S07.E06: Wake Up Call

[tennisgurl]

For a resistance, they dont seem to do much...resisting do they? In one of my earlier comments of this episode I said it seemed like a LARP session that spun out of control, and I stand by my earlier assessment. 

[Camera One]

11 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

For a resistance, they dont seem to do much...resisting do they? In one of my earlier comments of this episode I said it seemed like a LARP session that spun out of control, and I stand by my earlier assessment. 

Seriously, if Regina wanted to protect Henry THAT much, she would just use her magic to sneak into Tremaine's castle or at the very least spy on her or sabotage her or *something*.  Without Snowing on the show, I guess Regina need to be handed the stupid stick to pick up the slack.  Regina could have asked Jacinda what Drizella was really like.  Would it be a good idea to teach her magic?  

Edited October 3, 2019 by Camera One

[Camera One]

Regina in the past was dressed like Roni in the present, with the sleeveless look.  It's unclear why, if they are trying to differentiate between Cursed Roni and past Regina.

[Shanna Marie]

On 10/1/2019 at 7:57 PM, Camera One said:

Mop Head wasn't able to use magic without the blue flowers of hope, which only sprang up once Henry came to Hyperion Heights.  Did Mophead and Drizella expect that (and if so, did they want Henry to come to Hyperion Heights)?  If they didn't know, then how did they expect to get magic back to exact revenge on Victoria? 

Did Henry really even have anything to do with the blue flowers of hope springing up? All he did was rat Jacinda out to Victoria. If anything, it was Lucy that made Jacinda beg for her job back and then find the coin she tossed into the well, after which the flowers sprang up. Remove Henry, and I'm not sure that much changes, since Lucy was already protesting them leaving. And we still don't know what made Lucy decide that Henry's novel was true, that her mother was the Cinderella Henry met in the epilogue, and that they were under a curse.

Even crazier is the fact that they needed the blue flowers of hope to work magic, but they engineered a curse that was all about putting people in hopeless situations that would make them despair. Seems like poor planning.

On 9/30/2019 at 5:13 PM, tennisgurl said:

So Ivy told Regina who she was because...

They needed her to make sure the curse wasn't broken by Jacinderella and Henry's true love. Never mind that the curse had always before been broken by a TLK between Henry and one of his mothers, so they needed Regina to avoid kissing him and they needed to keep him away from Lucy, just in case. But then all this is, yet again, the result of poor planning. Drizella was apparently able to finesse the curse enough that her mother's cursed identity was herself, but believing she'd cast the curse and was in charge, but while trying to make the curse Savior-proof, she wasn't able to not have Henry's cursed identity be as a failed author who wrote a book about the first six seasons that someone might find and see as a clue to their real identities (the book might still have existed, as in the first curse, but surely she could have kept Henry from being connected to it), and she wasn't able to tie up either Henry or Jacinda in a curse marriage (a la David and Kathryn) to make sure they were kept apart.

It would have been more interesting if the book had been about Henry Mills, not by Henry Mills, and Lucy had tracked down this random guy who happened to have the same name as the main character and told him the book was really about him. Or if, when Lucy went to first meet Henry at his apartment and tell him she was his daughter, a woman came up behind him at the door to ask what was going on. Bonus points if it was Ivy, because then there's real conflict and she can manipulate events to keep Henry from TLKing anyone.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

Bonus points if it was Ivy, because then there's real conflict and she can manipulate events to keep Henry from TLKing anyone.

And then she started to actually fall in love with Henry, and there's this huge conflict later on after he realizes what she did.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

And then she started to actually fall in love with Henry, and there's this huge conflict later on after he realizes what she did.

And he gets his memories back and realizes that he's actually married to someone else -- someone he now likes less than Ivy (I know, unlikely, but we can dream about what might have happened if they'd realized Henry and Jacinda had negative chemistry and had done some kind of course correction).

