S07.E08: Pretty in Blue

[txhorns79]

Quote

That part made zero sense.  Why would Lucy have no knowledge of ever having met him?  Didn't she have any downloaded memories?  He seems like an alright guy, yet he doesn't contribute anything to Lucy's well-being at all?   That part really stuck out in this episode.  

I think Jacinda said he had been out of Lucy's life for ten years, so perhaps it was a situation where he abandoned them and lost his rights.

Quote

Maybe Regina is afraid nobody in Storybrooke would actually help them out. 

Do they still have that rule that people in Storybrooke can't leave the town or they lose their memories and revert back to their cursed personas?   

Quote

Here, it's particularly weird because Henry really should be about 17-18 in 2017 (well, based on the latest age they gave us for him, but he really should be closer to 16 based on his age in the pilot). There was sort of a reason for Storybrooke Henry to be into the 80s, since that was when Storybrooke was frozen in time, so he essentially grew up in the 80s in spite of being born in the 21st century, but there's no reason for Hyperion Heights Henry to be 80s-obsessed, other than that the writers are aging GenXers. Hyperion Heights Henry should be nostalgic for the 90s, especially in Seattle -- grunge and flannel and the X-Files.

It's convoluted, but my impression with Storybrooke was that while until Emma showed up everyone lived the same day over and over (and did not age), but time still passed.  So it wasn't a situation where it was still 1983 in Storybrooke, it was the modern day, but for the people in the town it was always the same day.   

[Camera One]

30 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

If this was a different, better show, I would 100% think they were setting up Nick/Jack as Henry's new love interest. 

The reason they won't is because Henry is A&E's self-insert.

Funny enough, this was the first episode where the costuming seemed to try to make Henry more physically buff, with the dirtied up white T-shirt look which defined his chest more.

Whereas every costume the younger females are wearing need to be low-cut (with Jacinda/Cinders in particular) and/or show off the legs (starting the shot there and panning up while she's in the elevator, with Ivy).  It's quite sexist.  

Edited November 18, 2017 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

there's no reason for Hyperion Heights Henry to be 80s-obsessed, other than that the writers are aging GenXers. Hyperion Heights Henry should be nostalgic for the 90s, especially in Seattle -- grunge and flannel and the X-Files.

I thought this episode was especially weird with its references because the conversation between Jacinda and Nick about how they were teenagers and he was all about his band being the new Nirvana with grunge and flannel was really off. Presumably, this should have been 10-15 years ago when they were together and had Lucy. Why on earth would someone's band be all Nirvana wannabes in 2005? Even if they were referencing themselves long, long, long before Lucy, that would make them early 40s to be timeline appropriate. Aging Gen X writers strike again.

Henry's Star Wars references are also over the top. If he's recreating Han & Lando's reunion for randoms he meets during his travels. It was clear that Jack hadn't seen the movie because he said so, so what does Henry do? Does he reenact scenes on his own? My brother spent his entire childhood obsessed with Star Wars. He even spent a week or so camped out waiting in line for tickets to Phantom Menace (too bad that movie sucked), but he doesn't run around quoting or referencing it all the time as an adult. Henry didn't find anything to draw his interest after the age of ten? Just stop with the references. 

[Curio]

17 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I wish they'd given an answer to Henry's question about why Lucy thinks he's her father because I've been wondering that. The book ends with Henry meeting Cinderella, but that doesn't explain why Lucy thinks her mother is Cinderella or why she thinks Henry is her father. Since Lucy didn't recognize Regina before the photo, she doesn't have her memories. She's piecing it together based on the book, like Henry did, except the book she had is about the previous six seasons, so that doesn't explain why she believes what she does.

 

Huh, I guess I just figured Lucy had her memories the entire time, but you're right...she should have recognized Regina. Unless Regina was absent somehow during Lucy's entire childhood? If Lucy is only going off of Henry's book and she's this adamant he's her father, that's a little farfetched. This entire time, I've been giving her annoying "Everyone needs to believe me! Why won't anyone believe me?!" schtick some slack because I thought she had all her memories so of course she knows these things to be 100% true. But if she's only going off of Henry's book...then that looks weird. When Henry was a kid, it was easier to believe his wild theory because there were other strange things in Storybrooke going on to make him not trust his reality, but Lucy seems to have grown up in a very normal neighborhood where time isn't frozen and she didn't have to grow up ten years watching her classmates stay the same age.

It's also disappointing watching Victoria be villainously mean towards Lucy. What made Season 1 interesting is that Regina showed Henry just enough love to make it a grey situation, but Victoria has yet to show any signs that she even likes Lucy. 

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, Curio said:

But if she's only going off of Henry's book...then that looks weird. When Henry was a kid, it was easier to believe his wild theory because there were other strange things in Storybrooke going on to make him not trust his reality, but Lucy seems to have grown up in a very normal neighborhood where time isn't frozen and she didn't have to grow up ten years watching her classmates stay the same age.

Yeah, after this episode, she doesn't seem to know much.  She wanted Henry's book to look for clues about who Nick was.  So all she's going by is conjecture that Nick is like Kathryn in Season 1.  Her character is very unclear in motivation, knowledge or mindset.  Basically, A&E wanted to do a female version of Young Henry except it's missing all the complexities and logic.  As you said, Victoria is a cardboard cut-out villain.  There is zero depth behind her and she doesn't even pretend to care about Lucy.  "Social services" is seriously dumb, even though they're from "our world".  That lady who took Lucy away might as well have been a robot.  So much for exploring how the "real world" interacts with Hyperion Heights.

[Curio]

I kind of feel bad for Nick in this situation. His Hyperion Heights character doesn't know anything about what the audience knows in the Wish Realm/Enchanted Forest, so to him, Lucy is truly his child. And his own child is going to act cold towards him, even though he put in grueling hours and years to finish law school and he helped Lucy's mom with legal problems for free...all because Lucy is obsessed with some author's book and believes that crazy story. Not that he automatically deserves a warm reception after being absent for a decade, but I really hope the writers don't have Lucy pull anything cruel with him just because the audience knows he's not the real father.

I do like the friendship between Henry and Nick/Jack and hope the writers give Henry an equal friendship with him that Jacinda has with Tiana/Sabine. Also, still holding out hope he's actually Roland...

