S07.E22: Leaving Storybrooke

[tennisgurl]

21 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

A few?

 

Oh, did I say a few? I meant a few billion! Oops! 

Really, I think it would make more sense if they opened up the portals, so people can all go back and fourth whenever they want to, which would maybe avoid this mass of questions this finale raises. 

[KingOfHearts]

There's several options for taking care of everybody while minimizing risk to the timeline. (Though clearly not eliminating it.) Regina, Adult!Henry, Jacinda, Lucy, WHook, Alice, and Robyn can all move back to Hyperion Heights. Regina can be closer to her sister and keep running the bar. WHook and Alice would stay there because of Robyn. As for Wish!Henry, maybe Clone Queen could check in on him? I thought at first she was staying in the Wish Realm, but the S6 finale implies she takes up residence in the original Enchanted Forest.  There's no real way to fix the timeline, but it's not very practical to have multiple Regina's, Henry's, Robyn's, and Hook's in the same town.

I found a deleted scene if the show had been renewed for an eighth season. This would've been the cliffhanger:

A bolt of LIGHTNING strikes down in the middle of MAIN STREET. THE EVIL QUEEN appears, but she looks eighty years old at least.

EVIL QUEEN: "It is I! Regina, Queen of the Wish Realm! I'm here to take back what's rightfully mine."

EMMA (disgusted): "Geez. And I thought Wish Hook looked bad."

REGINA (mortified): "I really need to double down on those juice cleansers."

Edited August 4, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Mitch]

54 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

There's several options for taking care of everybody while minimizing risk to the timeline. (Though clearly not eliminating it.) Regina, Adult!Henry, Jacinda, Lucy, WHook, Alice, and Robyn can all move back to Hyperion Heights. Regina can be closer to her sister and keep running the bar. WHook and Alice would stay there because of Robyn. As for Wish!Henry, maybe Clone Queen could check in on him? I thought at first she was staying in the Wish Realm, but the S6 finale implies she takes up residence in the original Enchanted Forest.  There's no real way to fix the timeline, but it's not very practical to have multiple Regina's, Henry's, Robyn's, and Hook's in the same town.

I found a deleted scene if the show had been renewed for an eighth season. This would've been the cliffhanger:

A bolt of LIGHTNING strikes down in the middle of MAIN STREET. THE EVIL QUEEN appears, but she looks eighty years old at least.

EVIL QUEEN: "It is I! Regina, Queen of the Wish Realm! I'm here to take back what's rightfully mine."

EMMA (disgusted): "Geez. And I thought Wish Hook looked bad."

REGINA (mortified): "I really need to double down on those juice cleansers."

I have no idea why they didn't use that in S6 instead of the Clone Queen.  My idea for S5 ending is Emma wishing things had turned out differently and the Curse hadn't been cast. To make up for being Regina's henchman Sydney grants it only duh, Genies can't make up worlds and she does indeed switch places with Alternate Emma..who actually had the same wish (she grew up on her parents bs about heroes and villains and wishes she could be a hero) Emma had all her memories and thinks Alternate Land is weird, and AlterEmma doesnt' like the responsibility of the idiots of SB always coming to her for help, and finds that being a hero is all that great shakes.  This is where we meet AlterRump and especially AlterEQ  (would love to see Parrilla playing an older, even more bitter version of Regina,) who at first acts redeemed but of course she and Rump team up  (the EQ gets to AlterHenry with schemes of power and corrupts him) and a real final battle takes place..with S7 finale being S6, without the Hyperian Heights BS.

[Robin99]

Quote

 

So I’m way late to the party, but I just found this forum and thought I’d share my comments on the finale. First, Once was my favorite show for 6 years. Then season 7 happened. I tried to watch, but it was so, so bad. The writing was terrible and the acting even worse. Jacinda and Alice actresses were about the worst in the whole series. I could barely watch their scenes without rolling my eyes. I quit a few episodes in.

I came back for the finale because I heard the Charmings and Emma were coming back. What a disappointmen! They were barely in it. And why did they waste so much screentime on the fake characters from the Wish Realm? I didn’t care about Wish Hook, Wish Henry, or Wish Rumple. Mostly, I just wanted all the Wish Realm people to die or disappear or something, especially Wish Hook, who I hated from the moment he tried to kill my precious Killian and steal Emma. Really, that guy should have died with Wish Rumple. And what sense did it make for Rumple to die for a fake version of Hook who wasn’t even real? It was dumb. Why didn’t they leave Wish Hook in Seattle and have Rumple sacrifice himself for the real Hook that he actually had a story with for hundreds of years?

Why were the real cast sidelined so much? Why weren’t Emma and the real Hook part of the mission to save Henry? And why the heck did they bring the fake Henry back with them? Are there now two Henrys and two Hooks running around? Stupid. They should’ve killed off the wish versions or left them in the Wish Realm or faded them to dust like Wish Rumple.

Regina as the “good queen” made me laugh. I expected nothing less from these writers. They really started to worship her about midway through the series, forgetting that she murdered 1000s of innocent people. And how the heck are these merged realms supposed to work? Not to mention the timeline is totally screwed. Are people from the future now living alongside their past selves (and the fake versions of from the Wish Realm)? Really? And it gave me the heebie jeebies that Wish Hook was at the coronation where Emma was after he basically planned to rape her. Really yucky.

It was cute seeing Emma and Hook with their baby, but we should’ve seen a lot more of them and a lot less of the crazy Wish Realm and fake wish characters. Truly a waste of an hour. I should have just watched the Rumple and Belle reunion and the Emma, Hook and baby scene and called it done. No wonder it was cancelled.

[Shanna Marie]

The best part of this episode was the final journey through Storybrooke, which made me so nostalgic for the early days of the show that I almost wanted to immediately rewatch the pilot. Though, since the camera went straight from the palace to the town, I wondered about the Bug still sitting on Main Street. Did Emma and Hook get a new car? How did they get to the palace, otherwise? Regina and Zelena drove the Mercedes, which suggests that they were driving there.

