Hindsight on OUaT

[nym_wibbly]

I've been drifting in and out while the parental unit boxsets the latter half of Once Upon a Time. I have to say that the benefit of hindsight is doing wonders for my tendency to nitpick, OUaT not being a show that stands up to too much of that. I'm comfy settling in for an episode with beloved characters, as opposed to wanting to flush their heads down the toilet a lot of the time. I'm even enjoying Rumple's cringeworthy main-phase asshattery, knowing that it all works out in the end and he finally gets a grip on his life. I always knew the story would take him there, of course - what else could it do, short of Carlyle leaving before they were ready? - but I was never sure the show wasn't going to get cancelled before they reached a resolution. And Once Upon a Time got two.

I just passed through the room in time to catch the bit where Rumple introduces Emma to Milah as the woman who's had both her ex and her son. That was the moment where I finally 'got' OUaT and realised that all the running around and cursing and forgetting and remembering was just the vehicle; that the story had always been about this one insane, sprawling family discovering itself. If a fairytale was a soap opera... or maybe that's the other way around.