621/622 "The Final Battle, part 1 and 2"–Favorite/Least Favorite Moments

I liked the re-created movie scenes:

– The chin-up scene from Terminator 2.

– The bullet time scene (without actual bullet time) from The Matrix.

(What others did I miss?)

The foreshadowing was cheeky. The Last Supper scene overdid the symbolism, but it follows from the season arc, and the departure of the person with the halo is still imminent. But I really liked that Snow and Charming bought the farm.

Disliked:

Well, that’s what happens to a plot when you run the script back and forth through Google Translate a few times; you can still sort of get the gist of what’s going on.

Old Henry doesn’t look that much older than younger Henry.  Jared Gilmore has been acting younger than he is for a long time. Couldn’t he act older for a while? I’m thinking like the end of the Harry Potter movies with grown up Harry.

Yeah, the first time they showed the guy with Charming’s sword in the opening, i was like yeah, it is going to be an older Henry or a version of him. I have no idea why he wouldn’t help his daughter and i don’t like the little girl, but she may grow on me. I, also, think it is a mistake to just start over in the exact same place with a child finding their parent. It was exactly the same, so it doesn’t feel like a big change at all.

I loved that Henry kissed Emma awake at the end. I was so glad that Emma and Hook were never proved to be true love. I thought they were going to take that part and i am glad it was rightly left with Emma and Henry.

Of course, the mechanics of what happened make no sense. Why were their like ten people from all the realms left in Regina’s castle? Who were those people?

Why was there a bean? I kept thinking that there was going to be a giant and they would recognize Charming thinking he was James who destroyed the bean stalks, but no. That is for a show that makes sense and uses the past to make the future interest. That isn’t OUAT.

Why did Gideon turn back into a baby? Rumpel and Belle hugging? Is his heart still darkened? Though it shouldn’t be because he is not at fault here while someone else is controlling his heart.

Oh, and yeah why in the world would all the magical realms be dependent on Emma’s belief? She is only 32/33 years old and the realms are much older then that. Just random whatever.

Also, it can’t have been two years since Henry ate the turnover and him be 14. That is impossible. Either it has been three years or he is still 13, but the writers are idiots and don’t know anything.

I am not a Rumpel fan, but i liked their ending. I am glad that it went well for them. I wasn’t worried that Rumpel would be killed, but i think that was better then it could have been. Obviously, it would have made more sense with Bae in it and i think that a lot of the dialogue would have been more interesting and would have made more sense with him in it.

You can see the sort of inkling of what they intended to do ending with Rumpel being invited to the family diner with Bae and Emma. Seeing Henry remember in the second episode that he was Rumpel’s grandson. Though, the Black Fairy seemed to have no regard for Henry being her great grandson. Though, she was a terrible person, for some reason, so there is that. Seeing Regina smile at Rumpel in the diner. Seeing them all their together.

I am glad that Charming said Hook was trying to kill Emma and Snow when they first met and that Hook said he had bad intentions. That they weren’t love at first sight or any of the garbage that is written about the episode Tallahassee. That was nice to see that refuted. They pretty much said that their romance wasn’t planned.

I think the end with the Last Supper page was bizarre, but them at the diner was nice, just why make that weird shot at the end. Still, it could have been so much worse, that i am okay with it. I can see the original intention behind the mistakes that the show has fallen into.

Overall I thought this was pretty good, though the ideas were better than the execution, and the whole thing was a bit telegraphic. And while I realize that circularity and parallelisms are the bread and butter of fairytales, some of the ways they brought things back was on the nose, but much was either a stretch or didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Also I missed the beginning of the first episode, so this is a review of the two episodes together.

Liked:

The inversions — Henry kissing Emma awake, Snow kissing Charming awake (though why that worked, is beyond be… But I do love Snowing, classist chauvinist jerks that they are)

Henry drawing a book for Emma

The callbacks to the previous seasons: like the Hook and Charming adventure on the bean stalk though it kinda made zero sense of why that was still a thing. Also, considering how fresh those giant cherries looked, they made a strange boulder like noise when they moved — I’d imagine fresh cherries to sound squishier.

I’m glad that Rumbelle got a happy ending, but I also think Rumple’s redemption was a bit too telegraphic considering how much the writers darkened his character because they couldn’t figure out what else to do with him between 3B and now. Here’s a dude who’s made systematically terrible decisions for the last 3 seasons, and here suddenly he flawlessly turns down every single indecent proposal with the grim satisfaction of hanging up on a telemarketer. Really? The accelerated redemption also meant that the show had to make BF evil for evil’s sake — or I don’t know, was she just crazy? At least Peter Pan seemed to have some kind of motivation that was organic to the character, but Black Fairy made very limited sense as a character.

EQ also kind of suffered from the same “suddenly, moral uprightness” problem as Rumple. But you know what? I’m ok with it. I’m a sucker for a happy ending. I’m actually glad EQ and Robin are off to a happy life of capital appropriation and redistribution. I can totally see EQ/Robin experimenting with state socialism — finally someone thinking of the peasants.

The last supper imagery was odd, but the idea of the whole family coming together and literally “breaking bread”, including Belle and Rumple, was lovely. Though there was a giant hole the size of Bae missing from the picture — this whole story would have made so much more sense with Baelfire still there, in the role of Gideon.

We got to see Neal as a toddler.

Confused:

So, why did Gideon’s heart go dark? Why exactly did he turn into a baby?

What did the BF actually want? Change the laws of magic? Snuff out the light? I am so confused by her gratuitous villainy.

Why did Emma’s lack of belief extinguish all the realms? How did those realms get on before Emma?

The slogan of “when evil and good both do the right thing” — Ok, who is the stand in for evil here? Rumple? EQ? Gideon? Because the BF, who seemingly is the biggest evil on the block, didn’t exactly do anything right.

ETA: Emma’s apartment still there — how? In Boston’s insane renting market? Ahahaha. Haha. Ha.