Otherwise, the main thing that struck me was how tacked-on all the Regina scenes felt, like they had a draft of the script, or possibly even a first cut of the episode, and they realized it was really weird for Regina not to be playing a big role before she's suddenly crowned Queen of the Universe and hastily added a bunch of scenes. It makes no sense for her to be the one to bond with Wish Henry. It would have been bad enough with her just being the alter ego of the Evil Queen who tormented his grandparents, but he watched this exact same person murder his grandparents not too long ago (in his time), after she was already supposedly good and a hero.

Then there was her unnecessary and very "what the hell?" tearful scene over Rumple's body. They were never friends. She hated him. He was the one who led her into darkness and conned her into casting a curse that required her to murder her father and that didn't give her any of the happiness that was promised. They weren't even friends in Hyperion Heights. One of their last interactions was her being furious at him for stealing the potion that could have saved Henry. But the episode needed more Regina, so we needed to see her big, dramatic, tearful soliloquy.

And if WHenry is now a cop in Storybrooke, I guess that means he's no longer king of the Wish Enchanted Forest, maybe because Regina's the only ruler of all these places and there are no more local rulers. Which means Regina has taken thrones from two of her kids (stepdaughter Snow's throne, Wish Henry's throne).

Funny, when Emma travels in time, she gets non-stop lectures about how she can't do anything to change the past and gets criticized about every move she makes that might alter history, then gets blasted by Regina for not thinking about consequences when she alters the past by bringing someone Regina was going to execute to the future. When Regina travels in time, she rearranges the cosmos and gets elected queen of the universe, with no mention of going back to her own time.

There's no point in griping about the timeline at this point. It's more mangled than Jeremy Bearimy.

[Camera One]

I was full-on cringing through the entire second half of this wretched episode.  

On this rewatch, it did seem the episode was built around Regina.  The threat was basically Wish Henry's anger towards Regina, which was powering those Vortex of Evil Books™.  And it was Regina who faced Wish Henry, faced death and got through to him.  So she was the big hero.  Then, the episode ended with Regina getting rewarded Queen of the Universe with Snowing and everyone else kowtowing to her. 

The next hero would of course be our Sweet Wumple, who sacrificed himself for the BFF he never admitted he had - Whook.  That sacrifice provided the happy ending to Whook and Alice, which wasn't really the big problem in this episode, but it was the only continuing Season 7 conflict resolved in this finale.

I don't understand how Maui's fish hook ended up inside the snow globe.

If the big problem was Wish Henry's anger against Regina, that could have been dissipated by Wish Henry seeing Snowing.  They might have been able to talk him down, and seeing his grandparents again could possibly decrease a little of the anger he had inside.  That would have been more believable than Regina getting through to WHenry because some other version of him thinks of her as his mother. 

Was anyone else sad we didn't get cameos from all our fav's from Season 7... Victoria, Ivy, Anastasia, Mother Gothel, Dr. Facilier, Nick/Hansel and last but not least, The Coathangers.

Edited January 18, 2020 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

I would've liked to see Ivy/Anastasia make an appearance, if only to make sure Ivy hadn't tried to kill her sister again.

Edited January 18, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

I don't understand how Maui's fish hook ended up inside the snow globe.

I feel like there was a missing scene here. WHook credited Alice, but I don't recall seeing her actually doing anything. I also don't recall her learning that her father was inside the snow globe. What seems to have happened is that Zelena took Alice and Robyn to the Charmings, they geared up to help and went through the portal, using Zelena's hidden bean, they learned that everyone was in the snow globe, Alice wished the hook to get them out, and then they all converged on the palace. That's a lot of It Happened Offscreen, but I guess they had to make a choice, and it was more important to get Regina's tearful soliloquy over the body of someone she had always hated and blamed for ruining her life (second only to Snow).

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

If the big problem was Wish Henry's anger against Regina, that could have been dissipated by Wish Henry seeing Snowing.  They might have been able to talk him down, and seeing his grandparents again could possibly decrease a little of the anger he had inside.  That would have been more believable than Regina getting through to WHenry because some other version of him thinks of her as his mother. 

That's what I was thinking, that the Charmings would have made a lot more sense. There was no reason for WHenry to believe Regina. That was one of those mutually exclusive things -- they tried to play off Regina's murder of the Wish Charmings as a joke, it was an oops, where she didn't mean to kill them but slipped, and isn't it funny and ironic that when she was desperately trying to kill them, she failed, but when she's good and doesn't want to kill them, she does it accidentally? It's not really murder because they're just from the Wishverse and aren't real, and it doesn't seem to have bothered or affected her that she did it. But then she ends up having to deal with WHenry, who had to watch his grandparents be murdered and who has been affected by it. So we're supposed to take the effect on him seriously but not take her action that caused that effect seriously, all at the same time in the same scene. Really, from a story/character perspective, it should have been Emma talking him down and apologizing for abandoning him when she was so eager to get out of the Wish Realm, but I understand that there were off-camera issues there.

I was trying to figure out what WRumple's scheme really was, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's mostly just handwaving to have an old-school Rumple be the ultimate and final villain. It seems that he wanted some kind of revenge on the non-wish versions of the characters, plus Wish Blue? So he was putting them in their individual pocket universes to torture them and get them out of his way. But other than Wish Blue, they were all already out of his way. If he'd left well enough alone and maybe found some other way to get Wish Blue out of his hair, he'd still have been happily ruling the Wish Realm. WHenry was off in another realm trying to get a girlfriend and everyone else was in Hyperion Heights or Storybrooke. Instead, he came up with an overly complicated plan that brought everyone to a place where they could defeat him.

And then the pocket universes seem to be what inspired bringing all the realms together, but that doesn't seem like it was actually a real solution to that, since someone could still make a pocket universe that isn't connected to any of the other worlds.

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I would've liked to see Ivy/Anastasia make an appearance, if only to make sure Ivy hadn't tried to kill her sister again.

