S01.E02: The Thing You Love The Most

[formerlyfreedom]

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Regina tries to force Emma out of Storybrooke and out of her and Henry's lives permanently. Meanwhile, it is revealed how the Evil Queen released the curse upon the fairytale world.

[KingOfHearts]

I've seen people speculate this episode was the "true pilot" of the series, since the Evil Queen was meant to be the center of all things. However, that shouldn't tarnish just how great this episode is. It's one of my personal favorites from the first season. It doesn't paint Regina as a sympathetic villain, but a tragic one. Murdering her own father doesn't just make her crazy, it makes her a woman who seems to have been pushed over the edge. She's so depressed she sees no other option. That doesn't mean there wasn't another a way to obtain happiness, but you can see an ounce of humanity behind her eyes for a moment. Her desperation to cast the curse exemplifies her desperation to preserve it, clearly establishing her character motivations. You don't need to know everything that's happened between her and Snow to comprehend her fears and determination. She doesn't have to be misunderstood or sympathetic to be engaging.

In the present, the Emma and Regina feud is actually really entertaining. Emma chopping down her apple tree with a chainsaw is still one of my favorite Emma moments of all time. The show does a good job of making Mayor Mills a formidable villain by showing off her power via her pawns in town. Ultimately, it's Emma's faith in Henry that saves the day. It's not faith in the curse, but rather in the idea that if she invests herself in his life, he can find joy outside of the abuse at home. Her choice to play along with Operation Cobra is her deciding to help her son, regardless of the cost. It subtly supports her character arc. 

It may seem tired now, but I LOVE the scene with Regina and Mr. Gold at the end. It still gives me chills. I miss that dynamic.

[profdanglais]

Regina was definitely a far more compelling villain at this point, but I can't help wondering if the writers knew what Snow White's great sin against her was when they wrote this episode? 

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Because the reality of it is just so disappointing. Why set it up so dramatically only to have it turn out to be a child's mistake engineered by Cora? Surely they could have come up with SOMETHING that Snow did to ruin Regina's life for realsies, especially if they wanted to make Regina more sympathetic? 

 

On a lighter note, I love the aesthetic of Season 1 so much. Mary Margaret's loft is so pretty and better lit than in later seasons (hope that doesn't need a spoiler tag!). Also her hair and clothes were so adorable. I loved S1 Mary Margaret. 

One final spoiler observation: 

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They really oversold the evilness of the Dark Curse in this episode, when you consider how commonplace it became later. All Maleficent's warnings about how casting it would leave Regina empty really came to nothing, and of course they later engineered loopholes for the "heart of the thing you love most" not once but twice. Such poor planning. Were they obsessed with curse casting, or could they really not come up with any other ways to transport people in/out of Storybrooke? Or maybe just not transport them at all? Also, if Regina can defeat Maleficent, who is as powerful (or more) as she is in magic, why can't she use her magic to kill Snow? Was it ever explained why she didn't just tear Snow's heart out at her wedding? Was that not sufficiently evil? 

 

I agree that cutting down the apple tree was one of Emma's best moments. Also love that preference for cinnamon in hot chocolate is apparently strongly genetic. 

[Camera One]

This was an good follow-up to the pilot.  I like it more now than I did originally.  I've never been a big fan of "complex" villains but they did a good job of showing Regina's desperation and I believed that she did love her father despite what she did to him.  

I remember liking that we followed what happened with the Evil Queen after Charming threw that sword at her.  It was very "Lost" to me.  Regina was a very fun to watch black-and-white villain.  I loved her evil demeanor when she gave Emma apples, or later when she produced an evil grin after she got Emma to call Henry crazy.  

Even though this was a Regina centric, the heroes (who I generally care about more) still got some great moments.  Since Regina was such a baddie, I found it awesome when Henry was rude to her, like his line "It's an old book. Stuff missing.  What do you care?"  His sass was so much more fun than 

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Lucy in Season 7.  In addition, with no magic in Storybrooke, Regina couldn't stop Emma from getting close to the apple tree so

Emma could actually do damage to Regina's garden with the chainsaw.  I also loved the two one-on-one scenes that Emma had with Mary Margaret.  I had forgotten all those mentions of cocoa with cinnamon.  What MM said made a lot of sense... the fact that Emma wanted to leave showed that she cared about her son and wanted the best for him.  That scene 

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and Emma's scene with Henry where she burns the book made me wish that we saw Emma eventually gain belief and try to break the Curse while making Regina think she was still a non-believer.

