#get that woman AWAY from buck and his arcs and the whole damn show actually

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here my friend after a very, very long week. This is actually my 3rd attempt at sending you an ask. First, I finally had time and was excited to type up something for the latest episode and then the Buck LI stuff came out and the mood for that was killed. Next I had mostly typed up my salty thoughts only to have my internet go down (yes, I whined at home "what i was going to read??!!" and pointedly ignored my very much filled bookcase because my ships aren't in them). So here let's see if this one works out.

So how is it KR and the promo dept always manage to kill any joy we have when we get fed any kind of Buddie content (the follow-up to the Eddie getting shot, and the 5b and premier come to mind here)?? Seriously Buck and Eddie more or less went on a date and had family night together and almost immediately they came back with "look Buck and Eddie are going to go on dates!!". Its exhausting cause it seems like any time they put out a story that might even be slightly suggestive of them being more than platonic bros they insist on following it up with stories to "prove" they are, no matter how recycled those plots are.

And okay let's take a second here to ask WTF is KR doing with these characters? In 6b alone we've had Buck dying, a coma dream, PTSD, super powers, and now he's getting a crush, and we STILL haven't finished the accursed sperm donor storyline??!! Bobby and Athena investigated had the death of a beloved friend 🙄 plot, HenRen had the nonsensical Denny secretly seeing his Dad which was never an issue before plot, and Madney and Eddie are just kinda there?? The other characters have had at best one storyline where the audience has to either invent or rewrite the backstory for. But for Buck he's had like 50 plotlines, none of which have really gone anywhere? I love Buck but I'd rather have him have 1 good arc and resolution than whatever this bullshit is. I'd easily take that screentime and give it to any of the other characters if it meant we got 1 well thought out and executed storyline. Instead we're just recycling and redressing old plots for everyone else while KR uses a magnetic poetry set to plan what Buck's doing from episode to episode. We have 5 episodes left in the season, 4-5 guest characters that are going to be incorporated (including 2 much beloathed ones 🙄🙄🙄), and nothing really setup for our mains to do (even Eddie dating isn't setup, it literally hasn't come up after Ana and you'd think they could have in 6a while he was watching his son mature).

Anyway, I'll stop the rant here though there's definitely more I could say. I'll close off saying I hope you're feeling better today since this week looks like its been rough on you. Sending you virtual tea, soup, and hugs!!

Long week is RIGHT my friend! I'm so sorry you were foiled in your previous attempts! I am right there with you on the Buck LI stuff just...sucking a lot of the joy out of things for me. Because of course we're doing this again 🙄🙄🙄 I was even writing up notes on a possible fic and you KNOW I haven't written anything since Malex and even that was before s4 started. But alas. That sucks about the power going out! I hate when that happens especially if I was in the middle of something! (Also I am SO with you. I keep buying books and then just...not reading them because my brain says "it's not our blorbos so no.)

I am just...so tired at this point. Like yes these people *may* not stick around, but even so, I don't want to loose out on Buddie scenes and Buckley-Diaz family scenes! I don't want Buck to have 90% of his time and discussions with some new character I do not know or care about instead of Eddie and the firefam! They already tried to do that with BT and it was the woooooorst! I want Eddie to have screentime and arcs but again, I don't want the little time we DO get to be wasted on some random side character! And lets be honest, there is no person they can introduce at this point that can compare with the relationship Buck and Eddie have already built and the ways in which they are the perfect partners for what each other needs. So the options are to a) cut down on seeing that relationship so their new het ones don't look so shitty and lame in comparison, b) have these women be mostly just Blurry Girlfriends in the background with no personality or depth just to have the boys paired off so they don't have to do Buddie while still centering their relationship so people can't call them out for not committing to Buddie because their "friendship" looks basically the same, or c) give them LIs that are basically the other's personalities transplanted into a female body in order to have the relationship be anything close to what Buck and Eddie need in a life partner. These are all terrible options, and I hate them, more than I hate the idea of them ending up single even though it undercuts their own narrative set up for the characters but that's a cop-out too.

