Snow and Charming writing to each other in between going to back to sleep for this new curse. Hook opening up the storybook and reminding Emma that she comes from true love and that she can conquer anything.
Well I wouldn’t count those two because they are romantic pairings and we’re talking non-romantic pairings. But, again I take your point so let me flesh out the actual criticism.
I think what I’m getting at (I won’t speak for @hjbau) is that the conversations tend to follow one of a few paths:
1) non romantic pairing having super heavy conversation about what is going on with the big bad or expressing the theme of the arc and/or show (hope, family, faith, belief).
2) romantic pairing that discuss either their romance and/or have a super heavy conversation about the big bad or expressing the theme of the arc/show.
3) Group conversations that revolve around the current plot and/or the MacGuffin of the week.
Few of these are character conversations. And if they are, they tend to be almost too weighted down by the current plot dilemma and then never go anywhere after the vignette or scene or episode is done. It’s like…personal revelation for 5 seconds and then, nothing for arcs at a time.
I mean, we don’t get Snow and Emma just sitting around chatting about their hopes, dreams, or anything to do with them their very selves ect (with absolutely nothing coming back to their romantic partners…because that’s a fail of the Bechdel test). For example, Emma going to therapy was rather a genius idea; the girl needs it, badly. But one of the biggest conversations Emma had with Archie wasn’t necessarily about her but rather about Hook losing his happy ending if she dies. EEK! Now, yes, I can accept that any sane person would think about their romantic partner if they suddenly learned they were going to die, but for it be *at the forefront* of the conversation (especially when Emma has about a thousand problems she needs to delve into) that’s…super problematic.
The conversations are becoming rather rote; for example
–Emma has a problem; if she doesn’t turn to Hook automatically (which happens more often than not) she turns to Regina (which always has a bit of a queer baity feel to it). If she doesn’t turn to either of those two and there is no Tragic Female!of the arc (read: the likes of Elsa) THEN she turns to Snow/Charming
–Snow and Charming, if they are lucky to get tagged as Emma’s confidant take on a Greek Chorus vibe—in tandem they offer the same piece of advice every time: have hope, the family will make it because we’ve made it through other stuff, hope, family, hope, family, rinse and repeat. They aren’t characters in these moments so much as non-sentient sounding boards who are pre-programmed to give pre recorded responses.
And here’s the rub: Snow and Charming have good conversations with each other..but that’s the point. That’s a romantic pairing conversation.
The basic problem that lies behind all this criticism is too much plot. An absolute abundance of plot. Our characters are so consumed with plot that there’s no room to breathe. It’s rush around, rush around, defeat, defeat, defeat. And even if there is a nice lull without any monster/big bad, we don’t get to see it (the six weeks in between 4A and 4B, for example!)
I’m not asking for 22 episodes of Snow and Emma braiding each other’s hair and watch the Gilmore Girls. But if we were to scale back on ALL OF THE PLOT then we might find that characters are able to have more meaningful conversations–that last longer and have greater impact than for more than a hot second.