Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6175354-20130930170041/@comment-22525977-20131001053132

Velox Raptor:

I think the whole faith vs. observation thing was what bothered me most about season two!Emma—and, in a different way, late season one!Emma—because in one she continues to REFUSE to believe in the curse even after it becomes excruciatingly obvious that it exists, and then in two she just... follows the lead of whatever character she happens to be working with, for the most part. And I'm so, so glad that that got addressed in this episode in the way that it did! Fingers crossed that the trend continues.

I'm super interested to see where the writers go with the Rumpel-by-himself vs. the cohort-working-together dynamic, especially considering the parallels between what Rumpel wanted Emma to do (have blind faith in his word) and what happened to Greg and Tamara as a direct result of their unquestioning devotion to their Home Office. When Rumpel first bitched Emma out for not just believing, I figured we were going to have to endure some twisted message about how you should just believe because.

Then the storm happened, and it happened because everyone was fighting, and as soon as Emma found a way to unify them again, they were fine (sans the Jolly Roger, poor baby). The last we see of them is them making a pact to put aside their differences for the time being and focus on the end goal, then setting off to do just that. I think that must be a deliberate parallel to Rumpel's journey throughout the episode: he starts off confident and successful, finding more information about Henry's whereabouts by working on his own, and then the last we see of him, he's crumpled on the ground sobbing over a child's toy.

Which seems more like juxtaposing Rumpel's blind faith in how Neverland works against Emma's more effective exploration of how the rules work there. So excited to see where this leads.

And word on the no cliche holding-the-baby scene. I think it was a wise choice on Emma's part—she knew she had to give Henry up because (a) she was in jail and (b) she wasn't in a place where she could be a good mother, and she wanted to make it as painless for herself as possible by not holding him and the (very real) flood of hormones that being close to her newborn baby would entail (whether she thought about it in those terms or just "I cannot get attached to this baby because he needs an actual family, which I can't provide" does not matter so much).

ChocolatEyes:

1. 3.01 Mary Margaret, on killing the mermaid: "You kill her, and her kind have a personal vendetta against us."

That is, word-for-word, what she says—I just rewatched that part to make sure. It's right after Regina says "Now may I resume killing her?"

It absolutely had everything to do with revenge. I do not care if she comes up with some more PC justification in later episodes: The fact of the matter is that, when it happened, her thoughts were solely on the potential danger to herself, Charming, and Emma. It is exactly like how she was fine with manipulating Regina into causing her own mother's death and only felt guilty after the fact—and then dealt with that guilt by being a useless lump, trying to commit suicide via Regina (I mean, seriously?! How low can you get?) and finally running around telling everyone that "that wasn't me" before promptly forgetting about the whole thing.

4.  My mistake on the spelling. Fixed it. (I know a real life Philip who spells it with just one L, so that's how it's spelled in my head).

The thing is, while I understand that Aurora and Mulan spent their offscreen time trying to restore Phillip's soul, I'm upset that what must have been a crazy awesome adventure just... happened in the meanwhile and SUDDENLY PHILLIP'S BACK. Would have liked to actually see them looking for his soul, you know? Hopefully it'll be explained in flashbacks?