S07.E14: The Girl in the Tower

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

Would facebook commenters be considered casual?

Maybe they would be the normal fans.  We're the Guardians.

[Shanna Marie]

The Facebook commenters seem to be confused by the timeline -- not in the detail we are, where we remember Emma meeting Old WHook and when that happened compared to how old Robyn is, etc., but they definitely don't get how the children are now adults while their parents haven't aged at all.

[Camera One]

I'm surprised Tiana didn't insist on hunting the Troll herself.  Or are we not in her kingdom anymore?

[Rumsy4]

42 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I'm surprised Tiana didn't insist on hunting the Troll herself.  

Wearing yet another billowing gown and weighed down with heavy jewelry.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

Why is Cursed Robyn still the daughter of Cursed Zelena?  Was Rumple handing out White Elephants like candy?

[daxx]

You still expect any kind of consistency? I’ve given up on sense and timelines and just try to turn off my brain while watching. I’ve had minimal success with this but at this point I’ll be ok as long as they don’t mess up captain swans happy ending. Which, having JMo back makes me nervous.

[tennisgurl]

 I have found actual footage of fans trying to decipher the timeline or geographical location of anything that has happened this season...

[darkestboy]

A better episode than the last two.

I liked that they resolved the Tilly being framed for murder bit rather quickly and I'm guessing that storyline will also be done rather soon as well.

The connection with Alice/Robyn worked pretty well both in flashbacks and Tilly/Margot meeting in the present day.

Regina was dumb sending Lucy to Facilier's place but at least the latter didn't waste time in revealing his great plan.

Nice scenes with Zelena and Henry/Drizella this week and I didn't miss the lack of Jacinda or Rumple to be honest, 7/10

[Rushmoras]

Actually, I'm glad this is the last season in a way (because if it werent probably would have ditched it in the middle of S6 or sooner), because if someone would ask me what happened in an episode I'd say stuff happened in an episode (that's how this season catches my interest). I did not even notice in the last episode that Tilly is being wanted by the police. So imagine my raised eyebrow when Henry and Hook (what's his cursed name) harbored her.

And, yep, either Alice has magic (troll, the VW bug) or some fairy godmather is granting her a buttload of wishes. Sure hope Ivy does not die in later episodes, I like her. Still think Facilier is the one who is killing witches, though.

[Shanna Marie]

There was a better episode trying to get out of this one. There were moments when the potential peeked through, but, alas, it was not to be. I was far more interested in what Alice did right after getting out of the tower than I was in yet another of their insta-romances, complete with cutesy pet names. Sometimes, the nickname is cute and meaningful, but sometimes it comes across like the other person doesn't see the person as an individual. "Charming" worked because it started as Snow being snarky about how "Prince James" was the opposite of the idealized "Prince Charming," and then it stuck because David the shepherd actually was charming once Snow got to know him. "Tower Girl" was just unimaginative and dehumanizing.

After our discussion in the previous episode about how Alice got fed and whether the tower provided, I was amused by her cupcake in this one. Either Alice learned how to be a pastry chef, or the tower provided what she wanted/needed. The icing on the cupcake was done the way bakeries do it, not so much like a teenager who should never have seen a cupcake would have likely done it. Though I'm not sure why she'd have thought to wish for a cupcake.

In the present, I was already reeling from the fact that Ivy sincerely apologized to Henry (even though he didn't know why) when she said she wished she'd met him before she went evil, and I suddenly had a vision of what that show might have been like. What if Henry had attended a ball on his realm-hopping adventure, met a girl there, they hit it off, and then Cinderella showed up, and he eventually realized that his new friend was one of the wicked stepsisters? That might have been a fun twist on the story, with the love interest being unexpected, and him trying to steer her to a better path. She'd have reminded him of Regina, and he'd have wanted to redeem her. Making the villain a hero is right up this show's alley.

I was never sure if there was some kind of magic going on that rendered Alice invisible so that the people whose names she knew didn't see or remember her or if we were supposed to believe that she was just that unimportant to them. I'd think that a quirky girl with a British accent in Seattle would stand out. Heck, the checkers at the huge suburban supermarket on the edge of my neighborhood know and recognize me, and I blend into the general population of the neighborhood. It's hard for me to believe that people at the little neighborhood grocery wouldn't remember someone like Alice. I noticed that I compared it to what happened to the main character of Neverwhere after he associated with London Below.

Spoiler

But as I recall, it never amounted to anything, and the killer turned out to not be magical, so it doesn't seem like there was any magic used to frame her, unless there was a triple cross going on. That's why I think they decided who the killer was late in the game. At this point, it looks like the killer might have been using magic.

