S07.E05: Greenbacks

[Lady Calypso]

I agree with all the complaints about Jacinda. I do want to talk about the stupid truck that she bought, though. She didn't buy a food truck. What she bought is a $500-$1,000 regular truck and now has to spend at least double that to fix up the inside to make it a food truck. It's going to cost thousands of dollars to refurnish the inside, make it a proper food truck, but then she also will need to get licensing and that's before buying all the ingredients and stuff to make the food! It's just very ridiculous for Jacinda to be investing in this food truck when she's complained about being so poor that her own daughter can't live with her because Victoria deems her unable to care for her own child. Not to mention Jacinda has been shown as irresponsible in every episode she's been in thus far. 

Also, Jacinda has been cruel to Sabine. I haven't seen friendship on either end here. They seem like ok friends, but not best friends. If Jacinda passes the blame to Sabine this easily over one incident, how will it be for their partnership in a business? They failed the initial test here. Also, the fact that we didn't see Jacinda's change of heart and only heard about it doesn't help.

If the show does get renewed for another season, which I'm not so sure it will, I think Jacinda won't be part of it. Whether Lucy is or not is a different story. Unlike Henry in his first season, she could be taken out of the story completely and things wouldn't change that much. 

Also, once again, what's failing with this season is that we don't have many aware characters of the curse. Lucy's aware, but we don't know how she's aware, and she has only talked about the curse when she's trying to convince the audience that Henry and Murderella are true love. Victoria's aware, but we've had a grand total of one scene with her talking about it. Weaver became aware last episode and hasn't been seen since. And now Ivy is aware, again in the last couple of minutes of the episode. Those are the scenes that have been vastly better than the entire season so far. With the first season, we had Henry aware, trying to convince an uncursed Emma, so that whole central probably was more about belief. With Lucy and Henry, I don't know what they're going for, because Henry's cursed and Lucy's done a terrible job at convincing Henry of the truth. I don't blame Henry for not believing, because Lucy has barely tried to convince him of anything. I would think that Lucy is being an annoying pest before anything. We also had Regina aware, but also Gold aware by the pilot, and we knew that early on. We even had Regina/Gold's scenes where there was legit tension. Then, they also sprinkled in various characters who were aware of the truth (August, Jefferson) that also helped to push Emma into believing. 

Here, we've had....Alice/Tilly kind of remember until she was forced to forget. But otherwise, the season has been treated like it's all normal so it's easy to forget about the curse aspect...until they force in "cute" hints with characters, like Roni's Poison Apple drink or calling herself a Queen. So with Ivy being aware in this episode, it becomes more interesting because it deals with the ultimate goal that they seem to be forgetting.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Lady Calypso

[Rumsy4]

18 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

I agree with all the complaints about Jacinda. I do want to talk about the stupid truck that she bought, though. She didn't buy a food truck. What she bought is a $500-$1,000 regular truck and now has to spend at least double that to fix up the inside to make it a food truck. It's going to cost thousands of dollars to refurnish the inside, make it a proper food truck, but then she also will need to get licensing and that's before buying all the ingredients and stuff to make the food

That truck would work better as a delivery truck. So, maybe the two should rethink their business plan and go into the delivery business. They could be Insacart shoppers or deliver food to grocery stores if they want to stay within the food industry.

A simpler fix would've been for Rogers to have sold them an actual food cart. And the part about it being a busted drug delivery truck made the whole thing bizarre. Is it the production team's mess or is it a writing fail, I wonder. Someone ought to have flagged this as an error and corrected it. 

Edited November 5, 2017 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

43 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

That truck would work better as a delivery truck. So, maybe the two should rethink their business plan and go into the delivery business. 

They could just make their beignets at home at night in their apartment or rent out Roni's kitchen, and then they can deliver the beignets from that truck for bulk orders and/or store everything in that truck when they set up a stand at farmer's market as Jacinda originally suggested.  The Writers seem to have no idea what resources people who live paycheque to paycheque would have.  I mean, gas alone would probably eat up half their rent cheque.

An easier way to discredit the business permanently would just be to spread the rumour that someone got food poisoning, or they saw mice.  Or Victoria could have reported the kitchen mis-use to Mr. Cluck's headquarters or to the owner.  And as I said earlier, there's no reason why Victoria wouldn't go and torch their "food truck" if she was willing to go that far before.  Heck, burn down Roni's.   In addition, are we supposed to believe she would have suddenly forgotten about Henry being in Hyperion Heights, like it didn't matter anymore?

Edited November 5, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

An easier way to discredit the business permanently would just be to spread the rumour that someone got food poisoning, or they saw mice.  Or Victoria could have reported the kitchen mis-use to Mr. Cluck's headquarters or to the owner.  And as I said earlier, there's no reason why Victoria wouldn't go and torch their "food truck" if she was willing to go that far before.  Heck, burn down Roni's.   In addition, are we supposed to believe she would have suddenly forgotten about Henry being in Hyperion Heights, like it didn't matter anymore?

Victoria is rash about everything. She doesn't consider consequences nor possible holes in her schemes. Ivy is totally taking advantage of that weakness. However, it does come off as laziness on the writers' part. They don't have to think up elaborate plans for her. She's diabolical because she's the  designated Big Bad, not because she's cunning or powerful. 

Ivy has very strong character motivations that have been consistent throughout every episode. That puts her above and beyond Jacinda in terms of audience engagement and believability.  First, Jacinda wanted revenge on the Prince for being responsible for her father's death. Then, she wanted to leave with Henry to escape to another realm. After that, she joined the resistance to defeat Tremaine. But then she immediately made a deal with her, where she had to kill a resistance member in order to resurrect Anastasia. In the present, she wanted to move with Lucy to some random island we never got to see presumably because of budget constraints. And now she wants to risk her rent money on a drug-infested food truck with Sabine. Meanwhile, Ivy is dead set on getting her mother's approval. Her actions all feed into that. It probably helps that she's "awake", as it provides from congruency between the flashbacks and HH.

