Once upon a Time 3.18
Apr. 21st, 2014 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWhich while including some clunky retcons just bursts of great character stuff.
Except for Hook, that is. Not talking and brooding just is the worst option, mate, get over it already, be your more interesting self of previous episodes. But never mind, he only had a very few scenes. Meanwhile, the retcon is a bit forced - Leopold definitely gave no sign of recognising Cora in The Stable Boy, though I'm amused as hell that this retcon makes him Innstetten, basically.
(Explanation for non Germans: what's Anna Karenina for Russians and Madame Bovary for the French is Effi Briest to German literature, to wit, the most famous 19th century novel dealing with adultery, though the actual adultery does not take that much plot space. Anyway, said novel's heroine, Effi, marries right at the start of the novel her mother's old admirer Geert von Innstetten, who only met her, Effi, once before in her life. Her mother is all for the marriage because that way her daughter's life finally becomes the one she wanted to have. Spoiler: the Innstetten/Effi marriage does not end well. German literature isn't exactly well read in the US so I'm not going to speculate that someone in the writing staff read Theodor Fontane's novel and was inspired by it, but the parallels amuse me nonetheless. Also Fontane would have gotten a kick out of writing Cora. He was the master of witty dialogue and created some great female characters.)
Henry being Cora's second (or, if you count Jonathan the conman/gardener whom she took for a prince, third) attempt to marry into royalty and her boast to be able to spin straw into gold being a bitter twist on Jonathan's smooth talk about the ring works for Cora and her determination to become a noble, though, not to mention her determination to rewrite her own life with Regina marrying Leopold. It also gives her more reason to hate Eva than being forced to kneel at Eva's feet. (Hell, it even gives Eva insisting on Cora kneeling at her feet more reason than "E. was being a royal brat annoyed at a peasant".) Best of all, in present day we get a whole series of awesome Regina and Snow scenes dealing with Cora's death, Snow's mother's death, and their own relationship. I can handwave any clunkiness in the Leopold-related part of the retcon for putting, in the present day Storybrooke part, the emphasis on the Snow and Regina relationship, as makes the most emotional sense when the flashback is dealing with Cora.
(You could write some meta about how the way they see each other influences both of them; Regina responding to both Snow's "Regina is my heroine" words and Snow's later horror of her after the discovery of the dead villagers in "The Evil Queen" flashbacks the way she does, Snow becoming the enemy and rival Regina has seen her at, amnesiac!Mary Margaret as a caricature of Snow and yet Snow turning Regina's contempt for Mary Margaret against her by tricking her with her supposed harmlessness in the matter of Cora's heart, etc. And now Snow's description of Regina, her words to her, inspiring her to take that leap of faith again.)
I also loved the Regina and Belle scene. Belle in this second part of the season continues to be written better than she has been, well, basically ever since that ep where her father tried to mindwipe her in s2 - her research skills continue to be well used by the show, and most importantly she gets to have feelings about what Regina did to her that are about her, not Rumple (or used as an angst device for Rumple). Go on standing up for yourself, Belle! Also, Regina continues to show how she matured by acknowledging the justness of Belle's feelings and apologize (with Henry nowhere in sight, or even in a position to learn about it).
The question or Zelena's paternity being cleared up in favour of a new character just in time to avoid literal oedipal implications with Rumplestilskin, though Zelena's feelings re: him still come across as spectacularly messed up. (Rumplestilskin: decidedly NOT Innstetten. Also him trying this particular way to get his dagger back amused me because I let him do that in one of my Five decisions Cora didn't make sections.) It had occured to me last week that he might be all for this changing-the-past gig given he could resurrect Bae/Neal this way, so when Zelena offered that to him and he seemed to agree, I did buy it. However, Rumple, like Regina, seems to finally have made it beyond repeating old mistakes and only faked his agreement as part of the (failed) dagger retrieving ploy, since he does remember not only how Neal died but presumably also how Neal reacted to the "I can make you 14 again!" idea back when Rumplestilskin pitched it. Well done, him, even if he didn't manage to retrieve the dagger.
Ghost!Cora: I may be biased, but I thought that while her method of communication may have been painful, it did work and got the necessary information to Snow. Also I'm pleased at the idea of Snow now having Cora's memories in her head because good lord, how so much potential!
Lastly: this show at times can turn me into a mushy marshmallow. I was a) relieved that Regina was understanding re: Robin not letting ordered-by-Zelena-Rumplestilskin kill Roland in favour of keeping her heart, and b) awwwwing for their kiss in the final scene.
Except for Hook, that is. Not talking and brooding just is the worst option, mate, get over it already, be your more interesting self of previous episodes. But never mind, he only had a very few scenes. Meanwhile, the retcon is a bit forced - Leopold definitely gave no sign of recognising Cora in The Stable Boy, though I'm amused as hell that this retcon makes him Innstetten, basically.
