Once Upon a Time - tonight's episode "The Queen is Dead"

[shadowkat]

Frustrating but good episode. The good news, I misread the spoiler I was worried about, the bad news - another twist happened that aggravated me and made me want to kick a certain character.



* Alright, Neal, how big of an ass are you? Seriously, if I was Emma - I'd break the news to his fiance - that Neal not only abandoned Emma when she was 18, so that she took the rap, but also left her pregnant.

And Henry is blaming Emma and not kicking Neal? Ack.

This twist was not appreciated. Also how much you want to bet Neal/Baelfire is Peter Pan?
The show is sort of telegraphing it now - the only one who can fly Hook's ship besides Hook according to the tale is Peter Pan. And his reaction to Hook screams Peter Pan.

Did like the explanation which I already came up with - that he had to have gone to Neverland first or he'd be about 100 years old. As he puts it, if this was my first stop I'd be a hundred years old, I stopped over somewhere else first.

* I actually agree with Snow at this point, kill Cora. Although that won't help. Honestly Regina are you a complete idiot? How did you feel when Cora killed Daniel? Do you really think Henry will forgive you and if you lie to him about it, do you think he'll forgive you for that? And not find out? Seriously, this kid has an uncanny way of sniffing out lies and he does not deal at all with them. Heck, Henry can't handle Emma's fib about Neal - and that's relatively minor in comparison to the whoppers you are going to spin. He's still holding a grudge on that one. If you attempt to kill his entire biological family...you might not like the results.

* Was worried that Snow's mom was related to Cora, rather relieved to discover that no, Cora just plotted on killing her and succeeded.

* Regina, I thought you were over the whole heart ripping out bit. And you are going to have stop ripping people's hearts out to be considered redeemable or the least bit good. Sorry, Snow's right...Good Queen's don't go around ripping out hearts and cursing folks to get a happy. Evil Queen's do that. How deep in denial are you? Stop lying to yourself hon and you might have a chance with Henry.

Right now you're behind both Hook and Rumplestilskin on the whole redemption arc bit.
You'd have thought they had made her just slightly nicer. To be fair she does question her mother's actions a bit - but still only in regards to herself. She has got to be the most self-absorbed and self-centered character on the series, with almost no self-awareness. Hon? Your unhappiness is all your own fault - not Snow's. Yours. And Mamma's. If you want to kick the person responsible, kick Mamma. (I don't need her to be redeemed, just less dumb - right now she's reminding me a bit of Elmer Fudd.)

Comments

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

It was an interesting episode! I'm really curious as to what Cora's endgame is, because man, she has heavily invested in her plotting.

Henry blaming Emma I understand, because all he knows is "She lied to me" and in his view lying is always bad. I'm sure a big part of this is his age; 11 year olds are not known for understanding much of moral complexities and grey areas. I've a friend who is a teacher who works with 11-13 year olds, and she assures me that at that age, kids are pretty much all terrible people. Very self-absorbed. So Henry only sees the injury to him and not any of the hurt or awkwardness that might be between Emma and Neal.

They gave us enough clues here to let us know Neal is definitely Peter Pan. Makes sense. The beans seem to default to Neverland as their first destination, if Hook and his ship are any indication, and Neal could very well have ended up there and not found out about the 'real world' without magic until Wendy & Co showed up.

My roommate and I were REALLY frustrated with Snow and Charming during the scene in the tower. Seriously, how stupid can you be? Evil ALWAYS betrays you, if you want a good outcome you cannot do what evil asks. The correct move in that situation was to go "Oh, no, please don't hurt Johanna!" Lean in with the dagger and then stab Regina with it. Or Cora, whatever. You have a very sharp deadly weapon in your hand! Use it! Alternately, if they really didn't want to go in for that kind of 'betrayal' because it's too "dishonorable" for Disney, they could have said "Okay, put Johanna's heart back in, hand her over and then we'll give you the dagger. We're good, so you can trust our word, but we know you'll only betray us and kill her anyway if we give you the dagger first." Sigh.

Though really, considering they know Cora's a shapeshifter they should be much more careful in general about who they tell their plans to.

I appreciate the tempting of Snow's morality, but... Snow vowing to kill Cora is not "evil." Cora and Regina at this point have pretty much declared war, and the only "good" position in war is to defeat your enemy as cleanly and quickly as possible. Cora has caused incredible harm and obviously plans to do much more. We've seen that Snow, in the past, was some kind of army commander or general, and Charming definitely was. They should know this. Killing Cora isn't necessarily a personal vendetta or revenge, it's the best course of action to protect the town, themselves, and their family.

I'll be interested to see Cora's backstory (and presumably, more of her relationship with Rumplestiltskin) in the next episode. Her poisoning Snow's mom seemed like a deeply personal and vindictive move. I'm guessing if they weren't related, they might have been best friends and Snow's mom "betrayed" Cora somehow.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm betting Regina kills Cora. It'll probably be to protect Henry and might even protect Emma. It might even look redemptive but it will be emotionally intollerable to her and will redouble her hatred for the forseeable future.

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this is pretty likely.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I vote for Regina being the one to neutralize Cora as well, although it will seem to be Snow in the running for that up to the last minute.

Regina will be reluctant up to the last moment because it's her mother, and because she is loathe to help out the Snow-Charming clan (except Henry).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'd agree...although if Snow does it that would increase Regina's hatred of Snow. But shipperx is right, you can have Regina kill Cora - and have her blame Snow for making her do it or manipulating her into it.

Regina and Rumplestilskin have this trait in common - they don't take responsibility for their actions - they blame everyone else. At times you just want to smack them - seriously, can you be that unself-aware??? LOL!

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

They blame other people to what I think is a ludicrously non-believable degree as well. But that's because I'm sane. There is a personality disorder (I think it's borderline personality, but I'm pulling that out of a hat, I'd have to look it up), where you just, cognitively and emotionally, can't seem able to tie your own actions to the causes of your failures.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

here is a personality disorder (I think it's borderline personality, but I'm pulling that out of a hat, I'd have to look it up), where you just, cognitively and emotionally, can't seem able to tie your own actions to the causes of your failures.

Interesting. Is it just failures or also successes? I did not know this. But it would explain a lot.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I think it is mostly failures, because of the emotional component. We all feel an emotional need not to blame our failures on ourselves, because it makes us look bad. But for most of us, the cognitive side overrules this and shows us where we went wrong. Not so in this personality disorder.

Unless of course you have low self-esteem or depression, in which the emotional tendency to Overblame yourself overrules the cognitive realization you aren't entirely to blame.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Just put a depressed personality with a personality who never blames themselves for anything...deadly combination.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's called Battered Wife Syndrome.