It's almost as if the writers want us to hate Jacinda.

Edited November 5, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[CheshireCat]

4 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

Als With the first season, we had Henry aware, trying to convince an uncursed Emma, so that whole central probably was more about belief. With Lucy and Henry, I don't know what they're going for, because Henry's cursed and Lucy's done a terrible job at convincing Henry of the truth.

It seems that this time around, the new villain and new child are only one-trick ponies. I'm not seeing versatility. Lucy always claims her mother is Cinderella and Henry's her dad and that her stepmother wants to separate them. That's it. I think it would be far more interesting if she told everyone who everyone is because it would add layers to the story. She should see the photo Regina found, tell Regina who she is. Regina would probably not believe her but I think it would be an interesting step as it opens up so any doors. It could potentially lead to some humor but it would also lead to the possibility of triggering some things.

As soon as Emma came to Storybrooke, everyone seemed to start to wake up. There were bits and pieces that changed and the old selves were shining through. Additionally, Emma was suspicious and curious and even if she maybe didn't believe in the curse, she was still a foe/challenge to Regina. I think this is what made the first season so compelling and I'm starting to miss this. It seems there was more depth to it.

Same with Tremaine. Where is the depth?

I think what made the first season more interesting, too, is the fact that there were multiple aspects to Regina's doings. She had already gotten her revenge and she was determined to keep it. At the same time, she was fighting for her son and for me, in a very relateable way of an adoptive mother. Yes, she knew who Emma was but she loved Henry and I think she was genuinely afraid of losing him/his love. And then there was the fact that we all knew that Regina used to be a different person, so we all got a glimpse at the person she once was and who was inside her. Whether we liked Regina or not, they set her up for redemption from the start. They also gave her moments when it looked like she was going to change and when the person she once was shone through. She had a lot of relapses at the beginning, still, it gave the villain so many layers and made her an untraditional villain. Tremaine is the traditional villain whose agenda has not yet been achieved. She also doesn't seem to be set up for redemption. I think that worked when everyone was fighting evil because they were all still pursuing and struggling with their own demands on the side (Emma was struggling with her fear to commit and trust, Regina was still trying to become a better person, Hook as well, Rumple, too etc). That personal story seems to be missing now because they all don't remember who they are, so the lack of layers to Tremaine (not that I'd want her to have layers at this point, I think that ship has sailed), takes away what made the other seasons compelling. It seems, everyone's just sitting around waiting for the curse to break and without a true personal story for everyone (Hook seems to be the only one who has one), I think it's going to get boring in about an episode or two.

[tennisgurl]

I know I've harped on this before, but a big thing that isn't working for me this season, as opposed to the first season, is that there isn't any real scope of the curse here, and we dont have many fairy tale characters to really use here. In the first season, most of the focus was on Emma, Regina,Rumple, Henry, Snow, and Charming, but they also had a decent amount of supporting characters who were involved in the plot and were affected by the curse, like Red, Granny, Whale, Archie, and the Dwarfs, and while they didn't always use these characters well, they were at least around, usually had a few good episodes, and helped to play with new story characters, and see how the curse changed people from who they were to who they were cursed to be. Even the one shot or more minor characters like Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel showed how big the curse was and emphasized how it took away the lives of so many people. Plus, trying to guess who all the characters were in the fairy tale world, and getting little hints as to their real identities, was part of the fun. 

In Hyperion Heights? It seems like we have a grand total of around eight people from fairy-tale lands stuck here, half of whom dont even have the fake memories, or have woken up already. They're all main characters, we know who they really are, and we only see them interacting in important settings. I keep waiting for a character we randomly meet in one world to show up in the other world, to emphasis the curse and how its affected people, and to show how awful the curse is but it never happens. Here, most of the people of Hyperion Heights seem to be just normal modern people, and since we already know who the fairy tale people are. It seriously limits the stories that can be told, and the world being built. So whats even the point? No one even seems that different from one world to the next, and no one seems to be that heartbroken by their curse. At worst, people seem kind of stressed. This curse just seems like something Tremaine got off the discount rack. 

[CheshireCat]

24 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I know I've harped on this before, but a big thing that isn't working for me this season, as opposed to the first season, is that there isn't any real scope of the curse here, and we dont have many fairy tale characters to really use here. In the first season, most of the focus was on Emma, Regina,Rumple, Henry, Snow, and Charming, but they also had a decent amount of supporting characters who were involved in the plot and were affected by the curse, like Red, Granny, Whale, Archie, and the Dwarfs, and while they didn't always use these characters well, they were at least around, usually had a few good episodes, and helped to play with new story characters, and see how the curse changed people from who they were to who they were cursed to be. Even the one shot or more minor characters like Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel showed how big the curse was and emphasized how it took away the lives of so many people. Plus, trying to guess who all the characters were in the fairy tale world, and getting little hints as to their real identities, was part of the fun. 

That's what I meant by Tremaine seeming to be a traditional villain. The random characters weren't there after the curse was broken and they were facing all of the villains but the core characters had personal stories. And that is what it feels like now, minus the personal stories which made that interesting.

They need to do something. As I said, they missed making Tremaine a more layered villain, so the core characters need to wake up or, at least, believe, and actively start to try and break the curse. Apart from Lucy, no one's really trying, and she's not making much of an effort. But then, she's a child. But I think that is why it seems that everyone is just a normal person, living a normal life, because no one's believing or actively trying to break a curse. They just go about their lives and the villain isn't really fairy-tale-evil either. For me, it worked at the beginning but now I want more. Things need to evolve but, they can't evolve until some of the characters start to believe and get active.

[sweetandsour]

Commenting for the first time on this show to chime in how awful Jacinda is. It's not like the rest of the reboot is good except for her, but good Lord, she gets so much screen time and is so so unlikable. After they cast her, they should have realized at least by the first table read that this character and actress were not going to work. I shudder to think that the producers are really sitting around thinking this is exactly what they wanted and they are making an enjoyable show. I continue to be just flabbergasted at how poorly this reboot was constructed. They knew they no longer had characters their audience liked, so you'd think they would work extra hard at constructing something that would give people reasons to stay on board. (I guess in other words, what I'm saying here is this isn't a sophomore slump situation where storylines and show quality decrease because they don't have a great plan for the next chapter of existing characters.)

