S02.E04: The Crocodile

[yeswedo]

 

Belle threatens to leave Mr. Gold if he doesn't change his ways; the dwarves try to find fairy dust in the Storybrooke mine; Rumplestilskin tries to save his wife from a band of pirates.

 

Note: please use spoiler tags when referring to major events that happen after this episode to allow new viewers to choose to be spoiled.

[Camera One]

The flashback was decent, but the present-day Storybrooke stuff in this episode was just horrendous.  Frankly, she should have left Rumple in Episode 1 after he summoned the Wraith and/or after he brings magic back.  This episode could have been about her dealing with her years in captivity, dealing with her father (perhaps finding out that Rumple beat him up which distances her even more from Gold) and then finding purpose in her new life by becoming a librarian.

 

Knowing what we know now,

from Rumple's perspective, he should have let Belle's father give her amnesia in this episode. Since Belle ended up losing her memories later on anyway. Plus without Belle, Rumple would have just killed Hook in "The Outsider" and he would never have been dreamshaded in New York.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

 

The flashback was decent, but the present-day Storybrooke stuff in this episode was just horrendous.

My sentiments exactly. Rumpbelle felt like a freaking carousel - Rumple does something monster-like, Belle leaves, and Belle comes back after Rumple saves a kitten from a tree. (Little did she know that kitten was Gaston's sister!)  Rumple can't take Belle's feelings seriously if she's just going to keep coming back no matter what he does.

 

I found this episode to be a little darker and more morbid than other Once episodes before it, but it did set in motion the rivalry between Hook and Rumple. It's a nice twist to have Rumple as Hook's crocodile.

 

I can definitely sympathize with Milah's feelings toward Rumple. I wouldn't want to have a spouse like him either. My only complaint about her leaving was not bringing Bae with her or at least insuring his livelihood. If she had done something for him, it probably would have prevented a lot of catastrophic events in the future, like the Dark Curse.

 

Hook's introduction! Woot woot! His brief conversation with Cora at the end was a nice surprise.

Edited July 13, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[daxx]

I believe this is the only episode that Emma isn't in. I really loved the sailing scenes with the Lady Washington.

"Neverland!" Indeed.

I saw a gifset on tumblr, shows first scenes for both Emma and Hook, both drinking with a date. lol

[Shanna Marie]

My only complaint about her leaving was not bringing Bae with her or at least insuring his livelihood.

I think she was in kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation here. By leaving, she left her son to grow up without a mother, but she left him with what she thought was a loving father who utterly doted on his son (if anything, the bad stuff that came afterward was because Rumple doted perhaps too much). If she'd taken Bae, that might have been even more cruel to Rumple, leaving him utterly alone in a town where he was a pariah, especially since she left by faking her death. It would have been awful if she'd let Rumple think his son had been killed.

 

Speaking of faking her death, that brought Killian's two encounters with Rumple in this episode into a new light for me. He was a total jerk and bully to pre-Dark One Rumple, but was that his standard operating procedure at the time, or was that part of Milah's escape plan? When Rumple ran into Killian later, he seemed to really believe that Killian had kidnapped and murdered Milah. That's why he was trying to kill him, and Killian was maintaining that fiction even though it was getting him killed until Milah revealed herself to try to put a stop to it. When Rumple initially came to the ship looking for Milah, Killian and the pirates were acting like they had taken her and were going to do awful things to her, and this was something they did regularly, when we know that Milah was actually running away with them because she and Killian were in love. So, was the cruelty, bullying and taunting part of the game to make Rumple believe the story they later apparently spread about her being dead? And that makes Rumple walking away without putting up a fight even worse, since he at the time thought that the pirates were kidnapping his wife, probably to rape her, and he didn't even try to save her. He wasn't just walking away without putting up a fight for a wife who was leaving him for another man. He was leaving his wife to what he thought were rapist pirates.

[Kaw912]

Shanna - I see your point about Rumple leaving the Jolly Roger without putting up a fight for his wife being an example of his , but in his defense I would point out that he was one man against a pirate captain and his whole crew. He surely believed that putting up a fight would have ended with his death, leaving Milah in the same situation he believed her to be in before fighting, and leaving Bae alone without any parent to care or provide for him.

That being said, what I do blame Rumple for is his refusal to acknowledge Milah's obvious depression and unhappiness and taking her up on her proposal for a compromise by moving somewhere else and starting over. To use a modern-world example, it would be like an unhappy wife asking her husband to go to counseling and him refusing to go yet expecting the wife to continue as they had been. Milah was wrong for faking her death and not being honest that she was leaving him because she couldn't keep living the way they were, but I can understand that she probably feared he would find a way to stop her if she did. She probably also wanted to avoid having to say goodbye to Bae because it would have made it too difficult for her to leave, and she was miserable and depressed and just wanted to get the hell out of there ASAP. I'm not saying she was right, I'm saying I think I understand how she was feeling at the time.

After writing the last paragraph, I realized that Rumple killed Milah at the end of this episode when his refusal to try to help her through her depression and unhappiness (and I see no evidence of him trying to help her, I saw him doing his best to ignore the situation and pretend everything was fine) led directly to her running off and leaving him and Bae in the first place. Wow, I'm hating Rumple even more now than I did before.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Kaw912

[angelwoody]

Was she really depressed though?  

 

I never got that from her.  I saw her as someone who was uncomfortable and embarrassed being married to the village coward and the loss of status that cause her, and someone who was frustrated with the day to day monotony of being a wife and mother.  

 

I mean, if it was really depression that drove her to leave her husband, why choose a pirate ship?  Why not take her son and strike out on her own to a new village or just take Bae along on the ship.  I can't believe she was so sensitive of Rumple's feelings that she didn't want to deprive him of Bae, I just think she had had it and wanted out, wanted more, wanted better for herself.

 

People can agree with or disagree with what she did, but I don't see clinical depression with Milah at all.

[Shanna Marie]

I see your point about Rumple leaving the Jolly Roger without putting up a fight for his wife being an example of his , but in his defense I would point out that he was one man against a pirate captain and his whole crew. He surely believed that putting up a fight would have ended with his death, leaving Milah in the same situation he believed her to be in before fighting, and leaving Bae alone without any parent to care or provide for him.

That's another one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. On the one hand, why put up a pointless fight that will only end up leaving your kid an orphan, but on the other hand, what kind of man would just leave his wife to what he believed to be rapist pirates without doing anything at all to try to help her? Really, what kind of person would just let that happen to another person, even a stranger? Were there some kind of guards or police he could have gone to? Could he even have tried to rally the townspeople to go to Milah's rescue? I can see where that might have been difficult to do as the village pariah, but while there was a real risk to fighting a band of pirates, was he so much a coward that he wasn't even willing to try to go into the tavern and raise a rescue party? Or did he deep down inside suspect she was leaving him, and it was easier to just let her go and then tell himself and tell Bae that the pirates took her, and he said it so often over the years that by the next time he saw the pirate, he really believed Killian had kidnapped, raped and murdered her? This is one area where Hook and Rumple have such fundamentally different worldviews that I can't see them ever becoming friends, even if they really do let bygones be bygones and recognize that they both loved Bae because when their positions were reversed and Killian was the one at a disadvantage, up against someone much more powerful than he was, he picked up the rusty sword and tried to fight the immortal, invincible sorcerer. You get the feeling that he would fight to the death to defend his loved ones, even if the fight seemed to be futile and even if fighting went against all logic. That's not necessarily better in all cases (like leaving a kid an orphan for a futile fight), but it's such opposite viewpoints that they'd never be able to understand each other's actions.

