Fairy Land Past
Way back in the past – with Rumplestiltskin, pre-dark one
days coming home to his wife Mila to celebrate being called to the front in the
Ogre War. He’s thrilled, she most certainly is not, but he’s looking forward to
the chance to get away from his father’s reputation of cowardice.
At the army camp Rumple is left guarding a prisoner who
could turn the tide of the war. Despite being warned it’s a tricky beast, when
it calls his name he opens the covers on its cage and sees a child with her
eyes sewn shut. She says she’s a seer, who sees all and shows him the eyes in
the palms of her hands. She tells him some of his past to convince him of her
powers and that she can see the future. She tells him that his wife is pregnant
but because of his actions in the battle tomorrow, the child will be
fatherless. Rumple assumes this means he’s going to die – but denies her
vision. She says he’ll know it’s true when the enemy drives cows into battle.
Later he sees casualties coming back from the front and a
fellow soldier remarks how lucky they are. Rumple doesn’t see how severely
injured men are lucky and the soldier says they’re alive and too injured to
fight – so they’ll live, unlike them. And they’re riding into battle the next
day – on cows. Which is what they call saddles. Rumple panics, he realises it’s
all true, he’s going to have a son and he’s going to die (well, not quite). In
panic, he hits his own leg with a very heavy hammer (the source of his limp it
seems) to have an injury.
He hobbles home to see Mila and her baby – but she’s
already heard the rumours that he inflicted his own injury. She accuses him of
being a coward like his father but he protests about the seer and him doing it
so he wouldn’t abandon his child like his father did. She says growing up as
his son will be worst than growing up without a father
Much later, Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, seeks out the
Seer where he explains “yes my actions on the battlefield led to my son being
fatherless but it would have been nice to know all the pesky details.” The seer
(after a bit of magical throttling) tells Rumple he will find his son again.
She tells him it’ll take a powerful curse that he won’t cast or break. He says the
information’s not good enough and makes with the strangling again. She tells
him if he wants to see the path, he must take her burden, her powers from her. He
does but as the power enters him he complains that he can’t see anything, it’s
too much, it’s overwhelming. The seer tells him it will take time for him to be
able to sort the images, what can be from what will be. He realises it is a
curse, it is a torment. As a last gesture to him for taking her power she says
he will be reunited with his son because a young boy will lead Rumple to him.
But the boy is more than what he seems, and the boy will be his undoing.
Rumple shrugs over her body and declares “then I’ll just
have to kill him.”
Real World Present
Rumple, Emma and Henry arrive in New York City and
finding Rumple’s son’s home – though Rumple is extremely nervous and, as Emma
puts it, Bale isn’t expecting them. But Emma has several kinds of tricks for
identifying the right apartment and then calling up pretending to be UPS –
which sends him running. As he runs down the fire escape, Rumple turns to Emma
and tells her this is the favour – he can’t run, she needs to get him to talk
to Rumple. There’s a quick foot race, but Emma sneaks through shortcuts and
heads him off. The
man… is Emma’s old boyfriend, Neal. Henry’s father. (C’mon, you knew that
was coming, right?)
Emma realises the man she fell in love with was from
fairy land and believes they played him – and starts to rather reasonably
panic. He’s furious that she brought Rumple but she has the perfect come back “I
am the only one allowed to be angry here!” amen to that Emma, no turning this
one around and she starts ripping into him with questions about how much he
knew, did he plan the whole thing, was it all fake and where is she going to
bury his body (well not the last one but I think it’s an option).
Meanwhile, Rumple and Henry have a nice little (dare I
say grandfatherly?) moment
In a bar Bale/Neal explains things to Emma, how he didn’t
know who she was (massive coincidence) until August told him. Which doesn’t
help Emma who has yet another awesome line “you left me because Pinocchio told
you to?!” Well, when you put it like THAT. She has a sudden thought that Rumple
was behind their meeting but Bale, who is not his father’s biggest fan, denies
that since them meeting nearly stopped Emma breaking the curse, which is
everything Rumple wouldn’t have wanted. It goes down to fate. He claims fate
and that maybe something good came of it – she says no, not mentioning Henry,
and she’s over him. He points out she’s wearing the keychain he got her as a necklace;
she takes it off and gives it to him. Oh and she made a deal with Rumple to
make Bale talk to him, he asks her to say she never saw him.
Confused and stunned, Emma calls Snow for advice who is
instantly decides Henry has a right to know who his father is. Does no-one in
Storybrooke know what adoption means? Snow gets to explain this to David
including the radical concept that a child can have more than one grandfather
(he’s not the brightest spark out there, is he?) And for fun, Regina is both
his step mother and his step-grandmother. Which sounds all kinds of wrong. Snow
has hope that this may mellow everyone out – because she’s good at the eternal
optimist thing.
Henry and Rumple are still bonding and Henry comments on how nervous Rumple is. Henry asks about his ability to see the future which his book talks about and Rumple reveals he didn’t always have it and it isn’t a great gift, especially seeing the inevitable. They’re interrupted by Emma returning – saying she didn’t find Bale.