Edited November 18, 2017 by Curio

[Shanna Marie]

43 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

Henry's Star Wars references are also over the top. If he's recreating Han & Lando's reunion for randoms he meets during his travels. It was clear that Jack hadn't seen the movie because he said so, so what does Henry do? Does he reenact scenes on his own?

It's funny because I'd just remarked to myself that they were ripping off Han and Lando when they said they were quoting The Empire Strikes Back. I will confess that a lot of quotes from Star Wars are part of my vocabulary, but I doubt that any friend who hadn't seen Star Wars (if I had one) would be able to act out whole scenes with me. You'd have to teach the other person the lines, and why would you do that? And I'm in the generation that grew up with the original trilogy. Henry was born during the prequels and wouldn't have been old enough to get really into the series during that wave. Again, we've got aging Gen-Xers writing themselves without looking at where their characters would really be.

2 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

It's convoluted, but my impression with Storybrooke was that while until Emma showed up everyone lived the same day over and over (and did not age), but time still passed.  So it wasn't a situation where it was still 1983 in Storybrooke, it was the modern day, but for the people in the town it was always the same day.   

Time passed enough for them to have computers and the Internet and cell phones, but they were also really behind the times with a lot of stuff. They were old cell phones and computers that were way out of date. The cars were older. There was still 80s music on the jukebox. So it was enough out of date that it might explain Henry being stuck on the 80s. I wonder how much of current pop culture leaked into the bubble.

46 minutes ago, Curio said:

Huh, I guess I just figured Lucy had her memories the entire time, but you're right...she should have recognized Regina. Unless Regina was absent somehow during Lucy's entire childhood? If Lucy is only going off of Henry's book and she's this adamant he's her father, that's a little farfetched. This entire time, I've been giving her annoying "Everyone needs to believe me! Why won't anyone believe me?!" schtick some slack because I thought she had all her memories so of course she knows these things to be 100% true. But if she's only going off of Henry's book...then that looks weird.

It's weird that she hasn't figured out the things that you'd think would be obvious clues, like the one-handed detective with a British accent, when Captain Hook was such a major character in the book (or should have been, if Emma was important enough to have an illustration of her in the book -- unless Henry wrote it in subconscious passive-aggressive mode and was going through a phase of resenting his stepfather, so he left him out of the story). Was Emma the only illustration in the book? I thought Rogers mentioned illustrations, plural, and Emma was close enough to what she looks like to be recognizable, so if Henry was able to make illustrations of these characters, how can he not have noticed the people around him who look like his characters? We still don't know what made Lucy believe in the curse and believe who these people are. She seems to have just decided that an author wrote a novel about himself and that her mother was a minor character who showed up at the end of the novel, which means she's the author's daughter.

[Star Aristille]

19 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm hoping Lucy really is Nick/Jack's child. At least then Henry wouldn't have to be tied to Jacinda.

The announcer mentioned a "shattering truth" that devastates Lucy when the show comes back.  That might be it.  If it is, then that would definitely help Tremaine/Victoria get rid of Lucy's belief.  Plus, it would explain why the writers had Henry stop Lucy from looking up Jack/Nick in her book to see whom he is.

Nathan Parsons!  It's been so long since I last saw him on GH, but he still looks quite handsome, even with his hair cut so much shorter!

UO, I guess, but I don't mind Cinderella/Jacinda or Dania Ramirez's acting.  In fact, I thought she felt a bit more comfortable in this episode, like she's finally getting settled into the role.  *Shrugs*  But what do I know?  I guess I'm someone whose thoughts don't matter.

I really wanna know what Gothel's up to.  She actually interests and intrigues me more than Tremaine/Victoria and Drizella/Ivy do.

When Jack/Nick first came into the picture, I groaned at the parallels that he, Jacinda, and Henry would have to Snow/Mary Margaret, Charming/David, and Abigail/Kathryn.  But luckily, the writers acknowledged the parallel via Lucy, so it wasn't so bad for me.

[Curio]

47 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

She seems to have just decided that an author wrote a novel about himself and that her mother was a minor character who showed up at the end of the novel, which means she's the author's daughter.

 

Now I'm really curious why Lucy believes Henry's novel is actually about her. Lucy apparently grew up living a fairly decent life, splitting time between her real mom Jacinda and her super rich step-grandmother Victoria. Lucy gets to do fun things like ballet classes. I guess I could see how Lucy might think of her mom as Cinderella in a way just because Jacinda happens to have a step-mom and a step-sister, but doesn't the classic Cinderella tale have two step-sisters? Wouldn't that throw off Lucy's theory? And we haven't been shown anything else that makes Jacinda like a classic Cinderella stock character. Jacinda isn't the maid for Belfrey's company and instead works a fairly common food industry job. Jacinda has a great best friend who is willing to do anything for her. She never crashed a ball in Hyperion Heights or lost a shoe. None of that screams Cinderella. The things that make Jacinda like Cinderella all happened in the Enchanted Forest before Lucy was born. Plus, there's also the fact that Lucy only knows her mom by her Hyperion Heights name—Jacinda—so the name isn't even a clue. Maybe they should have made Jacinda's Hyperion Heights name "Gabriella", but she's called "Gabby" and "Ella" for short, so Lucy makes the jump that her mom "Ella" is actually "Cinderella." And if Henry's book ends right when Henry meets Cinderella, why is Lucy even convinced they have a child together? What makes her think she's their child when the book doesn't even say if Henry and Cinderella become an official couple? And what is it about Hyperion Heights that makes Lucy believe it's a cursed place when we haven't been shown anything weird or supernatural about it? Was Lucy so unhappy that she desperately wanted a father figure in her life, so she clung to the idea that Henry is her father? She's only known Henry for like a week, so why is she so unhappy about Nick coming back into her life? What if Nick truly is Lucy's father and Henry is her step-dad? I can't see how there are enough signs in Hyperion Heights alone to convince Lucy that Henry's story was true or somehow about her in any way at all.

And yes, Lucy should be going nuts trying to identify all the characters in Hyperion Heights if she truly believes. That was half of the fun of Season 1, but Lucy hasn't even bothered pointing out the obvious Captain Hooks in her world. 

