once upon a time: thoughts on the season finale

ALERT! ALERT!

HERE BE SPOILERS.

You have been warned.

Seriously.

So. Season One of Once Upon A Time is over.

WHAT DID YOU THINK??

Okay, since it’s my blog, I’ll go first. In random order:

* I was pleasantly surprised by how much they moved the plot along by the end. I was totally convinced that they were going to s-s-s-s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the revelation of why Regina had it in for Snow, what Rumpelstiltskin’s game plan was, who August was, when Emma would FINALLY believe, and then add in more stretching out until the curse was broken, everyone’s memory was restored, and then we could go back to living happily every after.

Instead, they gave it all to us in the first season. Except for the living happily every after part. Erp?

Now what? The curse is broken, but everyone is still in Storybrooke with a giant purple cloud descending on them. Magic is BAAAACK in the world again (okay for the first time in our world). Uh oh. What are the magic users–who happen to be our antagonists–going to DO with it? Lots of evil stuff, I hope. Judging by Regina’s expression at the end, she’s already spinning plans.

Personally, I’d love to see a melding of Storybrooke and Fairy Tale World, where the boundaries between them have gotten fuzzy and permeable. So that on your way to Granny’s Diner for your morning doughnut you might (oops!) fall into a siren’s pool. Or run into a werewolf. Or take a wrong turn into the Infinite Forest.

* You know, they went to a lot of trouble to make Regina sympathetic, but really? Having it in for Snow all those years? You do realize that she was a KID at the time and that her intentions were not at all malicious?And maybe, if you were going to run away with the stable boy and a kid knew of the plan, perhaps you might want to watch the kid more closely and make sure your evil mother was never alone with her. And then you tell Snow that your stable boy crush ran away to spare her feelings, but you go ahead and murder her father and send a hunstman to carve her heart out anyway? Wha–? *blink blink* Soooo, hurting feelings = bad. Carving out heart = acceptable. Mmm.

In short (too late!) the scriptwriters did not do an adequate job of convincing me of the motivations behind the Evil Queen’s vengeance.

(Speaking of which, what happened to the evil mother? Is she going to show up next season? I’d have expected Regina to have done away with mommy dearest, but it would be COOL if she showed up as as antagonist.)

* I still love Mr. Gold. Favorite character. Complex. Dry humor. In control. Hidden depths. I was SO looking forward to his learning that Belle was still alive. Unfortunately, they missed the mark on that one. Sure, Mr. Gold was reunited with Belle, but it happened in the middle of all that other stuff going on and lost much of its emotional impact. That, and it didn’t CHANGE Gold’s actions in any way. He betrayed Regina and Emma before he even knew Regina had locked Belle up. After meeting up with Belle, he went ahead and did what he was going to do anyway. So, she might as well have stayed locked up and Regina could’ve used her as a weapon against Gold next season, much as it would’ve pained me to have to wait. I think the writers dropped the ball there.

* Nice to know that there’s still a lot of Fairy Tale backstory we don’t know yet. Like how Snow and Charming managed to wrest the kingdoms away from King George and Regina. I hope that this backstory gives Regina more believable motivation for cursing all the fairy tale characters to a hideous, miserable existence in–small-town Maine?

* Also, I think Baelfire is Henry’s dad. And my reasoning behind this? Because I’m a writer, and that’s what I would do. 😀

* I like that the true love that broke the curse is maternal love. Nice to see something other than romantic love get its day in a Love Conquers All scenario.

Your turn. Thoughts?