What Happened:
Storybrooke
- Belle is having a sweet romantic with Rumpelstiltskin. He's all, "Hey, I got you some nice jewelery!" and she's all "Why?" prompting him to go "Cuz I LURV you." The moment of sweetness is ruined when Grumpy bursts in, demanding his axe. Though Rumpel denies having it, Grumpy says he has it within the shop, along with numerous other possessions that don't belong to him...including Belle. Belle is horrified to see Rumpel slam Grumpy against the wall violently, when all of a sudden...
- She wakes up. It was all a dream. Naturally, she feels like doing anything but sleeping, so she creeps to her window in Rumpel's house and sees that he is spinning gold out of thread in the basement- he is using magic!
- The next day, Rumpel wants to make Belle breakfast now that they're living together (which is sudden and forward except not really I guess considering they lived together for like months in Fairytale Land except that wasn't really "living together" in the sense that they didn't like have a conversation about it and what it meant as a step in their relationship and y'know I'm just gonna go ahead and shut up now), but she totally calls him out on using magic again and demands to know why he needed magic to be in Storybrooke. When he plays coy, she accuses him of being afraid to be open with her and storms off.
- Rumpel later finds that Belle has snuck off (through a window, which seems impractical and difficult). Meanwhile in the mines, a wife-beater-clad David (I only take note of his clothing because it's the first time in the show's history that he isn't wearing A) excessive amounts of leather or B) excessive amounts of plaid- we're proud of his expanding wardrobe) is helping the dwarves to dig for fairy dust while Henry is totally unhelpful and snacks on a muffin. Turns out David is now acting sheriff in Storybrooke, so naturally Rumpel asks David to help him find Belle (only after asking her father Mo if he knows where she is.)
- Nobody wants to help because Rumpel is a big jerk. He needs lessons in apologizing from this person pictured below, who is one of Disney's best characters ever and should really appear in this show as like a love interest for Henry or something:
- Belle pulls an Ariel while she enjoys the wonders of the modern world, like ice tea and indoor plumbing, in Granny's Diner. Ruby is very nice and offers Belle a spot in the Storybrooke Chapter of the Disney Princess Brigade by telling her she's welcome to crash at Ruby's place , as well as telling Belle that she should go and be the town's librarian, seeing as she loves books and is looking for a job to keep herself busy.
- Belle is kidnapped by a mysterious, red-hatted man outside the old library. He takes her to her father, Mo. Mo is under the assumption that Belle was still a prisoner, but she tells her daddy it's okay, because she's breaking up with Rumpelstiltskin anyway. "So THERE, GO AWAY DADDY I'M TWENTY-ONE OR SOMEWHERE IN THAT RANGE AND I DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN MY LOVELIFE TO YOU."
- Mo then demonstrates poor parenting skills by having his henchman take Belle to the mines, handcuff her into a minecart, and push her towards the town boundary, knowing that as soon as her cart crosses, she will forget Rumpel and her love for him.
- Ruby demonstrates her epic wolf tracking skills when she leads David and Rumpel to Mo's flower shop, where he confesses everything. The group heads on over to the mines, where Rumpel uses magic to rescue Belle. She's still pissed at both Rumpy for lying to her about bringing magic to Storybrooke, and her dad for, well, the obvious.
- Later, after discovering trans fats, Belle heads on over to the library, pleasantly refurbished by ABC's Extreme Makeover: Library Edition at Rumpel's request. He explains that he wanted the magic to find Baelfire, his long-lost son, but now that the town boundary prevents anyone from leaving it lest they lose their memories, he has realized he can't go looking for Baelfire. This is enough to placate Belle, and they make up...
- ...except we learn Rumpel is a total liar and hasn't changed at all, because he's got the henchman tied up in his basement. He interrogates him about the man's "captain..."
The Fairytale Land (Past)
- Back when Rumpelstiltskin had no magic and was a sad awkward spinster, he goes into his house and finds Baelfire has been replaced by a different child actor due to the unfortunate fact that real people age.
- Rumpel goes to the town bar and is super awkward because his wife Mila is chilling there with her BFFs including Kilian Jones, whose presence on screen will likely increase the BPM of 85% of the show's target audience.
- Mila's all GTFO while Rumpel is all "We have a kid together" and she's like "Oh yeah awkward HEY THAT'S NOT MY KID."
- After Rumpel has explained that child actors age out of roles, Mila confesses that she is not happy with the life the two are living and wishes that her husband hadn't deserted during the Ogre Wars, because now she's married to The Town Coward.
- The next day, Rumpel's neighbor (and totally his best friend, we all know they probably hang out on weekends and complain about their spouses and party hard), who shall henceforth be known as Velma, tells Rumpel that he can't go to book club today because Mila has been kidnapped by Kilian Jones, who is a pirate captain.
- Rumpel heeds Velma's words and heads to the docks. He trips onto the deck of Kilian's ship and feels awkward.
