S04.E18: Heart Of Gold

[kingshearte]

Ah good. Just what I needed to revive my flagging interest in this show: an episode devoted entirely to the characters I care the least about.

[Guest]

Ah good. Just what I needed to revive my flagging interest in this show: an episode devoted entirely to the characters I care the least about.

 

 

And we're in for even more of a treat tonight. Henry gets captured and his mothers have to save him. AGAIN. At this point, I'm with Zelena,just let him die already.

[Camera One]

Guys, I still haven't seen that episode and have no intention to. Could someone tell me about this failing heart thing? You can do so in PM or in another thread or give a link to a youtube clip, I just haven't heard about this yet and am a bit afraid to miss something important.

 

Here is some dialogue from the episode which should bring you up to speed:

 

Flashback, Distant past Enchanted Forest:

RUMPLE: I need you to break into the vault and steal the elixir of the wounded heart.

ROBIN: That's a ridiculously self-explanatory name.  And also probably a fool's errand.

RUMPLE Oh, it's far from that, dearie. Far from that. It does exactly what it says. It cures wounded hearts physically, emotionally. It's powerful stuff.

 

A few weeks ago, NYC:

ROBIN: What did the doctors say?

RUMPLE: Well, only what their small minds can comprehend. Prattling on about diets and exercise. They tell me it was a heart attack.

ROBIN: But you have other ideas.

RUMPLE: My problem isn't physical. It's moral. All the dark deeds I've done they've taken their toll, poisoned my heart thickened the blood. Back in Storybrooke, I used magic to protect myself. But out here I won't last without some.

ROBIN: Well, unfortunately for you, dark one, there is no magic in this world.

RUMPLE: True. We can't create magic here. But we can use magical items if they were brought from elsewhere. Remember something from our past The elixir of the wounded heart. Something I asked you to steal. Well, I think I might know where some of it exists. Right here in New York City. And I need you to get it for me.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Camera One

[FurryFury]

. All the dark deeds I've done they've taken their toll

 

Seriously?! And what about Regina or other villains? Are they immune? I was under the impression Regina actually straight-up killed more people than Rumple, although if you take into account that Rumple was the one to corrupt her, I guess he could have been considered to be responsible. Of course, fairytale "karma" will work the way A&E want, which means there's no logic to it.

 

But seriously, it's so, so stupid and contrived.

[Camera One]

Agreed it's so dumb.  And these apparent consequences for doing evil can just be fixed with magic.  Magic always has a price!  Except when it's the cure for cancelling the price!

Edited April 19, 2015 by Camera One

[FurryFury]

There's also been like ZERO hints that evil deeds can have this kind of consequences. It's completely out of the left field. I want to just bang my head against the wall because of how idiotic the show has become.

Maybe they'll just show that the Author is completely bonkers and at some point decided to derail all the heroes because he can? this is the only explanation I can believe in.

[HoodlumSheep]

Finally saw the episode! I marathoned the last 3 eps, so I'm all caught up!

Questions i had:

How did Robin or Will end up in Oz? They went through a door of some kind, but how did they find it? If it was that easy why didn't Rumple go? I thought the last we saw him give an excuse, was because he had no means to get there, so how was it so easy for Robin?

Also, with Will; their encounter would have been when exactly? before he went to Wonderland with Ana, I assume? He only mentioned his little sis, but no Ana, so it makes it seem like it was before he and Ana went to Wonderland. So if he was in Oz, was it due to him searching for a way to get to Wonderland? Has he even met Ana at this point? Also, he must have figured his best bet to find a way to Wonderland was to join Robin and the merry men at some point if it is to follow the continuity of what they showed in Wonderland.

^ This paragraph is a bit of a mess; I'm trying to wrap my head around things!

Also, the Zelena twist...I'm glad I've turned off most of my brain when watching Once. Talk about the world's most overly complicated evil plan, complete with evil monologue. So, if she can kill people with the wave her hand, why didn't she do that before? Because she revels in seeing people suffer, i suppose?

The only way I can make sense of why she didn't run wild during the time travel stuff, was that she wanted to make Regina and Rumple both suffer (or kill them? I have no idea), and that while she could probably take out Regina, dealing with EF Dark One Rumple would be harder than dealing with him in the present day. ????

I wonder how she feels about being frozen.

Fare thee well, real Marian!!! You shall be missed!

Also, that whole Regina claiming Rumple turned her into a monster...i'm over Regina so I don't really care. If that's what helps you sleep at night...whatever.

Edited April 19, 2015 by HoodlumSheep

[Camera One]

Questions i had:

How did Robin or Will end up in Oz? They went through a door of some kind, but how did they find it? If it was that easy why didn't Rumple go? I thought the last we saw him give an excuse, was because he had no means to get there, so how was it so easy for Robin?

