What is Your Favorite Episode So Far?

[a chipped cup]

I’m a sucker for anything Rumpel, so my favorite episode is selfishly “The Crocodile.” I loved learning more about Rumpel’s backstory and his life before he became the Dark One. And even though he acted like a complete monster in some of his flashbacks, I was absolutely in love with his scenes with Belle in Storybrooke.

My second and third favorite episodes are probably “Tallahassee” and “Into the Deep.” I loved seeing Emma as a young woman in love, and I fell for Neal’s character immediately. I was actually surprised by how good that episode was. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, but Emma and Neal’s scenes were just too sweet to ignore.

“Into the Deep” did an amazing job at balancing all its main characters equally. That’s a pretty difficult thing to do when you have a cast of thousand people. 😆 And seeing the heroes team up with the villains was pretty cool too (even tough it didn’t last very long).

[craxyfox]

@Oncewatcher wrote:

Mine is The Crocodile. Colin O’Donoghue’s talent was introduced in that one, and it’s what really set me on fire for Captain Hook.

^^^ This 😀 And Tallahassee, I loved everything besides the bits with Neal in it (sorry Neal fans,no flaming!) Hook was just so cheeky and charming, example when he winked at Snow and she was just not amused 😆 😆

[hellraiser-89]

I voted for The Doctor.

[naomi]

I really want to vote for Tallahassee, but for me the FTL segments (CGI, giant) in that episode were really weak. Crocodile also had a lot of potential, but was packed too full of content, I think.

So, I vote for The Doctor. Good pacing, great acting from Lana Parilla and Noah Bean, crazy Jefferson in FTL, grandpa Charming, and awesome Dr. FrankenWhale.

[antbee]

Thanks for starting this topic, Josephine. I saw a similar topic at IMDb yesterday that I’m not sure if someone already did here or not, but I thought would be interesting to answer. It was which season’s first half have you preferred so far, either season 1’s or season 2’s.

Surprisingly, even though both seasons had problems, I actually would go for season 1. Perhaps my memory is more rose colored towards it since I’ve seen season 2 more recently. I mean I know the first half of last season wasn’t perfect since there were a few episodes that I considered duds for me compared to the pilot, “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”, and “Desperate Souls” all of which I adored, but overall I found last season stronger because they were able to make different timelines in one episode work much better than they have this year. Plus, there’s too many new characters this season that they really haven’t utilized that well, and they haven’t utilized the older characters either so it’s very frustrating. Not that this season was bad so far, but I hope like last year, a weak first half leads to a much better second half.

@Naomi wrote:

I really want to vote for Tallahassee, but for me the FTL segments (CGI, giant) in that episode were really weak. Crocodile also had a lot of potential, but was packed too full of content, I think.

I had to vote for “Tallahassee” even though the FTL segments were weak, but the flashbacks to Emma’s life were well worth it especially since she’s been almost nonexistent in some episodes or not even in them like in “The Crocodile”. I agree that episode had potential, but there was just too much going on. Plus, as unrealistic as it may be that she actually do so, Jane Espenson should be the only one allowed to write character centric episodes about Rumpel and Nealfire. I think the writers of “The Crocodile” were trying to be like Espenson, but their writing just didn’t have the allure that her writing usually does.

I found “The Doctor” to suffer from the same problem because they had set it up to be that Dr. Whale was finally going to have his own character-centric episode, and then it turned out to be a Regina-centric episode, which greatly disappointed me. Plus, I thought the whole Regina and Daniel story line was really weak.