Lucy's spying expedition was just silly. I still crack up that the last thing she noticed after searching the apartment was the Tarot spread lying out in open on the table.

I guess there's a Disenchanted Forest Robin Hood, since the villagers at Ye Olde Tavern knew the name.

[Camera One]

I remembered liking this episode more, but upon rewatch, it was alright and not great.  

The funny thing about a rewatch is you'd think knowing that Robyn would get better in future episode doesn't make her any less obnoxious and annoying in this episode.  I had a hard time enjoying Alice and Robyn's scenes together because of her bratty, selfish and callous behavior.  This time, it also reminded me of Belle having sympathy for the underaged Ogre while the mob went hunting.  

Did I miss something?  How did Lucy know right away that he was Dr. Facilier?  

It's weird how Ivy went MIA for the rest of the episode.  She wished she knew Henry before she became evil.  And when was that exactly?  

The sound editor added the door clicking closed behind Dr. Facilier even though Regina put tape on it.  

I'm not sure if the No-one-knew-Tilley's-name at the grocery store was supernatural intrigue, or a statement about the invisibility of the homeless population in urban centers.  

Enough with the horrible nicknames.  Sheesh, is there no escape from them?

Spoiler

Did we ever find out how the intrepid serial killer Hansel managed to frame Tilley and get her to the crime scene right on time and wipe her memories?  

The less said about Lucy Bond and Butterfingers, the better.

Edited November 23, 2019 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I just watched the deleted scene again with Rogers and Henry going to the Rollin' Bayou to ask about Tilly.  How sad... Jacinda's scene in the episode got cut.  Jacinda didn't remember seeing Tilly.  But Tilly said she bought some beignets.  Jacinda said three bags of beignets were missing from the counter.  

So what were the Writers trying to say?  Tilly was in a daze and didn't know what she was doing?  Everyone was in a daze and couldn't remember her?  Or Tilly was a thief and lied about stealing beignets?  The Case of the Missing Bags of Cold Beignets would have been an intriguing episode.  I can't believe Work Alone Tiana would permit Jacinda to work the Bayou two days in a row!

Edited November 23, 2019 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

The fact Alice and Robyn were described as an 'epic love story' shows that the word has really lost a lot of its oomph in modern usage. The fact their romance actually was the best of this season just shows how weak the others, particularly the supposed headliner, really were.

In their previous successful romance plots (by which I mean Snow/Charming and Hook/Emma) they did start out antagonistic but there was mutual antagonism. Snow beat up David, David messed up her assassination plot, but they found common ground and connected. Hook deceived Emma and worked with Cora, Emma tied Hook up and left him to be eaten alive by ogres (Enchanted Forest rules, ain't no Geneva Convention here), and there were some more fights and betrayals then they connected when they were on the same side. All the wrongdoing here is one way and it's by bratty, entitled glory hound Robyn against kind-hearted, charming, lonely adventurer Alice. 

And the actual connection they make honestly could be seen as pretty sad, another one of these 'I owe you a great debt for not completely screwing me over' type deals, but sadder than usual  because it's really believable that Alice would be very vulnerable to anyone who offered her the slightest bit of help or a token show of empathy. I'm just left thinking she's lucky Robyn is only self-absorbed and clueless rather than cruel.

'Storybrooke was insufferably quaint,' yes, you have so much in common, that is exactly like being locked in a small room for the first sixteen years of your life.

Spoiler

When she turns up later Robyn basically has a different personality, not that it's a very interesting personality but it's the kind where you wouldn't be shaking your head going 'Alice, Alice you can do better'

Edited November 23, 2019 by Speakeasy

[Shanna Marie]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

It's weird how Ivy went MIA for the rest of the episode.  She wished she knew Henry before she became evil.  And when was that exactly?  

Offscreen, during the big gap between her being a little girl who loved her sisters and was indifferent to the mother who ignored her and her being full-on evil and "worse" than her mother. We never actually saw her transition to evil. The next time in the chronology we saw her after she was a child, she was already evil.

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

I'm not sure if the No-one-knew-Tilley's-name at the grocery store was supernatural intrigue, or a statement about the invisibility of the homeless population in urban centers.  

I could buy the homeless being invisible on the street, but you'd think that when a homeless person came into a store, the shopkeeper would definitely notice. Inside the store, the generic average shopper might be invisible, but the weird homeless person is going to be noticed and possibly followed around the store to make sure she doesn't steal, make a mess, or accost other shoppers. That's why it felt supernatural to me, especially when combined with her own memory lapse.

