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Before I start here are four disclaimers:
1 - This post contains spoilers for Season's six and seven of Once Upon A Time.
2 - I am as Rumbelle as they come.
3 - This is a kneejerk reaction.
4 - Knowing how the showrunners like to operate, I am aware that it's entirely possible that they want us to have this reaction.
That said...
I don't like being played with... It's a cheap and dirty trick that the people that run the show have pulled with all and sundry time and time again, but because of my 'investment' in ABC/Disney's Once Upon A Time, I can't help but fall for it no matter how hard I try to do otherwise. I know how they operate. They post sufficient spoilers, sneak peeks and scripteases to lead fans down the garden path; to think one thing when in fact something else entirely is going to happen, and they think they are clever to do so.
Sure it stirs things up. Sure it kicks the 'free publicity' of social media into high gear with one group of fans or another Tweeting and Facebooking up a storm - and maybe that works. Maybe we'll see Friday's ratings climb and soar - and gods know they need to, because there's been a decline even in the first three episodes of what has been hailed as a requel that would bring new life to a show that ended a sixth season with falling numbers of viewers. Fan were maybe put off by the very manipulative behavior on the part of the shows execs that they're still engaging in today. That's very cynical, but I did say this was a kneejerk reaction to the publicity materials released today.
We were promised, as we marched fearfully toward the seventh season requel, that no characters would see the Happy Endings (Or Happy Ever Afters, if you prefer) that they achieved at the end of the sixth season destroyed. So we began the new season already crying foul, because three of our main characters included two who were previously living HEA lives with their spouses, who now appeared to be separated from said spouses by the new curse. We don't know much about what's going on, and we are told to give it time, that time would be the key, (presumably to figuring out the 'truth'), and boy does that ever seem to be the case with Rumbelle.
(Here come the spoilers - you were warned!)
So... in episode two we found out that - yay - actually Captain Swan's HEA is safe. The Hook in Hyperion Heights is not the real Killian after all, but is Wish Hook de-aged and de-bloated by means of some magical shenanigans. (And if you detect a certain degree of dry irony in that, well, sorry/not sorry). Maybe they're going to keep their word after all.... and here begins the lulling into a sense of security that may or may not prove false.
Another episode goes by and we're presented with a whole bunch of other questions and intrigue to play with in order to try and figure out what's really going on, who's who and what's what... and all the while we Rumbeller's are patiently (not really) waiting for episode four to come around, to find out how fare our Belle and Rumple, and try to figure out What-The-Fairygodmother the new character Alice/Tilley has to do our Rumbelle.
And then THIS:
Immediate tailspin!
They promised us, "No Happy Endings were harmed in the making of this season." well what the Henry Mills is that? Belle growing old and dying, leaving Rumple all alone and grieving for his One True Love - the one defense he has against being entirely subsumed... no CONsumed by the darkness - for all eternity (idiot)? How in the name of everything holy is that not upsetting someone's Happily Ever After? That's the thing when one half of a couple is immortal and the other half isn't. Isn't that what started this whole mess of 'Dark One,' in the first place - Nimue's desire to become immortal and stay with her beloved Merlin forever and always?
Okay, so then you settle down and start running through all the maybes, and buts and ands - and butts you want to kick if the maybe's turn out to be false hope after all - but you do it to stop yourself from losing hope and faith entirely that for once... for once in the history of the entire run of the show that Rumbelle is not going to be screwed over... again! You create scenarios, have thoughts, put pieces together from what few things you already know, have already seen, and twist and stretch and squeeze out like blood from excalibur's stone from all the things you don't know, to convince yourself that they're not really going to let that happen. They wouldn't - would they? They promised!
The tweets roll in, and suprisingly (because it's only Tuesday after all) once from RC himself - but the cynical side of you asks, "was he told he had to tweet?" but you convince yourself not, because you've heard him say ('say' that is, but not with your own ears), that episode four is lovely, and romantic, and honestly the best Rumbelle episode since Skin Deep, better than that, even. And you trust him. And EdR Tweets with pictures of her wig test, and retweets the article (http://www.tvguide.com/news/once-upon-a-time-first-look-photos-rumbelle-happy-ending/) - but was she told to? She'd wanted to stay after all and they wouldn't let her because they didn't need her - they took the story in a different direction and... and... and...
And then you start to feel like you're being played with... if you didn't already - and then you start to wonder if time travel is an option, and you really don't have to wait for three more days to find out if you're going to have your heart broken, crushed and mangled, like you fear you're really going to after all, but hope like Hades that it's all manipulation and lies to make you think that they're going to do the unthinkable after all.