 

Milah was wrong for faking her death and not being honest that she was leaving him because she couldn't keep living the way they were, but I can understand that she probably feared he would find a way to stop her if she did.

I doubt it was fear of Rumple. I think in a warped kind of way, she thought it was a kindness to leave that way because it would be better for Bae to believe that his mother had been taken away against her will than that she deliberately abandoned him, and if she was considered dead, Rumple would be free to move on, so she threw Killian under the bus and let the blame fall on him, and he willingly took that blame. The pretense of her abduction may also have been a final test for Rumple -- would he just let her go or would he do anything to fight for her? Was there any situation so extreme that he could force himself to overcome his cowardice? Not that I think she would have come back home with him instead of running off with the hot pirate if he had picked up the sword to fight, but the fact that he didn't even try probably confirmed her decision to leave.

[Amerilla]

On the one hand, why put up a pointless fight that will only end up leaving your kid an orphan, but on the other hand, what kind of man would just leave his wife to what he believed to be rapist pirates without doing anything at all to try to help her?

That's the whole point of Rumple's character, though: he sees himself as powerless and unable to fight, and it paralyzes him. He's not standing there rationally calculating the odds. He's simply shit-scared, and it blots out his ability to act. And that fear never leaves him; while he may control it to a large extent, the Dark One does the dirty work Rumple the man is *still* to scared to do... which is why he brings magic back to SB, even when it bites him in the ass.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Amerilla

[Camera One]

what kind of man would just leave his wife to what he believed to be rapist pirates without doing anything at all to try to help her?

 

He did try to help her, at risk to his own life.  As you pointed out, no one respected him in town, so I think it is safe to say no one would join a rescue party.

 

 

 

I think in a warped kind of way, she thought it was a kindness to leave that way because it would be better for Bae to believe that his mother had been taken away against her will than that she deliberately abandoned him, and if she was considered dead, Rumple would be free to move on, so she threw Killian under the bus and let the blame fall on him, and he willingly took that blame.

 

I didn't really get this intention from what little we saw of Milah.  She had other choices she could have taken, and we saw her take this one.  From the way this episode was framed, I get the sense we were meant to feel sorry for Rumple being treated like that, and then cheer him on as he exacted his revenge (despite how horrific it was).  Strangely, it was sort of successful in that I ended up sort of feeling that way.  I feel way more sad and angry for that mute servant and Cinderella's real fairygodmother.

 

One thing I do feel they need to explain is why Rumple refused to leave the village.  It made little sense and came off rather contrived.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

It didn't seem like Milah really cared for Bae at all when it came to her decision to leave. Even when Rumple asked her how she could abandon her own son, she evaded talking about Bae directly. It was about "my misery clouded my judgement" and "I never loved you." She just had a selfish attitude that didn't really support the idea she was just desperate with no options. I don't think she trusted Rumple to raise him, and she said herself Bae would be growing up "fatherless". 

 

Personally, I believe both Milah and Rumple were equally in the wrong with her leaving the way she did. Now the murder part is another matter entirely.

Edited July 14, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

Personally, I believe both Milah and Rumple were equally in the wrong with her leaving the way she did.

It's too bad Jiminy wasn't around yet and didn't have his curse-given psychiatry degree because this was a good case for marital counseling.

 

I saw her as someone who was uncomfortable and embarrassed being married to the village coward and the loss of status that cause her, and someone who was frustrated with the day to day monotony of being a wife and mother.

What I saw was someone who felt trapped and lonely. It wasn't so much the loss of status as it was the social isolation that seemed to be getting to her. They seemed to be a mismatch -- he was perfectly content at home with just her and Bae, and she wanted to go places and be around people, and being married to the village pariah meant she had no friends. Her only hope for social interaction away from home was strangers who came to town who didn't know to shun her. Rumple's very much an introvert. I don't think we've ever seen him have a friend who wasn't his lover/wife/companion, and unlike Regina, he doesn't do the weepy outsider-looking-in thing. He's perfectly happy doing his work at home alone, and it even took him a while to warm up to Belle. Milah needed more than that, and he didn't seem to understand why she'd need more than him and Bae because that was enough for him. Normally, an extrovert married to an introvert gets that social interaction away from home while the introvert enjoys the alone time, but since the village was shunning them, she couldn't even get that, and it would drive an extrovert insane after a while. That's what it sounded like was going on with her when she was trying to explain it to Rumple after he found her in the tavern with Killian the first time. Her need for social interaction and new experiences directly conflicted with Rumple's need for home, routine and solitude, and he wasn't willing to compromise to find a situation where she could get some of what she needed. Belle seems more introverted, but she's also been established as having a need for adventure, so there's a potential clash there if he didn't learn anything from the way he dealt with Milah.

[stealinghome]

Given that Milah seemed to be a regular at the tavern, I don't get the sense that she was super isolated or was wanting for human interaction.

[Camera One]

I don't get why when Rumple came begging on the ship, why didn't Milah use that as leverage to force Rumple to move towns?  That would have been the most logical thing to do, if Milah still had any intentions of staying with Rumple and Baelfire, and if the problem was being socially ostracized in the town.

[Kaw912]

Given that Milah seemed to be a regular at the tavern, I don't get the sense that she was super isolated or was wanting for human interaction.

Right, but she may have been going to the tavern because that's where she could meet strangers from out of town. That could support Shanna Marie's theory that she did not have close friends amongst their neighbors.

[KingOfHearts]

If she genuinely cared about her son, surely she could have left him with someone more capable of taking care of him. If she had no friends in her town, Hook could have taken her to another to find someone.

Even Rumple's dad, the incapable parent he was, at least left his child in a safe home.

 

 

Right, but she may have been going to the tavern because that's where she could meet strangers from out of town.

Or it was just full of drunks and outcasts who society rejected along with her.

Edited July 14, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

She did leave Baelfire at home alone at the beginning of this episode, so maybe to her Rumple was already enough.  He didn't seem like a bad father, pre-Dark.  

Edited July 14, 2014 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

She did leave Baelfire at home alone at the beginning of this episode, so maybe to her Rumple was already enough.  He didn't seem like a bad father, pre-Dark.  

 

I didn't think he was a bad father either. I think her leaving Bae home alone was more of not really caring about him than trusting Rumple. She would rather hang with pirates and drink than take care of her son. Rumple seemed to know where she was pretty quickly, iirc, so it was routine for her. When she saw Bae at the tavern, I believe she was just embarrassed more than anything. What would people think if a small child came into a bar asking for his mother only to be told you're not coming home with him? It was a very awkward situation.

