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Phee, I think you & I are of the same mind here. I said last night, I oscillate moment to moment – and sometimes within the moment – between, “This story sucks so bad,” and, “This story sucks so bad it can’t be the whole story.” I think those podcasters are wise – giving it to the end of the season. At the moment, that’s exactly where I am, watch through 3×22 and then re-evaluate. If it’s going to be fixed, I expect it to be 3×22… after all, someone’s gotta come home to Em(ma) & Henry. (Perhaps that may turn out to be a dropped storyline, but no one will convince me ever that it was not intentional.)
One of the key things I keep coming back to is that, as a regular viewer, this show was so clear to me. It wasn’t until I found the fanbase that it got muddled. So if I step back and look as a casual viewer… I have to look at my roommate’s reaction, because she is not plugged in online. And hers is basically to shrug and say, “He’ll be back. Nobody’s ever really dead on this show.” She is of the same mindset that it made SO LITTLE sense, there must be a bigger picture to sort out in the upcoming episodes.
Don’t misunderstand, I am slowly forging towards acceptance & am not putting stake in any crack theories. I have plenty though, it would be 0% difficult for the writers to undo this if they so choose. I don’t think that’s where they are going, but I think there is enough weirdness that door is not slammed shut. And perhaps that’s intentional in a different way, not that they plan to do it, but that they have given themselves outs should this story paint them into a corner down the road.
This also begats the question, if they have planned Oz since the beginning (monkeys in the pilot,) and Neal’s story since the beginning (45687 things in the pilot,) why did the death just get planned this summer? Seems that should have been part of the plan all along.
I can’t get Florence & the Machine’s song out of my head this morning… “It’s always darkest before the dawn…”
[adrotate group="5"]Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Thanks, PoM 🙂 Is it ok to post a link in here if I ever get something written up?
Ditto, RG. I am out of town Sun through Thurs and roomie and I had been having a debate about whether to each watch Sun or watch together on Thurs. Last night I looked at her and said, “Guess we can just wait til Thurs for that ep, huh.”
I have to go into the real world now… luckily I have flex hours because I should already be there. I just could not walk away from the board to pack up! I’ll be back around later… have a good day SFers!
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Right! It was their mutual dream. It had some meaning when she thought he’d found it was Tam – that he’d found his happy ending, his home, with someone else. But, no, that’s not possible. She could eventually find happiness with someone else, sure – but it wouldn’t be Tallahassee. (And THAT is exactly what she should have told him.)
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
So, Phee mentions fanfic. I have some things I need to work out and I think that would be more beneficial than continuing to vomit words all over the thread every day or night. Where does one find SF fanfic, and how does one go about sharing it once written? I need to Fix This, and if A&E aren’t going to do it, then I need to do it myself. I have a crack theory and wouldn’t mind putting it to paper…
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
I think that’s what gets me. If this has been planned for the whole season – it should have been planned better. This is a show that has pieces of 2×06 buried in 1×01… heck it has pieces of 3×12 buried in 1×01! If they had planned this since the summer, they could have planned it… better. The entire thing felt very shoddy, very thrown together, very last minute. If there was some sort of reason for it, okay, perhaps they had to leave themselves plot holes down the road. But to spend six months planning an out-of-character, bizarre, forced, rushed finale… it’s just weird.
I mean why not drag it out? Oh no, the guys are melded. One should be dead… how do we separate them? What happens after we do? Perhaps a thorough examination by Whale (*cough*thewizard*cough) would be in order? Something to drag out the “will Neal die?” suspense. Perhaps calling for some help, or… an ambulance? Or begging Rumple to fix it? “You can fix it right?” “Nope.” “K cool. Bye yo!” Really???
They completely twisted the characters around to get Neal off the canvas. It is so, so weird. Like they HAD to make him dead and it HAD to be in this one episode. WTF was their rush to move from plot point A to plot point B? They couldn’t even do it in a manner that made sense? I am still sticking to them wanting to take Emma dark, which is a HORRIBLE idea, but this provides the motivation needed. Plot point to get in the self-contained arc of WWW. And if it is for the larger arc of the show, wherever they wanted to take it, they couldn’t do it with Neal around.
Incidentally, my roommate pointed out he was in the exact same number of episodes in S2 as S3. Why make him a regular if you planned him to die halfway through? Particularly as he missed a chunk of each arc – arriving late to the storytelling in both Neverland & WWW. It seems that recurring would have served them fine for their purposes.
It’s all of these weird things that make me think something is rotten in Denmark. Because if not, they just wrote haphazard bad stuff, and that hurts a lot more.
