S07.E17: Chosen

[Camera One]

It's definitely the same Oz.  The weird part is how there is a second Hansel and Gretel and single father and Gingerbread Witch.  With this new logic, there was no need for the Disenchanted Forest.  There could simply be multiple versions of everyone everywhere.

Edited April 14, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

4 hours ago, XrystalPond said:

It gives the unintended (?) message that there is not a truly unique character or story. I'm not sure that is such a good message for writers to be sharing with the world. 

It makes it seem like these characters are pre-destined to play certain roles, with some modifications along the way. Meh.

[KingOfHearts]

39 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

It makes it seem like these characters are pre-destined to play certain roles, with some modifications along the way. Meh.

That's what the whole Author thing has been trying to do since S4. It's frustrating.

[Camera One]

So what's the deep meaning for this week's episode title?  I kept thinking Buffy all week when I saw "Chosen".  So who was chosen?  Zelena by Nick?  Hansel & Gretel by the Unblind Witch?  Nick by Dr. Facilier?  Chad by Zelena?  Another show by audiences?

[Rumsy4]

Our brain cells for destruction.

[Camera One]

On 4/13/2018 at 7:38 PM, ParadoxLost said:

Did I know Gothel was after the Dark One power tonight and just forget?  Or is that the first time this came up?

This was previously (abruptly) revealed in the Drizella exit episode.  Drizella says to Gothel that all she cares about is getting the Dark One's dagger or something to that effect.

[Camera One]

Let's take a guess

Episode 18: The Guardian - Rumple finally identifies The Guardian but Gothel takes hold of The Dagger.  She stops Roni from administering the cure to Henry.

Episode 19: Flower Child - We discover how Gothel taken advantage of by humans for her power so she identified more with plants.  Gothel forces Rumple to prepare for her evil plan to destroy Hyperion Heights.  And Earth.  And the whole universe actually, it's that epic.  Gothel dies and Dr. Facilier takes the dagger.  Cliffhanger... Jacinda kisses Henry and he collapses.

Episode 20: Every Second Counts - Every second counts to save Henry and stop Dr. Facilier from destroying the universe.  Lucy kisses Henry's forehead and everyone remembers.  Dr. Facilier dies but his evil voodoo cloud is already enveloping the neighborhood.  Roni remembers something from the past that can help save everyone.

Episode 21 Homecoming / Leaving Storybrooke - Our intrepid heroes need to save the world so they go back to Storybrooke for some cameos.  It turns out all that is required to save the universe is for everyone to bow down to Regina.

---

I thought Episode 20 was originally called "Is This Henry Mills?"

Edited April 15, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

41 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I thought Episode 20 was originally called "Is This Henry Mills?"

Well...it did sound stupid. Actually I didn't realize the title had been changed.

[Shanna Marie]

19 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

It makes it seem like these characters are pre-destined to play certain roles, with some modifications along the way. Meh.

Although, as with so much on this show, they're wildly inconsistent about it. Sometimes they're stuck in those roles, sometimes not. The Author can alter their fates, except he shouldn't, or he doesn't, or he does.

The fact that they never really got into magic and its role in good or evil muddies the morality in this kind of episode. In 3B, they had to cast the curse to get to Emma because Zelena could only be defeated by the most powerful light magic, and apparently that was so rare that the curse was the only way to go. There was no one they could reach in any other way who could take on Zelena. That suggests that light magic is incredibly rare, which suggests that most magic users are evil, and yet they've never really dealt with that. So now we've got children growing up in Oz, whose light magic users have been banished by a wicked witch, taken captive by a cannibal witch, and the wicked witch is interested in fighting this other witch but not caring about saving them. Later, they end up in another realm where one of these children is killed by a trainee witch wanting to get into a coven, at the demand of the leader of the coven, and this coven poisons the friend of the other one of these children in order to force a curse to be cast. But then this guy is considered crazy and evil because he hates witches and kills them.

