It's Only the End if You Want it to Be

a-creative-spark-set-afire:

She missed 28 years with Emma that she’s never getting back. 28 years that her baby was alone, orphaned, abused, unloved and felt entirely abandoned. 

I don’t think this is a “dark and evil” punch. I do understand her feeling bad about it since he was in the middle of apologizing. But if he’d been trying to justify that decision to leave a baby that was savior of their entire world, in the hands of a 7 year old, bleh.

I think we’re supposed to see it as a sign of Snow “turning dark” or whatever, but I completely agree. She missed being able to raise her child. She missed being able to protect Emma from all the things that hurt her in those years. Of course she’s gonna be angry about that.

It might not be laudable to hit Gepetto, but it was a human reaction. And the thing is, there is a huge difference between being “dark” or “evil”, and momentarily lashing out at someone. HUGE. When fantasy loses that nuance and creates the expectation that being heroic means smiling politely and turning the other cheek when other people hurt you, it oversimplifies what it means to be “Good”, IMO.

(Source: calliopepond)

You know what kills me about this scene, though?

Henry’s utter lack of enthusiasm.

Remember when Henry met Emma back in the pilot episode? He just barged right into her life: “My name’s Henry! I’m your son! You’re coming home to Storybrooke with me! By the way, do you have any juice?” He just instantly wanted to be close with her and have her be part of his life.

I’m not seeing that at all with Neal here. Yeah, Henry wants to meet him, because Neal is his father and he’s curious. But Henry’s kind of holding him at arm’s length. When he first starts talking, he’s not even looking at Neal. He just sounds sad and disappointed throughout the whole scene. And when Neal tries to put his arm around him, Henry doesn’t move closer or reciprocate the gesture. (Compare with him constantly trying to hug Emma in Season 1).

I think people underestimate just how much it changes a kid to feel like they can’t trust the adults around them. Henry was raised by a mother who not only continually lied to him but tried to make him believe he was crazy (and I cannot state enough how much something like that would mess with a kid’s - or any person’s - head). I think part of the reason he was so emphatic about accepting Emma into his life is that, like he says to her in this episode, he thought she’d be different. That he could finally have a parent that he could trust. Even when he didn’t really know her yet, Henry was willing to give Emma a chance because he’d projected all of his hopes onto her.

I think finding out that Emma lied to him about something so huge in this episode changed something in Henry’s mind. He’s done believing he can ever have a parental figure he can really put his trust in. So when you see him meet Neal, there are these walls up that weren’t there when he met Emma. He’s interested to meet his father and I’m sure he’s going to give Neal a chance, but I think part of Henry doesn’t believe Neal is going to be any different, either.

And so we go from this:

to the much more subdued reaction we see above. The excitement isn’t there, it’s just like “Oh, great, another parental figure who might tend up letting me down.”

kpfun:

I am trying to be a better mother.

I love them, I really do. I love them so much.

It does bug me that so much of the OUaT fandom seems to blame Henry for not loving Regina enough, or something, though.

Here’s the thing: As someone who has a LOT of dysfunctional parent-child relationships in my family, I understand what Henry’s feeling here. The problem isn’t that Henry doesn’t love Regina. The problem is that Henry doesn’t trust Regina.

And how can you blame him for that? Henry knows what Regina’s capable of. Remember how shaken he was after she killed Graham? How he was desperately telling Emma to just forget about the curse entirely so she’d be safe? It’s scary to live with a parent you can’t feel safe with. And knowing your parent would murder innocent people just because they upset her or got in her way? Yeah, I imagine (thankfully, I do not know) that would be really freaking scary. Even for an adult, let alone a child as young as Henry.

Not to mention that Regina has hurt Henry himself in the past when it was what her agenda needed. Pretending not to take him seriously about the curse would’ve been one thing, but telling him he was crazy? Literally trying to make him doubt his own sanity? That is just horrible. God only knows how much Henry was messed up by her doing that.

The point is, if Henry is distancing himself from Regina a bit emotionally, that is natural. She’s genuinely trying to do better now, and I love her for that. Truly, there is nothing I’d like to see more than for Regina to put the past behind her and for Henry to have a loving relationship with both of his Moms. But expecting Henry to immediately fall into her arms just because she claims to have changed is unfair. She’s abused his trust too much for that. She’s really trying now. And Henry is trying, too: He’s giving her the benefit of the doubt. He’s trying to believe in her, and she’s trying to live up to that belief. But it’s not going to be an immediate thing. It’s going to take time for Regina to win Henry’s trust back.