And we still don't know if they just went back to their land in the time they were in, where they'd be co-existing with their past selves, or if they went back to their time. If they stayed in the same time, then between that opportunity for them to intervene in their own past to prevent Drizella/Ivy from screwing up this time and the craziness of all the future people hanging out with their past selves in Storybrooke, then the timeline is just going to completely collapse. Henry won't go roving because he doesn't have to and Drizella will avoid Gothel (maybe even team up with Anastasia to defeat her), so there's no curse and no one is sent back in time, and that will then undo everything. That may be my headcanon: A little while after that last scene, it all collapses and the future people disappear, along with the memories everyone else has of them and all their effects (like the merged world). Storybrooke goes back to normal, with Henry going to college instead. And then maybe it's Robyn who goes journeying when she's older, and she meets Alice and helps reunite her with her father (just because those were the only relationships that kind of worked).

Instead of the Regina tongue bath, I'd have liked to see the interaction between the future and past selves, Wish and Prime versions. WHook got a second chance from Hook Prime, so how would he react to seeing him again (when Hook Prime hadn't yet met him -- and this is going to impact the timeline when Hook Prime does meet past WHook about ten years later)? How would Alice feel about meeting another version of her father? Would she think of Hope as her baby sister? Where were Storybrooke Henry and Regina? Did they skip town to get away from their future selves? Did we see both Zelenas at the coronation, or was that Storybrooke Zelena while Future Zelena was off with her new husband?

[KingOfHearts]

20 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Did we see both Zelenas at the coronation, or was that Storybrooke Zelena while Future Zelena was off with her new husband?

I'm fairly certain Future Zelena was in San Francisco with her muggle hubby. The Zelena at the coronation was 2017 Zelena. So now Robyn will now have to watch her mom raise her younger self.

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I was trying to figure out what WRumple's scheme really was, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's mostly just handwaving to have an old-school Rumple be the ultimate and final villain. It seems that he wanted some kind of revenge on the non-wish versions of the characters, plus Wish Blue? So he was putting them in their individual pocket universes to torture them and get them out of his way. But other than Wish Blue, they were all already out of his way. If he'd left well enough alone and maybe found some other way to get Wish Blue out of his hair, he'd still have been happily ruling the Wish Realm. WHenry was off in another realm trying to get a girlfriend and everyone else was in Hyperion Heights or Storybrooke. Instead, he came up with an overly complicated plan that brought everyone to a place where they could defeat him.

You know, I think you're right.  We were being so entertained by Wish Rumple that it's easy to overlook that his "plan" was idiotic.  

Wish Rumple wanted one main thing - he wanted to neutralize Rumple and stop his quest to lose his immortality.  In order to do that, he needed Henry to use his Author powers.

So essentially, all he needed was Henry and Rumple.  Since he was actually in Hyperion Heights, he could have brought Rumple back with him to the Wish Realm, or he could have done a better job with how he stashed him.  Wish Rumple supposedly messed with Alice's mirror which meant he knew they were going to realm travel after him, so why not send all 4 people to different places, and then imprison them separately?  

Why did Rumple have so many books when he only had a handful of threats?  There were books for Granny and Grumpy, etc., but why would Wish Rumple care about those non-threats?

Wish Rumple wasn't without his magic, so why did he need to rely on ONLY Wish Henry's anger to get everyone into the vortexes?  He was just standing there while everyone was trying not to get pulled into the vortexes.  Why not use magic to make everyone hands slippery?  

Why were those Unhappy Ending books so frickin' long?  How much is there to say about each of them?  Was there an entire plot they would be forced to follow once they got sucked in?  

[Shanna Marie]

20 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Wish Rumple wanted one main thing - he wanted to neutralize Rumple and stop his quest to lose his immortality. 

Was Rumple the only one linked to his Prime counterpart like that? Or would any Wish character die if his Prime counterpart died? Is that what happened to Wish Neal? Did he keel over when Neal Prime died? And what about Hook? He died and was dead for at least a month. Did WHook die during that time and then pop back into existence when Hook Prime was resurrected? Wouldn't that have been something he remarked upon that would have had a life-changing impact? Or did fate know Hook was going to come back to life, so WHook never died?

I have so many questions.

I think they got confused with the Jekyll/Hyde split, where the split version died if the prime version died, but the copy couldn't be killed as long as the original was alive.

Since the jail cell still existed, all Wrumple had to do was kidnap Rumple Prime and throw him in the cell. Would the others have rallied to save Rumple (yeah, these idiots probably would)? But he could have faked something to make it look like Rumple achieved his goal and had joined Belle, and no one would have known to look for him.

 

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Since the jail cell still existed, all Wrumple had to do was kidnap Rumple Prime and throw him in the cell. Would the others have rallied to save Rumple (yeah, these idiots probably would)? But he could have faked something to make it look like Rumple achieved his goal and had joined Belle, and no one would have known to look for him.

Excellent point, and that should have been pretty easy.  No one knew Wish Rumple was in Hyperion Heights and no one knew Weaver went to confront Dr. Facilier.  No one would have known where Weaver went if Regina hadn't found him at Dr. Facilier's apartment.  

The only person who would have looked for a missing Weaver would have been Rogers/Whook.  Since Wish Rumple was in Hyperion Heights, he could even have impersonated Weaver and said goodbye, saying he was going to look for another way to be reunited with Belle.  

Edited January 18, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

The only person who would have looked for a missing Weaver would have been Rogers/Whook.  Since Wish Rumple was in Hyperion Heights, he could even have impersonated Weaver and said goodbye, saying he was going to look for another way to be reunited with Belle.

Yeah, lock up Rumple, impersonate Weaver, go to Rogers and say he's pursuing a new way of getting to Belle and he wants to say goodbye. If Rogers suggests going with him to help, tell him he needs to stay with Alice and keep looking for a cure. Then haul Rumple to the Wish Realm, throw him in the cell, and carry on.

The more elaborate the evil scheme and the more people you target, the more likely it is to fail. Gothel would have destroyed all humanity if she'd just taken the people she needed for that spell through with a magic bean, without all the drama and without hauling the people most likely to oppose her through with the curse. WRumple would still be alive if he'd just focused on Rumple.

