Previously on Once Upon A Time, Rumple did a lot of things, some good, some bad, some annoying. Regina and Cora are back in cahoots and Emma is in the big apple.
As I brace myself for another episode all about Mr. Gold, we’re gifted with a lovely sight to get us through. Helena is back, in all her glory.
Rumpelstiltskin has been called to “The Front,” which he’s pretty excited about. He wants to prove that he’s not the coward his father was and his wife sends him off on his brave way to fight in the Ogre’s war.
In Manhattan, Emma, Henry and Gold show up at an apartment Gold believes to be his son’s and Henry the Genius looks for “Baelfire” on the doorbells. Emma picks a doorbell she thinks would belong to someone in hiding and after she rings it, hears the tell-tale signs of someone scurrying down the fire escape. Gold begs her to run after him, and since she’s desperate to get out of his debt, she does so. She eventually tackles him on the cobblestone – which, ow – and looks up to find that it’s Neal! He looks pretty happy to see her, but she looks about as happy to see him as I am.
Emma starts putting two and two together and freaking the freak out that her human lie detector might be broken or maybe it was never her superpower to begin with. It’s like she hasn’t been paying attention to all the times she was wrong about people lying to her all season.
Neal wants to go somewhere private but she wants answers. In the end, she remembers her deal with Rumple and follows Baelfire into the bar. Neal tells Emma that he didn’t know who she was until August told him about the curse. Emma was quite affronted to find out she was in prison because of Pinocchio. Neal says that, despite how it ended, maybe something good came from them being together. Emma thought about how Henry talked non-stop on the flight to New York and agreed. She wants to leave and wants Neal to come with her – but he presents her with a choice. She can either get him to go with her and uphold her end of the deal, or lie and say she didn’t find him and be done with Neal Cassidy forever.
Meanwhile, Gold and Henry bond about abandonment – Henry says he dropped his mother like a hot coal when his birth mother reappeared, so surely Baelfire will accept him with open arms. Gold points out that throwing your kid into a vortex of possible doom and giving them up for adoption into a loving home are quite different. And to shut up and eat his hot dog. (That last one might have just been me.)
Flash back to The Front, where Rumpelstiltskin hears his name being eerily called out from a cage-wagon. The creepy voice turns out to belong to a terrifying child with her eyes sewn shut with scary black stitches and just when you thought she couldn’t get scarier, she reveals that she has EYEBALLS IN HER PALMS.
She tells Rumple that his wife is with child and that his actions the next day will leave him fatherless. He doesn’t believe her, but to prove it, she says that they would ride cows into battle. He writes her off as loony and heads off to war.
In an extremely sweet moment, Emma calls her mom for advice. It’s funny when things like this happen, because at first it feels like Emma calling her ex-roommate, and then when it hits you, it hits you, and it’s quite adorable. Emma is in full-blown panic mode and doesn’t want to tell Neal about Henry, or vice versa, but Snow thinks she should be honest, because of course she does.
When Emma returns to her travel companions, she decides to lie (poorly) and say that Baelfire got away and that she most certainly did not have a beer with him nope, no siree bob.
Back in Storybrooke, the Evil Trio have concocted a plan – find the Dark One’s dagger. Hook has to linger in the doorway because no standard room can fit all three of them, their egos and ambitions in it at once.
Regina visits Belle, who is still in the hospital, and Belle faints upon seeing her extreme beauty in the flesh. Okay, really Regina just put a little spell on her, but really it could have gone either way. She then pulls a little higitus figitus and makes the things in Belle’s purse dance around until she finds something useful – there’s an index card with a number on it that looks an awful lot like a clue.
Regina, Cora and Hook follow this clue to the library, where Regina eventually masters the Dewey Decimal System, and they find where the index card leads. Cora is impressed with her daughter’s sleuthing skills, especially when she finds a piece of paper hidden where the book should have been. Hook recognizes the markings as a map, so he takes the helm in this treasure-hunt.
Back at The Front, the commander casually calls the new leather saddles they’re going to ride into battle on cows, meaning the Seer was right. Rumple starts crumpling. In his panic, instead of realizing that you have to take everything the Seer says with a grain of salt – just as the cows weren’t literally moo-beasts, “fatherless” might not mean “with a dead father” – he puts himself through Misery and gets the next ride out on the wounded wagon.
In present-day New York, Gold goes all Spencer Hastings and breaks into his son’s apartment to wait for him. Emma notices right away that Neal still has the dreamcatcher from the days of yore and looks at it longingly. Gold asks what she saw and she tries to play it off as nothing, but Gold knows she’s lying because everyone’s better at that than she is.
Neal comes back and tells his father to leave her alone and instantly Emma gets mega-awkward and Gold can tell they know each other. Henry comes out of the bathroom he had been sent to hide in and decides this would be a good day to keep calling Emma “Mom,” making Neal demand to know how old Henry was. Henry tells him he’s eleven then asks WHY ARE WE YELLING?
