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Bob developed an unhealthy addiction to sponges and spatulas, that turned him yellow. He found a pair of square pants to try to cover up, but he stole them from a certain mermaid collector of artifacts, so that did not end well either.
[adrotate group="5"]“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
I guess Shakespeare had some messed up love stories too, not just in the tragedies but Phee mentioned a midsummer’s night’s dream, famous for having pairs of lovers get mismatched.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
What concerned me was the context too. It started off as very Hook the Pirate asks for a kiss as payment expecting her to roll her eyes and she to his surprise is aggressive back. That’s fine, Emma is a bottle of wine and a can of hairspray away from a Lacey moment with Hook, understandable as a numbing stage of grief. Then it ends with him using a line straight out of The Princess Bride, which ought to be very romantic but it contrasts too sharply emotionally with where the scene starts. I am all for mash-ups but that feels like a crude attempt to inject a romantic note to a scene where it does not fit by actually lifting a dialog phrase rather than the writers putting some effort to write their own memorable phrase like Rumbelle “Love is layered” or “You make me want to go back to the best version of me,” or corny Snowing with ” I will always find you.” Couldn’t they at least have given him his own unique line, that harked back to a scene they shared together,or to phrases used in this show, like “As you choose.”
I used to follow CS, but was on the “he has to redeem” himself first and he took til the end of season 2 to do it, and by then, the show told me Emma loved Neal and he loved her, and I believed it was romantic. I’d kind of wished Emma would have some fun with Hook while Neal was still being strung along by Tamara, but wow, they played all that out fast. So now they’ve gone into the inevitable “someone will get their heart broken” territory and I never enjoy those, and I don’t want that for either Hook or Neal. I could even seeing it be BOTH of them getting hurt, all of them really, because it is just a messed up situation. No coincidence, I think, that they are on Pan’s island, playing his games either. I hope it all makes more sense in the full episode, and I’ll just remind myself the next episode will be Belle and Ariel and try to just breathe through it. Other fans are very happy about it, so there’s that, but I ‘m just seeing a train wreck coming, and I miss Season 1’s style of every few episodes there was sort of some happy ending in sight for someone even if not Emma.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
It strikes me that, not for nothing, Hook partnered with Cora. Speaking of partners, Rumple and Cora had a ..thing. It was pre-Belle, and despite one shock–threat kiss while Belle temporarily was “dead”, at least memory wise, it was not a love story. More of a lust story. I have seen plenty of people who found the Rose-RC scenes HOT, and come to think of it there were lots of pictures if it too.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Slurpeez, I agree . Also, just imagine Emma saying “Neal taught me that” after she walks away.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
I had the same reaction, RG.
The ending note is sweet on Hook’s part, a shout out to Wesley but it seems out of place to me with how the conversation started off. There is intensity there, but the start is more aiming for “hot” then “romantic”. It’s a tough line. If we’d seen Lacey and Keith grappling in an alley before we’d seen him asking for 5 minutes with Belle against her will back in the FTL flashback, people might have found that hot too. Instead we were all sort of where’s the brain bleach, because Belle would NEVER with that guy least of all, and where’s her Rumple! Emma of course is not sweet Belle. We know she WOULD, and that she did, before she got to SB, because she’s had one-night stands. She probably broke hearts too, and the question is, from her side, iis it emotional, or is it, like Regina with Graham. Because Emma and Regina do have their parallels too. Kissing someone feels good, and Emma’s no nun. Hook is handsome, and it goes back to “fun in vegas.” I will neither confirm nor deny having been in Vegas years before ever meeting my husband, and may or may not have had the opportunity to be in a similiar state of as Avril Lavgine sings, “what the H….”. I guess they’re spoiling the whatever out of this kiss scene for ratings, but it feels very much a huge shift from the Emma who was choking back tears over missing Neal, until you get back to the stages of grief and the numbing /trying to feel something stage. Guess we have to see if these two start acting in a less “physical” way and a more emotionally resonant way with each other.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Thanks! I was just burried by a pile of “feels” and had to get it out.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Ha, I almost made the reference to hoodies and Treyvon Martin too! I am loving button-down Neal much more I admit, especially as someone pointed out both he and Emma are wearing grey shirts with slit pockets. Their cast scene clothing is different, and I cannot find a picture right now to put side by side but sure someone has made a gifset thing. Of course, what that means, who knows, but as a shipper spinning a speculation it is fun to notice.
