S07.E13: Knightfall

[jhlipton]

On 3/16/2018 at 6:20 PM, Rumsy4 said:

Wee!Alice was so sweet.

Ugh, terrible actress -- I think she's related to the girl wh played Diana on Grimm.  There are lots of great child actresses (Scarlett Estevez -- Trixie on Lucifer -- and Marsai Martin -- Diane on Black-ish -- to name two) that it makes no sense why they would get someone who read their lines so flatly.

On 3/16/2018 at 7:04 PM, Worsel said:

Ahab was disappointing, I think they could have substituted any other character for the plot, there was nothing distinct and interesting written for this character either.

ueequeg had more presence, despite not having any lines.

9 hours ago, Mrs. DuRona said:

I was kind of hoping that when Ivy kissed Henry, that would break the spell... 

And kill Henry!   Yay!!! (But that kiss came out of nowhere, and was the writers trying to back-pedal toi what we'd been saying since the start.  Too little, too late.

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Zelena's personal issues with her daughter and her fiance are a million times more interesting.

And so, of course, they get zero screentime.  Has Zelena even talked to her fiancee since she "woke up"?

[Camera One]

Sometimes, the problem with this show is that an episode's flashbacks show us the "how" of what we already know.  Everyone watching already knows that Whook got his heart poisoned and he became separated from Alice.  So if the "how" wasn't engaging or enjoyable, viewers are going to turn away.  In this case, it was pretty by-the-numbers.  Gothel showed up and kicked Whook out of the tower.  The "surprise" was that crap with the duel and the poisoned bullet.  Except they did a horrible job of selling Whook's decision to try to uphold his honor.  I would hate another impersonation, but as several posters suggested above, having the other Captain turn out to be Gothel would at least make the logistics of how he came to be poisoned make sense.  

Meanwhile, in the present-day plot, the plot movement were: Ivy made amends with Jacinda and vowed to finish what her mother started, Lucy went to Roni and started Operation Hyacinth and the Baker dying and Tilly at the scene of the crime.  The first two were B plots, and the third was supposed to be the main plot but was poorly paced, with nothing happening until the scene at the hospital.

[KingOfHearts]

Sweet Grandpa Weaver is just weird. He must've had a crap ton of character development off-screen, because now's a different person altogether.

Edited March 18, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

54 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Sweet Grandpa Weaver is just weird. He must've had a crap ton of character development off-screen, because now's a different person altogether.

Now that Lucy knows her grandma, will she go ask her great-granddaddy for help?

[Rumsy4]

24 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Now that Lucy knows her grandma, will she go ask her great-granddaddy for help?

She’s better make sure there’s no prophecy about her being the Dark One’s undoing. 

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

She’s better make sure there’s no prophecy about her being the Dark One’s undoing. 

That's so true.  I mean, Henry's story should have tons of stuff about Rumple betraying them over and over again.  Though it also included how Regina tried to murder everyone in Storybrooke and she still went to her.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On 3/17/2018 at 10:14 AM, Rumsy4 said:

On 3/17/2018 at 10:01 AM, Shanna Marie said:

so I wonder if he actually did any of the art they used in the episode.

Colin used to paint when he was young. So, it’s possible...

I haven't seen any examples of his painting, and I don't know if they'd bother to commission a painting from an actor (though he probably has time to kill this season). The painting may even have been something thrown together in Photoshop. But the doodle of the ship looks a lot like the drawings he's done with autographs that people have posted pictures of.

It's weird that all of a sudden Rogers has this talent/interest that Eloise seems to know about but that hasn't come up at all before. Have we seen him draw anything other than that Coven symbol before now? We haven't seen doodles in his notebooks, haven't had a mention of him painting. I wasn't paying enough attention to tell if the painting he brought Gothel was Alice's painting from the tower or if they were two different paintings of ships. If it was Alice's painting, then I guess the painting thing is from the curse, where he remembers Alice's painting as being the first thing he painted, and since he got artistic ability/experience from the curse as part of his curse identity, he doodles in his notebook. If the painting is Alice's, then that might explain why Gothel wanted him to bring it. Maybe she's able to use something Alice/Tilly created to control Tilly, so Tilly was the one who killed the blind witch, but while being magically controlled/forced by Gothel. But why kill her own coven?

I guess even if the painting is Alice's, someone had to teach Alice to paint, so has Whook had this skill/interest all along? Did he take up art to amuse himself while stuck in a tower with a baby? Or is this a talent/interest that goes back to before the split and is something Hook Prime has that we've never heard of in all these years? It might make some kind of sense, given that Milah was an artist, so either that was an interest they had in common or something he learned from her.

And I suspect I have now given this more thought than the writers did, and they didn't get any further than "Rapunzel in Tangled liked to paint, so since Alice is kind of a Rapunzel character trapped in a tower by Gothel, she paints."

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

The Writers can't have it both ways.  They imply that their situation is so dangerous and dire, yet the characters are sitting around living their meaningless Seattle lives (what exactly is Rumple's bigger plan, because I seriously can't tell).

That's not unique to this season, alas. Everything is so dangerous and dire, but we can't deal with it until the arc finale, so in the meantime, we have to live our lives and have hope and not let the villains change the way we live.

