Unpopular Opinions: Happily Ever After? Yeah, Right!

[Kktjones]

Pretty sure this will be an unpopular opinion, but I hope that Killian doesn't have the Hook in S7. I don't necessarily want him to have his hand back, but I hope for a more traditional prosthetic. I think the hook was negatively impacting his wardrobe options and it just looked so out of place with his modern clothes. 

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Kktjones said:

Pretty sure this will be an unpopular opinion, but I hope that Killian doesn't have the Hook in S7. I don't necessarily want him to have his hand back, but I hope for a more traditional prosthetic. I think the hook was negatively impacting his wardrobe options and it just looked so out of place with his modern clothes. 

I'm with you on this. Getting rid of the hook would be very symbolic for his character development. There's no reason he should be keeping something that came from his revenge days. With magic, getting a new hand would be easy. It would have been romantic if Emma did that. 

[Shanna Marie]

26 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm with you on this. Getting rid of the hook would be very symbolic for his character development. There's no reason he should be keeping something that came from his revenge days. With magic, getting a new hand would be easy. It would have been romantic if Emma did that. 

Ditto. The reason for him giving the hand back was so bogus, and there have been so many opportunities in which he should have got his hand back, that it's getting ridiculous for him to still have the hook. Even if he really did think the hand made him evil (never mind that he was worse with the hook), why didn't Dark One Hook give himself the hand back when he was in Gold's shop, talking about Rumple taking his hand? Why did he have the hook in the afterlife? Why didn't Zeus fix things when sending him back? Now, Emma has the power to fix it. Rumple is supposedly part of their family, sitting at supper with them, and he has Hook's hand in a jar in his shop.

[Kktjones]

I guarantee the reasons for him still having the hook are 100% brand-related and 0% character driven. It's like they think people won't know who he is without the hook. The breaking point for me was seeing him in his wedding outfit with the freaking hook. I love that Emma accepts the hook and it doesn't bother her, but she needs to give him his hand back!

[FormerMod-a1]

I agree, he could have a hand or hand prosthetic by now.  He could carry a hook as a weapon to maintain the name. (Not that history and legend wouldn't be enough to keep the name).

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, aquarian1 said:

He could carry a hook as a weapon to maintain the name. (Not that history and legend wouldn't be enough to keep the name).

But he doesn't even seem to want the name anymore. He introduces himself as Killian. He seems a little embarrassed now about having been Captain Hook. That's something he wants to put behind him. Which makes it really about the branding and not the character. How can they use the hook in graphics and posters if he doesn't have it anymore? Also, the writers totally fail in creativity.

[RedKeep]

It's definitely a branding thing for the show, but I gotta say I'm not a fan of 'fixing' a handicapped character with magic and possibly as some sort of reward for changing for the better. That would involve some really... unfortunate implications that make me glad the show hasn't gone there. I wouldn't mind them permanently giving him a state of the art prosthetic hand instead of the hook, though. But yeah, branding and A&E being A&E.

[Shanna Marie]

17 minutes ago, RedKeep said:

I gotta say I'm not a fan of 'fixing' a handicapped character with magic and possibly as some sort of reward for changing for the better. That would involve some really... unfortunate implications that make me glad the show hasn't gone there.

I think that would have made more sense before they showed that his handicap could be fixed magically, but then was unfixed because of a perception of morality, and before Rumple got his handicap fixed magically and didn't undo it. There are some even more unfortunate implications in saying that the person who took Hook's hand away from him could put it back -- and has done so, but conned him into wanting that reversed because he was afraid having the hand made him evil -- and is now a happy member of the extended family while still keeping Hook's hand in a jar and not setting it right, even though Hook during an evil phase healed Rumple's disability that he wasn't responsible for, and Rumple kept that healing.

If they'd made it a plot point that magic couldn't heal that injury, or couldn't heal it after all this time, or if he'd changed too much since he lost the hand and the hand would no longer fit him, etc., then you could go with not showing that a handicap could be fixed with magic. Or if Rumple hadn't been fixed magically.