The "twist" that Regina's servant was actually her father was a good one.  

As profdanglais said,

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the Mirror looking aghast that Regina wanted to cast the Dark Curse and Maleficent's "there are lines even we shouldn't cross", etc. stuff seems like an exaggeration in hindsight since everyone and their grandma has done a Dark Curse.  How would Maleficent not know who Regina got the Curse from?  Didn't she know Rumple used the Queens of Darkness to get the Curse from under the Chernobog's watch or something?

So there was a THIRD blind witch?  I remember hoping we would see Regina's Evil Friends in town, but we never saw them again.  An alliance of villains would have been entertaining.  

In this episode, they still make it seem like Regina was in control of the Curse, with Rumple asking for a comfortable life, etc.  They've never really explained/clarified what the Curse caster had control of, and what they don't.  

So Snow only gave Henry the book a month before this.  I didn't remember that fact.  And Henry already had to go to therapy before Henry got the book.  

The one thing I disliked in this episode originally which hasn't changed was Maleficent.  She looked nothing like Maleficent and didn't even seem evil.  

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I wished back then and I still wish now that they had waited to use Maleficent properly later.  They should have casted someone else or given her the iconic costume.  And definitely not waste her in the unnecessary way they used her in this episode.  If she were Regina's "only friend", she should have figured in more flashbacks after this.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

Emma taking a chainsaw to the apple tree is one of my favorite scenes. I was already starting to like Emma in pilot and in this episode but that cemented it for me along with her "picking apples" line. I loved that she wasn't going to just back down. I loved Emma's scenes with Henry him explaining the Curse and his reaction to the apple plus her confusion as he tossed it over his shoulder. Her scenes with Mary Margaret were really good too. Regina did make a good villain starting with her sweet giving her a bunch of apples to see Emma off and later getting her arrested. But I didn't like her and it all came to the scene where she makes sure Henry overhears their talk. She was willing to hurt Henry just to get rid of Emma. But she made a good adversary for Emma. The flashbacks did make me wonder what happened refusing to listen to her father as he told her she could start over and have love again. But she wasn't willing to do that. I was curious as to why Regina would go so far to get revenge.  There was so much the show used to do well. In this episode settings and visuals were so good again Regina's castle, the town, Maleficent's castle. 

[Camera One]

6 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

The flashbacks did make me wonder what happened refusing to listen to her father as he told her she could start over and have love again. But she wasn't willing to do that.

That was a conversation I had forgotten.  Regina said to her father, "all I've worked for, all I've built, will be gone.  My power will be gone" and revenge against Snow was "eating me alive".  

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Now that we know there are so many other realms and how easy they would be to get to, Regina could have tried to go to another realm with her father to start over.  She had lost her power over the kingdom, so "all I've built" referred to what?  The Knifington Palace that somehow Snowing decided to give her (which makes no sense in hindsight)?  I'm guessing she was referring more to her magic and her power and presumably how everyone listened to her every command.  Snowing should at the very least have freed all the Dark Knights, so Regina didn't have an army.  Even at this early date, A&E put no thought into all that, and it never occurred to them to put thought into that later, either.  For example, why would Wish Evil Henry have Dark Knights?  

[KingOfHearts]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

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So there was a THIRD blind witch?  I remember hoping we would see Regina's Evil Friends in town, but we never saw them again. 

 

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There's an easter egg in 1x08. You can see the blind witch as one of the reporters in the office behind Regina when she announces she appointed Sidney as the new sheriff. She looks different and not blind, but it's the same actress. 

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

The one thing I disliked in this episode originally which hasn't changed was Maleficent.  She looked nothing like Maleficent and didn't even seem evil.  

Surprisingly, I kind of disagree with this. I actually like that Maleficent was different from what you'd expect, since the show was pushing the whole "fairy tales but not as you know them" angle. It was fresh. One idea I'm fond of is that Maleficent is jaded and done with her revenge schtick. She's a villain who has made peace with herself, but she's still a villain. That's interesting to me. 