I'm still hung up on the idea that the Wish version died if the Prime one did. They really did go back and forth over whether the Wish Realm was real. It wasn't real when Regina killed the Wish Charmings. It was real when WHook fathered a child in another realm long before the wish was made. It was real enough for WRobin to leave and live happily ever after with the Evil Queen in the Enchanted Forest (in spite of his Prime counterpart being dead). It's not real enough for the Wish version to survive if the Prime version dies. But WHook is a totally real person (in spite of his Prime counterpart having died -- or did that only kick in after the wish was made?).

[Camera One]

9 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm still hung up on the idea that the Wish version died if the Prime one did.

I think that only applied to The Dark One.  Wish Peter Pan and Wish Cruella didn't die when their Prime ones did.  Because The Dark One-ness was so special.  I wonder what happened to Wish Rumple in 3A when Prime Rumple killed himself.  Except Wish Rumple shouldn't have existed yet because the Wish hadn't been made yet.  Though Wish Hook was real enough to be visiting Disenchanted Forests and getting someone pregnant.

For being such sci-fi geeks, A&E sure didn't mind being sloppy with worldbuilding.

[tennisgurl]

So how tired do you like A&E got after this episode, jerking off for a whole ten minutes at the end. 

The weird thing, watching this again, the first part is actually a bit better than I remembered it being. There is a decent amount of action, they focus on the characters that actually work (Cinders and Lucy are basically extras) and focusing on WHenry is still an awesome idea for a final boss, plus you can tell that Jared is having a real blast playing dark Henry here. However, I ended up basically blocking all of that out, because all that I can think about is that batshit insane, totally out of nowhere ending. Like, Regina acts like bringing all the worlds together is totally a good thing because I guess its convenient for her and the people she knows, but what does everyone else think? Are the random citizens of Arendale or Agrabah cool with being suddenly dragged into 21st century Maine, even though everyone they know lives in their world? Do Elsa and Ana still rule their kingdom, or do they have to turn it over to Regina, Queen off Everything? I mean, this basically makes her a more conquest focused Anti-Monitor, but I guess its good now because...Regina is officially the best ever. I mean, she is voted Queen of the Universe? Yeah, I demand a fucking recount. 

If nothing else, at least Rumples ending makes sense for his character, despite how clumsily and problematically his story has been. He did the right thing not because it would get him something but because it was right (even if it did totally work out for him) and giving his life for a version of his friendemy of several hundred years is a decent ending. Its certainly better than Regina, a person with no noted skills at leadership, becoming queen of the universe after she took over the universe because she didnt want to bother making portals anymore. Also, as much as I LOVE WHenry, his story is, shockingly, a disappointment that flames out before it can even get really interesting. Regina never even really explains why she killed his family (probably because it sounds really freaking bad, and this is an ode to Regina damn it) and just talks him down and they are now mother/son again, even though they have literally no connection whatsoever. She isnt his mom, he only knows her as the evil women who killed his family, so why does he get all weepy with her? Maybe he can forgive her, but why would he continue to be around her? And does he get to stay King, or is he not just another vassal of the God Empress?

It was lovely to see the Charmings, Emma, and Hook again, even if they were stuck either doing embarrassing hope speeches or brief cameos (and lets get one more slam on Hook having one hand before we go!) and we did get to see Storeybrooke, and oh my god did I miss it. Seeing it did get me nostalgic, as did a lot of the episode in general, I cant lie. I feel nostalgic for a show I loved, and the show it could have been. 

[Melgaypet]

19 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Also, as much as I LOVE WHenry, his story is, shockingly, a disappointment that flames out before it can even get really interesting. Regina never even really explains why she killed his family (probably because it sounds really freaking bad, and this is an ode to Regina damn it) and just talks him down and they are now mother/son again, even though they have literally no connection whatsoever. She isnt his mom, he only knows her as the evil women who killed his family, so why does he get all weepy with her? Maybe he can forgive her, but why would he continue to be around her?

I KNOW, RIGHT?

I don't know why this, in particular, sticks in my craw so much, but it does. It drives me absolutely bonkers. As you say, he doesn't know Regina, except as a murderer. She's not even the same Evil Queen his grandparents defeated and drove away before his mother was born, which I assume he's heard plenty about. If anything, Wish!Henry should be gravitating toward Charming, Snow, and especially Emma. I'm not clear on whether Emma retained Princess Emma's memories or not (and I doubt the writers know, either. It's just Emma, who cares, right?), but if she does, then she's the closest thing to his lost family he has.

[Shanna Marie]

On 1/21/2020 at 7:42 PM, Melgaypet said:

If anything, Wish!Henry should be gravitating toward Charming, Snow, and especially Emma.

Imagine being a kid who watched your beloved grandparents murdered before your eyes. And then you find them again, but younger, in their prime. Also, your mother disappeared entirely, and you find her again, or at least a version of her who looks just like her. Then there's also the person you watched murder your grandparents. Who do you gravitate toward?

On another note, I'm rather surprised there wasn't a Saint Neal appearance in the finale. He was supposedly in the Good Place, but Rumple only cared about being reunited with Belle. His son wasn't even considered. And they didn't manage to shoehorn in some mention of him -- or did we see the Hero Neal portrait in the Wish castle? That's about the only major recurring character who was part of the ongoing mythology who didn't make an appearance in the finale.

[Camera One]

I'm more surprised there wasn't a BFF August appearance in the finale.  I don't think anyone would want that beautifully emotional Rumple/Belle reunion ruined with Neal.  Rumple doesn't even see him as his son, remember?  

Adult Henry praised Regina to high heaven so Wish Henry saw the light.  Seriously speaking, you'd think A&E forgot that Wish Henry had a different past than the other Henry by the end of the episode.  They were writing it as if Regina broke Wish Henry out of a Curse and he became *her* teenage Henry.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

I'm more surprised there wasn't a BFF August appearance in the finale.

Wasn't child Pinocchio in the crowd at the coronation? So August must have been de-aged yet again.

