We open with Rumpelstiltskin who, unsurprisingly, is a spinster (as in, he spins wool). As some of you may remember from the classic fairy tale, he saves a young woman from an uncertain fate (some versions say execution, others say she would be locked in a tower forever) by spinning straw into gold in exchange for her first born child. When he later comes to collect she protests and he agrees to let her out of the bargain if she can guess his name in three tries, which she eventually does.
Our own Rumpelstiltskin seems to be a simple villager and has a son who turns 14 in 3 days. While he's busy spinning, some soldiers come to the village to force children over the age of 14 to join the army. Apparently, the "Ogre Wars" have taken quite a toll and the kingdom needs more troops. When some villagers try to resist the forced enlistment, a wizard of sorts known as "The Dark One" restrains them from afar with some fairly impressive looking powers.
At his pawn shop, Mr. Gold calls the sheriff's office and asks Emma to come by. When she arrives, he merely offers his condolences about the loss of Graham. I guess that answers that question - he's definitely dead. Mr. Gold also has Graham's belongings as he was renting a place owned by Mr. Gold. Emma doesn't want to claim his things but does pick up a set of walkie-talkies to use with Henry on Operation Cobra. Mr. Gold also informs Emma that according to town regulations, if the sheriff leaves office and no new sheriff is appointed within two weeks, the deputy becomes the new sheriff automatically.
When Emma later catches up with Henry, hes mopey and wants to call off the Operation Cobra activities for a while. He's convinced that Regina is responsible for Graham's death and doesn't want anything to happen to Emma. He tells her that evil wins against good because good has to play by the rules and evil can cheat.
Back at the sheriff's office, Emma is about to swap her deputy badge for the sheriff variety when Regina enters. She tells her that the new-sheriff-appointing deadline is today and that she's appointing Sidney Glass as the new sheriff. Apparently, he runs the town newspaper, and judging by the name, I'll be he's really her old "mirror on the wall". In an earlier episode, I mistook him for her assistant, but newspaper editor fits the bill just as well.
Regina says she's appointing him because he's covered the sheriff's office "as long as anyone can remember". Heh... of course he has, no one can remember anything! Clever evil queen. In any case, once the news is delivered, Regina finishes the job by telling Emma that she's fired.
Back at her apartment, Emma dealing with being fired through scotch and loud music.
Lost Reference (again): She's drinking MacCutcheon again...
In the midst of the sulking, Mr. Gold arrives unexpectedly and offers to be her benefactor. He apparently is opposed to Regina as well. He pulls out a copy of the town charter and seems to have a plan to get Emma her job back.
Back at Rumpelstiltskin's place, he wakes up his son before dawn and they set out to leave town before the soldiers can come back and force the boy into service. While on the road, they encounter a homeless man to whom he gives some change. Shortly thereafter, they're overtaken by the soldiers and the leader recognizes Rumpel. The lead soldier tells Rumpel's son that when Rumpel was in the army, he was a coward and that in one instance, he ran in the heat of battle and left many others to die. When Rumpel returned home, his wife couldn't bear the shame and left him.
Rumpel pleads with the soldiers to leave his son alone, and in exchange the soldier makes Rumpel kiss his boot as a sign of fealty. He then kicks Rumpel in the face and rides off. As his son is helping him up, the homeless man reappears and offers to help. Rumpel tells him that he has no money to pay him but the man says that in exchange for feeding him what can be spared, he will find a way to become his benefactor. This sounds pretty familiar...
Back in Regina's office, she's holding a press conference to appoint Sidney the new town sheriff. Just as she about to pin the badge on him, Emma shows up and informs her that the mayor only has the power to appoint a candidate for mayor and that it calls for an election. Obviously, she's running.
In the enchanted forest, Rumpel is talking with the homeless man and trying to come up with a plan to save his son. The man tells him that the dark one only works for the duke because he has a magical dagger that keeps the dark one enslaved. On the blade, the true name of the dark one is written which is how he is controlled. The man tries to convince Rumpel that if he steals the dagger, he can control the dark one and deal with the soldiers. When Rumpel is squeamish about keeping someone enslaved, he lets on that there is a way to take the dark one's power for himself. If he kills the dark one with the dagger, Rumpel will inherit the dark one's powers.
At Mr. Gold's pawn shop, Regina walks in. They have a fairly nasty exchange over his backing of Emma. As usual, we get the impression that Mr. Gold knows a lot more than he should, but while I was expecting some big revelations here, they really don't reveal anything that useful.
Back the diner, Emma comes in to talk to Henry who's reading the newspaper. Sidney is apparently starting a smear campaign and has written an article in the paper stating that Emma gave birth to Henry while she was in jail. She confirms that it's true, but it doesn't seem to bother Henry too much. He's more concerned that she can't win this fight because of the good versus evil thing. He doesn't want Emma to owe Mr. Gold any more favors either, which I have to agree is a good call.
Later, Emma goes to Regina's office to confront her about the article in the newspaper. Emma doesn't really care that people know the truth, but is concerned for Henry. She claims that he's depressed and he doesn't have any hope. (I believe that "hope" really is one of the central theme's of this show. In some of the ads for the show, Emma is billed to be the hope for Storybrooke.)
