- I missed a few early S2 episode and I think one of them was the Whale/Frankenstein episode? So I knew who he was from Tumblr, but I didn't know anything about his story. His daddy issues! His relationship with his brother! His god complex! His eyeliner! ME GUSTA. His world is black and white and gray, except the crocodile. He never wants to move outside of his own sphere of understanding, but he's perfectly happy to stay there forever (life everlasting, here on Earth). He's the polar opposite of Rumple, who is all about results. Victor is all about curiosity and process - if he'd been born in our world, he would have been in a lab, working to prolong life on this earth, chasing after unreliable funding, but he would have been trying to cure cancer instead of gunshot wounds. (His eyes on the possibilities make him a really interesting counterpart for Ruby, who's so swiftly insightful about what is, to the point of giving us a peek at a talent with numbers in this episode. <3 Ruby.)
- But Rumpel, with his eye on the prize, always, can't bring himself to ask the how questions he should. So I'm wondering if there's some connection between Rumple broke the seal and started letting people out into the world? Magic always has a price. Even just going out there has some impact on the outside world, and he plans to go be a magical wolf among a few billion unknowing sheep.
- Also liked the way Rumple and the Rumple/Hook conflict is spiraling. I ended up being pretty impressed with how that was framed by the episode. I didn't feel like Belle was fridged by the narrative. I felt like Hook tried to fridge Belle, and Rumple went off on his own, but everyone else centralizes Belle's perspective. They worry about her. Emma points out the grossness of Rumple's reactions when she says that "murder is a bad first impression." I like that without her poor Stockholmed memory, Belle knows to run screaming from Rumpel.
- The hypocrisy of Our Heroes was front and center, with them treating Belle losing her memory (as they all had once before) like the end of the world, but they had no problem trying to manipulate the stranger out of seeing what he saw. Hook gloated about knowing where to apply pressure to Rumple (via Belle) and Emma threatens him with torture by way of his injuries. They also posit a really panicked false dichotomy with the "us or him" decision concerning the cyclists. It's Emma's bad leading questions, and attempt to keep him in the dark, that really seals their fate. They could have probably convinced him of something reasonable - maybe not admirable, but their desire to protect themselves was genuine and valid - and probably been okay.
- OH REGINA, MY POOR HEART. She absolutely knows that every word out of her mother's face is a self-serving manipulation, but she also knows how much of it is the cold, hard truth, and so she decides to pretend to believe it all. I liked her choice of words, in saying that Cora wanted her "broken." As often as we hear that word, it's still much more heavily connoted with things than with people. Cora wanted a busted-up little doll that she could put together back to her own specifications (OH VICTOR) not for anything that's good for Regina, but for Cora herself.
- Rumple taught Cora, Cora manipulated and bullied Regina, and now Regina and Rumple are the reluctant parents of this little town. Cora and Rumple own their parental love as selfish - they've destroyed their relationships with everyone else, but their children are stuck with them, and Regina in particular has alienated everyone and has nowhere else to turn to. They don't think there's any difference between love and Stockholm syndrome (which maybe does, in a twisted way, explain Rumpel's attachment to Belle - it's not about her, it's about his kid).
- And we're now in this place where Cora's attitudes are a danger to Cora more than anyone. Her only model for parent-child relationships is for both parties to be completely alone. So for Regina to have Henry means that the Charmings will have to be out of the picture somehow, and then it will finally be Cora vs. Henry for Regina's affections (as shown when Cora pretends to be Henry to get a moment of affection out of Regina). Through the looking-glass indeed.
- But maybe Regina has a chance. Maybe she gave herself a fresh start, along with the more conflicted of her townspeople. Maybe she can, if not fix her relationship with Henry, then make something better. Maybe there are hearts that can withstand anything, because of magic.
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