[Camera One]

The Hook thread would be more appropriate for this, or we'll never be able to find this discussion again, much like everything in this thread.  It's nice to have "unpopular" opinions everywhere.

I would prefer the hand if only for the actor's sake.  It must be so annoying.

[daxx]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

The Hook thread would be more appropriate for this, or we'll never be able to find this discussion again, much like everything in this thread.  It's nice to have "unpopular" opinions everywhere.

I would prefer the hand if only for the actor's sake.  It must be so annoying.

I quite think Colin likes the hook though. lol

[ParadoxLost]

So I've been thinking about it and I don't think I actually care if Emma's happy ending is preserved even though she is off the show.  Its not important to me in and of itself.

Her happy ending was hollow.  It was a couple nice montage scenes.  But everything about the last few seasons undercuts it so why is it important?  It wasn't a satisfying conclusion to a long journey.  The journey was a major letdown and the conclusion mostly empty. 

Her wedding to Hook was an afterthought in the episode supposedly dedicated to it.  The theme of the finale had a huge undercurrent of Henry being the true savior all along, setting up the next season.  Everyone got a happy ending and whether they had worked for it didn't actually matter.

My wanting a happy ending is more about avoidance than anything.  I want to avoid getting ragey at Hook when its handled badly.  I want to avoid a scenario where even the favorite Captain Swan episodes are unwatchable because the ending got rewritten from blah to infuriating.  I want to avoid A&E having one last chance to abuse the fans of Emma and Hook.

If I had one iota of faith in this show, I'd be arguing that it was necessary to the show's future that Hook and Emma be separated (by death or otherwise.), Hook treat his former relationship with the respect its due, but that he would need to move on if for no other reason than he is the actor who has chemistry (platonic or otherwise) with almost everyone and he can't spend the remainder of the show grieving or looking for Emma.  And fandom can't be constantly hoping for the return or mention of a character that is gone.

[KingOfHearts]

I'm actually happy Emma isn't going to be featured in S7. Her character got butchered in S6, and I'm thankful we won't have to deal with her WALLS any more.

[Anna35]

I actually enjoyed Emma's happy ending. After years of watching her suffer, it was nice to know there was light at the end of the tunnel. I wish the show had ended there.

But it didn't and it's as simple as that. For season 7 I am wondering if it would be better for the other characters to kill her off. Hook can do more then look for Emma and what would make Henry more cynical then seeing Emma die? What if Colin signs on for a season 8? Is his character still going to be looking for Emma. 

Maybe they could kill her off and in the finale bring her back to life. 

[RedKeep]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm actually happy Emma isn't going to be featured in S7. Her character got butchered in S6, and I'm thankful we won't have to deal with her WALLS any more.

I'm not particularly mad she won't be part of it either and I agree that the happy ending didn't feel like a satisfying conclusion to 6 year long journey either, mostly because it seemed very generic and not like something the writers actually spent serious time and effort on. I'm not one of those who expect Jen Morrison to come back for more than the episode she's contracted to appear in, except maybe an eventual series finale if they don't kill her character off before that. Therefore I'd rather have them be upfront about Emma no longer being a part of the show, one way or another, in their story too rather than have Colin/Hook waste time on meaningless off-screen quests or whatever that ultimately don't lead to anything. He chose to stay, so give him something to work with. The character certainly still has potential beyond being Emma's LI and if they don't get to that now what's even the point of keeping him around.

[Rumsy4]

A good way to give Colin something good to do, and develop Killian as a character beyond the self-loathing pirate pining for Emma is to make him a father. Not by giving him another love-interest, IMO. It just doesn't work for his character to have a third love-interest after losing Milah and Emma. 

[RadioGirl27]

9 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm actually happy Emma isn't going to be featured in S7. Her character got butchered in S6, and I'm thankful we won't have to deal with her WALLS any more.

But, don't worry. You are going to have a whole season about Henry's WALLS. Isn't ir funny?

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

A good way to give Colin something good to do, and develop Killian as a character beyond the self-loathing pirate pining for Emma is to make him a father. Not by giving him another love-interest, IMO. It just doesn't work for his character to have a third love-interest after losing Milah and Emma. 