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

I don't think anyone would want that beautifully emotional Rumple/Belle reunion ruined with Neal.  Rumple doesn't even see him as his son, remember?  

Not that I wanted to see Neal, but given the way the writers seemed to sanctify him after his death and the way they had him pop up in random moments or the way they retroactively had him having done stuff we didn't actually see him do (and that he wouldn't have had time to do in the short time he was actually around Henry), I'm surprised that they didn't find some way to insert Neal into this story. But I guess if it came down to either Regina or Wish Neal's ghost talking down Wish Henry, I guess they had to go with Regina.

[Speakeasy]

Do there are three lines of evidence as far as the sympathetic link between wish people and prime people go: there's the final death of the Dark Ones, there's Wish Henry changing his mind about Regina and there's the existence of wish people whose prime versions died.

So it seems like killing a person from either side normally doesn't effect the other version-the evidence here is circumstancial though: Pan and Cruella both died before the Wish was made, and we've only seen wish people die post wish without impacting the originals. On the other hand, Wish Hook wasn't bothered by the idea of killing his prime version... On the other hand he's a pirate Captain, not a Doctor of Applied Narrative Cosmology. So again, circumstancial.

The Death of the Dark Ones could indicate that killing the original kills the wish, BUT, I think it would make as much sense thematically at least, if this was unique to the Dark One and how he died; the dark one cannot be killed by age, disease or accident, and violence can only transfer it. Destruction cannot destroy evil, but a sacrifice that renews the life of another can. And maybe we can say that even if there is a wish dark one, there is only one Darkness, or one way in which Darkness can enter the world. This is all speculation though, nothing on screen backs that up.

Wish Henry's change if heart seems to indicate that he was feeling his prime versions emotions. We can assume this is proximity related since.. well that's the entire point of the episode- though maybe he was struggling between being himself or Prime Henry the whole time and eventually King Henry lost out when he had to kill the thing the other him loved most. In any case, this is a link that only seems to go one way as Henry Prime doesn't seem any more harsh to his mother in this episode. 

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

On the other hand, Wish Hook wasn't bothered by the idea of killing his prime version... On the other hand he's a pirate Captain, not a Doctor of Applied Narrative Cosmology.

Oh, that plan could have backfired horribly!

I doubt they put that much thought into all this and got the wish vs. prime versions mixed up with the Jekyll juice duos, where killing the original killed the copy.

Given how many years seem to have passed between season six (when Emma met Wish Hook) and Wish Hook meeting up with his prime counterpart (enough time for Henry to age into a new actor), WHook could have fathered a daughter who would have been a pre-teen by the time he meet Hook Prime and got de-aged, so they didn't have to break the universe by having him father a child in another realm before the wish was made. I guess she then wouldn't be old enough to be a love interest, and it would have meant old Wish Hook found someone who wanted to sleep with him, but he'd supposedly stopped drinking and got himself more or less together, so he didn't have to be as gross as they depicted him. Giving up rum might have made him trim down, and a little self respect might have made him less unkempt, in decent clothes and without the ratty hair. He could have been a silver fox, but I guess that's not so funny.

[Camera One]

14 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

The Death of the Dark Ones could indicate that killing the original kills the wish, BUT, I think it would make as much sense thematically at least, if this was unique to the Dark One and how he died; the dark one cannot be killed by age, disease or accident, and violence can only transfer it. Destruction cannot destroy evil, but a sacrifice that renews the life of another can. And maybe we can say that even if there is a wish dark one, there is only one Darkness, or one way in which Darkness can enter the world. This is all speculation though, nothing on screen backs that up.

I think that was how I was thinking about it and the Wish/Prime death situation only applied to the Dark One.

Wish Rumple was afraid Original Rumple would transfer his Dark One-ness to the Guardian.  This would not have killed Original Rumple.  So Wish Rumple was more worried that this action would cause him to also lose his power, with the assumption that the source of the Dark One power was connected.

[Shanna Marie]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

Wish Rumple was afraid Original Rumple would transfer his Dark One-ness to the Guardian.  This would not have killed Original Rumple.  So Wish Rumple was more worried that this action would cause him to also lose his power, with the assumption that the source of the Dark One power was connected.

But then didn't Wish Rumple go poof when Original Rumple died? By then, Wish Henry had removed Original Rumple's Darkness by writing it (and if this is a world where Emma was never a Savior, how is Henry still an Author without having done the relevant things, like read and believe in the storybook?). And Original Rumple killing himself to save WHook made Wish Rumple disintegrate, so it wasn't just about the Darkness.

Or I could be confused. I've watched the episode twice, and my brain usually checks out by that point out of self preservation.

[Speakeasy]

On 1/31/2020 at 4:00 PM, Shanna Marie said:

But then didn't Wish Rumple go poof when Original Rumple died? By then, Wish Henry had removed Original Rumple's Darkness by writing it (and if this is a world where Emma was never a Savior, how is Henry still an Author without having done the relevant things, like read and believe in the storybook?). And Original Rumple killing himself to save WHook made Wish Rumple disintegrate, so it wasn't just about the Darkness.

Or I could be confused. I've watched the episode twice, and my brain usually checks out by that point out of self preservation.

If my memory serves I think King Henry just removed the Guardians powers, Rumple still had his powers which was why he could take his own heart out. I think.

I'll say that for me this aired at an unfortunate time re. Rumples sacrifice, since if just seen the end of Capaldi's run on Dr Who and season 2 of The Good Place, both of which discussed the idea of acting out of genuine compassion Vs expecting a reward with infinitely more heart and commitment. 

[Jynnan tonnix]

On 5/18/2018 at 9:19 PM, Primal Slayer said:

It was Wish!Henry. And I am sure that there were people that didnt want to go since it was an entire realm after all lol. But it's Once Upon a Time, you just have to kind of sweep those things under the rug. How can they even fit so many realms into 1 small town in the first place?