Edited November 18, 2017 by Curio

[pezgirl7]

I like the lines being written for Alice, and the way she delivers them. They're quite interesting and almost poetic. Like her line about feeling like she's being ripped from the world because she has no one to tether her to it.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KAOS Agent said:

I also thought it was just like this show to have a goal wrapped up and have it mean exactly nothing. Rogers "rescued" Gothel and at the end of the night she's right back where she was found because that's where she needs to be to do whatever she's planning. Nothing Rogers did changes the trajectory of her story. She and Ivy were already working together. All it did was make him feel better. 

This is all the more galling in the second episode, where Gothel actually goes back to that high-rise building where she was imprisoned.  Why would it be so difficult to try the spell in public?  She could pretend she was... uh, gardening?  There are tons of secluded natural spots in Seattle.  She could even do it in that dead community garden at night or something.  

We better get a reason for why she is even sticking with Drizella, to see if her game plan even fits with her actions.  

It's frickin 2017.  Henry could have texted Jacinda to say he was going to San Francisco with Roni.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

9 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It's frickin 2017.  Henry could have texted Jacinda to say he was going to San Francisco with Roni.

He's mentally stuck in the 80s.

[snarkastic]

The end of the episode cut off for me, but it sounds like I just missed an empty coffin?

I'll be honest, I just put the show on in the background nowadays, but where is this consensus that Jack is of the beanstalk from? Did I miss a line? He could be nimble and quick, or like fetching pails of water. There are lots of Jacks. He could be from Wonderland as one of the cards.

I LOL-ed at the restaurant being The Walrus and them eating clams.

And Regina saying they couldn't contact Storybrooke because they can't know about them lends credence to my time travel spec I am never giving up on. They can't know because then they'd be in two places at once and create a paradox!

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, snarkastic said:

The end of the episode cut off for me, but it sounds like I just missed an empty coffin?

Yep, that was it.  

Quote

but where is this consensus that Jack is of the beanstalk from? Did I miss a line? 

I think it's just speculation at this point, not consensus, since Henry mentioned how they escaped from giants.  You're right, it could be any of the other Jack's.

I did think the restaurant name was cute, though I thought Tiana was broke... she's trying to go to restaurants with 2-year waiting lists?  I guess it's not those super expensive types.

[Camera One]

I'm surprised Regina isn't taking a trip to NYC to see that useless Dragon character.  Assuming he went back there, of course.

Why would she tell the bartender where she was going?  You'd think she would want to keep her plan to get help secret so Ivy wouldn't be able to speculate.  Don't say California... say a vacation.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

It's frickin 2017.  Henry could have texted Jacinda to say he was going to San Francisco with Roni.

But he was still sulking over her having gone out with Nick, so he basically pulled a flounce when he headed out of town without telling Jacinda.

[Camera One]

If the dinner with Nick was supposed to be related to the case, why would they need to go out to a fancy restaurant?  Ever heard of, you know, meeting at the office?  

It was soooooooooo difficult to get to Wonderland from the Old Enchanted Forest.  Here, no probs!  Another ring portal has appeared, everyone.  Mad Hatter who?

[KingOfHearts]

Wonderland was a desolate wasteland. Alice was the only resident we saw. Snore. It was like revisiting Neverland in S6. What's the point?

Edited November 19, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[kpw801]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

Yep, that was it.  

I think it's just speculation at this point, not consensus, since Henry mentioned how they escaped from giants.  You're right, it could be any of the other Jack's.

I did think the restaurant name was cute, though I thought Tiana was broke... she's trying to go to restaurants with 2-year waiting lists?  I guess it's not those super expensive types.

I think they will find some magic in San Francisco. They keep saying "land without magic" but since the dragon was magical, they should call it land with rare or hard to find magic. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by kpw801

[Rumsy4]

I just saw a pic set on tumblr of the scene where Henry was moaning to Roni about why people fall in love. I guess Henry's already in love with Jacinda. Must be their magic lockets, because I don't see any other reason for it. When, in all her cold -shouldering and blowing him offs did Henry fall in love with her?

And that mixtape Jacinda brought for Henry--really, this is 2017. I haven't even seen a cassette tape in years, and I used to own a lot of them!! These people are all stuck in the 80s and 90s for no reason except Adam and Eddy. 

[tennisgurl]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

And that mixtape Jacinda brought for Henry--really, this is 2017. I haven't even seen a cassette tape in years, and I used to own a lot of them!! These people are all stuck in the 80s and 90s for no reason except Adam and Eddy. 

Yeah, it cracks me up how ridiculously stuck in the 80s Henry is, and how everyone else is apparently drinking the same nostalgia lemonaid It was silly enough when he was a kid listening to semi obscure 80s bands, but now everyone is still making mix tapes and 80s references? On 2017? Even for the most hipster neighborhood in Seattle, thats pushing it. It isn't even nostalgia on Henry's part, he wasn't even around in the 80s! It actually made more sense for him to have mix tapes and pop culture taste 20 years too old in Storeybrooke, which was stuck in its own little bubble, then now when he lives in a modern city. I mean, I like retro stuff too, but this is getting ridiculous. 

Remember how every time Henry had a video game out in Storeybrooke, it was supposed to tell us that Regina was temping him away from "good" things like fairy tales and 80s nostalgia, or that Henry had lots his way or something? Because Henry is A&E and they cant imagine people not liking the same crap that they do. 

[Noneofyourbusiness]

21 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

Do they still have that rule that people in Storybrooke can't leave the town or they lose their memories and revert back to their cursed personas?   

No. That ended a few curses back. 

21 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

It's convoluted, but my impression with Storybrooke was that while until Emma showed up everyone lived the same day over and over (and did not age), but time still passed.  So it wasn't a situation where it was still 1983 in Storybrooke, it was the modern day, but for the people in the town it was always the same day.   

Correct.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

And that mixtape Jacinda brought for Henry--really, this is 2017. I haven't even seen a cassette tape in years, and I used to own a lot of them!! These people are all stuck in the 80s and 90s for no reason except Adam and Eddy. 