ANYWAY

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 to everything about Buck's 700 shitty arcs this season while everyone else is mostly twiddling their thumbs. KR is literally the worst at pacing and planning, and constructing a season with any kind of flow. On the bright side, Ravi is coming back and Chim is going to get to do something! I'm so excited! I was really hoping for more of him and Bobby teaming up last week because the little crumbs we got were GOLD.

I did have a very emotionally rollercoaster-y week and the show being Like This absolutely Did Not Help, but I am making it work. Mostly with loooots of fic. Cheers friend, lets see if we can make it through the finale intact, if Buddie dreams can make it through the finale intact, and if the SHOW can make it through the finale intact with how these renewal negotiations are going.

[adultswim2021]

Moral Orel: “Abstinence” | January 18, 2009 | Unaired Special

Abstinence, “the nearly lost episode of Moral Orel”, or “episode 14 of 13” was an episode of the show that was left in an incomplete state thanks to Adult Swim cutting down the episode order. The audio for the episode was recorded, at least mostly (some characters might be scratch tracks, but I’m not certain), but the animation hadn’t been done. So, some people who worked on the show took it upon themselves to animate the radio play using “Orel’s Movie Premiere” style claymation. 

I’m glad they did it, because this is a worthy episode to have exist, even if it’s not 100% a “real” episode. This actually comes pretty damn close to being as satisfying as watching a normal episode. I wish we lived in the alternate universe where Dino manages to talk Adult Swim into letting him animate the show this cheaply in exchange for more episodes.  

This episode takes place during season two (with a post-Nature scene at the end). Doughy has long been neglected by his parents, who simply give Doughy a few bucks and ask him to stay out all day so they can neck with each other. They are now requesting Doughy stay out overnight. Not used to non-daytime activities, Orel encourages Doughy to just do what he does and walk around trying to help people. Doughy keeps encountering people trying to have sex with each other and manages to cockblock them all.

This leads to Doughy getting a job cockblocking actual roosters from impregnating the farmer’s chickens. He loses this job because Ms. Censordoll’s campaign to illegalize succeeds. Doughy winds up working for Ms. Censordoll as a masked superhero that goes around breaking up congress everywhere. 

This one has a very funny joke at the beginning, where Doughy and Orel are waving goodbye to a busload of gay men, and remarking how it was a big mistake bussing them into Moralton. Do you think the show was cleverly going to show the gay dudes in another episode to explain the beginning of this one? And, don’t you think it’s sad they left on the bus and we didn’t get to watch them walk away (hubba hubba). I also laughed at the farmer’s extremely dumb and convoluted reason for not caging his roosters (it’s basically so he can say a dumb thing when asked why he’s not caging his roosters). 

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Moral Orel: The Unproduced Scripts

A couple of scripts for episodes have been shared online. I remember Dino posting one on his Myspace page. The episodes are: 

Raped: This episode was going to be a late season three episode. The original arc for the season was meant to include Arthur Puppington, Clay’s father, moving into Orel’s bedroom while he waits to die of some painful life-ending disease.

Miss Sculptham finds that she is still pregnant post-abortion. That’s because she had twins, and only managed to kill one of them. So she arranges a visit to the prison to talk to Cecil Creepler’s (the guy what raped her) cell-mate to find out what his whole deal was (you know, being naturally curious about the father of her future child). This leads to her deciding to marry this man, even though he’s spending the rest of his life in prison. Orel is being a bitch about it, and celebrates when the guy backs down. The end of the episode is Sculptham falls in love with a woman and is denied for a marriage license, because “this is America”. She can get married to an actual convicted rapist, but not to another woman. 

I was about to comment on the time and place in which this episode was produced, but then realized: I have no idea how legal gay marriage actually is these days. Weird guys have been fighting over the stuff a lot lately. It took a weirdly long time for gay marriage to become any kind of legal here, and it’s still contentious. I just have a vague sense of reading it in 2009 and it feeling very pointed and topical. Pretty weird that it still sorta might be.

