How do you solve a problem like Emma Swan? When Jennifer Morrison announced that her six year tenure on OUAT as its leading lady were coming to an end, the question was not how would the show go on but rather should the show go on. Season seven might be ruminating on new versions of beloved fairy tales but it's also deeply concerned with the question of life after Emma. Just think about it; this is only the second review for this season and both reviews have opened with me contemplating a character who is--literally--no longer on the show. In this week's episode, "A Pirate's Life," Emma Swan gives us her--wait for it--swan song. This is the last episode Jennifer Morrison will be in, or so she's said. If OUAT was a six season book, this episode is the epilogue that says goodbye to the first hero and pushes the new hero into the fold. It's all red leather jackets, mother/son reunions, and really horrible looking wigs (seriously, OUAT costuming department...you couldn't find something a little bit better than that?) as we say goodnight to Emma.
Mama....Life Had Just Begun
There are some nights when I don't quite know what to write about this show. Tonight is one of those nights; I went into the hour thinking I knew what I'd want to discuss after the episode aired. It mostly involved contemplating if the transition from a female-centered drama to a male-centered one was a good idea. Even with all the history between the audience and Henry, as I talked about last week, this is a show that has prided itself--somewhat foolishly--on having strong females at its center. Would it not be better, from that standpoint at least, to make Cinderella the center of season seven, not Henry? This think piece would then lead into a discussion of Emma's final moments in the show in which she's asked to do precious little besides fret over Henry, make eyes at her husband, and announce that she's pregnant. It's not as if Emma being pregnant is a surprise; Hook and Emma did just get married (because the passing of time is weird on this show) and it's natural that they'd want to start their own family. What's odd about it is the fact that it was clearly written as a way to placate certain sections of the fandom. Not for a single second is Baby Captain Swan going to matter to the mythology of this show. The baby will be born off screen, possibly announced to Henry via a phone call at the end of the season and never seen nor heard from. The baby doesn't herald anything except the writers needing to appease rabid fans who frothed at the mouth all summer about their ship being taken away. The baby makes no narrative sense outside of that. However, I'm not going to spend this blog ruminating on any of that. Neither the idea of transitioning to a male centric show nor Emma's agency and questioning whether this was a ever a strong female centric show are important because the episode itself relegated them to footnotes. Season seven will be male-centered with flashes of different kinds of females interwoven in: the two "old guard" ladies in Regina and Victorian, both vying to remain dominant but for different reasons; the two plucky new combers in Jacinda and Sabine. Emma's agency remains as it ever was post season four or so, which is to say that her agency is mostly given over to Hook and the Captain Swan relationship, which is now blessedly over or at least off our screens forevermore. The topics this episode should have brought to bear are so minor and inconsequential that writing at length about them would only be tedious for writer and reader, both. Instead, this episode decided to go full balls to the wall crazy with plot spaghetti.
Has anyone else ever heard of "keep it simple, stupid." It's a nice way of saying that your story or your idea shouldn't be so overly complex as to be incomprehensible. This doesn't mean it shouldn't be deep or full of twists and turns. The very best writing in fantasy is usually chalk full of subplots, dramatic reveals, and devastating turns (think, A Song of Ice and Fire). But any story at its core must at least make sense. Your audience shouldn't be scratching their head trying to puzzle out how something is even possible. OUAT is not known for its worldbuilding. It usually gets hammered from critics and fans alike for taking an almost perverse delight in shattering previously established rules or worldly logic. I guess in that regard I shouldn't be shocked that the writers decided to bring back Wish Realm Hook and implant him into the larger seasonal story and then also heap a whole mess of plot on him. Except it does shock me because of the total lack of sense it makes. The Wish Realm was always something bizarre that was best left in its own two part episode but to now say that a character from that Wish Realm (a realm that was born into existence in a millisecond after the Evil Queen made a wish on a newly formed Aladdin-Genie) somehow managed to cross universes, have meaningful interactions with characters in one realm of this new universe and have a complex backstory involving a missing daughter is more than a bit much. I lost track of the number of times I had stop and actually think about which Hook was talking to Henry or Emma. To sum it up: Wish Realm Hook, who is not longer a drunken louse, somehow managed to find his way to "Another Realm" which is in a different universe than any of the realms previously known. It also turns out that he has a daughter who has gone missing and we will only know her by the chess piece she keeps on her person at all times. Because that's something normal people do. Here's my bigger question (outside of what on earth were the writers thinking): why should I care? This isn't Hook, not the Hook that has been on your screen since season two. That Hook, dislike him though I do, has at least come along somewhat since he went around knocking out princesses and stealing their hearts. That Hook is not this Hook. It doesn't matter that they are both played by the same actor and look exactly alike. This Hook in Hyperion Heights has none of the rich character history that original Hook does and yet I am asked to care that he has a missing daughter, a plot that was hefted on the audience in a stunning example of random exposition and plot dumpage. And to some extent I get what the writers are going for here; they want the non-Hook fans to like this new version of Hook so they are untangling him from Emma and Captain Swan and using an old trick giving him a missing child (the Rumple special, if you will). They are hoping that this will lessen all the vitriol that gets hurled at Hook and his romantic attachments. But is it it he best narrative choice?
What this episode should have done is keep with the basic themes that makes OUAT what it is (or was?). I know the Captain Swan fans would have lamented Emma and Hook being split, especially after Emma dropped the baby bomb, but this show is about sacrifice and family. Those are some of the themes at its core and having Hook (real, non Wish Realm Hook) go with Henry, telling him that he'd keep Henry safe and help Henry find his family would be much more poetic. A stepfather helping his stepson to find his way in the world, to honor Baelfire and the love Hook bears Henry's mother? Yeah, that's your plot, writers! That's the real meat you could have chewed on for ten plus episodes. Remember: keep it simple, OUAT writers. We already have a ton of plot in Henry, Cinderella, Treamine, Drizella, Tiana, Alice, and whatever is going on with Rumple and Regina. We do not need a magically spawned daughter of a character that has only existed for less than half a season.
Miscellaneous Notes on A Pirate's Life
--I love that Henry’s apartment has tons of knick-knacks like Neal’s NYC apartment did.
--Andrew J. West is still doing good work as Henry; I find him cute, endearing, and slightly silly, which is basically Henry all over. He’s got that cute flustered stutter thing that Emma used to do.
--Regina doesn’t even blink at Henry being in his thirties! That’s just not a normal reaction for a mother. She should be lamenting missing all that time with her son. I find it extremely hard to believe that Regina and Emma would not have gone after Henry after a certain length of time had passed.
--“I never thought Captain Hook would find love…” Look, Killian Jones may have taken a new moniker but he still loved Milah, for crying out loud.
--Henry asks about the entire town of Storybrooke and his family except for Rumple, Belle, and Gideon. Ouch, Henry. Ouch.
--I didn't notice it so much in the premiere but Lady Tremaine's accent and mannerisms really bother me.
--So who's Hook's daughter? And who is the mother?
--I will take more of devious cop Weaver, please and thank you
Ok so Hook and Emma had a child named Hope Joanes for those who don't know. But the one thing I don't like about S7 is that the way the season 7 curse worked out, like it's a time curse like if they were gonna do something like that why not just show 20 years later and put in new actors, but the sad thing about that is we wouldn't be able to see Jared Gilmore unless there were to be flashbacks.
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