Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-26159109-20150928143524/@comment-25926288-20151115001049

ChocolatEyes613 wrote: Eskaver wrote:

To those that follow online, this episode will seem like it's out of left field. I wouldn't be surprised if some turn it off because they'll be confused what show they are watching. Honestly, ABC is probably expecting that to happen. It is the only explanation for airing 5.08 and 5.09 together. The network probably knew viewers would not be interested. I doubt, the general audience even remembers Mulan and Ruby. Both of them live on Forgotten Character Isle, and Granny does not seem to notice. Even Tinker Bell is mentioned occasionally, implying that Regina keeps in touch off-screen. Yeah, I mean those that don't follow online. I think ABC was expecting thois and that's why they promoted it the way they did. The general audience will think they are adding new characters every week. Mulan and Red and MErida too and the whole Brave movie? They'll either fangasm or flip out.

If I take the general pull from the FB page (Don't go there! It's the vilest thing since Once shipping. I don't think half of those people watch to the show or even think.), they won't rememeber Mulan that much and will totally be confused why she randomly became gay. They might recognize Red unless they came with the Frozen crowd and didn't binge watch, but they won't care that much.

All that will happen is that 509 is a momentum killer, I think. They have momentum shifts with slow episodes in-between the big episodes, but let's break it down:

501-505 Nice and climatic

506 Filler-lite and slowing things down

507-508 Nice and climatic

509 Slowing down

510 and 511 Nice and climatic

The problem is that they are airing a climatic episode with a slow episode...and what's really bad is that the slow episode is afterwards. 507 and 508 would have been better put together in momentum, but 509 would be a downer. So, they could have manipulated it so that 509 would be first and then 508 and just shift scenes around and make it more like a movie that's slightly disjointed. But I guess it might be better to them to have a great episode followed by a decent episode than to have two fairly good episodes.