This episode was sorta billboarded in Alone, where we learn about Scultham’s rape and her abortion. There also a reference to this in “Abstinence”, where one of the encounters Doughy puts a stop to is one between Creepler and Scultham. 

Narcissism is the other “lost” episode. I never actually read this script before tonight, and I don’t know what the origin of this one’s leakage is or if it’s liberation was acrimonious or not. This one is another Putty-centric episode and is basically a follow-up on the events of Sundays. Putty becomes so obsessed with Florence and uninterested in other women that it makes him attractive. He unceremoniously beds all the hotties of Moralton and doesn’t feel a thing the entire time. His obsession with Florence is simply because she’s disappeared, and Putty doesn’t know where she went. When he finally finds her, she’s lost weight and is generally happier. It appears they get together by the end of the episode. 

I think Arthur is also in this episode, but I forget. I remember Oral mentioning him in a funny bit where he says he would do unto others with his Grandpa, who is currently dying in his bed. Orel says his Grandpa would probably let Orel die in his bed if things were the other way around. 

I found a thing on the Moral Orel wiki where Dino apparently posted the synopsis for the some of the unproduced scripts. I’d been looking for this to quote and kept coming up dry, so now that i found it, I’m just gonna paste it here in this post. The links link to pages on the wiki, and the scripts I described are available on their respective pages:

1. Easter: "Orel's Grampa (Clay's father) comes to Moralton to tie up loose ends before he dies. He ends up sharing Orel's bed as his death bed for the last ten episodes, giving Orel good advice. (happens during the Sacrifice episode)." 2. Nurture: "Shapey and Block nurture each other and grow emotionally." 3. Narcissism: After cutting it off with Florence, Putty becomes disillusioned with all women. This makes him incredibly attractive to all the females in Moralton and he becomes the most available bachelor in town, f***ing tons of *****. This makes him even more bored with every lady out there. He starts picturing Florence as he's f***ing everyone. When he finally runs into Florence, she is dating someone else and is really really thin. Putty's disappointed in her appearance. He's been picturing fat Florence, and even though she's prettier on a shallow level, longs for her previous look. She explains that she got so depressed when he stopped seeing her that she didn't feel like eating. He happily tells her now that he's back and she can get fat again. She is insulted by his self-centered attitude and tells him to go away. In the end, I think he probably wins her back though by showing he really cares. 4. Untitled: "Bloberta and Officer Papermouth accidentally bump into each other late at night, both reaching into the garbage can outside Nurse Bendy's apt. and simultaneously grabbing the "Sonny" Teddy bear. Papermouth chivalrously let's Bloberta keep it, and this starts off an affair between the two of them. It ends up being very good for the both of them. Not sure how Clay reacts. Didn't get very far on this one." 5. Untitled: "I wanted to write the continuing saga of Orel and Christina, but never got to it. No solid ideas on this." 6. Raped: A script for this episode was briefly put on Stamatopoulos's MySpace blog. It expanded on Miss Sculptham's trauma over being raped. She would take the kids on a field trip to prison to meet the man's cellmate and strike up a brief relationship with him. 7. Death: "Orel's Grampa finally dies. Orel doesn't find too much solace from anyone and becomes a Goth kid, getting heavily into the Christian Death Metal band: Multiple Godgasm. Don't want to say much more about this, on the remote chance that there will be a Moral Orel movie, I'd like to use a lot of this story."

And that’s it for Moral Orel. Unless you count the special. Unless you count the Frankenhole Bumper where he cameos. Unless you count Australian DVD releases. But you can COUNT on me… blogging about it!!!!

[milenadaniels]

On Eddie/Shannon (and Ana and Buck)

So I was rewatching Eddie Begins for a thing I'm working on and I noticed almost a throwaway line I hadn't heard before. I've seen fandom talk a lot about Shannon as a mom but I've seen next to nothing about Eddie/Shannon as a couple and y'all, from what evidence we have, it was a pretty horrible relationship. I mean just god awful and irredeemable.

(Cut for length but as a teaser, I've been firmly on the Bi!Eddie boat since I fell into this trash bin but by the end of writing this I'm actually wondering if they don't mean to reveal him as gay instead because his relationships with women are nearly identical in the worst way.)

