6 X 01 THE SAVIOR – – What was your favorite and least favorite moments

Welcome back everyone; I hope you all had a great summer!

General: I thought this episode was a middle of the road episode. It wasn’t horrible but it also fails to live up to any hype, for me at least. It felt like a lot of scenes simply thrown, one after the next, without any real glue holding them together (like, why is Hyde in Town Hall? How did everyone know to go to the woods and watch the Blimp? How did Zelena know to move into Regina’s? How did Snow know to go to Regina’s vault; how did Snow and Regina end up together talking at the very end?) You can’t put your characters in situations and not tell me how they go there.

Out of a 10, I’d give this episode a 6

LIKED

–Pongo!

–“Keep on calling me girl; see how that works out for you” Sometimes Emma has her spunk

–So Belle was in the Red Room but not when Rumple pulls her from that place into Dream World? Sure. It’s an answer at least.

–Pretty sure that Red Bird is Fawkes from Harry Potter. (but who exactly is this Little Girl??) (is it Iago?)

–“For you I would be the best man I could be.” Then prove it, Rumple! Stop claiming to love the dagger as much as you love Belle.

–My crack pot theory about Morpheus is right. I can’t even right now. Like, really? I was JOKING, writers!

–Regina’s speech about choosing to believe she gets a different ending was great. Lana really is a gift to this show.

MIXED

-In spite of the recasting, I like the thesis Jafar is putting forth about Saviors not getting happy endings. But it’s rarely true in stories. The hero does get some sort of happy ending, but it may not be what the expect–this can include death but death for their cause. Buffy is still the Slayer but she is no longer alone in her quest; Harry defeats Voldemort and lives with his family and friends, no longer an orphan; Frodo finds peace in the Grey Lands and Aragorn is restored to his kingdom with his Elven bride. These archetypes are archetypes and cliches for a reason. I get that the show is spinning their own version and I’m interested to see how it plays out but I don’t get how Jafar can make such a claim (our world examples are just that–examples.)

–Was Belle really terrified of the castle? And her life there? She saw through Rumple’s Beast persona in the beginning. She saw that he wasn’t as dark as he tried to make her believe–that was sort of the point of Belle.

–The Rumbelle dance was lovely but also a cheap marketing plot since Beauty and the Beast just came out on Blu Ray or something.

DISLIKED

–A blimp flies over the town and within 5 seconds the entire town is assembled in the woods, without any sort of communication, right where Hyde happens to be!

–How did Zelena move in when they JUST got back from New York/Land of Untold Stories? Regina didn’t even ask! She came home, talked to Hyde and that was that.

–Has Emma grown at all? Every year we are told that someone–Neal, Henry, Hook, Regina, Elsa–knocks down Emma’s walls. But oh! There we are, Archie spewing the same platitudes about Emma and her walls with Emma shutting everyone out.

–“I think Hades was wrong. I think Robin is at peace.” AKA: stop bothering us, fandom! We don’t have time to think through the moral consequences of our show!

–Remember when Regina and Zelena made great strides in “Sisters”? So much for that! The back and forth is so tedious. Also, they just had Regina place all the blame on Zelena and absolve Emma totally. I can’t.

I thought the episode was Okay.  I would give it a 6 out of 10

Liked:

Snow and Regina talk, this is what the show is supposed to be about “family”

I liked that Zelena was so self aware that she understood that she was upset that Regina took away the part of her that she felt she could relate to, and maybe even the thought process that even though Regina was also the evil queen she could still be redeemed.  I wonder if Zelena is scared that she can’t be redeemed and still have the “wickedness” inside of her. I mean after all that is kind of what the show is saying right now.  Regina can’t be totally redeemed with the “evil queen” inside her, Rumple can’t be redeemed with the “darkness” inside him.

I liked that Rumple is still being honest, even though I don’t feel he is getting credit for it.  He has been brutally honest with Belle ever since he stated to her that he would love her with courage and honesty at the end of 5A. I also liked the dance scene even if we only got to see them be happy for like 10 seconds.

I like Mr. Hyde, I am not sure why yet but I like him he is intriguing

Mixed:

Belle seeing the castle as scary and dark, she started thinking Rumple wasn’t scary and dark even before Robin Hood scene (which was pretty early on in the relationship) so I am not buying it.

