- This topic has 32 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
@POM – yup, all that. Not to mention that from the in story perspective Belle’s decision to seek help from Zelena is to me borderline reprehensible. I mean go to Emma. Or Regina if you want dark magic. No matter how much you disagree with your hubby, going to the person who kidnapped and tortured him only to then kill his son seems so… Frankly, just so darn stupid and irresponsible. Same as her buddying up with Hook. I don’t like what they did to Rumple’s character but there’s a bit of an issue when Belle’s friendships are consistently wit Rumple’s main enemies.
[adrotate group="5"]. Not to mention that from the in story perspective Belle’s decision to seek help from Zelena is to me borderline reprehensible.
Sweet mother of god…THAT
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"To quote Lily Sparks :
Once Upon a Time‘s “Sisters” was a great reminder of how, with the fluid timeline and spectrum of memory-erasure curses, any plotline can be easily retconned by sliding in a brand new backstory. Zelena and Regina need to start liking each other? Here’s a hastily cobbled together backstory about the time they were friends. And boom! Now they’re sisters. If they need to be enemies again, Regina can just cast her mind back to that one time Zelena posed as a dead woman to rape Robin Hood. Or Zelena can consider that thanks to Regina she’s essentially a hostage of the Charmings.
"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy
6/10
This is the episode I have been waiting for since season 1….the ep where I get to see baby Regina and her mother’s relationship. I am afterall, a Regina fan.
And I was kind of disappointed.
-baby Regina looked nothing like adult Regina, nor acted like her (facial expressions etc).
-Cora was too nice to baby Regina. She was abusive when she separated Regina and Zelena, then gave them both the forgetting potion, but here it came from a place of misguidance. Even though misguidance can result in abusive parenting styles, Regina’s hatred towards Snow seems to have been caused by more than just misguided parenting….until now, when we find out that even in the past Cora did love her daughter. I just don’t know what to think about Regina’s turn to the dark side anymore. I guess Regina was quite isolated and therefore had no positive influences from anyone except a kind, weak father….the very epitomy of ”kindness/love is weakness.” Perhaps it is the combination of misguided parenting AND isolation that resulted in Regina’s broken psyche.
-I am not sure that it fits that Zelena can change so easily. It took Regina months, years to become the evil queen, and then months, years to change back to her former self. This shows that 1) it takes work to come back from evil and 2) Regina’s resistance to the darkness shows her strength in character. Compare all this with Zelena. Yes, Zelena was originally good, but she descended into darkness very, very quickly, as if her darkness was strong in her all along. It should follow that returning to her former self will be more difficult and a slower process than it was for Regina.
-I am in two minds about Cora going to ”the better place” so quickly. It’s a very nice ending for her, and it sticks to theme of ”hope” but I felt that she needed to suffer much more in some way first before moving on to the better place. I just felt that she didn’t work towards her Happy Ending.
-Regina and Zelena’s relationship was fixed too quickly. Happy memories and pretty words from their mother should not erase what they have done to each other as adults, especially after what Zelena has done to Regina as an adult.
-Robin shooting a dead man. Where is our intelligent Robin Hood gone?
-The message that one person can change another person. They can help each other but not change them (which is what they were really trying to say). Another person can be the carrot, the motivation for a person’s change (like Henry was for Regina), but that change needs to come from within (like it did for Regina). Change does not happen because another person directly causes them to change.
I did like Cora apologising to both daughters though, especially to Zelena. And it was very well acted by all three ladies.
This.
Am I the only one who was bothered by all the shameless retcons in this episode? They totally ruined the episode for me.
In addition, I really hate that ever since season 4B, the show labels people into “heroes” and “villains” and tells me who I should hate and who I should love and give “redemption” with zero effort cause now we need to feel bad for Zelena and Hades can be redeemed because the writers said so, and once again Rumple does horrible things with no sense, no motivation and no explanation, why can’t they put a sign on his shirt that says “he’s the villain, hate him” and be done with it. What’s with his new relationship woth Pan? What happened to all the psychological issues he had because of his father? What happened to the grey characters without classify them as pure villains or pure heroes? People who do wrong things because they think they have a good reason?
"All your questions are pointless"
Not sure what retconned in this episode…and I think Zelena’s arc this whole season has really given us a solid reason for rooting for her. And if she thinks she loves Hades, there has been enough on screen for us to perhaps want her to have a happy ending. It’s not just the writers telling us we need to feel this way. I actually think Zelena has been handled quite nicely this half season, and she was someone I never thought I would want to see redeemed.
9/10
Anyway, just quickly I’ll say I really liked this episode. quite the bounce back from last week for me. So many feels. Those three women stole the show. Incredible acting for me always trumps occasional plot nonsense (which there was some).
