[dontstopbelievin]

LOL Millie. Everyone can be part of the tent thing. Rainbow, my tent needs to be little, it fits under a table :p

I found a photo of our ship –

(No seriously, it’s in drydock with massive hull damage. But the half-sunken houseboat was too great not to post.)

[dontstopbelievin]

Millie – why not?! We are hoping for Rogue Bison to derail the train to Sad Town, so the bison shall be our mascot.

When your ship is in drydock with major hull damage (I refuse to yet concede it as sunk… it sailed, people, they have a kid!) you have to be a little silly. Otherwise you just sit there and stare at the hull damage all day long and cry…

If Neal doesn’t return… I will be making that decision after 322. I have stated, and still maintain, this is my FAVORITE show. It’s the only show I really care to watch on TV; I hate-watch a couple of others but it’s the only one I really have cared about. As much as I love this ship, if they can make it make sense in the context of the show, they have a chance to keep me. If they can make me EXCITED about the story, they have a chance to keep me. There is also the matter that I pushed my roommie to start watching Once – we required her to watch the entire show, from the beginning – so that we could watch it as roommate bonding time. There is a certain level of guilt there, if I just quit the show. So, let’s see how the next couple of weeks go. Do we get MO322? DO322? True love kid Henry saving the day? CS paradise? Does everyone act OOC? Does the WWW win? Does Hook die? Does timey-wimey stuff leave the possibility for return-of-Neal with no real answer? The answers to these questions and more will determine whether I CAN watch S4, WANT to watch S4, or cannot possibly stomach S4.

Jaxar, I loved your headcanon. We need more awesome mini-fics like that here. (I am a bit of a fanfic ho, in case no one’s noticed. Just a bit.)

And to go way back, Phee, yep I know you called Hook at the time of the spoiler of doom. I was on that wagon for a while, then the lovely folks here talked me out of actually expecting it. After those bits, I am kind of back to expecting it again. I won’t be shocked if it doesn’t happen, but then, I won’t be shocked if it does.

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

I hate to dredge this up so many posts later, but I just want to clarify my words this morning and where I was coming from. First of all, Marty, I owe you an apology. I went back and looked at some older posts and did not find one anywhere that said that you hated Neal. I should not have put those words in your mouth, and I am sorry for doing so. I do want to revisit where I got that impression, though.

marty mcfly said:

I really didn’t come here to spew bad things about a great character, this is the only thread I dare post in, BECAUSE I probably feel exactly as you do. doesn’t that say something?

Marty, I say this in kindness – I can’t know what your feelings are on the matter. All I can go on are your posts. There are a couple of posts that you’ve made that have stuck out to me, and felt very much as if they were out of place in this thread. We are here as a ship thread; for those of us who feel the Emma-Neal relationship is a central heartblood of the Once show and that the two of them belong together. Some of us love other characters – Rumple, Snow, August, whatever – and I think we all try to be tolerant of each other. But it’s not unreasonable to expect to come here and find people who love Emma, love Neal, and love SF. We may express displeasure with them, but I think when you read that displeasure from people who have expressed sufficient love, it is easier to take it in the manner which it is intended. Displeasure, spoken in love, as it would be from a parent, comes from a place of first establishing the love.

I want to post a couple of things you’ve said, and I sincerely hope it can be taken not as an attack but as a manner of understanding *why* it is that I (and possibly others) have a hard time reading your criticism as displeasure-in-love. I bolded the parts that are most relevent to me, but quoted longer excerpts to hopefully put them in context. The first one is from April 2, less than a month ago –

I was never a “SwanFire” but I loved the STORY the way Rumple sacrificed everything in his life, name, soul, life, dignity, EVERYTHING for this boy long before he was even born…
I was the one to always want someone (Emma, maybe) to smack Neal upside the head and tell him to stop emotionally abusing his poor father. I was mad at Bea/Neal, yes I was, but not mad enough to want him DEAD!!!

