S07.E16: Breadcrumbs

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

Meanwhile, there's the silliness of Henry's big podcasting job opportunity, based on the success of his hyper-local podcast about his friends and some theories about real estate deals.

It just feeds into my crack theory that Henry used the Author pen to write all of S7 after failing as a hero.

[Shanna Marie]

6 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It just feeds into my crack theory that Henry used the Author pen to write all of S7 after failing as a hero.

One of my crack theories about season 7 was that Hyperion Heights was actually an Authorverse created by Henry, but something went wrong and he wasn't aware of what he created. That would have made more sense than what we got.

But it also all works if he's really still a teenager at home in Storybrooke and wrote all of season 7 with his Author pen as his fantasy of going off to be a hero (though that would be a big fail, considering Henry in season 7 doesn't really do much of anything).

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, Shanna Marie said:

One of my crack theories about season 7 was that Hyperion Heights was actually an Authorverse created by Henry, but something went wrong and he wasn't aware of what he created. That would have made more sense than what we got.

But it also all works if he's really still a teenager at home in Storybrooke and wrote all of season 7 with his Author pen as his fantasy of going off to be a hero (though that would be a big fail, considering Henry in season 7 doesn't really do much of anything).

Well, he's not a real writer anyway.  He just goes to bed and all the writing is done for him.

I don't even remember what this episode was about.  "Breadcrumbs" made it sound like it would tell the story of Hansel and Gretel.

I guess I'll be watching it soon.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I wrote notes while rewatching this dreck, but it turns out I already said most of it... it's funny how similar reactions are even the second time around.

I did notice that they tried to get Tilly to explain why no one recognized her a few episodes ago.  

Quote

SABINE: She had the brilliant idea of handing out samples and the customers love her.
TILLY: They all know my name now.  I think it's because I'm talking to them instead of stealing anything without anyone seeing me.

If she was stealing stuff, why would she expect the storekeepers to talk to her like they were friends?

A Henry/Whook adventure would have been good earlier in the season to establish their relationship.  This episode seemed designed around the "twist" that Whook set it all up.  It was annoying to watch with Henry's whole "I want to be a hero" mantra.  Very similar to Robyn's M.O. in "Girl in the Tower".  

Overall, this episode felt like it was just spinning its wheels.  

Edited December 7, 2019 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

Well, he's not a real writer anyway.  He just goes to bed and all the writing is done for him.

That would explain why everything went wrong, he came up with the idea of writing himself an adventure and the Author Power took over and extrapolated for him. Seems the Author Power doesn't think much of him. 

He couldn't write out his whole story, though, I mean he's an ideas guy. No dice, says the Author Power, if you're not going to put the hours in you'll end up sidelined in your own story, with nothing but unfulfilled potential and confusion about how you even got to your mediocre position.

This alternate storyline is a pretty apt metaphor 😋

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

A Henry/Whook adventure would have been good earlier in the season to establish their relationship.  

Also might have established Henry as a respectable adventure protagonist. 

This message about appreciating the everyday over fantastic adventures comes up in various stories but there really ought to be some fantastic adventures to contrast it with. Henry's fantastic adventures have involved stumbling into a ball after his future wife beat him up and robbed him, getting his parents to rescue him from trouble and then being abducted and held for ransom. If I see a fairytale hero deciding he's ok with a boring proposal and quiet family life I need to see him being fairytaley and heroic first for it to mean something.

Quote

It was annoying to watch with Henry's whole "I want to be a hero" mantra.  Very similar to Robyn's M.O. in "Girl in the Tower". 

Robyn was more relatable there, by this point Henry's been adventuring with his boyfriend travelling companion* for years and then fighting in a guerilla army but apparently hasn't done anything to get himself noticed. Robyn was at least just starting out on her own.

*I have adopted the headcanon I believe from somewhere on this forum that Henry's real true love romance was with Jack, but he panicked at his attraction to a man and glommed onto the first princess he ran into.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Speakeasy
Correction

[Camera One]

7 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

by this point Henry's been adventuring with his boyfriend travelling companion* for years and then fighting in a guerilla army but apparently hasn't done anything to get himself noticed. Robyn was at least just starting out on her own.