Edited July 14, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

Right, but she may have been going to the tavern because that's where she could meet strangers from out of town. That could support Shanna Marie's theory that she did not have close friends amongst their neighbors.

That's what I meant, and meeting strangers from out of town and hearing their stories isn't a substitute for friendship if you're a person who needs social interaction to be happy. I'm not sure where that tavern was supposed to be in relation to the village -- was the village a kind of suburb for a port town where the tavern was? The village didn't seem to be particularly coastal.

 

I don't think Milah thought she was leaving Bae in bad hands. With all his flaws, Rumple's one big plus has been his love for his son. Until he became the Dark One, he seemed to have been a good father, and even as the Dark One, he thought he was doing everything to take care of Bae. Bae was probably far safer with his father than on a pirate ship.

 

As for why Rumple refused to consider moving, I think that's totally in character for him. He's not a big risk-taker and is a coward, and moving from what was likely the only place he'd ever really known would be a big deal for him, a bigger step than he was able to take. He's also a bit selfish and only able to see the world through his own viewpoint (empathy isn't his strong suit), so I think he really didn't understand what Milah's problem was, even when she told him. He was perfectly happy except for her straying, so he didn't get why she wasn't happy. And then there's the power issue. We've seen that the flipside to his cowardice is his desperate need for power, and at that point in his life, his family was about the only thing he had any power over, so he exerted that power. If he didn't want to move, they weren't moving. It was the kind of petty power play a weak person makes.

 

That's part of why the "happy" ending to this episode bothers me. Belle was making a break from him, and while his gift to her of the library and apartment seems generous, her having a job and a home in a place he owned (unless he also gave her the deed) just means he retained power over her. And then there's her quick cave on her stance to break from him, going so quickly from "I never want to see you again" to "Hey, let's grab a burger sometime."

[Camera One]

And then there's the power issue. We've seen that the flipside to his cowardice is his desperate need for power, and at that point in his life, his family was about the only thing he had any power over, so he exerted that power.

 

From the way Milah talked back to him in the tavern, and considering he didn't even get angry at home and actually asked Milah if she really wished he had died, I think Milah held her own.  It looked like she could have used the pirate situation to force Rumple's hand, unless she already fell in love with Hook after one night, and that became a driving factor which eclipsed her desire to stay with Baelfire.

 

 

 

Belle was making a break from him, and while his gift to her of the library and apartment seems generous, her having a job and a home in a place he owned (unless he also gave her the deed) just means he retained power over her. And then there's her quick cave on her stance to break from him, going so quickly from "I never want to see you again" to "Hey, let's grab a burger sometime."

 

I totally agree with that and that is why to me, the current-day story was so weak.  Was this episode about Belle having second thoughts about Rumple, the direction of her life, dealing with the trauma of imprisonment and reuniting with her father?  No.  This episode was about Rumple, and about the "surprise" revealing of Hook with Cora at the end.  Not that I would have particularly wanted to see it, but a character-based episode would have given a flashback for Belle, to enlighten how she came to decide to break it off with Rumple and to find new direction in a library (which should NOT have been a gift from Gold... I totally agree about that one).

Edited July 14, 2014 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

 

I totally agree with that and that is why to me, the current-day story was so weak.

 

Nothing happened in Storybrooke... at all. Belle and Rumple's fight happened and resolved itself in the same episode. They really should have at least held off on the cheeseburger thing until a later episode. The library was really about Rumple buying Belle's love back instead of doing something actually self-sacrificing. It was very anticlimactic and basically screamed "FILLER!" at the top of its lungs.

Edited July 14, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[stealinghome]

The other thing that's always baffled me about how they played Rumbelle in S2--and it mostly stems from The Crocodile, though the roots go back to the season opener--is that for the story they wanted to tell, it wasn't necessary for Rumbelle to be together. If we were driving towards Lacey the whole time, why why why do you feel the need to make Belle look delusional by keeping her with Rumpel? (I mean, we're supposed to think that they broke up temporarily in The Crocodile, I think, but given that the next time we saw them was on a dinner date at Granny's, it was a very inconsequential breakup.) Breaking up Rumbelle wouldn't have affected the story one whit, but would have done 50% less damage (at least) to the Belle character.

[YaddaYadda]

Right, but she may have been going to the tavern because that's where she could meet strangers from out of town. That could support Shanna Marie's theory that she did not have close friends amongst their neighbors.

 

Except that a neighbour came to tell Rumple that Milah had been kidnapped.  then again, maybe she was paid by Hook to go get Rumple.

 

I find the whole Milah issue really complicated because we know next to nothing about her. 

 

So she's isolated because of her husband.

She almost wishes he had died in the war because of the status.

She's artistic, she draws.

She's a quick learner.

I think she loved Rumple and wanted him to fight for her but he didn't, so I think he was pretty much dead to her.

I think Rumple was older than her.

She sucked as a mother.  That part reminds me of

when Cora abandoned Zelena to give herself her best chance. Milah seems sort of on par with that when it comes to her own child.

And given how very little we know about her, but that she was with a guy who was likely younger than her, I sometimes get the impression that she might've goaded him into things.

 

Milah's character is questionable at best, but dying the way she did really sucked.

[Shanna Marie]

I felt this episode should have had one of those public service announcements about domestic abuse added to the end, like "If you're afraid of the person you live with, call this number and people can help you." In the present, Belle was initially leaving Rumple because he wasn't honest with her, was using magic and was generally freaking her out. Then we found out that he knew her father was looking for her and knew she was looking for her father, and he withheld that information. That's standard abuser behavior, to isolate the person from any outside support system. And this lovely story is juxtaposed with the story of Rumple murdering his wife for leaving him and saying she didn't love him. That makes Belle look right to leave him. But to prop up Rumple, they have to make Moe even worse. Instead of doing anything rational, like telling her about Rumple beating him almost to death (he didn't say anything about that, did he?) or even just reaching out so she'll have a safe haven if she does come to her senses, he comes up with this elaborate plan to erase her memory that Rumple then has to rescue her from. But I would have still been okay with that if she really had held firm on staying away, if she'd stuck to that "give me a call when you're not evil" stance from the first time she left him. But then they threw on the coda in which they more or less make up and she asks him out on a date. And ugh, we just watched him murder his wife.

 

I don't care whether Milah was the biggest bitch who ever lived and had terrible motives for leaving. She's an adult who has every right to choose her own life path, and there is absolutely no justification for killing her. She wasn't a threat to Rumple. Killing her didn't change his life -- he didn't even know she was alive, and if he'd accepted her deal of the bean for their lives, he might never have seen her again, anyway. If this episode was supposed to make me sympathetic to Rumple, it backfired because it made him dead to me, and it made it impossible for me to cheer for him being in a relationship with anyone else, especially since he's shown no sign of remorse. It might have played better if it had been purely between him and Hook -- going after the person he thought murdered his wife is a lot more understandable -- and if maybe she was killed accidentally, like she got in the way when Rumple was trying to kill Hook, so that Rumple blames Hook for her death and Hook blames Rumple

(that would also explain the ongoing feud in which Rumple still wanted Hook dead even though Hook was more the victim there)

.

