Board Thread:Rant and Rave/@comment-24593235-20180208195814/@comment-34657163-20180325201001

4A suffers from being far too ambitious with eleven episodes. There were six "villains" (Rumple, Maleficent, Cruella De Vil, Ursula, Zelena, and Issac), plus selfish Snowing, angry Emma, unluckily bad Lily, and all over the place Regina. Belle's place in the story was fine, as well as Hook.

The arc is supposed to explore morality, but it lacked subtlety like others have mentioned.

It also introduced another rape (along with the implications of a manipulated reality but I'm pretty sure that wasn't meant to be looked past surface level), which at least got adressed a little (not well, but it was recognized).

Ursula was unconvincing and made Ariel, well, tentacle-less Ursula.

I had to suspend a lot of belief that Maleficent had a child, and then even more that Snowing would give that child away. The acting at least made it believable.

The two part finale, while fun, was a bit off. The entire arc sets up for the villains winning and the heroes losing, but instead, everyone just gets switched around. As a story (Isacc's book), it's really not the villains winning and the heroes losing.