[Camera One]

Hello everyone, I think it's about time you were blessed with an appearance from A&E so here I am.

12 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's weird that all of a sudden Rogers has this talent/interest that Eloise seems to know about but that hasn't come up at all before.

We were going to explore this in Season 9 but please feel free to write a complaint to ABC for cancelling the show.

Quote

Have we seen him draw anything other than that Coven symbol before now? We haven't seen doodles in his notebooks, haven't had a mention of him painting. I wasn't paying enough attention to tell if the painting he brought Gothel was Alice's painting from the tower or if they were two different paintings of ships.

If you don't remember, it is definitely time for a rewatch of the episode.  Every time you watch it, something new will pop up!  And I'm not talking about damaged brain cells.

Quote

If it was Alice's painting, then I guess the painting thing is from the curse, where he remembers Alice's painting as being the first thing he painted, and since he got artistic ability/experience from the curse as part of his curse identity, he doodles in his notebook.

I'd be disappointed if these questions weren't answered.  But the feeling of disappointment passes so if they're not, it's not a big deal.

Quote

 If the painting is Alice's, then that might explain why Gothel wanted him to bring it. Maybe she's able to use something Alice/Tilly created to control Tilly, so Tilly was the one who killed the blind witch, but while being magically controlled/forced by Gothel. 

We already knew people would speculate about this in the Writers Room so we went in a completely different direction and the painting of the ship will never be mentioned again.

Quote

And I suspect I have now given this more thought than the writers did, and they didn't get any further than "Rapunzel in Tangled liked to paint, so since Alice is kind of a Rapunzel character trapped in a tower by Gothel, she paints."

"Tangled" definitely did inspire us but we clearly put our own spin.  This season, we've enjoyed putting Tangled's Rapunzel in our cul de sac and backing up our car over it a few times.

14 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Has Zelena even talked to her fiancee since she "woke up"?

Not to worry!  We have an entire episode built around this coming up.  Stay tuned!

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Sweet Grandpa Weaver is just weird. He must've had a crap ton of character development off-screen, because now's a different person altogether.

 

Thanks.  Character development is our specialty.  We love all our fans and we love that you find Weaver so endearing and quirky aka original.  

Edited March 18, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

33 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Hello everyone, I think it's about time you were blessed with an appearance from A&E so here I am.

I was not informed that A&E had been merged into a single entity. But I believe it. One giant ego to rule them all.

Edited March 18, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I wasn't paying enough attention to tell if the painting he brought Gothel was Alice's painting from the tower or if they were two different paintings of ships.

There were two paintings in the Tower room. Alice seemed to be making a copy of the other painting, which was probably done by her father. The one Rogers had in HH looked the same as the one by WHook in the flashback. 

So, WHook totally used loaded dice to win the contest with Ahab, right? Ahab is even wetter behind his ears than I thought if he didn't even insist on using an unopened set. :-p 

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

So, WHook totally used loaded dice to win the contest with Ahab, right? Ahab is even wetter behind his ears than I thought if he didn't even insist on using an unopened set. :-p 

Can heroes cheat in dice?  I'm learning so many moral lessons from this show.

[KingOfHearts]

3 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Can heroes cheat in dice?  I'm learning so many moral lessons from this show.

Remember - heroes tip never below 25%. Anything less and you've got a dark spot on your heart.

[Camera One]

Was that a trick pistol too?  Did Whook sign the adoption papers to Smee just in case he died?

[legaleagle53]

22 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

It sounds a little like gibberish. Maybe the writers fall asleep a la Henry and come up with these gems in their sleep.

I didn't get Henry's joke about it being anything but "swift". What does speed have to do anything with being a night shift cab driver?

He's referring to the fact that his shift seemed to drag on and on to the point that he thought it would never end.  Kind of like Friday afternoons at most people's jobs.

[jhlipton]

16 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I suspect ... they didn't get any further than "Rapunzel in Tangled liked to paint, so since Alice is kind of a Rapunzel character trapped in a tower by Gothel, she paints."

Ding ding ding!!!

[Shanna Marie]

17 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

There were two paintings in the Tower room. Alice seemed to be making a copy of the other painting, which was probably done by her father. The one Rogers had in HH looked the same as the one by WHook in the flashback. 

Ah, thanks. I didn't even notice the second painting. I guess I was too distracted by the gray in WHook's hair. At first, I was trying to figure out whether or not they had put gray in his hair or if it was the lighting, then when I was sure it was gray, I was wondering why he'd aged visibly in less time than had passed between the end of season 6 and when original Hook showed up to meet with adult Henry, when original Hook hadn't aged. So I completely missed the rest of the scene after I noticed the gray.

Which is why the timeline stuff is so silly. Why not make it clear? Otherwise, it's just a distraction.

New theory about the aging: Hook Prime spent some time as the Dark One, who is immortal, which may have affected the way he aged (and Emma, too). But WHook was never a Dark One, so he aged normally. But when Lady Tremaine did the spell that turned WHook into Hook, using Hook's blood, it also gave him that anti-aging thing, so he hasn't aged between the time he was de-aged and the present (even though as much time has probably passed from the de-aging to the present as passed between the curse not being cast and the flashback in this episode).