 

Rumple said in the dialogue that he's sending Robin since he's such a good thief (riiiiiiight) and Zelena wouldn't be happy to see Rumple's face.  There was apparently a deleted scene in Rumple's castle, where they might have explained the portal to Oz:

http://oncepodcast.com/forums/topic/possible-robin-and-rumple-deleted-scene/

 

 

 

Also, with Will; their encounter would have been when exactly? before he went to Wonderland with Ana, I assume? He only mentioned his little sis, but no Ana, so it makes it seem like it was before he and Ana went to Wonderland. So if he was in Oz, was it due to him searching for a way to get to Wonderland? Has he even met Ana at this point? Also, he must have figured his best bet to find a way to Wonderland was to join Robin and the merry men at some point if it is to follow the continuity of what they showed in Wonderland.

 

I was confused when I watched as well.  This was when Robin met Will for the first time.  So this would have before Will joined the Merry Men, so it was before Will stole the mirror to go to Wonderland.  They didn't specify if Will knew Ana yet.  I agree he was so preoccupied with his lost sister, that this was probably pre-Ana, though that's a good idea Will was in Oz looking for a way to Wonderland.  So did Will drinking the Elixir of Wounded Heart "cure" him from grief over losing his sister?  Doesn't all magic have a price?  What was the price of drinking that Elixir?

Edited May 18, 2015 by Camera One

[Camera One]

Deleted scene script between Robin and Rumple, posted by Adam on Twitter, due to fan request.  He specified it was non-canon until specified.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMzUZ87UAAAqJcr.jpg:large

 

So where is this scene supposed to fit?  Were we supposed to see Robin/Will's goodbye scene AFTER this one, to "discover" what Robin did with the potion?  I find it interesting the end of the script actually specifies what viewers are supposed to be wondering/on the edge of their seats about.  I personally couldn't care less what Robin did with the potion.  Giving it to Will to cure his heartache over his sister who we never saw had zero emotional resonance.  

 

Having seen this, I can imagine the added notes on some of the 4B scripts now... ("as we're wondering what heinous act Snowing did against Maleficent"... "as we're wondering where the heck the Author is... (not)")

 

I would say this scene was not necessary.  Was it supposed to explain why Rumple flayed Robin with so much glee in "Lacey"?   It basically hits us over the head again with the fact that Robin is oh so honourable, and Rumple doesn't face his consequences, etc.  It's not like Rumple needed the Elixir for anything specific in the flashbacks anyway.  It does reinforce the fact that Rumple murdered the Fairy Godmother to get that wand (though who cares about her, of course... she and Marion are just redshirts we shouldn't think twice about).  I don't blame Blue for hating the hell out of Rumple for murdering her employees.

 

Interesting there was speculation about this deleted scene in our discussions above, where people wondered if they would explain HOW Rumple got Robin to Oz, but nope.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Camera One

[YaddaYadda]

Robin is really uninteresting.  I guess it does set up Robin going to Rumple's castle to get the wand to cure Marian which is actually a nice bit of continuity.  Other than that? zzzzzzz

[Camera One]

True.  Though I wonder why Robin would know how to use the wand to cure someone, or if it's just that easy.

[HoodlumSheep]

When Adam posted this...I honestly thought we had gotten this scene (or a scene very similar to it) in the final version. Excet without the wand mention. I refuse to go back and watch it though, so I'll just have to take his word.

[Camera One]

That was probably becase most of the main ideas were already parcelled out in other scenes... like between Robin and Marion (Marion says Rumple will kill him on sight) and between Robin and the Sheriff (talking about debtors' prison).  

[Shanna Marie]

I know I'm a day early, but for this arc I can't get through two episodes in a row, so I've started watching one on Thursday, one on Friday, and I have thoughts.

Oh dear, but this one is bad. It's so obviously all contrived for a particular outcome in this episode, with none of the characters' actions making any sense in the big picture.

First, New York is probably the worst place to send a group of people with no knowledge of the modern world and very little money (unless Regina slipped them her credit card, or something). Yeah, there's Neal's old apartment (and who's paying the rent on it? Even if it's a condo he owned, there would be maintenance fees. He's been gone more than a year), but wouldn't they have had an easier time of it in a small town in Maine? Or in the wilderness in Maine? I knew someone whose family had a vacation cabin in Maine with no electricity, very rustic, and Robin and his family would have been right at home in a place like that.

The only reason for the heart potion was to heal Rumple's heart in the present. There was no urgent need for Rumple to need it in the flashback, no reason for Walsh to have had it with him in New York. Healing broken hearts doesn't seem like something Walsh would have use for. I guess maybe he could have used it on Emma to get her open to having a relationship, but then it would have been used up. And for the love of all that is holy, why would Robin's "code" require him to put himself at risk to get a cure for someone dying of his own evil, who once tortured Robin? I know that Marian's objection was supposed to have been a clue that she was really Zelena, but she made sense.

Spoiler

They'd have avoided a lot of problems down the line if Robin had just walked out on Rumple.

Zelena explains her plan as being to break Regina's heart by getting Robin to fall in love with her, so that doesn't fit with her graciously giving up Robin at the end of 4A before the heart freeze. As I said then, if they'd just skipped the conversation between Regina and Marian then about how Robin loved Regina now, then the Zelena switch might have worked if she saw that Robin was choosing Regina, and then she faked the heart freeze. But it doesn't sound like mind games were part of her plan, so why do the noble giving him up routine? (The real answer is that they didn't know it was really Zelena at the end of 4A.)