And the second from April 11, so even more recent than that –

First of all to make it clear: I AM NOT A NEAL FAN. I never was a Neal fan, I wanted to smack him upside the head with a harry potter book a couple of times. I am a very big Rumple fan, though, and according to me, (I know some people disagree) Rumple has been a true hero from the beginning. From the time he was happily married to Milah, having earned himself a better name despite having grown up at the shadow of his coward father.

In a SwanFire thread, where we love Emma, love Neal, and love them together – how could we, as fans, not feel attacked by those comments? It’s as if I walked into someone’s home and said, “I am not a fan of your dog. He ate my shoes. But I am criticizing him in love!” Your posts, most of the posts throughout aftermath of Neal’s death, play out that you are a Rumple fan who is devastated for him to lose his son. That is totally understandable! I am not an uber-fan of Rumple, and I *am* devastated for him to lose his son. 300 years he looked for that boy! But, that boy spent 300 years feeling abandoned by his father. He didn’t know that his Dad spent 300 years trying to find him, he just spent 300 years feeling, “I wasn’t important enough to him,” and how can you not have immense sympathy for that? It’s not emotional abuse to react to actions someone has taken towards you. I have immense sympathy for Rumple’s decisions, as well – the show has done a brilliant job of explaining his motivations and his fears. I am in the camp (perhaps a bizarre camp) that I DO feel everything Rumple has done has been for the love of his son, while still feeling that the vast majority of Neal’s actions are reasonable (315 excepted.) I am also in the camp that feels not all collateral damage is justified, even if the initial actions are out of love for someone. No one, not a single anyone, has felt the force of that collateral damage stronger than Bae and his family – his love, and his son. Am I angry with Rumple? No, not really. But here, in this thread, my focus is the SF family. So just like I wouldn’t go into a Rumbelle thread and say, “I really like Rumple, I sympathize with him, I comprehend the story they are trying to tell with him and Belle and like both characters but they just don’t do it for me,” it frustrates me when people come into a SF thread in the midst of our grief and say things like, “I was never a SwanFire” or “I AM NOT A NEAL FAN.” Those are incredibly hurtful things to say to people who are hurting.

The ironic thing is that I am pretty thick skinned. But there are some in this thread who see a LOT of themselves in these characters and feel this loss as very, very personal. In the mere six weeks we have been here I have gotten to know some of these ladies quite well and when you walk into their “home” and start spewing about how you are not a Neal fan and want to smack him, they take that personally. When you identify with a character – if you are someone who has been abandoned, had life sh*t on you and never had something go your way – that’s as good as saying, “Your struggle is trivial and you should be smacked. The people who hurt you meant well, so your pain doesn’t matter.” I know you don’t *intend* for your posts to come off that way, but I am striving to explain how they *do* come off.

Here, in THIS thread, it should be our safe place. You are right that there is nowhere else to mourn Neal! But, here, we mourn Neal for NEAL, not for Rumple’s loss. Often, I read your posts that you want to mourn Rumple’s loss. That mourning is not irrelevent! It just comes across as insensitive in this thread, where you have stated you’re not a fan of the ship or of one of the characters in the ship.

Does it make sense to you why – as a SF fan who literally goes NOWHERE else in this fandom – I would feel attacked by your comments? We react to people based on our past bias of them, based on things they have done in the past. I am going to react differently to a stranger holding a door for me and saying “hi” in the grocery than I am an old friend, or a former stalker, you know what I mean? Our prior interactions determine our current reactions.

I have no issue if you want to post here – but I guess my hope for you (and for any non-SF fan who wants to post in here) is that you really take a step back and think about how it will be interpreted by those of us whose “home” this is. We have been told by the greater fandom, and to some degree the show 1) good riddence, 2) Neal is crap and deserved to die, 3) SF is ridiculous and far lesser than CS, 4) we are delusional 5) being kind, loving and sacrificial makes you a villain and 6) life sucks and then you die. Furthermore, some of us are suffering from whiplash, being told that history doesn’t matter, the story they laid out doesn’t matter, the central characters are no longer important. My wish is that anyone who wants to post in here is respectful of the fact that we are very much in reactionary mode, and be cautious of word choices and making sure criticisms in love are spoken IN LOVE, not as accusations. I know you apologized to RG this morning, and I appreciate that. No one deserves to be criticized for their opinions on the show, and I have no problem with varying opinions… just hoping that people who chose to enter a ship thread can be respectful of the ship and shippers within.