[Amerilla]

I can definitely sympathize with Milah's feelings toward Rumple. I wouldn't want to have a spouse like him either.

 

 

Why not, other than being "a coward"? At that point in his story, he seemed like he was doing his best to support his family. He obviously loved their son, and he was more hurt than angry at a wife who went out of her way to humiliate him in front of her pirate friends and told him to his face that she would have rather he'd died in battle so she didn't have to live with the burden of him not having died in battle. I'm not saying he was Husband of the Year, but her complaints seemed a bit much in terms of what we were shown of pre-Dark One Rumple.

 

(As an aside: I don't think we know enough about how their society worked to measure how realistic Milah's concerns about status were - whether they seriously affected how other people treated her, or if she was looking for something to be miserable about.)

 

He was a total jerk and bully to pre-Dark One Rumple, but was that his standard operating procedure at the time, or was that part of Milah's escape plan?

He was also pretty much a total jerk to pre-Dark One Rumple in the tavern right after he met Milah, and a total jerk to post-Dark One Rumple when he though it was just a beggar, and he's been a total jerk and bully to many others along the way, so I'm going to stick with that being Hook's - Killian's, whatever - standard operating procedure with or without Milah.

 

I didn't get a feeling that Milah gave much thought to an escape plan. In fact, I don't think she thought at all - she saw an escape hatch and she jumped into it. There was no need to come up with the rapist pirate ruse ...once she was on the JR, she was home free. If the neighbor hadn't alerted Rumpel, she would have just been gone and he never even would have know what happened to her. And there was no chance he was going to be able to fight a boatload of pirates, even if he was inclined to try.

 

That being said, what I do blame Rumple for is his refusal to acknowledge Milah's obvious depression and unhappiness and taking her up on her proposal for a compromise by moving somewhere else and starting over.

 

 

I don't know that giving up what little you have to take a risk on something being better in some ill-defined "somewhere else" is really a "compromise." (The family didn't look particularly well-capitalized for a move, for one thing.)

 

"I know this wasn't the life you wanted, but it can be good," is what he told her. In the end, it's a conflict between her unhapiness and depression and his fear and uncertainty, and that's not really fertile ground for compromise, because neither of them can give the other the kind of love and support it would take to overcome those thing.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Amerilla

[stealinghome]

In the end, it's a conflict between her unhapiness and depression and his fear and uncertainty, and that's not really fertile ground for compromise, because neither of them can give the other the kind of love and support it would take to overcome those thing.

Yeah, I think this is the crux of the issue, for me. Whether or not either--or both--of them could have made different choices earlier in their lives, could have tried harder to make things work, or even whether or not either of them handled it particularly well, by the time of 'The Crocodile' it's clear that their marriage was beyond saving, because at that point they wanted diametrically opposed things, things that were mutually exclusive. I don't think that in and of itself makes either of them bad or "more at fault" or whatever--it just means that they truly did have irreconcilable differences. Where was a real-world divorce lawyer when they needed one???

[KAOS Agent]

 

As an aside: I don't think we know enough about how their society worked to measure how realistic Milah's concerns about status were - whether they seriously affected how other people treated her, or if she was looking for something to be miserable about.

 

And this is where the story really falls down. Because if Milah could walk out on the marriage, get a divorce and be completely accepted in society, Milah running off with the pirate and abandoning Bae becomes an entirely selfish move - though it's still her right to do so. If she was in fact stuck in a marriage and would have been shunned, perhaps unable to even sell her woven goods or whatever, then running far away and being presumed dead does end up being the only way to escape from what was clearly a broken marriage. Still a dick move to abandon her son, but without real context about societal norms or even the depth of her depression or isolation, it's hard to adequately judge her.

 

The Rumbelle present story was most upsetting in terms of red flags of abusive relationships. It sends all kinds of terrible messages to see a man murder his wife for leaving him juxtaposed with his interactions with his current girlfriend especially when it ends with her essentially being dependent on him for a job/housing and talking about going on a date with him. It was particularly icky because I kind of got the message we were supposed to feel bad for Rumpel instead of appalled at his actions both in the present and the past.

[Serena]

I really don't get how there was a whole room full of writers (and half of them females) and none of them thought to point out, "um, maybe we shouldn't make the love interest of a beloved Disney Princess a wife murderer?"

[Souris]

Milah is not my favorite person. I don't think we would be pals. But even if she was whiny or a bitch or a bad mother, or whatever else negative label one wants to slap on her, she did NOT deserve to get murdered for it. It was 100% Rumple's fault that she was murdered, because he's the one who actually ripped her heart out and crushed it. She was no threat to him at all. He killed her simply because he was mad and he wanted to. To downplay any of his responsibility in that decision smacks to me of blaming the victim or implying that "she was asking for it."

 

She and Rumple were both culpable for the failure of their marriage. They were not a good fit, and they were toxic for each other. She was desperate to get out of the marriage, and desperate people sometimes make bad decisions. Could she have handled it better? Absolutely. So could Rumple. Nobody was on the side of the angels in this plotline.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Souris

[Shanna Marie]

I really don't get how there was a whole room full of writers (and half of them females) and none of them thought to point out, "um, maybe we shouldn't make the love interest of a beloved Disney Princess a wife murderer?"

I imagine they were going for the Big! Shocking! Moment! and didn't put any thought into how it would look. From what I understand, they got a lot of backlash from the adoption community about Regina and Henry, but did they get any complaints from domestic violence groups about the depiction of wife murder here? It's such a common real-world scenario for a scorned husband to kill his wife or ex when she tries to leave or hooks up with another man that I'd think depicting that on TV and in the very same episode showing that man getting involved with another woman where their relationship is depicted as positive without him showing any sign of remorse or that he's learned a lesson would have stirred up some kind of outcry.

 

And it would have been so easy to avoid it looking quite that creepy. He could have lashed out rashly, then as soon as she was dead realized what he'd done and shown remorse. He could have been attempting to attack Killian while he still thought the pirate had killed her, and she intervened and got caught in the crossfire, so that he didn't murder his wife so much as kill her by accident while trying to avenge her. But instead, he quite coldly murdered her, seemed to enjoy it, and doesn't seem to have shown an ounce of remorse or regret.

 

I was wondering if maybe him giving the library to Belle was meant to show he'd learned at least something from the Milah situation, where he'd recognized that he needed to meet a woman's needs or he'd lose her, but it still doesn't quite map because needing a career of her own wasn't why Belle was unhappy with him.

[Serena]

But like someone pointed out above, Rumple did not learn anything in the 300 years between Milah and Belle: he was still trying to keep her away from her father, which is classic abuser behavior, because she was afraid of her leaving him.

 

And no, they did not receive backlash from domestic violence groups. I mean, like 10 people on Twitter protested, both about this and about Graham, but they decided they did not want to hear this. And it doesn't help that journalists - I'm thinking Matt Mitovich from TV Line in particular - make jokes about Graham being a "toy boy" at the same time as they ask "so how do you react to people saying you're anti-adoption?" - if the press took it seriously, maybe A&E would too.

[Amerilla]

I can never tell now how much of what the writers do is conscious and how much is un-conscious (often, downright brain dead), but looking back on this episode, it was interesting to see how closely Milah and Belle are parallelled.