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I hate how she was handled in 4B with a burning passion.

Edited June 2, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

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For example, why would Wish Evil Henry have Dark Knights?  

 

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If he had grown a little older, would he have become a spitting issue of Regina? The Evil King? Dressing like Liberace?

[Camera One]

24 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Surprisingly, I kind of disagree with this. I actually like that Maleficent was different from what you'd expect, since the show was pushing the whole "fairy tales but not as you know them" angle. It was fresh. One idea I'm fond of is that Maleficent is jaded and done with her revenge schtick. She's a villain who has made peace with herself, but she's still a villain. That's interesting to me. 

On paper, I agree.  I also like the idea of a villain who got over her revenge.  But there was something about the acting and costuming that didn't convince me that it was Maleficent in the first place.  If I couldn't buy her as Maleficent, she was just a random lady with frizzy hair and pink ribbons.  They could also have chosen another villain to do this with.  Maleficent was the funnest pure evil villain in the Disney universe.  They could also have made this work if

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Maleficent were a recurring character, and we would see more of her past/present, which could have allowed me to eventually see her as Maleficent.  But using her as a one-off was a complete waste.

Maleficent's CGI palace looked really cool too from the outside.

[KingOfHearts]

16 minutes ago, Camera One said:

On paper, I agree.  I also like the idea of a villain who got over her revenge.  But there was something about the acting and costuming that didn't convince me that it was Maleficent in the first place.  If I couldn't buy her as Maleficent, she was just a random lady with frizzy hair and pink ribbons.  They could also have chosen another villain to do this with.  Maleficent was the funnest pure evil villain in the Disney universe.  They could also have made this work if

It's one of A&E's "wouldn't it be cool if" moments where the Evil Queen is besties with Maleficent. They didn't seem to think about it much farther than that. She was just a namedrop. 

Edited June 2, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[companionenvy]

16 hours ago, Camera One said:

The "twist" that Regina's servant was actually her father was a good one.  

 

I don't remember - do we ever get an explanation for this? I don't think we do, but it really doesn't make sense. 

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Especially because we later learn that Henry was a prince in his own right; it isn't like Regina was a commoner elevated to royalty. 

 

Emma cutting down the tree is one of the most iconic moments of the series, for me. 

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

I don't remember - do we ever get an explanation for this? I don't think we do, but it really doesn't make sense. 

No, we didn't.  I guess the dad is such a pushover he does whatever he's told.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Camera One

[legaleagle53]

22 hours ago, profdanglais said:

Also, if Regina can defeat Maleficent, who is as powerful (or more) as she is in magic, why can't she use her magic to kill Snow? Was it ever explained why she didn't just tear Snow's heart out at her wedding? Was that not sufficiently evil? 

I removed this from your spoiler because it isn't really a spoiler here.

There are several reasons why Regina didn't simply kill Snow at her wedding.  First (and this IS a spoiler), 

Spoiler

she couldn't because of a protection spell that had robbed Regina of the ability to harm either Snow or Charming as long as they were still in the Enchanted Forest.

Second, there's no way Regina would have been able to get within three feet of Snow at the wedding -- not with the entire kingdom standing between her and Snow.  And finally, Regina wanted Snow, David, and the kindgom to feel fear and anxiety for those nine months that it would take her to prepare the curse.  That was part of her plan to make everyone suffer.

Edited June 3, 2018 by legaleagle53

[daxx]

The look on Regina’s face when she’s fighting with Henry and the clock starts chiming, priceless.

”only one of us knows what’s best for Henry.” 

“Yeah I’m starting to think you’re right about that.” ?

Yes regina you do look like you need a drink.

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normally she would have responded to him with a sarcastic “daddy” but can’t ruin the shocking twist.

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none of the other times the Dark curse was enacted did she need hair from the darkest souls. Apparently it’s a one time thing and the scroll is permanently activated?

I do like the gnome showing up in a garden.

The look on Emma’s face when Mary Margaret says Henry thinks she’s Snow White, there’s some dust in my eye again.

