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Perhaps it is still the first scene. Maybe it’s something that Rumple bought with him (because plot) and for some reason or another Pan steals it later in the episode?
That actually makes a lot of sense. Pan to Rumple: “You want to talk to your son again? Find a way to get me out of here.”
I’m with @Phee. The only thing that would cause that kind of reaction in Henry is Neal.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I wonder if they’re leaving the Underworld this episode then. Bring back the big names to “cross over” or “finish their business” before the main cast leave.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"So Pan gives Rumple a magic potion that will allow the woman threatening Rumple to talk to her boyfriend, who just so happens to be Rumple’s mortal enemy. …like why? Pan isn’t altruistic. So…like why?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"1) Is OUAT, at its core, a reflection on gender? I’m asking because there are obviously other things going on in it, but insofar as a show usually explores some kind of core social or moral quandary, is this one of OUAT’s primary foci?*
I think in the beginning it wanted to be a reflection on gender. Our three lead characters were all women in various stages of their lives–the Evil Queen, Snow, and Emma. I mean, it’s almost some sort of Crone, Mother, Maiden triumvirate, but subtly twisted–especially with Emma in which her Maiden status was more about her innocence about where she came from and who her family really was. The show took traditional images of women and carefully twisted them in fun way. Snow might be the princess in a pretty gown, but she also wore leathers, furs, hunted, trapped, tracked, and actually got the betterment of Charming in “Snow Falls.” Our first image of Emma is in a skin tight, highly sexual dress (with shoes that would probably knock you unconscious), but it turns out that she’s scamming the guy on her date, has a job that is traditionally “male” and is self sufficient. Further, when her long lost son finds her, her plan isn’t to get cookies and milk and lament all about how she wished they had each other, she took him back to SB because that was his home. She didn’t turn into a puddle of goo around him; she maintained some distance. Slowly, with some great development Emma let her “mother” side through.
What happens over time is that those characters and their interesting twists in traditional gender roles became less complicated. They became rather one note. Regina, Snow and Emma all became “mother” in the most basic sense–when they needed redeemed or humanized, they have their child inserted into the scene (see, for example, every time Baby Snowflake suddenly appears, being carried by Snow. It’s always when there is some sort of emotional scene in which Snow needs to look protective and usually weepy or highly emotional)
I’ll just stick with the females for now.
2) Does OUAT have a specific gender ideology? Are there systematic themes to the way in which it represents women? Men? What about romantic relationships? Kinship? Parenthood?
I don’t know if we can call it specific gender ideology because they change it with the passing seasons. I also can’t remove what A and E (and the actors) have said about the characters in questions. It often doesn’t match how I’m reading the OUAT text–or how a lot of people are reading the text. So that’s another factor. A and E continually say that Emma is a strong woman, but to me she lost that status around season 4B. I think the writers know that some gender ideologies are buzzwords. You want to be talked about, then you claim to write “strong women.” It’s a buzzword in culture right now largely due to conversations happening about gendered language, rape culture, and privilege. TV is a business. You don’t want to say that you’re following trends that are decades old, instead you try to say that you’re not normative. But with every passing season, every time a woman’s story is reduced to simply being one half of a heterosexual relationship, every time it ignores woman of color or different sexuality, it gets harder to argue that OUAT isn’t normative.
3) Is it sometimes written in a way that is purposefully polarizing? Can we think of the “ship wars” in the fandom as actually “culture wars” over gender roles and representations of relationships?
I stopped believing the writers do anything on purpose a long time ago. I don’t think they are being purposefully polarizing because they don’t realize it is polarizing. People who call the writers out on issues get called “not fans” or “haters” or are told “keep watching. Hope you like what you see!” They never answer the criticism or really even listen to it in any meaningful way. They don’t get the problem so they aren’t certainly aren’t doing it on purpose.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I wonder how long they are going to be in the Underworld. Are they coming back in just the finale?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Since it seems like we’ve all had a say in the Emma thread, let’s move on.
For this one, it’s important to note that we’ll be dong both Snow and Charming here. At this stage in the game, it’s almost hard to talk about them apart and since Snow usually dominates the conversation/screen time/attention, I’ll use her thread.
Question the first: as the show stands right now, at the end of S5A, are Snow White and Prince Charming superfluous?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I’m still on the fence with who the LGBT relationship would be. I know Mulan and Ruby seem obvious, but I just cant shake this feeling that A and E couldn’t pass by the “over the rainbow” and “friend of Dorothy” route.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"the audience was led to believe it all along, but when you really think about it, the only possible evidence prior to that episode was Henry’s book and the flashbacks
If we never had flashbacks, I almost wonder if I would have believed any of it. That might be an interesting experiment: if you had the same show, but no flashbacks, just present day. Would you believe?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Tiny vile of the ale to talk to Neal–he’ll warn them about the Underworld and Hades and then POOF. Back to oblivion.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"What about most shocking moment? It could be a good shock, a bad shock, so long as it’s something that made you gasp….
I think mine is Regina killing Graham. I did not expect Regina to have her all those hearts in a vault nor did I expect that she could crush hearts and kill people. The fact that Graham dies seconds after he remembers who he is and in Emma’s arms….so tragically sad. I remember gasping.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