 

Belle may be many steps up the social ladder than Milah, but as we saw in Skin Deep, Belle's world was confined to her little village. Like Milah, her future looked like a very long haul in that very small place, married to a man that she didn't really love. Both women retreat into dreams of what that outer world looks like - Belle into books, Milah into drawing - but that ultimately isn't all that satisfying. While Belle certainly had a wider motive of saving her village, her agreeing to go with Rumpel is not all that different from Milah going with Hook: it was an open door to another life, and they took it. Both end up with the man they love as a result of that choice, but both play steep prices for it (in Belle's case, ongoing). 

 

Both women are demanding the same thing from Rumpel in this story: to display courage and to show his love for them, in large part by giving up the thing that makes him feel safe - the security of home in the past, magic in the present. Both of them make that the standard for them continuning to love him. And he simply can't do it. He wants to please them, he wants to hang on to them, but he's just too damaged and too weak to do it. Where the women differ, of course, is that Belle truly loves him, and so she's willing to keep the door open, where Milah slammed it in his face. 

 

For me, the two biggest mis-steps in the episode were:

 

1) Having Rumpel directly kill Milah. I understand they wanted to give Hook a huge reason for his Reign of Unsuccessful Revenge, but it gave Belle (and the Rumple-loving segment of the audience, for that matter) something a bit too Afterschool Special to have to handwave. They could have accomplished the same thing by her killed jumping in between Hook and Rumpel and having Rumpel decline to save her.

 

2) Not making Belle more compassionate. I know, that sounds laughable. But there's a difference between believing in someone and understanding them. One of the reasons I think Rumbelle worked in Skin Deep was because Belle was trying to understand him, to figure out what made him what he was, to figure out what he was - and that fit with the idea of a woman who seeks knowledge in books, a person who asks questions. Post-Skin Deep, Belle hasn't really questioned him on anything. But, since the writers apparently break out in hives when they think about writing something that isn't "ACTION!" or "ROMANCE!" or "PLOT!PLOT!PLOT!" we only get demands for behaviors (which we know he's going to sidestep) or statements (about charcteristics he's generally not displaying.) This was the first real opportunity in S2 to go deeper, and they didn't. And thus a pattern was established.

 

Here's a question: Say Milah had never met Hook, but everything else had played out as it did, and she was still around for "Rumpel:The Dark One Years." Would the status of being the Dark One's wife, or of people not being able to look down on them anymore, of being able to go anywhere within their realm without fear....would she have been happy? Or would the fact that she didn't love him always cloud the relationship?  

[Shanna Marie]

Here's a question: Say Milah had never met Hook, but everything else had played out as it did, and she was still around for "Rumpel:The Dark One Years." Would the status of being the Dark One's wife, or of people not being able to look down on them anymore, of being able to go anywhere within their realm without fear....would she have been happy? Or would the fact that she didn't love him always cloud the relationship?

I didn't get the impression that she ever wanted "lady of the manor" type social status or to be the queen bee of the village, just that she didn't like being an outcast in the village. Moving to another village as she wanted to do wouldn't have moved her that far up the social ladder, just removed the stigma. Based on what we saw of the Dark One's life with Bae, I don't think she'd have been happy. They were still in the same village, even though he had power and supposedly should have been able to go anywhere without fear, and while they weren't necessarily looked down on, they still were kind of outcast. Bae was isolated because everyone else feared his father and they may even have resented him for all the bad things that happened if anyone so much as looked at him funny.  So, Milah still would have been trapped in the same village, possibly even more frustrated because there was no good reason for them to stay, and she still would have been isolated because everyone else would have been afraid of her husband. If they were polite or friendly to her, they'd have been acting out of fear, and she'd have never known if their friendliness was genuine. Then there's the worry that he would use his powers against her -- if she did argue with him or ask to go somewhere else, would he have done something to keep her in line?

 

Very good point about the similarities between Belle and Milah. I hadn't really thought of that, even though I got the "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere" line from the Beauty and the Beast movie/stage musical stuck in my head in the scene when Milah tells Rumple about hearing about Killian's travels. I guess Rumple has a type, and it does make me worry what will happen to Belle if he starts worrying about losing her and starts trying to constrain her or if she starts wanting to broaden her horizons. I guess I've been thinking about this too much because last night I dreamed that Rumple saw her talking to Hook and blew a gasket (which isn't outside the realm of possibility).

 

But like someone pointed out above, Rumple did not learn anything in the 300 years between Milah and Belle: he was still trying to keep her away from her father, which is classic abuser behavior, because she was afraid of her leaving him.

I meant that maybe he'd learned something from Belle being so mad at both him and her father, but then her issue was him lying to her and controlling her, and that isn't really resolved by giving her a job and apartment that he owns and controls. So, no, he hasn't learned anything other than to pick a more compliant woman who's unrealistically optimistic about him.

[stealinghome]

Moving to another village as she wanted to do wouldn't have moved her that far up the social ladder, just removed the stigma.

This is actually the one place where I side-eye Milah's logic, because I kind of doubt that moving would really have released them from that social stigma. All you need is one person from the old village to stumble upon your new village and tell everyone the story of how Rumpel was injured, and you're basically right back where you started (only worse, because you also lied about it?). And given that the entire Enchanted Forest seems to be about three miles by three miles, I have to think that the odds are pretty good that sooner rather than later, someone from your old life would pop up in your new one. Further, it definitely, by the time of 'Desperate Souls,' also seemed like a good chunk of the Duke's soldiers knew the story, not just the villagers. And I have to think the odds are very high that eventually a soldier who knew Rumpel on sight would come to their new village.

 

I mean, I totally get Milah's desire to go elsewhere and start fresh, and if nothing else just get a change in her life and get out of a place that was clearly hell for her. I respect that. But I just think it was a bit naive to think that moving was going to solve all their problems. The problem was fundamentally that she just couldn't respect or understand Rumpel's choice (not blaming her for this, because it was a pretty cravenly cowardly choice, just stating a fact)--and I think the fact that he wasn't particularly ashamed or embarrassed about it made it much worse for her. I've always thought that Milah would have been able to deal much better if Rumpel himself had acted ashamed and humiliated and said "Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking, I suck," but instead he adopted a real "it was for the best, I did what I had to do" attitude about it, and I think that's what she really couldn't handle.

 

With that all said, though, Rumpel should definitely have been more open to the idea of moving. When your spouse comes to you and says "I'm miserable, life sucks, let's make some changes so that I'm not miserable 24/7," it pretty much 500% behooves you to listen and at least try to compromise.

[Serena]

I don't know... there definitely wasn't the Internet or any kind of fast communication. We know Snow was hoping to go somewhere so far away, Regina couldn't find her - so far away places do exist. But I agree one of the things that bugged Milah was that Rumple refused to be ashamed for it. Like he ruined their life and he wasn't even apologetic about it. 

[Camera One]

But I agree one of the things that bugged Milah was that Rumple refused to be ashamed for it. Like he ruined their life and he wasn't even apologetic about it.