Obviously, we saw the fallout/arguments both times he came home and Shannon ended up leaving but there's a one-liner that points to how they were before Christopher was born too. Right at the start of the argument about Eddie re-enlisting without telling her, Shannon says, "Again. Without telling me. I got pregnant and you signed up. Surprise!"

This man literally heard he was about to be a father and went "how can I both provide for my growing family and not have to deal with this at all?" and joined the fucking army on the spot. And then he kept re-enlisting even though his continued absence was hell on his wife.

Honestly, from my POV, mad props to Shannon for dipping as soon as she could. Absolute dick move as a mother (she for sure could have taken/come back for Christopher) but as a wife I'm so on her side here. They got pregnant and Eddie bailed repeatedly and not only bailed but left her in El Paso with his family (her mother is implied to live farther away), and we don't know all the circumstances of her situation but we do know that A) she was very familiar with the Diaz' parents' criticism, and B) she had no life of her own to speak of!! She had no job, never mentioned anything other than her mother, and in their big fight Eddie even stresses that no, she can't get a job, her place is in the house raising Christopher.

I love Eddie Diaz an unhealthy amount but much like Buck 1.0 was painful to watch, Eddie pre-Shannon-leaving was a dick. Which is super telling me to me. Because Eddie's canonically an amazing father.....once he's a single father!

I still have a few important episodes of season 2 to watch that might provide more context but yeah, I think Shannon/Eddie were one of those couples that just were together cuz they had some interest (I always think of Sk8r Boi - he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?) but ultimately didn't really connect much? But they either got married because it was the Next Thing to do or because she got pregnant, it's not clear. And their relationship seems to have degraded with each milestone because they just weren't right for each other, they were just stuck.

Literally on the beach, they're admiring Christopher and his constant happiness and Shannon goes "yeah, I don't know where he gets that" ...maybe because happiness is not a defining trait of their relationship? And Shannon is also literally asking, bro what is this? What are we doing? What am I to you? And he can't answer! He can't say, "you're the woman I'm in love with". He just knows that he's supposed to be with the mother of his kid so there we go! :)

Throughout the entirety of Shannon's arc on the show, Eddie repeatedly is ambivalent about whether to get back with her. There's no consistent "I love her so much but X" or "I have no feelings for her anymore but I should try for Christopher", there's a consistent "I don't know, I don't know, I'm waiting for a sign I guess? I don't know".

WHICH

I think it's super interesting when it comes to Ana because our boy has learned precisely 0% of his lessons when it comes to romantic relationships. He's still operating under Sk8r Boi rules and looking for a vague cutout of what a "mother for Christopher" is supposed to look like, connection and shared values be-damned! And with Ana it's like ":) it's nice?" and correct me if I'm wrong but we haven't seen any actual kiss, or like big gesture or anything towards her, right? It's just more of the same "sure? I guess? waiting for a sign" kind of energy. And for those few who didn't see it very clearly from acting choices and writing, we have Carla stopping by to say "look at your life, look at your choices."

And it's so absurd because if this was any other show you'd just be like "aw, this poor guy really struggles to connect with people" EXCEPT HE DOESN'T. Eddie is shown very much connecting emotionally with other people - primarily Buck (and Bobby), then all of the 118 and Carla and his Abuela/Pepa. (Obviously Christopher is #1 but I'm talking connecting on equal footing as adults.)

And looking at his relationship with Buck...it's literally the opposite of ambivalence. As noted here, it literally took 1 whole day for Eddie "Mr. Broody, according to Shannon" Diaz to be dancing like a dork and throwing himself into Buck's space. He introduced Buck to Chris (offscreen) pretty much right after, made Buck a part of their Christmas when he didn't want to include Shannon. And yes there are more dynamics at play here (reintroducing a lost parent is a lot more disregulating to a kid than introducing a new coworker).

But I'm talking about active passion here vs passive indifference.