Regina informs Emma that there will be a debate before the election and while they're both leaving her office arguing about things, an explosion knocks them over as Regina opens the front door. She's apparently hurt and can't walk and the building is now on fire.
When we transition back to Rumpel and his son, they're making torches for use in his scheme to steal the dagger and control the dark one. He seems to have gone a little power-mad and his son is starting to loose faith in his father. The truth that the soldier told him about his father's cowardice and his own mother (who he thought was dead) isn't helping things. In the end, he reluctantly agrees to help. Rumpel intends to set fire to the duke's fortress and break in and steal the dagger in the chaos.
Speaking of burning buildings, Emma and Regina are still in one and although its tempting for Emma to leave Regina to her fate, she instead leaps through the flames to get a fire extinguisher, makes a path for them to escape and then helps Regina out of the building.
Afterwards, the townspeople are completely enamored with Emma calling her a hero. Suddenly there seems to be a grassroots movement underway to help Emma win the election. Even Henry seems convinced that it's possible for good to win over evil again. During all of this, Emma notices a piece of a torch in a pile of burnt rubble from the building. This looks suspiciously like something she saw in Mr. Gold's pawn shop earlier in the episode.
Now suspicious, Emma heads to Mr. Gold's and while he doesn't outright admit to setting the fire, we're led to believe that he did. He claims that Emma couldn't win the election without something like this to boost her chances.
Meanwhile, Rumpel and his son are getting underway with the torching of the castle. The place catches fire quickly enough and after the people have run out, Rumpel heads in and finds the dagger. The name of the dark one is engraved on the blade and reads "Zoso". A quick google of the name turns up the fact that on the album "Led Zeppelin IV", each band member chose a symbol to represent himself rather than his name. The symbol Jimmy Page used was "Zoso" - so are the OUAT writers giving a little homage to a favorite band here? A little further digging turns up that the air date of this episode was 1/8 and Jimmy Page's birthday is 1/9. Neato.
In Storybrooke, preparation for the debate is underway. Mary Margaret and David run into each other and are on opposite sides of the election due to David's wife Katheryn's new found friendship with Regina. Backstage, Emma is having a crisis of conscience about whether to reveal that Mr. Gold started the fire. She's worried that she won't be able to win if she does, but she's committed to doing things the right way. Classic hero behavior.
In fairytale land, Rumpel escapes from the castle and sends his son home. Once his son is gone, he pulls out the dagger and summons the dark one. Once he appears, the dark one is seemingly willing to do Rumpel's bidding but is also taunting him about his son and his cowardice.
Eventually, when he has been sufficiently goaded, Rumpel stabs the dark one with the dagger. The dark one then reveals himself to be the helpful beggar. He tricked Rumpel into killing him to release him from his burden. He then deliver's Rumpel's favorite line from previous episodes: "Magic always comes with a price." As he dies, his powers transfer to Rumpelstiltskin and his begins to look a bit more like we're used to with the greenish-gold skin. Also, when he pulls free the dagger, his name is now inscribed on the blade. Interestingly, it seems to be spelled wrong - all references to Rumpelstiltskin I've found have a p-e-l, not p-l-e. Now that I look, ABC's site spells it p-l-e too, so I guess they took some liberties with that one. No problem... I can adapt to a new spelling.
The debate is underway in Storybrooke. Archie introduces the candidates and urges them to "vote their conscious". Heh. After a really generic opening statement by Sidney, Emma takes her turn and, as expected, confesses what she knows about the fire. Regina is trilled thinking that Sidney has the race in the bag.
Emma is drowning her sorrows at the diner when Henry comes in. Even though they seem to have lost, he has his faith restored in the good versus evil battle. Sidney and Regina come in shortly thereafter and announce (reluctantly) that Emma won the election. Apparently, the people loved the fact that she was able to stand up to Mr. Gold. As Regina puts it, he doesn't make a good friend, but he makes an excellent enemy. She almost seems to enjoy that - as if she knows that Emma is getting in over her head with Mr. Gold.
Back at Rumple's house, the soldiers are preparing to take his son when the new dark one (Rumplestiltskin) arrives. He forces the lead soldier to kiss his boot, then he proceeds to slaughter the lot of them. His son doesn't even know who his father is any more and is more scared of him than he ever was of the soldiers.
Emma is settling in at the sheriff's office when Mr. Gold comes in. He claims that he planned the entire thing - from the fire, to Emma saving Regina, to Emma eventually standing up to him which would win her the election. He says that everyone is afraid of Regina, but they're more afraid of him. When Emma asks him why he did all this, he reminds her that she still owes him a favor. He just elevated her position and thus the value of his favor along with it.
My Questions:
- The only thing that I'm wondering about is the nature of Rumple's new powers and how his name is involved in controlling him. Perhaps the whole bit about the name was just made up by the previous dark one and there is no real power in it?
New Theories:
- We can assume that Rumple eventually looses his son now that he's the dark one. Is this why he's so obsessed with taking other children?
Other Thoughts:
- I really liked this episode if only because Rumplestiltskin is such a fascinating character. Good to get a little background on him.
Great research on the Zoso reference.
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