Though I guess we still have the problem of Ivy having cast the curse for no good reason when Henry and the others were already fighting against her mother and would have been happy to have her join them. But at this point in the season, they still had a chance to have course corrected their original plans and pulled off another, later twist where we found out that Ivy wasn't actually in charge and Drizella wasn't behind the curse. She may have wanted to as of this episode but later changed her mind.

As it is, this is a really bad revenge plan: Get back at your mother by casting a curse that not only affects her but also all the other people who would have been happy to help you bring down your mother. Make the mother you hate powerful and wealthy while making yourself an abused peon. Make sure your mother remembers your sister she wants to bring back from the dead and has the ability to do something about that, even though that's the reason you want revenge against her. Do something to make the curse Savior-proof by making it so that one person the good guys all like will have something bad happen to him if the curse is broken, but also wipe everyone's memories/give them fake identities so they won't know this. Hurt the person most likely to be able to break the curse by making him a failed author, with his book being about his real-life teenage adventures and telling all about another curse like this one. Make both him and his wife single under the curse so that they're free to get together if they find each other, and make their daughter be sad and lonely enough that she'll get lost in books and want to track down her father. Make sure everyone is in a desperate, hopeless situation, even though you need a flower that will only grow when there's hope in order to have magical powers.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Drizella was apparently able to finesse the curse enough that her mother's cursed identity was herself, but believing she'd cast the curse and was in charge, but while trying to make the curse Savior-proof, she wasn't able to not have Henry's cursed identity be as a failed author who wrote a book about the first six seasons that someone might find and see as a clue to their real identities (the book might still have existed, as in the first curse, but surely she could have kept Henry from being connected to it)

Which begs another question - did Drizella plan on having Cursed Henry OUTSIDE of Hyperion Heights?  Why?  How?  Was there a need for that if Henry doing a TLK would just kill him anyway?  

Ivy held all the cards already.  She didn't need to wake up Regina.  She could've done WAY more to sabotage Henry and Jacinda, if she cared to do so.  She could have done WAY more to get an upper hand on her mother, who was still in the dark about her true plans.  Why didn't she set Mophead free to freak Victoria out?  Did Mophead like being imprisoned for who knows how long?  

The only fanwank I could think of was that Ivy didn't know where her mother had stashed Anastasia, so she couldn't fulfil her plans until now.  It still doesn't make much sense, but really, that was how bad this season was/is.

[KingOfHearts]

13 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Ivy held all the cards already.  She didn't need to wake up Regina.  She could've done WAY more to sabotage Henry and Jacinda, if she cared to do so.  She could have done WAY more to get an upper hand on her mother, who was still in the dark about her true plans.  Why didn't she set Mophead free to freak Victoria out?  Did Mophead like being imprisoned for who knows how long?  

Mayor Mills truly walked circles around her, didn't she? She broke relationships with ease. Waking Roni up just doesn't compare with everything to do with Kathryn.

[Camera One]

24 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Mayor Mills truly walked circles around her, didn't she? She broke relationships with ease. Waking Roni up just doesn't compare with everything to do with Kathryn.

It really makes Ivy look stupid.  Surely, that wasn't their intention?  I don't think I thought this the first time around, because we kept thinking they were withholding information which would make her actions make sense.  On second watch, it's clear she really was that idiotic.

[KingOfHearts]

2 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It really makes Ivy look stupid.  Surely, that wasn't their intention?  I don't think I thought this the first time around, because we kept thinking they were withholding information which would make her actions make sense.  On second watch, it's clear she really was that idiotic.

Initially, I thought we were meant to believe Ivy was just a spoiled brat, but then we'd learn she was three-dimensional and wanted more than to just escape her mother's shadow. Boy was I wrong. I love how A&E try to "subvert expectations" in the most disappointing ways.

I'm not sure I would've preferred a straight up "she was misunderstood" redemption story, but making her more of a gray character would've been better.

Edited October 4, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm not sure I would've preferred a straight up "she was misunderstood" redemption story

Spoiler

That seems to have been their end-goal if we look at her final episode in 7B.  If that was what they were "working" towards, then her entire arc as written was an epic fail.