About pulling this coworker into his life to the point that Buck becomes a staple of the Diaz home, to the point that as Eddie's dying, he thinks of his son and half the memories include Buck too (and Shannon's there literally as a 'hey you can't leave him too' warning, there's not a single happy memory of her in that whole montage, not even at the beach which was super cinematically shot).

About the fact that when Shannon got pregnant, he signed up for the army without telling her.

The Big Thing he hid from Buck? Making him Christopher's legal guardian, tying him to his family legally for all time.

In conclusion, Shannon leaving was the best thing for both of them to have a chance at happiness (though healthy, well-adjusted people might have figured a divorce and living nearby would have been better for Christopher but alas). And now Eddie is repeating his pattern of not looking for or choosing his happiness with Ana. It's the exact same relationship dynamic, and I'm looking forward to him understanding that and moving on from it.

[aurorawest]

I used to adore that sweet deleted scene from Thor 1 where the brothers talk before the coronation. Until I remembered that Loki had already arranged for the Jotuns to ruin the coronation, and knew Thor wouldn’t become king. This hurts. And makes me wonder, was Loki lying when he said “I’ve looked forward to this day” and “never doubt I love you”? Or did he really mean it? He sure sounded sincere, but why would he mean such sweet claims when he’d already done an act of treachery toward Thor?

Oh this is so crunchy, thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. This got long, haha. Surprise!

First off, I’ve devoted a lot of time to thinking about this, to the point that it’s almost fair to say that everything I’ve ever written about Loki and Thor comes down to the dichotomy of what we see from Loki in this scene.

Sometimes, I’m…envious. But never doubt that I love you.

I’m not sure any one line sums up Loki’s relationship with Thor more than this one, and it is a damn shame that it was cut from the final film. Loki is a person, I think, who is very, very good at cognitive dissonance. That is to say, he can hold two (at least) different, contradictory thoughts in his head at the same time. And I think we all do this with the people we love, right? You love your family, but god, sometimes you hate them. I think it’s pretty clear through all of their appearances together that Loki loves Thor (ironically, when their relationship is in theory at its best, in Thor, we actually see it the least, because they cut all of the scenes that really show it).

The thing is, Loki doesn’t just love Thor. Thor is everything that Loki wants to be and feels that he can never possibly live up to. He admires him, but he’s also resentful. I’m going to quote a line from my own fanfiction, because it sums this up fairly well:

Normally it hurt, knowing that he’d never really had a chance. Not so much because he desperately wanted the throne. He didn’t. It had been made clear to him long ago that he possessed nothing that Asgardians valued in their kings. He just wanted to be valued, even if it didn’t translate into a crown. (Foundations, chapter 2)

Loki is bitter about his perceived Otherness (and he doesn’t even know the half of it yet). Everything in Asgardian society tells him he won’t be a good king, and because in his family, value and worthiness is intrinsically tied into the succession, this sets up this toxic situation where one child was always going to feel like the lesser one. I want to emphasize that this could have been Thor. And while I believe Loki can kind of intellectually see this, he’s a deeply sensitive, deeply emotional person, and his brain can tell him thing all day long. In the end, his heart is going to feel the pain of his inadequacy.

So that brings us to Thor. Thor is…kind of a scapegoat, I guess, for this situation. It would be great if Loki could recognize that he has strengths and he’s valuable for what he is, but he doesn’t, or can’t, not totally. It’s hard to have the confidence to buck society’s expectations and norms. Even if you do it in part (which he clearly does, e.g., with his magic), that doesn’t mean you’re willing or able to do it totally (in fact, I might argue that for some people, being able to stand up to the cultural norm in one instance might be a shield against admitting much deeper truths about yourself that would set you apart…hi, I think I just had a personal revelation). Then you have the added issue that for Loki, bucking society’s expectations is bucking his father’s expectations, and his father isn’t just his father, he’s also the king of Asgard. He’s the All-Father. He is, in Loki’s view, the most powerful person in the universe. Loki desperately wants his approval and validation. How many times do we hear him say that in Thor? So Loki can’t take any of this resentment out on his father because he just…can’t.