In a vacuum, there is no way OUAT will be renewed for another season. The ratings are terrible, even for a Friday. However, when you look at the dire straits of ABC's hour-long show slate, maybe anything can happen. Scandal's last season, dropping ratings for HTGAWM (and who knows how long Viola wants to do the show) and Designated Survivor, questionable status of SHIELD after this season, Ten Days in the Valley already got pulled until a Saturday episode dump in December. Kevin (Probably) Saves the World is doing okay, but I think the only hour-long scripted shows ABC is happy with are Grey's and The Good Doctor. Mid-season doesn't seem like it's going to bring any miracles.

[Camera One]

That sounds promising for this show then.  I want another season of this hot mess.  I'll never cease to laugh every time I see a beignet or a food truck from here on out.

[tessaray]

There's only so much hot mess viewers in general can take until they get distracted by other things.  I already have too many shows to keep up with myself and my affection for this one is being worn thin. 

The biggest problem for me it that the only thing that really feels like OUAT anymore is the opening title sequence. Still, it could be salvageable.  Ivy and the witch's scene was intriguing - keeping me interested enough to give it one more week (though it was a close call).  

[Curio]

On 11/3/2017 at 9:07 PM, Rumsy4 said:

Why do several charatcers think Henry is falling in love with any women he talks to for five minutes?? 

Because, just like Roni/Regina, Henry feels things deeply. He feels things with his entire soul. 

[KingOfHearts]

5 hours ago, Curio said:

He feels things with his entire soul. 

If only Jacinda had one, they could be Pixie Dust soulmates.

Edited November 6, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[kili]

Quote

Tremaine doesn't come across as dark or evil. She comes across as heartless, self-centered and greedy.

Tremaine is King George, but without Alan Dale's acting ability.  King George managed to sell menacing and capable.  Tremaine? Not so much. Maybe she's not the real villain - maybe she's the fake villain. King George was also a tertiary villain with Regina and Rumple carrying the ball for the dark-side.

I still love Charming getting killed in early episode fake-out. That was a wait-what-they-didn't! thrill with a rompy twin replacement to seal the deal.  The reboot just hasn't had those kinds of moments.

I do like Tremaine's tea-pot. I think it's Georg Jensen.

Jacinda's character isn't working. They should make her the villain. That would explain why Henry was alone with Lucy.  Jacinda broke bad and went evil because of [reasons]. Henry had to flee with Lucy who isn't really her kid...she's really Hook's daughter! Or maybe she's Tremaine's daughter with a curse on her making her think she's Jacinda's and Henry's daughter. Twist! The person who thinks they are not affected by the curse is the most cursed of them all.

I was eye-rolling at Tiana's poor little rich girl routine straight out of the Lady Mary playbook from Downtown Abbey. Boo-hoo, I'm not going to have enough nice dresses and balls. At least she came to her senses and became cool. She should have taken that doll though.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I was eye-rolling at Tiana's poor little rich girl routine straight out of the Lady Mary playbook from Downtown Abbey. Boo-hoo, I'm not going to have enough nice dresses and balls. At least she came to her senses and became cool. She should have taken that doll though.

Tiana strutting around the village in fine jewelry and a ball gown was very laughable. Your family is so poor yet you dress like the Duchess of Wales. 

[tennisgurl]

And Tiana must have ridiculously naive to walk around in the peasant bog and a sketchy bar in fancy clothes covered in jewelry! And who goes off to meet a witchdoctor in the magical bayou in a ballgown anyway? Come on Tiana! 

Tiana from the movie would never engage in such ridiculousness. That version opened her own restaurant and worked as the head chef even after marrying an actual prince! While wearing practical clothes. 

[ParadoxLost]

7 hours ago, kili said:

I do like Tremaine's tea-pot. I think it's Georg Jensen.

I'm impressed that you can pull out the names of silversmiths (thanks google).  I meanwhile was pulling out names of Hanna Barbera cartoons.  What does George Jetson have to do with this?

[Camera One]

I can't believe how long they spent staring at the fire and fanning the flames.  You'd think that metal moneybox would be scorching hot by the time Sabine finally thought to grab it.  Did they manage to double their rent money (or more, if the jar didn't have a full month's worth) with half a day of sales?  I'm surprised they didn't call on the help of their unemployed friend Henry to help.

[Rumsy4]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

Did they manage to double their rent money (or more, if the jar didn't have a full month's worth) with half a day of sales? 

Either the beignets were super pricey, or they've been at it since dawn with 100s of customers lining up. lol

Now, is the owner/manager going to find out what happened and fire them, in addition to pressing charges for unauthorized use of his premises? ;-)

Edited November 7, 2017 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

I wonder if Ivy has been "awake" all along, or was it something the witch did to her, possibly to do with that tea. There was such a fuss made about getting her the special tea, and that made me wonder if the tea allowed her to start doing things. If she wanted to break Victoria's control over her, one of the best ways to do it would be to break the curse on Ivy and then get her cooperation.

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

Did they manage to double their rent money (or more, if the jar didn't have a full month's worth) with half a day of sales?

I guess if they could double their rent money with half a day of sales, then they just need another couple of days with the refurbished drug/food truck to recoup their investment and also pay their raised rent. Because obviously they're in the real world rather than in some fairytale enclave and dealing with gritty real-world issues in a realistic way.

[Mitch]

On 11/4/2017 at 6:11 PM, tennisgurl said:

would be alright with this world being a weird mashup of cultures and folklore and Disney and history, and culture, that actually sounds interesting, but for that to work, they would need to commit to the rules of the universe, and they clearly have no interest in that, so it just comes across as a mess.

