To the past, where we
have Killian, carrying on his role of hot leather wearing dilf. Oh and there’s
a child being all precious and sad because she can’t leave her magic tower and
is totally preventing her hot dad from getting out there and into my life.
Ahem
Anyway…
No wait just a bit
more…
Ok I’m good now.
Honest
So. Sad Alice is sad
because she’s all isolated. And she’s also having ominous possibly prophetic
dreams about Mother Gothel coming back and doing terribad awful things.
 |
| Not the face!!!! Take the child! |
Killian decides he’s
going to bite the bullet and go for the darkest of possible routes to find a
way to save his daughter - going to the Dark One and ask for a magical favour:
yes he is giving up his revenge fantasies against the crocodile in favour of
protecting his daughter. Awwwww. Except of course at this point Rumple is in an
anti-magic cage which is something of a problem so he needs a magical tool to
free him (and Alice). Maui’s hook. Which is currently held by Captain Ahab
Ahab is the new hot pirate who thinks he has replaced Killian and is dying to pick a fight with Killian to prove who is the better pirate
 |
| (accept no imitations!) |
Getting the fish-hook
is easy as Killian wins it in a simple hand of dice. But Ahab accuses him of
losing his edge, that he has given up his vengeance on the Crocodile, while
Ahab is still properly obsessed with his white whale.
See defining pirate
trait is apparently unhealthy obsession?
Killian returns to
the Dark One - but Ahab follows, now vindicated that Killian has lost his edge
because he’s actually enlisting the Dark One’s help to save his daughter rather
than get his proper vengeance and all that. Even the Dark One keeps telling him
to stop faffing about, let him out, he can kill Ahab and Killian’s reputation
will all be intact
Instead Killian
decides to duel Ahab with pistols. Because obsession and pistols are the things
that defines pirates. Did this show just forget that pirates are supposed to
steal shit?
Killian wins the duel
but realises he’s just put his whole daughter’s freedom in jeopardy because of
his pride. He hurries back to Alice to free her
Which is when Mother
Gothel shows up with the hearts curse where if they touch they kill each other.
She arranged for Ahab’s bullets to be poisoned with the curse. So it was his
own pride that was his downfall as he could have avoided the curse simply by not
being distracted
This kind of fits
with Mother Gothel’s own quest to find highly moral people - as we saw from
what she put Rapunzel through. This seems to be Mother Gothel.
In the present
Tilly/Alice is also trying to get Killian to prioritise her - but her
semi-coherent rambling, mumbling about something bad coming and trying to get
him to play chess with her all feel like distractions to Killian who is focused
in stopping the witch murders - especially since Eloise shows up to offer to
answer questions
Killian leaps on
this, the awake Rumple is much much more suspicious and Eloise/Gothel demands
to speak to Killian alone. Which is such a bad idea. Such a very very bad idea.
Rumple advises him against letting her get under his skin
Which he promptly does
She has nothing but crypticness, though she just deny the accusation of a cult, suggesting it’s just a sexist persecution to call them that. Except, y’know, for the evil, witches thing. The rest is just ominous and lots of clues which basically amount to “you’re not awake. I’m awake, you’re not. Silly human, you’re not awake. Let me make some more hints about being awake.” Just stare at Killian’s face instead.
She pokes him about
his painting which is apparently something he does (he did it with his adorable
child which I would have mentioned if I were less focused on the sexiness.
Sorry, mea culpa, I’m a bad person). She wants a painting Killian painted. He
agrees. Rumple continues to say what a bad bad idea this is. No-one listens to
him, alas.
Tilly reappears to be
more cryptic and she insists that Gothel is a monster (probably encouraged by
Gothel waving at her through the camera which is always ominous) and definitely
should not see the painting. While Rumple insists that he believes her (as he
should) he doesn’t fight Killian when he insists she leave
He shows his picture of a ship to Gothel and explains what it means to him - as a child he wanted to see the ocean and he never has (ha). He still hasn’t even though he lives on the coast because he’s never had someone to go with. This apparently exposes his weakness to Gothel and is super bad.
What? He’s single?
Anyone can see that. That he misses his daughter? Yeah I think she knows. This
was a very convoluted path - followed by some very very very clear red herrings
before
Which turns out to be maybe the point - since rather than actually doing things like interviewing the victim who survived (the baker), Rumple and Killian have been focused on paintings of boats and Eloise being all kinds of weird. They belatedly realise this and hurry to the hospital to find corpses
And Eloise wielding a scalpel and babbling incoherently about having warned them. She flees the scene and when they find her lair they find a big symbol of the witch circle with two cut out. Which does not look good, especially when Rumple reveals the coven took her dad from from her. Which is motive. Of course Rumple and Killian insist that Tilly can’t be a killer… uh-huh.
Other people are
having adventures - Henry is all mopey because he and Jacinda are suddenly
breaking up and Lucy suddenly against him (Regina is there to play
confidant/friend/not-mother). Jacinda is equally confused why her daughter
suddenly insists that she doesn’t want Jacinda to see Henry any more. Also she
no longer believes in fairy tales which is all confusing to Jacinda.
While Henry is also
serving as the shoulder to cry on for Drizilla. Having lost her mother who
hated her all her life and then secretly loved her, Drizilla is now eleven
kinds of confused. She’s also lost - her whole existence has kind of being
built around vengeance and she now has no idea what to do with herself. So she
decides to try and have sex with Henry. This is one way to deal with confusion
but Henry kiboshes this firmly: because having sex with vulnerable women who
are grieving is kind of skeevy. And she kinds of flounces about being all alone
there which is also kind of skeevy since it feels like trying to guilt Henry
into having sex
Henry instead points
her towards her family and how she’s not alone: she has Jacinda and Lucy. He
points out she never really knew how her mother felt so why not try to fix
things with Jacinda before one of them dies (I’m paraphrasing)
Drizilla visits her
sister and they kind of get on once Jacinda realises Drizilla is sincere. And
she wants someone to talk to anyway because it’s the first time she’s had
problems with Lucy she can’t blame on Victoria. Drizilla offers reassurance and
realises a new purpose: her other sister, who she thinks she has wronged way
more than Drizilla. And is presumably still in Mother Gothel’s hands
While Lucy goes to
another relative: Regina Mills - to show her the page from the book she has.
And now Regina is awake so she confirms, yes the book was real, yes she lived
it, yes she’s the Evil Queen and yes, together they’re going to get walkie
talkies, start an Operation and generally imitate child Henry.
I do kind of wonder
at Gothel. She’s looking for this super super important ultra good person and I
wonder… is she supposed to be good? Hey, anyone who has played D&D has had
to play with that one character (a paladin, it’s always a paladin) who managed
to turn “lawful good” to “fanatically genocidal”. I need to know what her end
game is.
I know people are
going to say I’m nitpicking but I’m still somewhat annoyed that while this
entire series is full of people whose defining relationship is with a love
interest (Killian, Emma, Jacinda, Henry, clearly Tiana and Naveen, Snow,
Charming, - ye gods I can’t even list them all); the teeny teeny tiny
LGBTQ inclusions have not had that for same-sex relationships: Ruby’s
definition relationship was a man and Granny, Mulan’s was with a man and… and…
no-one? Dorothy again, nothing. And now Alice and her dad.
As I mentioned on my
post about Reboots, while I am super happy to see Regina and Lucy team up, I also
think this show continues to make a mistake by leaving Jacinda and Henry so
flat and allowing Killian, Regina and Rumple steal the show.