Regina setting her up with Henry’s files is such a dick move, if she’d ignored Emma for a week, she might have moved on and gone back to Boston.

The chainsaw scene is perfect.

”Please”

”you know what you love, now go kill it.” This show is so disturbing sometimes.

Setting up Henry to hear that Emma thinks he’s crazy was an even bigger dick move. These two moves just ensured Emma wouldn’t leave town. It’s like Regina can’t do anything right now that Emma’s come to town. She literally sabotaging herself.

Jen and Ginny look so much alike, it really helps sell the mother/daughter connection.

its a shame she burned those pages,

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did the book recreate them when it came back in 3B?

Really Regina a black rose for your father’s grave?

”please” ? 

It’s all falling apart Regina! Bwahaha

Edited June 3, 2018 by daxx

[Camera One]

8 minutes ago, daxx said:

its a shame she burned those pages

I was thinking the same!  Those were the only "baby photos" Emma has.  

Spoiler

I forgot that they burned those pages so Regina wouldn't know Emma's true identity.  I wish they played that out longer.

[Rumsy4]

I loved this episode. So many of my favorite moments are in this one. 

First the whole cinnamon thing-Mary Margaret, Emma, and Henry all like it in the cocoa. I loved Emma's moment with MM in her loft (it really had an excellent aesthetic sense). And Emma finding a way to relate to Henry was excellent! And I enjoyed Archie's approving nod.

Emma cutting down the apple tree, and her "Your move" following that were priceless. 

Poor Sheriff Graham. He really cared about Henry. And Regina reacted to his advice by setting up to have her son's heart broken and needing even more therapy than before. Soulless, indeed. Back then, I really did think she was incapable of love because of the "hole in her heart" created when she cast the Dark Curse.

Carlyle's portrayal of Rumple is quite different from later seasons to the point where it's almost jarring to me. I did love the "please" from Mr. Gold at the end.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Rumsy4

[andromeda331]

The Gnome was a nice touch. I love the scenes with Rumple and Regina at the jail he was so creepy and at the end in her garden.  Regina never realizes everything she does is insuring Emma's going to stay. Had she played it cool Emma probably would have left. Nope everything she does only makes Emma realize that Henry was right. Letting Henry over hear them, crushing him and then just sitting back and smiling? After she just destroyed her son? Gee, Regina, you really think that's going to make Emma leave?  

[Camera One]

I love that she was her own worst enemy.  In both this episode and the last episode, the stuff she did came back to bite her in the behind.  So we saw her get her comeuppance on a small scale, but it was still satisfying.  She was giving Emma new reasons to stay and she forced Emma to take drastic measures to retaliate.  She made Henry even more contemptuous of her.  In this episode, even Graham was standing up to her.  And she only had herself to blame.

[andromeda331]

Given how long Regina's known Rumple you'd think she would have stopped to think when Rumple tells her want he wants in the new life and she says if the curse works he won't remember a thing and he doesn't say anything. He never confirms that but that doesn't raise suspicion for Regina. Of course if she really stopped to think for a moment you'd think she'd wonder why Rumple was so eager to help her with Curse that would give him a Cursed personality.

[tennisgurl]

I really do wonder if they knew the whole story of the Snow/Regina feud in this episode,because it is really blown out of proportion given what we know actually happened. The curse is also being rather oversold as an ultimate evil thing, by pretty much everyone. It certainly sucks and was awful, dont get me wrong, but I can think of worst places to be sent then a time loop in a cute town in modern day Maine where your life is boring and unfulfilling. 

I still adore this episode, even as a Regina centric. When I saw this originally, I did actually feel a bit bad for Regina, because she came off as this deeply damaged, mentally ill person who is only somewhat understanding of reality. 

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Seriously, her backstory is super lame after all this set up. To justify doing this thing that even the worst of the worst are telling her not to do, causing her to kill her beloved father, they needed a LOT more horror and trauma.

Emma taking the chain saw to Regina's apple tree is still my favorite Emma moment in the whole show, and one of the best scenes in the show. "Your move" Its just so awesome, and makes me want to do a series of fist bumps. It also really hammers in how Regina is her own worst enemy in so many ways. If she had played nice, and convinced Emma that everything was alright with her and Henry, she probably would have left. But, of course, she cant leave well enough alone, and she always has to be the pettiest person around. I do love her evil expressions throughout, and her Mayor Mills power outfits. 

