User blog:Rena Phoenix/Miniview - 5.01 - "The Dark Swan"

My first thought regarding this episode was simply "meh". The season 5 premiere was so built up over the summer, what with the actors telling us it was like a mini-movie, the creators telling us the flashback system would be done a bit differently, the BTS pictures proving to be so confusing and of course the run-of-the-mill excitement every fan that isn't us appears to exude towards all things OUaT. As it turns out, the episode was a fairly standard one, their fairyback device this half-season is something they've done before (flashing back to a certain, self-contained time period because the characters have no recollection of it), the pictures totally made it look more confusing than it actually was (so, that's a good thing?) and the excitement... yeah, whatever. This episode actually pretty much matched ALL of my expectations. I predicted the premise would be interesting enough but that the execution would be mediocre at best due to laughable dialogue. Not laughable in a good way, just the cringey kind. The lines SUCKED. So much. This episode focused on so many of the core characters of the show AND was penned by its creators, which begs me to wonder: just what the hell ARE Adam and Eddy doing with these characters? That they "created"? Wtf even? Jane Espenson should take a page from the Empire book and lead a hostile takeover. One that's actually successful, though.

Anyway, let's kick things off with the bad stuff first so we can end on a positive note. The first thing that springs to mind is, of course, Snowing. This couple has been consistently sidelined and/or ruined over the course of the last two and a half seasons, and that practice continued in this premiere. I can't recall a single line David said besides him screaming Regina's name in the beginning, and Mary Margaret... oh boy, did she just keep on doing and saying stupid things. Why does the show feel the need to elevate Hook and Regina to the status of heroes at the expense of making the original heroic couple so profoundly dumb and morally dubious? Let's go over Mary Margaret's contributions to this episode: "Zelena's out. That is what matters. But not as much as Emma." See, this line is just clunky for me. I don't know what exactly doesn't work about it, but something doesn't. Just doesn't flow right. But that's me being persnickety, I suppose, so let's move on. When Zelena is holding Robin hostage, hoping to trade him for the wand, MM doesn't want Regina to give it up to her. ...???? What? Shouldn't Robin being in danger be the priority at hand? Snow is someone who always believes there's another way, surely her line of reasoning in that moment would lead her to think, "Okay, we save Robin now, then we deal with the Emma thing some other way, because there is always some other way." But no, she was apparently more than willing to let Robin die. Maybe that's a pattern they kickstarted last season when she was unwilling to let Elsa find her sister at the expense of the town, but, um, it was the whole town. A "greater good vs. individual good" dilemma is far less debatable. But when the matter becomes about one person or another, when one of them is in more immediate danger (that she knows of anyway), why would Snow choose to sacrifice that person, meaning Robin? This is when you answer "because Emma's her daughter." Ha, bitch please. In 3.12 Snow thoroughly believed there was no way back to Emma, her daughter, and seemed perfectly content with that. ...Her being the person who always thinks there's a way. Does my incessant rambling finally make a point? They. Don't know. How to write for Snow White. She doesn't lack consistency, she kicks consistency in its nuts. They work so hard at making the character morally complex that she's not just a grey area, she's a sasspool of confusion and blurred lines, and I'm betting dollars to donuts she's gonna do something as profoundly retarded and unforgivable this season as kidnapping someone's baby last year. Mark my words. They looooove to eff up Snow White. Heck, she's probably the one who incurs Emma's wrath later on. Oh and when they finally make it to Emma, she decides the right thing to do is to hand over the Dark One dagger to Emma, who was literally squeezing someone else's heart seconds before. Holy effing crap that bitch is way more stupid than Belle now and I don't know how that's even possible.

Now let's go over Belle's contributions to this episode:

Okay, now let's focus on the awful, awful dialogue. We'd been shown many great examples of how bad it is in the sneak peeks, from the repetitive sass mirrored in Regina's lines about guyliner and a unicorn, to the nonsensical flow of Zelena being WHAT matters oh but not as much as Emma, to Merida's throwback line to her movie, to the cheesiness of that last scene with the Dark Swan. My main problem with so many of the scenes in this episode is how rushed they felt. I understand there's only 40 minutes of screentime, which unto itself isn't a lot, and I understand it's better to have fast-paced action than something that drags, and I even understand that this arc is gonna last for one less episode than usual. All of that affects the pacing. But when something as iconic as the rose in the bell jar, that was so built up and teased over the summer, is randomly introduced and addressed over the span of 5 seconds, something must be wrong. Btw Belle was just carrying that thing around EMPTY during the hostage thingy. They didn't even bother to CGI the rose in. Ha. Gold must be dead already then. As dead as Snow White's baby whom you just know she dropped on the floor when Granny's got back to Storybrooke. Seriously, did we not see her picking him back up?

Now, the good things. There is nothing I don't love about Granny's getting swept up in a twister. Everything about it is so bae that I didn't even mind ROLAND. Like, at all. Him hugging Henry when Leroy barges in was, God help me, cute? I like Belle being there, I like the dwarfs being there but not all dwarfs cos that's a lot of dwarfs, I like Granny being there, Zelena too... It's like the rescue team of my dreams minus Ruby. Oh, and Archie I guess. He's like... he's just not a thing anymore, is he? Really gotta get over my expectations that he should matter again, if he ever even did. Oh and the other characters who would likely lend a helping hand now that they're supposedly in Storybrooke, like Will, August and Lily, were also conveniently not even mentioned, but... I'm focusing on the bad stuff again.

I liked Merida. I honestly did. Brave was mediocre at best and I was so not looking forward to this character's inclusion, but I thought the actress did a fine job and I am quite curious now to see what they do with her story, since I appreciated its set-up, with the triplets being kidnapped and the father being dead, which seems like a rather ballsy move on the writers' part, killing off a major character from the movie. I thought they weren't gonna take many liberties with the characters, like how they didn't with Frozen, but King Fergus being dead and the clans not wanting a woman in power seem like nice creative decisions that I can get behind. That being said, it seems like Merida gets two centric episodes, based on the titles alone, which feels like a bit much... I sort of figured her character would be more peripheral? Oh well. Here's hoping that when they hook her up with Mulan the latter also gets a centric chapter. But if Mulan gets one and Aurora never does I won't be pleased, but then again, am I ever fully pleased with this show? Or life in general?

5.01 grew on me upon rewatching. I'd been spoiled about its best bits - I adore the dagger being the tip of Excalibur - but thankfully there's very little I know about the upcoming episodes, so hopefully they will surprise me in a good way. "The Dark Swan" still feels like a very standard episode, but it does a much better job at setting up the arc and teasing at exciting new stuff than 4.01 ever did. It might even be better than 3.01, actually. So, that's a nice plus. Story-wise, I think this arc might be able to do a lot of good for the show as a whole. If they can find the right balance for the previously established characters (regulars and recurring), the new, Camelot-based folk and the new Disney princess - God, that's a lot of people... - maybe they can do us a big service. I am excited to delve deeper into the Dark One's mythology, but so far I'm not loving Jennifer Morrison's performance. Maybe I'll get to someday. At the moment, I'm mostly just wondering when we actually get to see Mulan and Red again.