I totally forgot about that.  It would be difficult for anyone to even make a mixtape these days.  Where did Jacinda get the old equipment from?  The old cassette tapes to put together Henry's favorite songs?  I personally could still access equipment to make a mixtape in my aunt's house, but I still wouldn't have the relevant cassette tapes.  Actually, the only cassette tapes I still have from the 90s are Disney movie soundtracks, LOL.

A&E said in an interview I think that kids who were too young to watch back in Season 1 can now watch Season 7 since they're starting over.  But what child nowadays will get the 80s references?  I was a kid in the 80s and even I don't get all the references because I wasn't a teenager yet and wouldn't have watched A&E's favorite movies or listened to their favorite music.  A lot of that "clever" banter would be totally lost on me, and Henry holding that boombox/ghetto blaster above his head would just look stupid, and it did.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

20 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Henry holding that boombox/ghetto blaster above his head would just look stupid, and it did

It wasn't as cringey as his New York fountain speech, but it came close. 

[Camera One]

They still write Henry as if he's an overgrown child.  The thing he said about love made him sound like a teenager.  I think that's why it disturbs me that he's drinking so much, especially during the day.

5 hours ago, Kktjones said:

• Is it just me, or is Regina like 100 times nicer to this version of Hook than she was to the original. It’s almost enough to make me wonder if they might end up going the HookedQueen route. Especially since they haven’t introduced anyone else as a love interest for her yet.

 

5 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Please, no!! Let's just hope it's the much vaunted "maternal" instinct in her (and not the oedipean kind). But yes--Regina is actually treating WHook like a human being. 

As Shanna Marie said, it would have been nice to see this develop over time, but they don't do that on this show.  Regina was rather rude to Original Hook in Episode 2, so this sudden caring is a little out-of-nowhere. 

Though I suppose in this episode, Whook was in danger with the poisoned heart thing, so that could explain why she cared more than usual.

Speaking of which, why did Drizella just stand there when the Mirror was about to fall on her?  I mean, she did have magic so couldn't she have apparated somewhere else?

[Camera One]

Several lines in this episode made the original show seem like a bunch of scenarios where good always wins and everyone gets a happy ending.  

Cinderella says, "I know that where you come from, true love always wins, but mine is a world of broken promises where people never find each other."

Later, she goes, "Your grandparents were lucky.  Not all of us always find each other."

I find the revisionism a little annoying.  In the old show, people were miserable 99% of the time.  They may find each other eventually, but then they get separated again, and again, and again, and again.  I also wouldn't say that "true love always wins".  Again, maybe they sometimes do "win" in the end, but at what cost?

Edited November 20, 2017 by Camera One

[KaveDweller]

On 11/18/2017 at 1:24 PM, InsertWordHere said:

Maybe Storybrooke is stuck in a snowglobe. 

Maybe they're actually in a different land without magic than the Storybrooke people? Kinda like how there are different realms with different versions of Cinderella, Alice, etc? That would at least explain why Regina can't go there. But maybe it has to do with why Regina can't tell Henry the truth now that she remembers. 

I don't know why I'm trying to explain it when the obvious reason is the actors are no longer on the show and they likely took down the sets. But they could have at least tried to come up with a show explanation.

[Camera One]

15 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

Maybe they're actually in a different land without magic than the Storybrooke people? Kinda like how there are different realms with different versions of Cinderella, Alice, etc? That would at least explain why Regina can't go there.

Oh boy, if there were multiple Lands Without Magic too?  

This could be a possible twist, actually, since the intro words in Season 7 Episode 1 were: "There was a magical forest filled with fairy tale characters.  One day a powerful curse trapped them in a city which had no magic.  And each of them forgot who they really were.  This is how it happened."  

Whereas in Season 1, the text was "One day they found themselves trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen.  Our World.  This is how it happened."

Deliberate omission of "Our World"?  Or no?  Hmm....

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Deliberate omission of "Our World"?

I wouldn't give the writers that much credit.

[jhlipton]

On 11/17/2017 at 7:12 PM, Rumsy4 said:

I guess Ivy did manage to poison either Henry or Murderella's heart so if they share TLK, they'll die.

Didn't Ivy just tell Roni/Regina that they were poisoned and Regina believed it?  She's dumb enouh to do that.

On 11/17/2017 at 7:56 PM, KingOfHearts said:

They mentioned something about giants, so I'm assuming he's Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. I thought maybe he was another Author at first.

I thought he was Jack the Giant-Killer, or Jack from "The Brave Little Tailor"

On 11/17/2017 at 9:34 PM, Noneofyourbusiness said:

Lady Tremaine being Rapunzel would also explain her curse name being Belfrey, as in the belfry of a tower.

I thought it was because she was bats!

On 11/18/2017 at 0:25 AM, KAOS Agent said:

It was even dumber when she was telling Henry about the necklace and said one day the necklace stopped glowing. Her mother stopped loving her father. There was no other possible reason for it to stop. It's not like she could have died or anything. Oh wait.

Yep, when she said the necklace stopped glowing, my first thought was that she was dead.

On 11/18/2017 at 6:48 PM, snarkastic said:

I LOL-ed at the restaurant being The Walrus and them eating clams.

Oysters, and they'd eaten everyone!

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

I totally forgot about that.  It would be difficult for anyone to even make a mixtape these days.  Where did Jacinda get the old equipment from?

They still sell double-cassette boom boxes, and Best Buy et al sell the tapes.

[txhorns79]

Quote

Maybe they're actually in a different land without magic than the Storybrooke people? Kinda like how there are different realms with different versions of Cinderella, Alice, etc? That would at least explain why Regina can't go there. But maybe it has to do with why Regina can't tell Henry the truth now that she remembers. 

I was thinking that she just didn't want to get them involved in another curse situation.  While they aren't cursed, there's also no predicting how this particular curse might effect them if they show up in Seattle.    

[Rumsy4]

Quote

Maybe they're actually in a different land without magic than the Storybrooke people?

Or as has been speculated before, this Seattle is a storybook AU like the one written by Isaac. However, that doesn’t explain how Regina can travel to San Francisco from a Bookworld. Although, if a Genie wish can retroactively create a whole new Realm that’s always existed, the Author can presumably write an earth 2.0 into existence. 