I absolutely agree that the writers are intentional about many symbols, and planning in advance, but we fans do see a lot of things in those clouds that are mutually exclusive interpretations. Some of it could be because they can’t fix what’s already been shot and in the can, nor do they want to when they know they’ve been keeping something back that might change how fans react at one point. Yet I also suspect at times they start nudging along in a different direction. I find all the new clues about ReHo to be a bit suspect, because to me it feels like something they came up with between Season 2 and 3, to meet Evil Regal demands to know that Regina might find romantic love again. I jumped on board early even as far back as Stable Boy when it was just a theory thread of what type of famous fictional character, though I also liked Zorro 😛 I just did not see Regina clues in a very obvious way in pre RH, Ellis-era RH but I bet they will pop up everywhere now.
On the other hand, I think SF has symbols that say something about the characters in terms of intention, rather than being random things that work in a coincidental or ironic way. So for example, Emma keeps the yellow bug where she and Neal met. He keeps the dreamcatcher by his window. People point out there are other dreamcatcher moments, but none of those work to say this character is keeping this item because of romantic love for this other character.
Another example is the Pirate motif that I see discussed for CS. It always could go back to Neal too, since Neal spent time on a pirate ship, and it was the JR that brought him to SB. Beans too, as Neal as Bae is the first character we associate with those things. SF meet in Portland, then she ends up living in “beantown” (Boston’s nickname). That might be mere silly coincidence or significant detail, certainly something fans can spin various ways. Compare the bug or dreamcatcher to a doll or painting that are background set pieces. I think it is insignificant compared to things the camera zooms in on, that the characters touch and speak about. Those symbols carry less weight than the pendant might, and I really hope Neal does have it and we do see it back around her neck at some point. Probably not yet, just as Adam tweeted they could do a Rumbelle wedding but the show would be over (sorry not as versed on my Rumbelle, I’m just so sure of those two that almost nothing upsets me about it and I can just relax and enjoy like Snowing.)
What does worry me for SF is not what I saw played out, but the potential to please the marketing brass, to make changes with a slow accumulation of new signs. If I did not get online I would probably feel the same about SF, except I might see the print media efforts and wonder.
I do get online though and overthink like anyone reading this! So with that, I am not really seeing Emma or Neal’s happiness being defined as with other people. Hook’s has only vaguely looked to Emma, and we have much to learn about his true history with Pan. I have no doubt they want to redeem him and play him up for his devoted fans. That does not mean they can only put him with Emma in order to secure his role in the show, and if anything it is a good reason NOT to put him with her. The writers might want to get some more flirt out of him before he gets to the Charming-boring-hero zone. The writers also can show real personal growth if he does not just think about his own desires.
Granted, if Emma wants him, then she does and that has been the central question on the CSF thread. Even now people are saying on tumblr that Emma is angry AT Neal. Well, she is, but she’s more angry in the “7 stages of grieving” sense, that she’s angry at the situation, at fate, that all that time they loved each other, and only found out too late. She’s gone through shock, through blaming herself and others, and now she’s just angry. I’m not sure if they will rush her through the next few stages (some models have 5 stages) and suddenly she’ll just be back to rational, calm and hopeful, then she notices Hook. I still do not see her being drawn to Hook for who he actually is as a person. It’s more like people are arguing she’s drawn in spite of the things he does and says to her, until of course, the end of last season when he began to actually help her.
Yet even as he is helping her get to Henry, much as she appreciates what he is contributing, he still keeps bringing up Neal. Here’s Neal’s sword, here’s his cave, there’s his drawings, and it seems what they are building a bridge upon is their memories of Neal. They haven’t once discussed any of the things that happened between Hook and Emma in the time they’ve known each other. No apologies for throwing her into a wall or choosing to switch back to Cora, or the bean comparison, no thank you for saving his life against Rumple, or apologies for not helping more with Cora. Or even, an apology for knowing about Tamara deceiving Neal and not doing one darn thing about it, despite apparently “missing” him so genuinely. There are also no conversations about his sailing life or her growing up or just anything positive unrelated to the mission at hand, other than his one comment to know who she really is, when she clammed up.
I want to see good for Hook, rather than predict dark and ominous plot developments, but I’ve an active imagination too. Just as people on tumblr are cooking up “Dark one Neal who rips out Emma’s heart and Hook sees his worst fear cannot happen” scenarios, I can imagine the opposite thing of Neal seeing Emma and Hook being his worst nightmare of Hook seducing away another woman from him. Even if you fully acknowledge that Milah and Emma might have chosen Hook it’s still wrenching for Neal. Especially if he worries that Emma might abandon Henry. I truly hope that is not what the writers do as I want Neal to have faith that Emma would NEVER give up Henry as his mother gave up him, and I want Neal to be understanding rather than jealous. Neal knows he tried to move on, so I do not want him to blame Emma for basically doing the same thing. I only want him to blame Hook a little, and then only because I do think it is true of Hook’s character that he is the active pursuer pushing buttons on a woman racked with guilt, fear, stress and in that sense, taking advantage of her emotional vulnerability. That’s why I use the word “seduce” rather than “court”, or steal. Steal is a bad word to describe the situation, as Emma’s agency (nor Milah’s) should not be discounted, yet for both women there is a hard-to-ignore coincidence that both are miserable and vulnerable when Hook starts to flirt with intention.