A&E are going to wager everything in the romance department to Henry and her baby mamma. So I doubt they are going to give Hook a new love interest. But I also doubt they are going to give him and Emma a kid.

[KingOfHearts]

6 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

A good way to give Colin something good to do, and develop Killian as a character beyond the self-loathing pirate pining for Emma is to make him a father. Not by giving him another love-interest, IMO. It just doesn't work for his character to have a third love-interest after losing Milah and Emma. 

I'd like to see Hook do anything but brood or follow Emma around. 

Edited July 12, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

7 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

A good way to give Colin something good to do, and develop Killian as a character beyond the self-loathing pirate pining for Emma is to make him a father.

That could work by giving him a kind of Captain Charming relationship with adult Henry -- or like Emma and Mary Margaret had before they lost all interest in writing for them. Assuming they don't age Hook up to go with Henry's aging up, they'd have the same kind of child who's almost the same age as the parent situation as Emma had with her parents, though with the twist that Hook's actually hundreds of years old and knew Henry's grandmother. Then throw in the fact that Henry's a father now, which makes Hook a grandfather of sorts to Lucy, and that Hook was already sort of a grandfather to Henry, though they didn't ever have quite that relationship.

Or I could go for Lucy and Hook having a relationship similar to 2A David and Henry.

[jhlipton]

On 7/6/2017 at 9:19 PM, Shanna Marie said:

he has Hook's hand in a jar in his shop.

[sings] I have one hand in  my pocket and the other is in a jar in Rumple's shop.[/sings]

21 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm actually happy Emma isn't going to be featured in S7. Her character got butchered in S6, and I'm thankful we won't have to deal with her WALLS any more.

11 hours ago, RadioGirl27 said:

But, don't worry. You are going to have a whole season about Henry's WALLS. Isn't ir funny?

 

I thought we would have Regina complaining about the glass CEILING!

[KingOfHearts]

I hate the episode 4x04, "The Apprentice". The Captain Swan date was overwhelming, it was infuriating to see Hook get his hand back then lose it again, no one wanted to see Hook hold the idiot ball, and it was ridiculous that Anna was able to outwit Rumple. Why the heck was Rumple forced to follow Anna's commands after she relinquished the Dagger?

Edited July 17, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Anna35]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I hate the episode 4x04, "The Apprentice". The Captain Swan date was overwhelming, it was infuriating to see Hook get his hand back then lose it again, no one wanted to see Hook hold the idiot ball, and it was ridiculous that Anna was able to outwit Rumple. Why the heck was Rumple forced to follow Anna's commands after she relinquished the Dagger?

I love that episode. It's one of my favorites from an admittedly bad season.  I guess that's why it's an unpopular opinion though, right?

Rumple isn't that smart, and I liked Anna's earnestness beating out Rumple's smug arrogance. Anna was a Mary Sue especially in White Out but The Apprentice confrontation felt more befitting for fairy tales which are often moral tales.

[superloislane]

I quite enjoyed 'The Apprentice' but I have never liked 'The Crocodile' - another Rumple/Hook episode. People always mention it as the first episode Hook was in and how that's great but it's not really about him at all - it's about Rumple. I hate the present day stuff and the flashbacks were too quick for me to care about Milah dying. It's also the only episode Emma isn't in and Snow and Regina are also missing which is probably why it always felt off to me - it's weird not having any of the major female characters in it.

[Shanna Marie]