Pre-dark of post-dark? I thought pre-Dark, the way he asked Milah if she really wished he had died in the war, did indicate he was sorry for it. He didn't seem to blame Milah for thinking of him like that, and he wasn't that forceful with stopping her from going to the bar and drinking with pirates and he didn't seem angry about it, as if resigned that he deserved to be treated that way. Of course, he wasn't sorry enough to agree to move away from the village, but I did think Pre-Dark, he did seem to blame himself for it at least partially and accepted the consequence of being treated that way by Milah.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Camera One

[Zuleikha]

Where the women differ, of course, is that Belle truly loves him, and so she's willing to keep the door open, where Milah slammed it in his face.

 

Caveat to all comments I make, I'm watching the season now so I haven't seen anything post the episodes I comment in. At this point in the story, I don't think Belle loves Rumple. I know there was the True Love's Kiss thing that seems to prove she does, but I'm just not going to accept writer's magical validation when the story doesn't support it. To me, Belle doesn't even know Rumple. She knows he's powerful and vaguely does Bad Scary Things, but she hasn't firsthand seen any of it. What she told Regina was basically that she's convinced there's a good man under a terrible curse and doing terrible things because of it. Now since she's been back, she knows Rumple brought in magic and is using magic for reasons unknown, but she hasn't seen him do anything violent. Her dream suggests that some part of her knows (and is scared of) who and what he is, but she's still seeing it as the Dark One (shown by the cursed face being revealed) vs. real Rumple. 

 

The problem is that based on what I've seen, real Rumple is a sadistic bully. He may not be quite as murderous as the cursed version, but it's hard to know if that's because without magic, it was harder for him to be as murderous. He's still petty and completely self-centered, and I think, a true sociopath in the sense that other people don't seem to exist to him as real people with real emotions rather than props. He loved Bae and believed he was protecting him, but he utterly ignored everything Bae said about what he wanted out of life or with a relationship. Bae was MISERABLE with the village in fear, and Rumple not only didn't care, he didn't seem to even register it. And while that could arguably be because of the curse, Rumple also didn't register Bae's desire to stay and fight in the Ogre Wars rather than run away. Likewise in this episode, it seemed like Rumple didn't process Milah basically flat out saying she didn't love or respect him in the tavern because he couldn't conceive of her having her own emotions and desires. 

 

I don't mind Belle ending up with Rumple at the end of this episode because I think it fit where Belle was at the end of Skin Deep and where Belle is in the relationship. It feels very accurate to an unhealthy emotionally controlling or abusive relationship. Rumple appeared to give Belle what she wanted (not the library/apartment but the information about Baelfire and Rumple's purpose for using magic). So from Belle's perspective, Rumple made a meaningful change and gesture. But what concerns me is the hints that the relationship won't change... Belle won't ever learn or confront the continuing evil things that Rumple is doing and instead a portrayal of domestic violence is going to be romanticized. The storyline needs to end with Rumple doing some meaningful growth or Belle truly leaving him.

[KAOS Agent]

The problem is that based on what I've seen, real Rumple is a sadistic bully. He may not be quite as murderous as the cursed version, but it's hard to know if that's because without magic, it was harder for him to be as murderous. He's still petty and completely self-centered, and I think, a true sociopath in the sense that other people don't seem to exist to him as real people with real emotions rather than props. He loved Bae and believed he was protecting him, but he utterly ignored everything Bae said about what he wanted out of life or with a relationship.

 

Rumpel hates the cowardly man he was. He believes magic and the power it gives him is the only thing keeping him from being that man again. The reality is that he's still a coward. It's why he broke his promise to Bae with the bean. He couldn't give up his magic. Add a whole bunch of darkness eating his soul for a few hundred years and Rumpel is one seriously sick bastard. 

 

Just a warning, if you want to remain unspoiled stay away from the "Tallahassee" episode thread because the spoiler tagging got really, really sloppy and major future plot lines are argued/discussed at length there. 

[Zuleikha]

Thanks for the warning! Will do.

[KingOfHearts]

I didn't used to like Hook all that much. I thought he was too much of a broody sex symbol and...

Spoiler

a lap dog for Emma. It's probably an unpopular opinion (who am I kidding, it is) but I like him better without her. I liked him in his S6 adventure and in S7 as WHook. When he's allowed to just be himself and not mope about his past, he can be a lot of fun with a lot of heart. Whenever he was with Emma, it was like watching both their emotonal baggage at once. (Which made S5 a real downer for me.)

But in retrospect, this episode is a great introduction to Hook as a villain and does a good job of showing Rumple's relationship with Milah. The flashbacks fill a lot of holes and don't feel like the writers are just tacking on a new character. The present day stuff still really sucks, though. It's everything wrong with the Rumpbelle relationship.

Edited August 25, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[daxx]

I love everything about the flashback in this episode. It’s a brilliant villain introduction even if it is told from Rumple’s POV. I never felt bad for him in this, even the first time through. The only time Hook’s even remotely villainous in this ep is his frat boy routine when he’s drunk and bullying Rumple pretending to be a beggar. I don’t consider him demanding Rumple to fight for his wife’s honor as a villainous act, I feel he was testing him there and if he’d been willing to fight he might have let him talk to Milah. Granted this is a headcanon. I’m sure however that he never intended to share Milah with the crew like some kind of common whore.

Interestingly, this is the only season 1-6 episode that Emma’s not in at all. I have always felt this was significant and part of the reason I felt Captain Swan would be a thing long before it was one. Also he never kissed Milah onscreen, another clue in my mind back when I was grasping at straws.

Spoiler

Particularly when Emma was shouting declarations of love to Neal at the end of this season.

[profdanglais]

19 hours ago, daxx said:

I have always felt this was significant and part of the reason I felt Captain Swan would be a thing long before it was one.

That's interesting, because I never suspected Captain Swan until Tallahassee, and even then I didn't want to believe it. I loved the idea of the hot pirate avenging his love and I couldn't believe they were trying to match him with Emma. I don't think I was really on board with CS until S3, which is odd to think about because that became pretty much the only reason I kept watching in later seasons. 

This is one of my favourite episodes, both because it is a good introduction for Hook and also because it's the last time that the big twist really surprised me and I honestly loved the idea of Rumpel being Hook's crocodile. It was a genuinely clever reimagining of the characters, and that last scene on the Jolly Roger when they head off to Neverland is really fantastic. 

Only downside--Rumbelle. Ugh. 

[tennisgurl]

Hello, Captain Hook! Its funny, knowing what all goes down with him later, and how he would go onto become one of my favorite characters on this whole show, because when I first watched this, I wasnt that jazzed about him. I already thought the guy who played him was super hot and a good actor, and it was a good intro to his character, but I remember so much hype about him early on, so i think I went in being a little "oh so this is the new big thing, huh?" and that affected my perception of him a bit. In retrospect, I like his origin a lot actually, and I felt a lot of sympathy for him. Most of his villainy seemed to be based around being an asshole to random dudes at bars, and sleeping with married women, one of whom he fell in love with. This was also back when going to different realms was still super exciting, so Hook getting his hook hand, meeting Mr. Smee, and setting off for Neverland, actually did seem super epic and exciting. The whirlpool effect was really cool as well. 

