Once Upon A...SHOULDA HAPPENED THIS WAY!

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Speakeasy said:

I keep imagining what you might get of you were serious about Reul Gorm being an ancient godlike being, and I'm imagining her getting a Scary Galadriel moment. Just one, and very brief, but just enough that you understand she isn't weaker than Rumple, she's just doing something that takes a lot more effort, and if she were to give up and choose anger and destruction, well, to quote a witch from another story about fairy tales:

"Oh, if I were as bad as you, I'd be a whole lot worse"

I can totally see that.  The backstory with the Black Fairy could have been so much more epic if it had been properly thought out, involving Reul Gorm/Blue.  We know she defeated the Black Fairy, and it sounded like it could be something huge like the whole Dumbledore defeating Grindelwald legend in Harry Potter.  

Back in Season 5, I thought they could have told her origins by linking with Merlin.  I had a conception that maybe she had been Merlin's sister, best friend or love interest, and quarreled with him about how to deal with the growing Darkness, and Merlin ultimately tried to siphon it into the Dark One dagger with disastrous results, and Blue gave up her mortal life and created the Fairies.

Trying to tie too many of their ill-developed ideas often made the worldbuilding even messier and nonsensical.  In Season 6, they tried to tie Rumple's childhood, Rumple's son, the Black Fairy and Emma together with the questionable Savior mythology and the Dark Curse mythology.  In Season 5, they tried to tie Merlin, the Sorcerer, the Author with the origin of the Dark One mythology and the Storybook mythology, and again, it was an epic fail of confusion.  

[Speakeasy]

On 2/23/2022 at 3:48 PM, Camera One said:

I can totally see that.  The backstory with the Black Fairy could have been so much more epic if it had been properly thought out, involving Reul Gorm/Blue.  We know she defeated the Black Fairy, and it sounded like it could be something huge like the whole Dumbledore defeating Grindelwald legend in Harry Potter.  

Back in Season 5, I thought they could have told her origins by linking with Merlin.  I had a conception that maybe she had been Merlin's sister, best friend or love interest, and quarreled with him about how to deal with the growing Darkness, and Merlin ultimately tried to siphon it into the Dark One dagger with disastrous results, and Blue gave up her mortal life and created the Fairies.

It probably would have worked better if all of that had been tied together. Given how powerful Merlin was supposed to be, creating the book and the pen and his name being the big Shocking Twist! At the end of season 4.

I think, though I can't say how I'd do it yet-that it might be better if there's been something like you suggest-abd if it took a whole season rather than a 13-episode arc. If the Camelot arc had spanned a full 26 episodes I think you could have explained a backstory between Blue and Merlin, you could have used the Black Fairy if you wanted, you could ALSO have had the arc with Arthur's backstory and his obsession, and you could do the Dark Swan storyline. You'd even have time for the Merida episodes.

You know, if you wanted them. You don't need to have them.

As it was I felt it was very rushed-the origins of the Darkness took up half an episode's worth of flashbacks and involved what I thought was a very forgettable villain. 

Quote

Trying to tie too many of their ill-developed ideas often made the worldbuilding even messier and nonsensical.  In Season 6, they tried to tie Rumple's childhood, Rumple's son, the Black Fairy and Emma together with the questionable Savior mythology and the Dark Curse mythology.  In Season 5, they tried to tie Merlin, the Sorcerer, the Author with the origin of the Dark One mythology and the Storybook mythology, and again, it was an epic fail of confusion.  

I think that a lot of the problems in the show involved them having everything tie back to the core cast, especially Rumple. There were a lot of other characters they had who could have been used, and there were a lot of elements that should have just been things the characters had an interest in because of circumstances arising out of the current plot, instead of everything tying to them because of family or past relationships or special destiny.

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, Speakeasy said:

I think, though I can't say how I'd do it yet-that it might be better if there's been something like you suggest-abd if it took a whole season rather than a 13-episode arc. If the Camelot arc had spanned a full 26 episodes I think you could have explained a backstory between Blue and Merlin, you could have used the Black Fairy if you wanted, you could ALSO have had the arc with Arthur's backstory and his obsession, and you could do the Dark Swan storyline. You'd even have time for the Merida episodes.

You know, if you wanted them. You don't need to have them.

I think it needed a total ravamp, taking some of the better elements but dumping much of the rest.  Instead of delving deeper and actually planning out this series' universe/world, they kept grabbing more of their new shiny toys.  The time spent on Merida should have been spent somewhere else, despite the gem that was "The Bear King".

Quote

As it was I felt it was very rushed-the origins of the Darkness took up half an episode's worth of flashbacks and involved what I thought was a very forgettable villain. 

She was definitely forgettable, as was The Black Fairy.  Often, the villains that they completely created themselves were weaker.