Hope this all makes sense. 🙂 -DSB

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

I’ll have to go back and find the posts that gave me that impression. I don’t have time right now.

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

I’m with RG on this one, Marty. I am trying my darndest to keep some semblance of hope that A&E are telling story in a strange way, that they haven’t totally lost their way. But the hope I have comes from multiple rewatches, heavy heavy shipper goggles, semantics and a significant amount of stubbornness. It also comes from having spent YEARS in a ship where lies were told and built upon and semantics were pushed as far as possible until they gave way to baldfaced lies. I am way more blasé about lying than the average person. I also make no bones about the fact that RG gets 99% of the likelihood that she is right. There’s a reason the tents of optimism and doom are mere feet from each other – we are all working from the same set of facts, having watched the same show and loving the same characters. It takes a lot of gall to wander into a thread, state you hate one of the characters it’s devoted for, and then chastise his fans, who are hurting, for not having faith in writers who are writing crap and KILLED a character who is essential to the core story like he was little more than an annoying fly.

You might have hated Neal, but the rest of us loved him. That’s why we’re here. Please respect that.

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

Ooh, Slurpeez, good point about the Snowflake in 3×20 promo! I am trying to think if we have seen other TL babies born to reinforce that point. Emma was born in the EF – so, no electricity to flicker – though we do have the power line spark when she arrived in SB. The only other kid who’s been born in SB is Alexandra – we didn’t see her birth, did we? I am assuming she is a TL baby although I can’t recall if Ella & Thomas have gotten an “official” TL label. Henry’s birth was actually shown to us twice – in both 301 & 311 – so they definitely reinforced that moment to the viewer.

I know I definitely am not the first to hypothesize he has magic. What’s funny to me is that I operate as if it’s a foregone conclusion, like, “Wonder when Henry’s magic is gonna show up?”

I do wonder if they’ve laid some foreshadowing seeds for this. Henry has always wanted to be a hero. We have been told, over and over again, that his Dad is a hero. Emma is a hero – she had that line on the stakeout with Regina about coming back b/c she knew Henry would tell her it’s what a hero would do. Plus all of S1.

Then we have the end of the NL arc – he wanted so badly to be a hero that it put him in peril – he was willing to give his heart away. It would be a nice turn if events, then, if he got himself OUT of peril and became a hero due to his heart… not the organ but the very essence of who he is, being a TL baby & all. Plus, I still go back to the fact that viewers are conditioned to expect Emma’s TL to be “ordained” by a TLK, and A&E are all about turning things on their ear.

Here’s something else about this, for me. They set up the very parallel scenes of Snow & Emma’s TLs dying at their hands, in their presence. Snow was able to bring hers back – how? Faith & belief. Those are things Emma does not have. She may be a TL baby of the EF, but she is a child of our world. Although she is learning to walk by faith in certain areas, she needs proof before she fully commits. For Emma, if Henry has powerful white-light anti-WW magic, which can only come from being a TL baby, it would be concrete proof that she & Neal were (are) TL. I can see it being the catalyst for her being, “Crap, he was my TL and now he’s gone,” and in turn finally hearing her parents’ motto of “there’s always a way” and believing it, perhaps trying to seek it out. When faced with irrefutable proof, she’s pretty good at buying into stuff – hard to deny the presence of dragons when they’re breathing fire at you, right?

Hypothetically, it could inspire her to fight for him – it would be a really nice turn on him promising to not stop fighting for her, if she now has to fight for him because he is unable to do the fighting. Maybe the Timey-Wimey stuff turns into a “How do we get Bae back?” mission? Is that the plot of S4? (I know, I know. Too optimistic even for me.)