(Explanation for non Germans: what's Anna Karenina for Russians and Madame Bovary for the French is Effi Briest to German literature, to wit, the most famous 19th century novel dealing with adultery, though the actual adultery does not take that much plot space. Anyway, said novel's heroine, Effi, marries right at the start of the novel her mother's old admirer Geert von Innstetten, who only met her, Effi, once before in her life. Her mother is all for the marriage because that way her daughter's life finally becomes the one she wanted to have. Spoiler: the Innstetten/Effi marriage does not end well. German literature isn't exactly well read in the US so I'm not going to speculate that someone in the writing staff read Theodor Fontane's novel and was inspired by it, but the parallels amuse me nonetheless. Also Fontane would have gotten a kick out of writing Cora. He was the master of witty dialogue and created some great female characters.)
Henry being Cora's second (or, if you count Jonathan the conman/gardener whom she took for a prince, third) attempt to marry into royalty and her boast to be able to spin straw into gold being a bitter twist on Jonathan's smooth talk about the ring works for Cora and her determination to become a noble, though, not to mention her determination to rewrite her own life with Regina marrying Leopold. It also gives her more reason to hate Eva than being forced to kneel at Eva's feet. (Hell, it even gives Eva insisting on Cora kneeling at her feet more reason than "E. was being a royal brat annoyed at a peasant".) Best of all, in present day we get a whole series of awesome Regina and Snow scenes dealing with Cora's death, Snow's mother's death, and their own relationship. I can handwave any clunkiness in the Leopold-related part of the retcon for putting, in the present day Storybrooke part, the emphasis on the Snow and Regina relationship, as makes the most emotional sense when the flashback is dealing with Cora.
(You could write some meta about how the way they see each other influences both of them; Regina responding to both Snow's "Regina is my heroine" words and Snow's later horror of her after the discovery of the dead villagers in "The Evil Queen" flashbacks the way she does, Snow becoming the enemy and rival Regina has seen her at, amnesiac!Mary Margaret as a caricature of Snow and yet Snow turning Regina's contempt for Mary Margaret against her by tricking her with her supposed harmlessness in the matter of Cora's heart, etc. And now Snow's description of Regina, her words to her, inspiring her to take that leap of faith again.)
I also loved the Regina and Belle scene. Belle in this second part of the season continues to be written better than she has been, well, basically ever since that ep where her father tried to mindwipe her in s2 - her research skills continue to be well used by the show, and most importantly she gets to have feelings about what Regina did to her that are about her, not Rumple (or used as an angst device for Rumple). Go on standing up for yourself, Belle! Also, Regina continues to show how she matured by acknowledging the justness of Belle's feelings and apologize (with Henry nowhere in sight, or even in a position to learn about it).
The question or Zelena's paternity being cleared up in favour of a new character just in time to avoid literal oedipal implications with Rumplestilskin, though Zelena's feelings re: him still come across as spectacularly messed up. (Rumplestilskin: decidedly NOT Innstetten. Also him trying this particular way to get his dagger back amused me because I let him do that in one of my Five decisions Cora didn't make sections.) It had occured to me last week that he might be all for this changing-the-past gig given he could resurrect Bae/Neal this way, so when Zelena offered that to him and he seemed to agree, I did buy it. However, Rumple, like Regina, seems to finally have made it beyond repeating old mistakes and only faked his agreement as part of the (failed) dagger retrieving ploy, since he does remember not only how Neal died but presumably also how Neal reacted to the "I can make you 14 again!" idea back when Rumplestilskin pitched it. Well done, him, even if he didn't manage to retrieve the dagger.
Ghost!Cora: I may be biased, but I thought that while her method of communication may have been painful, it did work and got the necessary information to Snow. Also I'm pleased at the idea of Snow now having Cora's memories in her head because good lord, how so much potential!
Lastly: this show at times can turn me into a mushy marshmallow. I was a) relieved that Regina was understanding re: Robin not letting ordered-by-Zelena-Rumplestilskin kill Roland in favour of keeping her heart, and b) awwwwing for their kiss in the final scene.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-23 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-23 03:57 pm (UTC)The show doesn't ignore what Regina has done, neither on a Doylist or Watsonian level, which strikes me as a primary condition for a good redemption arc. Back in mid s2 you should have seen all the fannish posts complaining how everyone could be so heartless and mean as to not invite Regina for dinner (in the ep where Snow and Emma come back). You know, after 28 years as her personal lab rats, before that at a decade or so with her tyrannizing everyone and killing a of people's deaths, and a few weeks wherein she doesn't harm anyone in order to win back her son and one good deed (repairing the magical well portal so Emma and Snow can come through) that wouldn't have been necessary if she hadn't damaged it just before, the lack of a dinner invitation is, err, understandable, to put it mildly. This is why I like the show better than most of the fanfic. It's far from perfect, but precisely because it takes Regina's past seriously, it gives her a more convincing and better earned path to redemption than many of her fans who wanted her accepted with hugs and kisses by everyone at the first sign she might not continue to harm people.