Once Upon a Time - Season 7 Prospects

[LindaM]

I know they are revisiting the wish realm (Snow/Charming memorial statue picture) and it looks like they may also be revisiting Hades -- or the afterworld (set tour had tombstones).  Cruella was pictured at the desk.  Pan's reappearance is a big question and it looks like Hood/Regina may film together.  Emile posted to Robert that it looked like they'd have a scene or two together again.

[Outlast]

You know what this episode (girl in tower) wasn't bad. We got plenty of Alice, which had been sadly lacking, not an overuse of Nook and we finally got at least one question answered as we now know what Facilia is after..Rumple's dagger!

I liked when Regina said Rumple was her oldest friend, but honestly that doesn't fit well with the last few seasons (much of which I've hated). It makes sense to me as a Rumple fan that after all they've both been through he and Regina should be friends after a fashion, but let's face it virtually every interaction they've had in the last 4+ seasons was adversarial. I sometimes wonder if the various writers on this show bother to read the others scripts or watch the show. But then again, that statement from Regina does fit in more with what I actually WANT the show to be, so maybe I shouldn't complain.

No Ninderella (lol ala Nook and Nobin, which did make me laugh out loud for real) is certainly a good thing.

Alice really is a splendidly acted/written character in most ways. Though of course I still say she should be Alice Stiltskin. It would just work you know what I mean.

[LindaM]

Love Alice and Lucy.  They should be in the finale. 

Question:  I'll post more later.  How long did Alice say she was in the tower?  I'm trying to figure out how old she is. 

[Outlast]

Question:  I'll post more later.  How long did Alice say she was in the tower?  I'm trying to figure out how old she is.

I wondered too and then I found a post where someone else did the math and they said that number of days would make her 17.

[LindaM]

Here's the video.  The answer is 17.03 years old when she and Robin celebrates her birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV3xuPzNrMI

[Outlast]

Well at least a lot happened in this one.

Anastasia is the guardian? Ok. That reveal fell on the floor with a resoundingly dull thump.

Drizella's is a treacherous witch who'll kill anyone even her own sister to get what she wants! ...until she's not and she gets to slide back to new? Enchanted Forest to live happily ever after with the sister she delivered up for death five minutes earlier. Yippee?

New Gretel! ...and now she's dead. Boom. But really wasn't her candy magic/candy obsession kind of fun while it lasted?

Are they trying to imply that Facilia is some kind of good guy now? Because the past seems to point the other way and for all we know he's just old Rumple levels of devious and is trying to keep Rumple from 'freeing himself' via The Guardian (whatever that even means) just so that he can kill him later and take the dark dagger for himself while simultaneously trying to get into Regina's pants. Ick.

Seeing Rumple fixing chip with glue was really very sweet. It seems he's trying his best to be good so he 'can be reunited with Belle someday', which I take to mean that he's trying to earn his way into Once heaven or something? Ok that's not how it works in this world as far as I've heard and also outweighing (as it were) a couple of centuries of misdeeds with a few good ones sounds like quite a daunting task. I wish him well though (obviously).

So Jack = Hansel = the killer! And who can blame him? Not only did a witch try to eat him and his sister as a child, but a witch later killed his sister too. While I think this plot point works just fine, I have to point out that 'Jack' hasn't really had any character development for me to attach any emotion to him being the witch hunter. Honestly that whole storyline seems like an enormous waste of time. As is most of season seven really.
 

[LindaM]

I agree with everything you said but I'll cut Dri/ivy more slack.  She did have mommy issues just like Zelena and look at Zelena now.

Loving this Rumple very much.  He knows what is what and is protecting his own.  His threat to F rang true.  And who now is his family in Seattle:   Henry, Lucy, Ella, Regina, Zelina, and I'd put Hook and Alice there too. 