Another assorted thought – like objects (ring/teacup/necklace,) are foods something they like to give to their core TL couples? Do Snowing have one? I know there is cocoa w/cinnamon, but I always took that as a family trait thing (Snow & her descendants) rather than a Snowing thing. Rumbelle has hamburgers & apparently the SF fam has NYC pizza. LMAO, pizza.

Last bit, the photo Onyx posted of Hook in the trunk – yeah, that coffin imagery is really striking (and not accidental.) I also had the thought – someone (maybe Phee?) mused about the placement of Hook in front of that “Game of Thorns” sign. It dawned on me yesterday, what is Game of Thrones known for? Deaths, lots of deaths. Plus, it’s roses – Zelena had the one at the trunk (which made NO sense in the context of the scene, IMO) and the one at Neal’s grave. I had kind of sidelined my thinking that perhaps Hook would be the permanent death, but now I am riding that train – hard.

Watched Queen Is Dead & Millers Daughter last night, and remembered that this life-for-a-life business started with the candle, and then continued with the vault. The writers seem fond of it. Perhaps a literal Hook-for-Neal exchange is not so far fetched… though I haven’t any idea what would possess Hook to do such a thing, even as redemptive sacrifice. Perhaps it’s not voluntary.

I can honestly say those items have put me MORE on MO322. Savvy viewers will not be expecting Hook’s death – the spoiler of doom has already happened, yo – but I can’t see any reason to include that imagery otherwise. Maybe, if we were waiting for “a” death, as a tease to the audience – but since the death has “already happened?” Nah. And if Hook dies, Neal is coming back. I firmly believe that.

(Wrote this in notepad on my phone – please forgive crossposting, typos & formatting issues!)

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

Was the forum 404 for anyone else?! I have been at work all day but trying to keep up from work and then all of a sudden it was like OH NOES ADAM AND EDDY STARTED WRITING THE FORUMS AND KILLED THE WHOLE THING!!!

But it’s back now. Which is good because panic was not out of the question.

DSB, who has actual stuff to say later, including, you know, #HopeforRogueBison

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

319 episode notes (and a pretty awesome cracktheory)

By request, here are my thoughts on 319. They are kind of long and honestly, I found a TON of shippy stuff in this episode. Some I found on first watch, some via discussion, and some via rewatch. A few of the ideas are not originally mine, I will try my best to credit those when I come across them.

First of all, my roomie pointed out that this was a surprisingly Neal-centric episode. Yep, he appears in the end, but there are other shout-outs. Non-SwanFirey, they have drawn this Robin-Regina/SF parallel, and they had Regina say about Robin, “He’s a thief, which means he’s not to be trusted.” They have heavily paralleled Robin as thief and Neal as thief earlier this half-season (with Belle in either 312 or 313,) so it was interesting to have that line and then have Neal “save the day” by the end.

We have already covered the car bit, but I am so in love with it, I am going to cover it again –

Henry said to Emma, “I need your keys. I left mine in the room and if I’m going to be a prisoner I’d like to have my gameboy.” Of course, we all know his plan was to steal her car and go back to NYC. What’s the best way to steal a car? Well, Dad told Mom it’s to ask for the keys…

From 2×06 – “Impressive. But really, you could’ve just asked me for the keys.”

A&E wrote this. They didn’t include that out of happenstance; the SF family is their babies and they included that for a purpose. It wasn’t accidental. Plus, he’s a prisoner now? Yep, no history there. Continuing on the Dad shout-outs, when Henry is at the car, Hook asks where he’s off to.

Henry – “Nowhere.”
Hook – “You’re in an awful big hurry to be going nowhere.”
Henry – “Fine, I’m going home.”
Hook – “You’re running away.”

So to Henry, the bug is a means to the end of “home.” Sounds like someone else we know. And he’s running away?