That is why I think they should have just said that the Black Fairy actually did destroy realms...and when Emma' s sacrifice restored them they eventually collapsed into one world..so this world we are looking at is a mash up of all the worlds with new backstories,  part of it stories from a whacked out New Orleans..(I would rather visit that then another Disney kingdom..)  etc.  By collapsing all the worlds into one it  would also allow them to play with the formula a bit, and we could be saved from the ridiculous "It is almost impossible to get from realm to realm...oh there is my bus to Oz..."

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I wonder if Ivy has been "awake" all along, or was it something the witch did to her, possibly to do with that tea. There was such a fuss made about getting her the special tea, and that made me wonder if the tea allowed her to start doing things. If she wanted to break Victoria's control over her, one of the best ways to do it would be to break the curse on Ivy and then get her cooperation.

I thought the special tea was just a diversion to keep Victoria occupied.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I thought the special tea was just a diversion to keep Victoria occupied.

Maybe, but there was such a big deal made out of it, and didn't they send Ivy to get the ingredients, anyway, so it wasn't much of a diversion for Victoria. I kept waiting for the payoff on the tea and what made it special.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, XrystalPond said:

If the roomies wanted to have a pop up restaurant, which is not a horrible idea, then wouldn't it have made sense to have it at the bar Roni owns? Bars typically don't have a serious amount of business in the mornings when beignets are typically sold. It wouldn't have that extensive of a kitchen, but probably on par with a chicken place.

That's a really good idea. It looks like she was serving burgers and fries in an earlier episode, and all they'd need for beignets is a deep-fat fryer, which Roni would have to have to serve fries. Then the attempt at burning the place down would put Roni in direct conflict with Victoria, which would make the story more interesting than Victoria damaging some random business.

1 hour ago, XrystalPond said:

Do we know yet why a grown-a$$ woman like Jacinda with her own kid is still taking orders and living in fear of her step mother? I'm grown and close to my parents, but dang. They don't like each other. Why are they still in each others lives?

That's the big question of the season. A stepmother would have absolutely no say in her adult stepdaughter's life. She doesn't seem to have officially adopted Jacinda (or she wouldn't be a stepmother), so she would have no claim at all on Jacinda or her daughter. I think there have been a few court cases about grandparents getting visitation with grandchildren, but Victoria is no blood relative of Jacinda's or Lucy's. She doesn't seem to be supporting Jacinda in any way -- quite the opposite -- so she wouldn't have the say or control that would come with that. So there was no reason for her to have been able to take custody of Lucy. Jacinda can't "run away" with her own daughter. She's the custodial parent, so she can take her daughter wherever she wants, whenever she wants. Victoria taking Lucy away because Jacinda tried to "run away" with her makes no sense whatsoever. The story would have worked so much better if Lucy had been Victoria's adopted daughter and Jacinda was the nanny who had a closer relationship to Lucy than her "mother" did, while Lucy believed that Jacinda was really Cinderella and really her mother. Then Victoria would have had control over whether or not Jacinda got to see her. The running away could have been a climactic thing later in the arc, if Jacinda decided to take matters into her own hands to protect Lucy or actually came to believe Lucy about who she really was.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

12 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Maybe, but there was such a big deal made out of it, and didn't they send Ivy to get the ingredients, anyway, so it wasn't much of a diversion for Victoria. I kept waiting for the payoff on the tea and what made it special.

Well, it could be another hint this witch is Mother Gothel, since in the fairytale Rapunzel's parents incurred her wrath by stealing her herb.

[Camera One]

I wouldn't be surprised if they never mention the herbs again.  But yeah, they made a huge deal of it for seemingly no reason.  It hardly occupied Victoria since she just got Ivy to get them.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Camera One

[Worsel]

On 11/5/2017 at 1:14 PM, CheshireCat said:

It seems that this time around, the new villain and new child are only one-trick ponies. I'm not seeing versatility. Lucy always claims her mother is Cinderella and Henry's her dad and that her stepmother wants to separate them. That's it. I think it would be far more interesting if she told everyone who everyone is because it would add layers to the story. She should see the photo Regina found, tell Regina who she is. Regina would probably not believe her but I think it would be an interesting step as it opens up so any doors. It could potentially lead to some humor but it would also lead to the possibility of triggering some things.

As soon as Emma came to Storybrooke, everyone seemed to start to wake up. There were bits and pieces that changed and the old selves were shining through. Additionally, Emma was suspicious and curious and even if she maybe didn't believe in the curse, she was still a foe/challenge to Regina. I think this is what made the first season so compelling and I'm starting to miss this. It seems there was more depth to it.

Same with Tremaine. Where is the depth?

I think what made the first season more interesting, too, is the fact that there were multiple aspects to Regina's doings. She had already gotten her revenge and she was determined to keep it. At the same time, she was fighting for her son and for me, in a very relateable way of an adoptive mother. Yes, she knew who Emma was but she loved Henry and I think she was genuinely afraid of losing him/his love. And then there was the fact that we all knew that Regina used to be a different person, so we all got a glimpse at the person she once was and who was inside her. Whether we liked Regina or not, they set her up for redemption from the start. They also gave her moments when it looked like she was going to change and when the person she once was shone through. She had a lot of relapses at the beginning, still, it gave the villain so many layers and made her an untraditional villain. Tremaine is the traditional villain whose agenda has not yet been achieved. She also doesn't seem to be set up for redemption. I think that worked when everyone was fighting evil because they were all still pursuing and struggling with their own demands on the side (Emma was struggling with her fear to commit and trust, Regina was still trying to become a better person, Hook as well, Rumple, too etc). That personal story seems to be missing now because they all don't remember who they are, so the lack of layers to Tremaine (not that I'd want her to have layers at this point, I think that ship has sailed), takes away what made the other seasons compelling. It seems, everyone's just sitting around waiting for the curse to break and without a true personal story for everyone (Hook seems to be the only one who has one), I think it's going to get boring in about an episode or two.