So I guess Gothel isn't using the painting to control Tilly, so there goes that theory. Why would she want a painting from Rogers, unless it was just a wild goose chase to distract him while she did something else?

And if WHook is an artist, is that something unique to him, or is it a trait shared by Hook Prime (that we never heard of in all those years)? As I said, it would make some sense, given Milah's artistic abilities and interests and their time together. I guess maybe both Hooks might have given up art after her death because it was too painful, but WHook gave up revenge and maybe got over that pain because he had a daughter who was stuck in a tower, so he had lots of time on his hands to get back into it, while Hook Prime gave up revenge after joining up with the good guys and then falling in love with Emma, and with all the various adventures to Neverland, back and forth between the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke, to an alternate universe, to Camelot, dying, the Underworld, the Land of Untold Stories, to the Enchanted Forest again and yet again, he never had time to get back into painting.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Shanna Marie
typo patrol

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Ah, thanks. I didn't even notice the second painting. I guess I was too distracted by the gray in WHook's hair. At first, I was trying to figure out whether or not they had put gray in his hair or if it was the lighting, then when I was sure it was gray, I was wondering why he'd aged visibly in less time than had passed between the end of season 6 and when original Hook showed up to meet with adult Henry, when original Hook hadn't aged. So I completely missed the rest of the scene after I noticed the gray.

It was pretty lazy how they showed Hook's age. He had pronounced gray hairs but everything else was perfectly youthful? Not even an outfit change?

Quote

Why would she want a painting from Rogers, unless it was just a wild goose chase to distract him while she did something else?

She was trying to use it to give him his memories back. Various things can be used as "totems" to restore memories. (The Rabbit Hole cigarette thing for Lacey, the teacup, the Storybrook, etc.) That's probably why Weaver let her do it.

It's interesting how certain magical plot holes require explanations, but some don't bother me at all. For instance, Gothel waving at the camera implied she was using some kind of magic to sense Tilly's presence. But I don't care how she did it. She's a witch, and that's good enough explanation for me. 

Edited March 19, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[CCTC]

20 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It was pretty lazy how they showed Hook's age. He had pronounced gray hairs but everything else was perfectly youthful? Not even an outfit change?

It took me a bit to figure out what was different.  At first I simply though they put highlights in his hair for some reason, because otherwise he looked the same.  It was not even a realistic graying pattern which would be more on the sides at first, not the streaks that looked like they were trendy highlights.

The only thing it really did was emphasize how none of the other adults have aged at all since the Last Supper when a similar amount of time has passed.  Henry must have been around 15 at the last supper, and must be close to 30 now.

[Shanna Marie]

20 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It was pretty lazy how they showed Hook's age. He had pronounced gray hairs but everything else was perfectly youthful? Not even an outfit change?

But we wouldn't recognize him if he changed clothes! I was confused enough by the scenes of him in the pirate outfit without the long coat. It took me a moment to figure out who he was (kidding!).

Though I did notice that Rogers actually got some scenes without his jacket on, which is a first. I didn't notice if he was wearing a jacket outside the office, so I guess I wasn't confused by any lack of continuity.

21 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

She was trying to use it to give him his memories back. Various things can be used as "totems" to restore memories. (The Rabbit Hole cigarette thing for Lacey, the teacup, the Storybrook, etc.)

But why would she want him to have his memories back? She's able to manipulate Rogers without his memories because he sees her as the helpless victim he was obsessed with finding. WHook wouldn't give her the time of day or listen to a word she said. I got the impression that she was taunting Rumple in manipulating Rogers because Weaver can't flat-out tell Rogers why he shouldn't trust her, even as Weaver knows their real history. So there's Gothel playing all "poor little me" while Weaver's trying to tell Rogers he can't trust her, and it only ends up making Rogers feel more sorry for her.

3 minutes ago, CCTC said:

At first I simply though they put highlights in his hair for some reason, because otherwise he looked the same.  It was not even a realistic graying pattern which would be more on the sides at first, not the streaks that looked like they were trendy highlights.

That's why I was so distracted in the scene that I didn't notice that there were two paintings. It looked more like highlights because gray would more likely be at the temples or around the hairline, not a random streak. It was like the makeup artist applied the gray as though they were doing sun highlights rather than the way gray hair tends to come in.

5 minutes ago, CCTC said:

The only thing it really did was emphasize how none of the other adults have aged at all since the Last Supper when a similar amount of time has passed.  Henry must have been around 15 at the last supper, and must be close to 30 now.

It's worse than that. Henry was around 13-14 at the Last Supper, and given that he was about 13 when Robyn was born, if she's 18 when Lucy's an infant, then he's 31 when Lucy's born. We don't know how long it took for Henry and Ella to get together, since they skipped all that part, but the Hook who showed up to help rescue adult Henry has to be physically older than the WHook who's got gray hair and is teaching Alice to paint. Alice seems to have been born very soon after the curse would have been cast, and Alice looked to be in the 10-12 age range. Meanwhile, the Last Supper was several years after time started moving again after the curse, and then there was probably about 15 years after that. So, WHook here is Curse+12 (at most), while the last time we saw Hook Prime, he was around Curse+18 or so.