It's this kind of stuff that made me stop watching True Blood in mid-episode in early season 2. They were showing the anti-vampire people doing their evangelical-like meetings and talking about defending themselves against vampires, and we were supposed to think they were terrible, awful people who were equivalent to homophobes, and they cut straight from that to a scene of humans being chained up in a dungeon as forced labor and vampire food. So, why were the anti-vampire people wrong and evil about being afraid and wanting to protect themselves from beings who would chain them up in dungeons and feed on them?

[KingOfHearts]

Didn't the writers steal from "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" when they created Hansel?

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Didn't the writers steal from "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" when they created Hansel?

Hello,

We came up with this idea first.

Yours truly,

A&E

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The fact that they never really got into magic and its role in good or evil muddies the morality in this kind of episode. In 3B, they had to cast the curse to get to Emma because Zelena could only be defeated by the most powerful light magic, and apparently that was so rare that the curse was the only way to go. There was no one they could reach in any other way who could take on Zelena. That suggests that light magic is incredibly rare, which suggests that most magic users are evil, and yet they've never really dealt with that. So now we've got children growing up in Oz, whose light magic users have been banished by a wicked witch, taken captive by a cannibal witch, and the wicked witch is interested in fighting this other witch but not caring about saving them. Later, they end up in another realm where one of these children is killed by a trainee witch wanting to get into a coven, at the demand of the leader of the coven, and this coven poisons the friend of the other one of these children in order to force a curse to be cast. But then this guy is considered crazy and evil because he hates witches and kills them.

A&E always take it a step too far because they lack imagination.

They didn't need to make Zelena one of the witches that abused Hansel to make her a target.  Giving Hansel the knowledge that Zelena was once the Wicked Witch is enough to have him target her since he has a background where a cannibal witch tried to eat him and Gretel was killed.  Zelena can be targeted from a belief that all witches are evil and can not change, and while how he came to believe that is sympathetic he would still be considered crazy and evil because Zelena had never hurt him and had changed.

Instead they decided to have Zelena not help a couple of kids who were about to be cooked and eaten by a witch, had them escape only to find Zelena had been lying to their father,, and then went as far as having Zelena set Hansel on fire.  Its really in the realm of Regina's redeemed so lets have her murder a village in a flashback stupidity. 

I think it comes back to the flashbacks presenting a problem and the writers being unable to figure something else out.  They wanted to show Nick's origin story as a serial witch killer.  Since Nick was never really developed, they didn't want they childhood version of him carrying the flashback.  They needed a familiar face for the flashback so Zelena got picked because while it made no sense that there was another version of Hansel/Gretel in Oz, its even harder to figure out how to shoe-horn in Rumple, WHook, or Regina.

I feel like they should have stuck to the adult Henry timeline.  Show some of the adventures of Henry and Jack.  Perhaps show Jack learning of Gretel's death and telling Henry about his childhood.  Have Zelena on the adventure and Jack learn she was a witch and try to kill her in flashback.  To avoid the problems of Zelena being awake, have Henry stop the attempt without Zelena ever knowing and letting Jack go with a promise he'll never return.  Let this twist up in Nick's mind that its Zelena's fault Nick/Jack lost his friend on the heels of losing his sister.

[Rumsy4]

3 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

Show some of the adventures of Henry and Jack.  

Yes!! Why now show us Henry actually doing something adventurous in his travels, and befriending Jack. That would have made Nick struggling with Henry not remembering anything in HH actually meaningful. It's more often than not, "Tell" not "Show" with these writers.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

Instead they decided to have Zelena not help a couple of kids who were about to be cooked and eaten by a witch, had them escape only to find Zelena had been lying to their father,, and then went as far as having Zelena set Hansel on fire.  Its really in the realm of Regina's redeemed so lets have her murder a village in a flashback stupidity. 

As horrible as Zelena was, I found her leaving two innocent children to die a little out of character. What happened to getting "the love of the people" that Dorothy had? Don't get me wrong - she was murdering Munchkins because she was upset - but there are no reason for her not to save Hansel and Gretel. If she wanted to topple the Witch lady, couldn't she rescue the kids just to spite her? It just seemed unnecessarily cruel for what this episode was trying to accomplish.

