[Tom4784]

I thought the latest episode was better than the few that came before it but there's still two big issues with this storyline and that's Arthur and Emma.

I liked Arthur before we got his backstory, I like the idea of him being a villain but his flashbacks completely destroyed everything about him and he's just a walking talking obstacle rather than a fully fleshed character. His backstory kind of derailed everything because of the Deus Ex Machina dust and how stupid that a small vial is enough to brainwash Guinevere and create an entire kingdom whilst still having enough to brainwash whoever he needs years later. It's dumb and lazy.

I think Emma's storyline this season has not only been bland but it's retroactively destroyed Rumple's past character development by making out that every bad thing he did was because of the darkness. Everything about Rumple's character was based around his cowardice and that shaped him as a Dark One, I liked the thought that it wasn't the power that corrupted him but his own personality flaws. Emma's just a conduit for the darkness with generic goals that's difficult to care about while Rumple's motivations were shaped by his own wants. I'd much rather have seen an Dark Emma that wasn't simply corrupted by the darkness but because of her need for love, we've seen touches of that so far but they've been buried under the fact that the writers have taken a generic bad guy route with her. She'll end up either getting cured by the end of the first half of the season or killed off (which will bring the Underworld into it in 5B) but I'd much rather see her remain, at least partly, as the dark one. It would be much more interesting to see her as both a character touched by light and darkness rather than just one or the other.