I wish we had seen more of her evil buddies in town. The frozen gnome is a nice touch though. Its very White Witch of Narnia of her. Also,are we on blind witch number seven now? Is this just a thing in the EF? A rash of witches sewing their eyes shut? 

I also love Sydney showing up with "The mirror always comes through" or something, thats classic season one fun. And I think that ambiguously cursed Gold and Mayor Mills are one of my favorite Rumple/Regina dynamics of the whole show. It gives me chills, especially that last scene between them. It really is so hard to tell what he does and does not know. 

  Oh Sheriff Graham. You can tell how much he cared about Henry, and wanted to do the right thing, even while in Regina's pocket. He and Emma also had really nice chemistry, even from the start.

Every scene with Emma/MM and Emma/Henry are gold. Henry was so cute! And Emma and MM worked so well together.

[companionenvy]

One minor note, while I think some of the complaints that the show was anti-adoption were overblown (Regina being an abusive adoptive mother doesn't imply that all adoptive mothers are abusive), I do think Mary Margaret's comment about all adopted children struggling to understand how they were given up crossed a line, and was not appropriate for a family show likely watched by adopted children. It is probably fair to say that most (but not all) adopted kids at some point have some desire to find out about their birth parents, and some may deal with feelings of abandonment, but plenty of adoptees are raised from early childhood to understand that their birth parents were simply too young/poor/mentally unwell to take care of them and made the difficult decision to give them to parents who could provide a better life. It doesn't invariably lead to trauma in later life, especially if (as is usually the case), the adoptive parents shower the child with love and make them feel chosen and special rather than somehow second best.

[Camera One]

I was thinking about all the fairy tale related names. 

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I was sure Emma would have thought it was a weird coincidence how everyone's names corresponded to their fairytale counterpart.  It was a lot of coincidence.  Hopper = Jiminy Cricket, Ruby = Red, MM Blanchard = White, Regina = Queen, etc.  Of course, she never really clued in.  

[Rumsy4]

14 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

I do think Mary Margaret's comment about all adopted children struggling to understand how they were given up crossed a line, and was not appropriate for a family show likely watched by adopted children.

I agree. It also seemed especially insensitive of Mary Margaret to say that to Emma, even if she apologized for it. 

[Camera One]

It does seem a bit harsh for a show which marketed itself as a fairy tale show that children might watch.  You'd think Regina or even Archie would be the one to deliver that line.  

But at the same time, it is a reality that those types of difficult questions would arise and cannot be simply dodged even if a child didn't watch this show.  I think they did spend a lot of the first episode addressing the implications of that line, to show how birth parents could love their child but surrender them to give them their best chance. 

Edited June 3, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

I think one way to have solved the dilemma is to show a counter-example to Regina. An adopted parent who was loving and not a psychopath. 

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With the number of characters with false memories of being parents to children who were not biologically theirs, like with Grace, it would not have been a difficult concept. But sadly, the writers had no interest in exploring the ramifications of the curse.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Rumsy4

[profdanglais]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I was thinking about all the fairy tale related names. 

  Reveal hidden contents

I was sure Emma would have thought it was a weird coincidence how everyone's names corresponded to their fairytale counterpart.  It was a lot of coincidence.  Hopper = Jiminy Cricket, Ruby = Red, MM Blanchard = White, Regina = Queen, etc.  Of course, she never really clued in.  

Emma is intelligent and street-smart, but she's not really book smart. Some of those connections are plain enough but others are a bit obscure. It doesn't really surprise me that Emma wouldn't pick up on them, at least not straight away. 

[tennisgurl]

Yeah, while I do think the “adoption controversy” was overblown, watching it now...it’s not nothing. There is kind of a “your real parent is the most important parent” vibe, and I can see how Henry telling Regina over and over that she isn’t his mom can sound bad. HOWEVER, them retroactively turning Regina into the Best Mom Ever after she was previously established as being emotionally abusive as hell is pretty awful too. Really, all they had to do was show a positive adoption story, and it would have been fine. 