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

Yes!! Why now show us Henry actually doing something adventurous in his travels, and befriending Jack. That would have made Nick struggling with Henry not remembering anything in HH actually meaningful. It's more often than not, "Tell" not "Show" with these writers.

It just proves all the more that A&E had no intention of exploring Nick. They liked the "Candy Killer" idea and ran with that.

Quote

Its really in the realm of Regina's redeemed so lets have her murder a village in a flashback stupidity. 

It's an instance of making a character pointlessly evil. In S1, Regina's actions all funneled toward her revenge against Snow. In 2B onward, she started murdering senselessly and doing things that had nothing to do with her motivations. It just made her a freaking psycho. Zelena's pretty batshit, but terrorizing random civilians added nothing to her character. If anything, it subtracted.

Edited April 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

These writers ruin all their characters. It's amazing that they do this while under the mistaken idea that they're adding great depth to their characterizations. 

[Camera One]

34 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

These writers ruin all their characters. It's amazing that they do this while under the mistaken idea that they're adding great depth to their characterizations. 

The Writers probably thought this episode greatly developed Zelena's character.  I mean, it wasn't a bad episode per se, but I wouldn't consider it one of Zelena's greatest hits.

[KingOfHearts]

9 minutes ago, Camera One said:

The Writers probably thought this episode greatly developed Zelena's character.  I mean, it wasn't a bad episode per se, but I wouldn't consider it one of Zelena's greatest hits.

"Sisters" scored Zelena a lot of points. "Where Bluebirds Fly" was a bad episode, but Zelena sacrificing her magic did wonders for her characterization. My favorite episode with Evil!Zelena might be "Dark Swan", where she cut off her hand to escape jail and summon a cyclone. But, to be honest, "Witch Hunt" is underrated and does a great job of giving the Wicked Witch a grand entrance. That's the only episode where her Ozian persona truly shined. I really liked her first meeting with Regina.

Edited April 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[darkestboy]

A good Zelena episode, though Hansel's hatred for her was completely justified here despite Zelena trying to atone for some of her sins in the flashbacks.

Chad seems okay enough as a character but too late in the game to introducing him and not doing a whole lot with him either.

I did like Zelena's scenes with Rumple this week.

Facilier's reasons for killing Hansel off when the latter didn't even know who woke him up just seem a little nonsensical to be honest, 7/10

[Rumsy4]

3 hours ago, XrystalPond said:

It is rather useless to introduce him for them to just ride off together with Zelena having done nothing she was "woke up" to do

It's hard to not see the puppet strings. For some reason, the writers only brought Mader back for a few episodes. The only thing she accomplished was to get her daughter to HH. 

[Mabinogia]

They could have had Robyn come to HH to talk to Aunt Roni about some issue she's having with her mother. She meets Alice, decides to stay. Done. It does feel like they brought Zelena on just to get Robyn to HH. Shame, since Bex is such a great actress and could do more than what they gave her to do this season. And I still don't get why they bothered giving her a fiancé we met for two minutes. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

They could have had Robyn come to HH to talk to Aunt Roni about some issue she's having with her mother. She meets Alice, decides to stay. Done. It does feel like they brought Zelena on just to get Robyn to HH. Shame, since Bex is such a great actress and could do more than what they gave her to do this season. And I still don't get why they bothered giving her a fiancé we met for two minutes. 

I think plans changed when they got cancelled.  No point in setting up new characters when the show is winding down but they were too far along in the process to completely scrap it.

I think had they been certain of cancellation earlier, they would have brought Bex back and used her differently.

[KingOfHearts]

I thought for sure Henry's job opportunity in New York was just a decoy for someone in 2017 Storybrooke trying to get in touch with him. It's so lame that it was a legit offer that's meant to show how awesome of a podcast professional he is. 