I have very mixed feelings about "The Apprentice." In a way, it's the perfect 4A episode in that there are some nice moments (like the little we saw of Hook and Emma's date, Emma getting ready for the date, the Charmings waiting for her to get home), there's some good acting (all the scenes between Hook and Rumple just zing with intensity), but it ultimately makes no sense in context, future developments totally undermine it, and it's that infuriating thing where it's pretending to be a character episode (Hook and Emma have their first date!), but all the character stuff is really just contrivance to set up a plot that doesn't make any sense. It's never about Hook and Emma starting their relationship. That was just an excuse for all the hand stuff, which was just an excuse to get Hook under Rumple's thumb (which ultimately didn't matter -- would it have changed the plot at all if Hook had just run into Rumple outside the mansion and Rumple took his heart, without the blackmail stuff first?). If it had really been about the character stuff, they'd have set it up better. We'd have seen some awkwardness with the hook, maybe some frustration that he couldn't hold a cup of coffee and hold her hand, or he accidentally poked her while putting his arm around her, or something. The rationale for him wanting to get rid of the hand also didn't make any sense -- would a right-handed person who hasn't had a left hand for more than a century suddenly start leading with his left hand if it wasn't really whammied? If he was at his worst when he had the hook, then why would the hand make him a worse person? Then they went on in later episodes to show even more horrible things he did while having the hook, which made it even sillier. He murdered his father and left his younger brother and orphan while he had the hook. He murdered an innocent, helpless man while he had the hook. He betrayed Ursula and stole her voice while he had the hook. But the hand was going to make him a worse person? And the episode established that Rumple could restore the hand, which then raises the question of why nothing's been done about that since then -- not while Rumple is supposedly a good member of the family and they're all at the table together, not while Emma was the Dark One and could have done it, not while Emma's Savior magic could presumably do it, not while Hook was the Dark One and could have done it for himself.

Meanwhile, there was nothing in the flashback of Anna and Rumple that would have given Anna any information that should have been the "oh no, Rumple's up to something" smoking gun revelation that it was treated as. There were so many other clues that something was wrong that it became ridiculous that the thing that apparently made Emma feel like she had to rush back to town was the fact that Rumple lied about not having met Anna before. Anna knew about the hat and that he wanted it, but she didn't know what he'd have to do to use it, had no way of knowing it was in town.

So I guess I was "What a cute episode" on first viewing, but it doesn't hold up at all.

[Shanna Marie]

Okay, here's my really unpopular opinion: I'm not at all impressed with "Skin Deep." Every bit of romance and emotion from the Rumple and Belle story is only there because it's borrowed from Beauty and the Beast. There's not actually any substance to what we see onscreen, and it doesn't even map to the Beauty and the Beast story. Remove the B&B iconography like Belle's wardrobe, the rose, and Chip the cup, change the character names, and ban the use of the word "beast" and no one would be getting excited about that relationship. If it's just Mary instead of Belle and the guy she's engaged to is Gary instead of Gaston and you're not imagining the Beauty and the Beast story, then it's pretty horrifying -- creepy wizard demands that a girl become his slave as payment for him saving her village, he keeps her in the dungeon, but she starts to like him because he cracks the occasional sick joke, then he turns her fiance into a rose and gives him to her, she thinks that's a sweet gesture, she tries to kiss him to break his curse, but he stops it because he wants to stay the way he is. The Beauty and the Beast comparisons don't work because Rumple isn't a Beast because he's ugly. He's a beast because he's a horrible person. He doesn't change as he falls in love with her. He's still the same horrible person, or worse. Nothing happens between them to cause her to fall in love with him other than him making a couple of sick jokes at her expense and catching her when she falls while doing his housework. The thing she takes as a sweet romantic gesture from him is actually him having murdered her fiance. In discussions of the show, I've taken the "it was okay at 'Skin Deep,' but then the relationship went off the rails" stance, but after rewatching, I have to say it's awful from the start. It's nearly impossible for me to get through it now that I know what comes later.

I do find it amusing that she thinks he's keeping the mirrors covered because he can't bear to look at himself and he thinks he isn't worthy of love because he's ugly, but then we later see that he keeps the mirrors covered so that Regina can't spy on him. So even back in the "good" episode about their relationship, she's totally deluded about him.

The one thing I like about this episode is the girls' night out, seeing Cinderella, Snow White, and Red Riding Hood out on the town. It's the kind of thing I wish we'd seen more of, the fairy tale characters interacting in their normal lives and being friends.

[oncebluethrone]

I just finished watching that episode and all the RB scenes felt very flat. The whole episode felt flat actually, as if there was no emotion to them at all. And I agree that if you take the Beauty and the Beast story out, Rumple and Belle's relationship is very creepy.  There is also the issue of Gold beating Belle's father in present day. I did enjoy girls' night out.