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I was just thinking how much the dynamic has changed since last season. In some ways, it has become a very different show. I know a lot of people prefer the first season. I’m a bit split on it. Last season had more structure and gave the characters more room to breathe. On the other hand, I love that they broke the curse. Another season of them not knowing who they were and Emma not believing would have driven me crazy!
In the first season, there was no magic in Storybrooke, so we have that big contrast between the enchanted land of the past and the ordinary life of our world in the present. The present day storylines were a bit more “slice of life,” and the flashbacks usually filled us in on a character we saw in present day. There was also more connection to Henry’s book- I had almost forgotten that they used to fade from illustrations in the book whenever we went into the past. We have barely seen the book this season. In “Broken” before we knew that the Aurora-Philip-Mulan story was a flash sideways, I was confused as to why we were being given this other story that had little connection to Storybrooke.
Now, in the 2nd season, we have magic in both the past and the present so there is less of that contrast and less of day to day to life. The characters have been in an almost constant course of action with the entire season taking place over just a few weeks. Pretty much everything and the kitchen sink has been thrown at them. At first, it was fun to have Emma finally see the enchanted forest, but after a while, I grew tired of the characters, and therefore the narrative being divided. Three narratives to follow in one episode is a lot! For the first time, we had entire episodes where we barely saw Emma or Snow. I like the show best when it goes into relationships and the dynamics between the characters. I like watching the Charmings interact- especially now that everyone knows who they are.
It’s funny….we know so much more about everyone than we did last season. It is easy to forget now that until “The Return” aired towards the end of last year, we had no idea what Rumple’s real motives were! We didn’t know about the goodness in Regina for quite a while either.
Although I have had some issues with the 2nd season, I don’t hate it…in fact, I think I’m more obsessed with the show now than I was before. There have been some truly wonderful moments. I just wish things would ease up a bit so the characters can breathe! Now we finally have them all in one place, and Cora is gone, I’m really looking forward to the last 6 episodes.
[adrotate group="5"]I think the three way storylines from the start of Season 2 really hurt the Season. Storybrooke, Past FTL, and Present FTL were too much to squeeze into each episode. They should have either axed the flashbacks for those episodes, or axed the entire Present FTL storyline. It strayed too far away from the show’s formula, which I feel confused casual viewers. I also feel like the flashbacks this Season haven’t complimented the Storybrooke side of the story as well as they did in Season 1. The flashbacks have also focused too much on Rumple, Regina or some secondary character. We got very little flashbacks this Season that actually focused on Snow and/or Charming, when last Season they starred in the majority of the flashbacks. So far we only got “Lady of the Lake”, “Child of the Moon” (which was still mainly a Ruby story), “The Cricket Game”, and “The Queen is Dead.”
I was really hoping and expecting the “take back the Kingdom” storyline to be the main focus in this Season’s flashbacks, but we got so little of it. Snow’s comment in the Season 1 finale surely seemed like a huge setup, but unfortunately it hasn’t progressed much. I also wished that Storybrooke itself would have been much more action packed with magic introduced, and there should have been more chaos. Why are the Storybrooke residents continuing their cursed self routines rather than trying to figure everything out?
I hadn’t thought that first season took place in a couple of months. We saw the seasons change and time move forward. We saw our characters celebrating Valentine’s Day.
Second seasons’ are always going to be tricky. It’ll make or break a show.
With Emma and Snow stuck in the Enchanted Forest, it reminded me of Hiro Nakamura in season 2 of Heroes (except he was stuck in the past) but it was good for Emma to see where she came from and get much needed bonding time with Mary Margaret.
One thing I notice with season, storylines are wrapped up quicker than in season 1. It didn’t take us long to know that Archie was all right, they didn’t drag out whether out Neal with Baelfire.
I do think that S1 had a much stronger structure, but we say that looking back to see that of course it was all leading up to Emma giving true loves kiss to Henry to break the curse. It made perfect sense at the very end, but if you had asked me what was going to happen seconds before A Land Without Magic aired, I would have had no idea. I think what was so great about S1 was how different it was from other things on TV. We met all these great fairy tale characters we thought we knew and we got totally different takes on them, from the one time sweet and innocent Evil Queen to Snow White as a thief. S1 structure was much simpler: FTL flashbacks and present day SB.
Obisgirl is spot on: S2’s make or break a show. I think they made Snow/Emma in FTL a little too long, but I totally understand why it had to be so long, you have to leave for holiday break with some sort of giant cliffhanger/major drama to get people to re-tune in after the holidays. I think there have been some standout episodes in this season: Broken, The Crocodile, Tallahassee, Manhattan, The Miller’s Daughter. Those episodes that were “filler” (Child of the Moon, Tiny) were, in my opinion, better than the filler episodes of S1, like True North which remains my least favorite episode.
I think going forward into S3, they need to reduce the amount of background characters they introduce unless those characters are going to important to the overall season. For example: they want to give me Ariel living in Mermaid Lagoon: FANTASTIC. But don’t let it be a one off, you can’t introduce her, give me her story and then never let me see her again.
I also think they have to keep pushing the characters to evolve, this is especially true of our two main “villains” Rumple and Regina. I want their road to redemption to be very long and full of faults, but the point is, they have to make that journey. Don’t just turn Rumple back into the Dark One, let him make mistakes but let him learn from them. My biggest fear about S2 finale is that Rumple will be faced with the choice of killing Henry or not and he won’t have learned anything when at this point he really should have given his relationship with Belle and his attempt at making amends with Bae.