Going back to 2×17 –

Neal – “Yeah, he’s in the bathroom right now. I’m just gunna go home and pack. Not bad for day three as a dad if I do say so myself.”
Emma – “Wait, where’s his backpack?”
Neal – “I don’t know, he took it with him.”
Emma – “To the bathroom? Did you really fall for that? He’s your son.
Neal – “He’s running.”

And then there is this, when Henry tries to get into the bug, chock full of symbolism for our tiny family –

“I don’t care what you think.” *opens door*
*Hook slams it.* “Well, you should. ’cause I’ve got a better way.”

So, Hook prevents Henry from using the method of his heritage to get “home,” and instead presents him with a “better way?” (Really, stolen dinghy with a right-hand pirate?) How’d that work out for you, Hook? Hit us over the head with symbolism there, writers. (Stolen car, good. Stolen boat, bad. Wait… I’m not sure that’s what they were going for. Nevermind!! LOL!!!)

And, while I was looking for the “running” quote last night, I stumbled upon one other thing. I took Henry’s mention of pizza to Regina at face-value while watching, because, you know, New York and pizza. And if there hadn’t been SO much other stuff in this episode, I would say I was stretching. But Henry says the following to Regina – “New York was awesome. The pizza… the Yankees, my school…”

So the FIRST thing he mentions about NYC is the pizza. Huh. When have we heard NYC pizza discussed before?

2×15 –
Neal: So, uh…You like pizza?
Henry: Yeah. L-let me guess. You’re gonna tell me the best pizza’s in New York and I gotta try it, right?
Neal: Actually, it’s in the Kingdom of Damarian on the north shore of the Dragon Fields of Zorn. Nah, it’s in New York. Here, let’s get you a slice.

Huh. So turns out that’s a Neal thing too. But it’s not the only time it’s mentioned. Yesterday I felt like I needed to watch that last SF scene – not the death, the scene before it in the woods. So last night, after I found the above pizza conversation, I went ahead and queued it up. And look what I found.

From 3×15 –
Neal: So New York, huh?
Emma: We like the pizza!
Neal: Did Henry like it?
Emma: He LOVES pizza.
Neal: No, I meant living in the city.

Apparently NYC pizza is a SF thing. Who knew! I did not, until I stumbled onto it last night. Of the last two minutes of screentime for SF, several lines of it were dedicated to NYC pizza.

Going back to that conversation with Regina, there is also this interesting item, when Henry is talking about math – “Pretty good, not Stephen Hawking good.”

It seemed a little curious to me, but I am not overly familiar with his works. A quick review tells me enough he primarily works with black holes and dabbles in a bit of timey-wimey stuff. Sounds like we’re on a theme.

With that, we have the items Slurpeez pointed out –
Regina to Snowing – “It’s not like you invented the wheel.”
And of course, Rumple’s “Round and round the circle of time, racing towards the finish line.”
(I’d like to posture that although I agree with Slurpeez’ interpretation of finish line = season finale, it might additionally mean the finish of the triangle of doom.)

Changing subject, what do you all think of this curious piece? Zelena said to Hook, “Take away her magic, Captain, or the next rose will be on her little brat’s grave.” Then we DID see another rose – on a grave nonetheless – but it was not on her child’s, but her love’s. I am not sure what to make of it. The only thing I can think is that I am sure Zelena’s threat to Henry is because he is Emma’s TL, but perhaps she has underestimated that Emma has two TLs, since she has focused on the Hook-Emma relationship.

Another curious piece – “Now I have two. Two minds. Mining time. Digging deeper in the grime.”
His other riddles make sense – one with regards to the door, one with regards to time. I understand the first part, but what of the second? Is it that he’s mining and digging deeper in himself so that Neal can pop out?

I guess I’m alone in this, but I loved the reverse parallels. Regina casting the curse not to harm Snowing, but to help them. The casting of the curse causing her sorrow, not joy. Then, she opted to save them with the heart-splitting business. And of course, the Regina-Henry TLK to break the curse. He may be SF’s kid through and through, but Regina IS his Mom and I’m glad they continue to reinforce that.

