TV Review: Once Upon A Time - “The Crocodile”
I love Once Upon A Time, you know I do. I did not review last week’s episode because I was still trying to put together in my head all the pieces of what happened in the premier. The other thing I am having trouble with is, what, there is still a Fairytale land?
Anyway why don’t we talk about last night instead? This was the kind of episode that I could really understand because instead of flashes of the present and well, the present, going on we were back to the good old flashbacks.
Of course it does not hurt that last night’s episode was centered on my favorite pairing of Rumplestiltskin and Belle. Poor Belle, she is just not really sure what she has gotten herself into, which is pretty clear given the nightmare she had. Although, the scene where Rumple put that necklace on her gave me a nasty flashback to Gossip Girl (shudders), but is neither here nor there, thankfully. Anyway, Belle must be having some PTSD symptoms too because she shoots up out of bed like her hair was on fire. Only to find that Rumple is not around, hmm… Yes this could just be my shipper brain at work but hello, she was expecting him to be there! Belle wanders around the house and then finds that Rumple is in the basement. Just get your mind out of the gutter okay; he is only spinning straw to gold. No big deal, well until he drops it into some potion like thing and it goes all purple smoky. Which leads us into our first flashback.
Rumple comes home and finds that his son is all alone and that Milah, his wife, is not home. Later on he finds out that Milah is at the tavern, living it up with some pirates. Milah only goes home because their son also shows up at the tavern and is like, what’s up Mommy. She will not be winning any mother of the year awards but she at least lets Rumple know that she is not happy.
Meanwhile Belle has decided she is not happy about Rumple doing magic, which she lets him know when he comes back upstairs and tries to make her breakfast. During their argument she uses the C word with him, coward, again mind, gutter. And we get some pre-Rumple flash backs.
Someone comes to Rumple’s door in Fairytale land and lets him know that his wife has joined the pirates. He goes to the ship and tries to plead his case with the Captain. However, when he is asked to fight he cannot even pick up the sword. He asks the Captain what should he tell his boy, and the Captain says the truth, that his father is a coward. See I just don’t get the whole coward thing. Personally I think that if he was really a coward he wouldn’t have gone to the ship to begin with. Whatever though, I’m not a writer on the show.
Back in Storybrook Charming, the dwarfs, and Henry are looking for fairy dust. So far all they have come up with is regular old mine dust, but they are not going to give up, even if they end up with a bad case of black lung. Ruby, aka Red, comes buy and gives them some libations; completely ignoring the fact that Henry should not be down in the dangerous mine, but whatever. Charming then puts his axe down and tells Leroy, or Grumpy, that he is going to go step in for Emma as the sheriff, and he and Henry head out. Good, because seriously, Henry shouldn’t be in the mine in the first place.
Back at Rumple’s place he is trying to get Belle to come eat breakfast but she is gone. Poor Rumple. Sure he may be a coward, afraid to face his feelings, and he might be evil, but I still feel bad for the guy. I’m complicated okay. Anyway, Rumple heads over to Belle’s father’s flower shop looking for her. The dad has some smart answers for him, but he hasn’t seen Belle. Sadly we also find out that Rumple may have hindered Belle’s search for her father. I think he was just afraid of losing Belle again, but even I have to admit that was wrong of him. Oh Rumple, you make it so hard for me to feel bad for you.
Now in Fairytale land we have reached the point in the timeline where Rumple has become himself again. Oh and look, someone in a red knit cap has shown up. I wonder who he is… Oh well, the important story point is that he has a magic bean that can help you travel to other places. Well Rumple wants this, because he wants to go find his son. So he makes a deal with red knit cap guy and after the cap guy leaves guess who comes in. Well the same Captain who sailed away with pre-Rumple’s wife, so instead of leaving Rumple decides to stick around.
