S03.E08: Think Lovely Thoughts

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

 Pan tries to convince Henry that he can save magic and Neverland; a young Rumplestiltskin receives a magical item that could give him a fresh start with his father.

[Camera One]

I am really interested in the spinner sisters who took in Rumple.  I wonder when we will find out their backstory.

[KingOfHearts]

47 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I am really interested in the spinner sisters who took in Rumple.  I wonder when we will find out their backstory.

We're all Rumple now. We can see the future, see all the ironies, and laugh at things you wouldn't get until later.

I'm pretty sure the writers were being intentional in making the spinsters like the Fates from Hercules. It's weird, because if you didn't see "Manhattan", you'd think they'd be foreshadowing for the reveal on how Rumple can see the future.

Spoiler

If only they came back in 5B, revealed as the Fates. They'd run up to Rumple and act like his mothers, embarrassing him in front of everyone.

Edited November 24, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[daxx]

This episode has several nice scenes but I dislike the flashback except for the spinners, them I liked.

I still laugh at end scene where Rumple takes Hook’s sword, which rude, then David gives him a dagger in case his good looks fail him. It’s a very nice piece of writing where they were all in character.

[Camera One]

I wanted to see where the spinners got their magic bean.

The whole way in which Malcolm became Peter Pan made zero sense to me.  So Neverland was just sitting there waiting for a leader?  Did Peter Pan initiate the Shadows?  How did Malcolm go there when he was a child?  There was so much worldbuilding that could have occurred to flesh out the concept.  

Spoiler

The Season 6 backstory for Rumple's mother made this backstory didn't explain any more of this.  They spent zero time developing who Malcolm was in Season 6, as if it were completely irrelevant to Fiona's story.  

[Shanna Marie]

I'm kind of meh on this one. I got sidetracked while it was on. I'm going to have to vote "nay" on Pan being Rumple's father. I don't feel like that relationship really added anything to the story. It mostly muddled Rumple's conflict. We already had that whole "the boy will be your undoing" thing, but then he's also torn because of his father. I also don't really get the transition between Malcolm and Pan. For one thing, the Scottish man somehow turned into a British boy when reverting to a teen? Was the Pan form supposed to have been him de-aging, or was he turned into someone entirely different? It also doesn't make sense that a man who was shiftless and lazy and wanted to escape adult responsibilities would in his fantasy world become a fiendishly clever sadist who enjoys weaving complex plots, running a huge gang of boys that he manipulates, and directing a multi-realm operation that uses office or government terminology as code words. I could have imagined Malcolm turning into someone more like the book Pan who just wanted to hang out and have fun, with the occasional brawl with pirates. But most of what show Pan does seems like the kind of thing Malcolm was running from. Plus, if he couldn't maintain his illusion with his son on the island and had to send him away, how did he deal with having his grandson there all that time? Him being willing to kill his great-grandson to maintain his power took him that much farther over the top in evil. Meanwhile, Rumple having been abandoned just like what he did to his son makes him look like even more of a jerk, since he'd been there.

I feel like there was more to the Spinners' story than we saw. You expect them to reveal who they really are, like they gave Rumple the bean because they knew what Malcolm would do with it.

[Camera One]

The Spinning Women should have transformed into Blue. 

Spoiler

Blue: "Damnit, I was hoping Rumple and that darn father of his would jump into a portal to go to the Land Without Magic, so we could finally close the casefile on Fiona and her disaster spawn."

So Rumple grew up with positive influences.  I wonder what did happen to his guardians.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

13 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm kind of meh on this one. I got sidetracked while it was on. I'm going to have to vote "nay" on Pan being Rumple's father. I don't feel like that relationship really added anything to the story. It mostly muddled Rumple's conflict. We already had that whole "the boy will be your undoing" thing, but then he's also torn because of his father. I also don't really get the transition between Malcolm and Pan. For one thing, the Scottish man somehow turned into a British boy when reverting to a teen? Was the Pan form supposed to have been him de-aging, or was he turned into someone entirely different? It also doesn't make sense that a man who was shiftless and lazy and wanted to escape adult responsibilities would in his fantasy world become a fiendishly clever sadist who enjoys weaving complex plots, running a huge gang of boys that he manipulates, and directing a multi-realm operation that uses office or government terminology as code words. I could have imagined Malcolm turning into someone more like the book Pan who just wanted to hang out and have fun, with the occasional brawl with pirates. But most of what show Pan does seems like the kind of thing Malcolm was running from. Plus, if he couldn't maintain his illusion with his son on the island and had to send him away, how did he deal with having his grandson there all that time? Him being willing to kill his great-grandson to maintain his power took him that much farther over the top in evil. Meanwhile, Rumple having been abandoned just like what he did to his son makes him look like even more of a jerk, since he'd been there.