And the whole "when you steal for other people, you're a hero" thing makes me gag.

Oh, and what's up with Regina needing Emma to get her Robin's number? It looked like he still had the phone he had in Storybrooke, with Regina's number in his contacts, so she should have had his number all along. Or was he such a weirdo that he got a new phone in New York and put Regina's picture and contact information in it? And Regina knew exactly where he was living.

This episode makes me want to reach through the TV, beyond the sets, to the scripts, so I can slap the writers.

[KingOfHearts]

This episode only exists to bring Zelena back. I supposed it would've been funny if the flashbacks were just Zarian in Storybrooke, doing random stuff behind people's backs and affecting the events of 4A in crazy contrived ways. It might've been entertaining to watch her secretly freak out when no one was looking. I love Zelena, but the writer couldve pulled the Zarian twist off so much better.

[andromeda331]

I hate this episode. Rumple is dying due to his own fault. His centuries of being evil is killing him. But oh no they can't just let him die. Why not? Oh, right I forgot he's a villain and villains never have to accept any responsibility for their own crap. Bull. Robin should have turned and walked out leaving him to die. He had zero reasons to save him. Certainly not his "code". The code where you have to help save evil people from dying but its totally cool with crypt sex. 

[Camera One]

This episode reinforced how Robin Hood was perhaps the most poorly drawn and written recurring character on this show.  His thought processes make no sense and his POV is hard to determine.  A character like August might be annoying as hell, but at least it's possible to see where he was coming from.  Robin Hood's responses and decisions make no sense, so it was impossible to believe him as a character.  

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Robin should have turned and walked out leaving him to die. He had zero reasons to save him. Certainly not his "code". The code where you have to help save evil people from dying but its totally cool with crypt sex. 

It's also a code that justifies sleeping with another woman -- the woman who imprisoned and tortured his wife -- on the basis that his wife's example in giving up everything to be with him, the person she loved, showed him that he should do whatever it takes to be with the person he loved, who was not his wife. And he felt that sleeping with the woman who imprisoned and tortured his wife was the best example to set for his son because he was being honest and following his heart.

It sounds like typical cheater rationalization, of the "the heart wants what it wants" variety: "If I really love this other woman, then I'm actually being dishonest if I'm not being with her, and therefore the only ethical thing to do is to cheat on my wife."

But yeah, you tell yourself you'd be going against your "code" if you didn't break into a stranger's business and destroy property in order to steal the cure for a man who's dying of his own evil.

I noticed that when Rumple was talking to Isaac about what he wanted from him, he was pretty much using the same words Regina used when talking about her plan to find the Author. In a way, it's like that "fonts matter" meme that shows the words "you're mine" written in a pretty font and in a bloody serial killer font, but there were times when Regina had the same menacing tone of voice as Rumple when she was talking about her plan. But it's good for Regina to do it and bad when Rumple's doing it.

Edited March 15, 2019 by Shanna Marie
typo patrol

[tennisgurl]

Not to be pedantic, but whats up with that picture of Regina on Robins phone? It looks like a Hollywood head shot, not a picture that someone would have of someone they actually know, or a kind of ex. Actually, now that I think about it, Regina having professional head shots made of herself actually sounds pretty in character, this checks out!

God this episode is so boring! Every once in awhile you can see the Robin that the show seemed to aiming for, but the guy just exists for Regina to angst about and to be her prize for being good, the writers clearly dont care about his characterization or his internal thought process. If I have to hear about his fucking code, again, oh my God! What even is his stupid code? Its never explained, he just uses it to justify all of the stupid stuff he does or fucking another woman while his wife is in a coma in a tomb. A woman who imprisoned and killed his wife in another time line. Oh, what a man of honor he is! Random, nonsensical honor. They use it to make him do random stuff to keep the plot moving, not because its something that comes naturally to his character, whatever character that may be. Like, sure let me risk everything to save this known psychopath, its cool!

I did forget how much I like the guy who plays the Sheriff of Nottingham. I wish we had seen him more often, in an alternate version of this show where Robin Hood was an actual character and story that they used, not as a prize for Regina. He could have been a really fun villain. 

I just dont buy the Zelena twist, even hearing her whole evil plan that she so kindly explained to Rumple like some kind of bond villain. It really feels like before this episode, she was supposed to be Marion, and it was just changed to get Zelena back in, while also getting rid of Marion so that Regina can go back to fucking her husband without that whole "being married" issue. Poor Marion. She seemed like such a nice person, and no one gave a shit about her, in life or in death, not even her husband. Its all just such a lame way to bring Zelena back, and as entertaining as Zelena can be, its just one more in the long line of characters that are staying WAY past their welcome and when they had an organic way to leave the show.

So how are Marion and Robin really functioning in New York? Yeah they have Neal's old place, but they cant just take over a persons place, they will still need to do paperwork and pay rent or check on utilities or whatever. How can they get jobs and money if they dont have any social security numbers or documents explaining where they're from, or anything? Can they ever enroll Roland in school? I mean, its not impossible, but for people who dont know anything about the modern world and how to get along and stay under the radar, it was be really freaking hard.