And then there are all the other characters who also haven't changed at all in more than 20 years, who have adult children, but they can give WHook a gray streak and call him "old" for this one flashback. I can't even figure out a way to reconcile ages here with Old Hook, since Alice seems to have been about 18 or so (if she's around the same age as Robyn) when WHook runs into her again with Henry and the others, but it's been about 15 years since Emma met him in the Wishverse and he was already old, but then Alice would only have been about three then, so he should have been younger then than he was in this episode.

[KingOfHearts]

51 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

But why would she want him to have his memories back?

*shrug* Who knows why Gothel does anything. She made this big deal about Hook finding out who he truly was. At the moment, it seems Drizella waking up Regina was pretty pointless too.

Edited March 19, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Gothel wanted Whook to open up and be vulnerable and to hear Whook admit that he doesn't have a "special someone".  Then she says stuff like "Everyone has their obsessions" and "If you want to find the killer, all you have to do is follow your heart."  

So basically, Gothel is still in love with him and wants him back.  I just love a good romance.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Gothel wanted Whook to open up and be vulnerable and to hear Whook admit that he doesn't have a "special someone".  Then she says stuff like "Everyone has their obsessions" and "If you want to find the killer, all you have to do is follow your heart."  

So basically, Gothel is still in love with him and wants him back.  I just love a good romance.

 

Well, who predicted "Captain Rapist" would become a ship name.

Edited March 19, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Mabinogia]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

But we wouldn't recognize him if he changed clothes! I was confused enough by the scenes of him in the pirate outfit without the long coat. It took me a moment to figure out who he was (kidding!).

Is Hook the only character who has never changed clothes? It's so weird. 

[Rumsy4]

It’s stupid that he wears his red vest to bed. Whatever. I think the costume department just doesn’t want to work around the brace/hook issue, which doesn’t make me think too highly of them.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Rumsy4

[CCTC]

14 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Is Hook the only character who has never changed clothes? It's so weird. 

Even David had different plaid shirts and in the early seasons would wear a sweater on occasion,  He also might have had more than one pair of jeans -- all the same tightness, but that was not necessarily a bad thing.

Although I think Henry might have had the same scarf for about 5 years.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Is Hook the only character who has never changed clothes? It's so weird. 

Didn't he get a new jacket once.  I clearly remember seeing pics of it in the spoiler thread and thinking it looked like the costume department from the Vampire Diaries designed it.

 

10 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

It’s stupid that he wears his red vest to bed. Whatever. I think the costume department just doesn’t want to work around the brace/hook issue, which doesn’t make me think too highly of them.

That is probably true.  But I don't remember anyone but EQ getting much variation in wardrobe. 

[Mabinogia]

10 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Didn't he get a new jacket once.  I clearly remember seeing pics of it in the spoiler thread and thinking it looked like the costume department from the Vampire Diaries designed it.

That was probably his Halloween costume. I mean, what else would a centuries old pirate be than a character from the Vampire Diaries? lol Emma probably went as the main chick and he went as the bad boy vampire (Ian Summerhalder). Then, when trick or treating was over they went home for some role playing fun.

[Rumsy4]

11 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Didn't he get a new jacket once.  I clearly remember seeing pics of it in the spoiler thread and thinking it looked like the costume department from the Vampire Diaries designed it.

His Camelot jacket was a shinier version of his regular long jacket. Is that the one you're thinking of? Old Wish Hook was also wearing that, for some reason.

He also got a super-kong jacket as the Dark One in Camelot. It trailed the ground. He also had a modern jacket in the final season that was mid-thigh.

Apart from that, there is his Lieutenant Jones uniform jacket and the Prince Charles costume. 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Didn't he get a new jacket once.  I clearly remember seeing pics of it in the spoiler thread and thinking it looked like the costume department from the Vampire Diaries designed it.

Yeah, for a few episodes in season six he had a different black leather jacket, but he seems to have reverted to the previous black leather jacket after that. I think he wore different shirts with his "modern" outfits, sometimes black, sometimes dark blue, sometimes dark purple, but they were all so dark that they only showed up as colors in bright sunlight. And he did gradually make the transition from black leather pants to black jeans to (in season 7) blue jeans.

Once Rogers stopped wearing the police uniform, he's basically worn the same clothes the entire time: jeans, the long-sleeved black t-shirt, and the jacket, with the shock in this episode being him not wearing the jacket while indoors. It seems like WHook kept wearing the exact same clothes even after he gave up piracy and started living in a tower he had to climb up to (even though that long black leather coat wouldn't have been at all practical). He wore different clothes when he was old and fat, but after he got de-aged, he went right back to the exact same pirate outfit. We don't know if he was still keeping those clothes on the Jolly Roger and changed back or if Regina magically gave them non-modern clothes and just automatically gave him the pirate outfit she associated with him. And he's still wearing that same outfit more than 8 years later.

You'd think he'd have switched to something other than leather pants and a brocade vest while raising a child in a tower and while painting.