Rumple goes a little off the deep end and breaks into
Bale’s apartment. Emma begs him to stop, there are laws, eh could be arrested
(rumple adds another awesome line “and then my son will have to testify against
me and we will be reunited”). Inside Emma is distracted by their dream catcher
Bale has hung in the window and Rumple realises something is up and that Emma
has lied to him. He loses his temper and starts questioning her and she sends
Henry away so they can talk. Well shout and rage at each other and he starts threatening
her (which is REALLY not going to work on Emma. And you may be able to take
down Hook Rumple, but I think Emma will drop you, to be honest) and even
throwing about the furniture – which causes Bale to burst in to tell him to
leave Emma alone. Dramatic music!
Bale says he came back for her because he’d seen what
Rumple does to people who breaks deals. And Bale doesn’t want to talk to him.
Rumple realises, to his shock, that Emma and Neal/Bale know each other. Which
is when Henry enters as well, calling Emma “mom”. Oh someone call Jerry
Springer, this is getting complicated. Bale/Neal demands to know how old Henry
is and starts yelling until Henry says “11” which stuns Bale/Neal. Bale/Neal
asks if Henry is his son, Henry tells him what Emma told him, about his father
being a dead fireman but Emma holds Henry and tells him, yes, Bale/Neal is
Henry’s father. Henry shakes his head and runs out the fire escape, followed by
Emma.
Rumple grabs Bale/Neal before he can follow and asks to
talk, he insists that Emma’s deal with him was to get him to talk to Rumple,
not just see him so to fulfil it, he has to talk.
On the fire escape, Emma explains why she lied to Henry,
that Bale/Neal wasn’t a good man, that he broke her heart and how it was a part
of her life she wanted to forget. That she didn’t do it to protect him, she did
it to protect her. Henry says she lied to him like Regina did – and says that
he wants to meet his father.
Rumple’s talk with Bale/Neal isn’t going well. He wants
to make everything right for Bale even take him back to Storybrooke and make
him 14 again and take away his memories. Bale/Neal is amazingly not thrilled
with this proposed solution. Rumple claims to have changed by Bale/Neal points
out he’s still trying to use magic to fix his problems. He adds that he
remembers Rumplestiltskin letting him go into the portal, letting go of his
hand and not following him, abandoning him.
Emma tells Bale/Neal that Henry wants to speak to him and
Bale/Neal tries to get on his high horse about not being told about Henry but
Emma won’t have it and warns Bale not to break Henry’s heart. Bale/Neal says he
won’t do what Rumple did to him, Emma points out that Neal/Bale did the same
thing to her. She’s not cutting him slack or letting him weasel round this.
Henry and Bale/Neal have a stilted introduction and Rumple watches, pensive as he considers his “I’ll just have to kill him” declaration now the boy is revealed to be Henry.
In Storybrooke, Cora (looking very unusual in
non-fairytale clothing) is comforting Regina about Henry being missing,
assuring her he’ll be safe. And Hook hears that rumple has left Storybrooke, he’s
out there without his magic and helpless, Hook and go get his revenge. Since
none of them have been cursed they will keep their memories (so did Rumple so
why did he need a spell?) but they will lose their magic if they leave town.
Hook announces he’s after Rumple since he doesn’t need magic for his revenge (oh
really? I seem to recall Rumple beating him down with minimal effort). But Cora
has a better idea – while he’s gone take the chance to find his dagger.
Regina goes to see the amnesiac Belle and searches her
bag to find a reference number: 915.63. to the library! Hook doesn’t understand
why they’re not ransacking Rumple’s home and shop but Regina says they’re too
obvious. They find a hole where the book was – and a crude map that Hook can
read.
He shows them how to read it and Cora and Regina turn to
leave – Hook is outraged that they will rob him of his revenge and Cora knocks
him flying with her magic. Regina questions this – is all this about getting
the dagger so they can have Rumple’s magic? Cora claims with the dagger they
can command Rumple to kill Emma, Snow and Charming leaving Regina blameless in Henry’s
eyes.
Also in Storybrooke, Greg the outsider from the car
accident is calling someone and saying he’s going to hang around in town for a
while – because he now has video footage of Regina using magic to levitate the
contents of Belle’s purse.
Y’know, with Rumplestiltskin as a grandfather, Regina as
a mother (and grandmother) and Cora as a grandmother (and great-grandmother),
there’s no excuse for Henry not being a supremely all powerful sorcerer by the
time he’s 20.
I have a soft spot for tricksy prophecy. So the Seer
scares Rumple which convinces him to desert, which has him branded a coward
which means he becomes the Dark One, scares Bale away and forces him to grow up
fatherless, fulfilling the Seer’s prophecy.
Rumple smashing furniture around and threatening Emma I
don’t rate at all – he’s been violent with his enemies and even had a short
temper but this is an extra level.
Aaargh Reina is being so obviously and blatantly manipulated – someone kill Cora already.
All of Rumplestiltskin’s awesome plotting now kind of falls flat with him getting so much help from a seer. I much preferred the idea of him being an awesome Machiavellian plotter.
