There’s a
hand! There is a severed hand sitting
atop a pedestal in Rumpelstiltskin’s castle!
It’s a bit hard to see, but it can be spotted most clearly when Belle
takes out the vase from the cabinet. Is
it wrong that I was excited to see that?
After all, it might not even be what I think it is, as it looks quite
withered and decayed. But it is clearly
a left hand, if the position of the thumb is any indication. So, yeah, I’m going to wonder about
that. If anyone is wondering why I’m
focused on such a random detail, just wait until a certain episode in season 4.
This episode
was really a breath of fresh air, especially since the last few episodes were
rather mediocre, with the exception of ‘7:15
AM’ and the Enchanted Forest subplot in ‘Desperate Souls’. We get the
return of Ashley (Cinderella’s Storybrooke counterpart), now with baby in tow,
who ends up joining Mary Margret and Ruby for a Girls Night Out to celebrate
St. Valentine’s Day, or Singles Awareness Day in this case, because even though
Ashley had reunited with her boyfriend, Sean, during the events of ‘The Price of Gold’, he had to work that
night. (Was Mary Margret drinking an
apple martini during the Girls Night Out?
Ahhhhhh.) The evening ends with
Sean showing up during his break in order to propose to Ashley, followed by a
moment between Mary Margret and David, who are trying to figure out how they
can make their relationship work.
But the main
plot of this episode involved a feud between Mr. Gold and a florist called Mr.
French, a feud that escalates when Mr. French steals a bunch of items from
Gold’s house to get back at Gold for repossessing his florist van. However, when Emma helps recover his stolen
items, Mr. Gold goes off the deep end, stating that there is a specific item
that’s still missing. His actions from
here on in indicate that this missing item is something extremely important to
him, particularly when he goes so far as to kidnap Mr. French and very nearly
beats him to death. In addition, his
rants while attacking Mr. French also hint at something even deeper going on
here. It’s the Enchanted Forest subplot
that reveals the reasons for Mr. Gold’s actions. In that subplot, we’re introduced to a new
addition to our cast of fairy tale characters.
Namely Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
Much like the heroine of the original tale, this version of Belle agrees
to go live with the Beast (in this case, Rumpelstiltskin) in exchange for his
protection over her family and village, which are in danger of being wiped out
in the Ogre Wars. (Just how long was
this Ogre War going on, anyway? We saw
that they were occurring during the events of the ‘Desperate Souls’ flashback, but as we learn later, that flashback
took place hundreds of years before the time of Snow White, Charming, etc. This is clearly taking place closer to the
present, as Evil Queen Regina is around.
Were there multiple Ogre Wars spaced out throughout the years? Were these wars the Enchanted Forest’s
version of World War I and World War II?)
Like with
every version of Beauty and the Beast that’s ever been written, the longer
Belle stays with Rumpelstiltskin, the more you see them starting to genuinely like
each other. In fact,
Rumpelstiltskin comes very close to opening up to Belle about his son, who he’s
lost. That is, until Evil Queen Regina’s
manipulation results in Rumpelstiltskin balking and ordering Belle away in an attempt
to bury his head in the sand. Sometime
after Belle is cast out, Evil Queen Regina pays Rumpelstiltskin a visit,
informing him that after Belle left, her father, Maurice (Mr. French), had her
locked up and virtually tortured until Belle took her own life. And you can see how much that information
upset Rumple. So much so that he takes
the teacup that Belle had chipped earlier in the episode and gives it a place
of honor in his castle. And it’s this
same chipped cup that Mr. Gold was so upset over loosing. The cup that it’s
eventually revealed had actually been taken by Regina in order to force Mr.
Gold to admit what we’ve known all along- that he has maintained his memories
of his life before Regina’s curse created Storybrooke.
I’m just
going to come out and say that of all the old fairy tales, Beauty and the Beast
has always been a favorite of mine, and it remains among one of my favorite
Disney Princess movies. (In fact, it’s
quite possibly my all-time favorite animated film from the Disney Renaissance
period.) So, I couldn’t not enjoy seeing
this take on the old story. And it was
cool to see all the little homages to the original Disney version. Even the Enchanted Rose is referenced. Speaking of which, Rumpelstiltskin turning
Gaston into the rose and then giving it to Belle? Yeah, that was rather sweet, but also really
creepy. Particularly since I was left
wondering about the implications of that.
Did getting turned into a rose also kill Gaston? If that’s what the case was, that was a really
dark turn, and one of the moments when I was thinking ‘this is a family show?’
And finally,
this episode ends with a twist that Shyamalan would be proud of. While Evil Queen Regina told Rumpelstiltskin
that Belle had died during the Enchanted Forest flashback, the episode ends
with us seeing that she’s actually alive, and Regina is keeping her locked up
in some psychiatric cell in the basement of Storybrooke’s hospital. I remember when I first saw this episode, I
was theorizing that Belle, like Regina and Rumple, had maintained her memories
somehow, which would explain why she was in a psychiatric ward. I imagine it would have been very easy for
Regina to convince people that a young woman who was insisting that everyone
was actually a fairy tale character was mentally unstable and have her
committed. Of course, that didn’t turn
out to be the case. But it was what I
originally thought.
On a final
note, nice bit of foreshadowing in this episode, with Evil Queen Regina
mentioning a deal with a ‘certain mermaid.’
A deal that we’ll see occurring in season 3. It just makes me wonder- exactly how far in
advance to the show writers plan out these episodes?
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