Once is Back!

[meddow]

Once Upon A Time - the only show on television where you can watch three generations of the same family trying to defeat a wraithdementor armed with only two broomsticks and a hat - is back! Yay!

Comments

[jadeddiva]

NGL the fact that Once Upon A Time was back last night made my weekend. I missed that show more than I thought.

[meddow]

Me too. Thinking about it, it's currently a close competition between the Thick of It and Once for being the highlight of my viewing week.

[frenchroast]

I agree with you on the awesome of all of the above, except I like Belle/Rumple. Mainly because they are both so, so damaged, so it's kind of interesting to see what the hell is going to happen now that they're both free to do what they want, as opposed to her being trapped with him and developing Stockholm Syndrome (for all that I like Beauty and the Beast, my husband pointed out that it's basically a fairytale version of Stockholm Syndrome playing out, and I had to admit he was right), or her being trapped in a mental ward for 28 years. The show has done interesting things so far, so I'm hoping it does similarly interesting things with Belle/Rumple.

Also, that wraith is TOTALLY a dementor. Right down to the whole soul-sucking thing.

[meddow]

You just reminded me of the time my bff made me watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers which is one of her favourite movies. She didn't expect my reaction to be "WTF!? This is Stockholm Syndrome!?" (that movie is way creepy).

I'd be much more cool with Belle/Rumple is Belle gets to interact and form relationships with other characters - maybe befriends Red and Grumpy, visits her father, gets a job and becomes the town's librarian. It early days yet so maybe she will. But currently Rumple is the only person in her world and only he, Regina and Jefferson know she's alive or exists (and the latter two don't see her as anything more as a pawn in the Regina vs Rumple war), so she's not really acting like she's free.

I so would have clapped and cheered if Regina had tried to summon a Patronus.

[airie_fairy]

Totally gonna use you to just liveblog, okay? Here goes:

Olly's impressions of accents around the country telling you they hate you. He actually went so far as to give examples. I LOVE HIM. And he has weirdly a lot of sympathy for a nervous weasel. Which is, of course, why I love him. The Fuckpuppet Master indeed, poor baby.

Lol my life the Michael Palin joke. "That's very unlikely, he's a very nice man."

Lol Duggan. The high spirits with which he announced that he couldn't remember the camera man's name. Such an amazing sleaze; I really wanna see Helen blow it at him, it'd be hysterical! His "chicken or cheese" save was quite sweet in a desperate way, though.

"Who the fuck's Preston?" I don't even care about motives, I'm just excited Glen and Olly are chatting. And their Mr. Sad/Mr. Happy/Mr. Stoic conversation! They're so adorable. And the two of them laughing at Ben, Glen desperately trying to muffle himself! SO. ADORABLE

[airie_fairy]

"You know, I just realised that Once did the reverse of the Amy, Rory and River storyline - and did it way better."

I may have lost interest in Once but I said this after the pilot and I stand by it: oh look, another show did the losing a baby and not getting them back until they're older than you/your age story and actually kept its emotional priorities intact in doing so! (Also, Emma >>>>>>>> River OH MY FUCKING GOD.)

[meddow]

Yeah, it took me about 23 episodes to reach the same conclusion. I'm a bit late to the party :)

Emma >>>>>>>> River OH MY FUCKING GOD.

I'm not going to compare her to River (because my feelings on River are complex), but OMG Emma. I can't believe how much hate she gets from some sectors, because she is one of my favourite 'chosen one' characters of all time. Probably because she's delightfully already gone through the 'woe is me, my life sucks, you don't understand how much my life sucks' pre-series and off camera and come out of the end of it the mostly sensible down to earth straight woman to everyone else in the town's crazy and just gets on with it.

[airie_fairy]

She's just practical and hard-ass and it's not all a veil over being secretly pathetically hypnotized and that being treated like a positive thing and I freaking LOVE HER. I love that she has complex feelings about her growing up situation and everything else, I just...

Though Fry is the greatest chosen one of all time. (OF ALL TIME.) I'll let you finish. :d

[chocolatepot]

You know, I just realised that Once did the reverse of the Amy, Rory and River storyline - and did it way better.

Agreed!

I'm very conflicted on R/B. On the one hand, as it stands right now it's really toxic and Belle absolutely should not be responsible for reforming Gold, especially because he doesn't show much sign of changing his ways. On the other, I really like them as a pairing and want him to make himself better (not least because of the Regina fans on Tumblr who seem to think she's a complete victim and Gold's the true villain of the show). The trouble is that, given the HEAVY emphasis on "true love fixes everything" I don't really have a lot of faith that they'll be able to manage getting them together without making it all about him being ~healed through Belle's love~.

[meddow]

not least because of the Regina fans on Tumblr who seem to think she's a complete victim and Gold's the true villain of the showThat kind of goes both ways. I've seen Regina fans act like that and I've seen Rumple fans act the same way in that Regina's the ultimate evil and Rumple's so misunderstood. Card on the table: if I had to pick one of the two to have a redemption arc I'd pick Regina because she's my favourite. But I really don't get the 'one of them is sympathetic/the others true evil' black and white thing. Can the warring sides of Once fandom please just admit that they're both really, really horrible people who constantly make terrible choices, yet they're both got sympathetic back stories and are both compelling characters played by charismatic actors and which one people like comes down to personal preference of the individual fan? Actually, I have many thoughts on this. I may have to write some meta

[chocolatepot]

I want to have them both get happy endings. Happy endings for everyone! I don't really follow the OUAT tags - it's just that when I do check them out, I see more of one type and fewer of the other (the Rumpelstiltskin fans I stumble across seem mostly wrapped up in ~*~Rumbelle~*~, speaking of which I saw people calling James/Lily "Jily" the other day, why has fandom become so incredibly caught up with smushnames?). Though for the most part people don't seem polarized, which is good.

I'd much rather see Belle leave him, making Gold have to change himself in order to get her back.

[artic_fox]

I want more Mulan. She was awesome.

[meddow]

She is! I hope we actually get to see her in action a bit more in future episodes.