[Noneofyourbusiness]

5 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Didn't Ivy just tell Roni/Regina that they were poisoned and Regina believed it?  She's dumb enouh to do that.

She said, "Do you remember what I did right before the curse was cast and why you can’t ever allow it to be broken? You do remember. If the curse is broken, something very bad happens to the people you love."

Edited November 20, 2017 by Noneofyourbusiness

[Shanna Marie]

While it was nice that they remembered that they're repeating the Kathryn/David/Mary Margaret story, I had a "shut up, Lucy" moment when Lucy said no one wants to be the Kathryn. Kathryn was awesome. She wasn't a loser in a love triangle. She decided that David and Mary Margaret deserved each other belonged together, gave them her blessing, and planned to go to law school.

But the fact that the Kathryn story is in the book makes me wonder what the hell kind of book this is and why is Lucy reading it? If it contains a cursed adultery story in which Snow White and Prince Charming are sleeping with other people because of the curse, but then they're also cheating when they're sleeping with each other, I doubt it's a children's book. Not so much because children's delicate sensibilities will be damaged, but because what kid really cares about that kind of story? To paraphrase the kid in The Princess Bride, "This isn't going to be an adultery book, is it?" If it's not a kid's book, then why is Lucy reading it in the first place, and why would a book mostly full of stuff that's probably pretty boring to a kid that age be Lucy's favorite book? I can see where kids might kind of like the TV series because of the visuals that key back to Disney, but in book form you wouldn't have that imagery. Without characters who look like Disney characters and without the visuals and special effects, what you've basically got is a soap opera with very little kid appeal. I wonder if Henry included Elsa and Anna, or does the curse keep the Disney lawyers from coming after him. A lot of the other characters are public domain, aside from the way they're represented, but those were original characters.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

 I can see where kids might kind of like the TV series because of the visuals that key back to Disney, but in book form you wouldn't have that imagery. Without characters who look like Disney characters and without the visuals and special effects, what you've basically got is a soap opera with very little kid appeal. 

Here's another hole in OUAT's realism. How did Henry get the rights to the Disney characters? Did he just omit Merida, Jasmine, the Frozen characters, and Cruella? Did he change the names of the dwarves, Aurora, Belle, Maleficent, Ursula, Philip, Maurice, Lumiere, and Jiminy? Disney really needs to sue. 

We will don't know what the heck is in the book. I guess we're just supposed to assume it's everything that has happened in the show for the past six seasons, plus a little bit of the S7 flashbacks. In which case, it's probably the most ridiculous fantasy novel ever written.

Edited November 20, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

My guess is there are only one of two copies of the book. It wasn't really published in our world. The Curse or whatever makes them think it is. I'm still confused why Lucy thinks she's Henry's daughter if the book ended with him meeting with Murderella. 

[CinAZ]

Well, the one thing that popped into my mind was the fact that Jacinda gave up per parental rights, willingly.  Now she is all, whiny and bitchy about Victoria ‘taking’ her daughter??? Seriously??  YOU gave her up. Another woman raised YOUR kid, and you let everyone believe she was taken from you?? You still suck Jacinda.

I did enjoy the stuff with Hook and Alice. Not sure what Weaver/Gold’s deal is. Why didn’t he tell Regina he was awake?  At least Regina is aware of his sketchy-ness...

if all the Cinderella/Jacinda stuff just went away, this show would be so much better. That whole story line just drags down every thing...

[Noneofyourbusiness]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

My guess is there are only one of two copies of the book. It wasn't really published in our world. The Curse or whatever makes them think it is. I'm still confused why Lucy thinks she's Henry's daughter if the book ended with him meeting with Murderella. 

You know, in some ways I think it would have been a more interesting story if Lucy really had been from a one-night stand between Ella/Jacinda and Jack/Nick, and still wanted her mother to get together in True Love with Henry, rather than really being Henry's daughter and he just needs to remember it.

[Shanna Marie]

8 minutes ago, CinAZ said:

Well, the one thing that popped into my mind was the fact that Jacinda gave up per parental rights, willingly.  Now she is all, whiny and bitchy about Victoria ‘taking’ her daughter??? Seriously??  YOU gave her up. Another woman raised YOUR kid, and you let everyone believe she was taken from you?? You still suck Jacinda.

This is where that thing I said about her in the 2.0 thread applies: They're writing her like she's 21 and a clueless, scared kid, which she can't be if she has a 10-year-old daughter. The actress is clearly in her mid-late 30s. Jacinda would have had Lucy when she was in her mid-late 20s, well past the time she would have completed her education and started her career. So why is she still working an entry-level fast-food job and only just now started a job waitressing, where she at least has the chance to make tips and move above minimum wage? If Victoria has had custody all this time, even before the season premiere (which would explain how Jacinda could "run away" with her own daughter and why it mattered that Lucy was late to see her step-grandmother), then Jacinda hasn't been responsible for arranging childcare or paying the expenses of a child, so why hasn't she done more with her life in an effort to get her daughter back? She could have been using this time to go to school (if she didn't before she had Lucy) or try to get more/better jobs. Even if the curse threw her into this situation and just gave her false memories of this being the way it's always been, she's had the time since the season started to do more to get her act together than buy a food truck.

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Did he change the names of the dwarves, Aurora, Belle, Maleficent, Ursula, Philip, Maurice, Lumiere, and Jiminy?

He's probably okay with Aurora, since that's the name in the ballet, so Disney doesn't own it. Belle may also be safe, since that's French for "beauty" and there was already the French film La Belle et le Bete (or however it's spelled). In a book, you wouldn't know that she's the Disney Belle without the iconic dresses. But the other names around her, like Maurice and Gaston, would be a problem. As would the dwarfs and Maleficent. In print, we also run into similar issues as there were with the Author AU, where the role reversals and twists are meaningless without the casting and the visuals.

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

We will don't know what the heck is in the book. I guess we're just supposed to assume it's everything that has happened in the show for the past six seasons, plus a little bit of the S7 flashbacks. In which case, it's probably the most ridiculous fantasy novel ever written.