[Shanna Marie]

This is a difficult episode for me. It's very well done, with good atmosphere, lots of conflict, and even some clever plotting, but one of my personal squicks is stories about frame jobs, especially when the framing is done by the authorities, so there's nowhere for the victim to turn for justice. I almost didn't make it through this episode the first time through, and I only managed it because I reminded myself that this was a fairy tale show, so Regina was bound to get her comeuppance, and it would be glorious.

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Little did I know how wrong I was. If someone had told me then that Regina would end up as queen of the universe with Snow and Emma smiling about it, I'd have turned off the TV in mid episode and never looked back.

I think this whole episode answers the question of whether Regina was lying when she said she loved Henry. If she's even capable of love, her love is warped and extremely selfish. Even before she cast the curse, she was selfish enough to threaten her only friend and murder her father, the person she loved most, in order to get what she wanted, and then the curse supposedly put a void in her heart that she could never fill. She apparently adopted Henry to try to fill that void, and she looked after his physical needs, but there was no sign of her really loving him as a person. There was a mention that she never managed to connect with him, and she made the remark that maybe she was strict, but it was what was best for him. She knew he didn't have any friends, and she knew why, but that didn't seem to have stopped her from keeping him in that impossible situation. And even though she knew she was the reason he was so unhappy, she put him in therapy rather than changing anything about herself. She was willing to hurt Henry to get what she wanted, just as she was willing to kill her father. I liked that Graham called her out on her claims that she was doing what was best for Henry, but she went from there to trying to hurt him in order to make Emma look bad. So, no, she didn't love him. The tricky thing is that she believed she loved him, and you'd think that wouldn't have set off Emma's lie detector, unless she was well aware that her casting the curse really had left a void and left her incapable of love.

I'm going to go with a mild "yay" on Maleficent not being at all like the iconic figure, just because at that point in the series it seemed like they were making an effort to move away from a rigid adherence to the Disney iconography. Snow White had long hair and wore white rather than looking at all like the Disney version, so I'd expect Maleficent to be different.

More timeline issues: We're supposed to be in October in Maine, and Mary Margaret is holding class outside and Regina and Emma are running around in short sleeves or sleeveless. The trees are all green.

2 hours ago, profdanglais said:

Emma is intelligent and street-smart, but she's not really book smart. Some of those connections are plain enough but others are a bit obscure. It doesn't really surprise me that Emma wouldn't pick up on them, at least not straight away. 

The thing that I'm surprised didn't give her a huge jolt was the fact that her baby blanket was depicted in the book. Did she not recognize it?

[Camera One]

8 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Snow White had long hair and wore white rather than looking at all like the Disney version, so I'd expect Maleficent to be different.

To me, it was another case of telling vs. showing.  We saw Snow White's iconic moment so I could believe she was Snow no matter what dress she wore.  The actress/costume didn't sell me it was Maleficent.  

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It's similar to how I never bought Jacinda as Cinderella.  And with her, they did have her blue dress and glass slipper, so only using the same costume doesn't always suffice.  The character has to capture the spirit of the original in some way for me to make the connection and truly believe it.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

3 minutes ago, Camera One said:

The actress/costume didn't sell me it was Maleficent.  

True. They had to tell us who she was. I think it could have worked if

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they'd ever bothered to show her story, like what was going on with Stefan, then what happened to bring her from the time Regina helped her get her groove back to bring her to this point. Then we might have seen how she ended up this way and her character would have tracked.

But I think I was mostly just amused at the idea of Maleficent living quietly in her castle with her pet unicorn. Plus, it demonstrated that even Maleficent had humanity in contrast to Regina. When Maleficent's telling you that your evil plan is a bad idea and maybe you should reconsider and chill, you know you're on the wrong path.

Oh, I forgot to mention how much I adore the chainsaw scene and the way Emma tells Regina that she'll be her worst nightmare.

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It's such a pity that whole thing went by the wayside way too soon and Emma ended up groveling for Regina's friendship. Did they ever even watch their own first season?

