I think the only reason Regina was compelling in season 2 was because of Lana’s acting. I don’t know why they thought they would make us have sympathy for Regina by showing us she massacred an entire village and planning to kill everyone in Storybrooke.
It’s a fair point. The slaughtering of the village was ridiculous given what they were trying to do with the character. However, I had no issue with the characters not forgiving her until season 3B because she was truly a terrible person to everyone. Forgiveness takes time and it felt realistic. Regina’s entire story arc is the only thing that doesn’t feel rushed on this show. I don’t know if it’s Lana’s acting, the writing, or whatever. Even when evil, she always loved her son. Henry was her moral ground. And Emma’s relationship with Regina over the years is also the best written relationship on the show. And it shall be her and Emma standing together to take down Rumple once and for all……haha I wish.
But back to jumping the shark….as others have pointed out, jumping the shark is something the writers incorporate that seems out of left field just to improve ratings. Just because they wrote away from what made season 1 so great, doesn’t mean they are jumping the shark. If you are one of those people who truly believes they are writing for the sole purpose of shippers out there, then ok. Maybe, because they are attempting to change up the story to please fans and therefore keep the viewers they have. But I just don’t buy it. Writers take risks. They took a risk with Neal and killed him off. Maybe that didn’t work. But as I’ve said before, I think fans get way too caught up in shipping everyone and shipping wars that they think writers do too when the plot happens to coincide with their ship beliefs. I think it’s entirely possible the writers loved Hook, knew the fans loved Hook, felt that Neal had run it’s course, and thought it would be an emotional death, and a way for us to really hate Zelena. And then, Hook gets even closer to Emma and shippers think it’s because there were more CS fans then SwanFire fans. All you can do is speculate. You don’t really know.
If I was writing a story, I would certainly take into consideration fan favorites and what not, but it would not be the biggest factor in my storytelling. I would think that I would have a story I wanted to tell and I would tell it. Obviously if your ratings suck, you may need to change things, but to say they jumped the shark because the narrative revolved around ships seems silly. There were ships going on in season 1 too. Obviously snowing, Emma and Graham, Regina and Graham, Rumple and Belle. The writing has just contradicted itself and has just been generally poor lately but that is not jumping the shark.