But he sure can take it out on Thor. Thor is his brother. Thor is someone he should be equal with. You know the truism ‘you hurt the ones you love?’ Thor and Loki are the perfect example of this. I very much think they take each other for granted. Which is where the cognitive dissonance comes into play. Loki loves Thor very much, and this is just a given for him—and not just for him, he would feel that it should be a given for Thor, as well. I think Loki holds these two truths in his head simultaneously: Thor will never not love him, and Thor will never love him. To shamelessly quote my own fanfiction again:  

…deep down, he had an unshakeable faith that Thor needed him. There was a toxic side to that, too—an unshakeable faith that he could get away with anything and that Thor would still be there. (an unpublished fic I’m working on called Sleight of Hand, chapter 9)

Thor represents everything Loki wants to be but can never be, and Thor will never reject Loki for dumping all his insecurities on him. At the same time, Thor maybe doesn’t really love Loki, so it doesn’t matter what Loki does, because he’s already lost this thing that he values so highly, which is Thor’s love.

(Side note, I firmly believe this is why Loki does shit like, ‘Don’t tell me it was that woman. Oh…it was. Well, maybe when we’re finished here I’ll pay her a visit myself!’ I don’t think that Loki intends to go to Earth and hurt Jane, not even for a second…but it’s going to make Thor angry if he says it, and it’s going to prove to Loki what he knew all along deep down, which is that Thor doesn’t love him and will fight him)

Anyway, I hope I’m putting it properly into words. It’s something I myself feel on a really visceral level, which is why I really connect with Loki as a character, but it’s hard to articulate.

Ruining Thor’s coronation is a garbage move by Loki, there’s no doubt about that. He says to Laufey:

That was just a bit of fun, really. To ruin my brother’s big day. And to protect the realm from his idiotic rule for a while longer.

I suspect that Loki’s actual motivations are closer to the last sentence here. You have to remember that Loki is lying to Laufey. His intention is to get Laufey to come to Asgard so he can kill him, serving the dual purpose of making himself look like the worthy son and getting revenge on the biological parent who abandoned him. I wrote about whether or not Loki wanted to go to Jotunheim in a recent ask, so I won’t rehash that here, but Loki’s goal is really to make Thor look like he’s not ready to take the throne.

But, that said, I also think that there would have been an element of fun to it. Loki thrives on chaos. A not insignificant part of him likes to start a fire and sit back to watch it burn. Plus…these are Asgardians. I definitely think that Thor would be Pissed Off if he ever found out that Loki had done this (he never does, unless Heimdall tells him, but I don’t think there’s any direct evidence of that? Correct me if I’m wrong, it’s actually relevant to one of my WIPs), but also, like, these people are living on a different level than we are. They stab each other and it’s no big deal. Had his plan worked out the way he’d thought it would—Frost Giants interrupt the coronation, Thor comes up with this dumb, reckless plan to go to Jotunheim, guard tells Odin where they’re going, Odin stops them and gets mad at Thor, Thor doesn’t become king for the foreseeable future—I think Loki would have laughed about it for weeks. He made his brother look dumb and he himself looked like the circumspect, smart son because he was against going to Jotunheim from the start. Obviously, that’s…not what happened. A whole other discussion, that one—Loki’s plans having unintended consequences.

At the end of the day, anon, I think you should continue to love that scene if you want to. It’s one of my favorites. Every time I watch it I curse the decision to cut it from the film because it gives so much more depth to the relationship. I have no doubt that Loki really loves Thor. Just look at his arc. In the end, Loki dies for Thor. Loki gives up the universe to try to save Thor. He’s just a messed up young man who is truly terrible at dealing with his emotions.

I’ll leave you with another quote from my upcoming fic, Sleight of Hand:

She raised her eyebrows right back. “Have you ever considered therapy?” When he furrowed his brow, she said, “Why am I not surprised that Asgardians don’t have therapy?”