*I have adopted the headcanon I believe from somewhere on this forum that Henry's real true love romance was with Jack, but he panicked at his attraction to a man and glommed onto the first princess he ran into.

Didn't Henry and Jack mention having adventures escaping from giants?  If so, he already had plenty of "stories" of his own.  

Didn't Henry have a similar arc in Camelot about not being good enough and then he realized that he should just be himself?  As many said above, it doesn't work as well for a fully grown man in his mid-30's.  I vaguely remember Charming had an episode of insecurity as well being the husband of Snow White.

This season would certainly have been very different if it had centered on a romance between Henry and Jack.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

This season would certainly have been very different if it had centered on a romance between Henry and Jack.

I think it would've been more interesting if Henry kept trying to copy his family's fairy tales and ended up going in a slightly different direction. If he was looking for a princess ended up falling in love with Jack instead, like @Speakeasy suggested. There was a lot of room in S7 and in Henry's story to subvert expectations. As usual, A&E chose the most boring route possible. Even though Henry was bland as a teenager, there was actually quite a bit to work with in his adulthood.

Edited December 7, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

If she was stealing stuff, why would she expect the storekeepers to talk to her like they were friends?

And she talked to the deli guy as though she expected him to remember her sandwich order. It's kind of hard to steal a deli sandwich when the guy in the deli has to make it.

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

A Henry/Whook adventure would have been good earlier in the season to establish their relationship. 

I'm trying to remember, have they even had any real scenes together in the flashbacks before now? They've been in group scenes, but I don't recall them interacting directly. I have no idea what their relationship is supposed to actually be.

The fact that Henry's supposedly been fighting in a revolution all this time, and yet WHook has to make up an adventure for Henry to feel like a hero suggests that the writers never actually put any thought into what was happening in this revolution or what Henry was doing. Within the story, it makes it look like Henry didn't contribute anything to the fight. Or since he's just a soldier in the war rather than a central figure who's actually going to take a throne, does he consider that being a secondary character in someone else's story? And before he can feel unworthy of a woman as awesome as Murderella, we need to see her doing something awesome.

Although I do enjoy episodes centering on any version of Hook, I think this might have worked better if it had been an adventure with Jack and Henry, either before Henry met Ella or during the revolution (didn't Jack show up before Lucy was born?). Then it would have paralleled the present-day story better. The whole point of the flashback was to show Henry gaining confidence because he figured things out (I guess he followed the breadcrumbs), as paralleled by the present-day story, in which Henry figured out the clues from the book to figure out who the killer was.

This episode confirmed that the main character in Henry's book was named Henry Mills. Ironically, I'm currently reading a book in which the main character has the same name as the author, but it's one of those blogs-turned-books from the early 2000s, and the blog in question was supposedly this woman putting all her e-mails to/from her friends and co-workers online, so people could spy on her life. So, the whole idea was to maintain the illusion that it was real by having the author name be the name of the person whose e-mails it is -- though, given the fact that there's no author bio, no author photo, and the copyright is a corporation named after the original blog, I suspect the "author" is a fictional character. That's very different from someone naming the main character in a fantasy novel after himself because he's so lacking in imagination that he can't identify with a character who isn't exactly like himself, down to the name.

[Camera One]

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The fact that Henry's supposedly been fighting in a revolution all this time, and yet WHook has to make up an adventure for Henry to feel like a hero suggests that the writers never actually put any thought into what was happening in this revolution or what Henry was doing. Within the story, it makes it look like Henry didn't contribute anything to the fight. Or since he's just a soldier in the war rather than a central figure who's actually going to take a throne, does he consider that being a secondary character in someone else's story? And before he can feel unworthy of a woman as awesome as Murderella, we need to see her doing something awesome.

They never did explain how the "revolution" was won by the resistance, so that would have been a natural episode for this, considering they were planning to show how Henry proposed to Murderella. 

I mean, this made it obvious A&E and the amazing writing team had no frick'in idea how Lady Tremaine was defeated and then defected or how that king was involved, or they would have a relevant story planned.  I suppose it was tougher because the actress who played Tremaine was no longer in play, but they could have worked around that.  I wonder if she would have returned for an episode if they had asked.