Quote

I think that a lot of the problems in the show involved them having everything tie back to the core cast, especially Rumple. There were a lot of other characters they had who could have been used, and there were a lot of elements that should have just been things the characters had an interest in because of circumstances arising out of the current plot, instead of everything tying to them because of family or past relationships or special destiny.

This is very true, and I can sort of see how it would be difficult to write for the main characters AND create an overarching arc that needed to somehow include them.  By forcing the main characters into the bigger stories, they ended up being even more convoluted and contrived.  Like making The Savior and The Dark Curse mythology all about Rumple and his mother.  Or forcing Snowing into the Maleficent story with the eggnapping. 

The "Frozen" story did focus on their newly introduced characters, with not-good, but also less problematic incorporations of the main cast since they were mostly throw-away filler episodes, like Anna teaching Charming to fight, or Belle choosing a rock over Anna.  Rumple's role in that story was a bit more organic.  They tried to do that with the Camelot/Merlin story, sort of, though as you said, they crammed all the Dark One/Nimue stuff into half a single episode.

[Speakeasy]

On 2/26/2022 at 7:15 PM, Camera One said:

I think it needed a total ravamp, taking some of the better elements but dumping much of the rest.  Instead of delving deeper and actually planning out this series' universe/world, they kept grabbing more of their new shiny toys.  The time spent on Merida should have been spent somewhere else, despite the gem that was "The Bear King".

Probably-out of the elements in the Camelot arc I'd say Dark Swan certainly had some potential (plus it was the Season 4 cliffhanger... but since we are living in imaginationland we might be tempted to reimagine Season 4 as well), as did Arthur's descent into obsession-and you would want Merlin to be there and to have him tied to the Darkness but I'd personally redo basically everything about him.

You could still have the Darkness be linked to the Holy Grail going evil-I can't remember if you or someone else suggested using the Horned King as the creator of the Darkness-so maybe he created the Black Cauldron by corrupting the Holy Grail and then melted it down into the dagger. But who would he be? I don't know. That's one option.

 Personally I didn't care for Darth Jones (well, I liked Colin going Full-bore Evil for a couple of episodes, he can genuinely be a scary antagonist when the occasion calls for it) or the Underworld arc as a whole. So I might well scrap that whole back half of the season.

I do think this would be the perfect time to sell us on Regina and Emma being friends, if you were going to do that-because if Emma was going to be dealing with having evil magic then if you could sell Regina as having reformed and recognised her own evil, she'd be the perfect person to coach her through it by telling her what not to do. She'd understand what it's like to suddenly have all this power that demands to be used to cause harm, and how important it is to recognise the part of yourself that wants to use it before it convinces you to do it-just this once-then just once more-then just one more time...

 

[tennisgurl]

18 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

So I might well scrap that whole back half of the season.

The Underworld story did have potential, I liked the idea of getting a chance to see a lot of old characters, learn a bit more about the cosmology of the Once universe, finally allow some of the gang to get closure and wrap up some loose ends. It gave everyone a real quest, like in Neverland, instead of the heroes just aimlessly wandering around waiting for the villains to do something, there was potential for a lot of character growth, especially after everything that went down in Camelot, I think it really could have been a good story. 

Instead, we got a lot of padding, a truly dull "romance" for Zelena, only a few old characters arrived and weren't used well, and while we did get a few old plot threads coming back, they were mostly just excuses for Regina to cry or for dead characters to get screwed over and unceremoniously thrown away.

I know that actor availability is a thing, but I was so disappointed Graham never showed up to confront Regina about what she did to him. His death is this huge elephant in the living room that the show never acknowledged, it was so terrible and the fact that Regina did this evil thing and never told anyone about it, even her supposed friend Emma who clearly cared about him, is such a huge mark against her supposed redemption arc. This show so desperate to sell on on her being a hero now, but they were so afraid of making us (or the characters) really grapple with what she had done, so her redemption felt really incomplete without her really having to confront people who she had hurt. Plus, while she could try to say her previous crimes were the Evil Queen and not Regina (which is bullshit but its something the show tried to push) she killed Graham as full Mayor Mills. Plus, the fact that she raped him for years is a pretty fucking big deal and can be in no way justified by her revenge boner for Snow, its just pure evil, and the fact that Regina never finds this a big enough deal to bring up is this huge plot thread never touched on. I think it really would have been great if Graham had been there and had been able to tell everyone what happened. Then Emma furiously confronts Regina and she has to admit to what she did and everyone is stuck dealing with it. Then Regina actually has to work on making amends, face the consequences of her action, everyone else has to really deal with the fact that they are all buddy buddy with someone who killed a good person who saved the Charmings and was friends with Emma, and that could lead to everyone really having to have real talk about Regina's crimes. Then they can do a whole thing where Regina helps Graham move on, maybe at personal cost, and she can start trying to be good for real, have her meeting her former victims in the underworld and try to help them as a means to make amends, then this whole plot would have been wrapped up in a decent enough way, giving closure and peace to Graham and really moving Regina towards real redemption. 