I feel like there was more to the Spinners' story than we saw. You expect them to reveal who they really are, like they gave Rumple the bean because they knew what Malcolm would do with it.

That's the part that doesn't make any sense. There are ways to turn Malcolm into Pan. Given Rumple's manipulate and planning traits it wouldn't be a stretch that Malcolm had that too. Given his obsession of kidnapping kids with Rumple always trying to buy babies from people. So much could easily be Rumple family trait. But they show Malcolm lazy, not wanting any responsibilities, shiftless. How does someone like him turn into this Pan? If he wanted to play forever that would make sense. But why would he even want to become someone with complex plots, surrounding himself around boys that he dragged there and won't let leave. Why when he couldn't wait to get rid of his son? Yeah, Shadow drag away my own kid but hey bring me dozens of other boys. 

[Shanna Marie]

9 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

But why would he even want to become someone with complex plots, surrounding himself around boys that he dragged there and won't let leave. Why when he couldn't wait to get rid of his son? Yeah, Shadow drag away my own kid but hey bring me dozens of other boys. 

I can see why he might want other kids around but not his son. Having his son around reminded him that he was an adult and would have broken the spell, but he would want someone to hang out with and play with. But that doesn't explain why he could tolerate having his teenaged grandson around for so long, and the boys he dragged there wouldn't necessarily have been "lost." They significantly changed Pan's backstory without changing other parts of the story.

Having Peter Pan be an adult with a literal Peter Pan complex is a perfectly valid, and potentially interesting, choice. But then it wouldn't be lost boys without families who were drawn to him. It might be other adults who didn't want to grow up or kids running away from responsibility who just want to have fun, kids with families who feel constrained by the rules and expectations of their parents. And the guy whose idea of work and scheming was running the "find the lady" scam at the local tavern probably wouldn't be running complex schemes.

The Lost Boys thing was linked to the book backstory of Pan as having fallen out of the pram and being lost, so that he resented parents and gathered other lost kids so they could all live independently of adults and just do what they wanted to do. 

But it doesn't really work for the guy with the literal Peter Pan complex who doesn't want responsibility and who ditched his own son to collect lost kids who don't have families. He created a Lost Boy, so you'd think he'd avoid that reminder.

[tennisgurl]

Henry is such a little idiot, and his never ending quest to "be a hero" is just embarrassing. At least he is a little kid at this point, so its a bit more understandable. 

Spoiler

Considering he later almost kills everyone by trying to destroy magic, and will continue to pull shit like this in his sad excuse for a heroes quest well into his adulthood, so I guess this is just how A&E OH I MEAN HENRY will always be. 

So the Pan reveal...its not my favorite. Mainly because the Pan we meet is so different than Malcolm, that its hard to see how we got from that person to the person we see now, even if it has been awhile. Its like how Bae become Neal, its just really hard to see how we got from point A to point B. The weird thing is, I can see the Malcolm we see in the beginning as a kind of Peter Pan style manchild, who never really grew up, and went from a small town hustler and wastrel and all around deadbeat dad to immortal child who just wants to dick around with his buddies and fight pirates, and just wants to have fun, without any responsibility or heavier feelings of empathy or maturity. However, thats not who we have here. Pan is a manipulative world hopper who can use modern phrases like home office to manipulate modern day people and is more of a mastermind who gives Hannibal speeches, and not an immature selfish eternal child. And the backstory of Neverland is just kind of weird in general, and not explained very well at all. 