I think one of the best things they can do with S3 is get us away from SB for awhile and let our entire cast be in a magical other world. (Come on Neverland!) I know we won’t leave SB forever, but if they were in another world there are many roads they could take."He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Yes, a lot more time went by in the first season. By the time the curse broke, Emma had been in the town for nearly a year. Henry was 10 when we first met him. Now he is 11.
I thought the same thing about the flashbacks- they complimented the present day stories much better last season. When we were introduced to new characters, we saw them in both the past and the present, usually in relation to one of the main characters. It was like here is this new person, and now we will show you who they used to be and what their role was before. Now they often leave us wondering why they are telling this other story- and the flashbacks are often shorter and less complete stories.
One thing I loved about “The Miller’s Daughter” is that the past and present felt connected again. I loved the juxtaposition of Rumple teaching magic first to Cora then later to Emma.
Yes, there have been many great episodes this season- don’t get me wrong! I love that we got more backstory on Emma and that we finally met Henry’s father/ Rumple’s son. I do want the story to keep moving forward and the characters to continue to evolve. I’m so curious as to where the next season will take us!
Yeah, the flashbacks this season have been really hit or miss. I didn’t particularly like Ruby’s flashback (introduces her mom for a one time episode and felt weak), Belle’s stand alone (her connection to Mulan and then Philip felt like the writers knew they needed to show how Mulan and Philip met so they were like “oh I know! Belle!”), the second Frankenstien story (they may have had to do with the acting of the father which just really bothered me) and Jack’s story (again, a one time character but with hints of other stories that I don’t really want to see).
However the flashbacks that worked…REALLY WORKED. Manhattan’s flashbacks were spectacular as were The Miller’s Daughter (God bless Robert Carlyle. AWARDS! GIVE THEM!) Tallahassee was one of the strongest because of the flashbacks (the present day stuff wasn’t bad but I much preferred the past in that episode)."He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Some other thoughts: one thing that S2 did really well though was make me much more invested in the core characters:
–Even post Stable Boy I was never a big Regina fan, but after Miller’s Daughter I actually felt real sympathy for her. I really want her to get some kind of happy ending and that’s coming from seeing her relationship with her mother, from seeing how Rumple manipulated her, and how the death of Daniel really affected her.
–I always went back and forth on who was my favorite female character during S1. Now, in S2 the clear winner is Emma. I love her and think her to be such a bad@$$ rockstar who could take any evil thrown at her. A lot of that is due to Tallahassee and JMo’s performance in Manhattan.
–My love for Rumple grows with every episode, even ones where he only appears for a few moments. More of him. Always.
–I already shipped Rumbelle pretty hard at the end of S1, but having Belle not only around full time but also as someone who will constantly ask Rumple to be a better man has made this ship my OTP and something I will defend. Vigorously."He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"@RumplesGirl wrote:
Some other thoughts: one thing that S2 did really well though was make me much more invested in the core characters:
–Even post Stable Boy I was never a big Regina fan, but after Miller’s Daughter I actually felt real sympathy for her. I really want her to get some kind of happy ending and that’s coming from seeing her relationship with her mother, from seeing how Rumple manipulated her, and how the death of Daniel really affected her.–I always went back and forth on who was my favorite female character during S1. Now, in S2 the clear winner is Emma. I love her and think her to be such a bad@$$ rockstar who could take any evil thrown at her. A lot of that is due to Tallahassee and JMo’s performance in Manhattan.
–My love for Rumple grows with every episode, even ones where he only appears for a few moments. More of him. Always.
–I already shipped Rumbelle pretty hard at the end of S1, but having Belle not only around full time but also as someone who will constantly ask Rumple to be a better man has made this ship my OTP and something I will defend. Vigorously.I agree completely! I watched the entire two seasons in January of this year so I didn’t have the opportunity to learn about the story gradually as I would have if I had watched from the beginning. That being said, I started out a little confused about the direction of S-2 but as the season developed, those are now the episodes I re-watch more often. Every time I watch Miller’s Daughter and I see the smiles of joy on Cora and Regina at seeing each other kind of for the first time, it really gets me. I am now a huge Emma fan as well – I love her getting to discover her magical side, and fighting hard for her family, especially Rumple. I love that they made her a physical fighter —that is great to see in a female character. MORE OF RUMPLE – absolutely. With only Skin Deep to go by in Season 1 (until the finale) it was hard to keep hoping for Rumbelle – but now it is developing into something that is interesting, complicated and hopefully gratifying. I think it’s going to take awhile but I’m super hopeful. The scene of them on the phone in Miller’s Daughter is my favorite. Of all time.
I love that the curse is broken and what they are doing by adding in Neal/Bae as a actual character, but I do agree that they are trying way to hard to shove too much into one season. Honestly I think with all they are trying to squeeze into one season, it could have been two seasons. By cramming everything into so small a space I think we are missing some really good character moments. Like I would have loved to see Neal’s reaction to finding out that Emma gave up Henry and about Regina or what about Charming and Snow’s opinion on Neal (besides the obvious “he hurt my baby girl” on Charmings face).
The season 1 finale killed off a lot of my favourite characters, and despite the promise of “We Are Both”, they haven’t come back.
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