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Although I do enjoy episodes centering on any version of Hook, I think this might have worked better if it had been an adventure with Jack and Henry, either before Henry met Ella or during the revolution (didn't Jack show up before Lucy was born?). 

I like that idea.  At least it would have gone somewhere new, and the actor who played Jack was pretty good. 

However, everything comes with a price, so in that scenario, we would probably have seen Henry accidentally lead Jack towards the path of revenge and murder.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

14 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I think it would've been more interesting if Henry kept trying to copy his family's fairy tales and ended up going in a slightly different direction. If he was looking for a princess ended up falling in love with Jack instead, like @Speakeasy suggested. There was a lot of room in S7 and in Henry's story to subvert expectations. As usual, A&E chose the most boring route possible. Even though Henry was bland as a teenager, there was actually quite a bit to work with in his adulthood.

Teenage Henry's desire to be a famous hero is pretty understandable; he has this bizarre, traumatic childhood, his early teenage years are this whirlwind of crises where he's involved in all these mad adventures, then suddenly they kind of try to make Storybrooke a normal town but with magic and no real contact with the outside world.

With everyone in his family being these big name heroes and villains he might well think that he needs to be off having adventures. Going to college like millions of normal young people might seem not special enough to him when his early years were so weird, and it might seem like a farce, pretending to be normal.

So you could easily build off that to make him this guy with a need to build up hero points so he can measure up to his family. You could even seriously have him with the Great Potential for Darkness that was so unconvincing in Emma, because when you get right down to it what he wants is to matter. And it's easy, perhaps easier, to be important by hurting people rather than by helping them, even if it just means you're the monster that needs to be stopped.

And these books he mentions could give him the idea he needs to matter by fitting himself into a fairytale the way his family did. And throughout the series he could come to realise that no, he needs to (metaphorically) write his own story.

Jack being a Disenchanted Hansel 

Spoiler

Not Oz Hansel, no need to make things even more convoluted

would make him a good foil, romantic or platonic, because he's a fairytale character who gets no benefits from it. Almost being eaten by a witch didn't make him a prince or give him any powerful and important new family, it was just something horrible that happened to him.

Ah, now there's a fun knot of a metaphor: a guy from the real world inspired to focus on reality rather than fulfilling a role by a fairytale character's down to earth realism.

[tennisgurl]

The premise of this episodes flashbacks, that WHook had to come up with some ridiculous set up to give him an "adventure" to get him to stop whining, including roping in a bunch of his old pirate buddies (and Blackbeard!) for this LARP on the sea is just one of the most unintentionally hilarious thing this show has ever done, possibly right next to the "You have to believe!" fountain speech, and possibly even more embarrassing. The "I want to be a hero!" stuff was cute and even understandable when Henry was a kid, but as an adult, its just ridiculous and stupid. Yeah his family did a lot of stuff that was cool and exciting, but that was also because it was a life or death situation where they HAD to fight evil to survive or to protect people, not because they were just prowling the lands trying to find glory to feel better about themselves. 

Also, didnt Henry already fight in a resistance and free a kingdom (from...someone?) and fall in love with Cinderella and fight giants with Jack and all kinds of other stuff already? Do the writers of this show actually watch the show?! I mean, I dont blame them for not watching because it fucking sucks, but its also kind of there job! He has already done a billion things that are way more exciting than anyone gets, so all of this just makes him seem like an immature spoiled whiner. And didnt he already learn this lesson in Camelot? But that time worked better because he was an actual kid with a crush, with a grown ass man planning to start a family, its just stupid. 

Its like this season was supposed to be a fresh take on stories we have already seen, but really its just a bunch of worse versions of stories this show has already done better. So did Henry seriously name his character Henry Mills? Really? And no way do I buy that anyone would be interested in his boring ass podcast or getting him to work on other peoples podcasts, nor do I think that A&E have any idea how podcasts actually work! This must be some curse shit, because no way is this happening naturally. 

The best parts of the episode involved Rogers and Tilly and their father/daughter energy, which is really sweet and feels very natural. And Tilly and Margot had a nice meeting, I actually liked it a ton more than what we saw of them in the Disenchanted Forrest. Less death threats, which I certainly can get behind. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 12/9/2019 at 12:54 PM, tennisgurl said:

Also, didnt Henry already fight in a resistance and free a kingdom (from...someone?) and fall in love with Cinderella and fight giants with Jack and all kinds of other stuff already?

