Once Upon a Time thoughts

I finally caught up with OUAT — I am in need to talk about it.  Or write about it and post.  Assume spoilers until “Bear and the Bow” — I will try and keep it down, but you never know.

I have had problems with OUAT in the past, last season I stopped watching during the Frozen arc because it just didn’t work well for me, and it wasn’t worth struggling with the crappy streaming on ABC.  (I have an antenna, not cable, and my internet is not always good.  So I am actually needlessly disparaging ABC…)  But I caught up when it came on Netflix, and started liking it again.  Mostly because I love Regina and Gold.

Though Emma does have her moments.

One of the things I like about the show is that they go from the standpoint that no one is really evil.  This is fantastic from a writing standpoint because you’re not stuck with the heroes fight the same baddie every season plot to work around.   The heroes never really defeat the bad guy — more, the baddie, like Regina, finds their way through a redemption arc to become one of the heroes.  Therefore, you get to build great characters and then they get to stay, and deal with new problems as they adjust.  It does seem to create a weakness, though — even though they are careful to never paint anyone as a saint, the mostly purely good characters, like Snow and David, are, well.  Not quite as interesting as the people who have been evil, such as Regina and Rumplestiltskin.   Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I think someone relies a little too much on “evil” making a character interesting.  It doesn’t always have to be the person’s flaws that give them color.

This lady is my favorite. She gets the best lines…

Though, to be honest, it would be nice to have at least one “You know, I grew up fine.  I just like being vile for the sake of it.  Makes me happy.  So I am going to keep being vile until you stop me, because, why the hell not?” character.  Because not everything is nurture, sometimes it really is nature.

But what bothers me is that arcs like the Frozen and Brave arcs feel tacked on.  Sometimes they are kind of cute, sometimes they feel too far afield.  Cruella, for example, was weird and jarring to me.  The way they resolved Merida’s problem in the last episode felt like they’d painted themselves into a corner and just threw away the ending.  I have a really thick bubble around my suspension of disbelief, but not only did her rescue of her brothers take a sledge hammer to it, it made me feel insulted.

Now, I will say, that the Dark Swan arc and how they fix Rumble really is clever.  I love how the actress is portraying this new aspect of Emma.  And I think that since the last, failed redemption arc (was I the only one who was jarred by how completely that failed?) for dear old Mr. Gold must have failed because, I guess, you can’t fight the Dark One when it is inside you very well, that this fixes that problem nicely.

So, hopefully, that means that Rumple’s redemption journey will be finally finished.  If they go back on that again, I’ll probably give up on the hope that he will be on the side of the angels.

So, yeah.  I think OUAT is doing interesting things, but they are stretching themselves too far.  I’d like smaller, stronger stories.  What happened to Red?  What about all these other characters that sort of fell away?  Lilith?  Maleificent?  They have talent and resources, they could create perfectly good adventures without being members of the “Popular Disney Movie of the moment” club.

No, really, the whole resolution with Merida in the clans was so bad.  You don’t know how hard it is for me to say anything negative where anyone can see it, but yeah.  I am sure that at the time they had reasons for it, maybe even budget, but yeah.  I felt insulted as a watcher, as a lover of tales, as a (one-third) Scot.

Next week they will be bringing in Nimue — The Lady of the Lake.  She is one of my favorite characters of all time, and yes, she did trap Merlin, but there are various reasons for that, in most of the stories, especially Mallory, she is a force for good.  SO, if they totally make her an evil, vile creature I will be pretty upset.  And you will be, “But you wanted someone who was just evil for the sake of being evil, Cindy” and I will just curl up and cry.

Then I will be all:  (sorry for the curse word)

My favorite reaction gif of all time, honestly.

 

I already ship cute Merlin with Nimue, and I am sure she had a PERFECTLY GOOD REASON FOR EVERYTHING.