Granted, I am not sure how a person gets past "my friend had a sex slave for years" when it comes to friendship, but the Oncer's are a very forgiving sort.  

[Speakeasy]

On 3/3/2022 at 4:17 PM, tennisgurl said:

The Underworld story did have potential, I liked the idea of getting a chance to see a lot of old characters, learn a bit more about the cosmology of the Once universe, finally allow some of the gang to get closure and wrap up some loose ends. It gave everyone a real quest, like in Neverland, instead of the heroes just aimlessly wandering around waiting for the villains to do something, there was potential for a lot of character growth, especially after everything that went down in Camelot, I think it really could have been a good story. 

It's possible I'm bitter towards the whole arc because I found the whole thing so dull and underwhelming-Hades was dull, the setting being Storybrooke with slightly scary lighting was dull, the explanation for that was stupid-I suppose the main thing that makes me bitter, actually, is that it starts off with Rumple getting his darkness back, making the first half of the season half pointless, and ends with Hook getting brought back to life, making the first half of the season entirely pointless.

Well, it did kill Robin (who wasn't doing anything anyway) and integrate Zelena into the cast. I still don't think that's enough to justify it even though I think Mader is delightful.

On 3/3/2022 at 4:17 PM, tennisgurl said:

I know that actor availability is a thing, but I was so disappointed Graham never showed up to confront Regina about what she did to him. His death is this huge elephant in the living room that the show never acknowledged, it was so terrible and the fact that Regina did this evil thing and never told anyone about it, even her supposed friend Emma who clearly cared about him, is such a huge mark against her supposed redemption arc. This show so desperate to sell on on her being a hero now, but they were so afraid of making us (or the characters) really grapple with what she had done, so her redemption felt really incomplete without her really having to confront people who she had hurt. Plus, while she could try to say her previous crimes were the Evil Queen and not Regina (which is bullshit but its something the show tried to push) she killed Graham as full Mayor Mills. Plus, the fact that she raped him for years is a pretty fucking big deal and can be in no way justified by her revenge boner for Snow, its just pure evil, and the fact that Regina never finds this a big enough deal to bring up is this huge plot thread never touched on. I think it really would have been great if Graham had been there and had been able to tell everyone what happened. Then Emma furiously confronts Regina and she has to admit to what she did and everyone is stuck dealing with it. Then Regina actually has to work on making amends, face the consequences of her action, everyone else has to really deal with the fact that they are all buddy buddy with someone who killed a good person who saved the Charmings and was friends with Emma, and that could lead to everyone really having to have real talk about Regina's crimes. Then they can do a whole thing where Regina helps Graham move on, maybe at personal cost, and she can start trying to be good for real, have her meeting her former victims in the underworld and try to help them as a means to make amends, then this whole plot would have been wrapped up in a decent enough way, giving closure and peace to Graham and really moving Regina towards real redemption. 

Granted, I am not sure how a person gets past "my friend had a sex slave for years" when it comes to friendship, but the Oncer's are a very forgiving sort.  

I think if you were going to bring Graham up it needed to be earlier on in the series. If you said nothing about him for four years and suddenly had a huge dramatic storyline about his death it would just seem jarring, everyone would be confused and frustrated, either that they'd gone without mentioning him before or that they were suddenly talking about this side character from season 1 the audience had stopped caring about.

To me it would make more sense for the real (ghost)Marian to turn up and actually resolve that mess of a subplot.

[Camera One]

I was thinking about redemption and how they could have addressed Graham if they brought him back.  I think the only way it would work is if Regina herself initiated making up for all the wrong that she had done.  The problem is that the show always made it seem like the "heroes" freely forgave and forgot about what happened to Graham, or Snow's father, and all the other innocents whose lives ended or were ruined because of Regina and Rumple, that it's almost jarring to the fictional "world" they've created to address it.

I certainly still cared about Graham and would have liked to see him, but I don't see what you can have Emma or Snow say to him in a way that doesn't make them seem crazy and delusional for now being BFFs with Regina.  It's unbelievable enough that they would forgive all the horrible things Regina did to them personally, much less all the things she did to everyone else.

Not that it wasn't jarring to have the opportunity of the villains facing their past and they instead, they had Regina be the one forgiving (Cora), or Rumple punishing Milah further, or surprise "twists" like Liam being complicit in the mass murder of his crew rather than Regina, Rumple or Hook having to confront the damage they did themselves (I think Hook actually had a good redemptive arc, but that Liam backstory was just so ridiculous though quite revealing about how these Writers think).