[KingOfHearts]

When the mark of the poisoned heart burned onto WHook's wrist, I thought Te Fiti had cursed him. It looked exactly like the symbol on her heart in the film. (That Maui stole.) Didn't Ahab say something like WHook couldn't handle possessing the hook or something? I thought Gothel poisoning the bullet was cheap. We at least should have seen her make a deal to give him a locator spell for his whale. That would have at least given so me reason for it to be Captain Ahab and not some random pirate dude. If a literary character is going to be make a cameo, it needs to be a minor character... like Pippi Longstocking.

Edited March 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

When the mark of the poisoned heart burned onto WHook's wrist, I thought Te Fiti had cursed him. It looked exactly like the symbol on her heart in the film.   It looked exactly like the symbol on her heart in the film. (That Maui stole.) 

 

I love how they include little intricate details from the movies into this show!  It shows the amount of love and care they put into it.  

Edited March 20, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

19 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I love how they include little intricate details from the movies into this show!  It shows the amount of love and care they put into it.  

 

There's a smile on my face whenever there's an Apollo bar onscreen. A&E really respect their roots.

Edited March 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Does Mother Gothel see herself as some sort of judge of morality?  She "tested" Tremaine by locking her up in the Tower and later with the poisoned mushroom.  In this episode, she had some judgemental lines at the end.

WHOOK: What did you do to me?
GOTHEL: No less than you deserve.  You're poisoned now...

ALICE: Please don't do this.  He's my father.  He's a good man.
GOTHEL: Not good enough.  Your father went on a little detour because there's more important things to him than his daughter.  

--

Could Gothel just be a loving parent looking out for her child, like Cora in Season 2 or Regina in Season 1?   This show does flawed mothers so well!

[KingOfHearts]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

This show does flawed mothers so well!

@Camera One, do you have Gothel's cell number? I need a babysitter for tonight.

[CCTC]

Although - to be honest who would you rather babysit -- Gothel or a hero like Meridia or Jacinda?

[Camera One]

Gothel is the one you send to fire the babysitter.

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Gothel is the one you send to fire the babysitter.

But not before she gives them a stern lecture about how they're not a good person.

Edited March 21, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[darkestboy]

Some okay flashbacks with Hook, Alice, Gothel, Rumple and Ahab but again, not much actually happened here. With nine episodes left, they'd want to speed things up a bit now.

Nice to see Regina and Lucy working together and I actually liked Drizella's scenes with Henry and Jacinda in this one.

Gothel just seems like a bitch for the sake of being one considering what she did to Hook and Alice here.

Felt bad for Alice during this episode but again, this felt rather uneventful, 6/10

[Lady Calypso]

It's much easier to get through the episodes now with the ability to fast-forward. I tried to stick around in certain scenes, but fast-forwarding has been happening. However, this episode actually had more highlights than the last two I just binged. Drizella/Ivy and Henry scenes, and Whook and Alice/Tilly stuff. 

Can we just get to the curse being broken? At this point, I really don't care if Henry dies or not. I'd feel sad for Emma, but she'll eventually move past it. 

The Alice/Tilly stuff is still infinitely more interesting than anything else happening. I'd be more interested in Zelena's issues with Robin if the dialogue surrounding that wasn't so clunky. I did like the episode because of the Alice stuff. Seriously, can the show be about Alice/Tilly, and Drizella/Ivy? Whook, Robin, and Henry can stick around to be in their stories. 

Seriously, Drizella/Henry's scene worked really well and I do think Andrew J West works well with Adelaide Kane. It does suck that it feels like that kiss was purely fanservice for the Henry/Drizella shippers. Which is a real shame, because they do have chemistry. 

So....I totally forgot that Whook's past story is in the Wish Realm (again, never watched the Wish Realm stuff in season whatever to begin with) so I was ticked by Imp Rumple until I remembered. Then, at least Robert Carlyle finally looked like he was having some fun. Weaver has been painfully bland, and Rumple's been bipolar all series. Is he a hero? Is he a villain? Who the hell cares? So, when he does don the Imp outfit, which isn't all that often, I do let myself have fun with it.

It excites me that it looks like Drizella/Ivy and Henry might actually share more scenes together. I also keep going back and forth on whether I should be typing Drizella or Ivy. It's too much work to do both sometimes. 

[Rushmoras]

So, Ahab, eh? Hmm... looked more like Long John Silver to me. And couldn't hook murder Silver... sorry, Ahab, in the dungeon instead of going to a duel? Would have been much simpler imo. Maybe a slightly better story than the last episode, but mostly it was meh. Mother Dreadlock's proposal to Hook in Heights was done many times before: you need to remember, I could help you hurr durr. Oh, and somebody killing witches? Hmm... I wonder who could it be. Could it be Roni's new/old boyfriend? Also a sin, Henry turned down Drizzella for sex. Come'on she's a lot hotter than Cinderella (they should switch bodies lol).

P.S. Hook asking Gold in Hyperion how Mother Dreadlocks knew about his painting. Gee, idk, maybe because you showed her your sketches in the notebook just two minutes ago? Just a wild guess. 