Milah is another character I've gone back and fourth on over the years. She wasn't really a very nice person, and certainly not much of a wife or mother, but she also seemed terribly unhappy, and she certainly didnt deserve to die just for leaving her husband. And she did seem to really love Hook, and feel remorse for leaving Bae. Really, I just want to know why Rumple wouldn't just leave the village with Milah and Bae and start somewhere where no one knew that he was such a cowardly coward of all cowards. What was keeping him in that one random place? Yeah moving was tougher before you could get a moving van, but its not like people never left the place they were born, even in the middle ages. If he had just agreed to leave with Milah to start over again, so much tragedy could have been avoided. Also, can we talk about Milahs pirate queen outfit? Because that outfit alone deserved a flashback. 

I really do love the interaction between Charming on Rumple at this point in the series. 

Charming: "Are you asking me for dating advice?"

Rumple: "...no, of course not..."

[KingOfHearts]

4 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I really do love the interaction between Charming on Rumple at this point in the series. 

Spoiler

It gets even better during the "Lacy" episode.

[companionenvy]

Oh, this episode. This is one where it is really, really hard for me to suspend my awareness of what's coming as I watch, given how much I love Hook, and how many problems I wind up having with Rumbelle, but I'm going to try commenting mostly from the perspective of this episode alone. Lots of thoughts ahead:

- The show does a fantastic job balancing between telegraphing Killian's identity as Hook but also making it understated enough that viewers could still get a lot of pleasure from connecting the dots and seeing how the stories were going to intersect. I'm sure promos had already spoiled that Captain Hook would be joining the show, and I think once you introduced a pirate to a show involving Disney characters, people were going to figure it out anyway, so it would have been cheesy to try to play it off as a surprise. Having the familiar musical cue following the character prevents that and makes it clear the viewer is supposed to be in on the secret- but as we're meeting a young, two-handed pirate going by Killian Jones, it is really satisfying when you get to moments like Killian calling Rumple "crocodile" or getting your first sight of the (not yet attached) hook or the ship taking off for Neverland, and realize how exactly this is going to work.

- Again, while I'm basically total trash for the character, I disagree with those who think Hook isn't that bad here. It is fairly petty stuff, but he's a complete bully with very little justification. The moment where he is nasty to what he thinks is a poor beggar is the worst in terms of random cruelty, but - as he himself will admit in s5 -- he really is the villain of his initial meeting with Rumple. I don't think he was being at all fair or respectful to Rumple in offering to let him fight; that was another humiliation. Killian is obviously a skilled swordsman; coward or not, a random weaver is going to have no chance of beating him, and Rumple, given that he had a son at home, would have been insane to agree to it. I'm not sure what he would have done if Rumple actually had agreed to it - would he have killed him and taken Bae with them? I don't think he would have given Milah back, as he hadn't stolen her and she wasn't his to give -- but either way, it was a terrible, terrible thing to do. The fact that he lets Rumple think he's kidnapped Milah and is planning on allowing her to be serially raped by the crew makes the whole thing even more disgusting. Nothing Killian or Milah does justifies what happens after, but not only does Killian's treatment of Rumple lay the seeds for that tragedy, it also has, IMO, more than a little bit of a role in creating Dark One Rumple, who is so driven by his sense of humiliation and helplessness. 

- That being said, this is still an example of how to set up a redeemable villain right. Hook is terrible - but aside from being compelling as hell (you can totally see why Milah would have been immediately taken with him), he's also clearly got noble qualities. Most notably, he is obviously capable of deep and self-sacrificing love, and he's undeniably courageous - for all that he is wildly unfair to Rumple in the first scene, when the shoe is on the other foot, and Rumple invites him to a totally unfair duel, Killian makes no attempt to get out of it, and bravely faces his death. The revelation that Milah left with him voluntarily, meaning that his comment about her servicing the crew was a pose also calls into question how much of his attitude is a posture. Not that that gives him a pass -- being a jerk to an old beggar is terrible whether you're doing it more because you actually enjoy humiliating the weak or more because you want to be seen as macho and in-charge -- but it does hint that there's more to Killian than what meets the eye.

- Milah and Killian apparently being "in love" within a day of the pirates coming into port is another example of the show's relaxed standards for the emotion. Although in this case, I'm not sure even the writers would have tried to sell it as immediate true love. Milah's looking for an escape, and while she may claim later to have left because she loved Hook, she seems clearly to be giving Rumple a last chance in their final scene before she goes.

- A couple of the line readings from extras stuck out as especially terrible in this episode, most notably the line where the neighbor tells Rumple Milah has been taken by the pirates. 

- Don't know if it was intentional, but given that Rumple is also a version of The Beast, it is interesting that we get Killian being a jerk to a very powerful beggar, which is how The Beast gets cursed, too. The outcome probably would have been the same even if this additional element hadn't been there, but if there was any chance of Rumple showing mercy to Killian and/or Milah, I think that would have ended it.

- As in some of his previous scenes with Moe, Rumple seems pretty clearly to be projecting in his final accusations against Milah; he's charging her with abandoning Bae at a point by which Rumple has done precisely that.

- It is kind of awesome that while Killian obviously already knows about Neverland and has the means to get there, the thing that motivates him to go is "I need to kill this immortal guy, so I guess I have to stop myself from aging" rather than something like "I want to live and be young forever," which would be enough for almost any other normal person.

The problem with this episode is the conjunction of the flashbacks with the present-day scenes, which makes the latter really disturbing - and, for the first time in the Rumbelle relationship, I don't think the show sufficiently sees it. 

It isn't that I even believe that it is impossible to redeem Rumple - or even have him find happiness with another woman -- given the revelation that he murdered his wife, but we shouldn't be expected to root for him to patch things up with Belle, who spends much of this episode flirting with leaving him, in the same episode that we're finding out that he killed his first wife essentially for leaving him. The writers try to soften things a little by having Rumple at least claim that he has accepted Belle's choice (he's also encouraged her to leave him before - can't remember if it was this episode or the last one in which they shared scenes), but that comes off as hollow; whatever he says, he obviously hasn't accepted anything, and is expecting her to take him right back. Giving her the library key and telling her about Bae is obviously intended in part to convince her to return to him - and, significantly, he doesn't confess about what he does to Milah. Belle and Rumple should have at this point spent a lot longer separated, and Rumple should have had to do something pretty significant to win her back, for this to be anything but highly troubling. And I really do think the writers, while they may see the manipulative aspect, are presenting this as a relationship to root for; we're supposed to see it as cutesy and heartwarming when Belle invites him to try a hamburger with her.

[Shanna Marie]

On 8/24/2018 at 9:55 PM, daxx said:

I don’t consider him demanding Rumple to fight for his wife’s honor as a villainous act, I feel he was testing him there and if he’d been willing to fight he might have let him talk to Milah. Granted this is a headcanon. I’m sure however that he never intended to share Milah with the crew like some kind of common whore.