In the present Belle has made her way into Storybrook proper and has made her new home in Granny’s Café where she is downing ice tea like it is going out of style. Apparently she sees herself as a kept woman, at least that is what she tells Red. Something tells me that the writers do not really know what a kept woman means but I won’t press the issue. Anyway Red, aka Ruby, tells her about the library, which of course peaks Belle’s interest. It might just me but I swear they were playing an altered version of “Little Town” in the background as Belle looks around the boarded up library. As she backs up from the window our old friend Red Cap Guy shows up. He asks her for change, which she doesn’t have, than asks if she is meeting a friend. This might be the reason that Rumple wanted to keep her in his house, Red Cap Guy grabs Belle and drags her away. Yep, Belle is just a tad naïve, always tell the homeless looking guy that someone is expecting you and knows where you are, just saying.
Back in Rumple’s back story he sets up a rather convent encounter with the man who stole his wife. After some male posturing he and the Captain agree to a dual at dawn. Of course Rumple thinks he will win the dual. This scene is much more entertaining than I am making it sound but I’m trying to save time here.
Present day Rumple isn’t above trying to find some help though. He shows up at Mary Margret, Emma’s and now David’s place to ask for help finding Belle. Of course David/Charming does not really want to help him but does anyway because Rumple plays dirty and says that David knows how he feels. Back in our flashback Rumple steals the Captains sword and they begin to fight. Just as Rumple is about to rip the Captain’s heart out who shows up but Milah, decked out in full pirate gear.
Belle’s plight isn’t going that well until who shows up but her dad. She is so happy to see him but she doesn’t understand why he kidnapped her, or well tried to kidnap her. He tells her that Rumple is a very bad man and he did not know any other way to get in touch with her. She goes all, oh no you didn’t on him, okay not really, but she does tell him that she chose to be with Rumple. Daddy is all, you are in love with him aren’t you. Belle doesn’t really answer him. He basically tells her that she cannot still be in love with Rumple but Belle says that she is not a child and she can do what she wants, which includes being kidnapped by red knit capped men. Anyway, dad is not pleased and tells red knit capped guy to go ahead and take her away. Great, the poor thing just got out of the crazy ward and now she has to go back? Just because she loves someone her dad doesn’t approve of, talk about all or nothing.
Even though he has his reservations about helping Rumple David does walk around and questions people. However, so far no one has seen Belle. They do however have some interesting stories about Rumple. Rumple does not want to give up though, and even sort of asks for dating advice from David. Which is pretty cute, even though he does say that he doesn’t lie to Belle. I really thought that David was going to tell him that there is a difference between lying and not telling the whole truth. Instead he goes with literal truth, which I didn’t really get but it seems to resonate with Rumple because we get another flashback. This one starts where we left off, with Rumple about to pull out the Captain’s heart but Milah asking him not to. It turns out that Milah loves the Captain and that is why she ran off with him and left their son behind. Again, no mother of the year awards for her. However, Rumple is having none of it until Milah says she has the magic bean that he wants. Rumple is no fool though; he wants to see the bean before he decides to spare the lives of Milah and the Captain.
Another non sequitur jump to the present later we are at Granny’s café and Ruby/Red, is telling David and Rumple that she hasn’t seen Belle. However, David convinces her that he will look after Belle and she shouldn’t worry about Rumple. Ruby cops to seeing Belle and shows them a sweater thing that Belle left here. Apparently Rumple gave it to Belle because she didn’t have anything to fight off the cold. That changes Ruby’s mind and she tells them that she can help find her because things have changed. Rumple rather ungraciously says, “You can smell her”. Ruby rolls her eyes and takes the sweater back and they start to track Belle. She is doing pretty well up until they get to the dad’s flower shop. They go in after Rumple admits that he knows that the place belongs to Belle’s father, losing another point in David and Ruby’s eyes, I think. They interrogate the dad and it seems that he is sending Belle across the town line.
David tells the dad that they have patrols all around the town line to help prevent people from accidently going over the line, so how does he expect to get away with sending Belle across the line. Remember, going across that line makes everyone loose the memory of who they were in Fairytale land. Rumple is impatient though and gets rough with the dad, clearly he is really upset about the possibility of Belle forgetting about him, he loves her, even though he hasn’t said it, it’s pretty obvious. David pulls Rumple off the dad and sees the mine dust on his hand. He realizes they are going to send Belle over the town line through the tunnels. Hurry everyone! Save Belle!
