Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Once Upon a Time, Season 6, Episode 16: Mother's Little Helper



Let’s begin with a flashback that finally hits Gideon’s dubious motivation with some reality and shows us more of the Black Fairy

Also is it wrong of me to be Team Black Fairy because of Jaime Murray?

Black Fairy tried to raise Gideon as her son, convincing him that he was abandoned by his parents but it didn’t really go all that well. She’s not very convincing and the whole putting her child in a cage thing didn’t exactly sell it. We see the scene that Gideon described – how she tortured his friend Roderick as proof that he couldn’t save him and Gideon is not a hero

Yup, I can’t think why the whole “I’m your mother!” attempt failed!

As Gideon grows up he seems to become a loyal, magical servant of the Black Fairy and calls her mother. So he is the one she dispatches to find someone who has stolen a key to her vault of shiny things. And lo, it turns out to be Roderick who is not dead and definitely wants to lead and anti-Black Fairy rebellion from the mines (how come fairy tale, dystopian and general fictional slave owners always have mines?)

Roderick tells Gideon all about the Saviour who can totally vanquish the Black Fairy with her Saviourness (he knows this because reasons) and they make a plot to enter said vault to find necessary saviour-finding shinies. Instead they find the Black Fairy being all awesome and Jaime Murray not happy to see that her son is not a good little minion. Instead she pulls out his heart so she can control him

C’mon parents, admit that you’ve been tempted

She also squishes Roderick

Now the true nefarious plan – using the magical sword, Gideon will imbue it with Emma’s Saviour magic which will then open a portal to the Black Fairy’s realm where she is trapped except for brief, forays. Like living in a rural village and the only bus route takes you to Tescos once a week. (But with more baby stealing. Well, unless your Tescos is especially well stocked)

Suddenly Gideon’s completely bizarre actions make a little more sense


And so we come to Storybrooke in the modern world where Emma gives Gideon a slap, then another for good measure and makes it clear she is absolutely not going to be extorted by Gideon with Killian’s safety on the line, even if he does think that he’s the good guy

She and Snow go to Rumple and Belle and lines are beginning to be drawn between the families. Emma asks Rumple about the Black Fairy and is taken aback to learn she’s talking about Rumple’s mother and how she’s the source of all the dark magic ever. Basically uber uber worse than anything else they’ve faced, including him.

Belle appeals for her son at he’s totally a good guy really though Emma is sceptical given the whole repeatedly-trying-to-murder her thing. Still she goes to Gideon and offers to help him defeat the Black Fairy because she’s evil: but she needs signs of good faith. Him handing over the sword and helping her get Killian back. She’ll give willing co-operation not be coerced

So they begin with the Killian summoning spell – and instead get an Arachnophobia avatar, running around shooting webbing like Spiderman on Crack. After much dodging around, Gideon throws Emma into the web so he can steal the sword back and leave her to be munched on by the giant spider

He heads to the clock tower which seems to be the go-to location for bad guys plotting nefarious things (They should totally keep a tiger in there or something for every new arrival “I am evil and plotting bad things for… aaargh a tiger!!!!”) and begins to open the portal with Saviour magic – it’s charged up as Emma slowly suffocates in Spider webs

She’s rescued though – but Rumple. Let’s note that Saviour magic and Gideon’s magic together did nothing to this spider but the Dark One didn’t seem to be overly ruffled.

This is relevant because in the post-near-murder analysis Rumple makes it clear he’s definitely protecting his son no matter what. While Emma is coming down on the side of “he needs to be stopped”, given the murder attempts, we can see that. Snow is also backing Emma. Belle is all conflicted

And it’s going to get more conflict because even though Emma didn’t die, there was enough Saviour woo to allow the Black Fairy to come through

Meanwhile Regina is looking after Henry because his author-powers are acting up. He goes into a trance and starts scrawling randomly in a notepad. They consult the last Author who they have locked up (he’s really whiny) and in exchange for his freedom (and not having his head squished) and a ride to New York, tells them that Henry’s author powers are taking over and it could be dangerous as the trances get more frequent

His last ominous message is to check the storybook – the last chapter has been written and it’s not going to end well

This seems to be adding credence to Once Upon a Time either being cancelled or heading for a major reboot, since the Charmings have also said they won’t be in the next season.


Oh and Killian is trying to get back to Emma which means gambling with Black Beard, pirates, magic beans, going on a trip with Black Beard (and I kind of love how the two pirates happily double cross each other all the time and just respect each other more for it because, hey, pirates and the end up in Neverland. Where the Lost Boys are running savage without Peter Pan


And, hey, it’s not like they had a reason to be fans of Killian anyway