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– Favorite Episode of the Season
Still “Skin Deep” with an honorable mentions going to “A Land Without Magic,” “Desperate Souls” and “An Apple Red As Blood”
Skin Deep was one of those unique moments in my TV viewing life when I realized I was watching something that would stick with me forever. I went from being someone who was listening to the podcast and generally interested in the show, but mostly staying out of the fandom, to someone who simply had to talk about all of the things with all of the people. Daniel, luckily, had just opened the forums shortly before Skin Deep aired, so I came over here and…well, the rest is history.
I remember being highly skeptical about Skin Deep at first. While Beauty and the Beast was (and still is) my favorite Disney movie, I was *very* unsure about Rumple being the beast. I thought the idea was nonsense since how could Rumplstiltskin–a Germanic fairy tale–be the Beast–a French fairy tale character? But I loved Emilie from LOST and decided to approach the episode with an open mind. I remember being in absolute tears after the episode and watched it every day the following week because it moved me so much. The moment when Rumple in the EF is smashing all his possessions while Isham’s incredible score played over was simply breathtaking. This episode, in my opinion, elevated the show in a way that previous episodes hadn’t–in spite of all being very good. It complicated the narrative in the same way that Desperate Souls had, opening Rumple’s character up to being more than just some Trickster God in leather pants.
– Favorite Character Introduced
Rumple, obviously. I was mesmerized by his performance from the get-go but it wasn’t until Desperate Souls and then Skin Deep that I really got him. At first I thought he was a fun, but ultimately crazy, chaotic force who liked to make deals and turn peoples lives upside down. The fact that, at his heart, he was just a father searching for his little boy and doing complicated, nasty, but human things to achieve his ends made me realize that the show was more than just Disney-In-Real-Life. Bobby brings an electricity to the screen that other actors would never be able to do in this role. He made Rumple, and thank goodness A and E gave him free reign to do so because it worked so well.
– Favorite Moment of the Season
This one is hard because there are so so many. From the clock tower moving after Emma decides to stay (what a message of hope!) to the aforementioned revelations in Desperate Souls and Skin Deep to Henry eating the turnover. But I think my favorite is really twofold, and both of them involve Ms Emma Swan, a character I truly loved (second only to Rumple) for the first season.
The first is Emma using a father’s sword to defeat a dragon. I mean, you don’t get much more “traditional hero” than that. That’s just straight up classic. But I love how it was presented. First, Emma’s a woman so that’s something new right there. Second, Emma’s not really a hero yet–she’s still in her mundane mindset (remember when she tried to use a gun first?!) and isn’t quite ready to accept all the crazy going on around her. It was only by internally accepting that maybe this problem has a non-mundane solution (sword infused with history and tradition over gun and bullets) that Emma really put on the hero’s mantel (and then rose from the depths to save everyone!) Ah, hero imagery. You slay me.
The second and probably my absolute favorite is Emma waking up Henry. I remember being so stunned. A curse being broken by TLK between romantic partners are pretty much expected–that’s what fairy tales have taught me to expect. But a TLK between mom and son, as the son is being taken off his hospital equipment, after the mom literally fought a dragon and is now being forced to say goodbye?! I mean holy powerful moment, Batman! That moment. That moment still makes me cry. It still makes my heart sore.
– In hindsight, what do you think worked and didn’t work about these drastic changes? Should the curse have lasted longer? Should magic have been left out of Storybrooke?
I think you absolutely needed the curse to end in S1. They were stretching credulity of Emma not beveling by this point. I remember so many of us getting irritated that Emma continued to deny what was clearly going on around her. Breaking the curse early on opened the doors to so many story lines, many of which we actually saw in S2.
I think magic did need to come to SB because without it, there’s no tension between the heroes and villains. If the villains don’t have an equal footing then it’s hard to root for the heroes to overcome them. However, I think it should have taken longer for magic to get to SB. Have Regina and Rumple really struggle with being “normal” for awhile. Make the heroes question what should be done with them now that everyone is awake but the villains are impotent. If they are declawed are they really a threat? Maybe Cora helps bring magic to SB when she arrives and Regina is faced with those consequences.
– Regarding this Season, has your opinion changed at all looking back?
Largely, no. It is still the very best season this show has ever done. It was complicated and nuanced and forward thinking with some truly great characters that you either loved or hated–but the point is that you felt something. This show made you feel. The idea that everyone needs a community isn’t a revelation but it’s powerful and so was S1.
I’ve even come to appreciate the episodes that I wasn’t too fond of when they first aired, like Dreamy and True North, or plot lines that I thought dragged on for too long, like Katheryn’s disappearance.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Well, the reason I asked this is because of what we talked about Jane. Is the money worth being on a show that has problematic messages and portraying problematic characters?
Given the amount of $$ actors make (and even show runners and writers for major networks) then I’d say yes. But I’m also in a ton of student debt and mostly living in the straight middle class. It’s really up to each person, though. Bobby has talked about how OUAT is a steady job (read: money) whereas movies aren’t. Ginny and Josh now have one kid and another on the way, and neither of their careers are going blockbuster. Emilie is about to have her first kid and her situation is largely the same. OUAT is steady, reliable, good paying work. It might have a host of bad messages, morals, and tawdry storylines but…so do soap operas and look how long actors stay on those.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"We’re talking about the cast as if they physically go out, door to door, and look for new jobs. They don’t. They have agents who do that for them–find interesting roles in the actors wheelhouse and bag of tricks, send them a script and wait to hear back from their client about if they want to pursue it or not. The agents are constantly looking because they know that at any second their client–the cast member–might decide that they want something new.
Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY FELLOW YARNIE!!!! @Josephine
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I’ll tackle my own question again:
Has Emma progressed, regressed, or stayed the same in terms of development since S1?
To be fair to the show, in some ways, yes, Emma has progressed. She no longer balks at the idea of being a mother, a daughter, or the Savior. She’s embraced those roles and even had to face what it would mean if she wasn’t those things and always decided that they are a big part of her makeup. Season 1 Emma ran from things, S2-onward Emma fights to keep those.
There are, however, two issues. The first is that her interpersonal relationships with the people for whom she is a mother, daughter, Savior–so, Henry, Snow and Charming, and the town of SB–have largely stagnated. Snow and Emma have little contact in which their relationship grows or is meaningfully thought upon. The writers seem to believe that mother and daughter stop developing after they accept each other, as if there is an end game for that relationship. Henry is inserted into scenes when the writers remember that they are actually paying Jared to be a character. And the town has largely become a ghost city inhabited only by the CharMillStiltskin clan and, sometimes, the dwarves. This last one bothers me quite a bit. In S1 we had instances of Emma doing her job as sheriff and interacting with the town at large. It gave the audience a chance to see the makeup of Emma’s character (tough, just, but fair) and it gave the small-town-USA feel to Storybrooke and those little slice of life moments resonated with the audience as charming, endearing and serving to make the town a character unto itself. I can’t really remember the last time we saw Emma doing any proper sherrif-ing or interacting with someone who wasn’t her family, her romantic leads, or the “arc” people.
The second issue is that Emma’s narrative repeats itself every new arc. That narrative goes a little something like this:
Emma: “I have walls. I am damaged. When I get scared, my emotional walls go up.”
Person of the Arc: “Don’t be scared. I won’t leave you. We’re alike.”
Emma: “I feel better! Gosh, we’re really alike and you get me!” *goes something magical and heroic*
Person of the Arc *leaves*
New Arc Begins
Emma: “I have walls. I am damaged. When I get scared, my emotional walls go up.”
Now, in season 1 this narrative worked really well, as it should. Emma should be emotionally closed off and scared because the show is new, she’s a new character and in order for their to be positive growth you have to start your character at some sort of point zero. In the first season, it was the love of Henry, the friendship of Mary Margaret, and the sense of duty to the town and its inhabitants (like Granny, Ruby, Ashley, and August) that really pushed Emma and brought down the darn walls. Even in S2, we saw a bit more development because other characters were introduced, namely through the idea of romance with both Neal and Hook.
However, from there the story becomes the same cycle that I pointed out above. In S3A it was a mix of Hook and Snow, though Hook was sold as the more prominent of the two. In S3B it was again Hook who brought down those walls, allowing Emma to “give into inevitable love story” with him after learning he traded his ship. In 4A it was Elsa who was “just like Emma” and brought down those walls (and then was never heard from again). In 4B it was Hook, and in S5A it was…yeah, still Hook. (This, by the way, goes back to our previous discussion on strong females).
So while Emma has progressed past her S1 stage, I don’t think she’s moved very far past that point. Instead every seasonal arc, she interacts with some new character (or, her romantic lead(s))), has her walls come down, and then…it starts all over. It’s progression, regression, and stagnation all at the same time which is a somewhat remarkable feat, I guess.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"@thedarkonedearie : feel free to respond to anything said above, but I’m gonna go ahead and ask question #2
Has Emma progressed, regressed, or stayed the same in terms of development since S1?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Will you be disappointed with actors, that you have high opinion on them, if they extend their contract and continue to do the show after this season?
No. A job is a job. And many of them have come across as not thinking as highly of the show as they once did (cough Ginny cough) and that’s good enough for me.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"We didn’t know the guest list for 4A’s Red Carpet event in advanced either, for the record. I recall we knew very little about that event, other than that it would be a Red Carpet event with a screening of the premiere at the El Capitan Theatre. I’m curious what the set up will be like in Steveston, though.
I hope they go all out and make the town really SB-like. I think it’s a rather cute idea
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"the other ones, do they mean Frozen and Camelot/brave people, is she hinting on that?
That’s my guess.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Instead, Emma’s isolated again, reduced to one relationship that takes precedence over everything else (including her son, whom she is now literally dragging to Hell to save her love interest), and even those moments where she is claiming agency — “I’m doing it for love” or whatever that line was — seem both irritatingly melodramatic and flat.
Yes. The line–“I’m choosing love”–makes it seem that until Hook, Emma had never chosen love before. As if it was Hook, and Hook alone, that enables her to finally choose love over–what? Indifference? Hate? Apathy? I don’t know because the line is more or less nonsense firstly because I don’t understand what she’s contrasting it to, and in the second because Emma chooses love all the time. She chose love when she decided to stay in SB for Henry in the Pilot (though she would have had a tough time calling it love), she chose love when she asked MM not to go on the lamb after Katherine’s murder (“I cannot lose that; I cannot lose my family”); she chose love when she literally kissed her son’s forehead, told him that she loved him and–hey what do you know–awoken an entire town; she chose love when she told Rumple that she would save him from Cora/Hook’s poison because “you’re family;” she chose love when she decided to help Regina absorb the Fail Safe diamond’s power; she chose love when she went after Henry to Neverland. But the show recasts Emma so that it appears as if she’s never chosen love before this moment, and this moment is all about Hook.
And that’s really what Nevermore (and myself) were getting at–having a boyfriend does not mean you’re not a strong woman–and no one who claims Emma is no longer a strong character would say that. But when you boyfriend drives your entire story and removes the other important aspects of your support system, your narrative, and your life, then yeah–you’ve stopped being a strong woman character.
Also, a big YES to everything else @Nevermore said.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
