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3) We met a lot of new characters! Who was your favorite? Least favorite?
I like Drizella and Alice. I don’t like Drizella’s accent, but if i pretend that isn’t happening she has had the most interesting storyline, though they need to do a much better job explaining her issues with her mother. I am hoping now that they are trapped in the well together, that that will happen. I do like Alice, but she has not been properly developed. I don’t like any version of Hook, so her being related to him is the low point. I am looking forward to them showing her relationship with Robyn even though i am not convinced that they will do a very good job with that. Robyn being related to Zelena and Regina and therefore them being invested in Alice’s well being because of her relationship with Robyn is a better connection.
4) Who do you miss the most from the first six seasons?
The show does not work without a good female protagonist. That was Emma and Snow in the early seasons, then just Emma later on. Ella is unlikable. They have not developed her in any ways that would make her interesting. We still know too little about her past. We still know too little about how she really thinks. Her being cursed just makes all of this wasted time spent on her on again/off again with Henry and her fighting with Tremaine and with her behavior all being because she is cursed and so everything she does is pointless.
Even in the flashbacks, she is not at all like Snow, which was the pitch. She has a sword, but all she did was try to kill a guy that didn’t deserve to be killed in the first episode and then join a resistance that has done nothing and we know is going to go no where because now Tremaine is working with them. Snow was strong in Season 1 because we saw her going toe to toe with Regina and it was awesome, and while it wasn’t perfectly written, there was real loss and anger and depth behind their feud. There is none of that with Ella and Tremaine. We also saw Snow and Charming fall in love and it was sweet and you got why they would like each other, we have seen nothing that would make me think that Henry would like Ella except she is pretty.
This show does not work without Emma and it hasn’t worked without Snow for many seasons, in my opinion. The show needs that main female protagonist not just varying degrees of villains that go from evil rapist to some form of crazy. Henry cannot take this spot. It had to be Ella and her character has not remotely filled the hole in this show.
6) What storyline would you change if you could?
For me, the one thing i would change would be them wasting time this season finishing off the characters that were gone. Emma should have died or been finished off last season. She should not have been in this half at all. I know people like that Rumpel episode, but that should have happened either last season or been the second episode, and then been done with. They spent way too much time in the early episodes on characters that no longer matter like Emma and real Hook and Belle. They needed to spend all that wasted time on developing Ella first and foremost as a character in her own right and then on developing Henry and Ella’s relationship.
In Season 1 the show was hardcore in the first episodes, showing us who Emma was, showing us she wanted to protect Henry, showing us that she was willing to help others, showing her going to toe to toe with Regina just like her mother. In the early seasons we are immediately introduced to Snow and Charming and we see them fall in love in pretty much in one episode and it worked. The blanks were filled in over time, but that one episode was the stage that the entire relationship was developed on. We are shown Emma and Snow having important conversations about Henry by the second episode. We saw Regina’s development as the villain with a backstory in the second episode. The new Ouat in Season 7 waste those early episodes on characters that are no longer important to the show. That should have all been finished last season.
7) What are you hoping for in S7B?
Character development is always my wish. I want them to give Ella a personality and show us how she ticks. They should explain how she feels about what happened with her parents, how she feels about her mother leaving, how she feels about Anastasia almost dying, and how she feels about Drizella. Does she consider Drizella her sister and Tremaine like a mother? There can be no growth till they show us where she is at. I want them to have Drizella and Tremaine talk about their issues. I want them to show Henry and Ella fall in love. I want them to show Alice and Robyn fall in love. I want them to show Gothel’s motivation and show us what she is doing and why. It is rough because there is really nothing i want out of Regina, Rumpel, or Zelena. They are fun characters to move around, but there isn’t a lot of development going on there with any of them. Hook, whether fake or not, always just needs to die. He won’t, but i will never stop hoping for it.
8) Rate and/or grade S7A as a whole!
This show is a fail as it has been for about four years. There is no proper character development. The characters choices don’t move the plot forward. This episode with its like eight random plot objects proves that. The characters never have real choices. They introduced all these new characters and for most of the we don’t know enough about them to even discuss what they might do. Character development. World building. It is a whole thing and the writers should start doing it.