That was my major thought when they panned over the combined-realm Storybrooke...OK, Maine is a relatively large state (at least, for New England), and much of it is wilderness, but, really. Are people still stuck there, or can they now come and go at will? Because at the very least it would make a heck of an amusement park! Or, maybe, despite the birds-eye view, it's like one of those little Harry-Potter style pup-tents which become a three-bedroom home as soon as you walk in. 

[Camera One]

Upon second rewatch, the pacing of these last two episodes was rather uneven.  Regina's soliloquy to a dead Rumple was still uncomfortably long.  Regina getting through to Wish Henry was still very unconvincing.

I know Snowing had limited screentime, but the reason they were off-screen for the climax was mildly amusing.

Quote

SNOWING: Okay, then. Everyone else, scatter throughout the realms. Reach whoever you can and warn them. Snow and I will start with the outer villages. They need to be reminded not to lose hope. If Rumple succeeds, he thinks everyone will be lost for good, but I don't believe that. Charming and I have always been able to find each other, and I refuse to believe that we're the only ones. With love in their hearts, with hope, anyone can do it. They just have to believe that no one would be able to pull them apart forever, that we will succeed. Now go.

Snowing were going from village to village?  LOL.  Are we supposed to believe there was a book for every single peasant in the Wish Realm?  What did they say to the villagers, exactly.  We already know Snow's Hope speech didn't stop Alice and friends from almost getting sucked into the vortexes, so having hope was next to useless.   Does that mean off-screen, Snowing, Zelena, Jacinda and Lucy warning villagers would have been hanging onto fence posts as the vortexes tried to suck them in, just like the characters inside the castle?

Edited August 24, 2020 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I forgot to say my friend thought that in the last scene, Zelena was taking Regina to Alice and Robyn's wedding, LOL.  

Quote

On 1/18/2020 at 9:27 AM, Shanna Marie said:

And we still don't know if they just went back to their land in the time they were in, where they'd be co-existing with their past selves, or if they went back to their time. If they stayed in the same time, then between that opportunity for them to intervene in their own past to prevent Drizella/Ivy from screwing up this time and the craziness of all the future people hanging out with their past selves in Storybrooke, then the timeline is just going to completely collapse. Henry won't go roving because he doesn't have to and Drizella will avoid Gothel (maybe even team up with Anastasia to defeat her), so there's no curse and no one is sent back in time, and that will then undo everything.

I've been thinking about the question of WHEN the coronation takes place.  I think there were a couple of possibilities but there are major problems with each.

1) They go back to the time setting of Season 7 in Hyperion Heights

This one doesn't make any sense.  When Robyn and Alice go back to Storybrooke, Henry just had his graduation and Emma and Regina went on a graduation trip with him.  If he comes back from vacation to find the united realms with the adult version of him, there's no way history wouldn't change.  Plus we only saw two Henry's at the coronation... the Wish Teenage Henry and the Adult Henry, not the Original Recipe Teenage Henry.

If this option is not possible, this would mean Snow and Charming and Zelena went back to their time in Storybrooke.  I assume they would need to forget knowing about grown up Robyn and Henry.  Did Regina give them a memory potion for amnesia?  

Since this option is not possible, this would also mean Regina's new Curse took everyone in Hyperion Heights out of Seattle (and Kelly out of San Francisco), and moved them all forward in time to Storybrooke, all without their consent.

2) They go back to a year after Henry meets Jacinda

The main reason for this option is that Emma clearly just had her baby.  This would mean Original Teenage Henry had already grown up and left Storybrooke.  Snowing's son Neal is 7-10 years old, which is another "clue" which seems to suggest it hasn't been that long since the Season 6 finale.

But this option is also impossible because that would mean Adult Henry, Jacinda, etc. would all be fighting the resistance, Ivy was becoming evil, and then Regina united all the realms, and would interrupt the timelines of the current-day versions by bringing them all to Storybrooke.

3) They take everyone from Hyperion Heights and bring them back forward in time to "present-day" aka when Lucy is 11? years old (if the Curse was cast when she was 8 years old and the Curse lasted 3 years).  Regina casts the new Curse from present-day.

This is the most likely option, though it means all the adults in Storybrooke aged extremely gracefully, looking exactly the same at least 15 years? after the Season 6 finale.  Except for Neal who grew extremely slowly.  And that wouldn't be Emma's first child.

I guess this means they took Wish Henry out of his own time, to the present-day, and then Regina cast the New Curse to unite the realms.  

At this point, we must use that sage quote from Regina... "I'm not here to discuss timelines" and call it a day, LOL.  I'm so confused I have no idea about some of the years I listed above.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

50 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Snowing's son Neal is 7-10 years old, which is another "clue" which seems to suggest it hasn't been that long since the Season 6 finale.

I thought he looked younger than that, closer to 4-6 years old. Didn't they have to nudge him forward with the crown? It struck me more like the way you'd have to direct a very small child. A child older than 7 would have been better at knowing what to do. I thought, based on his age, that the coronation was immediately after the events of the rest of the finale, at least within a few months (maybe Emma was pregnant when on Henry's graduation trip, then the baby was born, and then the coronation) since Snowflake would probably have been about 4 or 5 when Henry graduated from high school. But then that gives us the problem of baby Hope, who originally wasn't conceived until Henry had grown into a new actor, but here she's an infant around the time Henry graduates.

And which Zelena is Regina palling around with? Is that past Zelena or did Kelly Zelena come join them from San Francisco? And is that past Regina running around with her, or is it Hyperion Heights Regina?

[Camera One]

I'm not good at figuring out the age of kids.  He could have been 5 years old, I guess.

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

And which Zelena is Regina palling around with? Is that past Zelena or did Kelly Zelena come join them from San Francisco? And is that past Regina running around with her, or is it Hyperion Heights Regina?

I assumed that was Hyperion Heights Regina.  After all, this is supposed to be the "ending".  