Liked:
– Everything Cruella
– Cora, Regina, and Zelena reuniting.
– the flashbacks were nice, but a little wonky in plot as others have pointed out
– Hades actually likes Zelena….I’m starting to be convinced. Him dancing was pretty great. Little things like that show character and I can appreciate it.
Mixed:
– David vs. James stuff. It was ok, but some really cheesy dialogue, and I think everyone knew he was going overboard. I’m just glad Cruella fled bc she’s no moron.
– Rumple working with his father. I don’t love that they are blaming Zelena for giving Belle the idea of the sleeping curse, but I can sort of see where Rumple is coming from and I’m intrigued to see what him and Pan are going to do.
Disliked:
– Wonky plot elements. All the blood magic stuff with Cora not being able to heal Regina blah blah blah. That was crap.
Overall great episode mainly because it delivered on some things I never thought we would see (Zelena reuniting with Cora, and Cora moving on and admitting she was wrong and that BOTH her daughters were her unfinished business). Plus, the acting was outstanding from these three women as was the writing for all the scenes in present day.
…..until now, when we find out that even in the past Cora did love her daughter. I just don’t know what to think about Regina’s turn to the dark side anymore. I guess Regina was quite isolated and therefore had no positive influences from anyone except a kind, weak father….the very epitomy of ”kindness/love is weakness.” Perhaps it is the combination of misguided parenting AND isolation that resulted in Regina’s broken psyche.
I am thinking that heartless Cora did not love her daughter as much as saw her plans go up in smoke when REGINA zapped herself with Cora’s wand. Any caretaking Cora did was self interest and to keep her long range plans of REGINA being queen on track.
.
.
I am just wondering how did CORA rate the LIGHT when she had killed Snow’s mother? She never repented that evil act, or any of her other evil acts so she probably should have had more UNFINISHED BUSINESS in UNDERWORLD.
.
.I am just wondering how did CORA rate the LIGHT when she had killed Snow’s mother? She never repented that evil act, or any of her other evil acts so she probably should have had more UNFINISHED BUSINESS in UNDERWORLD.
@MatthewPaul put this tweet elsewhere but from Jane:@Chipped_Mug7 Not everything you've ever done wrong is included in the Underworld's "unfinished biz" file.
— Jane Espenson (@JaneEspenson) March 21, 2016
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I am just wondering how did CORA rate the LIGHT when she had killed Snow’s mother? She never repented that evil act, or any of her other evil acts so she probably should have had more UNFINISHED BUSINESS in UNDERWORLD. .
More seriously, if we consider the Hook/Liam episode about redemption, and the message Emma was peddling (that one just has to forgive themselves), then maybe Cora just didn’t feel all that bad about Snow’s mother.
On a related note, and @RG, feel free to jump in as the resident religious studies specialist… The more I think about their mythology of the UW, the more I think they are actually modeling a lot of it on the Buddhist concept of bardo where the person’s experience after death and before the next rebirth is often negative, and is the fruition of one’s karma (past actions). The Western interpretation of this concept, which is I think what they’re going with, is that “hell” is really the process of battling one own’s “demons” (some horror movies from the late 80s and early 90s used this as their core premise. Like, if anyone has ever seen Jacob’s Ladder). So “unfinished business” seems to go along this type of logic. Which of course also allows the show runners to skirt around moral absolutes. (A quick note that in Buddhism, karma isn’t morally relative, it has everything to do with how one’s actions have impacted other beings, but OUAT is kind of psychologizing it by suggesting that it’s all about the individual, and how they feel relative to their actions.)
The more I think about their mythology of the UW, the more I think they are actually modeling a lot of it on the Buddhist concept of bardo where the person’s experience after death and before the next rebirth is often negative, and is the fruition of one’s karma (past actions). The Western interpretation of this concept, which is I think what they’re going with, is that “hell” is really the process of battling one own’s “demons”
I think that fits for the most part. I think there are some weird inconsistencies that have more to do with lack of shading of very minor side characters than anything religious or karmic. For example, Auntie Em and the Blind Witch don’t seem particularly bothered by their status as trapped. In fact, the Blind Witch seems perfectly content as did Auntie Em until the heroes arrived and mentioned Dorothy. The Blind Witch is such a minor character and is being used more for Underworld!Google and Comic Relief that the show missed a big opportunity to have her be haunted by her former suppers.
They also missed the mark, then, with Hook–a known murderer who kept trinkets from his victims and who most recently killed Merlin. Since Hook is technically still dead he should be battling some pretty hefty demons….and yet…
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
The topic ‘FAVORITE AND LEAST FAVORITE MOMENTS from this episode 5 x 19 "SISTERS"’ is closed to new replies.