Edited March 18, 2022 by Camera One

[scarynikki12]

On 3/17/2022 at 3:16 PM, Camera One said:

I certainly still cared about Graham and would have liked to see him, but I don't see what you can have Emma or Snow say to him in a way that doesn't make them seem crazy and delusional for now being BFFs with Regina.  It's unbelievable enough that they would forgive all the horrible things Regina did to them personally, much less all the things she did to everyone else.

The entire show would have had to be different from season 2 on in order for a Graham return to make any kind of sense. I keep coming back to Regina's vault of hearts. They established the Once multiverse in season 1 and the confirmed it was still in tact early in season 2. Regina ended season 1 by telling Henry that she did love him and it looked like he (and Emma) believed she was finally telling the truth. What they should have done was have Regina, who finally learned to love someone other than herself, decide to return the hearts in her vault. It would be both proving to Henry (and others) that she was changing for the better and a way to keep her involved in the general shenanigans. They'd need to hold strong and not give into their desire to make Regina that bestest, most important character in the history of ever and not become BFF with her victims but have an uneasy truce instead. Fast forward to the trip to the Underworld and Graham returns to learn that Regina isn't locked up but has been returning hearts to dozens/hundreds of people since the Curse broke. I can see him being ok with that since he'd want the hearts returned. It could work as long as he doesn't have to see his murderer being fawned over by the people whose lives she ruined.

But that would never happen since it would prevent Regina from being the bestest ever.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, scarynikki12 said:

It could work as long as he doesn't have to see his murderer being fawned over by the people whose lives she ruined.

This really is the key to all the problems.  Emma and Snow being grudging allies with Regina was one thing, but "All I ever wanted was to be your friend" or "You were the one who gave me hope (by killing my father)" was outright ridiculous.  Likewise, having Rumple fall in love with someone like Belle fawning over him pronouncing how good he was inside was just not believable.  If anything, his love interest should have been another ex-villain.  Ditto for the unbelievable Regina/Robin Hood pairing.  

Edited March 19, 2022 by Camera One

[scarynikki12]

Years ago I remember people theorizing that Regina would get with the Sheriff of Nottingham, King Richard, or Prince John and any of them would have worked better than Robin. If I had to choose I would have gone with Richard provided they play up how awful he truly was. I think Regina would have appreciated him invading lands and murdering and oppressing the people living there. She'd have liked the Sheriff's bullying and John's greed as well. So right there were three solid choices for a Regina love interest that would have worked with her character so of course none were on the table because she was now a hero.

As for Rump they should have made Lacey permanent. I know he liked abusing Belle, which Lacey would never have allowed, but the Lacey persona was better suited to his personality. It wouldn't have been hard to either have Hook sending her over the line be the murder of Belle or for Rump to cast a spell to make Lacey permanent and his partner in crime. If not Lacey then just keep him single and focused on being The Dark One.

[Camera One]

7 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

Years ago I remember people theorizing that Regina would get with the Sheriff of Nottingham, King Richard, or Prince John and any of them would have worked better than Robin. If I had to choose I would have gone with Richard provided they play up how awful he truly was. I think Regina would have appreciated him invading lands and murdering and oppressing the people living there. She'd have liked the Sheriff's bullying and John's greed as well.

LOL.  I liked the guy who played the Sheriff of Nottingham, and he would have worked well.  I think we also mentioned other potential appropriate love interests like Frollo (she would have identified with his gaslighting and burning of people's homes) or Scar (she would have identified with murdering others to take the throne and she treated her dad like Scar did the hyenas).

Edited March 19, 2022 by Camera One

[scarynikki12]

I can't see Frollo as a love interest due to his Madonna/whore complex but they would definitely get along great.

Scar would be a good option though. He also staged a murderous coup so they'd have plenty to talk about on dates.

[Speakeasy]

You guys are proposing love interests that would just highlight and encourage her worst qualities. She's supposed to have a journey of redemption so she should have a love interest who can help reign in her dark impulses. "Opposites attract" is an oversimplification but in a good couple each partner at least has something the other is lacking so they can help each other in some way.

Robin Hood would have been a perfectly acceptable love interest if he'd had a bit of edge to him. If Marian was still dead and he was angry and looking for vengeance when they met but still had an intense sense of justice then he could understand her anger and resentment, but still call her out when she wanted to do something evil. And that in turn could help her better understand what's wrong with her attitude to people.

 

HIstory edit:

also the 3rd Crusade was launched to assist the Crusader Kingdoms after Saladin deposed the Kingdom of Jerusalem and was on his way to clearing out all the others. These states were allied to the French and through them to the Normans by blood, oath and religion. Richard wasn't just randomly deciding to go clear across the world to bash people's heads in.

 

Edited March 20, 2022 by Speakeasy
Rants

[Camera One]

I was only half-joking with Frollo, etc.  Yes, for sure, each of those choices above would also need to be a reforming villain.  I think the Sheriff of Nottingham was actually trying to turn things around in Storybrooke by the last time we saw him.  They could easily have given someone like Scar a sob story (bullied as a child for his scar while his father favored Mufasa) and he later regretted killing his brother like Regina regretted killing her father.