You mean it isn’t boring already? I thought the frog love story was predictable and the rest of the episode truly lame - who puts out a fire by waving more air with a towel? The only interesting aspect is Ivy and the ending reveal that she has her memories and is manipulating her mother, but it isn’t enough to save the episode from the poorly written character relationships, poor chemistry between some actors and sparse back stories. I am an optimistic person but am deeply concerned about the future of the show, which makes me sad because it has been one of my favorite series.

 I wanted to only quote Cheshire Cats last sentence by the way but having some technical issues with my iPad so sorry for the long post

[CinAZ]

Just now getting around to posting about this episode... meh.

I agree with everything that has been said about Jacinda.  I am truly surprised that this actress was cast in this role. If I connected with the characters even a little bit, I could over look the craptastic storylines. I really have not felt such dislike for a character as I do for Jacinda/Cinderella. The acting takes me right out of the scene. Instead of listening to what she is saying, I was watching the weird way her eyes were super wide, maybe it was an ‘acting technique ‘? If the actress is somehow replaced, it might get another season, if they are going with this one, I hope they wrap everything up in a nice little happy ever after bow, cuz they are not getting another season.

I did enjoy the Ivy reveal. She is the best thing going right now.

[jhlipton]

On 11/3/2017 at 6:12 PM, ParadoxLost said:

If A&E were trying to make me dislike Jacinda they couldn’t do a better job of it.

I think I said this before: Jacinda is an Inhuman!

On 11/3/2017 at 8:17 PM, Writing Wrongs said:

That was just for the Wreck-It Ralph joke.

I think you mean the Wreck-It Ralph "joke".  Yeah, I'm still laughing at that... not.

On 11/3/2017 at 9:41 PM, Camera One said:

Having said that, the fact that she started out as a Princess pretty much made her Tiana only in name. 

So very much this.

On 11/4/2017 at 2:42 PM, Camera One said:

It's pretty pathetic when "2 Broke Girls" is more realistic than this show.

From the get-go, I was thinking "When you're stealing plots from 2 Broke Girls, of all places, that's pretty darn low!

[RulerofallIsurvey]

I am seriously behind on this show and forum.  I didn't even watch this episode until two nights ago.  I remember when I couldn't wait to watch the show.  ::sigh::.  I haven't read the other comments, so I have no idea what's been said or if people generally liked this ep or not.  I didn't hate it, I guess?  I will say this: I fell asleep half way through and it was only 7:30pm.  Yeah, it was that bad.  Even worse was when I woke up near the end, I didn't even bother to rewind and catch what I'd missed because I just didn't care enough about it.  Never thought I'd see the day when Colin on my screen couldn't interest me at all, but these showrunners managed to do it.  I really don't care about his character much or his search.  I don't care about Roni/Regina or Henry or any of them really. 

Speaking of Roni - her t-shirt and the way she was walking with her arms on her hips like she was so tough was really off-putting.  Stop Lana.  Just stop. 

JacinMurderella continues to be an annoying harridan.  I guess everything's supposed to be okay since she bought Tianna the food truck?  How exactly is that going to help break the curse?  Not quite the punch that Emma taking a chainsaw to Regina's apple tree had.  They're saving the world one beignet at a time!  //snark.

Wait, not done with the snark after all: so now Drivy is awake too?  Are we supposed to believe she's really behind the curse?  If she is, the girl needs a lesson in proper curse-casting, cause making yourself subordinate to the mother you obviously despise is beyond stupid. 

Really not happy with the way they 'adapted' the Princess and the Frog story.  They managed to make Tiana a completely bland, boring, generic princess.  I'm disappointed that Disney let them get away with that. 

[Dianthus]

I have yet to watch a single ep of this misbegotten "requel" and it doesn't seem like I'm missing much at all, except that I was watching the show with a friend, and we haven't been spending that time together. A & E really are the worst sort of hacks.

[Camera One]

Has anyone broken out the cold beignets yet?  

I can't believe I'm still vaguely outraged that they took Tiana and made her a generic medieval warrior princess.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Has anyone broken out the cold beignets yet?  

It says a lot about this episode that the thread was only two pages long and doesn't seem to have had any posts beyond a week or so after the original airdate. It's a cold beignet of an episode.

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I can't believe I'm still vaguely outraged that they took Tiana and made her a generic medieval warrior princess.

Sabine's a lot more like movie Tiana than Tiana's fairytale persona is. And nothing about her makes sense. Her father was a cook for the army, then had to step up and lead in a battle he won, and they made him a prince? General, maybe. Possibly even a duke or other kind of nobleman, but a prince? And then they said he built the kingdom. But then they're now poor because they owe taxes to the king? Was it his own kingdom he built, or was he a prince working for a king? Or did this king step up and take over when Tiana's father died and that's what's causing all the problems? I didn't get how it all fit together. Generally, a king with sons isn't going to make some other guy a prince unless it's like Imperial Russia, where "prince" is a noble title and the actual sons of the czar are grand dukes. But here the sons of the king are princes. They really missed the point of Tiana by having her be a princess. That was the entire plot of the movie, that she was working hard to move herself up in the world, and she got enchanted because she wasn't a princess and was only able to break the enchantment by becoming a princess.

But it makes more sense than opening a pop-up beignet shop in a fried chicken restaurant while the manager is away and there are no other employees around, and they're serving beignets instead of chicken at dinnertime (since Lucy is there after her afterschool ballet class). The fix was so easy -- either have them do the pop-up for breakfast, so they're cooking and serving beignets when the chicken place wouldn't have been open or have them cook them at Roni's.

I did like the twist about the prince being an enchanted frog, rather than the other way around. The frog made a more interesting man than Henry does.

I think the actor playing Facilier did a really good job with the role.

Spoiler

It's just a pity that they didn't really do anything with him.

[Camera One]

Got through this episode, but I think I will leave the next one for another day.  I'm surprised I'm actually finding it easier to keep up with the rewatch this season.  Maybe it was because rewatching the other seasons got too painful seeing all the lost potential.  With this season, I couldn't care less.  