If the coronation were immediately after the events of the finale, then they would have brought the Disenchanted Forest to Storybrooke, and the Original Recipe Henry would be quite close to his future self.  Ivy/Gothel's Curse still needed to happen for them, or the future would change.  Unless they only united the realms in the Original Recipe Enchanted Forest and Related Lands, and left the Disenchanted Forest alone.  But then what would happen when Henry sends for help... would the Other Regina have gone?  But she would know what ultimately happened to everyone, since she would be living in Storybrooke with the Roni Regina.  

Did they bring the Wish Realm to Storybrooke?  If so, wouldn't they have two of every building?  This would also mess with the past version of Wish Realm Hook.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

In my head cannons it's an entirely new timeline some indeterminate time after Henry's graduation, and the United Realms Curse deleted the entire future after it was cast and reset the universe, or sheared them off into a new timeline Abrams-Trek style.

Also at the end of this episode the universe was going to implode due to the weight of all these paradoxes, which is why the curse was necessary. Regina just pitched it like 'hey, wouldn't it be fun if we merged the whole fictional multiverse? Don't that sound neat?' because her family had had a really rough day and she didn't want to worry them. She's nice like that.

Baby Swan was just conceived earlier, so it's not the same baby as in the original timeline- if you want a reason why I'd guess that Past Rumple either left town after the merging or got killed with the other Rumples and the Swans decided to try fir a baby once he was out of the way, whereas originally it took that extra 5-10 years before they were sure he was really gone.

No, really, if you were Killian Jones would you bring a child into the world with THAT as your neighbour? Or even with the possibility he'd come back? With all your history? I wouldn't.

None of the other Ginas are at Roni's coronation because, shit, would you go to see a better version of you get crowned Queen of Everything? Original Henry has had enough of all this nonsense and he, Grace, Violet and Enchanted Forest Hansel have formed a band called 'The Death of the Author' and gone touring around New England in nice towns with no magic fairy tale bullshit. 

'Hello Greendale! Are you ready to rock?!'

Edited August 26, 2020 by Speakeasy

[Camera One]

13 minutes ago, Speakeasy said:

None of the other Ginas are at Roni's coronation because, shit, would you go to see a better version of you get crowned Queen of Everything?

That generated an alternate ending in my head of five Regina emerging from the crowd so they could all be crowned simultaneously.  "I can't wait to find out what happens to me next."

Edited August 26, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

If the coronation were immediately after the events of the finale, then they would have brought the Disenchanted Forest to Storybrooke, and the Original Recipe Henry would be quite close to his future self.  Ivy/Gothel's Curse still needed to happen for them, or the future would change.  Unless they only united the realms in the Original Recipe Enchanted Forest and Related Lands, and left the Disenchanted Forest alone.  But then what would happen when Henry sends for help... would the Other Regina have gone?  But she would know what ultimately happened to everyone, since she would be living in Storybrooke with the Roni Regina.  

This is why I couldn't sleep the night after this first aired. My brain kept trying to reconcile it all, and it was impossible.

If it's immediately after the events of the finale, it creates a time paradox because OR Henry has already met his future wife, his future self, and his future daughter before he goes adventuring, which he doesn't need to do because all the worlds are smooshed together and he can go adventuring and be home for dinner. But if Henry doesn't go to the Disenchanted Forest and OR Regina doesn't join him, then Gothel doesn't use them to cast her curse, and they don't get sent to Seattle, so they don't end up back in past Storybrooke and Future Regina doesn't cast the spell that smooshes the realms together. Plus the issue about Baby Swan-Jones, who's an infant before Henry leaves town but Emma and Hook are only expecting their first child when OR Henry is an adult. The timing is actually more appropriate for that baby, since it makes sense that a couple of people in their 30s who want kids would have their first baby within about 4-5 years of their marriage instead of 15 or so years later when they're in their mid-late 40s.

It might make some sense if the coronation doesn't happen until years later, after Henry and Regina have already left, so they're off in the Disenchanted Forest doing their thing that will keep the timeline intact, and all this is happening back in Storybrooke without them knowing. But that would have to involve time travel, or else Snowflake and OR Robyn would be teenagers (did they show Child Robyn at the coronation?). But wasn't time travel supposed to be incredibly difficult, involving great power and a bunch of crazy spells? And did only some people time travel? Hook and Emma and baby Hope are still on the right timeline, with the baby born after OR Regina went to join Henry, but Future Henry and his family and the Charmings and Snowflake all jumped forward in time (so the kids didn't age). It would make sense for the future folks to jump forward in time to the right time, but there's no reason for the Charmings to have jumped forward. If the future folks returned to their own time (which might be easier than everyone time traveling to the future), then Snowflake would be all grown up, around the same age as Robyn, and baby Hope would be at least a year older than Lucy.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

It might make some sense if the coronation doesn't happen until years later, after Henry and Regina have already left, so they're off in the Disenchanted Forest doing their thing that will keep the timeline intact, and all this is happening back in Storybrooke without them knowing.

If Future Roni Regina united the realms and brought the Disenchanted Forest to Storybrooke before Henry and Lucy were Cursed, they would know, though, and it would change everything.  I think to avoid changing the past, uniting the realms needed to occur after everything played out.

Quote

But that would have to involve time travel, or else Snowflake and OR Robyn would be teenagers (did they show Child Robyn at the coronation?).

They didn't show Child Robyn at the coronation.  

Is it possible to say that Hope was Emma and Hook's third or fourth child, and not the one she was pregnant with in "A Pirate's Life"?   I don't remember if there was anything said which would contradict this alternate interpretation.

If Snowflake is the only major anomaly, I suppose we could ignore him... maybe he was Cursed to live his life as a child, or the 3B curse made him experience very slow aging.  Or that was Emma's first or second child and she named him Neal too.

I know at the end of the day, none of this was intended by A&E, it's just bad writing and sloppiness.  I mean, NONE of the Writers even thought about how old Snowflake would be, or about the possibility of changing the past, even though they wrote the 3B finale?

Quote

But wasn't time travel supposed to be incredibly difficult, involving great power and a bunch of crazy spells? And did only some people time travel?