[KingOfHearts]

16 hours ago, Camera One said:

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That seems to have been their end-goal if we look at her final episode in 7B.  If that was what they were "working" towards, then her entire arc as written was an epic fail.

Spoiler

That seemed really tacked on to me. (We'll discuss it more when we get to that episode.) Even in the same episode, Ivy was willing to murder her younger sister. Like, what? How exactly do the two of them happily walk through a portal and ride into the sunset? That's even worse than Regina's flip-flopping. At least Regina waited an episode or two before going back or forth. 

I'm honestly not sure if the writers planned the "happy ending" from the beginning of S7. It seemed like they were in a hurry to wrap the Ivy/Anastasia stuff so we could focus on the climax with Gothel. They seemed to tease her redemption with her interactions with Henry and the parallels to Regina, but they also doubled down on the evil masterminding. It's probably a more condensed version of the problems the show has had with Regina since S2 - A&E wanted her to be redeemable, but also totally evil and irredeemable. They couldn't commit to either, so they tried to do both, and it ended up sucking. The difference is that while Regina was more entertaining as a villain, Ivy is more entertaining as a gray/redeemable character.

Edited October 4, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 10/3/2019 at 2:26 AM, Camera One said:

Regina in the past was dressed like Roni in the present, with the sleeveless look.  It's unclear why, if they are trying to differentiate between Cursed Roni and past Regina.

I suspect that, like just about everything Regina-related in this season, it's a "make Lana happy" thing. She wanted Regina to be more hip and cool and more like herself.

On 10/3/2019 at 7:09 PM, Camera One said:

The only fanwank I could think of was that Ivy didn't know where her mother had stashed Anastasia, so she couldn't fulfil her plans until now. 

But if she's in charge of the curse, couldn't she have arranged for where Anastasia ended up and kept her away from her mother? That would have been the real torture, to make sure her mother never got Anastasia back. Or to get her back herself and then turn her against their mother. Drizella's goal and motivation don't fit her actions very well. That's why I wonder when they actually decided that Drizella cast the curse. Even up to the previous episode it seemed like they had something else in mind, like when Ivy texted Henry after seeing where Victoria was going on the security cameras. If she's in the know, she'd have already known where Victoria would be going because she knew where mophead was. She didn't need to see Victoria on camera to text Henry. If they already knew that Ivy was "awake," then that's a writing cheat to keep from giving away that she already knew by giving her a reason to text Henry even if she really didn't need the security video. It's hard to tell if it's just bad writing and fear of spoiling themselves by actually setting it up or if it's a case of an abrupt change of plans, regardless of what they'd established.

[Camera One]

38 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's hard to tell if it's just bad writing and fear of spoiling themselves by actually setting it up or if it's a case of an abrupt change of plans, regardless of what they'd established.

I know, right?  Maybe that's why this show is so fun to discuss... it's a real puzzle and we're not talking about the plot.

[Shanna Marie]

I think the workaround to play fair while still hiding the truth might have been to use the power of suggestion. Show that Ivy can see the security feeds, but not what's on them. Show Victoria heading to visit Mophead. Show Ivy picking up her phone. Show Henry getting a text from Ivy. The audience will put two and two together and assume that Ivy saw Victoria on the monitor and that's why she's texting Henry, but if we look back at it after the "Ivy is awake" revelation, we'll see that we never actually see what Ivy sees on the monitor, and that the monitor had nothing to do with the reason Ivy texted Henry. Maybe even have something else happen at the same time, like getting news about Henry doing something with Jacinda, so Ivy has a reason to want to interfere just to be a bitch. On first viewing, we think the stuff she might have seen on the monitor is the big deal that sparks the text, but then later we can see that it was whatever she saw on Facebook about him helping with the drug truck and that she wasn't spurred to action by something she should have already known about.

This whole season is like critiquing the first draft of a first attempt at a novel in a writing workshop. Except worse.

[Camera One]

That would have been better.  When did Ivy decide to have Regina remember everything?  She initially intended for Henry to go up with her and find the photograph, didn't she?  She wouldn't have known Roni would intercept the messages.  