Regarding the Guardian:  I think there is one per fairy tale realm.  In our realm, it is unknown.  In whichever forest Dri and Annatasia went back to it is Anna.  I still think that it ties in somehow to Henry.  Don't know why but I feel there is a tie there somewhere.

Jack -- as in Jack and Jill -- how about adding the Jack the Ripper tie.  I saw that almost immediately with the only difference being he doesn't dissect his victims.

[LindaM]

For us who say it is a timey-wimey thing, we may be right.  Some leaks this weekend suggests that at whatever party we saw stills from lat week has both Henrys (Andrew and Jared) at it.  That would explain the title "Leaving Storybrooke?"

[Outlast]

I could not have been less interested in the Henry/Nook storyline (shame on Nook for that sham btw) and for the thousandth time HOOK DID NOT TEACH HENRY TO SAIL! BAELFIRE DID!!!!!!

Apparently this version of Hansel and Gretel is much darker since Handsel is covered in burns and Gretel is dead. I also wasn't terribly invested in catching Handsel, so he's killing witches...who cares. We have bigger fish to fry like jettisoning all these flotsam characters and getting back to Storybrooke. But what I did love were the Henry and Rumple scenes. One of many crimes Once has committed against their own show over the years is how they dropped and destroyed the family connection between Rumple and Henry.

I guess it's looking like Zelena and Regina mustve found a cure somehow for Henry's heart poison offscreen since Regina is MIA off looking for some mysterious moss leaving Zelena literally stirring the pot.

Whether Nook or Hook his story has always been about puddle deep even when they try and throw in all this stuff with Blackbeard and Peter Pan and Liam... It all just lacks the weight that Emma's story originally had and of course Rumples story is as deep as lake Baikal and we barely scratched the surface of the Dark Ones mythos either. Poor Henry had such a rich deep family history to build on, but his own story is a snoozer.

I'm not worried about Zelena.

In short I was bored except for the Rumple scenes.

[LindaM]

Basically, loved the Rumple, but let's dump the rest.  And the "Henry as hostage" was so predictable.  My one question is:  When did Henry become so dumb?  Just when I thought he was beginning to remember, the idiot tells all he knows to the killer.  And, I would say Zelena survives as she is with the show, off and on to the finish.  I know Lara directed one show but I don't think this is it.  I did notice in the past that our beloved Rumple would disappear for a show now and then.

In other words, I call this one FILLER.

[Outlast]

This episode was a bit of a bust on several levels.

1 - the ending was cut off due to Syria
2 - Zelena pulling a Regina and acting like 'Zelena' is a totally separate person from who she is now and that she shouldn't have to keep paying for what 'she' did. Responsibly has never been a Mills trait.
3 - are they seriously going to blackmail Rumple every week with Belle's death?
4 - who is Chad? Who cares? Nobody that's who.

The most intriguing part was when they showed Rumple's 'evidence' room code - 6432...what does it mean? I spent the rest of the episode thinking about it and trying to figure out why that was the number and why it was shown. It's not a Lost number is it? 4 8 15 16 23, 42 or flight 815. Maybe it's a birthday?

If anyone here wants to know the ending the internet was very helpful. Rewatching the end it seems they only cut off about the last ten seconds (plus the preview for next week which is RUMPLE and Alice centric!!!!) and in that ten seconds Dr. Facilia murders Hansel by stabbing a voodoo doll through the heart. Sooo I guess he doesn't need Hansel to kill Goethal after all?
 

[LindaM]

I actually PACED through Trump hoping ABC would do the right thing and show the ending (which they did).  What I hated:

The Gingerbread House thingy
Zelena falling for the father of H & G
Hansel's attitude.  (are all the fairy tale kids this big of brat?)

Liked
Evidence room
Zelena got a happy ending.  Now will we finally get one for Regina?

