Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20151130020049/@comment-1916997-20151201031951

Eskaver wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote: Eskaver wrote: Hook looking through bottles and being conflicted would be a tad bit more concise than whatever Merida was doing. XD. Merida was useful this season, but was kind of random in what she was used for (meeting the newly made Dark Emma, giving Belle and Gold plot for an episode that advanced their characters, establishing just how crazy Arthur was, reintroducing Mulan and Red, etc.), which is where I think people have the problem with her. I have a simply solution. Put 506 and 509 together. Especially since they all are friends of Belle even though they never mention her once. Have Belle and Merida be saving the day because the witch threatened the kingdom and they exiled Merida and then run into Mulan Rouge and solve something and at the end show that Arthur killed Fergus in the cauldron.

Terrible idea, but that extra episode should have gone to Hook's angst and the future flashbacks perhaps.

Anyhow, Merida was okay in the pliot as a random encounter but she really stuck around for nothing much. It feels as if the storytelling had a major shift aound the middle. I guess that could have worked, lol. Or the writers just need to learn to balance the characters better. With a little reworking, we probably could have had all the same basic stuff, but with it feeling more cohesive, and not having the guest stars feel like glorified extras to so many. Oh well, we know all the Camelot and Dunbroch stuff will wrap up in 511 anyway, and then on to the next arc.