23 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

But if she's in charge of the curse, couldn't she have arranged for where Anastasia ended up and kept her away from her mother? That would have been the real torture, to make sure her mother never got Anastasia back. Or to get her back herself and then turn her against their mother. Drizella's goal and motivation don't fit her actions very well. 

It's unclear what the Curse maker decides and doesn't decide. Maybe the Writers thought if Drizella didn't know where Anastasia was stashed, then she couldn't have decided where Anastasia would be in Hyperion Heights either.  

Did the Curse do a self-correct and created the tombstones when Henry entered Hyperion Heights for the first time?  That's why he couldn't find them where he thought he would?  But how come all his other Curse memories worked and not that one?  

Did Ivy get an "alert" when the Curse created those tombstones, or not?  In Season 1, it seemed like Regina had the power to send David to the pawn shop to get his fake memories triggered by the windmill.  

[Speakeasy]

This episode annoyed me so much, not because of the numerous plot holes and the utter flimsiness of Ivy's motivation compared to Regina's-already enumerated (there really is no comparison... I mean there is literally a whole army of people who could back Ivy in taking down her mother. Hell, she could go over Gina's head and just ask Tiana if she's ok with having a hit-witch to take out their mortal enemy, maybe her answer would be different).

The thing that annoys me is how completely incidental it feels. Regina meets this girl who is basically her at age 20, when she was starting down her dark path, tries to steer her away from the darkness, fails spectacularly, and then just goes back to her son and says 'gee, Henry, this whole experience has taught me I really should stop being such a helicopter mom,'

('um, ok... So, are you going back home?'

'No... the fairies put up a barrier spell once I left, if I go back I'll turn into a gerbil... Same with your grandfather,')

Meanwhile Drizella is clearly already miserable, angry at and terrified if her mother, then finds out that despite everything she's done to get into her good graces, including recent attempted murder and seducing a prince she clearly feels nothing for, that her mother has marked her for death. Essentially for the crime if not being perfect little Anastasia. Then the person who shows her this and takes her under her wing refuses to help her kill her mother... The mother who is trying to murder her with magic and who this woman is fighting a war against. How furious would this make you? This bitch acting all high and mighty talking about dark hearts and curses and acting like she's got your best interests at heart when she won't help you kill HER ENEMIES in SELF DEFENCE?

Then at the end she's just 'when are you going to realise this isn't your story?' 

That's not the fury of a betrayed young sorceress heading down the road to Hell from anger and pain and isolation, that's, like, life coaching.

It's a damn shame because Adelaide Kane was perhaps the best new actor they had and I'm sure Lana Parilla could play a compelling hero if she had something with genuine emotion to work with... Urrr.

[Camera One]

I watched this episode back-to-back with "Greenbacks", and Ivy's actions towards getting Regina to remember was so circular and nonsensical.  There was no point in planting the photo if the elixir would bring Regina's memories back, though Gothel randomly decided to try magic which created the elixir, not to mention Ivy could easily have split up Henry and Jacinda without Regina's help.

Spoiler

I don't get how the criminal with the Coven's tattoo connects with Gothel's coat hangers in 7B.  Was the murdered thug reporting to Victoria or to Ivy?  I know I rewatched this recently, but I seriously can't remember.

 

[KingOfHearts]

On 8/9/2020 at 2:18 AM, Camera One said:

There was no point in planting the photo if the elixir would bring Regina's memories back, though Gothel randomly decided to try magic which created the elixir, not to mention Ivy could easily have split up Henry and Jacinda without Regina's help.

Ivy sort of explained that Regina's brain needed a little "push" before the elixir would work, iirc. Regina needed to be susceptible to the idea, hence the photo.

[Camera One]

30 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Ivy sort of explained that Regina's brain needed a little "push" before the elixir would work, iirc. Regina needed to be susceptible to the idea, hence the photo.

I guess that must have been it, but it wasn't very convincing that was needed.  

Spoiler

That "push" didn't seem necessary for the elixir to work on Zelena later in the season.

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Camera One