I have not yet see Emma seek out Hook. She even flatly says at the start of the NL adventure, we don’t need to be friends, nor does she expect or want that. So a few days later how are we supposed to believe she’s fallen deeply in love with him? How do we believe she has gotten over a relationship she could not get over when she thought the guy didn’t love her, now that she knows he actually did? If she was stuck on Neal thinking he’d set her up, how much more ache is there to lose him when he basically risked his life for her? When she saw he stepped right up to fatherhood, and loves her son every bit as much as she does?
I think Emma is about to start entering that phase where she tries to numb her pain because she cannot let these out-of-control emotions get in the way of getting Henry. She’s tried rum. She’s tried not talking. Now she will be ready to try something else, just like Mary Margret did with Whale. I don’t think Emma’s put her past with Neal behind, and is ready to open her heart to a new love, who’s earned her respect with patience, and selfless behavior.
As I said, I’m sort of holding back on the dark speculation because I like Hook (Hookriel!), but we don’t know much about Hook’s prior dealings with Pan. We don’t know if, for example, Hook’s “good form” is what keeps him from being a more devastating villain, in the way Rumple’s “nasty habits” keeps him from being the good man he wants to be. The single biggest non-shipper complaint about Hook (courtesy of television without pity viewers) is that he’s an incompetent villain and a let-down in that department. I do agree it is intentional to keep Hook from being “over-the-line” like Cora, but look at Rumple and Regina. The writers don’t need to keep him moral to keep him shippable, and I’d say, they haven’t bothered to try that hard. There’s been no lasting damage to any prominent characters from Hook’s actions, yet that’s usually not because of his actions. He did save Aurora’s heart and eventually tell everyone about the beans and bring them back, but on the other hand, he did nothing about Archie, Belle or the Princess Squad in the cell, or Anton in the ship. He had his limits and survival to think about, very true, but it goes back to showing him to be selfish rather than heroic. He’s like Gaston in some ways, out to kill the beast and get the girl but not in all the right ways. I do think he is better than cartoon Gaston, but we barely saw anything of doomed Rose-Gaston in ONCE. I don’t know if they had planned more between Belle and Hook and got sidetracked by the broken leg or not. Or maybe it is in the Maleficient /Cora way of going after the mother then the daughter that Hook is zeroing on Emma. It is a passing thought that bubbled to mind after Regina told Snow she had been going about her revenge the wrong way and needed to take everything that could have belonged to Snow.
If Hook’s happy ending is Emma and Henry, then he sort of pulls off doing that to Rumple and Rumple’s son. From Emma’s perspective that may be irrelevant if Hook is who she truly loves, but I am not convinced the writers set us up to root against Neal this way, or to think Emma really would be happier with Hook. Then again, what we think is the happy ending for any character can always change as the writers are telling a story not writing a romance novel for Emma and any character.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
I think what is driving a lot of fans is marketing more than interpretation, and as for the marketing, well the show preceeding Once is Revenge, which had a promo that started off “The Hampton’s hottest Love Rhombus…..” It’s a good question in my mind how much that kind of thing drives the marketing team and in turn network brass drive the writers to play with whatever “malleability” they have in their vision.
I really dislike the whole “everything is planned, and even tiny insignificant details were obviously intentional as a sign to the audience, along with heavy ironic foreshadowing” as a way to figure out what the writers want an average viewer to understand is going on. That’s bad storytelling if you have to look at everything upside down and backwards to the normal way you would in the context of a scene,to interpret how a character is feeling.
This isn’t a novel that is written and rewritten before being published. It is a television show that, while dreamed of for many years by two of its creators, is being written by a tag team of writers. One of whom, Jane Eppenson has a specialty on “ships” (her twitter says if you ship it I write it) and really hearing her in various interviews what she is good at doing is character development and dialog. She leaves the big plot stuff to the action writers and visionaries of Adam and Eddy. So to the extent we feel some discrepancy or rough edges between one episode and the next, the obvious answer is that is down to the way television series are created. She has said she learns new things all the time in the writers room. They get fan input on a delayed basis to where the writers are in terms of mapping out the next bits of the story, so they can’t just turn on a dime.