[Camera One]

Wouldn't Jacinda have inherited Victoria Enterprises?  Do we get to see her pretending to be a CEO next episode?

[KingOfHearts]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

Wouldn't Jacinda have inherited Victoria Enterprises?  Do we get to see her pretending to be a CEO next episode?

LOL. What a plot hole. It would have gone to Drizella, but now she's practically dead. It's laughable how little of a connection Jacinda really has with the other Tremaine's.

[jhlipton]

7 hours ago, XrystalPond said:

One would think that it would be less convoluted for Auntie Roni/Regina extend her an invite.

Or Rgina could have Weaver go through 20 years of intricate gyrations in order to build a curse...

[Rumsy4]

Golden Queen 2.0? 

[Mitch]

This episode proves why Madder, a good actress, makes a rotten WW..she just comes off too nice and warm and charming to be a super villain from our childhood. Again, I wish they had cast her as someone other then the WW..when she puts on that outfit she just looks like the sexy wife down the street at a Halloween party.

This Chad guy should have been Regina's boyfriend from the start..so when she wakes up and remembers she was the EQ..and really has a totally different personality..what to do?("Chad do you like skin tight black costumes...or you like your girlfriend to dress like a drag queen...or would you like me in a business suit...because all of those are more me then this bad t-shirt..oh, and Im the EQ and killed a bunch of people.") Make him a cop working the Rump and Hook (I cant even remember their curse names...) and is one of the "normals" who is figuring out something is indeed up.  Why set this season in a real town if you are going to have the fairy tale people just deal with each other?

Edited April 17, 2018 by Mitch

[tennisgurl]

16 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Or Rgina could have Weaver go through 20 years of intricate gyrations in order to build a curse...

I feel like Rumple spends a lot of time starring into empty glasses of whisky, thinking of all the time and effort it took he took creating an intricate plan to get him to the Land Without magic, when, just a few years after finding his son, going from universe to universe is as easy as a Walmart run. 

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Mitch said:

This episode proves why Madder, a good actress, makes a rotten WW..she just comes off too nice and warm and charming to be a super villain from our childhood. Again, I wish they had cast her as someone other then the WW..when she puts on that outfit she just looks like the sexy wife down the street at a Halloween party.

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what people expect from the Wicked Witch, since she has very little characterization in the book and even the movie. There's nothing particularly unique or iconic about her, other than superficial attributes like green skin, a broom, and melting from H2O exposure. What it comes down to, I believe, is just how unpleasant she is. She's a cackling hag who wants to roast your dog on a spit. There's nothing appealing about her. She's as ugly as sin, both outwardly and inwardly. That's where OUAT fails. Zelena is beautiful, even with the epidermal dye job. Even in 3B, her character was painted as grandiose and somewhat sympathetic. Now in S7, she's a warm, friendly person who also happens to be a single mother. Rebecca Mader is just too beautiful and charming to have a green nose with warts and a penchant for burning people alive. Even at Zelena's worst, Mader somehow made her enchanting.

Edited April 17, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[jhlipton]

5 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

She's as ugly as sin, both outwardly and inwardly.

That's only if you take Glinda's word for it.  But Glinda murdered WW's sister and stole said sister's shoes (an item of potent magic).  All WW wanted was her rightful property back and these trespassers had no right to it.  In her realm,theft is a capital crime.  All Dorothy had to do was give the damn shoes back.  If she couldn't, that's on Glinda.

[Camera One]

In the book, Glinda has nothing to do with the Wicked Witch.  Dorothy doesn't even meet her until the end.  The Wicked Witch of the East isn't the West's sister in the original book either.  The two evil witches were big on slavery and used their magic to rule as tyrants.  

On this show, A&E basically focused on the "green with jealousy" bit, so I suppose that was originally the defining feature of Zelena.  But then, somehow, being really jealous makes someone capable of murder and child mutilation.  