P.S.S. Wait, Mother Dreadlocks is Alice mom, right?  Well, she's a shitty mom, then. At least conjure up some father figure for her in the tower, if you don't want Hook spending time with her.

[Shanna Marie]

I liked this episode better when it was called "The Jolly Roger" in season three -- Hook sets out to do something to help another person, but when another pirate challenges his pirate cred, he bails on the good deed in order to defend his reputation and is punished by being cursed in a way that separates him from someone he loves. And "The Jolly Roger" wasn't a super-great episode, but at least it had Ariel, who was always fun, and Blackbeard made a good antagonist. Plus, the story actually fit where Hook was at that point in his life. He'd only given up revenge and joined the good guys about a week before the curse was reversed, so the change hadn't really settled in, and after the curse reverse he found himself back in his old world and old life, with no hope of seeing Emma again. He hadn't really figured out who he wanted to be. His pirate reputation was still important to him, his ship was all he had, and he barely knew Ariel. In this episode, WHook gave up revenge and changed his life more than a decade earlier. The person he's trying to help is his daughter, whom he raised from infancy and whose life is horribly constrained. He's in an entirely different world he no longer lives in, only there to carry out a mission. Would he really let some random pirate he doesn't even know in a world he no longer lives in get under his skin to the point that he forgets about his daughter's needs? Instead of being like "The Jolly Roger" Hook, he's closer to being in the situation of the Hook who came to Henry's rescue in "A Pirate's Life" -- more than a decade into a new life and with a family to worry about. I can't imagine that Hook letting worries about his pirate reputation distract him from his family's needs.

The attempt at aging WHook in the flashbacks only complicated the timeline/aging issue, since he should be several years younger than Hook was in "A Pirate's Life" and probably around 15 years younger than Rogers is in the present. Then again, those gray streaks look more like he spent the summer surfing than like the gray that comes with aging.

Ahab had to be one of their worst bits of namedropping. He had absolutely zero to do with the literary character other than his name and the fact that he had something to do with ships.

In the present, that scene of Henry running across Roni's Walk of Shame was rather creepy. He was way too curious about where she'd been and what she'd been doing, like he was jealous.

[tennisgurl]

So Ronnie and Regina hooked up with the known villain who in fairytale land disappeared her buddy Tianas kind of boyfriend. I am sure that Tiana would totally understand! And Henry being all "ohhh tell me more about sexy sex!" was just so creepy, and continues the unintended theme of Henry and Regina having super inappropriate chemistry with each other. 

The WHook and Tilly/Alice stuff is the most interesting story that this season has, so of course they have to waste it on this dull retread of better done stories and character beats that OG Hook already had. I mean, they have this new version of Hook that has a totally different situation at this point than OG Hook, giving up his revenge for a daughter and having this other experience with the original hook and Emma, so he could give Colin a new way to play this character and new stories to tell with him, but instead they just do the exact same story we saw in A Pirates Life, but making less sense. This Hook has spent years away from the pirate life, away from his ship, and has totally dedicated himself to Alice, and I just dont buy that he would risk all of that after so many years because some random drunk guy was calling out his pirate cred. Its like a whole dramatic moment based around Marty McFly losing his shit every time someone calls him chicken. 

Ahab must be one of their worst half assed name drops and wastes of an iconic character, right up there with Beowulf and the Count of Monte Cristo. All he had in common with the actual guy was a peg leg, boats, and references to a whale! He could have been literally anyone, him being Captain Ahab is just an embarrassing waste of a character and story. 

Seeing Ivy actually trying to make amends with her family and the actual chemistry she has with Henry really makes me feel robbed of the story she could have had, instead of making her the big bad except not or whatever. 

Gothel looking at Tilly through the camera and waving at her with a creepy smile is actually one of the few times she really feels like a threatening and memorable villain, and while its probably unintentional (given how this show struggles with the concept of consent) knowing what Gothel did to WHook, a lot of her scenes with Rogers really make me feel icky. 

[Camera One]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I liked this episode better when it was called "The Jolly Roger" in season three -- Hook sets out to do something to help another person, but when another pirate challenges his pirate cred, he bails on the good deed in order to defend his reputation and is punished by being cursed in a way that separates him from someone he loves. 

I haven't watched that one in so long that I've forgotten this was another retread plot.

One of the main reasons why Whook worked in Season 7 and Regina and Rumple didn't, was because he had something NEW to work with.  But he finally gets another flashback, and we get this replay.

I enjoyed the very first part of the episode, with Whook and Younger Alice, and I wish they had stayed with that, instead of another boring visit to The Tavern™.   This time, I hardly bothered to look at the screen and pretty much just listened to the episode while I did something else.

The Eloise-in-the-station plot was creepy the first time but this time, it all felt pointless.  

Spoiler

Why would Eloise send Rogers and Weaver on a wild goose chase?  Didn't she want the killer to be caught?  This episode felt like a mis-direct to make us think Eloise was the one to frame Alice.  

Eloise wanted Rogers to remember his identity?  Why?  Does Weaver want him to remember?  Why isn't Weaver telling Tilly to stop taking the medication now that Victoria is gone?  