Here’s my ranking for season 2:
1. “Tallahassee” – Some problems, but the flashbacks about Emma’s life with Henry’s father more than make up for the other problems, imo.
2. “We Are Both” – Overall, I think this is probably the episode with the least amount of problems this season. The present day FTL storyline and new characters were used sparingly, and those two things, especially the former, have probably been the cause of most of the problems with this season so far.
3. “Into the Deep” – Probably the only time this season that I felt that the Storybrooke and current FTL storylines actually worked well together, and it was the first time that I actually found the current FTL storyline to be interesting.
4. “Broken” – A little too much time spent with Aurora, Mulan, and Prince Philip, but overall a pretty strong way to open a season.
5. “Lady of the Lake” – Not a bad episode overall, imo, but not one I love to pieces like “The Return” or “Tallhassee” either.
6. “The Crocodile” – There were parts of this episode I enjoyed, and it’s always great to see more of Robert Carlyle as Rumpelstiltskin, but there was just too much going on overall. Plus, I think they’ve shown Rumpel to be very evil with him killing the mute maid or him turning someone into a snail and then stomping on them, that I don’t think they had to have him rip out the mother of his child’s heart and crush it and also have him turn a young girl to the Dark Side in one episode right after the other. I do think he will eventually work on redeeming himself like Regina is trying to do now, but when they write him like that, it’s hard to believe that he can actually do so because it seems like they’re trying to stack the deck to make Regina look better instead of just writing them both at an equal level. Personally, I think they’re both at the same level, but I found that last season there was more hope for Rumple because he was trying to save his son’s life and ended up getting turned into the Dark One whereas they gave Regina a weak reason, imo, as to why she chose the path that she did. This season so far, it seems they want to retcon last season by making Regina seem like “poor Regina” all the time even if it means making the Charmings look bad, and it just frustrates me because imo, she still has a long ways to go to redeem herself, imo, no matter how much they try to make other characters look bad to prop her up.
7. “Queen of Hearts” – I was very disappointed because “Into the Deep” was such a strong episode, that I thought it would be like last year where “An Apple Red as Blood” lead to an even better finale, but there was too much filler with the Princesses being stuck in the cell. Plus, besides the subtext with Mulan putting back in Aurora’s heart, it was a poor way, imo, to write off two new characters. There was also the “poor Regina” scene at the end which I hated. Not saying that the “good” guys always do the right thing, but if I were the Charmings, Red, or the Dwarves, I don’t know if I would ever forgive the Evil Queen for her actions of taking away my agency for 28 years and making me believe I was someone that I wasn’t not to mention all of the other crimes that she’s guilty of.
8. “The Doctor” – I was disappointed because it should have been a Dr. Whale-centric episode instead of another Regina episode. Plus, it doesn’t make any sense that Regina could have preserved Daniel’s body because she doesn’t even learn how to do magic until later on, and I really can’t see Cora being the type to preserve Daniel’s body for Regina.
9. “Child of the Moon” – It was just very awkward all around. It didn’t really fit in with the other episodes this season because they really haven’t done much with Red except for “We Are Both” despite making her a regular. Perhaps if it would have came right after “We Are Both”, maybe it would have fit in better. There wasn’t only that either, but the whole subplot with the wolf pack. It could have been interesting, but I found it boring overall since everything is resolved in one episode and poor CGI again.

[timespacer]

How does one vote on this? There is no place to click on the list. Am I missing some JavaScript or do you simply read the posts and update the tally by hand?

I had a hard time deciding between three consecutive episodes: “We Are Both”, “Lady of the Lake”, and “The Crocodile” because all three gave us strong character development; first for Regina, then Snow and Emma, then Rumplestiltskin. I guess I would vote for “We Are Both” because it was such a huge change for Regina and Lana’s performance was outstanding.

[timespacer]

Ahhh, now I see – the buttons for voting didn’t appear until I clicked “Submit”. Sorry to take up bandwidth with my ignorance.

[thedarkone]

I voted for “The Crocodile.”

@Midnight Dreary wrote:

My answer is going to be incrdibly biased, but I really loved “The Crocodile.” I have a soft spot for all of Rumpel’s character centric episodes, and this was no different. 😉

And this is the reason why. 😀

[a_desperate_soul]

Definitely The Crocodile. Robert Carlyle’s performance was flawless (as usual) and I always love learning more about Rumpel’s life before he became the Dark One.

Other notable mentions: Tallahassee, We Are Both and Into the Deep.

6. “The Crocodile” – There were parts of this episode I enjoyed, and it’s always great to see more of Robert Carlyle as Rumpelstiltskin, but there was just too much going on overall. Plus, I think they’ve shown Rumpel to be very evil with him killing the mute maid or him turning someone into a snail and then stomping on them, that I don’t think they had to have him rip out the mother of his child’s heart and crush it and also have him turn a young girl to the Dark Side in one episode right after the other. I do think he will eventually work on redeeming himself like Regina is trying to do now, but when they write him like that, it’s hard to believe that he can actually do so because it seems like they’re trying to stack the deck to make Regina look better instead of just writing them both at an equal level. Personally, I think they’re both at the same level, but I found that last season there was more hope for Rumple because he was trying to save his son’s life and ended up getting turned into the Dark One whereas they gave Regina a weak reason, imo, as to why she chose the path that she did. This season so far, it seems they want to retcon last season by making Regina seem like “poor Regina” all the time even if it means making the Charmings look bad, and it just frustrates me because imo, she still has a long ways to go to redeem herself, imo, no matter how much they try to make other characters look bad to prop her up.

I completely agree. It feels like after the negative response “The Stable Boy” received, the writers panicked and are now looking for any and every way to soften Regina’s character and it’s not really working for me. Regina being manipulated by Rumpel made sense because it’s line with the original miller’s daughter tale. And Cora being an abusive mother was also a good way to explain Regina’s poor mothering skills. But it seems like in every Regina centric episode, the writers feel the need to present Regina as a wounded puppy and it just reeks of desperation from the writers. It doesn’t make her look like a sympathetic character, it just makes her look weak and easily manipulated. At this point, Aurora has more will power than Regina.

[frumpybutsupersmart]

As much as I loved The Crocodile (and most of the other episodes), I picked The Doctor. Partly because I’ve recently read Frankenstein, and it was interesting to see how Once dealt with that tale; partly because I love Regina before she turned evil, and it was this one where we saw her go from Poor Desperate Regina to Evil Queen Regina; and mostly because I love the idea of Jefferson (especially the younger, carefree Jefferson), Victor, and Rumpel being best friends and getting up to mischief together.

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