Yep – we had blocks of episodes with & without many of our mains- that was one thing I REALLY disliked- I thoroughly enjoyed Regina’s stuff this season, at least in the beginning- but I did miss my favs when I hadn’t seen them for more than 2mins for 2 or 3weeks at a time 🙁 . I didn’t mind the 3 way storyline too much- which was meant to longer than it was! Only problem I had with it was there was like 15 subplots going & they tried to jam most of them into each episode regardless. When we focused on AFTL, the plot was way slowed down (to start with), so it was actually nice- then they started trying to do more ‘even’ splits in screen time & then increased the 3 storylines per episode (or maybe it just felt that way lol) & it all got very messy- so yep, I was glad when they went back to SB too! 😉
I wanted so much more of those wonderful S1 character moments, than we actually got in S2 & like I said, that was my biggest disappointment this season- I love the show because of the characters, not because of the magic or it being about fairytales etc. It’s the characters I’m invested in & have me tuning in week after week.
I think the best way I could describe S1 & S2 would be to say S1 was 1 major plot split over 22eps, with each ep containing many character arcs & mini storylines linking the episodes together & into the one major plot.
S2 was at least 5 major plots over 22eps, with each ep containing many subplots, some storylines & a few character arcs, with blocks of episodes linking together & into the major plots – so there was just too much all the time, with no time to really have characters grasping what was going on 🙁 I just hope they slow things down enough plot wise in S3, so we get more than a few mins of on screen character moments every couple of episodes- it’d be nice to feel sad or happy for someone on the show for more than a min before something major happens ie. someone or something trying to destroy them & we are thrown into action, what the what & action again 😉