OuaT Season 3 Rewatch Continued (3.05 - 3.08.)
Still revelling in the rewatch. That doesn't mean I agree with every single narrative choice, mind; but so far, the season upholds really well and returned my love for the (s1 - s3) show to me.
To start with the nitpicks: letting the returned Neal immediately get into a competition for Emma with Hook (or Hook with him, they're both equally to blame) is still a lame storytelling choice. Their pre-Emma relationship was far more interesting, and to its credit, the show later in the second half of the season remembered that. Also to its credit, even while the stupid triangle is going on Emma will have none of it and makes that clear to the boys. But to its discredit, why waste time with this in the first place? Various other possibilities of how Neal could have been used in more interesting (to me) ways: how about him talking to the OTHER mother of his son? The one who actually raised Henry? The one who also happens to be his own father's student and basically goddaughter? Fine, Regina doesn't rejoin the party until an episode later, but before that he could have talked to Snow and Charming. Whom he also doesn't know. All of which would have been more interesting than mutual Emma competition between him and Hook.
The other nitpick: Ariel still feels flat, and the instant love between her and Erik, even in a fairy tale setting where this kind of thing happens, unbelievable. Not to mention that multiplying the ways to cross dimensions makes Rumplestilskin's complicated long term masterplan from s1 look the more redundant the more often it happens. The beans as alternatives were okay, barely, but mermaids were already one too many.
On to the good stuff: everything else. Must fangirl the genius of the Barrie adaption again. Peter Pan the novel (the one originally published as "Peter and Wendy", I mean), as opposed to the earlier written play, makes it clear that Neverland as the readers encounter it is basically created or at least formed by the desires of the Darling siblings. (Peter himself isn't, though, and of course, he himself isn't originally from Neverland, either.) And that all children go there in their dreams. Which is the original state of Neverland in the OuaT version, too, and that works so well as a metaphor for imagination and children needing it. It starts to transform and gain shades of malice the moment Not Yet Peter Pan makes his trade of son versus childhood and eternal youth.
Which brings me to the great twist of making the boy who wouldn't grow up into a man who regains eternal boyhood at the expense of first one and then a lot of actual children. Which is genius on several levels because of course Peter Pan was the creation of an adult, a man with at the least severe emotional problems whose creation of Pan and Neverland first provided joy but in the long term contributed to damage for at least some of the children who were the first to hear the tale and to contribute to it. Which, I hasten to add, doesn't mean a simple equation of Barrie = OuaT Peter Pan. (For starters, their idea of responsibility is completely different. Barrie took his adult responsibilities very seriously, marital ones excempted, and never tried to push them off to someone else.) But it works as a storytelling response and metaphor.
The show sets its reveal up in several steps, such as Peter Pan making Rumplestilskin his favourite breakfast (which he then eats himself), and of course with the prediction that Baelfire/Neal won't forgive Rumple because "did you forgive your father?" To which Rumplestilskin has no reply. (In retrospect, his inability to forgive as opposed to taking revenge ties the season together, because in the opening episode he kills Tamara and in the season finale he kills Zelena (stupid retcons don't count, I don't accept post s3 canon), both for the same sin of killing his son and both for revenge only (i.e. they don't, at this point, threaten anyone else). Pan mid season is a different case because Pan is an actual and immediate, horrible danger to everyone, but Pan is also someone who hurt him deeper than anyone not killing Baelfire could have.
(BTW, this is a difference between Rumplestilskin and Regina. Regina has a legendary capacity for holding a grudge, to put it mildly, but she eventually overcomes it in several cases.)
I rewatched Think Lovely Thoughts, aka 3.08., the reveal episode, twice, once with the audio commentary (Robert Carlyle & scriptwriters), and in the audio commentary, I learned that Robert Carlyle and Robbie Kay were told the truth re: Peter Pan and Rumple before the season started shooting because they needed to know and played it accordingly, but none of the other actors were. Also, there's a reason for the accent or lack of same of Stephen Lord (spelling?) who played adult Not-Yet-Pan; he arrived on set prepared to do a full Scottish accent to match Robert Carlyle's, but at the last moment the producers changed their mind (not least because Robbie Kay hadn't done a Scots accent), so he was told not to, and had to come up on the spot with something else that wasn't his natural speaking voice, either (he's from Manchester); he then went for standard English with a slight hint of Scottish.