[jhlipton]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

In the book, Glinda has nothing to do with the Wicked Witch.  Dorothy doesn't even meet her until the end.  The Wicked Witch of the East isn't the West's sister in the original book either.  The two evil witches were big on slavery and used their magic to rule as tyrants. 

I was going by the Judy Garland movie.

[Mitch]

17 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what people expect from the Wicked Witch, since she has very little characterization in the book and even the movie. There's nothing particularly unique or iconic about her, other than superficial attributes like green skin, a broom, and melting from H2O exposure.

Come on..the WW is iconic as hell, I would rank she and Malificent as the true iconic big bads of childhood fairy tale exposure...(the EQ, who I like in all her glam ,slinky evil..doesn't come close...funny that the animated EQ comes off as less campy and more sophisticated then Onces) The WW in the book and the movie is pure evil and as you say, ugly as hell, which Madder can't do to save her life...(lucky her.) The WW should have been played by someone older, more unattractive and more of the school marm gone batshit crazy.. I do think Mader is perfect for what Once has become after S1..she has a twinkle in her eye and actually, of all of the rest of the cast, and the include LP..looks like she is enjoying herself, is in on the joke, and brings us in with her. I would have cast her as someone else, hell, I would have cast her as an actually potent "good" magic user..like Glinda...(she has the movie Glinda's tude..that its all a silly joke and she would treat Parilla's EQ just like Glinda treated the WW in the movie...liking to yank her crank. Mader would have made a hilarious snarky Blue Fairy..."Why werent you there to help us fight Big Bad No 8000?" ..Blue "Darling one does need some me time with wine and Netflix...your daughter's the Savior...let her save someone for once."

 

11 hours ago, jhlipton said:

That's only if you take Glinda's word for it.  But Glinda murdered WW's sister and stole said sister's shoes (an item of potent magic).  All WW wanted was her rightful property back and these trespassers had no right to it.  In her realm,theft is a capital crime.  All Dorothy had to do was give the damn shoes back.  If she couldn't, that's on Glinda.

Hmmm.that's a different movie then I saw..the tornado killed the dumb witch who sat underneath a falling house. If Dot gave back the shoes she would have been in the WW's mercy as Glinda indicated, which in the book meant she was going to be her slave, but in the movie that crazy bitch would definatley have killed her.  While I like GM's "Wicked" what he gave to the WW he stole from Glinda, who became an idiot and Dorothy, who was just a big harmless farm girl..and unfortunatley paved the way for "Once" and "Malificent"

[Guest]

On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 5:52 PM, KingOfHearts said:

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what people expect from the Wicked Witch, since she has very little characterization in the book and even the movie. There's nothing particularly unique or iconic about her, other than superficial attributes like green skin, a broom, and melting from H2O exposure. What it comes down to, I believe, is just how unpleasant she is. She's a cackling hag who wants to roast your dog on a spit. There's nothing appealing about her. She's as ugly as sin, both outwardly and inwardly. That's where OUAT fails. Zelena is beautiful, even with the epidermal dye job. Even in 3B, her character was painted as grandiose and somewhat sympathetic. Now in S7, she's a warm, friendly person who also happens to be a single mother. Rebecca Mader is just too beautiful and charming to have a green nose with warts and a penchant for burning people alive. Even at Zelena's worst, Mader somehow made her enchanting.

I think it would have been nice if there was one villain who was a villain because it was their nature.  One that didn't have a sad, traumatic childhood that was used as a justification of their deeds.

Now I don't think that I would have picked Zelena for that simply because she was by far the best at portraying the layers necessary for a more complex character that was torn between good and evil.  Regina just sucked at anything other than villainy so its too bad that they were so determined to redeem her and ruin that.

I would say my disappointment in the Wicked Witch was more about how they handled 3B and Oz.

Looking back, I wish they hadn't promoted Wicked for 3B.  Mader was doing a pretty excellent job at portraying Mary Poppins early on, whether it was intended or not.  I wish they would have just dealt with the aftermath of the curse that sent everyone to the EF, lulled the audience into thinking Mader was Mary Poppins, and then wham reveal Zelena's true identity and plans and time travel episode that leads into a 4A arc in Oz, then figure out how to do Frozen.

