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I actually liked this episode, and I’ve been mega-grumpy about OUAT for really I don’t know how long.
Liked:
The Author. That story arc is actually interesting, intriguing, and doesn’t feel juvenile. It’s more than the now rather stale “i can haz all your happy endings!” individual-level drama, and the flotilla of angsty ships. The dialogue is very meta, and Patrick Fischler just nails it — Isaac is such a shifty character, and it’s kinda perfect.
Mal. Mal is awesome. Although I do wonder what the next week of teaching Lily to be a dragon going to be like. Are they going to go burn down patches of random forest? Steal a few sheep?
The Charmings. Apart from Snow’s ridiculous decision to charge a very angry dragon, it was nice to see them actually learn from their mistakes and not repeat them. So when Mal came to them asking for help, there was no more “You’re a villain! You have cooties! You can’t play with us!”
Yay! for character growth.
Mixed
Emma mentioned Neal’s importance to her. It was perfunctory, but it’s nice to have her acknowledge it. Sad. But nice.
Regina/Zelena/Robin. I appreciate Regina and Robin trying to work with the hand they’ve been dealt. And good on Regina, I suppose, for showing a bit of restraint in the end and not writing Zelena and her unborn baby out of existence. But… limited access with visitation rights? Well, I suppose it makes sense.
Rumple – So, is he essentially dead? Did the author bring him back to life when he wrote himself out of Zelena’s room? Intrigued by what happens when the DO is there but “no one is home.” But also, not looking forward to it. Though I think this is foreshadowing. I think there’s a good chance that Rumple the man dies, probably at the end of the AU, once it “reverts” back to normal, and the DO, perhaps occupying Rumple’s body or perhaps released from it, wreaks havoc on SB — :-/
Rumple/Regina. It’s interesting to see Regina leave Rumple in the dust as soon as she got her hands on the pen. I know there’s bad blood between them, but essentially I think this is symptomatic of the villains MO more generally, and makes me think that Regina still has a way to go — the no holds barred attitude as soon as one of the other villains shows any sign of weakness has been a systematic trait. They actually can’t work together without backstabbing each other at the first opportunity. Good call, Mal, for going to the Charmings.
Regina/Cora. I had always wondered whether Regina had fertility issues, and hence why she chose to adopt Henry. It’s nice to see an explanation, but it felt a bit forced. So Cora essentially set her up on a bad date, and then revealed that she wants grandchildren. Seems like the reaction is just a tad extreme. I suppose it shows how afraid Regina was of Cora’s ability to manipulate things to her advantage.
Disliked:
No Will, no Belle, no Henry.
Yeeeesss, lets give Roland something that’ll erase his memory of the past however many months and not deal with all the #awkward! Fantastic idea! Isn’t magic grand? Makes parenting so much easier! Abracadabra, and you don’t have to deal with all those messy things!
The Sheriff of Nottingham. What a catch.
[adrotate group="5"]Sweets wrote: or that the sentient being Rumplestiltskin will be gone and all that will remain is the Dark One. I think it’s that one.
I was under that impression. Doesn’t Rumple say something like “You don’t want to have the Dark One around when no one is home” (meaning its human host, presumably)?
So this brings up the next question. What IS the Dark One without the “desperate soul” it has saddled? It doesn’t look like it’s a parasite that simply dies with the host. Does it have intent? Or is it just a kind of elemental force of chaos? Theories?
He mentioned “experimental writing.” What does that mean? What has he been writing?
Right? Unpublished piece? AU? Fanfiction? 😀 First draft?
I think there are two questions that come up with this turn of events:
1) When they say “villains” and “heroes,” whose POV is it? Do they all agree on who the villains/heroes are? Are Rumple and Isaac on the same page, so to speak? For example, what happens to Hook?
Similarly, does the author write something like “and all the villains had their happy endings,” or does he have to write more specifically what happened?
2) What’s in it for Isaac? So he first went with Regina, realized that she wouldn’t use his abilities — she’d do “nothing” as she said — and then at that point skipped back to Rumple. Technically, that scene where Rumple is focusing on the inkwell gave me the impression that without the author’s intervention Rump was essentially a goner. I think the author wrote him back into consciousness with his line “where Rumplestiltskin waits.” What gives?