[sieben9]

“only you”/“an untold story” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

Yes, both in one post. Mostly because I watched them in one go. And because they’re really just one long story, anyways.

please feel free to insert your own episode-relevant pun here

Before I get into anything else: NO MORE UNDERWORLD LIGHTING! I’d almost forgotten how much that stupid red filter bothered me, until I didn’t have to stare at it while going through my screenshots. Dobby is freeeee~

Anyways, to my intense surprise, especially after the mess that was “Last Rites”, I really liked this finale! Not as a season-finale, because it wasn’t, but it was a very solid, fun two-parter that feels like it should have aired halfway through the hiatus between seasons. (I have Opinions™ on the “season finale followed by a mostly-unrelated epilogue/setup for the next season” format, and not one of them is positive.) The setup for the next season did get me cautiously excited, though. Not quite the “holy crap, I have to watch that!” of the s4 finale, but still good.

Just for clarity’s sake: I will be referring to this two-parter as one episode, just for ease of conversation. I have not slept this weekend, and I refuse to juggle grammar.

OK, just so I have it out of my system:

Gay roadtrip!

“i know we spent the last ten episodes getting my boyfriend back from the dead, but there isn’t room for four in the bug, so bye!” — emma swan, apparently

My joyful little shipper heart aside, the Emma/Regina bits in this episode were just fantastic. From their little heart-to-heart about Regina missing Robin (and Emma actually properly empathising this time) to the oddly even more personal topic of Regina’s constant battle with her “evil” side, it was all that I might have wanted and more.

The scene also left me with a weird feeling, because on the one hand, sure, it’s hard to constantly have to censor a part of yourself in order to be accepted in the company of the people you love (and who love you), but on the other hand… if that part of yourself has “kill it with fire” as the first response to any and all annoyances, maybe, just maybe, that’s something that you should censor. That said, Regina, you should definitely make an appointment with Archie. That sounds like his cup of preferred beverage.

And now to maybe my least favourite part of the episode, so we get it over with… the actual “main” plot. Or the excuse plot, as I will call it, because, really, the whole “Henry destroys magic” thing never really felt like a credible threat. It was more something to get everyone into motion so they could do the actually interesting stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, Henry snapping after losing yet another person—even by proxy through his mother—is perfectly understandable and realistic. That he’d turn his anger on magic as a whole isn’t exactly out of left field, either. He’s done this before, after all. At least this time, he didn’t try to blow up the magic well. I like that well, recent drama notwithstanding.

instead, we get the reverse-cornucopia of magic, apparently

But the plotline itself seemed far too rushed and low-energy to really grab my attention. And the resolution was… ::sigh:: there’s a dilemma for me, here, because I unabashedly love cheesy “The Power Is In You” moments, and the scene at the well did hit that button. It just felt unearned, which is why I couldn’t really enjoy it. (Also, I don’t know what New Yorkers are like, but I know how people from around here would have reacted to a performance act like that. Ah, well. Never Mind All That.)

the real magic was convincing so many people to throw away their spare change

I don’t even know what to say about the Dragon cameo. Nice to see he’s not dead, after all, but everything else in that scene... Nick, if you’d be so kind?

OK, that’s over with. Luke-warm excuse plot with some nice elements to it. I’m not sure if Violet needed to be in this, but I guess Henry needed someone to talk to.

Just as a pick-me-up, I want to give a shoutout to one of the best-executed bits of comedy on this show so far:

“Guy on the third floor is involved in some kind of satanistic ritual and dumped his food on the floor. Pretty polite and tips well, though. 8/10”

Just… very good performance and comedic timing on both parts. I liked it.

Aaaaand over to the “they got sucked through a portal. Again.” part of the episode.

ah, zeppelins; the easiest shorthand for “alternate universe” there ever was

I do kind of like the sound of the Land of Untold Stories and I really, really hope this gets a little more fleshed out in the coming season. How do people end up there when they’re not sucked through Yet Another Portal Accident? Is this what happens to all stories that haven’t been written down by an Author, yet? Is Harry Potter in there somewhere?

So many questions, so little screentime… I’m not sure if I would have liked 8 episodes of stumbling around in this new world, but I would have liked to find out if I did. …listen, it made sense in my head.

