Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25491743-20180210165656/@comment-25926288-20180210224800

Season 1: Pretty hard. I don’t really rewatch them because he show feels so different now. I’ll say tie between the Pilot (which was the big Kickstarter to my interest in the show), Price of Gold (which pretty much exemplifies Emma’s character and what the show “should” be about), Skin Deep (which was wonderful acting and a twist on a story that was a touch deeper than the Disney Version. I could say that if Skin Deep was a movie, it would be a very good adaptation of BatB), with honorable mentions like True North and Snow Falls.

Season 2: We are Both (2x02, right?). It pretty much set Regina on a strong path and was done pretty well. It’s what should have followed up and continued but I guess they decided not to.

Season 3: Going Home/Save Henry. I think NY Serenade and another gets honorable mentions because it was able to tweak Once off the weird fantasy course for a quick second. When Once is done very well, you feel the real people behind the fantastic elements. You feel for Regina in Save Henry out of all her centrics in 3. Going Home was the bittersweet ending to Once (at that time).

Season 4: Shattered Sight/Darkness at the Edge of Town/Sympathy for De Vil. SS was a fun episode with the cool CGI curse (which is why I put it in here. That spell looked epic and was one of the best adaptation of any source material that Once got. Spin-off material.) DatEoT was a return to fantasy stuck in reality where Once shines. Rumple eating Ramen in Ursula’s Apartment, Cruella and co in a drive-thru, Boston citizen Emma fighting a magic beast with the Evil Queen Mayor. Cool. SftD was just a cool centric for a fun character. Cruella was spin-off worthy too. No wonder she came back, lol.

Season 5: Nimue. Nuff said. Her Handsome Hero And Our Decay were pretty cool (Honorable mentions). It’s wasn't all that but Hades and Zelena has some charm and Rumple and Belle were okay (during that tumultuous ride that somehow got worse). If HHH was the typical Rumbelle episode, then they’d be the best written character-character interaction since...Emma and Mary Margaret?

Season 6: Heartless. Reused the beaten dead horse but it felt a bit more of a return to form (not paid off strong enough, but cool in and of itself). The musical was a special episode and the finale was epic adventure (honorable mentions). Some say Other Shoe but I think they were a bit overbearing with their points. Price of Gold was good, but that intro and some dialogue needed a heavy dose of subtlety.

Season 7: Beauty. If it followed HHH in some weird movie with Skin Deep, it would have been a perfect ending third. The only reason why I do often say that the writers can write strong episodes, it’s just the execution and the idea-Board behind it. The issue with most of the others is that it lacks subtlety when it needs it and has some pacing issues (or it’s Greenbacks and it’s 95% exposition and set-up).

Ended up surprising myself. Some are Snowing, some are Regina, some are Rumbelle, and some are CaptainSwan. Didn’t expect that well-rounded of an answer. Though I think the strongest moments and strongest character insights would give vastly diffferent results because some solid or subpar episodes had really good moments.