The one thing I do find interesting is that Malcolm, especially in Neverland, is that he clearly does the Imp Rumple giggle a few times, and that certainly makes me wonder how much Malcolm influences the older Rumple. I really liked the spinner women that apparently raised Rumple, and I left this episode really wanting to know more about them. Like many, I suspected they might be the Fates or something, and we would see them influencing Rumples life. There truly is irony everywhere, Rumple. 

"In case your good looks dont work for you" *Hands knife over* I love the Charming and Hook banter here, it works really well for both of them. 

[companionenvy]

I give Henry something of a pass for what he did here, because he is a kid and Pan is a skilled manipulator. Even a kid without a hero complex might have trouble resisting a person him telling him that he is the most special person in all creation. Henry also comes from a family that has showed him the importance of heroism and sacrifice, and Emma and Regina have both lied to him before - and have good motive to do so here. The only caveat is that Henry's first meeting with Pan demonstrated pretty obviously that Pan is completely untrustworthy, but the show has been consistent in suggesting that the longer Lost Boys are under Pan's influence, the farther under his sway they fall, so I'll accept eleven year old Henry being less than totally shrewd about the whole thing.

I concede that Pan doesn't make a ton of sense as an extrapolation of Malcolm, but still feel like the reveal that Pan is Rumple's father is a good pay-off for all the hints they've been dropping of the dynamic between them, and one that enriches our sense of Rumple's motivations. Him wounding himself at least in part to avoid abandoning a son, and his feelings about not following Bae through the portal, take on new texture when we realize that Rumple himself was an abandoned child.

[KAOS Agent]

22 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

Him wounding himself at least in part to avoid abandoning a son, and his feelings about not following Bae through the portal, take on new texture when we realize that Rumple himself was an abandoned child.

We already knew he was abandoned as a child. They even filmed the scene where his father abandoned him. It was meant to be the opening of "Manhattan". The details were never known because the scene didn't make the cut, but Rumpel said in that episode that he wounded himself so he wouldn't abandon his son like his father had done to him.

It's very clearly a retcon here because in that episode he specifically refers to his being drafted into the army as a way to prove himself to the rest of the world as something other than a coward. He talks about it being something he's been waiting for all his life and that he's been living under the shadow of his father's cowardice for too long. None of the stuff we saw here would give the rest of the world any impression that his father was a coward. Shiftless, lazy and crooked, yes. Cowardly, no. No one would even know what happened to Malcolm or have any reason to label Rumpel a coward because of his father's actions. Beyond not seeing how Malcolm became the Pan we see, it doesn't track with the backstory they've already given Rumpel.

Edited November 27, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[KingOfHearts]

IMO, there's too much repetition in the Stiltskin family tree. It starts to feel cheap. "x child did because x parent did it too!" is cop-out when it's a retcon and used to forge a dynamic that wasn't there originally. While Neal abandoning Emma out of fear is a good subtle parallel to Rumple abandoning Bae, the Malcolm stuff is unnecessary. Pan doesn't have to be Rumple's dad for the story to work, even if the reveal is framed as a major plot point. I suppose Rumple's father abandoning him works to explain why he injured himself, but tying it to Pan is attempting to tackle too many things at once. Pan has to be this master manipulator full of belief, but also a coward who can't take responsibility. He was "never meant to be a father" but recruits an army of Lost Boys? A&E sure love to attach too many facets to a single character. Maybe Pan and Rumple are father and son after all.

Of course in all this, I'm taking into account...

Spoiler

The Black Fairy being Malcolm 2.0. While she didn't exactly abandon Rumple, she's yet another child snatcher and she gives another unnecessary explanation for Rumple's actions. (Why he hates fairies.) 

 

The writers try way too hard to make Rumple "complex" by giving him a crazy amount of tragic backstories and whiplashes. 

[companionenvy]

This may be a fanwank, but I think some of my attitude toward the Malcom-Pan progression comes from the fact that, for me, the disparities can be explained by the radical differences in situation - not to mention the emotional/hormonal changes that would come with being turned from a middle aged man into a teenage boy.