Why was Snow White the only one carting around a bow and arrows and who did she think she was going to shoot

Everyone just ending up in the woods, why don’t they ever land I don’t know in the middle of town

Disliked:

Regina blaming Zalena for Robin’s death.  I agree with Zalena that if it was anyone’s fault (other than Hades) it would be Emma.  OK maybe it is not completely Emma’s fault but I am really tired of her and all the other “heroes” getting off the hook for all their bad decisions.  It is annoying.

I want an explanation of why Morphius already hates Rumple  I also hate that Belle does  not feel that Rumple has any say in their child (which they created together) sorry guys if you decide to create a child together you need to decide how to raise it together in most circumstances.

I actually thought it wasn’t that great. It kind of dragged along. Mildly boring. Didn’t really wow me.

Likes: Jafar. Zelena and Regina’s scene in the house. Dream world scenes. Um… that’s it.

Dislikes: Everything else.

I give it a 5/10

I’m onboard with the “sometimes villains lie” revelation. It’s true to life.

EDIT: In general I agree wit the quote. But in terms of Hades lying about Robin…

The thing about this is that it doesn’t make sense other than to give RH an afterlife for the viewers.

The Olympian Crystal was supposed to be powerful enough to kill even the gods by obliterating their very being. No afterlife (as the gods already live in the afterlife technically). So why would Hades lie? He was planning on using the Crystal on Regina, not himself. What purpose would their be for him to say such a thing. If the crystal doesn’t destroy your soul, its useless to kill a god, so why does Hades give it importance? If it does, them RH is gone entirely. Either way, the writers are playing us for fools.

The writers are just… really getting on my nerves when they can’t be consistent and logical.
Look, just have Zeus send a message via mushroom that he saw what was about to happen and used magic to save RH somehow before he could, like, really be obliterated and we can all just accept it.

Literally, just have Zeus text Regina and I will say nothing.

Rating: 4/10

General thoughts: Too much happened too fast. There was no build up then pay off; it was just like “this happened, this happened, this happened”. Without any proper structure or suspense, the episode felt really flat.

Likes:

– Regina actually mourning Robin. Her feelings and conversations were pretty realistic.

– Seeing Archie and Pongo.

– Belle and Rumple’s relationship problems not being swept under the carpet.

– Regina wanting to create a new story. This is so much more mature than ranting about being entitled to a happy ending like she was in S4.

– Zelena’s line when she heard that they’d caught Hyde. It was something like, “What so quickly? I thought it’d be a long, difficult process filled with twists and turns.” I loved it because it encapsulated my feelings about their Hyde capture and also the other storylines in this episode.

Mixed:

– Aladdin and Jafar. I want to enjoy this story but I’m not sure I will.

– Did all those people arrive on the blimp? I’m confused. I thought they’d already arrived through the portal. Oh well. At least Emma and co. didn’t try to convince the residents of Storybrooke that it was just a weather balloon.

Dislikes:

– Emma, her visions and the “Saviors don’t get happy endings” storyline. Really? Does ANYONE seriously believe that Emma’s not going to get a happy ending? That’s she’s going to die?

– A random macguffin was plucked from thin air to subdue Hyde.

– The scenes in Rumple’s dream castle. These just seemed like a big retcon of ‘Skin Deep’. The whole point of SD was that Belle WASN’T terrified of Rumple. She was brave, she was calm, she even talked back to him. The way it was presented in this episode makes it implausible that she would ever have fallen in love with him. They didn’t need to mess with SD as it was a beautiful episode.

– The retcon of Robin’s “obliteration”. It felt like they were insulting our intelligence. They should have realised how horrible it was BEFORE they wrote it!

– Not specific to this episode, but it’s annoying how they keep pushing blind faith as a desirable quality. Examples include Henry telling Regina to disregard what Hades said and Regina choosing to trust Zelena out of sisterly love and ending up disappointed. Why would Hades lie about the crystal? We know it was powerful as it could destroy gods. As for Regina and Zelena, it was simply unrealistic to expect Zelena’s judgement to improve as soon as she and Regina became friends. She had the right intentions, but intentions to not equate to ability to make the right choice. This is something Regina should have known.