Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24386552-20161217174626/@comment-24674051-20161221191613

Best and Worst. Probably not a good title in my opinion. a better title would be favorite and least favorite. Which would also address the subjectiveness of the answers here. Still an interesting discussion, though.

Favorite Episodes:  Going Home - Very well done. Many of the loose ends were tied up. This would actually have been a decent series finale. Had all the emotional feels, good story telling, and Rumple was redeemed at this point (too bad the writers had to go and mess that up with season 4). Pilot - For what it was meant for, it did it's job well. It established the characters, and gave us enough development that we could become invested in them immediately (at least Emma, Snow, and Regina). The Miller's Daughter - Cora is one of my favorite villains. She was well developed over the better part of season 2, and this episode which served as both her origin story (at least in terms of her magic) and her demise was very well done, and again had some emotional significance for several characters (Rumple, Bae, Regina, Cora, and Snow) Desparate Soul - Rumple's origin as the Dark One. 'nuf said A Land without Magic - the Season 1 finale was fun, particularly once Emma embraces her belief in FTL and confronts Regina (Emma shoving Regina into a bank of lockers with a forarm against her throat is just such a satisfying sight for that season). It provided a good bookend to what was started with the Pilot, and the closing scene was a decent launch into season 2.  Least favorite episodes  Brothers Jones - I don't dislike Hook backstories like others here, but this one was just bad start to finish. the plot was weak, and "The Eye of the Storm" was one of the most attrocious macguffins ever used on the show. And even the ending, with Liam providing passage to "the better place", just seemed to be lacking. there was no emotional investment. the Drama, such as it was, was forced. Birth - many people pick on Swan Song, but really the problem starts right here (in my opinion). The choice to make Killian a Dark one derailed the whole "Dark Swan" story arc, invalidating not only the episodes after that (including the entirety of the UW arc), but also the episodes from the beginning of the season. This one episode, in my opinion, completely derailed the entirety of Season 5.</li> Ruby Slippers - This is another episode that was just not right on so many levels. First, how Ruby even arrives in the UW is questionable. Second, Why did Zelena just happen to have the Silver slippers in her possession, since her trip to the UW was definitely unplanned? (Ok, I do have an idea of an explanation for that one, but still...) Also, the whole focus of the episode was a departure from the entire UW storyline. the Present Day was just how to get Ruby back to save Dorothy (and also provide a reason for Ginny to be absent since she was unavailable to film the next episode). and the Backflash was about Dorothy and Ruby, and the entire time to fall in love with each other was just ridiculous. Nothing in the episode made any sense, nor did it move any storylines forward.</li> Our Decay - I think this episode is where the UW arc took a wrong turn. up until that point, Hades was a decent villain, though he did not really have any plan. it was with this episode that we find out about the "twu luv" of Hades and Zelena. and what that messed up relationship did for the remainder of the season is obvious. Between Birth and Our Decay, the decimation of Season 5 was secured far better than even Elsa and Anna could have done.</li> Last Rites - and what was not already destroyed by Birth and Our Decay was completed by Last Rites. They introduce, from out of nowhere, an item capable of killing a God. They make Hades motive as Try to Take over the World, or at least Storybrooke. Even when Zelena, who was supposed to be his True Love, suggested that she did not want that. The whole Killian and Arthur in the UW was fun, but really was pointless, other than they wanted some suspense on Killian's coming back, and also wanted to have something for Colin to do during the episode. After escaping the UW, this episode was really not only anticlimatic, but totally unexpected in a bad way based on the (lack of) story already presented.</li> </ul>