Zelena did have the line about him not seeing the forest through the trees. I guess that is what we are supposed to figure is going on here. The problem I gave with that is when I zoom back to see the Once forest, I’ve always seen it as two familial lines, culminating in a Lost Boy and a Lost Girl, who need each other to find their way home. When you remove one of them, you effectively pillage and undermine half of the forest… and leave the other Lost Child hopelessly lost… forever.
It’s not a bold storytelling choice. TLK not just being romantic was bold. 2×21 was bold. PP as Rumple’s father was bold. This is either idiocy or a cop-out, and I’m not sure which is worse.
Forgive my endless rankings, the shock of it all has worn off and now I am trying to figure out the why… with a most unsatisfying conclusion.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Plus there’s the part where they had Z call them both stupid. That is one thing they are not… Belle is book smart & Neal is street-smart. Jointly they are two of the wiser characters on the show. She called Neal dumber than a box of hairs? What kind of insult is that, really?
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Valid point, Phee. I had missed your post when I posted my above rant. Since I’ve gotten my whole three hours sleep :/ it seems I am just “up” now so I am just going to serial post, because it somehow seems less insane to type things than say the exact same things in my head.
Regarding exit interviews… based on what I’ve read, here are my things. I’ve hesitated to put them out there for a couple of reasons, but they’re chewing me up on the inside so I may as well let them out. If you are not up for (potentially false) hope from loopholes, stop reading here.
1) They’ve said Neal is dead. They did not say he’ll never ever return. Also, see #4.
2) No one has actually said MRJ has left the show. On the contrary; he has said he neither quit nor was fired – and A&E have indicated they’d like to work with him in the future.
3) We do have a history of both shape- shifting monkeys and bodies that are not what they appear on this show.
4) This is the one I’m kind of clinging to at the moment… they have said Neal. “Neal” is not really a character; he is Baelfire’s adopted persona, taken on when – well, I guess we don’t know that, exactly. Presumptively, Neal was likely born when Bae arrived in the land without magic – as both a reinvention of himself and in order to fit into modern American society. LWM is not kind to those who are unique, so shedding his name as both a way to ditch his legacy as the dark one’s son as well as assimilate into our society makes sense. Conversely? If with Rumple’s sacrifice he is no longer ashamed to be the son of the DarkOne, and with Emma he no longer needs to hide his unique background, I think there is a definite possibility that “Neal” is gone but Bae is a different story. It would be an easy way to semantic their way out, and hide in plain sight.
Part of me wants to tweet Adam with, “We know Neal is dead. Is Bae dead too?” but I think I am too afraid of the answer. I would rather use that shred of hope as a life preserver… slowly freeze to death in the wreckage of the Titanic than drown quickly as the ship sinks. It seems to hurt less that way, if I can slowly acclimate to it.
Honestly, I’ve had ships bounce back from worse. Not often, certainly, but it is far from impossible. If anyone here would like to have faith against the odds, it seems I’m your girl.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
And worse… worse… he broke his promise to them. “I’ll never stop fighting for you.” Giving in to darkness… is not fighting for his family. What would Henry say? That has been such a guiding notion – I will make the brave choice, the right choice, not because it’s easy, but because it’s best for my child. I will do better because I never want my child to feel the way I’ve felt. Why abandon it at this juncture. Why?
I want a do-over. Someone asked what could redeem the show for me? Fix this. Re-do the scene at the vault, have Neal make the character-consistent choice and say, “There must be another way.” Or, “The price will be too great; I would gladly pay it but I can’t make my child do the same.” Or – make it not Neal, let it be a shape-shifting imposter. Or let it be a bad dream; Emma’s alarm goes off at 8:15 and she wakes to say, “I just had the most horrible nightmare. It was scary and it was weird… weird even for my life.” Perhaps embodying her subconscious fear that Neal will do as everyone else always has, and make a choice motivated by someone who is Not Her.
On a show that requires such willing suspension of disbelief, it wouldn’t be hard. But it would require the writers to realize the grave error they have made, and it appears they stand by their decision. So unless they are standing by because this is already resolved within 3×16-22, I don’t have much hope that it will happen. I think my current hope is that whatever happens in 3B, we open 4 with redux of the apartment scene – alarm, plants, Charlie’s girl, cocoa – but this time the knock on the door is Neal. It would be very Lost-esque and might just restore my faith in this show.