32 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Sabine's a lot more like movie Tiana than Tiana's fairytale persona is. And nothing about her makes sense. Her father was a cook for the army, then had to step up and lead in a battle he won, and they made him a prince? General, maybe. Possibly even a duke or other kind of nobleman, but a prince? And then they said he built the kingdom. But then they're now poor because they owe taxes to the king? Was it his own kingdom he built, or was he a prince working for a king? Or did this king step up and take over when Tiana's father died and that's what's causing all the problems? I didn't get how it all fit together.

It never made any sense.  In this episode, they did say Tiana's mother was royalty, so Tiana's father heroism was why Tiana's mother noticed him.  When they married, he became the Prince and then he "rebuilt the lands into a great kingdom".  But nothing in this episode (or any other) explains why there was a new King who was taxing them.  I suppose we could infer that Tiana's mother's reign was overthrown by the King who was BFF with Lady Tremaine.  

Why didn't Dr. Facilier just get the Frog Prince to buy Tiana's father's medal at the auction?  Why didn't Dr. Facilier just steal it?  It was another convoluted plot with twists and turns but on second watch, you think, "But why?"

The lack of thought about the timeline also stands out.  They wrote this flashback and chose to end it by having Tiana say that the King was holding a ball to marry off his son and this will be their chance to "turn the tide".  In this whole episode, they were saying Tiana was a sheltered Princess, yet she could suddenly gather and lead a resistance and easily fight off the soldier in Episode 3 when he was threatening Jacinda.  I guess the fact that she was royalty could help with recruitment, but why not leave more time between this flashback and the King's ball from Episode 1.  

Ralph sure acts fast.  Jacinda was just walking back from the kitchen and he managed to set multiple fires in such a short time?  

In hindsight, Ivy's plan made little sense.  So now we know she knew exactly where Victoria was going secretly yet we got a scene with her looking at the security cam and then calling Henry right away.  Did she want Henry to find the photo with Regina?  But why?  

Victoria's disdain for Ivy makes so little sense too.

Spoiler

Even with the backstory about how Anastasia and not Ivy kept looking to find Rapunzel/Victoria.

It's funny we were talking about the lack of conflict between Henry and Roni.  Henry was not angry at all when Roni told him that she snooped through his phone and deleted the messages from Ivy.  Adult Henry is not human.  And talk about disturbing when he joked if Roni wanted to go into the bathroom with him to hold his hand.

Then, there was Mop Head all "Did it work?  Do they trust you?" to Ivy.

Spoiler

But what was the point when Ivy got Regina to remember soon after?

Quote

But it makes more sense than opening a pop-up beignet shop in a fried chicken restaurant while the manager is away and there are no other employees around, and they're serving beignets instead of chicken at dinnertime (since Lucy is there after her afterschool ballet class). The fix was so easy -- either have them do the pop-up for breakfast, so they're cooking and serving beignets when the chicken place wouldn't have been open or have them cook them at Roni's.

 

That's the thing with this show... there are so many easy fixes, but none of the brilliant Writers thought of them.

Quote

I think the actor playing Facilier did a really good job with the role.

Spoiler

He was so annoying in 7B that I retroactively hate him already

And then the big shocking moment when Ivy said to Mop Head, "Don't call me Ivy.  It's Drizella."

Spoiler

Why would Mother Gothel call her Ivy anyway?

Edited September 28, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Ralph sure acts fast.  Jacinda was just walking back from the kitchen and he managed to set multiple fires in such a short time?  

A&E decided to throw in Wreck-it Ralph and Ratatouille (another guy's name is Remy) references into Hyperion Heights. The namedropping got really weird.

Quote

And then the big shocking moment when Ivy said to Mop Head, "Don't call me Ivy.  It's Drizella."

Reading this made me chuckle. This show can be so ridiculous sometimes. I love how she said it like it was some huge, dramatic reveal. So cringy.

Quote

Spoiler

Why would Mother Gothel call her Ivy anyway?

Spoiler

She just really likes plants.

Edited September 28, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

54 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Spoiler

She just really likes plants.

Spoiler

Speaking of which, why would Mother Gothel be drinking herbal tea?  Wouldn't that be a form of cannibalism?  

Edited September 28, 2019 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

8 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Reading this made me chuckle. This show can be so ridiculous sometimes. I love how she said it like it was some huge, dramatic reveal. So cringy.

 

I love the big super dramatic music sting, like the music is going "OMFGGGGGG" to let us know how shocked we should all be, when really its just hilarious. 

Tiana being a princess is so stupid, its completely against her character in the movie. Her whole deal was that she was a workaholic from a working class background who needed to learn how to let lose and have fun sometimes. She wasnt some sheltered rich girl, she was a realist and a hard worker, and, oh yeah, she was from New Orleans in the 1920s! They do at least try to add in a kind of swamp look to her kingdom, but this really shows the lack of creativity in the show at this point. All they can do is vaugly medieval/Renaissance princess lands, despite Tiana being very tied to her specific time and place. The frog twist was kind of cute at least.

Jacinda is so unlikable, both as Jacinda and as Ella. Her yelling at her best friend for how everything is her fault (and its her fault why?) even though I am pretty sure that Sabine didnt have a gun to her head, she agreed to her idea, and this was pretty out of her control, was so harsh and mean spirited. She even took the money her clearly hurt friend gave her, and clutched it to her chest while glaring at her! She is so unlikable, its not a good sign that she needs a big speech every week to keep her from doing things that any halfway decent person wouldn't have done anyway. And its not like this is her cursed personality, this is pretty much always how she is! 

[KingOfHearts]

16 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I love the big super dramatic music sting, like the music is going "OMFGGGGGG" to let us know how shocked we should all be, when really its just hilarious. 

It may as well have gone "DUN DUN DUNNN".

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

It never made any sense.  In this episode, they did say Tiana's mother was royalty, so Tiana's father heroism was why Tiana's mother noticed him.  When they married, he became the Prince and then he "rebuilt the lands into a great kingdom".  But nothing in this episode (or any other) explains why there was a new King who was taxing them.  I suppose we could infer that Tiana's mother's reign was overthrown by the King who was BFF with Lady Tremaine.  

