UW with him didn't get that backstory. Zeus shows up, sends Hook back to the land of the living and that was the end of that.

Holy crap! How is it that I'm just now realizing that we never got a Hades centric? I mean, I guess I kind of understand that -- I did like the idea of our main characters coming to terms with their past. I actually did like the 100th episode with Regina and her father, I liked the Jones Brothers (even if they made Liam into some horrible person, bless Colin for making me care anyway about that storyline), and I did like seeing past characters come back (it was awesome to see Milah and Emma when they first met). But that whole half season and no Hades except for that weirdness with Zelena? Yikes.

Quote

They could have used episode 9 for more Merlin, and answering a whole bunch of questions instead of Merida. Again, I get that the episode was ordered and the writers had to scramble a bit, but that was such a terrible choice!

Exactly this. We had all this hype with Merlin, but how did he time travel and know so much? What else did he know? How did he get to that young Emma in the movie theater? I think that was part of the reason I hated the Merida-centric so much since there was so much wasted potential for someone else's story. Of course, looking at the episode listings, I was also reminded that it came right after the revelation that Hook was a Dark One. "Holy crap! He's Dark! He's immortal! Emma has set up this whole thing to save both of them! WTF!!!!!!!" And then.... Merida wandering around with Mulan and Ruby in some queer-baiting randomness.

That being said, I do have to mention that I am at least liking the foreshadowing with Hook and the Dark One stuff. Things seem to fit into place much better with that knowledge. For example, when Arthur is talking about Excalibur being able to snuff out the darkness or the light. They all assume she's going to snuff out the light when we know now that she was trying to save both her and Hook by getting rid of the darkness. Or Merlin talking about "The Dark One's found me," which was actually "The Dark Ones found me." And then the camera pans to present-day Hook asking "What did Emma do?" Oh, bless your heart, you sweet pirate. It was all clever and original and required some real planning and foresight by the writers. So why can't they do that with the rest of the show?