Is it Friday yet?
1 - This post contains spoilers for Season's six and seven of Once Upon A Time.
2 - I am as Rumbelle as they come.
3 - This is a kneejerk reaction.
4 - Knowing how the showrunners like to operate, I am aware that it's entirely possible that they want us to have this reaction.
That said...
I don't like being played with... It's a cheap and dirty trick that the people that run the show have pulled with all and sundry time and time again, but because of my 'investment' in ABC/Disney's Once Upon A Time, I can't help but fall for it no matter how hard I try to do otherwise. I know how they operate. They post sufficient spoilers, sneak peeks and scripteases to lead fans down the garden path; to think one thing when in fact something else entirely is going to happen, and they think they are clever to do so.
Sure it stirs things up. Sure it kicks the 'free publicity' of social media into high gear with one group of fans or another Tweeting and Facebooking up a storm - and maybe that works. Maybe we'll see Friday's ratings climb and soar - and gods know they need to, because there's been a decline even in the first three episodes of what has been hailed as a requel that would bring new life to a show that ended a sixth season with falling numbers of viewers. Fan were maybe put off by the very manipulative behavior on the part of the shows execs that they're still engaging in today. That's very cynical, but I did say this was a kneejerk reaction to the publicity materials released today.
We were promised, as we marched fearfully toward the seventh season requel, that no characters would see the Happy Endings (Or Happy Ever Afters, if you prefer) that they achieved at the end of the sixth season destroyed. So we began the new season already crying foul, because three of our main characters included two who were previously living HEA lives with their spouses, who now appeared to be separated from said spouses by the new curse. We don't know much about what's going on, and we are told to give it time, that time would be the key, (presumably to figuring out the 'truth'), and boy does that ever seem to be the case with Rumbelle.
(Here come the spoilers - you were warned!)
So... in episode two we found out that - yay - actually Captain Swan's HEA is safe. The Hook in Hyperion Heights is not the real Killian after all, but is Wish Hook de-aged and de-bloated by means of some magical shenanigans. (And if you detect a certain degree of dry irony in that, well, sorry/not sorry). Maybe they're going to keep their word after all.... and here begins the lulling into a sense of security that may or may not prove false.
Another episode goes by and we're presented with a whole bunch of other questions and intrigue to play with in order to try and figure out what's really going on, who's who and what's what... and all the while we Rumbeller's are patiently (not really) waiting for episode four to come around, to find out how fare our Belle and Rumple, and try to figure out What-The-Fairygodmother the new character Alice/Tilley has to do our Rumbelle.
And then THIS:
Immediate tailspin!
They promised us, "No Happy Endings were harmed in the making of this season." well what the Henry Mills is that? Belle growing old and dying, leaving Rumple all alone and grieving for his One True Love - the one defense he has against being entirely subsumed... no CONsumed by the darkness - for all eternity (idiot)? How in the name of everything holy is that not upsetting someone's Happily Ever After? That's the thing when one half of a couple is immortal and the other half isn't. Isn't that what started this whole mess of 'Dark One,' in the first place - Nimue's desire to become immortal and stay with her beloved Merlin forever and always?
Okay, so then you settle down and start running through all the maybes, and buts and ands - and butts you want to kick if the maybe's turn out to be false hope after all - but you do it to stop yourself from losing hope and faith entirely that for once... for once in the history of the entire run of the show that Rumbelle is not going to be screwed over... again! You create scenarios, have thoughts, put pieces together from what few things you already know, have already seen, and twist and stretch and squeeze out like blood from excalibur's stone from all the things you don't know, to convince yourself that they're not really going to let that happen. They wouldn't - would they? They promised!
The tweets roll in, and suprisingly (because it's only Tuesday after all) once from RC himself - but the cynical side of you asks, "was he told he had to tweet?" but you convince yourself not, because you've heard him say ('say' that is, but not with your own ears), that episode four is lovely, and romantic, and honestly the best Rumbelle episode since Skin Deep, better than that, even. And you trust him. And EdR Tweets with pictures of her wig test, and retweets the article (http://www.tvguide.com/news/once-upon-a-time-first-look-photos-rumbelle-happy-ending/) - but was she told to? She'd wanted to stay after all and they wouldn't let her because they didn't need her - they took the story in a different direction and... and... and...
And then you start to feel like you're being played with... if you didn't already - and then you start to wonder if time travel is an option, and you really don't have to wait for three more days to find out if you're going to have your heart broken, crushed and mangled, like you fear you're really going to after all, but hope like Hades that it's all manipulation and lies to make you think that they're going to do the unthinkable after all.
Is it Friday yet?