It changes main characters after the first few chapters, with the new main character being the villain of the first few chapters. There's a new main villain and story goal every few chapters. Rumple switches from good to evil, and vice versa, every few chapters, and he and Belle break up every other chapter and then get back together. At random, all the story action may move to a totally different place every few chapters. Characters will appear and play a major role for a few chapters, then disappear like they were never there. And interspersed in all this are random flashbacks. There's no narrative thread to carry through a single book.

Really, it would have made more sense to have made it a fantasy series, with each arc being represented by a book -- the Once Upon a Time series, with book one being The Curse of Storybrooke, book 2 being After the Curse, book 3 being What the Hell Heroes Don't Kill People, book 4 Save Henry, book 5 Wicked vs. Evil, book 6 The Snow Queen, book 7 The Queens of Darkness, book 8 Dark Swan, book 9 Journey to the Underworld, book 10 I Don't Even Know The Final Battle. He could even be a somewhat failed writer with a 10-book series if he never made it out of the midlist dungeon and his publisher dropped him because they figured he'd never be a bestseller if he hadn't made it after 10 books, and it was disappointing because he teased the next book at the end of the last book, but it never got published. If they were mass-market paperbacks, we're talking about a $6,000 or so advance for each book, and probably not earning out that advance, so not making much more money than that. Then his publisher merged with another house and they cleared out the dead wood that's not pulling its weight, focusing on the bestsellers. I know way too many authors who would fit this profile, so it's pretty realistic. It would also make more sense for him to have gone that route and still be trying/hoping to write while driving for Not!Uber, since he'd had some minor success and might hope that his career would pick up, than if he wrote one book that was a huge flop. With just one book, he shouldn't have quit his day job yet.

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

This is where that thing I said about her in the 2.0 thread applies: They're writing her like she's 21 and a clueless, scared kid, which she can't be if she has a 10-year-old daughter. The actress is clearly in her mid-late 30s. Jacinda would have had Lucy when she was in her mid-late 20s, well past the time she would have completed her education and started her career.

It's really hard to estimate ages on this show, since so little thought goes into it and/or they keep the timeline "secret".  I wouldn't be surprised if she's supposed to be as young as 30 so she had Lucy when she was 20 with no-prospect Nick, and that's when she signed away her rights.

Quote

So why is she still working an entry-level fast-food job and only just now started a job waitressing, where she at least has the chance to make tips and move above minimum wage? If Victoria has had custody all this time, even before the season premiere (which would explain how Jacinda could "run away" with her own daughter and why it mattered that Lucy was late to see her step-grandmother), then Jacinda hasn't been responsible for arranging childcare or paying the expenses of a child, so why hasn't she done more with her life in an effort to get her daughter back? She could have been using this time to go to school (if she didn't before she had Lucy) or try to get more/better jobs. Even if the curse threw her into this situation and just gave her false memories of this being the way it's always been, she's had the time since the season started to do more to get her act together than buy a food truck.

This makes the scenario in the Season 7 premiere even more confusing.  Why was Victoria letting Lucy stay at Jacinda's in the first place.  

Another relevant question is whether the Season 7 Cursed personalities have the Season 1 element where the characters' personalities held them back and stopped them from achieving their goals (eg. Mary Margaret's timidness).  From what we've seen, the Season 7 characters in Hyperion Heights seem to act in the same way as their flashbacks counterpart did.  Unless this all changed because Henry came to Hyperion Heights.  If Hyperion Jacinda DID have negative traits added to her Cursed personae, that could explain why she has been so ineffective with getting a better job, etc.

Not that this show is realistic in any way, but it's difficult for a single mother to dig herself out of the cycle of poverty, especially if the Cursed character didn't have her high school diploma.  It would be hard for her to go school if she was working shift after shift, and maybe no one would hire her as a waitress because of her accent.  

Quote

They still sell double-cassette boom boxes, and Best Buy et al sell the tapes.

Considering Jacinda sold all her tools, and is broke, I doubt she has these in her apartment.  Jacinda would also need to buy/get the cassette tapes for all the songs that Henry likes, in order to make that mixed tape.  I still don't buy it.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

I can only assume Henry's book is actually pretty crap, and thats why Lucy seems to be the only person who has read it, and why he keeps dicking around this random neighborhood instead of writing. 

The "no one wants to be Katheryn" line was funny, but it also pretty unfair. Katheryn was really cool, both in Storebrooke and in the EF, and things turned out pretty well for her. If I remember right, the last time we saw her, she was with her own True Love, Frederick, and doing fine. Well, as fine as anyone in wherever the RF people are these days, but its not a bad end for the third of a love triangle. Nick/Jack should be so lucky. 

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Not that this show is realistic in any way, but it's difficult for a single mother to dig herself out of the cycle of poverty, especially if the Cursed character didn't have her high school diploma.  It would be hard for her to go school if she was working shift after shift, and maybe no one would hire her as a waitress because of her accent.  

Except if Victoria had custody of Lucy, Jacinda wasn't really a single mother. I guess it depends on when she signed Lucy over to Victoria, but it looks like Victoria was supporting Lucy, so Jacinda wouldn't have had the usual single mother worries, like child care when she was at work, paying for the child's expenses, etc. Victoria's apparently even been paying for extra stuff, like dance classes. If Jacinda's supposed to be in her late 20s/early 30s -- like maybe the age Emma was in season one -- so that she was a teen mom whose education was disrupted by a pregnancy and who felt she had no choice but to sign away custody to her stepmother to give her daughter her best chance, then they really miscast her. As painful as the acting here has been and as lacking in chemistry as she is with Henry, if she's supposed to be about ten years younger than the actress is, then surely they could have found someone else who met at least one of the requirements for the role. But then if Henry really is Lucy's father, I guess they couldn't have made her too young, or else she'd be a teenager when she and Henry met.

I'm not sure they have the slightest idea of the ages or timeline.

