Jade, I would love it if you didn't fight off the feeling of writing a fanfic. I need more OUAT fiction.
Oh, don't worry too much. I have no self-restraint. Ask anyone.
True. Though I felt sorry for her at first as well. It would be an awful thing to feel like the prize someone (anyone...we don't really care who it is) is winning. But since this is OUAT, I'm also suspecting that there was more to her story, and we'll find it out in time.
She did kill my theory this episode, though. Last week, I had a LONG conversation with someone about how the curse worked. Until last night, I thought it neither created nor destroyed emotions for people - but it could throw up roadblocks for them. So it couldn't stop David from loving Mary Margaret. It could stop the two of them from ever having met. It couldn't make him love Kathryn, but...well, last night, I guess it could. Another theory bites the dust. I'm realizing lately how much I suck at predicting this show. Sigh!
I thought the scene where Kathryn told Regina that they're friends now was interesting. I still think that there's more going on with Kathryn than meets the eye, but it's not what I thought. Although...maybe not. Maybe Kathryn's also just a really nice person, and David Nolan has a type?
Don't forget Bambi's mom. And even the mom in Finding Nemo.
Freud would have a field day with that!
Well, there was a mom in...huh. Um...Okay, to be fair, Aladdin ORIGINALLY had a mom, but then they decided to write her out. But there's a special feature on the DVD with the concept sketches and the song they wrote, "Proud of Your Boy." Does it still count if they had her but scrapped her?
Yeah..I'm not really sure how I feel about the episode, still. Or this particular part of it. I'm not really coming down one side or the other on Regina/Graham, and the fact he has to take covert actions to avoid Henry doesn't really bother me. My brother was a single dad for a long time, and as a single parent, you quickly realize that you have to be careful how you conduct your romantic affairs, regardless of how serious you are or want to be about the relationship in question. He had to be aware that if his girlfriends came around enough that his daughter bonded with them and then the relationship ended for whatever reason...his daughter would feel like she'd lost her "mother" - or in this case, mother figure - all over again.
So on that respect, I get it and I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong in trying to have a relationship with someone while you have a kid, and trying to figure out the boundaries there. Sneaking out a window is a bit much, just because it comes off to me like a teenage boy sneaking out his girlfriend's window. But they had to do something "suspicious" so Emma's attention would be drawn to the situation in a way that wouldn't make it look like she's STALKING Regina.
What's interesting here, at least to me, is that in this case, what would Henry's reaction be if he found out about Regina and Graham? Like I said, for most parents, there's a fear of bonding with the love interest. But Henry is convinced that Regina was the evil queen from a fairy tale. Would he in fact have the OPPOSITE reaction to the expected one if he found out about Graham and assume that he, too, is evil by association?
Anyway, I think I'm going to disagree with you in general on the point that there was something wrong with the fact that Regina and Graham are trying to keep it under the radar. Yeah, they could theoretically take it to Granny's...but, again, as I found out when I watched my brother try to find love again after his first marriage imploded...well, relationships take a heck of a lot of time to develop. If it's just a matter of wanting to scratch an occasional itch, then, certainly, take it elsewhere. But if there's an actual relationship that's being worked on, well...that's an awful lot of evenings you risk leaving the kid at home - alone or with a babysitter. Is that really better to do? So, when my brother was dating the woman who's now his wife, the two of them had several incidents of "come over late, after the baby's gone to bed, and leave early, before she gets up."
Being a single parent and juggling a romantic relationship is hard. I could tell that, just from watching on the sidelines.
As for Emma's reaction...the only reason it really worked for me at all is because it is established that she hates Regina...and because he lied to her about what he was going to do that night. But it felt a little heavy-handed to me, in making a parallel between her and Mary Margaret. (Just the feeling *I* got.) I mean, when she turned away, I got the feeling she was also HURT by it, and my thought was...why? We simply haven't seen enough of these two people (apart, let ALONE together) to justify any hurt on her end. Anger that he lied to her about his reason for wanting the night off? Sure. Granted...it's none of her business. Graham's relationship with Regina is simply none of her business, and the show hasn't given me any reason thus far to feel like it in any way is. That said, would she have really turned him down if he'd gone to her and told her something a little more in line with the truth? (Something like, "I have something personal I want/need to do tonight and I'd owe you one"?) Eh...maybe. I dunno.