Robin Hood would only work as a love interest if Regina wasn't the one to imprison Marian, and if he didn't live in Snow White's kingdom to hear about all of the atrocities committed by the Evil Queen.  Unfortunately, both were the case.  Plus the recast actor lacked the edge that the original had.  Not to mention they saddled him with believing that he owed a debt to Rumple simply for not killing his whole family.

[Shanna Marie]

On 3/3/2022 at 10:17 AM, tennisgurl said:

Granted, I am not sure how a person gets past "my friend had a sex slave for years" when it comes to friendship, but the Oncer's are a very forgiving sort.

The issue with Graham and the Charming family isn't so much what Regina did to him, but rather why she did it. She ripped out his heart and turned him into a slave for saving Snow's life, for refusing to kill her. Then she murdered him for breaking enough of her control to leave her for Emma. You'd think that Snow and Emma would have a problem with that. Then again, Snow didn't have a problem with Regina having arranged her father's death, trying to kill her, and cursing her for 28 years so that she was kept apart from her daughter, and Emma didn't have a problem with Regina being responsible for her horrible childhood and trying to kill her. So maybe they'd just consider what Regina did to Graham one of the many things she did when she was "a different person."

But the real problem with the Graham issue is that Regina -- even after she'd changed and become "a different person" -- knew what she'd done to Graham and why and never owned up to it. She let Emma grovel to her for ruining her life by not letting her murder her boyfriend's wife while knowing that she'd murdered Graham just to spite Emma. That issue remaining unresolved put their friendship on a really shaky foundation. Anything that came up to remind us of Graham would have only amplified that. The writers and many of the viewers seemed to have forgotten about that, and the longer things went on, the worse any revelation would be. If Regina had had a moment of self-awareness and empathy in 4A and realized the parallels between what she'd done and what she was accusing Emma of, and if she'd used that as a time to come clean, I think I could almost have bought them moving past it (in the Once world. In the real world, it would be hard to imagine wanting to be friends with Regina, no matter what happened). But if they'd run into Graham in the Underworld and learned what really happened to him and Regina had never confessed, I don't see how they could have shrugged that off with any credibility.

It's not that her crime against him was any worse than anything else she did. It was that they created situations that paralleled what she did to him where she put all the blame on the other people who had done far less, and she wasn't self-aware enough to realize this. It's also like her making Snow grovel to her so much for killing Cora when she knew she'd arranged Snow's father's death, and she'd never apologized for that. I don't know if Snow ever learned Regina's full rule in that. I think she strongly suspected it, but the genie got blamed for it. Regina never confessed that she had set it all up.

So, really, they were in a tough spot. Either have Regina have a moment of self-awareness in 4A when she realized how Emma must have felt when Regina killed Graham and confess and apologize instead of expecting groveling, have them discover what happened later, feel betrayed by her not confessing and break up the friendship, or do what they did and pretend it never happened. Viewers who liked Regina could also sweep it under the rug, and those who didn't like her could look at her lack of a confession as yet another reason to dislike her.

 

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

But the real problem with the Graham issue is that Regina -- even after she'd changed and become "a different person" -- knew what she'd done to Graham and why and never owned up to it. She let Emma grovel to her for ruining her life by not letting her murder her boyfriend's wife while knowing that she'd murdered Graham just to spite Emma. That issue remaining unresolved put their friendship on a really shaky foundation. Anything that came up to remind us of Graham would have only amplified that. The writers and many of the viewers seemed to have forgotten about that, and the longer things went on, the worse any revelation would be.

The time issue is a really good point, since Graham was literally never mentioned again.  

I mean, we could imagine there was an offscreen moment/deleted scene.  Let's see...

DELETED SCENE VERSION 1 - Season 4A

REGINA: Remember when you tried to steal my boyfriend?

EMMA: Graham and I were NOT an item.  

REGINA: I can admit it.  I was a pretty bad girlfriend to him.  What I did was...

SNOW:  Let me stop you there.  Now I think I win the bad girlfriend award by drinking a memory potion to forget David and then sleeping with Dr. Whale.

EVERYONE laughs heartily.

EMMA: And Regina, you're not that person anymore.  You've changed.  

DELETED SCENE VERSION 2 - Season 5 - Underworld

REGINA: There is something I have been meaning to tell you, Emma.  Graham...

EMMA: Is he here?  I feel horrible for not believing him.

REGINA: Emma, he died because I crushed his heart.  

EMMA is distracted by innocent school children running and screaming at the crosswalk.  She goes over to comfort them.

CHILDREN: The wolves are attacking us!!!!

EMMA: You are safe.  There are no wolves here.

