Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-11464223-20140228031503/@comment-5106672-20140228192845

What I didn't like were the plotholes it opened. Lots and lots of plotholes. How did Pan know about Henry long before he was born, how did he know he was the truest believer, how did he know after whom to send the Darling brothers at a point he clearly did not resemble the picture he gave to Felix, how did Tinker Bell end up in Neverland in an era when portals were extremely hard to come across, why did he let Baelfire go since he clearly didn't know he was Henry's father (otherwise why kidnapping kids from all the lands?), why did Rumple have to die? If they focussed more on explainatory flashbaks instead of rather useless ones as the fake Excalibur, Ariel's, Hook's or Medusa's, it would have looked less like retconning old stuff and writhing new one just to fit the arc than it ended up doing. All of the above could be explained (ie: he did not kidnapp boys from all the realms, he specifically targeted the Darlings to bring Baelfire to Neverland so he would not die of old age before meeting Emma), but just like that... it feels squashed in. I mean, okay, they left it open to speculation for fans, but with so little insight it's more up to justification than anything.

With this said, I enjoyed pretty much everything else: I always hated Tinker Bell but here she became one of my favourite characters, it gave much character developement to almost everyone (except the Charmings, imo), and most importantly, it was worth the jeopardy it put the show through. The last part of Season 2 felt very weak and risked to throw to the wind most of the premises that made the show great in the first place, just in order to set the grounds for the Neverland arc. Fortunately, it was enjoyable and, except for the plotholes above, written well enough and presenting strong enough characters to make up for that.

Also, I loved Robby Kay. Seriously, he was a great Pan, and I loved how the writers turned the character into a very dark one while still keeping it true to itself.