Is the author simply after a better story, or does he have other motivations beside this? Is he, much like Rumple, addicted to his power?
But it’s rather alarming that the seasonal arc villains take the same path by and large. And that path is: women become villains through the actions of a man (who gets to walk away) and then are redeemed through child bearing or having their own child-inserts.
Milah is an interesting exception. She starts off being a mother, but abandons her child, and runs off with a rogue lover — we get the sense she’s not thrilled to be in her motherly/wifely role from the get go. The reason, however, isn’t that there’s something different about her, but that we are lead to assume that Rumple isn’t “man enough” (not brave, not a hero, not rich etc). By and large though, Milah ends badly (killed by her former husband no less), which interestingly really seals Rumple’s evilness, but somehow leaves Hook entirely exonerated from his responsibility as, essentially, a home-wrecker, and gives him a motivation to seek revenge to boot. In the end, Milah is a negative character because she abandons her son for presumably True Love — which, in her case, does not bring her redemption. By not embracing motherhood, Milah precipitates the entire Rumplestiltskin/Bae storyline.
Parenthood as a means of sanctification (with the exception of Peter Pan) is a recurring theme.
I agree but you know what’s interesting, looking at your list? Apart from Rumple, none of those fathers were villains. Whereas–with the exception of Snow and Emma–all the mothers on my list were considered villains. The one truly villainous father that was also villain of the arc (Pan) was never redeemed. They really like setting up a female villain and then giving that female villain some sort of mother-role that eventually gets her to redemption.
Although of course, Rumple wasn’t a villain originally – just a weak man. In fact, it is interesting that he turns villainous precisely in order to save his son, so the narrative is kind of inversed in his case. But by and large, none of the father-child relationships have this salvational component. It seems like A&E keep reiterating a kind of “fallen woman” turned Madonna narrative. I wonder if they’re aware of this.
Hmm. Since when is a baby a magical device that bumps up the charisma stats of a disliked character?
Yes, Zelena might take to motherhood — but we have no evidence that she would. If anything, we have ample evidence to the contrary. If the motivation to have a child is to have someone of “one’s own,” that’s a pretty chilling scenario. I can just imagine Zelena, who’s already unstable, but is now also sleep-deprived, likely with no support from Robin, trying to raise the child. And what happens when the kid starts asserting their independence? Has a temper tantrum? What about when they’re a little older (if they make it that far), and start voicing opinions that do not correspond with Zelena’s? It might come to pass, but the writers are essentially trusting us to assume that because Zelena is pregnant, somehow her entire being will get an overhaul.
“Motherhood” is not some kind of magical corrective that suddenly makes a woman into what she “properly” ought to be — meek, caring, devoted, unselfish, [insert your favorite gender ideology descriptor]. I had a huge problem with that idea with Cora too. Seriously, #babiesasprops.
So, this is going to come from a slightly different place of critique, because I have a lot of trouble thinking about OUAT’s characters without thinking about what the “puppet masters” are doing with their “puppets.”
In fiction writing, there is this idea about how at the beginning of a work, whether novel or screenplay, you make promises to your audience. Usually it’s about things like genre – and if you don’t fulfill the promise, that’s a sure way to alienate your readership or viewership. S1 OUAT made a “promise” that this was a character-driven show. Otherwise, what’s the point of playing with fairytale archetypes? By S4 it has completely broken this promise, and is now, instead, a plot driven show.
Rumbelle, is, I think, an example of a broken promise on the writers’ part. Not that the couple had to necessarily develop romantically, but Skin Deep set a particular tone for what that relationship would be. Specifically, very slow moving, very understated, painful but hopeful. But then, they changed their mind about how they wanted to develop it (for example, the rather sudden jump from Belle being locked away, to her physical involvement with Rumple. From the tone they set up in S1 that was a bit fast), and since the show’s characters progressively became more and more incidental to the plot, these reconfigurations feel completely forced. The “wrecking” of Rumbelle too seemed forced to me, but also deliberate on the writers’ part — and required for both Rumple and Belle to become completely 1-dimensional. So I’m actually really sympathetic to the Rumbelle shippers who are holding on — I think they are holding on to that promise originally made by the show.