[FLASHBACK.  We see GRAHAM/THE HUNTSMAN leading a pack of WOLVES to murder a village full of children]

Later that Episode: Mount Doom

GRAHAM: Emma, I am responsible for the death of all those children.  

EMMA: You???!!!!!   I thought it was the red herring of The Big Bad Wolf!  The 3 Little Pigs were lying and they're the evil ones!

GRAHAM approaches the fire pit, ready to take a step into the flaming fires of hell.

REGINA comes running in with the CHILDREN.

CHILDREN:  STOP!  Regina made us realize the truth.  WE FORGIVE YOU, GRAHAM!

A bridge of light appears as GRAHAM and the CHILDREN walk across into the LIGHT.

GRAHAM turns back.

GRAHAM: I hope you can forgive me, Emma.  Goodbye.

EMMA looks at REGINA, her eyes beaming with pride at what she did for Graham.

REGINA: Don't you dare say anything, Emma, or I'll push you into the fires of hell myself!

EMMA laughs as the two FRIENDS walk into the sunlight.

VIEWERS: Awwwwwwwwwwwwww, how heartwarming!  I totally forgot about what happened in Season 1.

THE END.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Camera One

[scarynikki12]

7 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

You guys are proposing love interests that would just highlight and encourage her worst qualities. She's supposed to have a journey of redemption so she should have a love interest who can help reign in her dark impulses.

True but Regina getting with someone who was a decent person wouldn't have made sense. A decent person would NEVER want to be with the woman who was known for oppressing and murdering hundreds of people even before casting the Curse. I think the show had some awareness of this since they showed that Robin was perfectly comfortable cheating on Marian with Regina and not at all bothered by Regina being her murderer in the previous timeline. If he was truly the noble Robin Hood from legend/the Disney movie he'd have never gotten with her in the first place much less continued after Marian's return.

We also saw how they went overboard in trying to bring Emma and the Charmings to Regina's level after the decision was made to fast track her redemption.

Since the show did want to do a Regina redemption story then she needed a bad guy to be her love interest. First and foremost her redemption should have been her story for the remainder of the series and should never have been achieved. It should have been something she continued to pursue when the finale episode closed as the journey was the point. Along the way she needed to do specific things like returning the hearts, apologizing to the victims who still lived, and use her magic in constructive and positive ways. To be honest I don't think she needed a love interest at all but the character's popularity guaranteed that she'd get one so it needed to be a bad guy. In this respect she actually would have benefitted from paralleling Emma's relationship with Hook. The one thing of Emma's that actually would have made sense to also give to Regina was the one thing they didn't. Regina meeting a bad guy and doing some initial bonding over the horrible things they'd each done but she hesitates to get further involved as she's focused on her mission to return the hearts and not be the genocidal monster she'd been for decades. If they wanted to continue the We Are Both thing that only seemed to exist to keep Snow in Mary Margaret mode then give him a cursed persona who wasn't bad and have that be influencing his real self. 

However it would have been done, giving Regina a good guy love interest just did the same thing as making her friends with Emma and the Charmings. They looked like total assholes for not caring about the truly horrible things she'd done to thousands of people over the decades. Even if we remove everything Regina did pre-Curse, Emma knew that Regina had kidnapped thousands of people, brainwashed them, and abused her son. Those three things, together and individually, should have led to Emma trying to arrest Regina over and over but instead she was begging to be BFF. Robin and the Charmings were well aware of what Regina did pre-Curse so they had even less of a reason to have positive feelings towards her and they all ended up worshipping her. I'm surprised no one kissed her feet when she was voted Dictator Of The Universe.

[CCTC]

Did Emma even find out Regina killed Graham or suspect that she did?  HE died early on before Emma believed Regina was anything more than a mayor with a bad attitude and did not know about the crushing of hearts and the rest of town was in their cursed mode.  I don't remember if they revisited his death at all after everything else was out in the open.

I rewatched through Neverland when the show ended and before it left Netflix, and in Sean/Robin's first episode he had more of an attitude and sparred with Regina, and they did seem to have some potential.  They almost immediately had him see the error of his ways and within an episode or two was praising her greatness and they lost a lot of their chemistry.  She was also more interesting with Wish Robin.  She really needed someone to spar with and someone who called her out rather than someone blinded by how "bodacious" she was.  

Someone commented how well the pilot has aged and I agree.  In some ways it is too bad it was not planned as a one season limited series - because, while not every episode was perfect, the first season arc was well done and the pilot and finale complimented each other perfectly.  They could have added one more act and closed the series out with a bang including the villains getting their comeuppance. 

I know when the show ended, they said the plan was for it to be Regina's redemption story all a long, but I have some doubts.  Except for when she all of a sudden cares about Henry in the finale, there really is no evidence that there was a plan to redeem her and except for some early flash backs prior to her killing her father,  the character never shows any vulnerability.  