This plotline included what is probably my biggest complaint about the writing this episode: Snow selling out Belle. Just… with little to no hesitation. Which is why blaming the writing and not her. If this was supposed to be some kind of big, dramatic moral dilemma, I expect we’d have seen at least some semblance of guilt on her part. Instead, she just told this clearly violent individual about the defenceless, sleeping-cursed pregnant woman within nanoseconds of him threatening Hook. I know Snow’s characterisation has been a bit inconsistent recently, but come on. This isn’t her, and I am disappointed that the show even tried to sell this to me.

And I think I would have believed the version where Snow just blurts out the information about Belle and later feels awful, because holy crap, how could she? (There’s… some precedent for poor judgment on Snow’s part when it comes to sharing information, after all.) But this wasn’t even a Thing for her. I just… ::frustrated noises:: why, show?

So, yeah, the Bad Guy kidnaps Belle. Well done, there. By the way, wasn’t it incredibly difficult at some point to make portals to the Land Without Magic? I get why portalling to Storybrooke would be easier—it’s got magic, after all. But hotel room 318, New York? I guess you could argue that the crystal brought the magic along, but still.

i giggled at this bit, i’m afraid. fellow cat owners will understand.

So, I’m not sure what the “intended” reading here is, but I find it interesting that Rumple seems to understand himself so much less than Hyde apparently does (prediction: they totally know each other; mostly because Rumple knows everyone—guy gets around…) So he went to protect the magic crystal, because what else would the thundering teleport-vortex of doom have come to steal? As has been noted before, Rumple doesn’t really go after people through their loved ones, with one very recent exception, and he had to ask his dad for help to come up with that one. The idea that someone would kidnap Belle to get whatever the hell they want from him, doesn’t seem to occur, even though it has happened multiple times, already. Just… maybe you should have kept that box in your coat pocket, my friend.

Yeah… this is sure going to be fun, I can already tell. What does Hyde want with Storybrooke, anyway? It’s been established that it has one of the least-fun-to-rule populations, and everyone and their dog has magic. Seems like a bad pick, overall.

You do you, though.

And from Jekyll and Hyde, we finally come to this…

that still looks so very unpleasant.

I’m… ambivalent about the personality split, and I really want to wait and see how it turns out. Clearly, this is a good way to have the Evil Queen around again without also having to sacrifice Regina’s redemption arc, which I’m grateful for, believe me. It’s bad enough to have one of my faves on a redemption-yoyo—no need to add a second one.

is it bad that i missed her?

OK, look I’ve seen this Star Trek episode. Ten bucks that it turns out the Evil Queen isn’t “just” Regina’s evil side, she also got many of her more forceful, but overall positive character traits, and both are less without the other, leading to them re-fusing or something. (Yes, wrong fandom. So sue me.)

…obviously, I’m willing to be surprised, but I like this version a lot more than the idea that you can just siphon out the “evil” parts of yourself. (Even Hyde wasn’t really Jekyll’s “evil” side—just the collection of his socially unacceptable traits made flesh. I only read an abridged version of that book, and that a while ago, but Jekyll still seemed like a bit of an ass to me.)

While we’re here: shoutout to Snow and her flask of cocoa-fortifier. That got a surprised (and amused) laugh out of me.

Also, do we want to talk about whether or not it’s healthy to be so at odds with a part of yourself that you think killing it is the best way to deal with it or…? ‘cause, honestly, I would like to talk about that. Seems like Regina is a lot less OK than she’d like others and herself to think…

yeah, that’s not a “finally i’m free!” face

So, cautiously optimistic about s6 so far. The villains definitely seem interesting, and this episode was a good reminder of what I liked about the character dynamic in the first place.

An addendum about 5B:

Goddamn, but this season dragged. There seems to be simultaneously too much plot for too little time and not enough plot to fill ten episodes. This is probably based in my personal biases for and against certain characters (and the fact that I was insanely busy and couldn’t watch the season all in one go), but… yeah, I’m kind of relieved it’s over, to be honest.