If they're still living in a castle and having a lawn sale, the king doesn't know how to pull off a coup. You kill or exile the former ruler. It also looks like the king is in a different castle. They way they talked, half the time it was like this was a separate kingdom Tiana's parents ruled and half the time it sounded like they were under the rule of this king. I guess it's like in the original Enchanted Forest world, where Midas was a king, but he was answering to Regina and letting her swoop into his castle with her soldiers. Maybe it's like a layer thing, where there's a ruler over a large area, and there are smaller kingdoms within that area that are ruled locally by their prince/king/whatever, but they answer to and pay taxes to a high king?

The episodes blur when I watch them on the same night, so I forget what happened in each one. This was the one where Rogers interrogated the tattoo guy, right? I was getting Haven flashbacks from the tribal-looking circular tattoo on his arm. The interrogation room was cracking me up because the precinct looks like it's just this little storefront size, but then they have this vast, empty barn-like structure (more Haven, I guess) with a tiny table in it for an interrogation room.

And did Roni's bar grow? In the earlier episodes, it seemed like it was fairly small, and then it looked like Gaston's hunting lodge in this episode, with the soaring ceiling and high beams and roaring fire in the giant hearth.

[Camera One]

I was just skipping through the episode to look at Roni's bar (I think it's the same set but maybe filmed from a different angle?). 

Then I saw that this episode started with Mop Head telling Victoria that she must pull out Lucy's belief by the roots.  But Victoria didn't do anything of the sort in this episode.  It's funny how by the end of the episode, you completely forgot what was at the beginning.  A&E's powers of inducing amnesia are strong.

Last episode, Jacinda wasn't allowed to spend any time with Lucy.  But in this episode, Sabine casually enters Belfry offices to give Lucy some beignets?  Lucy also drops by Mr. Cluck's whenever.  So much for Victoria doing all she could to separate Lucy from her mother, eh?

An example of bad dialogue in this episode was this:

Quote

Sabine: "What if I told you that there is a way not only to pay our rent... but we make enough money to escape Victoria Belfry for good."

Cut to next scene with Sabine putting down 2 bags of flour onto kitchen island.

Jacinda: "So your life saving idea is fifty pounds of flour?"

Sabine: "Mixed with 100 eggs and 20 cups of sugar.  I'm talking about my beignets."

It was so unnatural.  So during the cut, Sabine went to the car to bring in the bags of flour without telling Jacinda anything?  

Jacinda tells Sabine "I can't invest in any more of your crazy schemes".  More telling and not showing.  It was impossible to tell if this was true and Jacinda was being extra cautious, or if Jacinda was just exaggerating. What "crazy schemes" would Sabine have pulled before?

There was also zero transition between Jacinda blaming Sabine after the fire and acting super mean, and Jacinda apologizing and surprising Sabine with a food truck.   We didn't see Jacinda regret her words.  We didn't see how Jacinda came to the decision to get the food truck.  As Shanna Marie said, it's hard to buy that Jacinda would go to Rogers to ask if there were any deals on drug-infested trucks.  The story was super abrupt and continued to make viewers dislike the supposed love interest of the main character.  

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

This was the one where Rogers interrogated the tattoo guy, right? I was getting Haven flashbacks from the tribal-looking circular tattoo on his arm. The interrogation room was cracking me up because the precinct looks like it's just this little storefront size, but then they have this vast, empty barn-like structure (more Haven, I guess) with a tiny table in it for an interrogation room.

Yes, this was the episode and Rogers got this boring subplot.  Some guy having a tattoo of an image drawn into the missing girl's journal years ago was hardly a good lead.  The interrogation scene was a total waste of time.

Spoiler

Did we ever find out how long Rogers has been serving on the force?  Eloise Gardiner was a case from his first year on the job.  But his continual reference to the "missing girl" made it hard to believe that "girl" was Gothel, who looked like she was 40 with all that make-up.

Edited September 29, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

I was just skipping through the episode to look at Roni's bar (I think it's the same set but maybe filmed from a different angle?). 

It seemed like in the first episode, it was fairly narrow (the whole room was about the width of the bar) and had a low ceiling. But now there's this side room that looks like a Viking mead hall or hunting lodge where at any moment some burly guy is going to jump on a table and start singing about how awesome he is. I don't even see how that room would fit into the building they show from the exterior. But it does explain why there seem to be no customers. Why hang out in the dingy area around the bar when there's this large, pleasant space with a soaring ceiling and a fireplace? That other room was probably full of people when the part of the bar they showed was empty.

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

An example of bad dialogue in this episode was this:

The dialogue in this episode was so bad. I was cringing at the acting, but then I started repeating some of the lines to see how I'd say them, and I couldn't find a way to make those lines sound at all natural.

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

There was also zero transition between Jacinda blaming Sabine after the fire and acting super mean, and Jacinda apologizing and surprising Sabine with a food truck.   We didn't see Jacinda regret her words.  We didn't see how Jacinda came to the decision to get the food truck. 

As usual, Once Upon a Time in Offscreenville is where the action is. That's where Jacinda has her change of heart and realizes the error of her ways. And it's where she somehow figures out that a cop she's only really interacted with when he took her daughter away from her would be able to help her find a truck that could be turned into a food truck.

I remember that when this episode first aired, I was at a conference for fantasy writers. In a session the next day, there was a panel about using fairy tales and folklore in fantasy novels, and someone asked a question about how far from the original story you could go and still call it an "adaptation" of that story -- is there some key element that needs to be there in order for it to be related to that story rather than an entirely new story? I definitely thought of this show, and their depiction of Tiana becomes a good example. If the original character is a workaholic working class girl who's working several jobs to save money to open a restaurant in 1920s New Orleans, can you call it an "adaptation" if your version is a fairy tale kingdom princess who wears all her jewels while she's out and about, looking for someone to marry to help her solve her problems?