The heart poison thing finally makes some sense. I thought WHook was being metaphorical when he told Hook Prime about it, that his heart had been "poisoned" by hate or anger, which made me really confused about what he thought switching places with Hook Prime and being with Emma would do about it. I guess what he's dealing with is that the one person he could have a TLK with and break their curse is the person whose touch will kill him, so he needs to find a new True Love, and he thought that if his other self already had True Love with Emma, maybe he could get a TLK if he took his place. I'm not sure you could get a TLK with a deception, but TSTW, as usual. I wonder, has the curse already broken, or will Rogers die if Tilly ever hugs him? Does it have to be a kiss or just close proximity? If it hasn't been broken, how is it likely to happen? Tilly's one of the promised gay characters, and presumably part of that "epic" couple they've promised, to have a real romance that develops like any other romance on the show instead of one conversation in one episode, so maybe that romance will lead to the kiss that breaks the curse on her and her father. Or, also likely on this show, we'll learn that Gothel has never actually met her daughter since her birth, and when she does meet her, she'll suddenly feel all motherly and will be redeemed by motherly love and break the curse with a TLK with her daughter (never mind that she conceived Alice by raping the father who brought Alice up, and she abandoned Alice alone in a tower to win her own freedom. It will still be mutual true love because that's how this show rolls). That is, if she isn't the one who cursed them in the first place and doesn't just undo the curse. I'm not sure why she'd curse them. Did she care if they had a bond, as long as Alice remained in the tower? Or was WHook coming too close to finding a way to get Alice out of the tower, and this was a desperation move?

[Camera One]

27 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

That is, if she isn't the one who cursed them in the first place and doesn't just undo the curse. I'm not sure why she'd curse them. Did she care if they had a bond, as long as Alice remained in the tower? Or was WHook coming too close to finding a way to get Alice out of the tower, and this was a desperation move?

In Episode 2, Whook said: A vengeful witch trapped her in a prison.  Every day, I'd sneak in to play chess with her. But I was discovered and punished. My heart was poisoned cursed. 

So for some reason, Gothel gets angry/jealous of Whook's bond with her daughter?  As you said, I'm not sure why she'd care.  The "discovered and punished" line made it seem like the Witch appeared out of nowhere and had never seen Whook before.  If Whook helped Alice get out, would Gothel immediately be dragged back to the Tower?  We can see now that both of them are out of the Tower, so that couldn't have been a problem.

Quote

Except if Victoria had custody of Lucy, Jacinda wasn't really a single mother. I guess it depends on when she signed Lucy over to Victoria, but it looks like Victoria was supporting Lucy, so Jacinda wouldn't have had the usual single mother worries, like child care when she was at work, paying for the child's expenses, etc. Victoria's apparently even been paying for extra stuff, like dance classes. 

Even without being a single mother, people on a minimum wage job like Jacinda would never be able to get ahead.  They tend to live below the poverty line and spend an inordinate amount of their income on rent.

This is where the first episode really confused the issue.  In the first episode, it certainly looked like Lucy had joint custody with Jacinda.  I'd imagine that when Lucy was with her, she would pay for her food.  

Sabine also says this to Jacinda: "What's your step-mom gonna say? You know, she wasn't thrilled to let you have custody of Lucy with a job. "

Why does she use the words "have custody of Lucy", if she didn't.  And another thing is... does this mean Jacinda wasn't working before that?

Speaking of which, at the end of this episode, off-screen, a judge agreed that Jacinda should have custody now?  I guess A&E didn't want to bother with the logistics of reality anymore.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Camera One

[jhlipton]

10 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If it's not a kid's book, then why is Lucy reading it in the first place, and why would a book mostly full of stuff that's probably pretty boring to a kid that age be Lucy's favorite book?

If it's not a kid's book, why does it have illustrations like the one of Emma?  (There are adult books that have illustrations but not many.)

8 hours ago, CinAZ said:

You still suck Jacinda.

In other news, it's a day ending in "Y".

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Considering Jacinda sold all her tools, and is broke, I doubt she has these in her apartment.  Jacinda would also need to buy/get the cassette tapes for all the songs that Henry likes, in order to make that mixed tape.  I still don't buy it.

That's true.  I thought you were talking about being able to make a mixtape in the first place.

 

19 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Even without being a single mother, people on a minimum wage job like Jacinda would never be able to get ahead.  They tend to live below the poverty line and spend an inordinate amount of their income on rent.

She could, like many others have, work multiple jobs, especially if she doesn't have custody.  It's not easy -- most poor people stay poor through no fault of their (despite what some people think) -- but some people do manage.

25 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I I guess A&E didn't want to bother with the logistics of reality anymore.

Have they ever???

[Camera One]

11 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

She could, like many others have, work multiple jobs, especially if she doesn't have custody.  It's not easy -- most poor people stay poor through no fault of their (despite what some people think) -- but some people do manage.

Considering she's supposed to be Cinderella, it would have been fitting to her fairy tale counterpart to work multiple jobs.  Even with that, she would manage (as in have basic shelter and food), but it would be very difficult for someone in that situation to drastically improve her situation to the point where she could do extra schooling/upgrading and afford full custody of Lucy, arrange for after-school care while she's at work, pay for her extra-curriculars, etc.

I found the whole out-of-nowhere rich and ultra successful and effective lawyer ex-boyfriend an abrupt and easy solution.

[jhlipton]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

I found the [x] an abrupt and easy solution.

For any value of [x].  TSTW.  This surprises you... why?

[Camera One]

No, it didn't surprise me, per se.  For any given plotline, there are different possible outcomes that we've seen before, some better, some worse, and some much worse.  They could have dragged it out for a few more episodes, for example.  I find it interesting to see which random choice they pick.  If I didn't find it interesting, I wouldn't bother watching and I wouldn't bother reading other people's responses, which I also find interesting.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Camera One

[kpw801]

On 11/18/2017 at 4:06 PM, Camera One said:

Yeah, after this episode, she doesn't seem to know much.  She wanted Henry's book to look for clues about who Nick was.  So all she's going by is conjecture that Nick is like Kathryn in Season 1.  Her character is very unclear in motivation, knowledge or mindset.  Basically, A&E wanted to do a female version of Young Henry except it's missing all the complexities and logic.  As you said, Victoria is a cardboard cut-out villain.  There is zero depth behind her and she doesn't even pretend to care about Lucy.  "Social services" is seriously dumb, even though they're from "our world".  That lady who took Lucy away might as well have been a robot.  So much for exploring how the "real world" interacts with Hyperion Heights.

Plus young Henry had an actual real world connection with Emma. He was her son curse or not. Emma bonded with Henry during the ride to Story Brooke.  Also Regina's behavior was off.  So she stayed as amom protecting a child.  Lucy has no reality based connection with Henry. 