I'd say that the shift from Malcolm to Pan is more comparable to the shift from weaver Rumple to Dark One Rumple -- which I find believable -- than the one from Bae to Neal, which (without further insight into how the change occurred), I don't. DO Rumple is radically different from weaver Rumple, but the transformation from meek coward to the violent, supremely authoritative DO makes sense given the context: beyond whatever changes the Darkness wreaks on his psyche, he's gone from being a powerless, derided peasant to an all-powerful immortal being. The two encounters with Hook in The Crocodile are a case in point; he isn't willing to face Hook the second time around because he's become a braver man, but because now he's the infinitely more powerful party in the conflict. 

One of the main reasons for fear is the awareness of consequences. Once Malcolm becomes Pan, he's immortal, magical and (through a process that I agree isn't sufficiently well explained), the main power on the island. He doesn't (until many, many years after his arrival) have to worry about dying, let alone supporting a family or navigating social dynamics in a world where he's decidedly not of the privileged classes. Yes, his Machiavellian grip on the island contrasts with Malcolm's haplessness, but even there, he only has as much responsibility as he wants - he doesn't care about the well-being of the Lost Boys, or have anyone to hold him accountable for his treatment or mistreatment of them. Recruiting a tribe of devoted lackeys as your companions on a magical island is very different from acknowledging responsibility for a child in the real world. 

I think a lot of people would change pretty radically if instead of having to worry about work and relationships, they became the undying, never-aging ruler of a magical island overnight.

[tennisgurl]

What’s up with people in this world being unable to move? Milah and Rumple couldn’t just go to a new town and start over, because Rumple wouldn’t for some reason, and now Rumple and Malcolm need to go a whole new world (pun?) to get a new start. Just go to another town, Rumples family! 

[Shanna Marie]

On 11/27/2018 at 12:12 PM, companionenvy said:

I think a lot of people would change pretty radically if instead of having to worry about work and relationships, they became the undying, never-aging ruler of a magical island overnight.

I don't have a problem with Pan's cruelty and meanness, since Malcolm had to have been a pretty nasty piece of work to be able to so easily abandon his young son the way he did. What doesn't work for me is that a guy who couldn't successfully pull off a "find the lady" scam at the local franchise of McTavern somehow became fiendishly clever and capable of subtle manipulations. I don't think his lack of smarts would have been changed by no longer having to worry about responsibility about work or relationships. If he'd been at least somewhat successful and still wanted to escape to childhood again, it might have worked, but they portrayed him as a failure and kind of an idiot, while Pan is supposed to be so utterly brilliant that Hook is intimidated by his smarts.

I do think that the Pied Piper Pan we saw earlier in the season fits better with this backstory than the "lost boys" concept. It makes sense that the Pan who's really a grown man who doesn't want to grow up and just wants to hang out and be a kid for eternity would go about recruiting kids who've had fights with their parents, selling the idea of a life without rules or responsibilities. What doesn't make sense is that a Pan who ditched his own young son because the reminder of being a parent harshed his Neverland vibe to the point of breaking the spell would later go seek out his middle-aged son and try to recruit his grandson just to spite his son. You'd think he'd really need to avoid any reminder that time is passing and he should be aging. And since he tried to recruit Bae already, wouldn't he have known that Bae wasn't the one he was seeking when Bae came to Neverland? Or did they have no idea that the boy hiding on Hook's ship was Bae? They talk like Pan knew everything happening in Neverland, and the Shadow had carried Bae all the way from London, so wouldn't the Shadow have already known that Bae wasn't the Truest Believer?

On 11/27/2018 at 3:26 AM, companionenvy said:

I give Henry something of a pass for what he did here, because he is a kid and Pan is a skilled manipulator. Even a kid without a hero complex might have trouble resisting a person him telling him that he is the most special person in all creation.

I don't really have a problem with Henry at this age desperately wanting to be a hero and being manipulated into doing something dumb based on this desire. My problem is that the show never questions or examines this hero complex. Even though Henry makes the wrong decision here because of it, the show doesn't seem to take the position that making being a hero such a priority that you do dumb things is a bad idea. In fact, they repeat it with Belle's desire to be a hero.

Spoiler

And they continue it with adult Henry, who's in his 30s, possibly pushing 40 (depending on the wacky timeline) and still wanting to be a hero.

