Now that Ingrid is gone, Elsa can finally bring down the ice wall
that surrounds the town line, but there’s still an invisible force field around
the town that ensures that anyone who leaves town cannot ever come back. Not sure how they figured out that detail, but oh well. Besides. there’s a bigger problem the Nevengers
must figure out. Hans had taken
advantage of Elsa and Anna’s absence to take over the kingdom of Arendelle, and
the royal sisters and Kristoff have to return home immediately to fix
that. But how are they supposed to go
back when they’re now in the Land Without Magic? Traveling between worlds is virtually
impossible, after all. Gold decides to
make locating a portal back to Arendelle a priority, not because he wants to
help the royal sisters, but because he knows that if Anna found out he was also
in Storybrooke, she’d most likely tell everyone about his plan to free himself
of the dagger’s control. And he can’t
have that happen, especially since he plans to slip away from town with Belle
after fulfilling his goal, using the cover story that he’s just taking Belle to
see the world, something she’d previously expressed an interest in doing. Upon going back to the abandoned manor house,
which apparently belongs to THE Sorcerer (so where is he?), the magic walking
broom helps Gold and the still-controlled Killian find a Door Portal that would
enable Elsa, Anna and Kristoff to return to Arendelle. Utilizing the full extent of the whole
heart-control thing, Gold gets Killian to approach Emma and the Arendelle
natives to let them know about the portal.
However, Emma instantly knows that something’s off about Killian and
questions him about his strange behavior.
But since Gold is currently playing Mr. Ventriloquist, Killian can only
say what Gold makes him say, so of course he tells Emma he’s fine. But what’s really awesome about this scene is
the moment when Killian starts to walk off.
Without any warning, Killian reaches out and grabs onto Emma’s
wrist. If the fact that Emma’s hand
seems to be shaking when the camera focuses on this is any indication, he must
be gripping Emma’s wrist really hard. I
cannot see any other way to interpret this other than Killian trying to fight
against Gold’s control. And from the
looks of it, he came very close to succeeding.
I really think that is epic, because this is the very first time we’ve
seen someone actually try to fight off the effects of heart-control. In fact, prior to this moment, I didn’t think
it was possible. The fact that Killian
could do it here and nearly fought Gold off completely seems a testament to the
strength of Killian’s will, not to mention his love for Emma. Because of course he would try to warn her
about what Gold was planning, especially since he knew Gold was planning to
crush his heart while Emma and the others were distracted with the portal. And even though Killian’s attempt to fight didn’t
last too long, it did seem to strengthen Emma’s gut feeling that something was
up. She certainly did look suspicious as
she watched Killian leave. But it wasn’t
until Emma, Henry, Snow and Charming saw
Elsa, Anna and Kristoff off that Emma got the confirmation she needed. (By the way, who was watching Baby
Neal?) Before Anna stepped through the
portal back to Arendelle, she commented how she wished she’d been able to meet
Mr. Gold. Which leads to Charming
telling her that Gold and Rumpelstiltskin were one and the same, and Anna
reacting with reasonable shock and alarm.
Obviously, she filled them in about Gold’s plan to sever his ties to the
dagger, as Snow and Emma arrive at the clock tower just as Gold is starting the
ritual. To make sure they won’t stop
him, Gold freezes Snow and Emma right before Emma could use her magic against
him. Just when it looks like Gold will
actually win, Belle suddenly appears out of nowhere, holding the real dagger
(which Gold had set down before initiating his ritual). How she managed to get there without anyone
seeing her, I can’t quite figure out, but regardless of how she did so, she
succeeds in preventing Gold from completing his ritual and kept him from
crushing Killian’s heart. She then
commands Gold to teleport the two of them to the town line.
The scene that follows is, I’ll admit, a sad scene, particularly in
regards to Belle. It turns out she
figured out Gold was up to no good when she chanced across a magical
gauntlet among the items in Gold’s shop.
During the flashback scene, we saw that Dark One Rumpelstiltskin
obtained the gauntlet when he went off to Camelot for some reason. The gauntlet was said to help the user locate
what a person loves the most. My guess
was that Dark One Rumple intended to use it to help him cast the curse, since
it could only be cast if the spell caster sacrificed the thing they loved the
most. Finding this gauntlet immediately
put Belle on the alert, as she’d been led to believe Dark One Rumple had given
up that gauntlet years ago to save Belle’s life when she was threatened by the
Queens of Darkness, Maleficent, Ursula and Cruella DeVil. Yeah, Cruella exists in this show’s
universe, too, which is surprising.