Sadly, I don’t think OUAT gives a flying hoot about fulfilling the promises they made to their fans. This doesn’t mean that they won’t put them back together — they might. It just means that they couldn’t care less if in the audience’s mind, the relationship has died. They’ll cobble it back together and let it run around like some demented Frankenstein’s monster. And call it a day.
This isn’t the only example where OUAT drops the ball in this department. Arguably the bigger example is how a show that was about family, and children and parents became primarily about romantic ships. So Henry, Roland, and even the relationships of the “middle” generation to their parents have practically disappeared. The only way this now figures in the show is as plot device: “Lo and behold, these two people are secretly RELATED!”
Yay.
That’s half the problem. The other half is the ideology of relationships OUAT is peddling. I’m mildly nonplused at how the possibility of a long-term committed relationship on the show is now handled: whether as marriage or not, it’s now implicitly dismissed. So in addition to a normalized “rape culture” that has been pointed out by many here, the show puts no hope, and in fact puts a negative valence on any relationship past the initial honeymoon stage. In other words, even Snow and Charming, arguably the most solid couple on the show, have become both tainted and threatened — now physically (through Lily) — by their bad choices.
And all the other married relationships are absolute disasters. Ok, maybe it makes for better drama. Or, maybe contemporary US culture is so pessimistic about marriage and commitment more generally that it gets reflected in shows like this. To me, personally, Rumbelle is deeply problematic, but it’s simply the extreme example along a spectrum of negativity, which is how relationships with any mileage under their belt are portrayed on this show — as potentially abusive, deceitful, non-committed (Robin and Marian before we knew Marian is Zelena), or seemingly solid but recently revealed as morally deluded (Snowing). In other words, if you were wondering what happens after the fairytale “happily ever after”, the answer is abuse, neglect, separation, divorce. Well, and death of course. Oh, and sometimes weird pregnancies with the wrong people.
Ugh, sorry. Grumpy today.
I think all the couples will be fine eventually. I do however think that the couple people should be most worried about in the immediate future is CaptainSwan. All the Once couples so far, excluding CS, have had to deal with the crap thrown at them by the writers (for OQ, that crap comes bearing the name Zelena), CS is the only couple that haven’t had to go through major trials in their relationship so far, so it makes sense that it’s their turn now.
I think you’re onto something here. But although I might be completely wrong about this, I have this sneaking suspicion that what the writers will “throw” at Emma and Hook is going to be pretty minor compared to every other couple. A&E are no GRR Martin — we can’t really expect them to take Faulkner’s advice to heart and “kill their darlings,” and they probably won’t even inconvenience them overly much. As long as Hook remains a wish fulfillment character, CS is pretty safe, I think.
The song is so melodic & beautiful; you can get lost in the string section
That’s gorgeous, glad you posted. 🙂
Ok, I’ll play. I used to love this song long before Once, but now every time I hear it, it makes me think of Neal, the words, the voice, the mood. Reads well as a speculation of what Neal might have been thinking after he lost Emma.
Worth a listen on its own – a beautiful acoustic piece, and the singer’s voice is a bit reminiscent of Johnny Cash.
It’s called Shiola by Murder by Death.
Lyrics are as follows:
i steal a look between the blinds i unwind she sleeps in comfort in my arms she is plain, but she is mine our child is silent but awake i run my hands through his hair i teach him manners and how to stick up for himself when things get bad i tell him son never throw the first punch and if you must fight make it clean SHIOLA SHIOLA will all be forgiven SHIOLA SHIOLA am i strong enough to start again alone the taste of home is filling up my mouth is it wrong to love a family of ghosts her door is open the windows are all up she says “come inside” i live alone, more or less i summon wife child and happiness build them up from the dirt and clay i have to believe that all will be forgiven SHIOLA SHIOLA my heart is overflowing SHIOLA SHIOLA with love and anger coiled into one they take and take, but never get their fill i try and try and fail against my will i wait and wait for that hand to sweep me up and take me down the road home