Yes, this is a problem too.  I think it would have to go like this

- Events in Wish Realm that we saw - Wish Rumple defeated and Roni Regina has an idea for a new curse

- Everyone who went to help in the Wish Realm takes a portal back to Storybrooke (dropping off Zelena and Snowing), while Roni, Adult Henry, Jacinda, Lucy, Alice and Robyn go back to Hyperion Heights.  They take Wish Henry with them.  This would not require time travel.

- Roni sends everyone in Hyperion Heights back to the future, to the time they were meant for (3 years after the Curse was cast by Ivy/Gothel).  I'm not sure what Kelly would do, since Chad would need to say goodbye to all his family and friends if he were to go with Zelena.

- Roni and friends (well, everyone in Hyperion Heights who don't want to stay) drive/apparate to Storybrooke.

- Roni casts this new Curse that brings all the realms to Storybrooke

- Regina/Roni/Gina/Reggie/Evie/Queenie and all their variations get crowned Queen of Everything

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Is it possible to say that Hope was Emma and Hook's third or fourth child, and not the one she was pregnant with in "A Pirate's Life"?   I don't remember if there was anything said which would contradict this alternate interpretation.

Other than the fact that Emma would be pushing 60 in the post-Hyperion Heights "present," and therefore highly unlikely to have a newborn. And we didn't see any other children with them. Did they leave their older kid, who would be a year or so older than Lucy, behind and not take him/her to the coronation?

I got the impression from the episode that they meant it to be happening in the same timeframe that Alice and Robyn went to, with Snowflake being the right age for that, and they had Hook and Emma have a baby because they were attempting to appease the fans, and they didn't put a moment's thought into timeline and paradox issues.

It's even trickier with the existing timeline issues, like with there being no difference in appearance between the past characters and future versions of them that are more than 15 years later, so we can't tell when they are based on the ages of anyone other than children, and they're inconsistent with that.

[Inquirer]

On 1/18/2020 at 10:24 PM, Shanna Marie said:

I'm still hung up on the idea that the Wish version died if the Prime one did. They really did go back and forth over whether the Wish Realm was real. It wasn't real when Regina killed the Wish Charmings. It was real when WHook fathered a child in another realm long before the wish was made. It was real enough for WRobin to leave and live happily ever after with the Evil Queen in the Enchanted Forest (in spite of his Prime counterpart being dead). It's not real enough for the Wish version to survive if the Prime version dies. But WHook is a totally real person (in spite of his Prime counterpart having died -- or did that only kick in after the wish was made?).

Not to excuse the awful writing that doesn't make anything clear, but I actually don't think that timeline discrepancies are a problem with the Wish Realm: it was created by a genie's power, which can transcend time and space. It basically did not exist until the wish was made, but once it did exist it was as though it had always existed, which means the timeline got retconned in much the same way it did with the Season 3 finale. It was created, but that never meant it wasn't real, it always was in spite of what Regina thought.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Inquirer

[Speakeasy]

So I thought someone might get a chuckle from this.

 

The end of this episode in which aRegina gets a surprise coronation that anoints her as Master of the universe, ridiculous, right? You couldn't possibly have a kingdom unanimously vote someone in as their supreme ruler without telling them then give them a surprise coronation.

Or could you?

Yes, apparently (and this is a massive part of European history I've only just learned about) on Christmas Day in AD 800, King Karl of the Franks went to mass in Rome and was surprise-crowned by the Pope as Emperor of Rome, and thus in theory the rightful ruler of Christendom and, by extension, the world.

So given OUAT's habit of mixing and matching characters, does this mean Regina is Charlemagne? You decide

[Camera One]

On 12/21/2022 at 1:20 AM, Speakeasy said:

Yes, apparently (and this is a massive part of European history I've only just learned about) on Christmas Day in AD 800, King Karl of the Franks went to mass in Rome and was surprise-crowned by the Pope as Emperor of Rome, and thus in theory the rightful ruler of Christendom and, by extension, the world.

This article by a historian raises some interesting possibilities about why Charlemagne's biographer might have simply claimed that Charlemagne was taken by surprise.

Regina The High and Mighty would have been so much more powerful than Charlemagne.  She not only ruled Fictional Medieval and Victorian Europe, she also would be ruler of Fictional China, Arabia, Scandinavia, as well as multitudes of magical lands like Neverland, Wonderland, Oz.  

I seriously wonder how they all came to "elect" her without Regina knowing there was an election?  And how all those realms agreed to become "united" in the first place.  I would have liked to see the debates about that.  Especially since they were all moved to The World Without Magic against their will.  Surely, there would be border disputes if ogres from the Enchanted Forest started venturing into Oz.  

[Melgaypet]

I've decided, for my own sanity, that Queen of the Multiverse is a ceremonial title and Regina rules nothing. Since when did she want that anyway? Regina wanted position (a title), power (which her magic gives her far more than being Queen or Mayor) and the adulation of others (which she apparently now has, I have no idea how). I never got the sense that she cared at all about the job of ruling.

(And there's no way Charlemagne was genuinely surprised and it was likely his idea. His being crowned led to literal centuries of power struggle between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor.)

[KingOfHearts]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

I seriously wonder how they all came to "elect" her without Regina knowing there was an election?  And how all those realms agreed to become "united" in the first place.  I would have liked to see the debates about that.  Especially since they were all moved to The World Without Magic against their will.  Surely, there would be border disputes if ogres from the Enchanted Forest started venturing into Oz.  

If there was an election, who was running against her? One of her clones/alternate timeline versions?

Edited December 23, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

If there was an election, who was running against her? One of her clones/alternate timeline versions?

I'm just imagining an episode built around an "election" with her clones.  It really is too bad there wasn't another season.  Think of all the political intrigue that would arise from this.  And the rivals are also from Hall of Presidents land from Disneyland.  How does Regina stack up against the American presidents?  Will they play dirty?  Tune in to Season 8.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

On 12/23/2022 at 12:15 PM, Camera One said:

How does Regina stack up against the American presidents?  Will they play dirty?  Tune in to Season 8.

You may have just accidentally spoiled that Abraham Lincoln was the Big Bad for S8.