Oz could have been so much fun if it were in Oz and the Wicked arc just wasn't very good despite Mader trying her best.

[KingOfHearts]

34 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

I think it would have been nice if there was one villain who was a villain because it was their nature.  One that didn't have a sad, traumatic childhood that was used as a justification of their deeds.

This is probably why Cruella is such a badass of a villain on this show.

Quote

Looking back, I wish they hadn't promoted Wicked for 3B.  Mader was doing a pretty excellent job at portraying Mary Poppins early on, whether it was intended or not.  I wish they would have just dealt with the aftermath of the curse that sent everyone to the EF, lulled the audience into thinking Mader was Mary Poppins, and then wham reveal Zelena's true identity and plans and time travel episode that leads into a 4A arc in Oz, then figure out how to do Frozen.

Zelena may have been cursed as well, believing she was actually Mary Poppins. That way, her cover would have been foolproof. She could have arranged for Walsh to come wake her up, but he got thrown off a building. 

Edited April 19, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[jhlipton]

15 hours ago, Mitch said:

Hmmm.that's a different movie then I saw..

This explains it better than I did: http://www.cracked.com/article_18881_5-reasons-greatest-movie-villain-ever-good-witch.html

[Camera One]

That Glinda is Evil! theory is quite common because of the MGM movie combining Glinda with the Good Witch of the North and all the sympathy for Greenie because of the "Wicked" musical.  In the books, it was a very black and white moral situation.  Even judging the movie on its own, the house falling on the witch was not manslaughter.  Dorothy had no idea how the house would fall.  The Munchkins were singing and dancing because they were finally freed from slavery.  The Wicked Witch wanted the shoes for their power alone in the book, and it was pretty much the same in the movie.  For all we know, the dead witch stole them from someone else.  And the magic of the land may have automatically bequeathed them to Dorothy.  Ultimately, in the movie, everything was just a dream so it really didn't matter.

Chad finding out that Zelena was the Wicked Witch would need clarification because the story he thinks he knows is totally not what happened.  But apparently, he could accept a fiancé being an ex-murderer, so maybe he could forgive anything.  Wouldn't he have asked why and who she killed?  Marrying someone who killed out of desperation would be a lot different than marrying someone who killed innocent bystanders who were in the way (which is basically what Zelena did with Munchkins and Marian).  If she told Chad that, surely, he would need a day or so to think about it at the very least.  If you think about the episode a bit deeper, the feel-good scenario is rather hard to buy.  I think Zelena has atoned enough to deserve some happiness, but this all-forgiving Chad is too good to be true.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

5 hours ago, XrystalPond said:

i am head ranking that Chad has a past that makes Zelena's  murders look ok. 

A co-worker once asked him to keep his affair with the secretary a secret, but he didn't keep it. Truly, that would be so much worse than murder.

Edited April 19, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Mitch]

9 hours ago, jhlipton said:

This explains it better than I did: http://www.cracked.com/article_18881_5-reasons-greatest-movie-villain-ever-good-witch.html

I am totally into the Glinda they portray in that article! SHE would have had no problem with Regina and Rump..."Kill em!"  Snow/Charming not only sharing a heart but a brain say: "But HEROES don't kill."   Glinda..."I don't give a f*ck...chop her head off and hang in on the clock tower and let me turn that lil sh*t into a bug and I will step on him myself...on no I won't I will get my skirt mussed, one of you idiots do it."

Actually, they needed THAT Glinda on the Walking Dead on Sunday..."Im with you Mags...lets get some hungry walkers over here for the early bird special."

Edited April 19, 2018 by Mitch

[Mabinogia]

39 minutes ago, Mitch said:

10 hours ago, jhlipton said:

This explains it better than I did: http://www.cracked.com/article_18881_5-reasons-greatest-movie-villain-ever-good-witch.html

I am totally into the Glinda they portray in that article!