So I get her reaction to the extent she was pissed about the fact he lied to her. Still, I couldn't help but feeling there was some over-reaction and "none of her business" going on there. Why was she so upset? Because she had a crush on him? Could we have maybe SEEN that before this scene took place? And why, exactly, is she so emphatic about not working nights? She used to work nights in her old job. At least occasionally. She doesn't really have a lot going on otherwise in her life in Storybrooke. So why would they take the trouble to establish she won't work nights at ALL - not even OCCASIONALLY, other than to set up just this very scene where her reaction at the end could be, "No more nights. Line drawn in the sand and you're on the other side of it."
I just felt like this entire thing was a heavy-handed approach to paralleling her with Mary Margaret. Who I will get to, below.
Yeah...although I do think she stood up for herself at the river, when she called David on leading her on. A good kick to his groin may have been more satisfying, but she didn't just stand there and go, "Oh...okay. I'll go sob in the corner now. You go be happy."
This is another part of the show that I'm just...not sure how I feel about it, really. Sana and I had a disagreement leading up to this episode about David's behavior regarding Kathryn. She thought that it was ridiculous that he was really torn about what he should do, given that he had feelings for Mary Margaret and none for Kathryn. I said I could understand the dilemma, because it's not really that he knows he just never loved Kathryn. He remembers absolutely nothing and doesn't remember how he felt about her at all.
And, of course, emotions develop over time, so your memories of someone really SHOULD impact how you feel about them. If you see someone and just go, "Man, I love you, you're so pretty. Your hair is so shiny. And there's an angel choir on your shoulder!" is it really love? (Yeah, I'm referencing "Blank" there.) Even with David and MM, I think he falls in love with her at first "sight" because someone inside, he does still remember his life in FTL and those memories were unconsciously triggered by the fairy tale. It's my story. I'm sticking to it. And it's not a contradiction to everything else I'm saying and will say in this post. Just go with it.
So he's in this situation where he's feeling emotions for one girl while he doesn't remember his "wife" at all. And the thing is...he doesn't know if he ever will. For all he knows, those memories could come back tomorrow. They could NEVER return. So why doesn't he just leave her and go to Mary Margaret, the girl he loves at the moment?
Well, I said that I understood why that wasn't something he was doing right out of the gate. For all he knows, Kathryn was the love of his life. They'd been through good times together and bad times, and at one point, he'd have fought to make it work, whatever it took, he loved her so much. Maybe they'd built a relationship together over the past 10 years, and maybe it's not fair to her for him to not even TRY to get those memories back before he chucks her. "Yes, dear, I know you said that I told you I'd love you forever. We were trying to have kids together. You and I have loved each other all our lives. But I have this head injury, see, so...I'M CALLING A MULLIGAN, BABY!!!"
So I got it. But even while I understood his dilemma...I'm going to go with the "heavy handed" thing again. So Regina REALLY doesn't want David and Mary Margaret together because then "Snow" would get her happy ending. And of EVERYONE in Storybrooke, Snow is the LAST person that Regina would want to find happiness. So she runs into David on the street and...decides to send him to Mr. Gold to "fix" it.
Did Mr. Gold create those memories while David was in his shop? Was Henry right, that the curse just hadn't CREATED those memories for David yet? Anybody have thoughts on that?
Anyway, David "remembers" while he's in that shop, and then he races off to see Mary Margaret because...he's decided to give Kathryn a shot. For whatever reason and whatever "memories" he has with her. And, hey, standing a gal up is just a mean thing to do. And of course Mary Margaret is there, waiting, because otherwise that puppy just wouldn't get kicked.
Just heavy handed. Did we need to see Mary Margaret getting her hopes up, just to have them so destroyed? To have him reiterate time and again that he "chooses her" just to get to the river - where they first met in this world and their love was "made" in the other - and tell her he's choosing someone else now?
Maybe Kathryn did deserve more than to have him chuck her over for Mary Margaret quite so easily. But still...I found myself feeling quite sad for Mary Margaret and not really liking David much at all at the end, there. What would I have had him do differently in that scene, all other things being equal - where he still "happens" to remember Kathryn as he's on his way to meet Mary Margaret? I don't know. But I think the attempt to make there be emotional conflict was a little heavy-handed to the point where it left a bad taste in my mouth. They could have caused the same amount of drama and conflict without making me feel that David had done something awful, even if I couldn't right now tell you what he could have done better.
Seconded. Because, hey, he didn't exactly act all that into her on their date. And his motives are totally suspect, given that we KNOW he's in league with Regina.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to next week, too.
(So now what's James's REAL name? Since James isn't James.)