But he wasn't the main character in the story! He was just playing a role in someone else's story! I think the writers never did figure out how that story thing worked in that universe. Everyone is the hero of their own story and a sidekick in someone else's story, unless they're just so passive that they never do anything. Whose story it is is purely a narrative construct that doesn't apply to life, and trying to apply it to real life is only asking for trouble.

And him (initially) wanting to do some big, splashy proposal with a magical ring doesn't even fit with his family's history. Charming gave Snow his mother's ring, and I don't remember them having a major proposal. They just treated it as a given that they'd get married, and their initial wedding before the big, state ceremony was just something quick and simple. Emma and Hook got engaged in a rather perfunctory manner with a ring that looked like he bought (or stole) it from a local jewelry store. So I don't know where he's getting this idea that to propose properly he has to have some special treasure and do some huge feat.

[Camera One]

I found it ridiculous that Henry was hoping Jacinda would talk him out of the job, as a way of showing she wanted him to stay, and then acted disappointed that she didn't.  How was she supposed to know?  Convincing Henry to abandon the dream job would have been selfish, wouldn't it?  And then apparently Sabine knew Henry's actual intentions.   Plus wasn't Henry initially excited about the job offer?  It's hard to take characters seriously when their responses don't feel real at all.

Why didn't Henry use a ride-hailing app to get himself to the airport?  

Edited December 11, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

I found it ridiculous that Henry was hoping Jacinda would talk him out of the job, as a way of showing she wanted him to stay, and then acted disappointed that she didn't.  How was she supposed to know?  Convincing Henry to abandon the dream job would have been selfish, wouldn't it? 

Especially since they hadn't actually had so much as a date yet, had they? He came over for game night, then left without anything happening (thanks to Lucy's interference). Then they hung out together at the arcade, but she left. That's about it. It would have been really selfish for her to tell Henry not to take his dream job when they weren't even in a relationship and when she'd been putting the brakes on a relationship. You'd discuss that sort of thing when you're actually a couple, but when he's just someone you sort of like, you don't get a say.

But this is one of those Hollywood tropes, as we've been discussing in the All Seasons thread, where having feelings and not expressing them is wrong, so you should definitely tell your crush not to take his dream job that will move him away from you because you want a chance at dating him.

At least we didn't have to see Jacinda running to the airport, using all the money from the rent jar to buy a ticket to anywhere so she can get through security and running to the gate to beg Henry not to go. Though that might have been funny, given that Jack was kidnapping Henry and he'd never end up at the airport.

[Speakeasy]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

But this is one of those Hollywood tropes, as we've been discussing in the All Seasons thread, where having feelings and not expressing them is wrong, so you should definitely tell your crush not to take his dream job that will move him away from you because you want a chance at dating him.

But true love and glowing necklaces and so forth.

Once is the kind of show that ought to deconstruct the idea that feelings trump all, and in fairness it did at some points, like David and Snow's affair in S1; their feelings were real, his marriage was a lie and it was all forced on them by their enemy, but the way they (David especially) acted was still wrong and dishonourable because, at the time, none of them knew that and David caused his fake wife real pain by breaking his fake vows.

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

At least we didn't have to see Jacinda running to the airport, using all the money from the rent jar to buy a ticket to anywhere so she can get through security and running to the gate to beg Henry not to go. Though that might have been funny, given that Jack was kidnapping Henry and he'd never end up at the airport.

That would have been HILARIOUS 😆 Especially if she spent the next episode trying to get a refund and she gets a call from someone looking for Henry and she's all 'no! I was here looking for him but he's not here and now I'm going to Lisbon in three hours!'

[Camera One]

14 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Especially since they hadn't actually had so much as a date yet, had they? He came over for game night, then left without anything happening (thanks to Lucy's interference). Then they hung out together at the arcade, but she left.

And from Henry's perspective, nothing should have changed.  Jacinda had to give up a potential relationship with Henry because of LUCY.  Everything else is irrelevant.  