(I didn’t necessarily love the PLOT, the whole murder and heart-dividing, but I loved the reverse parallels. That was one of my favorite things about early 3B, taking the show and flipping it on its head – everyone remembered their true identities but not their recent past, Emma believed but not Henry, etc.)

Speaking of curse-casting, there was this little parallel line, from Zelena to Snow – “You’ll be too busy looking for your husband. You won’t even know about his sacrifice. Just endlessly wondering where he could be, always fearing the worst.” Uhm. Replace “husband” with “love” (or other descriptor of choice) and who does that describe? Certainly not Snow, whose half-hearted husband was right there next to her. Who spent the first few episodes looking for their TL, not knowing about his sacrifice, wondering where he could be and fearing the worst? “Where’s Neal? Is he a monkey? Where’s Neal? Where’s Neal? Have you found him yet?” Yeah. Emma. HELLO PARALLEL. WHY PARALLEL WHY?!?!

Zelena follows that up with – “Pay attention, sis. This is how you take away a happy ending.” Yep. Sure is. Buttheads.

(So again, how is this Emma’s fairytale if you have robbed her of a happy ending?)

Cracktheory:

(Warning, this is kind of cracky, pretty shipper-y, and – coming from me – unsurprisingly optimistic. Worst, it is IMO actually plausible and perhaps not so much of a crack theory at all, I’m actually kind of excited that this might be the way they are going, so if you are in a spot where you can’t have a glimmer of hope now, you might not want to read. As always with theories, even if they are partially right, they are never entirely on the money so I don’t want anyone to be sad because this is undoubtedly better than what the trolls will give us!) Spoilered out NOT due to spoilers, but to hide it more easily from those who prefer to have No Hope.

Glinda said in the episode that the necklace could only be removed by someone with light magic. Glinda didn’t it had to be Emma. “But only a purveyor of the strongest light magic would be able to accomplish such a thing.” “Light magic.” “Magic created from love.”

What if the key to getting that necklace and defeating is not Emma at all, but Henry?

I can forsee a scene where Zelena kidnaps Henry again – she’s already threatened to – and this time, they aren’t able to get him free. (Perhaps it’s because Emma’s magic freed him last time, but in the interim, we’ve had the cursed CS kiss and therefore Emma has no more magic?) In an act of desperation, Henry claws up, catches the necklace, and yanks – off it comes. Someone – Charming maybe – would say, “I thought only Emma could take the necklace?” and Snow, with her knowing Snow smile, would reply, “No, Glinda said it had to be someone born of true love.” *cue massive SF feels*

It would be a reallllly nice way to settle Emma’s TL triangle issues without Emma having to “choose…”

I started pondering this, and am convinced it is highly plausible. They are all about doing the unexpected. If we walk into a battle scene again, all viewers are going to expect Emma to be the one who saves them. And if Emma has no magic due to the cursed kiss… viewers will think it’s the end, Henry is done for. And then BAM he can save himself. I can also see this as being Zelena’s weakness, that she knew Emma was dangerous due to her status of having TL light magic, but not considering that perhaps she wasn’t the only one with that status.

Further corroboration is that in 315 they stated the necklace was “born of true love.” Same episode, they noted that the dark one was “made, born out of the – well – darkness.” I always felt “born out of true love” was a really odd way to describe a metallic pendant, but if it is a euphemism for Henry… that kid WAS born out of true love and it would be a hugely unexpected way to confirm SF’s True Love status. You also have the heart of the truest believer business, whereby Henry was apparently super-magical because he came from a line of light and dark magic. While Neal is not dark magic, his Papa certainly is, and those two lines in the same episode hearken back to that theme we hit on in 3A.