[Rumsy4]

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

if she's supposed to be about ten years younger than the actress is, then surely they could have found someone else who met at least one of the requirements for the role.

I am astounded at how much the actress is unsuitable for the role. Did A&E really see Alt!Cinders as 10 years older than Henry but even more immature than him? Did they okay this casting? I can’t believe the same casting team as before chose her. She must have had one hell of an audition tape. The only other time the casting on this Show has been off was choosing MRJ for adult Baelfire. And A&E made the choice to cast him (which worked for how they’d originally conceived of the Neal character, but not as adult Bealfire or the later St.Neal retcon). 

Quote

I'm not sure you could get a TLK with a deception

It most likely wouldn’t have worked. But WHook was desperate enough to try.

Quote

Or, also likely on this show, we'll learn that Gothel has never actually met her daughter since her birth, and when she does meet her, she'll suddenly feel all motherly and will be redeemed by motherly love and break the curse with a TLK with her daughter

This is the possibility that sickens me the most, and I’m half wondering if I should spare myself and stop watching the Show now. I just can’t bear if WHook gets the same treatment as Robin Hood with Zelena. With TSTW, it almost seems inevitable.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

5 hours ago, Altair Aquila said:

I think thematically it would be more satisfying if father and daughter broke his curse. The idea that he first needs to find true love with someone else before he can hold his daughter is much less so to me.

But wouldn't the poisoned heart mean that a kiss between them would kill him? That's what makes it so cruel -- and, I guess, effective -- the thing that could save them would kill him, so they can only break the curse if one of them can find another true love. Incidentally, I do find it odd that it seems that any true love can break any curse. It's like a random cure-all. You just need a TLK in the general vicinity, and it breaks the curse on everyone.

Are we even taking bets about how the HH curse will end up being broken by a TLK between Henry and Lucy? I would say that it's too obvious a rehash of season one, but on this show, that only makes it more likely. There will be all this angst about Henry and Murderella and how they have true love that could break the curse, except they can't because it will kill them, but then it will be an "unexpected" kiss between Henry and Lucy that saves the day, also breaking the curse on Henry and Murderella.

2 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

I am astounded at how much the actress is unsuitable for the role. Did A&E really see Alt!Cinders as 10 years older than Henry but even more immature than him? Did they okay this casting? I can’t believe the same casting team as before chose her.

It makes me wonder if she's an A&E buddy and this didn't come through their usual casting wizards. Or else they didn't properly describe the role to the casting wizards.

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

Considering she's supposed to be Cinderella, it would have been fitting to her fairy tale counterpart to work multiple jobs.  Even with that, she would manage (as in have basic shelter and food), but it would be very difficult for someone in that situation to drastically improve her situation to the point where she could do extra schooling/upgrading and afford full custody of Lucy, arrange for after-school care while she's at work, pay for her extra-curriculars, etc.

The problem with setting this in the "real" world instead of a place like Storybrooke where it only looks like the real world but real-world rules don't apply, is that Victoria is a rather public figure. Wouldn't there be all kinds of scandal if it was painfully obvious that her biological daughter got a fancy education while her stepdaughter wasn't allowed to go to school, especially when you throw in the racial angle? And race should matter -- if they're bothering to show diversity, then they need to deal with it instead of acting like it's just a change of skin tone. When you've got a wealthy and prominent white woman who gives her white daughter every advantage while her Hispanic stepdaughter is working minimum wage fast-food jobs, then it's going to raise eyebrows and be a scandal, especially in a rather liberal city like Seattle. That would make her socially toxic. The only way it wouldn't be a problem would be if Jacinda herself was an obvious screw-up, where she flunked out of high school and couldn't get into any colleges, so Victoria couldn't have given her any help even if she wanted to. Maybe that's what the curse gave them memories of Jacinda having done.

I wonder if the signing over custody was a retcon after all the outcry after the premiere of how that's not how it works when Victoria could just take Lucy. Now we're to believe that Victoria always had custody and Jacinda had some kind of visitation rights that Victoria revoked after Jacinda tried to run away. I think they're trying to re-tread Emma here, except Emma gave up her son for adoption and never actually tried to get him back or take custody from Regina. She just wanted to make sure he was okay. And Emma didn't know her son was going to a villain. Jacinda knew her stepmother was bad news and had treated her horribly.

This is where it would have made so much more sense and been more like a Cinderella story that fits into our world if Jacinda had been Victoria's employee rather than her stepdaughter. If she'd been Lucy's nanny, then she would have been more trapped, would have had a close relationship to Lucy but no rights to her, and there would have been more conflict coming from Lucy's claims that Jacinda was her real mother.

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

I found the whole out-of-nowhere rich and ultra successful and effective lawyer ex-boyfriend an abrupt and easy solution.

When I suggested that Jacinda's ex/Lucy's dad turn out to be a lawyer who could help her get custody as a way to give some conflict and drama to the tepid Henry/Jacinda romance, in which absolutely nothing was keeping them apart, and somewhat re-create the Mary Margaret/David/Kathryn situation, I was thinking in terms of a story arc, not one episode. The dilemma in season one was that Mary Margaret and David knew on a deep level that they belonged together, and Regina threw Kathryn into the mix to keep them apart, but David's memories of being married to Kathryn were entirely fake, as he hadn't even lived that life during the curse, so there were all kinds of moral dilemmas with him feeling like he was cheating when he was with Kathryn but knowing he was cheating when he was with Mary Margaret. The problem with Henry and Jacinda was that there was nothing keeping them apart if they wanted to be together, and they went way too many episodes of not making any effort to be together. Then they threw in the lawyer and resolved the situation with Lucy instantly. What they needed was for Henry and Jacinda to meet and be drawn together, but then the custody thing came up and the lawyer showed up, and the only way to get Lucy back would be for them to show they were together, and a stable family would win out over a single step grandparent who didn't have time to spend with the kid -- and it would be a long process involving legal red tape, so Henry and Jacinda could be wanting to be together but she had to put her child first.

Instead, we got an anticlimactic offscreen instant solution, with manufactured drama of the poisoned heart to keep them apart.