That article is the Big Bad I had always wanted for this show. That's who I wish Bex Mader had played. This seemingly sweet, kind hearted witch who is just trying to help our intrepid heroes, but is really using them to take out every single one of her rivals without getting so much as a chipped nail herself. That is a strong, long term villain.

I love Glinda even more now. She's an evil genius!

[jhlipton]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

Even judging the movie on its own, the house falling on the witch was not manslaughter.  Dorothy had no idea how the house would fall. 

The theory is that Glinda guided the house, not Dorothy.

[Shanna Marie]

How much did Zelena tell Chad about her past, anyway? Was it just "I used to be a bad person, but I got better"? Did she come clean with "I'm really the Wicked Witch of the West, but I was under a spell that made me think I was Kelly the hippie, so you fell in love with an entirely different person than I really am, but now I'm still also Kelly"? Did she come clean with "this guy wanted to kill me because I set him on fire when he was a child"? If it's just "I used to be a bad person, but I got better," she's leaving out a lot of critical stuff. The fake identity stuff would be hard for someone from our world to accept so easily, but if he doesn't know, then we're back to those consent issues this show suffers from. He fell in love with Kelly the hippie. Would he also love Zelena? Doesn't he have the right to know that she's not really Kelly, not entirely? If she did come clean with "I set this guy on fire when he was a child" you've got to wonder at Chad being okay with that. We've also got the age/timeline issues going on here because Zelena and Nick seem to be about the same age in the present, but she was an adult when he was a preteen, and then there's the fact that she has a daughter in her mid-late 20s, while Chad looked to be 30-something. Does he think Zelena was a teen mom?

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

Wouldn't he have asked why and who she killed?  Marrying someone who killed out of desperation would be a lot different than marrying someone who killed innocent bystanders who were in the way (which is basically what Zelena did with Munchkins and Marian).  If she told Chad that, surely, he would need a day or so to think about it at the very least.  If you think about the episode a bit deeper, the feel-good scenario is rather hard to buy.  I think Zelena has atoned enough to deserve some happiness, but this all-forgiving Chad is too good to be true.

Yeah, that's my issue. It's one thing for someone who's more keyed into the fairy tale reality to accept past killings because that seems to be a more violent world. But this is a guy from modern San Francisco. He should be totally freaked out by the idea of marrying someone who has killed multiple people and who set a child on fire. It's even worse than Belle learning that Rumple murdered his first wife and then immediately getting in the car with him to go to some unknown (to her) destination. At least Belle was from the magical world and had survived ogre attacks, and stuff like that (though I still find it weird for a woman to be totally okay with the news that her boyfriend murdered his wife). Chad should need to have some long talks with "Kelly" before he's cool with marrying her. And wouldn't he wonder why someone who'd killed people wasn't in prison?

While I think Zelena is entertaining, to some extent, her whining when she's in jealous and insecure mode gets on my last nerve.

[KingOfHearts]

25 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

How much did Zelena tell Chad about her past, anyway? Was it just "I used to be a bad person, but I got better"? Did she come clean with "I'm really the Wicked Witch of the West, but I was under a spell that made me think I was Kelly the hippie, so you fell in love with an entirely different person than I really am, but now I'm still also Kelly"? Did she come clean with "this guy wanted to kill me because I set him on fire when he was a child"? If it's just "I used to be a bad person, but I got better," she's leaving out a lot of critical stuff. The fake identity stuff would be hard for someone from our world to accept so easily, but if he doesn't know, then we're back to those consent issues this show suffers from. He fell in love with Kelly the hippie. Would he also love Zelena? Doesn't he have the right to know that she's not really Kelly, not entirely? If she did come clean with "I set this guy on fire when he was a child" you've got to wonder at Chad being okay with that.