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

So what were the Writers trying to say?  Tilly was in a daze and didn't know what she was doing?  Everyone was in a daze and couldn't remember her?  Or Tilly was a thief and lied about stealing beignets? 

And beignets wouldn't be sitting around in bags to be stolen. These writers have obviously never actually had beignets. Everything they know about them, they learned from reading a summary of The Princess and the Frog. Even if there were bags of beignets sitting around to be swiped, how would she do that from a food truck? Wouldn't they have been inside the truck where they couldn't be reached from the outside? Were they lining up the greasy bags of cold beignets on the little shelf on the outside of the truck? Were Tiana and Jacinda so out of it that they didn't notice someone sneaking inside the truck to steal?

It looks like there's supernatural stuff at work to ruin Tilly's alibi, with her memory blank and the memories of everyone who had seen her wiped.

Spoiler

Which is why I suspect they still didn't know who the killer was when they wrote this, since the killer turned out to not only not be magical, but to be fighting against magic. Maybe that's why they cut the Jacinda and Tiana scene, because it made it look really ridiculous for them not to remember seeing Tilly if no magic was involved.

[Camera One]

13 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Even if there were bags of beignets sitting around to be swiped, how would she do that from a food truck? Wouldn't they have been inside the truck where they couldn't be reached from the outside? Were they lining up the greasy bags of cold beignets on the little shelf on the outside of the truck? 

In "Taste of the Heights", Sabine liked to line up multiple bags along the counter.  

It looks like Tilly feeling alone because no one recognized her in Hyperion Heights was supposed to parallel her flashback where she grew up alone and felt alone even after leaving the Tower.  

Edited November 24, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

19 hours ago, Camera One said:

It looks like Tilly feeling alone because no one recognized her in Hyperion Heights was supposed to parallel her flashback where she grew up alone and felt alone even after leaving the Tower.  

Which would have been more effective if the flashbacks had shown that life instead of skipping ahead to the present, when her father was around and they could have talked from a distance, and why didn't she hang out with his friends? I'd have rather seen her realm-hopping. Was she searching for her father? Running from Gothel? Looking for a friend? She said she was Alice in Wonderland and a lot of other places, but what other places? Did she hang out with the troll after he freed her, and that was why she knew he wasn't vicious? All of that would have been more interesting than yet another "I'm so abrasive! You know that thing you said traumatized you? I'm going to call you a nickname that defines you by the thing that traumatized you and that you worked hard to escape from" so-called epic romance.

[tennisgurl]

Are A&E aware that some people meet when one of them isnt attacking or trapping the other one? That dont start as enemies where one is super intensely angry for no reason? Thats the only way they can write these "epic" romances, complete with stupid nicknames? I remember liking this episode when I first saw it, but, and maybe its my annoyance of this season in general, but I dont like it quite as much. Maybe because I know where this is going now and its lame, or maybe I am just not as desperate for anything interesting this season, because this isnt all bad, but its not that great. 

Robyn comes off as pretty bratty and whiny here, even more than in her last episode. Oh yeah, tell the girl who has been all alone for most of her life and tragically separated from her beloved father about how much your life in beautiful perfect Storeybrooke surrounded by people that love you sucked, and what a mean girl you were. Nice to see that mean girls still exist in Storeybrooke! And I know that the people leading the mob were kind of sexist jerks (so traditional gender roles are really big in the disenchanted forest?" but they had every right to try and fight the monster that was terrorizing them, thats hardly makes them the bad guys in all of this! So why was the giant attacking villages? How did the bug get there? Why did the giant turn into stone? Why can Alice leave now when she couldn't before due to magic? Where was she getting her stuff if WHook couldn't be near her? Why couldn't we see her having adventures from right after she escaped instead of this rather dull "epic" love story?

Alice and Robyn do at least have some decent chemistry, and I continue to like Alice/Tilly a lot, and I am at least decently invested in their story, which puts this miles ahead of most of the romances this season. 

So Regina is being all flirty with a known villain, and its just cool because she can reenact Operations from Henry's childhood with Lucy? Ivy saying how she wished she had met Henry before really makes me sad for what could have been. They have so much more chemistry than Jacinda/Henry and the idea of them getting together sounds so much more interesting than his boring relationship with Jacinda.

[Camera One]

On 11/25/2019 at 11:39 AM, tennisgurl said:

Are A&E aware that some people meet when one of them isnt attacking or trapping the other one? That dont start as enemies where one is super intensely angry for no reason? Thats the only way they can write these "epic" romances, complete with stupid nicknames?

And I don't think we're exaggerating when we say that this was how almost every romance started off on this show.  I suppose there were a few exceptions, like Henry and Violet or Emma and Neal. 