Quote

RUMPLE: Finally time for you to catch your flight.
HENRY: Oh yeah.  I guess I better get going.
RUMPLE: You don't seem so sure.
HENRY: Yeah I am.  It's a great opportunity.
RUMPLE: Now you sound like you're trying to convince yourself... as I said, Henry Mills was my favorite character in the book.  He always knew the right path.  And I'd just hate to think his namesake would choose the wrong path.

Like seriously.  Why the hell does Rumple care that Henry might go for a job interview.  If he actually cared, this would be GOOD so there wouldn't be a danger of Henry breaking the Curse and supposedly dying from sheer memory.  And if he didn't care, why would he bother to say this crap.

Quote

SABINE: My Spidey-sense says you are having some boy troubles?
JACINDA: Henry... he's got this new job offer in New York and he asked me if he should go and I sort of told him yes.
SABINE: What?!  Why?!  
JACINDA: I don't know.  But I can't stop him from following his career.
SABINE: He wanted you to stop him. That's why he told you. Now call him before he gets on that plane, or you're going to regret this for a very long time.

Oooh, is Sabine = Tiana = Spiderwoman?  

Next time someone tells you something, they're telling you because they want you to stop them.  The useful lessons we learn from this show, eh?

And finally... the end of the episode...

Quote

HENRY: Maybe I'm starting to believe in myself.  So, if you're still offering that ride, I need to go see Jacinda, tell her how I feel.

She already knows how you feel.  You got past this problem in Episode 6 or something and it's Episode 16.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

Like seriously.  Why the hell does Rumple care that Henry might go for a job interview.  If he actually cared, this would be GOOD so there wouldn't be a danger of Henry breaking the Curse and supposedly dying from sheer memory.  And if he didn't care, why would he bother to say this crap.

The writers love giving Rumple these nonsensical lines because they make him seem wise and aloof, like he has a plan he doesn't want anybody to know about. But Rumple hasn't given a crap about Henry since S3/S4, and even then, it was either to avenge Neal or because he saw him as a possession. Rumple hasn't ever mentored him or given him advice. And in this scenario, is Henry really in danger? Not really.

[Shanna Marie]

21 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

That would have been HILARIOUS 😆 Especially if she spent the next episode trying to get a refund and she gets a call from someone looking for Henry and she's all 'no! I was here looking for him but he's not here and now I'm going to Lisbon in three hours!'

It's sad when the cliched trope would have been more entertaining than what we actually got.

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

Next time someone tells you something, they're telling you because they want you to stop them.  The useful lessons we learn from this show, eh?

Passive-aggression is your friend! Never be up front with anyone and tell them what you want. You're not being a good friend if you support someone in something they say they want because what they really want is for you to stop them.

[Speakeasy]

1 minute ago, Shanna Marie said:

Passive-aggression is your friend! Never be up front with anyone and tell them what you want. You're not being a good friend if you support someone in something they say they want because what they really want is for you to stop them.

I can't decide if that's a better or worse message than 'being a good friend means deleting texts from people you don't like off your friend's phone' 

[Shanna Marie]

I guess if you really do want to take advantage of the dream job opportunity and move somewhere else, you have to ghost your friends because if you tell them about the opportunity, then you're asking them to talk you out of it.

[KingOfHearts]

On 12/12/2019 at 5:59 PM, Shanna Marie said:

I guess if you really do want to take advantage of the dream job opportunity and move somewhere else, you have to ghost your friends because if you tell them about the opportunity, then you're asking them to talk you out of it.

They sound like wonderful friends.

[Camera One]

I'm really trying to turn my brain off while rewatching this time, and it sort of works.  I almost think they could have done another season with these characters, because there are some good moments here and there, even though they're usually contrived.  

[Camera One]

Quote

HENRY: So, in our killer's mind, he's Hansel avenging his sister's death. Also, he's obsessed with scars, so maybe there was a fire or something in real life.

ROGERS: Nice work. We can take a look at people with existing records, find the ones with sisters, especially twins, and cross-reference scars. 

My friend laughed out loud when Rogers said that, thinking he was being sarcastic.

But he was being serious.  Sometimes, this show can be ridiculous.