Maleficent and Ursula make sense, as we’ve already seen they existed in
earlier episodes. And we’ve previously
met Aurora and Ariel, who were their heroic opponents in the original
stories. But Cruella? Where’d she come from? I know Archie’s dog is called Pongo, but we
haven’t seen him since season 2, and even that was a vague hint to Cruella
being a real person. Anyway, finding the
gauntlet back in Gold’s possession obviously made Belle wonder what else her
husband had been lying to her about, and when the gauntlet led her to the real
dagger, she very quickly figured out the rest.
In the scene at the town line, I was super proud of Belle for having the
courage to take a stand against Gold and see him for what he was. At the same time, I did feel bad for her,
because she really did love Gold, so you know it was just so crushing for her
when she commanded Gold to cross the town line, knowing that he wouldn’t be
able to come back to Storybrooke. But in
that moment, she proved herself to be a very strong woman who was able to make
the right decision, even if it was hard for her. In this moment, she more or less makes up for her behavior in 'Family Businesses.' However, I do not feel the least bit sorry
for Gold, because he once again brought it all on himself. Not only did he lie to Belle, he horribly
abused the second chance at life his son gave him by once again choosing power
over love, attempted to cause harm to his grandson’s mother, directly
threatened/physically controlled said grandson’s mother’s boyfriend, (you’d
think that after what Zelena did to him, Gold would have had the character to
not force someone else to go through the same ordeal, even if that someone was a
man he had a never-ending oil-and-water relationship with) and also would have
willingly allowed a whole town to be annihilated as long as he got his
way. When Belle banished him from
Storybrooke, he got exactly what he deserved.
So, for the most part, things ended quite well for those who deserved
it. Elsa and Anna were able to send Hans
packing and they fulfilled their mother’s last wish by making sure all of
Arendelle regained their memories of Helga and Ingrid’s existence. And Anna was finally able to marry
Kristoff. (I’m going to miss the Frozen
cast. I’d like to see them come back for
cameos someday). And Killian was able to
get his heart back, which led to an unfortunately short moment between Killian
and Emma, with the former celebrating the fact that he could properly feel
emotions again.
Meanwhile, in the Regina/Robin subplot, Marian is no longer frozen
after Ingrid’s defeat, so it’s safe to return her heart to her chest. At first, it looks like this is the end of
the romance between Regina and Robin, but Marian approaches Regina at Granny’s
Diner to thank Regina for her efforts in saving her life, also saying that if
Robin’s heart is leading him towards Regina, she’ll graciously step out of the
way, since Marian doesn’t want Robin to stay with her simply because he feels
obligated to do so. So, all should turn
out great, right? No, out of nowhere,
Marian starts to freeze again. The only
way to ensure she’ll live is if she crosses the town line and enters the Land
Without Magic. And since they can’t
force Marian to face a completely new world on her own, Robin would have no
choice other than to go with her. This
of course leads to a rather emotional farewell at the town line between Robin
and Regina as Robin prepares to leave Storybrooke with Marian and Roland, with
no chance of ever being able to come back, let alone see Regina again. So, now that Robin’s gone from her life,
Regina once again gives into her ‘I can never get my happy ending’ state of
mind, which is illustrated when she rips up the loose page that showed what
would have happened had Regina listened to Tinkerbell years ago. I totally get why Regina is so heartbroken,
but at the same time, she should know by now that she shouldn’t just give up
hope because something seems to be impossible.
It should have been impossible for Emma and Henry to come back after the
events of ‘Going Home.’ And yet, they
did just that two episodes later (even though it took a while longer for
Henry’s memories to return.) To quote
the 10th Doctor from Doctor
Who, which is among my favorite shows, ‘not impossible... just a bit unlikely.’ Anyway, as Regina is sitting at Granny’s
mourning the loss of Robin but satisfied over Gold’s banishment, Henry bursts
in, announcing he found a secret room inside the Sorcerer’s mansion, which is
filled with blank books that strongly resemble his storybook. The only conclusion this could mean is that
this is where the mysterious Author wrote the book, meaning they’re one step
closer to finding him or her.
And then, in the final moments, it’s shown that the episode flashback
served another purpose apart from showing us the gauntlet. It also served make us realize that Queens of
Darkness will be the main focus through the rest of the season. Gold is now in New York, where he seeks out
Ursula, who is working at the city’s aquarium (somehow). Gold now plans to join forces with the Queens
of Darkness to find the Author themselves.
And the stage is thus set for the second arc of season 4.
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