My headcanon has always been that it was a setup -- Milah begged Killian to take him with her, but he was reluctant because she was married. She gave him the "my husband doesn't understand/doesn't really care" speech. He was doubtful because that concept is utterly foreign to him, so they set up a test. They sent the neighbor to tell Rumple that Milah had been taken by the pirates (since we know they didn't kidnap her and she went willingly, and that would explain the really bad acting on the part of the neighbor -- it's deliberate), then Milah hid and listened as Killian tried everything he could to goad Rumple into fighting. If Rumple had so much as picked up the sword, Killian would have sent Milah home with her husband, but since he walked away, Killian let her come along. And I think this is somewhat supported by some of the later revelations ...

Spoiler

Like Hook telling Belle that Milah begged him to take her with him, and the way Killian reacted upon their first meeting when he learned she was married.

 

18 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Really, I just want to know why Rumple wouldn't just leave the village with Milah and Bae and start somewhere where no one knew that he was such a cowardly coward of all cowards. What was keeping him in that one random place? Yeah moving was tougher before you could get a moving van, but its not like people never left the place they were born, even in the middle ages. If he had just agreed to leave with Milah to start over again, so much tragedy could have been avoided.

I find that scene so sad and painful to watch. She's telling him exactly why she's unhappy and exactly what they could do about it, which would improve his life, as well. It's not as though she's just quietly sulking and saying things are fine (in a way that makes it clear they're not). She talks about what the problems are and offers solutions, which is a fairly mature way to handle the situation. But all he can do is tell her to try to be happy. Dude, that's what's she's been doing. Now maybe it's your turn to do something to make this work. I'm afraid that after a conversation like that, I'd have left, too, because it became very clear that he would never be willing to compromise or do anything to make her happy if it made him the least bit uncomfortable.

16 hours ago, companionenvy said:

It isn't that I even believe that it is impossible to redeem Rumple - or even have him find happiness with another woman -- given the revelation that he murdered his wife, but we shouldn't be expected to root for him to patch things up with Belle, who spends much of this episode flirting with leaving him, in the same episode that we're finding out that he killed his first wife essentially for leaving him.

That was really bothering me on this viewing. For one thing, we get actions from Rumple with Belle that are considered a red flag for abuse. We see that she's looking for her father and her father is looking for her, and Rumple not only doesn't tell her that her father's alive and in town, but he sabotages her efforts to find her father. Isolating a person from friends/family is considered abuse or at least a sign of a potentially abusive relationship. We're seeing the man who in some respects isolated his first wife by keeping her in a town where they were outcasts isolating his new girlfriend. Then we see the new girlfriend trying to leave him in the same episode in which we see him murder his first wife for leaving him. He doesn't murder the new girlfriend, but it's hard to see the "gift" of the library as such a romantic gesture when it brings Belle back under his control, since he owns it and it's in his power to give it to her. I think the whole thing would have worked better if we'd seen some sign that Rumple had learned something from what happened with Milah, and that he's doing things differently this time -- like if instead of the nonsense plot about Moe wanting to wipe Belle's memories (when you have to basically turn a character into a monster in order to make another character look better, you've got problems) they had shown Belle saying she needed to do something, Rumple at first wanting to keep her around the house, then him thinking better of it and giving her space and the library job, so we could see that he'd learned that when a person isn't fulfilled, she isn't happy and the relationship is going to go sour. But I don't get the feeling that he's learned anything at all. The only thing that's changed is the amount of power he has.

The bit with Moe and Belle really bothers me. She's accusing him of not being willing to listen to her, but at the same time, she refuses to listen to what he's trying to tell her about Rumple. He can't even get a word in edgewise to tell her what Rumple did to him. She's essentially putting her fingers in her ears and going "la la la" when he tries to say anything about Rumple, except instead of "la la" she says "you don't listen to me." I do feel like Moe having her kidnapped and trying to wipe her memory was meant purely to make Rumple look good in comparison and getting to come to her rescue.

I like the interaction between Ruby and Belle. That's a relationship I wish they'd done more with. It really does come across as a woman trying to help another woman escape domestic violence, which makes the bit at the end with Ruby giving the key from Gold a little unsettling. It might have been nice if Rumple had nothing to do with the library, but I guess they were taking that from Beauty and the Beast, with the Beast giving Belle a library. And how evil was Regina to create a cursed town where the library was closed the entire time?

17 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Milah and Killian apparently being "in love" within a day of the pirates coming into port is another example of the show's relaxed standards for the emotion. Although in this case, I'm not sure even the writers would have tried to sell it as immediate true love. Milah's looking for an escape, and while she may claim later to have left because she loved Hook, she seems clearly to be giving Rumple a last chance in their final scene before she goes.

I got the impression that there was more than just a day involved, but I'm not sure where I got that -- like, it's been several days that they've been in port, or they've made multiple visits. I didn't get the feeling that it was supposed to be curse-breaking magical True Love. I think she was more in love with the idea of him at that time than she actually was in love with him. She loved what he represented, which was freedom and adventure and an escape, and they were wrapped in an attractive package. She was a wife and mother feeling beaten down by life and unappreciated by her husband, and then she had a handsome younger man acting like he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

[Camera One]

9 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

The bit with Moe and Belle really bothers me. She's accusing him of not being willing to listen to her, but at the same time, she refuses to listen to what he's trying to tell her about Rumple. He can't even get a word in edgewise to tell her what Rumple did to him. She's essentially putting her fingers in her ears and going "la la la" when he tries to say anything about Rumple, except instead of "la la" she says "you don't listen to me." I do feel like Moe having her kidnapped and trying to wipe her memory was meant purely to make Rumple look good in comparison and getting to come to her rescue.

The information we have about Moe is very piecemeal and stilted.  Did he actually lock Belle in a tower?  I had the impression that we weren't supposed to side with Moe.  The way they destroyed one of the best relationships in "Beauty and the Beast" (Belle and her father) was sad.  

Spoiler

It reinforces that Belle was more of a prop than a character, since she seemed to have reconciled with her father off-screen and we never got to see how he eventually accepted Rumple.  Rumple certainly never had to earn his trust.

[tennisgurl]

16 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I do feel like Moe having her kidnapped and trying to wipe her memory was meant purely to make Rumple look good in comparison and getting to come to her rescue.

Its such a classic Once move. Show someone else, even someone previously not shown to be evil, in an even more, almost comically, evil light than the villains (usually Rumple or Regina), and that makes them think that the audience will instantly forgive the evil actions of their favorite villains, even if they never show a second of remorse. 'Yeah, she killed 100 innocent people because she got a pebble in her show, but that guy killed 200 people because he tripped over a stick! That makes her the good guy!" 

[Shanna Marie]

40 minutes ago, Camera One said:

The information we have about Moe is very piecemeal and stilted.  Did he actually lock Belle in a tower?

I don't think so. I thought Regina took her soon after she left Rumple's castle.

[KingOfHearts]

6 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I don't think so. I thought Regina took her soon after she left Rumple's castle.

Spoiler

After Belle left Rumple's, she went to a tavern and met Grumpy. Then she took the quest to kill the Yaoguai. Shortly after freeing Prince Philip, she got captured by Regina.

Edited August 26, 2018 by KingOfHearts