Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20161024005929/@comment-25926288-20161024130802

Not to pile on the dislikes or to try to cover up flaws, but I'll have to wait and see if they even try to explain Jafar and his situation.

I'll not claim OOC/retcon yet because this episode was lackluster and suffered from a half-baked plot. Everyone should know by now that I vehemently dislike Live Action Disney, but this was a sham. With all their Disney inserts, they gave a little effort, but this had basic plot problems.

1. Jafar suffered from Omniscient Villain. He knew where Al and Jaz were. He knows about the meta-story concept. He has Fate-defying Macguffin. I can get passed Rumple sometimes suffering from this because he's powerful and a seer, but Jafar, not so much.

2. Macguffins galore. Did Adam and Eddy use the Serum before this episode? There are usually one or two macguffins present in the half season, but this episode had the motherload. We had Oracle-Bird, Diamond-thingy, Fate Shears, and new locator potion. Much of the issue was that it thrived in the flashback.

3. Worldbuild, no? I'm not going to discuss the politics of Agrabah which seem okay. The issue is that the characters seem to not live in their world. Jafar knows Aladdin, the Savior prophecy, etc as if he was in the writers' room. Jasmine read about a cave of Wonders, which Aladdin thinks is fake, but they step outside their city and see it. Does noone every leave the city?!

Usually, Adam and Eddy are pretty solid on their basic plot, but I haven't a clue. Now onto plot-character dynamics.

1. As typical of PCD, characters move as the plot demands. More into that following. Everyone reeked of that...except EQ, Zelena, Henry and Emma.

2. Everyone invaded Emma's privacy selfishly and rudely. Hook wanting to know makes him seem invasive as a boyfriend (not good!). Snow and David wanting to know was on-par, but they then laid on the guilt-train on Emma (not good!). Regina and Henry seemed half focused on Emma and half focused on "How do you think this makes me feel, Emma?"

3. FBs are now rapidly "developing" romances to the point that Emma and Hook look like they've been together for years although it has been only months, compared to others.

Now onto Jafar and OUATIW....

So, they did what I feared would happen. No, not retcon into oblivion, but completely ignore and not mention Wonderland. I wanted to defend the writers on Jafar just having a side-mission to impress his father, but....

1. Jasmine made it seemed like Jafar has been at it for a while now. Jafar could care less about political power. When he does take it, he does so for his own ends. Jafar wouldn't go around delivering justice for his puppet Sultan unless he was heading for his goal. If they mentioned Jafar going after a genie, it would be fine, but Jafar made it seemed like he wanted all the power--To beSultan of Agrbah....muhahahaha! Yeah, that's Disney Jafar, not Once Jafar who pretty much deposed his father and became lesser Sultan.

2. Jafar seemed too invested in Aladdin and this side story. I mean, noone is one dimensional, but when does he have time to care? Ironically, Oded Fehr did a good job being akin to Naveen's Jafar having immense cruelty with a dash of casual humor. If they simply had Oracle girl do the whole fate of Saviors and the shears, it would help keep Jafar from looking super-invested in this random occasion.

3. Jafar's magic was revamped. Magic in Once is indeed broken. However, noone can watch this episode then watch Wonderland and think--Yeah, same magical guy. Jafar couldn't rip out hearts, couldn't (or never) poof, etc. I should restate my point. His magic wasn't revamped, it was just Disneyfied.

- never poofed but used his carpet, even ran away on foot when the staff was taken

- never showed hynoptic powers, or anything of the sort

- never showed meta-knowledge, otherwise he'd know "Villain don't get happy endings"