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, CCTC said:

Did Emma even find out Regina killed Graham or suspect that she did?  HE died early on before Emma believed Regina was anything more than a mayor with a bad attitude and did not know about the crushing of hearts and the rest of town was in their cursed mode.  I don't remember if they revisited his death at all after everything else was out in the open.

No, it was never re-visited.

The awkward thing is the main person who was sure Regina killed Graham was Henry.  Which should have made it HARDER for him to forgive and warm to Regina, and which made his behavior in 2B incomprehensible.  

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I know when the show ended, they said the plan was for it to be Regina's redemption story all a long, but I have some doubts.  Except for when she all of a sudden cares about Henry in the finale, there really is no evidence that there was a plan to redeem her and except for some early flash backs prior to her killing her father,  the character never shows any vulnerability.  

I'm guessing this is where A&E personally wanted to go with it, but there were tight reins on them in Season 1.  With the show's unexpected success, they got the freedom to actually go there with Regina and that's how Henry, Snow and Emma became kowtowing minions desperate for her approval and friendship.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Regina losing her memory after S1 would've been interesting. What if she had become a stern but lawful Mayor Mills, and had completely forgotten about her villainous past? That would've been a bit of a moral conundrum if she had turned into a completely different person. The characters would've had to deal with the fear she may remember who she was and kill everybody. Maybe Emma or someone else finally warms up to her, then bam - she's Regina again. She would have a terrible conflict because part of her can't believe she was an evil dictator in another life, while her old self can't believe she turned a new leaf with her former enemies.

Can you exact justice against someone who doesn't remember anything and has a curse personality? That would've been something Sherriff Swan would've had to contend with. It would've been extra spicy if she didn't even remember killing Graham and the events of S1 were all fuzzy/vague.

I feel like it would've been a way to keep Regina around longer and made it make sense. I don't think Regina's sudden turnaround in 2A was awful, but it wasn't terribly interesting either. Then Cora shows up in 2B and returns her memory, and it's a big "oh crap" moment.

Edited August 10, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Yes, at the end of the day, for both Regina and Rumple, they needed:

(1) To have actual valid and believable reasons for the protagonists and her former victims to continue to work with and associate with them

(2)To have the protagonists and former victims hold the villains to account and not become naive doormats who justify the wrongs committed against them, or even more ridiculously, become cheerleaders for their former tormenters

(3) To have the villains earn their redemptions by making sincere apologies, amends and sacrifices on a lengthy path to redemption (if they want to go this route)

(4) To think about how adding further crimes and atrocities in flashbacks affects the characters rather than assuming viewers would accept villains will always be entertaining when they get "bold and audacious"

So their treatments of Regina and Rumple were a huge flaw in the show which reared its head relatively early (in Season 2).  

To me, the other big flaws with the show would be shoddy worldbuilding and not knowing what to do with the "good" characters except to use them as cheerleaders for the bad ones (which is related to the villains problem).

Edited August 10, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

(1) To have actual valid and believable reasons for the protagonists and her former victims to continue to work with and associate with them

I think if it were just the Charmings that Regina had wronged, then it would've been a lot easier. Regina's crimes should've all been focused on getting revenge Snow, not her killing redshirts for giggles. It would've made more sense if she felt justified in her collateral damage because it was a means to a "just" end. The truth is she did many horrible things to people and it had nothing to do with her quest for vengeance. If her biggest crime was cursing an entire population to live in an idyllic small town in Maine, that would've been fine to explore. If it were just about the Charmings, then you could argue they'd keep her alive for Henry. Emma might've been less quick to execute her as well since she didn't know her as the Evil Queen.

Whenever I do S2 rewrites in my head, I have to come up with a reason for the town not to constantly try to kill Regina in her sleep. (Especially when she didn't have magic.) If she Regina was completely redeemed and the Charmings forgave her, there's still a town full of people who were cursed and lost loved ones because of her. Keeping her in a magic prison while they figured out what to do with her could've been one temporary solution, but it would be a pretty big handwave if we kept seeing flashbacks of her torturing people and then she's still Storybrooke's heroic mayor in the present. (Especially when her former victims are constantly around her doing nothing more than making a snide remark here or there...)

With Rumple it was easier before he got multiple "redemptions" because he was just too powerful to kill and the heroes needed him to save their asses every once in a while. Regina only survived because of plot armor. She was not always the most powerful person in town and they didn't really have a reason to keep her alive. Another possibility for combating this issue would've been that because Regina cast the curse, everybody in town might die if she dies. I could see her building that into the curse as a contingency.

[Camera One]

6 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

With Rumple it was easier before he got multiple "redemptions" because he was just too powerful to kill and the heroes needed him to save their asses every once in a while. 

Even towards the end of Season 1, I was beginning to think this was happening a tad *too* often.  By the time the stars in the hat aligned with the stars in the sky, their dependence on him was becoming annoying plot convenience.