The scriptwriter also said that when writing the big trade off scene, he'd imagined Rumple's father acting more remorseful, but that when Stephen Lord auditioned he was the only one who played the father harder, not softer, in the trading Rumple in scene, too, and this in turn clicked with the scriptwriters, it made more emotional sense to them (if he wasn't already the Looking Out For Himself First type, he wouldn't have made the trade so easily in the first place), and they tweaked the script a bit accordingly, which I thought was a great example of the interaction between writers and actors in a tv production. Still, I think Peter Pan, the character, is a work in progress; selfish from the get go, but not yet at the "nastiest character I ever met" (tm Baelfire/Neal) stage when he originally transforms. Centuries of being able to do whatever you want in a realm where everyone and everything bows to your every whim is bound to transform a human size narcisissist into an incredibly dangerous sociopath, though.
The other backstory revealed is Hook's two episodes earlier, in Bad Form. Killian Jones as a dutiful, rule obeying officer and devoted little brother who becomes a pirate when his big brother dies in a way that reveals the utter corruption of the authority they serve both makes sense and makes his later existence very ironic, because if you think about it, he'll spend most of his existence working for ruthless authorities. The only time where he doesn't are the years immediately after the Bad Form flashbacks and during the Crocodile (the s2 episode) flashbacks, i.e. when he's a pirate but not yet Captain Hook. Once he's returned to Neverland, he's serving Pan, for centuries (btw: Barrie's Pan is the one who brought the pirates to Neverland, so you could say that while Barrie's Hook doesn't do the playing the opponent consciously, he does it in essence), and afterwards it's Cora until the end of s2. Killian's concept of honor and his hero worship of his brother also add to his relationship with David in the present (and the episode does let him point out the smiliarities in dialogue in case the audience doesn't get it); saving David isn't solely for Emma's benefit, it's what he couldn't do for his brother.
Lastly: "You know the spell?" Rumplestilskin never can resist acting the teacher with Regina. And her answering look is priceless. The Neverland arc also contains some of my favourite Regina and Rumple scenes (the one in 3.05. where she makes it clear that if anyone gets to kill him, it's her; followed by another favourite scene in 3.08., when she actually apologizes for bringing up Neal when she thinks Neal is dead). They have their own fascinating dynamic which when I last looked fanfiction has rarely explored because it's not romantic in nature.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1109211.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
To start with the nitpicks: letting the returned Neal immediately get into a competition for Emma with Hook (or Hook with him, they're both equally to blame) is still a lame storytelling choice. Their pre-Emma relationship was far more interesting, and to its credit, the show later in the second half of the season remembered that. Also to its credit, even while the stupid triangle is going on Emma will have none of it and makes that clear to the boys. But to its discredit, why waste time with this in the first place? Various other possibilities of how Neal could have been used in more interesting (to me) ways: how about him talking to the OTHER mother of his son? The one who actually raised Henry? The one who also happens to be his own father's student and basically goddaughter? Fine, Regina doesn't rejoin the party until an episode later, but before that he could have talked to Snow and Charming. Whom he also doesn't know. All of which would have been more interesting than mutual Emma competition between him and Hook.
The other nitpick: Ariel still feels flat, and the instant love between her and Erik, even in a fairy tale setting where this kind of thing happens, unbelievable. Not to mention that multiplying the ways to cross dimensions makes Rumplestilskin's complicated long term masterplan from s1 look the more redundant the more often it happens. The beans as alternatives were okay, barely, but mermaids were already one too many.
On to the good stuff: everything else. Must fangirl the genius of the Barrie adaption again. Peter Pan the novel (the one originally published as "Peter and Wendy", I mean), as opposed to the earlier written play, makes it clear that Neverland as the readers encounter it is basically created or at least formed by the desires of the Darling siblings. (Peter himself isn't, though, and of course, he himself isn't originally from Neverland, either.) And that all children go there in their dreams. Which is the original state of Neverland in the OuaT version, too, and that works so well as a metaphor for imagination and children needing it. It starts to transform and gain shades of malice the moment Not Yet Peter Pan makes his trade of son versus childhood and eternal youth.