Back in the Enchanted Forest, a newly injured Rumpelstiltskin comes limping home to see his beautiful wife holding a newborn child. She’s not too pleased to see him, however, because Rumors had spread about how he earned his leave and Helena Peabody does not have time for the weak and afraid. The Seers prophecy was, as prophecies tend to be, self-fulfilling, and in trying to avoid leaving his son fatherless, Rumps set the ball in motion that would eventually lead to his being separated from his son.
In Storybrooke hospital, Stranger Greg is up to no good, as per usual. This time, he caught Regina’s Merlin act on his camera phone. I can’t wait to see what Regina does when she finds out someone who wasn’t Emma was videotaping her doing magic.
After Hook helps the dynamic duo decode the map, they reward him with a swift knock to the head. Cora still has Regina’s rapt attention because she tells her that her plan is to use the Dark One’s dagger to control Mr. Gold and make him kill their enemies, that way their enemies are gone and Regina still looks innocent to Henry. I’m still not entirely sure what Regina’s game is here….part of me is pretty sure she’s just playing along until she can exact her revenge once and for all.
On the fire escape back in Manhattan, Henry is complaining that Emma lied to him, he says she’s just like Regina, because she lied to him too. I think the kid’s just greedy. He has TWO mommies and he’s STILL not happy. Emma thought she was an orphan for like 28 years, he’ll survive.
While those two chat outside, Gold is inside offering to make things right with Baelfire. His plan, however, involves magic and making him forget everything that has happened since he was 14. But just like Tara said to Willow, he has no interest in having his memory tinkered with. Bael is still pretty bitter about having been literally let go of, so he’s doing the same in the more metaphorical sense now.
Back in time, the Dark One encounters the Seer again, all grown up. She speaks of fate and how you can’t escape it, how it can’t be changed. She uses her creepy palm-eyes and to tell him that he’ll find his son again, but not until a curse is made and broken. He’s not satisfied with her answers and wants to see for himself, so he takes her powers. He realizes that seeing the future isn’t like looking at a photo album, but instead is more like one of those 9000 piece puzzles you think is a great craft project until it’s taking up an entire table and you think you might have lost some pieces under the couch.
Before taking her final breath, the Seer grants him one more clear vision. She says that a young boy will lead him to his son and that said boy will be his “undoing.” Shiny Rumpelstiltskin is unfazed by this and says simply that he shall have to kill him.
Next week on Once Upon A Time, we might get to see more of Regina, and Gold gets Hooked.
What did you think of “Manhattan”? (I personally thought it was a little too Gold and lacking some much-needed Red.)
Here are some of our favorite #SwanQueen tweets from this week:
Is it weird that I’m actively cheering for Regina, Cora and Hook? #ouat #swanqueen #imhorrible #butcharmingsareboring
– Elizabeth Joy (@Polgara123456) February 18, 2013
Just realized we haven’t seen Aurora or Mulan in a while. Guess they’re having some “alone time” during their search for Phillip. #SwanQueen
– Catherine Meushaw (@CMeushaw) February 18, 2013
Yes, Henry. run to the fire escape. They’re usually safe and very kid friendly. #SwanQueen
– Chen Drachman (@shokoshik) February 18, 2013
Why does all magic kinda look like sexy times? #OUAT #SwanQueen
– Just Heather (@iaskedalice) February 18, 2013
Trying to erase your loved one’s memories? Don’t be such a Willow. #SwanQueen
– MC (@OnlyForRophy) February 18, 2013
Looks like Mr. Gold took some lockpicking lessons from Spencer Hastings. #OnceUponATime #PLL #BooRadleyVanCullen #SwanQueen
– taintedidealist (@taintedidealist) February 18, 2013
That look, what #BeautyQueen fic has Regina been writing to make that look, when talking about her time together with Belle? #SwanQueen
– washuai (@washuai) February 18, 2013
Hands moving around shouldn’t be that sexy. #OUAT #SwanQueen
– Just Heather (@iaskedalice) February 18, 2013
You’re a terrible liar, Emma #SwanQueen
– Bangie McD (@DebatingDykes) February 18, 2013
Bets on Helena getting some action while he’s gone and Bae not being Rumple’s son? #OUAT #swanqueen
– Marie (@buknerd) February 18, 2013
Kinda curious as when it will hit Henry that Rumple is his grandfather. #SwanQueen #OnceUponATime
– Catherine Meushaw (@CMeushaw) February 18, 2013
“You left me because Pinocchio told you to!” Is pretty much the best piece of dialogue…both in and out of context #SwanQueen
– Bangie McD (@DebatingDykes) February 18, 2013
