Last night’s ONCE UPON A TIME shed some light to Rumplestiltskin’s past and presented us with a surprising twist. It turns out Rumple wasn’t always consumed by darkness – he even tried to avoid magic altogether after the Ogre Wars – and the responsible for his first kill using dark magic was someone I would never, ever have imagined.
After he became the Dark One, Rumple returned to the Ogre War and defeated the ogres all by himself, becoming a hero. However, one of the soldiers was not happy about that at all, as he firmly believed that he was destined to be a hero and save them all. He was also wielding the Savior’s sword, which he believed would grant him victory against the Ogres.
So he made it his mission to tell everyone in their village that Rumplestiltskin was a monster and that they would all pay the price for his use of dark magic when he defeated the ogres. Rumple promised everyone, including Baelfire, that he wouldn’t use magic again, so not to give into the darkness.
Everything was alright for a while, but the soldier with the hero complex was relentless in telling everyone that Rumple was a monster – so much that it started to affect Baelfire as well. At the same time, a real monster started terrorizing the village and several men who went after it ended up dead. So the villagers begged Rumplestiltskin to do something about it. Baelfire encouraged him, saying that he could do it without magic, and that he could finally be a real hero. Rumple even gave him the dagger, so that Bae would be able to stop him from doing anything drastic.
When they get there, they soon find out that the monster was, in fact, the hero soldier, who wanted to prove that Rumple was a monster, so he could be a hero to the village. When he attacked Baelfire and Rumple and told them that he would go back to the village and tell everyone that Rumple was the monster terrorizing the village, the boy panicked and ordered his father to go after him and kill him.
And here’s where it all gets heartbreaking – Baelfire was the one responsible for Rumplestilskin’s first kill and he never even knew about it. When they got back to their cottage, Rumple gave him a memory potion, making the boy forget all about it and live his life believing that his father was a monster.
Back in Storybrooke, Rumple and Belle are desperately trying to find Gideon before he does anything stupid. Eventually, Rumple does find him and traps him in the clock tower to try and talk some sense into the stubborn kid. But, of course, things wouldn’t just be that easy and Gideon tricks his father and escapes, taking the dagger with him, so he can now control the Dark One. His first order of business – he orders his father to stay out of his way. His main goal here is to restore the hero’s sword, so he can kill Emma and become a Savior.
His next step is to find out how he can restore the sword, which he orders his father to tell him. It turns out that the Blue Fairy was the one who created it, so he would need her blood to fix it. In the end, Rumple stops Gideon from hurting Blue, but does it himself instead, so that his son would not be tainted by darkness.
And I appreciate what Rumple was trying to do, but that still won’t fix anything and he’s only helping his son to fulfill his twisted plans. I really hope he has a better plan, because things are not looking good at all.
Meanwhile, Not!Robin is determined to leave Storybrooke. The box he stole last week was his attempt to find a potion that would undo the spell protecting the town line. He even enlists Zelena’s help to get the hell out of that town, which she is definitely onboard. When they’re getting ready to leave – and Zelena even brought the Evil Queen in her snake form along – Regina finds them and tells them it’s not going to work because they’re all trapped in Storybrooke. Not!Robin tries, anyway, and gets blasted off the magic wall, spilling potion everywhere.
The Evil Queen, smart little villain that she is, escaped her cage and bit Not!Robin, in an effort to get some of the potion that had spilled on him – thus, ending the curse that had been cast upon her.
So now we have a deranged Gideon gunning for Emma, and an Evil Queen on the loose. Awesome.
Meanwhile, my baby Killian spent the entire episode trying to psych himself up to tell Emma about his past with David’s father. When he finally gets home, after some liquid courage, Emma surprises him by showing him the ring she had found. So he got down on one knee and proposed and my fangirl heart nearly exploded. I know it’s bad timing and he needs to come clean with her, but right now? I don’t care because my CaptainSwan babies are getting married and everything is puppies, rainbows and unicorns in my world.
A new episode of ONCE UPON A TIME will air next Sunday, March 26, at 8/7C on ABC.