Yet they can turn, so sometimes pieces of the old vision dangle as loose ends. So some fans get upset and feel used when things don’t go exactly as they thought they would because the clues they saw didn’t play out the way they saw them. THen others get a little too happy when one part of the story fits with what they expected. Yes, I am happy that I can occasionally get a correct guess, one dart to hit the board as opposed to the wall Hook’s father isn’t Liam, and he is a brother, and they were both in the navy as I guessed off spoilers, but it isn’t like I think that means I was right about most of my guesses either . I try to remind myself that does not mean I know what will happen next!
I come back to the video cues, the audio cues, the dialog cues, all of it very consistent with thinking Emma never moved on from Neal because she loved him and wanted another chance to be together, not because she was so hurt, damaged and utterly destroyed by the abuse he heaped on her! I do understand where people get the impression that Neal was not good to Emma when they were together. We were conditioned to think Henry’s father would be shady. There’s a lot of cultural stereotypes that guys who wear tank tops and hoodies and don’t speak in the Queen’s English are low-life scumbags, likely to use and abuse women. Yet a lot of people forget that before we ever met Neal, as Emma’s boyfriend in the car, we saw him in a 3 pc suit wandering around a rich part of NY, then going back to a reasonable (for NY) apartment. He didn’t look all that happy, but he had come a long way from a guy living in a car on the street.
The way they introduced Neal called back to LOST spoiler for another show— the whole Desmond storyline and way he was introduced , but it also echoed Emma’s introduction in the real world, in her snazzy red dress. Both were dressed up, and both alone. Both didn’t look that happy, a little lost and broken, until someone came for Emma, and something came for Neal. The difference for Neal, of course, was that he’d lost faith and hope under the oceans of guilt he had over leaving Emma the way he did. He still knows why he did (being in the way of the curse and who knows what else that might have to do with Pan), but he will always regret that because he all he really wanted was to be with her, and for her to be happy. He meant what he said about wanting to reunite her with her parents, and get her home. He thought that mattered to her. He thought helping all the other cursed people mattered. It was, for Neal, a decision that could not have come easy, not after what he had been through in his life.
Yet for many viewers, they pick up on these stereotypical assumptions of “street voice, street clothes, bad guy” and especially “son of Rumple, yeah, he’s going to be just like dad” and not realize that they’re ignoring the character’s actual actions and intentions. The choice to cast MRJ, dress the character a certain way, and also present him as a fellow thief, these were things designed to keep the audience at a distance, to explain Emma’s reluctance and assumptions that he’d played her. Yet the reveal that he was actually Bae, the things we saw Bae do, the echoes of Bae we saw in present day Storebrooke in Neal, are intentional too. Neal saved Whale from Rumple, Neal followed Emma to get her back even though he didn’t want to believe her. I find it incredible because so far, all he knew was a guy who stole 20k from him had “died” and a woman who’d tried to kill him and kidnap his son was missing. Maybe he knew she was Henry’s adopted mother (I think he did), but even then, that he didn’t say “Emma, if Regina’s gone, that’s good for us.” He could have done that but he jumped right in there to help, even facing down his fiance at gunpoint. Then when shot, despite the pain he got himself up to help Emma avoid getting sucked down the portal.
I will admit, he was stupid to stand with his back towards it, but well, Neal’s imperfections show he is a real character and not some cardboard hero without much thought the writers are pushing on everyone. They weren’t afraid to make Neal unlikeable at times (not that the fanbase needs reason, when in general, villains who do horrible horrible things need only cry a tear or at least look down at the ground somewhat sad, to be loved with a fierceness that’s unmatched by the devotion to the “heroes” in the show.) RG, I do adore Rumple too, but I give you a lot of credit for not being one of THOSE Rumple fans who get angry at Neal for not forgiving Rumple fast enough (like the Regina ones who come down on Henry). The most important bit to me though is why Neal does the things he does, and how when he does do wrong or cause pain, even inadvertently, he tries to do the right thing or apologize for having done the wrong thing.
I don’t want Emma forgiving Neal right away either. I do expect she’s going to hang onto her anger for a bit, but I want it to play out on screen, not in fan’s headcannons. I don’t want the audience guessing so much why he left, or more importantly, what Emma thinks about why he left. I want that in dialog and on the screen, just like she has had conversations with Henry and Snow and Charming. They may end up saying they can never go back to what they had, and that might be the end of it. I’m hoping though, that what the writers do is show they do not need to go back, but they want to go forward together because they truly love each other.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
RG–I agree. The model for the FTL kingdoms does appear very European feudal male-dominated monarchies, but it is not 100% bound by those rules and conventions. We have references to King Midas, who had a daughter with a non-prince fiance until an accident cursed him. The implication was she was to inherit, not that she had to marry a male prince necessarily.They did not make it a plot point that Regina, a female child was not in line for the throne by virtue of being female.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