In this episode, we saw what happens when the Poisoned Heart Curse begins.  Upon embrace, BOTH people immediately get marked on their skin.  So Cecilia running away should not have been interpreted as Cecilia abandoning her family for no reason.

Victoria died two episodes ago and Ivy finally makes her appearance 18 minutes into this one.  Anastasia has more reason to hate her than Jacinda "ever did"?  LOL.  I sort of liked seeing Ivy sort of being on the path of rehabilitation.

Spoiler

But on rewatch, we know that it meant nothing.  Ivy was still a selfish evil lowlife who would be willing to sacrifice Anastasia.  (until the last minute when Anastasia gets a Happily Ever After! with her homicidal sister)

I agree about the weird creepiness of Henry dwelling on Roni's walk of shame, even alluding to how she probably had "a good night" with her ex, compared to his sexless date.  Gross!  Does it look like she had a good night?  He has zero ability to read human demeanor, does he?  Was he coming by to get a 6:30am beer fix?  Someone needs to get him to Alcoholics Anonymous, stat.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I enjoyed the very first part of the episode, with Whook and Younger Alice, and I wish they had stayed with that, instead of another boring visit to The Tavern™.   This time, I hardly bothered to look at the screen and pretty much just listened to the episode while I did something else.

It was hard to watch after he left the tower because it was like there had been some kind of body swap and he was an entirely different character from the man in the tower. It seems very much out of character for the man who gave up piracy, his ship, and revenge for his daughter to be so easily needled by some rando that he would lose focus on his daughter's needs. What would have happened to her if he'd been killed in that duel? And then it sounds kind of like at the end he went straight into drinking to become the old WHook we first met, that all the "sneaking into the tower to play chess" was what happened before this. That's wildly out of character for any version of Hook. Even if he couldn't get physically close to her, he'd have camped out at the foot of that tower to be as close to her as he could and watch over her. True, his self-loathing is consistent and in character, but I don't think he'd abandon his own child to go off and drink.

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Eloise wanted Rogers to remember his identity?  Why?  Does Weaver want him to remember?  Why isn't Weaver telling Tilly to stop taking the medication now that Victoria is gone?

You'd think it would help Weaver to have Rogers remembering, and it would work against Eloise. Or is Eloise just toying with him and enjoying knowing more than he does?

I still wonder where WHook's artistic interests/abilities came from, if that's something he started doing in the tower out of boredom or if that's something that came earlier and is shared by both Hooks. I'm afraid that it was just because Rapunzel in Tangled painted.

Spoiler

And, as I recall, it never comes up again.

Wish Rumple had a real Gollum thing going on. If he'd started asking riddles and cryptic questions, I'd think we were having a replay of that iconic scene from The Hobbit.

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Was he coming by to get a 6:30am beer fix? 

It seems like Roni's serves food, but it doesn't seem like it's open when it's not bar time. There were no other customers in the place, so there was no reason for Henry to go there after his shift. If Roni hadn't been making a Walk of Shame, she wouldn't have even been there.

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Seeing Ivy actually trying to make amends with her family and the actual chemistry she has with Henry really makes me feel robbed of the story she could have had, instead of making her the big bad except not or whatever. 

I guess we're supposed to take her redemption seriously after her scene with Jacinda, even though in the same episode she made a pass at the man she knew was her step-sister's husband while he didn't know, which is another one of those shady consent things this show handles oh so well. And they're all in this situation because she poisoned him to use him as a hostage. But it's all good because she realized her mother really did love her, after all!

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I guess we're supposed to take her redemption seriously after her scene with Jacinda, even though in the same episode she made a pass at the man she knew was her step-sister's husband while he didn't know, which is another one of those shady consent things this show handles oh so well. And they're all in this situation because she poisoned him to use him as a hostage. But it's all good because she realized her mother really did love her, after all!

You know, within the insular time of watching an episode, it's so easy to forget stuff that.  I find that with this show a lot.  Ivy was crying with her walls down and it was really easy to feel exactly what the writers wanted you to feel, which was to take her redemption seriously.  

But Ivy kissed him knowing exactly who Henry was, and how she marked him for death, and it's pretty ridiculous that we were supposed to be impressed she had civil words with her stepsister.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

But Ivy kissed him knowing exactly who Henry was, and how she marked him for death, and it's pretty ridiculous that we were supposed to be impressed she had civil words with her stepsister.

The stepsister she at one time was close to and who didn't seem to have done anything to earn her enmity, but she still got to be collateral damage in Ivy's vendetta feud against her mother, even though her stepsister would have happily joined her in fighting against her mother.

But I guess it's okay because Jacinda doesn't remember any of that now.

Spoiler

And by the time she remembers it, Ivy will be long gone.

I noticed in my old posts in this thread that I was expecting some kind of revelation that Gothel had been in league with Ahab, and rewatching it with that in mind, the whole duel and poison thing makes no sense without that being revealed. Otherwise, how would Gothel have known to poison the bullet? It's one of those plans with a lot of ifs involved. She had to count on Ahab wanting to goad WHook into a duel, count on WHook taking the bait, and count on Ahab being able to shoot WHook to get the poison into him. Not to mention, all this is taking place in another universe from where Gothel lives. It makes a tiny bit more sense if Gothel learns about WHook's mission, follows him, then after WHook goes back to Gollum!Rumple, she gets Ahab to go after him and goad him into the duel. It's still convoluted, though. It would have been much easier to poison his drink.

