selenak

You know, I was wondering why Rumpelstilskin had insisted on Emma coming along if he already knew the exact location within New York where his son was, but just when I was wondering, we promptly got the explanation: for chasing (since he can't run) and making Baelfire talk purposes. Presumably if Baelfire had been a complete stranger Emma would have dragged him back right away, but since he's also Neal, which Rumpel couldn't have known, things work out (or don't) somewhat differently.

One of the endearing things about this show is the sense of self irony without being callous about it: the scene where Charming, updated by Snow White on the latest news (and btw, how much do I love Emma called her mother after being gutpunched with various revelations for advice? SO MUCH!), tries to work out the family tree was hilarious. And comic relief in another wise pretty dark episode. As with the Neal/Baelfire revelation, the precise way how Rumpelstilskin got crippled wasn't a suprise (it was somewhat obvious from what everyone had said in previous flashbacks this was what must have happened, minus the self fulfilling prophecy part of it), but the scenes were gripping nonetheless. And note that in the last flashback, to Dark One! Rumpelstilskin, he does that thing again where even when talking to seer he does the blameshifting in his phrasing ("my wife ran away" - not "I killed my wife", "my son was taken from me" not "I let go of my son"). (Other notable examples of this would be Gold beating up Maurice French to the words "you locked her up, you had her love and you threw it away and locked her up" in Skin Deep, when in the flashbacks we see... Rumpelstilskin doing just that to Belle.) Gold this time in present day doesn't do it when he finally does have a conversation with his son, he accepts the blame, but he promptly displays his other problem with the "come back to Storybrooke and I can make you magically fourteen again and we'll start over and you'll have forgotten all that nastiness" offers. Head. Desk. Yet entirely in character, and it's one of those great scenes punchhug scenes, if you know what I mean, when you want to slap a character and hug him at the same time.

Incidentally, this show is admirably consistent about the importance of memory: just as David/Charming at the start of this season insists that as much as he screwed up as David Nolan and doesn't want to be that man, he needs those memories, too, methinks even if he hadn't just found out about his own son Bae/Neal would have said no to the idea of getting a magical white wash and restart. That Baelfire isn't fourteen anymore or a sweet kid, but an adult messed up con artist with abandonment issues who did his own abandoning (and btw, show, thanks for letting Emma say "you let me go to jail because Pinnoccio told you to?!?" with this tone of disgust! I do hope for a Pinnoccio reckoning, too!) means there are no innocents in this scene, which always makes things more interesting. Mind you, Emma's sin - lying to Henry about who his father was - is by comparison lighter, but even there the show makes an instant point by letting Henry compare to her to Regina. Henry has hero worshipped Emma so far, and now he sees she's fallible, too.

Meanwhile, Regina seems to have given her mother a fashion update and we start to see what Cora's endgame might be. I must say, getting the dagger, making Rumpel kill Charming, Snow and Emma so he gets the blame is twistedly brilliant, though I think that as far as Cora is concerned, that's only a convenient by product to finally having all the magical power in the land in her own hands. It's a bit like her old "Master" telling himself he did all for his son. I was instantly wondering whether we'd end the season with Cora as the new Dark One and the "undoing" of Rumpel being not his literal death but an almost death with power transfer; however I doubt Cora will be around beyond this season's finale, so Regina might be instead, especially since I still think she'll double cross/turn against her mother come finale time. Then again, there's the question whether Rumpelstilskin is finally capable of avoiding to make the same mistakes over and over again. Though the show rigged the odds a bit: I mean, do we seriously believe there will be a scene in which Gold kills Henry (or tries to)? Not that I don't think he's capable of killing kids per se, but by making Henry his newly revealed gandson and one of the few people he actually got along with and possibly the only one he was nice to without getting something back before that, the show has staked the odds in Henry's favour and made this a bit less of a test. Now if Rumpelstilskin, newly rejected by both people he loves, Belle and Baelfire, were to be tested via a child (or anyone, really) he had no emotional ties to whatsoever, that would be a true challenge of his "I've changed" plea to Baelfire.

Lastly: Regina saying that since she, Cora and Hook were never under the curse to begin with, they can leave Storybrooke without a memory loss makes sense. And probably will be a plot point soon.