- Kilian is a total jerk but that 85% of the audience so doesn't care as long as he stays onscreen.
The 85%:
Kilian:
- Basically he challenges Rumpel to a duel to win Mila's freedom, but Rumpel is too scared to do so. It's very sad.
- Years later, the mysterious henchman who kidnapped/will kidnap (in the future) Belle meets Rumpel in a bar, after he's The Dark One and has been granted magical powers. The henchman offers a magic bean that will transport Rumpelstiltskin to the world that Baelfire got sent to last season, in exchange for eternal youth.
- Suddenly Kilian walks into the bar and Rumpel is like,
"You did NOT just come within two hundred feet of me."
- Later Rumpel shows up in the streets and challenges Kilian to a duel at dawn. The duel occurs at the scheduled time, and the magically-beefed-up Rumpel totally beats Kilian when all of a sudden, Mila shows up all garbed in clothes from J.C. Pirate. Mila confesses she is in love with Kilian, AND that she has the magic bean.
- On Kilian's ship, Mila is about to trade the magic bean for the lives of herself and Kilian, when she does something really dumb and tells Rumpel she never loved him. He rips her heart from her chest Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-style, then crushes it and kills her. Next he chops Kilian's hand off and poofs away.
- Little did Rumpel know that Kilian tricked him and has kept the bean!
- Kilian reveals he had the henchman guy as a prisoner, which is where he got the magic bean. He allows the prisoner, whose name is Smee-
- -to join his crew. Kilian tosses the bean into the water, creating a magic whirlpool into which they sail, planning on going to Neverland and plotting revenge on Rumpel.
The Fairytale Land (Present)
- Kilian meets Cora on a beach, and they say hello in like the most amusing way possible.
Cora:
Kilian:
- Cora shows Kilian the magic wardrobe dust from last episode in a shiny bottle. He scoffs at it, but Cora informs him of its true value, saying that they might be able to use it to go to Storybrooke so that she can find Regina and he can get his revenge on Rumpel.
What I Thought:
This episode can be boiled down into two sentences: It was a filler episode. And I still totally enjoyed it.
Last week was a filler episode, too, but this one did such a better job at being a filler episode than last week. Neither episode really moved the overarching plot a whole lot, but while "The Lady of the Lake" tried to seem important, even though our characters were basically at the same place at the end of the episode as at the beginning, this week knew it was filler and owned it. When you're watching a filler episode, you realize that something has been taken away from you (significant developments to the storyline) and therefore expect something in exchange to complete the deal: character development.
"All filler episodes come with a price!"
We got a ton of that this week. We learned about Rumpelstiltskin's view of himself, which is something we've never really known before. Rumpelstiltskin acknowledges that he is a coward, and that even with his powerful magic, cowardice remains his greatest flaw. A lot of people think acknowledgment of a problem is the first step to dealing with it, so this may be a sign that Rumpel's really going to start acting differently.
Of course, no one changes overnight, as we saw during Rumpelstiltskin's interrogation scene of Smee. His violent tendencies haven't just disappeared, and that's something he's going to have to continue to battle, probably for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, we got a chance to look at Belle as a person- as a woman not defined by a man, be it her father or Rumpelstiltskin. Belle is played by Emilie de Ravin, and was one of my favorite actresses on "Lost," so it's awesome for me to see her on this show. Her newest character was introduced as "Rumpelstiltskin's Love Interest," meant to further his storyline. Luckily, this episode gave her a chance to shine as a girl looking to start a new life for herself in a strange land. I think it's important to remember that while everyone in Storybrooke has lived in the modern, technologically-developed land of Earth for years, everything here is new to Belle. She has to adjust to a new world in addition to dual sets of memories, so it's understandable that she'd look for something familiar and comforting like books to hold on to. It was nice to see her make friends with Ruby as well as take on the librarian position; after all, whenever the writers remember a little detail like the abandoned library, I get all happy inside.
"Good job, writers!!!"
This is how you do a filler episode well. In short...I am content and would like more episodes of this sort.
My Score:
9/10.
The first episode this season that really felt like one of the amazing first season ones.
My Questions:
- Does Rumpelstiltskin still have the hand?
- Why wasn't Henry doing anything to help? Was the muffin that good?
- Who will be the first to call Kilian "Captain Hook?" My money's on Emma.
- Do you think Kilian and Emma would make an awesome couple? Because I do.
Next Week:
Special Halloween episode involving Regina and Jefferson messing with the occult to bring back her dead boyfriend, The Stableboy ( I really don't remember his name, please don't judge me, the tab for Wikipedia is oh-so-far-away and I'm tired.)
(As always, I just use gifs and pictures I find on Tumblr and other websites. If anyone made/owns one of the gifs and feels that I should not have used them, let me know and I will take it down. This blog is made for entertainment purposes only; I own nothing.)
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