You know, it’s interesting. I work in my job with low-income families. I deal with some Emmas; young moms who come to us for help after their kid’s Dad splits… and though I help them and strive to be compassionate, it’s done out of good intentions and not understanding. I was fortunate to grow up in a functional household, and I made different choices than many as a teen and young adult, conservative ones that mean my life is stable and I’m not a single mom. Inherently, I have no way to get these parents, because my choices were built on my stable foundation, something not everyone has. This show – especially my recent rewatch – has made me understand these parents so much more… I had a Mom in last week and I kept involuntarily calling her “sweetie.” Not really approved or professional, but restrained from the giant hug I wanted to wrap her in. We had just watched Tallahassee & I saw so much Emma in her… this lost girl with a baby… for the first time, I was able to get her, compassionately, from a level of understanding ground-up how these situations come to pass – something I cannot get from my own life. THAT is what good TV does. For every character we connect with because they “are” us, there are many more who teach us who they are. I utterly hate that such a beautiful story has been trashed. What of that Mom? Is she doomed to live her days, clinging to her child, as life tells her again & again she’s not worth it? That’s what Once has taught me from this. THAT is the lesson I have now gotten from the show.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Agreed Phee. On both points.
We just started S3 with my roommate, and last night as I was watching, I kept looking for the things I had missed, clues that pointed towards where we now know the story ends up. But no – just get Mulan & Robin Hood encouraging him to go get his family, go tell him he loves them, go get his second chance. All of that to make his second chance “Go back to your own personal he**, retrieve your kid, watch another ;(&?;$@! curse take your family away, go Uncharacteristically Dark, die.”
All this for a kid who just. wanted. a. family. It was right there – within his grasp – and then he said, “Screw it all, I’m gonna go über-dark like my Papa, despite the fact that I have JUST BEEN TOLD it is exactly what a Wicked Witch wants me to do. I know I’ve been waiting 300 years for my family, but meh, out of patience now.”
W. T. F?!
I am guessing I’ll finish out the season, hoping against hope that my one of my hunches are right and they have an out clause built into the storyline. But honestly… how do we hope for Emma to have a happy ending? Just like Neal, all she wants is a home, a family. And just like Neal, she keeps getting soooo close only to have it ripped away, time and again.
Hey Emma! Here’s a guy who actually loves you and wants a home with you – nevermind. He’s out, enjoy prison! Hey Emma! How about a kid? No, nevermind, probably not a good plan, should probably send him away. Hey Emma! Remember that kid? He’s back and wants you as his family. You just have to break this curse – good job, oh, darn it, hat portal! Hey Emma! Ok ok. We’ll cut you a break. Remember that guy, the first person who ever made you feel valued in your whole life? You can have him back – well sort of – if you don’t mind facing all of your pain, and also, sharing him. Hey Emma! Ok ok, you don’t have to share, he does love only you but now he’s dead… and you get relive all of that mashed-down pain all over again. At least you have your parents to help you through this time… which is great because your kid has gone to Darkest Place Ever. Hope you enjoy your family vacation! Hey Emma. Psyche, that guy is still alive, better unpack your pain again! Did I mention that also, your Mom wants a Replacement Kid? Oh and that your kid’s psychotic great-grandfather is trying to murder him? Hey Emma, ok, you can have your kid back, AND that guy – except no, nevermind, The Curse again & everyone goes zap. But you get to keep the kid this time! Enjoy parenting with no support! Hey, Emma… we know this has all really sucked, but here’s a nice guy for you, in your new life. He’ll treat you well, take you to dinner, hit it off with your son… and then turn into a psychotic flying monkey, because, Another Curse.
Hey Emma? It’s cool, it means you get your family back. It’s Mom, Dad, Replacement Kid… but where DID that guy go, the one person who first loved you for you? Ooh, wait, we found him. Except wait, nevermind, he’s actually his evil resurrected Dad, and in order to fix this, you’re gonna have to be a participant in his death. But it’s cool, Emma. He’ll die in your arms and you can finally have True Wuv. See look, it’s a necklace. And a dead guy. Who spent his life sacrificing for EVERYONE around him, and then got left in the woods to rot. But it’s cool, Emma, The Kid doesn’t remember his Dad, so at least you can spare him that pain. Or talk gibberish to him. One of the two.
Believe in happy endings? Hope, love, second chances? Until I typed that out, I didn’t realize how awful it was – and how a show that preaches hope provides anything but. It’s not just about Neal. If he can’t get his happy ending, I don’t trust that anyone can.
Life sucks, and then you die. That’s our modern fairy tale.
(Forgive me as I go weep myself to sleep for these two fictional people… who represent so many other broken, lost boys and girls… thanks for reminding me they have no chance, A&E. It’s cool, it’s just a TV show.)
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Finally came up with an accurate analogy. It’s like A&E reached into the chest of the show I loved so dearly, ripped out its heart, and crushed it… right in front of me. That’s not bold storytelling, it’s just cruelty.
I’ve never watched a show jump the shark before my eyes before. The stupidity of it all astounds me.
(Yeah, it’s 3AM. I actually slept for 3 or 4 hours straight, then woke to realize I was dreaming about the OUAT gang… 🙁 )
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