[Rumsy4]

Nobody has mentioned the infamous honeycrisp apple snafu yet. Did the prop department not get the memo, or did all the grocery stores in the neighborhood run out of honeycrisp apples? lol 

[Camera One]

23 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Nobody has mentioned the infamous honeycrisp apple snafu yet. Did the prop department not get the memo, or did all the grocery stores in the neighborhood run out of honeycrisp apples? lol 

I don't know my apples so I didn't really notice until it was mentioned on the forums.  I always interpreted it as "Did you know the Honeycrisp tree is the most vigorous and hearty of all apple trees? ... I have yet to taste anything more delicious than the fruit it offers.  But I hate you, so here are some generic apples."

[KingOfHearts]

6 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I don't know my apples so I didn't really notice until it was mentioned on the forums.  I always interpreted it as "Did you know the Honeycrisp tree is the most vigorous and hearty of all apple trees? ... I have yet to taste anything more delicious than the fruit it offers.  But I hate you, so here are some generic apples."

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Zelena and Regina didn't even mention kinds of apples. They just referred to them as "red" and "green", as if all red apples are "sickly sweet". 

Edited June 3, 2018 by KingOfHearts
Forgot to spoiler tag.

[Rumsy4]

13 minutes ago, Camera One said:

But I hate you, so here are some generic apples.

It's hardly a cutting snub, if that was the case. heh

[Camera One]

53 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

It's hardly a cutting snub, if that was the case. heh

Henry didn't even let her eat the apple.  Maybe it had something special added to it.

[superloislane]

6 hours ago, profdanglais said:

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

I was thinking about all the fairy tale related names. 

  Reveal hidden contents

I was sure Emma would have thought it was a weird coincidence how everyone's names corresponded to their fairytale counterpart.  It was a lot of coincidence.  Hopper = Jiminy Cricket, Ruby = Red, MM Blanchard = White, Regina = Queen, etc.  Of course, she never really clued in.  

Emma is intelligent and street-smart, but she's not really book smart. Some of those connections are plain enough but others are a bit obscure. It doesn't really surprise me that Emma wouldn't pick up on them, at least not straight away. 

I'm sure she did realise it but wouldn't she just think that's the reason why Henry thinks they are these fairytale characters. 'Oh this girl is called Ruby, that's the reason Henry thinks she's Red Riding Hood'

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Nobody has mentioned the infamous honeycrisp apple snafu yet. Did the prop department not get the memo, or did all the grocery stores in the neighborhood run out of honeycrisp apples?

It was pretty much mandatory to shout "those aren't honeycrisp apples!" at the TV at that point. Didn't it come out at the first airing that the honeycrisp is a relatively new variety that wouldn't have existed at the time the tree would have supposedly been planted? I don't think it's even a particularly hardy tree, and the apples don't store well. That's why it's a big deal when the honeycrisps arrive in the fall.

[ParadoxLost]

So I'm about a week late rewatching this one.

I find I'm not very impressed by Graham.  Henry is pretty good.  So up is down and down is up and this is not the way I remember it.

Regina really is the worst.  Evil Queen is still too campy for me but Regina is viciously evil.  It bothered me a lot that she was willing to hurt Henry that way.  Killing her father isn't something she can come back from. 

Spoiler

I really wish she hadn't embodied the karma Houdini trope.

 

I thought Snow looking at the clock tower and noticing that its hands were in a different position was very effective.

I take a little delight that there is a gnome in Regina's garden that is permanently pointing and laughing at her.

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Killing her father isn't something she can come back from. 

Spoiler

It kind of pisses me off that, despite all the curses, the show never came back to losing the person you love most. After Regina, every single person cheated it in some way. Pan didn't love Felix, Charming was quickly resurrected, Hook channeled Nimue, and Drizella used Regina's "curse caster" hands. Nobody suffered a tragic loss like Regina did, which diminished the weight of every curse after the first. Also, NOBODY had this hole in their heart Maleficent and Rumple talked about. Regina, Snow, Hook, and Drizella were all unaffected.

Side note: I still hate that Zelena didn't force Rumple to cast the Dark Curse using Neal's heart.

Edited June 9, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

12 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Spoiler

Side note: I still hate that Zelena didn't force Rumple to cast the Dark Curse using Neal's heart.

Same!!!!