I think it was worse because this season already had Jacinda and Henry starting in this way.  On top of that, Alice and Robyn's meet-hate was very similar to the other couple with two females, Ruby and Dorothy, complete with new versions of Wolfie and Kansas.  

On 11/24/2019 at 8:09 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Which would have been more effective if the flashbacks had shown that life instead of skipping ahead to the present, when her father was around and they could have talked from a distance, and why didn't she hang out with his friends? I'd have rather seen her realm-hopping. Was she searching for her father? Running from Gothel? Looking for a friend? She said she was Alice in Wonderland and a lot of other places, but what other places? 

All those possibilities would have been preferable for sure.  I wonder if the Writers even considered these.  I guess they needed Alice and Whook to be tragically separated, but it made no sense why she needed to stay that far away.  The ambiguous nature weakened the storyline overall.  Why did Ivy give up trying to poison Henry's heart with the mushroom?

Edited November 29, 2019 by Camera One

[Camera One]

We should have gotten an episode where Hook returns to the Tower, only to find the top gone and Alice gone.  Only that could explain why he became a drunk and gave up.  Maybe he spent years trying to find her while she was in Wonderland.  It also doesn't make sense that he wouldn't immediately go to the Tower when he returned to the Disenchanted Forest, instead of finding out via Regina that the Tower was destroyed (disregarding the continuity error discussed previously regarding the state of the Tower).

So the Troll appeared because it was Alice's birthday.  But Robyn earlier said she had been tracking him for "days" as he destroyed villages.  I suppose Alice could have dreamed up the troll a few days before anticipating her upcoming birthday, but still...  If this were Tiana's kingdom, I'm surprised she didn't go to investigate this new threat herself.  There weren't even soldiers helping out, just the sexist mob who forgot they were under the rule of a powerful warrior queen?

Edited November 29, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

Only that could explain why he became a drunk and gave up. 

Isn't it wonderful how the master storytellers had WHook's backstory all planned out when he was introduced back in S6? They really cared about the character and wanted to make sure we all saw on screen in S7 what they originally envisioned. Why didn't we see the foreshadowing sooner?

[Camera One]

I just read in the wiki for this episode that the second choice for this episode's title was "Goodbye, Tower Girl."  This show just gives and gives... in laughs.

[Shanna Marie]

On 11/29/2019 at 9:34 AM, Camera One said:

We should have gotten an episode where Hook returns to the Tower, only to find the top gone and Alice gone.  Only that could explain why he became a drunk and gave up.  Maybe he spent years trying to find her while she was in Wonderland. 

Yeah, that would have worked so much better -- either he's away on a supply run or looking for a way to save her, comes back, and the top of the tower has been ripped off and Alice is gone. There's no sign of her, wherever he looks. Then he might become a drunk.

And that would have been a better flashback than yet another round of cutesy nicknames.

On 11/29/2019 at 9:34 AM, Camera One said:

It also doesn't make sense that he wouldn't immediately go to the Tower when he returned to the Disenchanted Forest, instead of finding out via Regina that the Tower was destroyed (disregarding the continuity error discussed previously regarding the state of the Tower).

That was really weird, and one of those things that makes you feel like they were making it up as they went along without any plan. The way he talked in "A Pirate's Life" made it sound like he had no idea where she was, but seeing the actual circumstances makes it seem weird that he was back in the Wish Realm to begin with, and he should have known exactly where the tower was and what the condition of it was. And it was typical anticlimax for this show to set up a great quest to find his daughter, only to stumble into her right next to the place where he last saw her.

Another alternative might have been for her to be the one cursed, so that she would die if he went near her. Knowing Hook's self-destructive streak, I could imagine him sticking around even though it hurt him. But if she was the one hurt by his presence, I could see him taking off because he didn't want to take any chances of going anywhere near her and hurting her.

As it is, the Hook we know would have set up camp or built a hut at the foot of the tower and sent up supplies and treats and notes in a basket, and he would have shouted up to her window to keep her company. A curse giving him pain wouldn't have kept him away.

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

That was really weird, and one of those things that makes you feel like they were making it up as they went along without any plan. The way he talked in "A Pirate's Life" made it sound like he had no idea where she was, but seeing the actual circumstances makes it seem weird that he was back in the Wish Realm to begin with, and he should have known exactly where the tower was and what the condition of it was.

Yeah, it really did seem like they hadn't worked out any of the details.  I mean, you'd think the first thing the Writers would have done when the wrote "A Pirate's Life" was to work out why Whook was back in the Wish Realm.  All they needed to do was to work backwards and come up with a backstory that would have led to that outcome.  

