#almost everything after the Neverland arc (3A) was total bullshit and not worth watching

[gch1995]

I’m glad most of us in the fandom agree that, although this show was always kind of problematic, everything after “Going Home” was garbage because most of the remaining characters were completely destroyed without Nealfire there as a common link to connect them all together as a family and ground them all in favor of all the lazy writing tropes to inorganically repeat their arcs over and over again. They shoehorned in Hook/CS by breaking their own rules and bringing Rumple back from the dead to kill him off, so they could have a “foil”/antagonist “big bad” magical scapegoat PLOT twister to deliberately vilify in their laziness to write organic conflict and character development for everyone else on this show that they wanted to “redeem” without actually having to make them do anything to earn it. It’s just too bad that they ended up completely ruining the best redemption arc of a main villain on this show that felt truly well-earned, heartfelt, and well-written on their show by bringing Rumple/Gold back from the dead to deliberately character assassinate him and Belle, so that Hook could have a nemesis.

That just felt like such lazy and mean writing from them. I heard that Rumple and these other remaining main characters finally got a “happy ending,” and I watched one RB episode in S7 for old times sake, but like, I just didn’t care anymore about the endgame for any of these characters in canon like I once did in the first two-and-a-half seasons because A&E and these writers had ruined them by jumping the shark with all of them one too many times now. They all felt hollowed out by the idiot ball for idiot plots, Aesop Amnesia, compressed vices, illogical self-destructing soap opera plots, and bent and broken rules of magic in favor of the PLOT, and wildly OOC characterizations in favor of the PLOT. The writers abruptly forced them all to react in wildly ooc, ridiculously bizzare, melodramatically cruel, cartoonishly evil, blindly illogical, exceedingly dangerous, exceedingly reckless, exceedingly gullible, and ridiculously stupid ways that did not fit with their previously established characterizations at certain intervals out of nowhere to create cheaply shocking drama to drive them to needless extremes by forcing them over the edge with these contrived macguffins and asspulled plot twists for needless climaxes and falling action scenarios that should have and could have been easily avoided if the characters had been allowed to use their brains, ask questions, learn from past experience, and slow down by considering what should be obvious, rather than immediately losing their shit over some bizarre magical ass pull or plot twist, so that they could redo their arcs all over again by undoing them.

I agree, the writers totally did a huge disservice to all of these characters in favor of cheaply shocking, contrived, repetitive, and meaningless soap opera PLOT twist melodrama in favor of shoehorning in Hook/CS as the main lead, especially Neal, Rumple, Belle, Emma, and Henry, and retelling the same stories for the characters over and over and over again after running out of story once they finished the Neverland arc. The actor who played Rumple, Robert Carlyle, totally called out Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis for killing off Nealfire as this show’s biggest mistake too, and I totally agree. The core theme of family for the original main cast that connected all of them was lost with him, and replaced with Hook/CS, romantic melodrama, “hero versus villain” bs; “Rumple’s the worst” bs, repetitive storylines, simplistic and meaningless black versus white double standards, wildly OOC bs, ass pulls, cheap shock value, and inconsistent magical soap opera PLOT twist fuckery.

Maybe, Nealfire was lucky in a way...Sure, his character was thrown away for Hook/CS, and he deserved better. However, given how awful these writers were at coming up with organic character development after two-and-a-half seasons, and given how obsessed they were with magical Drama™️, no matter how much continuity, character integrity, and credibility they “had” to sacrifice for them, I do wonder if he lucked out by getting killed off when he did in a way because if he had survived past season three, it’s very likely that his character would have been destroyed for bizarre plot twists too.

The whole thing with the destroying the characters for plots and repetitive storylines slowly started showing potential to become a problem later on early in 2B I think, so I do wonder how much different it would have been if Neal had survived from 3B-S7. It probably would have been less gimmicky, but I actually think we would have had a lot of the same problems of recycled storylines, bent and broken rules of magic for plot as demanded, and the character assassinating bad writingtropes of Aesop Amnesia, compressed vices, dull surprise, the idiot ball for idiot plots, sexist shock value tropes, character derailment, and retcons. I think the characters, the actors, and the fans deserved better show-runners and writers than ABC, A&E and their team of hacks.

The problem was that they cared more about plot and shock value than consistent, realistic, and organic characterization and development long term once we got to 2B and they decided to start throwing in bizarre twists and contrivances to sidetrack the characters a little, and then decided to go to Neverland, so they ran out of story to tell for these characters after 3A when they didn’t know how else or what else to do to grow most when they’d reached their organic peak by the end of 3A. If Damon Lindlelof had booted A&E out in S2, and we’d gotten a better team of writers it might have been able to go strong for seven seasons.

Topic of the Week 59

I discuss where Once Upon A Time started going off the rails

Topic submitted by @anoptimisticsnarker

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