Rumple is now back on the pirate ship. The Captain and Milah have shown him the bean and Milah wants to know if they have a deal. He confronts her again about her leaving and does not like her answer. After he rips out his heart the Captain calls him a coward again and tries to kill him. It does not work however and the Captain is short a hand as a result. The hand that he was holding the magic bean which Rumple wanted, of course. Rumple then does his smoke thing and is away. Again, still not getting why people keep calling him a coward.
Anyway, Red Cap Guy has taken Belle to the mines and has handcuffed her to a mine cart. He is telling her that once she gets across she will forget everything. He gives her a flashlight and lets her know that the key to the handcuffs is at the bottom of the cart and then sends her on her way. Belle makes a rather daring attempt to find the key and retrieve it. She is almost home free when she drops the key as the cart is going at full speed. Then the cart stops and starts to go backwards. She is not really sure what is going on and is slightly freaking out, can’t really blame her there. Rumple is able to use his magic to get her back and undo the cuffs. After David gets her out of the cart he asks her if she remembers who he is. She says she does and he hugs her, aww, but she pushes him away and tells him nothing has changed. Her dad is happy about this but he shouldn’t be. She is mad at both of them and says she does not want to see either of them again. Belle, don’t give up on Rumple! Please!
The next day Ruby is introducing Belle to pancakes and syrup, yum, and not fair to show me breakfast food as I am about to go to bed. She also gives Belle a little package that someone left for her. It’s the key to the library. Belle goes to the library and as she starts to walk around inside Rumple says a quote at her which I think is about books, I’m not one for quotes so I didn’t really get that. Belle is suspicious of his motives but he say he is not trying to win her back. He is giving her the library because she is right, he is a coward. That he was trying to collect power to make up for that fact and he could not give it up even when it meant losing the most important person in his life, Belle continues for him by saying that person was his son. Who else was going, and you too Belle? Maybe it was just me. Rumple said he has been trying to find his son and thinks that the boy is somewhere in this world. Belle points out that instead of looking for him he went about trying to get magic back. He said he uses magic as a crutch to cover up the fact that he is a coward but since he can’t leave Storybrook he has to break another curse so that he can go looking for his son. Rumple tells Belle that he has lost so much of what he loves and he wanted her to know everything before he lost her too. Then he says his goodbye to her. As he is walking out Belle stops him by asking if he has ever had a hamburger, which of course he has. However, she hasn’t so they make a sort of date for the future so that she can try one sometime.
Flashback again to Rumple being alone with a picture of his son. He opens to hand that he cut off to find that it is empty. The Captain has tricked him, and he is just a little pissed off about it. The Captain brings up the prisoner that Milah captured with the bean, the Red Cap Guy, who is Smee. He is upset that he will not get the eternal youth that Rumple was suppose to give him for the bean. The Captain offers him youth by saying that they will go to land where they will never age and where he can plot his revenge on Rumple. Smee agree and as the Captain puts on his hook in place of the hand which he lost Smee asks where they are going. Neverland, Hook tells him.
Rumple is now in Storybrook and has cornered Smee. He asks Smee where the Captain is. Smee says he does not know. That when the curse happened for some reason the Captain was not take to Storybrook with the rest of them. The Captain is in fact in what is left over of Fairytale land and has made an alliance with Cora. Apparently they both want to get revenge on people in Storybrook and that is why they are working together.
Thus ends my summary of “The Crocodile”. Overall it was a pretty good episode. However, I did find that the jumps to the past were really poorly cut together with the present. I am all about show weaving in tales from Fairytale land, that part is fun, but I feel like normally there is better transition between the two storylines. This episode felt like jumpy and like the flashbacks were just thrown in there whenever they felt like it. In any case I would give the episode a B because it still kept me interested and guessing throughout it. Now I am left wondering if Ruby is going to turn into a wolf at the next full moon, cause that could be a little dangerous.
Episode Rating: B
Shipper Rating: A-
After everything they put me through last season I just want Belle and Rumple to have their happily ever after, grr, writers, just grr!
Originally published at Artistic Blunders