Do you think the Black Fairy and Gideon would have been as interesting had their characters’ arcs been stretched out all season? Don’t get me wrong. I really like Gideon, and I would have preferred to have seen more of his story with his parents and his savior dynamic with Emma. He is an original character, which means a lot could have been done with him. Plus, he is an interesting foil for Emma. (e.g. Both were given up for their best chances, both discovered their destiny on their 28th birthday, both have magic though one is dark and the other is light, etc…). The Black Fairy is interesting, too, though her story seems like it can be contained to a single episode. Sometimes characters’ arcs seem better than they are precisely because they’re written concisely and in the span of a few episodes rather than stretched out and diluted with “filler” episodes.
I don’t like Gideon. I don’t really like the actor either. I think he could have been interesting but he is just being controlled by the black fairy, so nothing that he has done or is doing is actually interesting at all.
It is the Black Fairy that should have come in, not Gideon. She should have known Hyde or been that bird that appeared to Emma when she met the oracle. There should have been some connection to Hyde and Jafar and the Black Fairy or the Blue Fairy. Hyde should have died quickly, in my opinion. That was right, but they then did nothing interesting. The split queen arc was boring and lasted too long and really nothing happened of that until the episode where the Evil Queen and Regina finally talked. The Snowing sleeping curse was boring and also lasted too long and nothing interesting came of it either.
I do agree that things last too long, but there needed to be a connection between all these things. I completely agree with the other poster that they have done nothing with the savior mythology at all except to say that there are multiple ones. That hasn’t even been discussed since early in the season in any way except Gideon wants to be the savior which makes no sense.
There are just no connections here. It is just a bunch of random elements with no coherent arc at all. It is bad. I thought the beginning of this season started of well with some open questioned, but the end has just been random boring nothing.