Once Upon a Time: Blackbeard related scoop on episode 3x17 "The Jolly Roger" and Zelena related scoop from TVLine's Matt Webb Mitovich

Here's some scoop on Once Upon a Time from this week's (Posted on 4/8/14) Matt's Inside Line column.

On Once Upon a Time, will we find out who Zelena’s father is this season? –Lisa
You absolutely will learn who sired the sorceress – in, I can only assume, the episode that brings back Rose McGowan as Young Cora and also guest-stars Eva Bourne and Lost alum Eric Lange as Young Eva and Prince Leopold. “We’re flashing back to Leopold’s younger days to fill in more Regina backstory,” Ginnifer Goodwin told me. “[Revisiting] Snow White’s childhood and her parents can take us there very easily, to show how the Evil Queen’s family, how those royals intertwine with my family’s royal lineage.”

Can you offer any scoop on Once Upon a Time‘s Blackbeard (played by Charles Mesure)? –Stefanie
Previewing this Sunday’s episode, Colin O’Donoghue noted, “Blackbeard obviously is very much a dreaded pirate, and you get to see Hook interact a little bit with him — I can’t tell you how or why, because that will give away too much – but and it harks back a little bit to all the old Errol Flynn films and stuff like that. It’s good old-fashioned, swashbuckling fun.”

Link to the full article:‘Arrow’ Felicity Backstory Spoilers — ‘Scandal’ Finale, ‘The Mentalist’ - TVLine

Once Upon a Time: Episode 3x17 "The Jolly Roger" Promo (HD)

Here's a promo for next week's episode, episode 3x17 "The Jolly Roger". It looks like this is going to be a really awesome episode. :)

Once Upon a Time: Welcome to Neverland, Everybody! (My thoughts on episode 3x01 “The Heart of the Truest Believer”)

Going into season two of Once Upon a Time, I have to admit that I was very skeptical about whether or not the show was going to be very good due to the addition of several series regulars and several new recurring guest-star roles, because I’ve always felt like Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz don’t do the best job of handling the ensemble nature of the show and balancing out the screen time for all of the characters at times. To me, they tend to come across as being like children who are given a new toy to play with; they get excited about the new characters and the actors who play them, so they feature them a lot when they are first introduced, and then once they add another new recurring character to the show, they push that character into the background and feature the new characters a lot until the next time they add another new character to the show. At this point, it appears to be an endless cycle with them doing that, and it’s something that I wish the writers would stop doing on a constant basis. Personally, I think they should just focus on the characters that they already have on the show for a while before they add too many more new characters to the show.

Despite my skepticism about the introduction of several new characters last season, I ended up thoroughly enjoying the addition of Colin O’Donoghue and the character Captain Hook to the show and season two as a whole. I now consider Captain Hook to be one of my favorite characters on the show, so I’m thrilled that they made Colin a series regular, which is something I was definitely a little leery about at first.

I’ll admit that season two ended up being much better than I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still pretty good. That being said, unlike the end of season one, the two-part season two finale left me feeling very excited for season three and very optimistic that season three is going to be very good and full of excitement. As a whole, I thought the season premiere was pretty good, and while I’m on the subject of Captain Hook, I have to say that the scenes between Captain Hook and Emma were definitely one of the biggest highlights of the episode for me. I especially felt like the scenes where they were bonding over their respective relationships with Baelfire/Neal really allowed both the writers and Captain Hook as a character to really demonstrate some of Captain Hook’s good qualities. I think that’s important since Captain Hook has done some questionable things at times.

Based on the season two finale, a big part of me thinks that Emma will end up with Neal at the end of series given how they acted during the scene where Neal fell through the portal back to the Enchanted Forrest. However, I for one am rooting for Emma to end up Captain Hook. I feel like Jennifer Morrison and Colin O’Donoghue have amazing chemistry with each other, and I think that having Emma and Captain Hook become a couple would give the writers some great material to work with. For starters, I would love to see how Snow White and Charming would react to them being a couple since neither of them seems to like Captain Hook all that much. To me, Emma being romantically involved with Captain Hook would be the equivalent of parents having to deal with their teenage daughter dating the high school’s bad boy.

Once Upon a Time: "Captain Hook" Season 3 Trailer (HD)

Here's the "Captain Hook" trailer for season 3 of Once Upon a Time.

Once Upon a Time: Casts Colin O’Donoghue as Captain Hook in Season 2-TVLine

According to TVLine's Michael Ausiello, Colin O’Donoghue has been cast in the potentially recurring guest-star role of Captain Hook for season 2. Here's an excerpt from the article, which gives some scoop on O’Donoghue's role:



A handsome, fearsome and confident pirate ship captain, Hook relishes every challenge and never backs down from a fight, whether the reward is power, riches, or women. He possesses the meticulous style and old-school manners of a proper gentleman, but beneath that veneer lies a vindictive enemy who will not rest until all his enemies have been defeated… and humiliated.
 
O’Donoghue, who guest-starred on The Tudors as Duke Philip of Bavaria, is slated to debut in this season’s fourth episode.



Link to the full article:Once Upon a Time Casts Colin O’Donoghue in Season 2 - TVLine







My thoughts: Honestly, I'm not very happy about this casting news. While the description for the role of Captain Hook sounds kind of interesting, I really wish the writers wouldn't add a trillion new characters to the show for season 2. (Okay, I'm exagerating when I say they've added a trillion new characters to the show for season 2, but the writers have added a lot of new characters to the show for the second season.) Before Once Upon a Time started last fall, I was really expecting it to be my favorite new show, but my favorite new TV show ended up being Revenge. Don't get me wrong, I love Once Upon a Time, but it's far from being my #1 favorite new TV show from last year. I would definitely put Revenge, Grimm, Hart of Dixie, Scandal and my most recent obsession, New Girl above Once Upon a Time as my favorite new TV shows.

One of the many reasons why Revenge ended up becoming my favorite new show is that I feel like the writers have done a great job of developing all of the characters on the show, both the series regulars and the recurring guest-star roles. Plus, there were only a few weak episodes of Revenge that I still managed to enjoy to a certain degree even though they weren't the best episodes of the season. Once Upon a Time on the other hand seems to be really stuck on focusing on the same small group of characters despite the fact that it's supposed to be an ensemble show like Revenge is. Once Upon a Time also had quite a few weak episodes, if you ask me.

If by some chance the writers of Once Upon a Time happen to read this post, I would like them to know that I think they really need to stop adding new characters to the show. They should take a note from the writers of Revenge and start focusing on the characters that they already have on the show, distribute the screen time equally amongst the whole cast and really take the time to develop the characters that they already have on the show.