The writers don't seem to get that there's a difference between wanting to do the right thing and hoping you'll rise to the occasion when there's a need for someone to step up and specifically wanting to be a hero. Or maybe it's the difference between wanting to act heroically and wanting to be a hero. The way the characters talk, what they want is to be recognized as a hero. You get the feeling they wouldn't be satisfied by doing something heroic if no one knew about it and they didn't get acclaimed for it.

On 11/27/2018 at 1:39 PM, tennisgurl said:

What’s up with people in this world being unable to move? Milah and Rumple couldn’t just go to a new town and start over, because Rumple wouldn’t for some reason, and now Rumple and Malcolm need to go a whole new world (pun?) to get a new start. Just go to another town, Rumples family! 

And, given Rumple's history in this town (if he's been in the same place all his life), you'd think he'd be eager to start all over somewhere else instead of digging his heels in. He let his marriage fall apart because he wanted to stay in the town where he was considered a hero, where he got stuck after his father abandoned him, and where his father was known as a loser wannabe con man.

[companionenvy]

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I don't think his lack of smarts would have been changed by no longer having to worry about responsibility about work or relationships. If he'd been at least somewhat successful and still wanted to escape to childhood again, it might have worked, but they portrayed him as a failure and kind of an idiot, while Pan is supposed to be so utterly brilliant that Hook is intimidated by his smarts.

That's fair; I agree that changing into Pan shouldn't have altered Malcolm's intelligence level. But even there, I think a huge boost in confidence and power level, combined with a huge decline in fear, might make a person significantly more competent; there's evidence that if, for instance, you make a comment about an Asian girl's Asianess before a math exam (thereby reminding her of the stereotype that Asians are good at math), she'll do significantly better than if you make a comment about her gender (thereby reminding her of the stereotype that girls are not good at math). And regardless, it seems to me that the transformation/change in circumstances would reasonably cause enough changes that it isn't totally destructive to the plot that Pan is so different from Malcolm, even if there are elements that may be iffy.

 

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

What doesn't make sense is that a Pan who ditched his own young son because the reminder of being a parent harshed his Neverland vibe to the point of breaking the spell would later go seek out his middle-aged son and try to recruit his grandson just to spite his son. You'd think he'd really need to avoid any reminder that time is passing and he should be aging. And since he tried to recruit Bae already, wouldn't he have known that Bae wasn't the one he was seeking when Bae came to Neverland? Or did they have no idea that the boy hiding on Hook's ship was Bae? They talk like Pan knew everything happening in Neverland, and the Shadow had carried Bae all the way from London, so wouldn't the Shadow have already known that Bae wasn't the Truest Believer?

No answers on whether or not Pan should have known either that Bae was the boy on Hook's ship or that he wasn't the Truest Believer, but IMO his attitude toward Bae could go either way - it would be reasonable for Pan to want to avoid all memories that he ever had a son, or that time was still passing -- but it also seems plausible to me that he might revel in the evidence that time is passing for everyone else, but not for him. The thing that makes less sense, to me, is a version of the same complaint a few posters have articulated about Neal's behavior toward Emma in S2 -- it is a lot more logical for Rumple to be spiteful toward Pan than for Pan to be spiteful toward Rumple, given that Pan's the one who abandoned him. Instead, Pan acts as if he is the aggrieved party who would have reason to enjoy further ruining Rumple's life.

Spoiler

Much later, the Black Fairy retcon provides some justification for that, but as it otherwise doesn't gel at all with what we see of Rumple and Pan's relationship in S3, I'm not willing to consider it here.

[Shanna Marie]

18 hours ago, companionenvy said:

That's fair; I agree that changing into Pan shouldn't have altered Malcolm's intelligence level. But even there, I think a huge boost in confidence and power level, combined with a huge decline in fear, might make a person significantly more competent;