Additionally, in the boathouse, when Snow and Charming were explaining their conversation with Glinda to Emma, we got the following dialogue – “”Zelena’s weakness is light magic.” The shot then cuts to Regina holding HENRY before cutting to Emma. Snow continued, “It’s clear now, more than ever – you are the only one who can defeat her,” which so perfectly sets up for the audience to be looking for Emma to defeat her, and Henry’s defeat being a total surprise.

Two other thoughts with regards to Henry being a magical TL baby – I wonder if we’ve already seen the clues. Back in 3A, we had Henry giving his own heart. They never came straight out and said, “Like Emma, Henry’s a TL baby, so his heart can’t be taken, but it can be given,” they just conveniently scooted around it by having Pan enchant his hand. Secondly, I am wondering if bright light white-hot Henry – whom everyone assumed was Emma’s magic freeing him – was Henry’s powerful TL magic freeing himself? That piece is a little more cracky, but I just kind of wonder.

Perhaps, whether we get MO322 or not, we’ll get this as a nice consolation prize. If Hook’s cursed kiss takes away Emma’s “born of true love” magic, yet Henry HAS “born of true love” magic, that is a pretty clear triangle end without it being a contrived triangle.

Since Oz has been conceptualized since the beginning, I can see this all coming to pass… they’ve always known this is how they’d resolve the triangle (whomever the third triangle player was, since we know they’d planned alternate third corners.) It’s kinda awesome, honestly. (Of course then it raises the question of – if Charming couldn’t die in Pilot, since it meant Snow could never have her happy ending – how does Emma get hers? Maybe MO322, maybe the plan for S4 is to examine how you get your happy ending if your TL is dead, who knows.) I’ve been wondering lately with all of the focus on Emma’s magic when we’d find out about Henry’s, and this seems like an ideal way to do it.

Plus, it’s a bit of a poetic justice to Emma trying to shut the kid out and shuffling him aside the whole time they’re in town and then he saves them all in the end.

Last couple of items (as I am struggling not to be late to work,) they had Rumple utter, “Memories are pain. Pain is strength.” But then – they showed that love is strength, as Neal uses his love for Emma and Henry to bust out of his Daddio and send the potion off yonder.

By the way, I am wondering if the quill – black hawk feather? “Change a hawk to a little white dove…”

Henry – “Operation: Cobra is back on.” Emma – “I’m not sure it ever ended.”

Operation: Cobra is to bring back the happy endings? Cool. Let’s do it. #HopeforRogueBison, here we come.

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

I think it’s too late for that. If they wanted to kill Neal to advance CS, they needed to start building it immediately. At this point, they have three episodes. It’s not enough to believably get from where they are now to TLK/proposal (which is necessary for Emma in 322 if they want to bookend the season.)

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

[dontstopbelievin]

Exasperated? No. Sad that you’re so broken hearted? Hell yes. I HATE that a show about “hope” has the ability to do that to its fans.

I see where you are coming from, but I feel like I watched a different episode last night. Maybe it’s watching it with my more-or-less GA roommates; maybe it’s having such fresh memories of being GA myself. But like Marty said, they ARE that creative. They have the capacity to be. I remain astonished at how much richer the show was upon rewatch.

Do I trust that they WILL pull this story out? No. Do I believe that they COULD? Wholeheartedly. If Sad Town is where you need to be to cope right now – I don’t begrudge you that! But we have 120 minutes of story I have committed to, and you can do a LOT of storytelling in that time. I am willing to let them have those 120 minutes, on goodwill not from the prior half-dozen episodes, but borrowed from the 57 before that. My heart is guarded; the glimmer of hope I have for MO322 is slim and I am going in with eyes open.

In many ways, I wish I could go to Sad Town now. Oh, how I wish it!! It would make it easier to let go, to not ride the train to the depot and see which way the bison blow. But, I can’t. I have seen blind faith come through a time or two and I have to allow for the possibility it will here too.

Come 322, we will almost certainly all join you in Sad Town. And on the slimmest chance we don’t, I will send a dang bison to drag you kicking & screaming to the ranch or houseboat or wherever it is we end up. Nobody gets left behind.

Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...

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