This is why the Zelena/Chad storyline should have been a subplot throughout the half-season. It was a complex dilemma that couldn't be handwaved very easily, due to all the implications. There's also the matter of her refusing to contact him for weeks. Wouldn't he be more freaked out or concerned? Wouldn't that be a huge red flag? Zelena has to explain not only that she's the Wicked Witch, but why she couldn't see him, why she's at her old bar in Seattle with the sister she had a falling out with, and why a serial killer was after her. Realistically, Chad would run the other direction. At least we could've gotten some drama out of it before he did, no? 

Then there's Robyn, who suddenly doesn't care about any of this. Does she even have a place to live in HH?

Edited April 19, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

How much did Zelena tell Chad about her past, anyway? Was it just "I used to be a bad person, but I got better"? Did she come clean with "I'm really the Wicked Witch of the West, but I was under a spell that made me think I was Kelly the hippie, so you fell in love with an entirely different person than I really am, but now I'm still also Kelly"? Did she come clean with "this guy wanted to kill me because I set him on fire when he was a child"? If it's just "I used to be a bad person, but I got better," she's leaving out a lot of critical stuff. 

It's not very clear.

This is what Zelena said in the episode: "He knows almost everything at this point. Minus the fairy tale bits. And somehow, he still wants to be with me. "

What does "almost everything" mean?  Did she tell him she impersonated a woman, killed her, and got pregnant with her husband's child and look, here's Robyn!  

8 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Then there's Robyn, who suddenly doesn't care about any of this.

That's a good point.  Maybe Zelena didn't have to come clean with her, since Robyn (once she gets her memories back) already knows that her mother used to set children on fire?

Edited April 20, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

However Zelena deals with her relationship to Chad in San Francisco is going to be more interesting than whatever else is happening this season. She's completely different from Kelly, so will he still be attracted to her? Will she not explain anything else? I honestly wanted to see Zelena's muggle boyfriend conflict. I wish the writers didn't cop out on it. It was one of the few things about the second half of S7 that looked intriguing. 

[jhlipton]

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

However Zelena deals with her relationship to Chad in San Francisco is going to be more interesting than whatever else is happening this season. She's completely different from Kelly, so will he still be attracted to her? Will she not explain anything else? I honestly wanted to see Zelena's muggle boyfriend conflict. I wish the writers didn't cop out on it. It was one of the few things about the second half of S7 that looked intriguing. 

Is she still attracted to him, too.  Chad may be exactly what Kelly wants, but Zelena has different desires.

[Rushmoras]

Did I get it straight? Nick is from the real fairytale world? How did he end up in alternate universe, then? Also, Nick / Jack / Hansel is mad at Zelina, because she destroyed the blindness cure, which Nick's father I guess would have destroyed as well, because he was pissed at Zelina at that moment and from that moment on began blaiming the witches for all of his troublest? Okey then. Other than that this episode was not at all painful to watch.

Also, lol, good look looking for ya children at night when you are blind, mate.

P.S. Magic in a magicless world logic is just uhh... at that point, why are all under a curse still?

[Rumsy4]

25 minutes ago, Rushmoras said:

Did I get it straight? Nick is from the real fairytale world? How did he end up in alternate universe, then?

In the words of our favorite imp, "your questions are pointless".

Quote

Also, Nick / Jack / Hansel is mad at Zelina, because she destroyed the blindness cure, which Nick's father I guess would have destroyed as well, because he was pissed at Zelina at that moment and from that moment on began blaiming the witches for all of his troublest? 

She did set fire to his arms, and he was only a little kid...

[Rushmoras]

32 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

In the words of our favorite imp, "your questions are pointless".

She did set fire to his arms, and he was only a little kid...

I must have missed it, then? When in the episode was this? When Hensel first grabed Zelina by the arm? Or was it Gretel?

[Rumsy4]

5 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

I must have missed it, then? When in the episode was this? When Hensel first grabed Zelina by the arm? Or was it Gretel?

It was after she threw the eyes into the fire. Hansel threatened Zelena with a poker or something (I can’t remember). So she retaliated by setting his arms on fire. :-p