Of all of Whook's friends who could have helped him to ensure Alice was taken care of, why would Alice have been hanging around Rumple before the Curse?  

Spoiler

I know the eye-rolling reason behind this, but still...

[Camera One]

Watched three more tonight with my friend.  I think the cliffhanger/end "mysteries" are sometimes the most painful when rewatching. 

My friend keeps wondering where Anastasia went.

Spoiler

In these three episodes alone... there was that whole episode about Dr. Facilier using Naveen to get the necklace, and we find out he got the necklace for Regina, and she used to wear it, but... it actually lead nowhere.  

Then, there was Eloise Gardiner at the police station trying to get Rogers to "discover himself" with his painting of a ship, before revealing that the murderer delivered chocolate to the victims.  What was the point of that again?

My friend already figured out that the TLK will be between Henry and Regina, not Henry and Lucy or Henry and Jacinda.

The ending with Rogers asking Tilly to move in was still really sweet, though my friend was pulling her hair out that Rogers let her go home alone in the first place.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Camera One

[Jynnan tonnix]

I liked this episode quite a bit. I just love Alice - she's probably one of my favorite characters throughout the whole series (I have a bit of a girl-crush on her, to be honest). In some ways, I actually like the last two or three episodes as much as I liked any of the show as a whole. It's set up some interesting stories, even if they are the minor ones, and while I don't find Henry, Jacinda, Lucy, Tiana, etc, interesting at all, really, I do still like Whook (in whatever incarnation), still find Rumple very intriguing, even if it's partly because I find RC such an interesting actor. I'm more or less fine with Regina, really like Zelena, am kind of a little bit in love with Facillier, even though he's probably going to end up being evil, and mostly like Ivy. Robin, I can take or leave, but the fact that she has decent chemistry with Alice gives her some points.

In short, there are actually more characters here that I really enjoy watching than I really did in the Storybrooke cast, since I never really warmed up to Snowing all that much, and while I liked Emma, was not really all that invested in her overall. The peripheral characters were cute (dwarves, Jiminy, Granny, etc), but other than Rumple, whom I actually liked better during those times that he seemed as though he actually was going to come around, contrary to popular opinion, I really didn't care that much for most of them. Never liked Belle at all, even though I did like Emilie in LOST (also probably contrary to popular opinion). The season with Frozen was probably my favorite, as much as it seemed way too gimmicky at the start.

I also found myself wondering whether the writers are either going to do a turn-around based on fans' reactions, or have been hiding a twist under their sleeves all along, with the fact that Henry and Ivy's chemistry seems SOOO much more apparent than his and Jacinda's. I do wonder whether they are not setting them up as the True Love couple...It wouldn't actually be a first, given that Robin Hood and Regina/Evil Queen/whatever incarnation seemed much more important to them as a pairing than Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which truly is the legendary love story. It makes me wonder whether they purposefully cast Jacinda as an anti-chemistry pairing with Henry from the get-go, so that if he later got together with Ivy, it would feel much more right, rather than leaving fans who had become invested in a Henry/Jacinda True Love story feeling cheated. I have no idea whether this might play out like that, and may be giving the writers/casting directors more credit than they deserve, but I couldn't help but see it as a possibility.

 

[KAOS Agent]

 

7 hours ago, Jynnan tonnix said:

It makes me wonder whether they purposefully cast Jacinda as an anti-chemistry pairing with Henry from the get-go, so that if he later got together with Ivy, it would feel much more right, rather than leaving fans who had become invested in a Henry/Jacinda True Love story feeling cheated.

I'll never figure out how the casting crew, which did such an incredible job of finding actors who could pull of the horrible dialogue on this show and make it seem believable, could put the Henry and Jacinda actors together and think there was chemistry. Maybe the showrunners were involved? I remember something about them saying Jacinda having chemistry with a piece of toast, so maybe the plan was to turn Henry into a piece of bread and have Hansel roast him. 

[Camera One]

8 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I remember something about them saying Jacinda having chemistry with a piece of toast, so maybe the plan was to turn Henry into a piece of bread and have Hansel roast him. 

The actress herself said she could have chemistry with a piece of toast.  

15 hours ago, Jynnan tonnix said:

I liked this episode quite a bit. I just love Alice - she's probably one of my favorite characters throughout the whole series (I have a bit of a girl-crush on her, to be honest).

Upon second rewatch, I've found Alice and Whook to be as enjoyable as before.  I think Alice and Robyn grew on me a little more this time, despite her abrasiveness in the flashback.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Camera One