Which brings me to the great twist of making the boy who wouldn't grow up into a man who regains eternal boyhood at the expense of first one and then a lot of actual children. Which is genius on several levels because of course Peter Pan was the creation of an adult, a man with at the least severe emotional problems whose creation of Pan and Neverland first provided joy but in the long term contributed to damage for at least some of the children who were the first to hear the tale and to contribute to it. Which, I hasten to add, doesn't mean a simple equation of Barrie = OuaT Peter Pan. (For starters, their idea of responsibility is completely different. Barrie took his adult responsibilities very seriously, marital ones excempted, and never tried to push them off to someone else.) But it works as a storytelling response and metaphor.
The show sets its reveal up in several steps, such as Peter Pan making Rumplestilskin his favourite breakfast (which he then eats himself), and of course with the prediction that Baelfire/Neal won't forgive Rumple because "did you forgive your father?" To which Rumplestilskin has no reply. (In retrospect, his inability to forgive as opposed to taking revenge ties the season together, because in the opening episode he kills Tamara and in the season finale he kills Zelena (stupid retcons don't count, I don't accept post s3 canon), both for the same sin of killing his son and both for revenge only (i.e. they don't, at this point, threaten anyone else). Pan mid season is a different case because Pan is an actual and immediate, horrible danger to everyone, but Pan is also someone who hurt him deeper than anyone not killing Baelfire could have.
(BTW, this is a difference between Rumplestilskin and Regina. Regina has a legendary capacity for holding a grudge, to put it mildly, but she eventually overcomes it in several cases.)
I rewatched Think Lovely Thoughts, aka 3.08., the reveal episode, twice, once with the audio commentary (Robert Carlyle & scriptwriters), and in the audio commentary, I learned that Robert Carlyle and Robbie Kay were told the truth re: Peter Pan and Rumple before the season started shooting because they needed to know and played it accordingly, but none of the other actors were. Also, there's a reason for the accent or lack of same of Stephen Lord (spelling?) who played adult Not-Yet-Pan; he arrived on set prepared to do a full Scottish accent to match Robert Carlyle's, but at the last moment the producers changed their mind (not least because Robbie Kay hadn't done a Scots accent), so he was told not to, and had to come up on the spot with something else that wasn't his natural speaking voice, either (he's from Manchester); he then went for standard English with a slight hint of Scottish.
The scriptwriter also said that when writing the big trade off scene, he'd imagined Rumple's father acting more remorseful, but that when Stephen Lord auditioned he was the only one who played the father harder, not softer, in the trading Rumple in scene, too, and this in turn clicked with the scriptwriters, it made more emotional sense to them (if he wasn't already the Looking Out For Himself First type, he wouldn't have made the trade so easily in the first place), and they tweaked the script a bit accordingly, which I thought was a great example of the interaction between writers and actors in a tv production. Still, I think Peter Pan, the character, is a work in progress; selfish from the get go, but not yet at the "nastiest character I ever met" (tm Baelfire/Neal) stage when he originally transforms. Centuries of being able to do whatever you want in a realm where everyone and everything bows to your every whim is bound to transform a human size narcisissist into an incredibly dangerous sociopath, though.
The other backstory revealed is Hook's two episodes earlier, in Bad Form. Killian Jones as a dutiful, rule obeying officer and devoted little brother who becomes a pirate when his big brother dies in a way that reveals the utter corruption of the authority they serve both makes sense and makes his later existence very ironic, because if you think about it, he'll spend most of his existence working for ruthless authorities. The only time where he doesn't are the years immediately after the Bad Form flashbacks and during the Crocodile (the s2 episode) flashbacks, i.e. when he's a pirate but not yet Captain Hook. Once he's returned to Neverland, he's serving Pan, for centuries (btw: Barrie's Pan is the one who brought the pirates to Neverland, so you could say that while Barrie's Hook doesn't do the playing the opponent consciously, he does it in essence), and afterwards it's Cora until the end of s2. Killian's concept of honor and his hero worship of his brother also add to his relationship with David in the present (and the episode does let him point out the smiliarities in dialogue in case the audience doesn't get it); saving David isn't solely for Emma's benefit, it's what he couldn't do for his brother.
Lastly: "You know the spell?" Rumplestilskin never can resist acting the teacher with Regina. And her answering look is priceless. The Neverland arc also contains some of my favourite Regina and Rumple scenes (the one in 3.05. where she makes it clear that if anyone gets to kill him, it's her; followed by another favourite scene in 3.08., when she actually apologizes for bringing up Neal when she thinks Neal is dead). They have their own fascinating dynamic which when I last looked fanfiction has rarely explored because it's not romantic in nature.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1109211.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.