[Camera One]

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

It seemed like in the first episode, it was fairly narrow (the whole room was about the width of the bar) and had a low ceiling. But now there's this side room that looks like a Viking mead hall or hunting lodge where at any moment some burly guy is going to jump on a table and start singing about how awesome he is. I don't even see how that room would fit into the building they show from the exterior. But it does explain why there seem to be no customers. Why hang out in the dingy area around the bar when there's this large, pleasant space with a soaring ceiling and a fireplace? That other room was probably full of people when the part of the bar they showed was empty.

Like the police station, it really doesn't seem like the building would be that deep or that tall (the height seems the most unlikely given the exterior).  Roni's is actually a women's clothing store.  I wonder how deep it is.  When I passed by back in May, I didn't go in.  It would be tough to pretend I was interested in the merchandise, LOL.

In the pilot, you can see the set's depth when Henry first walks into the door.  Roni and the bar was quite far away.  In the pilot, the light made it hazy and the camera also stays at eye level, so it's harder to gauge the height, though the background was pretty much the same as in the later episodes.

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I remember that when this episode first aired, I was at a conference for fantasy writers. In a session the next day, there was a panel about using fairy tales and folklore in fantasy novels, and someone asked a question about how far from the original story you could go and still call it an "adaptation" of that story -- is there some key element that needs to be there in order for it to be related to that story rather than an entirely new story? I definitely thought of this show, and their depiction of Tiana becomes a good example. If the original character is a workaholic working class girl who's working several jobs to save money to open a restaurant in 1920s New Orleans, can you call it an "adaptation" if your version is a fairy tale kingdom princess who wears all her jewels while she's out and about, looking for someone to marry to help her solve her problems?

That was a timely conference, LOL.  

I suppose the Disney movie was called "Princess and the Frog" so A&E decided to take it literally.  Back when Season 7 aired, I actually thought they were clever for using the cooking aspect of Tiana's personality in the present-day (though they dropped the workholic part), but I didn't expect them to pick such a generic and boring backstory for the flashback.  Sabine also never had opening a restaurant as a dream.  It seems like she just thought of the idea because Victoria raised her rent and Lucy loved her beignets.  The passion for cooking just wasn't there.

I just read Grimm's "The Frog Prince" to see if they took any inspiration from it.  Nope.  

I didn't realize the Disney movie was based on a 2002 novel called "The Frog Princess".  A&E didn't take any inspiration from that either.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On 9/29/2019 at 8:42 PM, Camera One said:

In the pilot, you can see the set's depth when Henry first walks into the door.  Roni and the bar was quite far away.  In the pilot, the light made it hazy and the camera also stays at eye level, so it's harder to gauge the height, though the background was pretty much the same as in the later episodes.

I'll have to look at it in later episodes (because I don't care enough to go back), but it wasn't the depth so much as the width that seems off. The way it seemed in the first episode or so, the bar seemed deep but not too wide -- a lot like the bars in New York tend to be. But then it's like this whole new room appeared off to the side. I don't know why I'm fixating on this detail when everything else is such a mess, but you've got to wonder if they really did build that whole, huge set when a fairly small one would have fit the plot better and wouldn't have changed the story at all. Or is it a greenscreen to make it look like the bar is bigger than it is? And why do I care?

[Jynnan tonnix]

On 11/5/2017 at 11:27 AM, Rumsy4 said:

That truck would work better as a delivery truck. So, maybe the two should rethink their business plan and go into the delivery business. They could be Insacart shoppers or deliver food to grocery stores if they want to stay within the food industry.

A simpler fix would've been for Rogers to have sold them an actual food cart. And the part about it being a busted drug delivery truck made the whole thing bizarre. Is it the production team's mess or is it a writing fail, I wonder. Someone ought to have flagged this as an error and corrected it. 

They shouldn't need a truck if they are just making beignets anyway. As someone said, make up the dough the night before, then just set up a tent - reminds me of the Malasada stands when we were stationed in Hawaii...Every Sunday, outside the Wal-Mart. They had a tent, something like a turkey fryer, and a folding table. Always had lines of people. Now I'm getting hungry!

Another thing that caught my eye...in the scene where Sabine was convincing Jacinda to go along with her scheme, as they panned over the ingredients, there were a few big cans of baking powder along with the flour. I've never actually made them, but I'm pretty certain beignets are a yeast dough - and I'm also  pretty sure that if Sabine's old family recipe was made with baking powder instead, they wouldn't be the most sublime beignets ever. 

 

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Jynnan tonnix said:

Another thing that caught my eye...in the scene where Sabine was convincing Jacinda to go along with her scheme, as they panned over the ingredients, there were a few big cans of baking powder along with the flour. I've never actually made them, but I'm pretty certain beignets are a yeast dough - and I'm also  pretty sure that if Sabine's old family recipe was made with baking powder instead, they wouldn't be the most sublime beignets ever. 

LOL,  Good point.

Maybe the prop department googled this recipe:
https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1338213

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Jynnan tonnix said:

Another thing that caught my eye...in the scene where Sabine was convincing Jacinda to go along with her scheme, as they panned over the ingredients, there were a few big cans of baking powder along with the flour. I've never actually made them, but I'm pretty certain beignets are a yeast dough - and I'm also  pretty sure that if Sabine's old family recipe was made with baking powder instead, they wouldn't be the most sublime beignets ever. 

Yeah, they're a yeast dough. Made with baking powder, they'd be more like fried biscuits. I do have a naan recipe that uses baking powder and buttermilk, and it does puff up a bit when cooked in a covered skillet, but it's not a beignet texture, and that's not deep fried. With beignets, you wouldn't need a truck, just a tent and a turkey fryer. You'd have to cook them to order. But wasn't she also selling gumbo?

I think their research for this storyline was watching The Princess and the Frog and using the names of the foods mentioned in that movie without ever having actually eaten or prepared any of them.

[Jynnan tonnix]

59 minutes ago, Camera One said:

LOL,  Good point.

Maybe the prop department googled this recipe:
https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1338213

Haha! They probably did. But then the actual baking montage showed what was obviously a yeast dough being thoroughly kneaded, rather than  just patted into a large square as per this recipe.