Code -- some interesting google hits
Season 4 -- The Apprentice episode (maybe code for box). 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_(Once_Upon_a_Time)

This clip of B & R's engagement came up
http://abc.go.com/shows/once-upon-a-time/video/most-recent/VDKA0_i8reprjn

Lost References in OUAT
http://onceuponatime.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Lost_References

[LindaM]

Okay -- I'll give 6432 a shot. 
6 -- number of times he said I'm sorry to Belle
4 -- number of names he has had (Rumple, Dark One, Gold, Weaver)
3 -- number of Dark Ones still alive (Rumple, Emma, Killian)
2 -- number of sons

[LindaM]

Some interesting turns last night:

Rumple found his guardian but refused to use the person.  Why?  Alice/Tilly didn't deserve it because she hadn't had a life.

Rumple now has a "good heart."  So does this mean that the darkness is gone?  If so, there's another error on the space/time continuum.  Remember the "Key of Time" Doctor Who.  It takes light an darkness (good/evil) to coexist for the world to be perfect.

Are both Rogers and Henry finally waking up.  Both are unsettled about what is going on and Henry is shocked to learn he is Lucy's dad.

And what about Tilly.  She knew the dagger was singing.  Granted in other land she took it and seemed to combine good and evil.  And if she has the "good", could she save her dad.

Which brings me to next week's episode.  Are they really going to "kill" Nook???

[Outlast]

It's always been confusing to me how Once views who has 'darkness in his/her heart' and who is 'pure'. My best guess on Rumple has been that the darkness (or Dark One) has a consciousness of its own. It's pure evil and corrupts anyone it touches (think of the One Ring in LOTR). After centuries under its influence Rumple has somehow learned to contain it in a relatively harmless way, but he's still constantly tempted by the darkness partly because that's just what the darkness does and partly because after centuries of using magic every day for seemingly everything he's hopelessly addicted to it and yet every time he gives in and uses it, especially for a dark purpose, he feeds the darkness inside him and it starts to grow again.

So again I find this notion of some kind of good and evil balance sheet to be nonsense because how could someone who has done as much evil in their lives as Rumple (and Regina and Zelena ect.) possibly even out the score? Do they notch off how many people they've murdered and try to save more lives then they've taken somehow? (Regina had better start building villages rather than burning them then). Would you forgive the man who murdered your father if he saved your brother from say being hit by a train?

I don't mind the bit about the skin going gold the more evil he does (is choking out an evil sob like Facilia really that evil a thing to do I wonder? I thought lying to Alice seemed worse) its sort of like Pinocchio's nose that grows when he lies. What I don't get is the idea that he must never do anything 'bad' again or he'll never get to be with Belle again in Once heaven. I know the closest thing to God once is willing to put in the show are things like Zeus and Hades, but even they are mere creatures of will. Zeus saved Hook because he wanted too. Robin Hood arguably deserved to be saved more, yet he was obliterated. So how is Rumple a man with centuries of darkness under his belt supposed to earn his way to heaven? By giving Zelena her necklace? By not killing the evil Facilia? By letting Alice live her life? Does he need to start giving Zeus backrubs? It all feels weird to me.

Have I mentioned that I really dislike Facilia? I wish someone would punch him (honestly it should've been Regina). Don't get me wrong the character has/had potential, a man with one foot in each world who can hear the dead talking? That's an interesting premise whether that man is evil or good, but at the moment I'm not enjoying him as a good baddy so much, as I said, wishing someone would punch him.

So it's confirmed that Alice is The Guardian (or 'A' guardian anyway) which apparently means they can hear the dagger calling and if they accept it then they take the darkness and... what happens then? Rumple said something about her becoming immortal (and if we've learned anything from televisions shows like Highlander, The Librarians, anything with a vampire, Forever...its that human immortality is more of a curse than a blessing), but what happens to the darkness (which as I've said I believe to be alive in a way)? Does it take over Alice? Is she just the newest Dark One, only this time without murdering the last one? Does her 'pure heart' make her immune in some way that stops the darkness from using her and instead traps it somehow? I wonder if Once will even try to answer this question.