Thinking about this further, they just talked about how brilliantly and fiendishly clever Pan was, but they didn't show anything that amazing. Your average junior high mean girl could probably outdo him. Not telling Killian all about the Neverland water was kind of a duh, and rather pointless from a sadism perspective, since he didn't get to see the result. He'd have had to imagine Killian's reaction when his brother dropped dead as soon as they left. It wouldn't have taken a lot of brains to figure out how to manipulate Henry. It doesn't seem like the map and making Emma admit to being a Lost Girl really had any impact. Giving Hook the dilemma about choosing between Neal and Emma was also rather obvious. The things that might have required more intelligence than Malcolm showed all happened offscreen, like putting together a multi-realm operation apparently just to find Henry (when it seems they knew where he was all along?) under the cover of an anti-magic organization (not that this was particularly clever, since it was overkill as far as plans go, but the organizational ability seems beyond Malcolm). We don't know who created the various magical objects they used, like the map, the anti-magic cuff, or who created the Echo Cave. Was it the Shadow? Did Pan make that stuff?

So, basically, they talked about how brilliant Pan was, but we didn't see anything particularly clever from him. It was just the really obvious manipulation based on superficial things. So maybe it's not such a stretch for Malcolm to turn into Pan.

19 hours ago, companionenvy said:

it would be reasonable for Pan to want to avoid all memories that he ever had a son, or that time was still passing -- but it also seems plausible to me that he might revel in the evidence that time is passing for everyone else, but not for him.

My main issue with this is that he specifically said his son couldn't stay on the island with him because it would make it harder for him to remain Pan. To be able to use the magic of Neverland, his son had to be gone. So it would seem that even if he wanted to revel in the evidence that time was passing for everyone else, that would be dangerous for him because seeing his middle-aged son and teenage grandson would remind him how old he really is and break the spell, especially while he was away from Neverland. If he couldn't have a small child with him in Neverland for fear of breaking the spell, being around his teenage grandson should have been something he'd have avoided.

[Camera One]

27 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Thinking about this further, they just talked about how brilliantly and fiendishly clever Pan was, but they didn't show anything that amazing.

In hindsight, it felt more like filler.  Every time on this show when the villain is all "Killing you is TOO easy" and they play so-called "mind games" (which are totally hit and miss), it feels like a stalling tactic by the Writers.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

In hindsight, it felt more like filler.  Every time on this show when the villain is all "Killing you is TOO easy" and they play so-called "mind games" (which are totally hit and miss), it feels like a stalling tactic by the Writers.

Some villains had reasons for stalling for time and playing "mind games", and others didn't. Even though Pan needed time to manipulate Henry into becoming a Lost Boy, he didn't need to toy with the Nevengers. He could've just imprisoned them, kept moving Henry around, or just attacked them in their sleep with Dreamshade.

Spoiler

Although Zelena's plan was kind of dumb, she at least ran around trying to get what she needed for the spell. (Charming's courage, Regina's heart, Rumple's brain, etc.) She had to wait for Snowflake to be born to use his innocence. Her distractions were mainly annoying her sister (which is in-character) and trying to make tacos with Rumple. (Which, unfortunately, was also in-character.) Pan was more, "I'm going to be the master of manipulation because A&E think Brilliant!Peter Pan would be cool!" and Zelena was more, "I'll waste time because that's totally what my character would do."

[Camera One]

Peter Pan was all powerful and knowing, until he was not.  I never bought they could have pulled off raiding the camp.  I don't even remember a scene with Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle together, and she was so trusted by him?  Why?  

[andromeda331]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Peter Pan was all powerful and knowing, until he was not.  I never bought they could have pulled off raiding the camp.  I don't even remember a scene with Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle together, and she was so trusted by him?  Why?  

They never explained.

[KingOfHearts]

23 hours ago, Camera One said:

Peter Pan was all powerful and knowing, until he was not.  I never bought they could have pulled off raiding the camp.  I don't even remember a scene with Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle together, and she was so trusted by him?  Why?  

I almost wrote a weird fanfic once about their meeting. Pan had this weird infatuation with her. (One that wasn't returned!)

[KAOS Agent]

On 12/1/2018 at 4:53 PM, Camera One said:

Peter Pan was all powerful and knowing, until he was not.  I never bought they could have pulled off raiding the camp.

Maybe he didn't care at that point because he wasn't there. The Nevengers were distracted by others giving him time to finish working on Henry. He's got to know at this point that the kid is a moron with a huge hero complex. It should be a cake walk to get that kid to do what he wants.