I’m sorry for ranting a bit here, and hijacking this lovely gifset, but once I started talking about Henry and Regina, I just really needed to get that off my chest. Because I really do love these two, and I want to see things work out for them. I want them to be happy together. But expecting Henry to not have any trust issues with Regina after everything she’s done is just unrealistic, and unfair to Henry.

And this is the scene where I started getting all the feels despite the fact that before this I didn’t ship them at ALL. (Okay, so technically I also got all the feels in the scene where he sees her for the first time since thinking she was dead, too. OMG, my heart.)

THEIR FACES. OMG. And HUGS. I just… all the feels. So many feels.

(Source: agentdunham)

I have no idea where that came from

One of my new favorite mother/daughter duos. What could be more fabulous than Mary Margaret defending her daughter like the tough and awesome lady that she is?

(Tonight’s episode was also a WONDERFUL tribute to the mother-child bond, but I’m not going to post spoilers for now.)

(Source: ainokiseki)

immafiringmylazor:

Talk about a motherly lecture.

^ Exactly! She really sounded like a mom here. I love it.

I also love how MM is starting to regain the strength and sassiness she had in the fairytale world. This is the third time she’s told someone off (the first two being David and Regina) and it was totally deserved and on-target (and awesome) in each case. AND she full-on kicked Jefferson out a window. HECK YES, MARY MARGARET. You go girl! It’s nice to see the ‘Real You’ shining through.

On that note, how completely AMAZING was Snow in this entire episode? She’s been hardcore all along, but WOW. Epic awesomeness.

snafflebithumptywink:

Was anyone else just not okay with this at all?

I mean, Emma, I know you’re the protagonist and we’re obligated to root for you…

But I think this is called abduction…

I think it was a mistake, absolutely. She’s kidnapping Henry from his legal guardian and that’s NOT the answer here.

But with that said, I think Emma is just trying to protect Henry. She doesn’t believe in the curse or that Regina is actually a murderer, but she definitely knows that something creepy is up in Storybrooke and that Regina is an amoral person who won’t hesitate to hurt innocent people to achieve her goals. I can’t completely blame her for wanting to get Henry away from all that. She’s being really, really stupid and wrong in the way she’s going about it, but her intentions are coming from the right place.

AFHLJKLJFD this episode just gave me all the Emma/Henry feels. I love how far their relationship has come since she first met him. I love how badly she wants to protect him and that she’s finally ready to take responsibility as his mother. Kidnapping him is a bit crazy, yes, and I don’t approve of it. But I think Emma is just desperately trying to protect her kid any way she knows how.

natalah:

Okay, can we talk about how well this was done? Sometimes this show is all over the place when it comes to trying to strike a parallel between Storybrooke and FTL, but this ep, and Josh in particular got it ~down. The way he is so unflinchingly true in his faith in Snow even when she’s fannying around with a bow and arrow chatting shit about killing the Queen, but then he has a few seconds of hypnosis as David and he falters. The curse has broken him THAT MUCH.

I know they’ve been trying to do this all along with the whole affair thing, but they wore that out and it was much harder to sympathise with because it made David look more like a hypcritical idiot who wanted to have his cake and eat Mary Margaret than a man in a sort of crisis of faith who keeps losing sight of the qualities that made him ~Charming.

Basically, well done show. You made me actively invested in their struggle this episode. DON’T RUIN IT.

^ This, SO MUCH this. So very often, I get what this show is trying to do, but they miss the mark and it comes off as contrived, or like they’re trying to tell us who to root for instead of making us root for them. But it this episode they NAILED it, absolutely spot-on. Both the flashback and the real-world storylines were powerful and compelling (too often the story is lacking in one or the other) and they really showed how both David and Mary Margaret have changed.

And this scene… oh, my gosh. THIS SCENE. Mary Margaret, YOU GO GIRL. I have been waiting ALL along for MM to show the kind of backbone and defiance that Snow had in the fairytale world, and she FINALLY stood up for herself here, and it was glorious. I guess it’s true that going through a crisis brings out the strength in everyone, because Mary Margaret was never stronger or more compelling than she was in this episode, and seeing her tell off David was just the cherry on the cake. Not that I don’t understand that the curse is at play here, but he soooo deserved everything she said. If he really thinks she’d be capable of that kind of evil, then he does NOT love her.

SUCH a good episode!!!