But there's still the question of why? She seems to be trying to keep Alice from escaping, but clearly nothing happens to her if Alice leaves the tower, since Alice is out of the tower long before the curse, while Gothel seems to be totally free still. Is she just being a jerk? She doesn't want her daughter to be happy? She wants revenge on WHook for making her look bad as a parent by actually raising their daughter after she abandoned her, so she has to show how he's not really a good parent? She does have that purity test thing going on, but the other times that's been shown, it was about her trying to find the Guardian. Does she think WHook was a Guardian candidate since he was so good as to come back with the flower and then to give up everything to stay with Alice? But then why the poison? He failed the test in taking the duel bait. Why not let him go back to the tower and stay there?

I think the real answer here is that they established back in "A Pirate's Life" that WHook had been separated from his daughter, so they had to handwave a backstory to fit it and they didn't try very hard to come up with something that fit what had been previously established and that made sense for all the characters involved.

[Camera One]

Gothel certainly could have shot Hook with poison herself or tricked him into drinking poison, without this elaborate plan.  I suppose she wanted to make Alice disappointed in her father to not want him around?  But why?  The poisoned heart curse would keep them apart anyway.  Plus Alice was still calling for Whook at the end.  

It doesn't help that the poisoned heart syndrome is so ill-defined.  It certainly seems like Alice and Whook could have a conversation yet they had Alice circling trees.  As you said, why couldn't Whook have camped at the base of the tower, or even come up to chat without touching Alice?  It's not ideal and it's still painful to be deprived of physical contact, but it's still better than leaving Alice to grow up alone.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

On 3/19/2018 at 10:14 PM, Camera One said:

Gothel wanted Whook to open up and be vulnerable and to hear Whook admit that he doesn't have a "special someone".  Then she says stuff like "Everyone has their obsessions" and "If you want to find the killer, all you have to do is follow your heart."  

So basically, Gothel is still in love with him and wants him back.  I just love a good romance.

Emma Boothe is genuinely sinister in this role but they didn't really know what to do with her. She could have had a creepy obsession with Rogers and it would have worked if that had been a consistent theme.

If anything that would make more sense for this episode; if he's just a sperm donor to her and she wants to keep him away so theres no chance of him rescuing Alice, why all this nonsense with poisoned bullets? Why not turn up when he comes to play chess and skewer him with a vine like Ivy did to poor Prince Gregor? Right in front of poor little Alice's horrified eyes so she gives up any ideas about getting out of her tower.

Nasty? Yes, and I'm not an evil witch who's condemned my newborn daughter to a lifetime of solitary confinement so I can walk free and wreak my evil on the world. If I thought of that, why didn't she?

[Shanna Marie]

The timeline/aging issues continue here. If there was a gap in time somehow so that Alice wasn't really born right after the curse was cast/would have been cast, then this takes place only about 6-8 years before Lucy's born, which means it would have to have happened after Emma met Old, Fat WHook in the Wishverse. But if she's born around the time the curse was/would have been cast, she should be about the same age as Emma. Meanwhile, WHook is graying about 10-12 years after the curse, but Hook Prime showed no signs of age at least 15 years after time started moving following the curse.

And why is WHook still wearing the same clothes more than a decade later? Leather pants and a brocade vest aren't very practical for a guy who's climbing a tower on a regular basis, caring for a child, and spending his free time painting.

I wonder if they knew who the killer was when they were writing this. I suppose it could be the usual "aren't you surprised, since we didn't set anything up?" trick, but Eloise's behavior is so counter to what you'd think she'd want to do under these circumstances that it seems to be setting up an entirely different plot than we got. It's like they only got as far as "There's a serial killer targeting members of the coven" when they wrote this, and it's only a few episodes later that they figured out who was killing and why.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I wonder if they knew who the killer was when they were writing this. I suppose it could be the usual "aren't you surprised, since we didn't set anything up?" trick, but Eloise's behavior is so counter to what you'd think she'd want to do under these circumstances that it seems to be setting up an entirely different plot than we got. It's like they only got as far as "There's a serial killer targeting members of the coven" when they wrote this, and it's only a few episodes later that they figured out who was killing and why.

I was thinking if the Writers hadn't decided who was the killer was

Spoiler

2 episodes before the shocking reveal

that would be pretty horrible planning.

But really, as of this episode, the killer could still have been anyone.  Of the characters, the only logical possibilities would have been Gothel or Facilier.  Gothel was more complex because why would she want to kill her own Coven, but maybe they were rebelling against her.  

The only clues we have are very generic... wears black gloves and ordered chocolates, though even that could have been a lie that Gothel made up.  

If Gothel wasn't the killer, you'd think she would have stationed herself and Anastasia by the baker witch's bedside, ready to destroy the real killer, rather than playing games at the police station and distracting them from actually finding the real killer.

With these Writers, though, anything is possible, especially the "Surprise!  You'd NEVER have guessed.  Literally!"

Edited November 17, 2019 by Camera One