I guess Belle was blinded by love but her constant defense of Rumple was as irritating to watch as Snow and Emma groveling to Regina.  

9 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

If it were just about the Charmings, then you could argue they'd keep her alive for Henry. Emma might've been less quick to execute her as well since she didn't know her as the Evil Queen.

Yes, and it was palatable as long as the Charmings (including Henry) viewed her warily and they weren't vilified for it.  

[KingOfHearts]

52 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Yes, and it was palatable as long as the Charmings (including Henry) viewed her warily and they weren't vilified for it.  

For Snow and Charming, I could see them eventually adopting an awkward "relative you don't like but have to see at Thanksgiving" relationship with Regina. I could actually see Emma and Regina eventually becoming frenemies, but not in the way the show went about it. I could see them being reluctant co-parents. Regina and Henry probably had the most potential for real reconciliation. 

Edited August 10, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I still think "Once" should have had a half season devoted to Christmas/winter solstice. 

A mash-up of the backstories of Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty, Scrooge/Ghosts of Christmas Past/Present/Future, the Grinch, the 3 Kings and nativity, Krampus, etc. would have been interesting, maybe all set in Narnia with the White Witch, who of course turns out to be Regina's long-lost sister.  

[KingOfHearts]

On 12/23/2022 at 12:54 PM, Camera One said:

I still think "Once" should have had a half season devoted to Christmas/winter solstice. 

I never understood why we never got more holiday or folklore characters, al a Rise of the Guardians. Like you're telling me Tinker Bell was real but Jack Frost wasn't?

You know A&E would've loved a Santa Claus Big Bad. I'm not even joking. It could've been some ultra high intelligent commentary on consumerism or something. They would've totally had a scene where Regina says something snarky then punches him in the face and it would be gif'ed as a badass girl boss moment.

Edited December 28, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[scarynikki12]

I had another idea the other day. We've talked about how one alternate to Snow casting the Curse would have been Zelena forcing Rump to cast it with Neal's heart. My new idea if for Regina to force him to do it. The first half of that season she defeats the regrets tree by proudly admitting she has none because every choice she made led her to Henry. Ok, then she should have spent the second half flashbacks trying to move Heaven and Earth to figure out some way to get back to him. If kidnapping, brainwashing, rape, and murder are actions she doesn't regret then she should have no qualms about digging up The Dark One and forcing him to use his son's heart to cast the Curse. After all it will return her to the Land Without Magic and Henry. It would have been an interesting twist if Zelena had been trying to stop Regina the whole time and everyone just assumed the Wicked Witch of Oz was the bad guy.

[Camera One]

Interesting idea.  I think by that point, they didn't want Regina to do anything that bad.  They wouldn't be able to have Henry waxing poetic about how she loved him all along if she was responsible for his father's death.

Even though Regina's redemption arc was horribly executed, I think the fact that she remained relatively tame from Season 3 onwards prevented the see-sawing that happened with Rumple.  

[KingOfHearts]

Just finished rewatching Hercules with a bunch of friends. I really wish they would've had the Underworld arc last for a whole season. The first half could be in the Underworld where the main characters meet dead people as they did in the show, but the other half could be the gods trapped in Storybrooke. Maybe they lost their immortality and/or memories, and the heroes help them regain it in order to defeat Hades. Imagine dealing with a bunch of Greek mythological threats in Storybrooke. It could be a fun of game of the characters trying to figure who is what god or some other character in Greek mythology. Its a crying shame that Hercules and Megara were as misused as they were on the show. At least one of them couldve been reoccurring for that half-season.

[Camera One]

30 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

but the other half could be the gods trapped in Storybrooke. Maybe they lost their immortality and/or memories, and the heroes help them regain it in order to defeat Hades. Imagine dealing with a bunch of Greek mythological threats in Storybrooke. It could be a fun of game of the characters trying to figure who is what god or some other character in Greek mythology.

That's a great idea.  If only A&E were truly interested in mythology and fairy tales.

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Its a crying shame that Hercules and Megara were as misused as they were on the show. At least one of them couldve been reoccurring for that half-season.

I agree, but I always think back to Jasmine and Aladdin and how being recurring could be just as much as a curse.

At least Hercules was like himself.  Megara could have been a random character.  Makes me wonder if anyone re-watched Hercules before that arc.  Well, all they needed was a "wouldn't it be cool" if Hades and the Wicked Witch rode a bike together on a date.

[KingOfHearts]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

Well, all they needed was a "wouldn't it be cool" if Hades and the Wicked Witch rode a bike together on a date.

I didn't hate the idea of Zelena filling the Persephone role, as it explained why the Underworld looked like Storybrooke and did have a pretty good tragic ending. I didn't really buy into their romance, though. Realistically, Hades would've kept asking her out and she would've kept turning him down.