Sunday, April 10, 2016

Once Upon a Time 5.17: “Her Handsome Hero”

“I’ve accepted that no one will fight for a child like its father, you’ve proven that much.”
- Belle

As we’ve seen with the rest of the flashbacks in this half of the season, we are getting some holes filled in on some more of our characters this week: namely Belle. When we find her in the Enchanted Forest, she s railing against her father trying to set her up on a date with Gaston. She’s heard he’s kind of a womanizer and super vain. But he is definitely good looking and he manages to convince to go on one walk with him. How bad can that be? They are actually kind of having a nice time and then Gaston runs off because he hears some big beast. It turns out to be a baby-ish ogre. Belle insists they try to find out what it knows without harming it. Ever the optimist. She finds a magical mirror which will show them whether the ogre has evil in it and as she goes to find said mirror, Gaston plans to hunker down with Belle’s favorite book and keep watch over the baby ogre. I knew we shouldn’t trust Gaston (and not just because he seemed too good to be true). He claims the beast escaped and injured him when Belle and her father arrive with the mirror. Both men tell Belle to go home when she declares she wants to go on the hunt for the beast to see if the mirror works. Yeah, I have a feeling it is going to work all right and show her that Gaston has evil in him. And I was right (but at least the ogre went free). And then Belle is forced to accept Gaston’s marriage proposal (I have to side with Rumple on this one, he saved her from that jerk face).

In the Underworld, Belle confronts Rumple about the crap he’s doled out on their family. She refuses to be separated from her child and she gives Rumple an ultimatum: save their baby without dark magic or lose her and the child forever. I kind of hope that if Rumple does slip up, Belle kicks him to the curb for good. He has had plenty of chances to fix things with her and while I understand he has an inherent nature towards craving power and signs of an addiction to dark magic, you can only give someone so many second chances before it is just too painful and futile. While they are cooking up a way to get their baby back in their arms for good, Hades is following Zelena around town and notices flowers are starting to sprout. He can’t have that (dang heroes providing hope) so he tasks Gaston with killing Rumple. Yeah, that’s not going to end well for anyone. Rumple and Belle aren’t having much luck finding a light magic spell to save their baby and when Rumple insists they’ll fail without dark magic, she storms out. Right into Gaston’s waiting crosshairs. He fires a few arrows at Rumple, drops the truth bomb about being turned into a rose and murdered and swears he’s going to kill Rumple. After the Dark One whisks them to safety, he explains to pissed-off wife that if he even gets a scratch from the magical arrows Gaston is firing, he’ll end up trapped in the River of Lost Souls, unable to help or protect their child. So, thanks to Belle’s optimistic spirit, she insists on helping Gaston move on. Besides, it might help weaken Hades.

The Charmings have their own issues to deal with. Regina thinks maybe she can talk to Zelena and glean whatever information her big sister has on their foe. And Emma, after having something of a prophetic dream, thinks they can burn their names off the headstones. But she kind of freaks out when Snow wants to go with her and Hook (because in Emma’s dream, Snow gets carried off by some hurricane monster thing). And unfortunately for Emma, her day is going terribly because the dream plays out almost exactly like she’d seen. But instead of Snow getting snatched, they all make a run for it. Emma eventually gets around to telling Snow that in the dream, the monster killed her. Meanwhile, Regina is having a little sisterly chat with Zelena. After reassuring her big sis that the baby is safe, she digs into what Zelena knows about Hades. Zelena admits that Hades fell in love with her and she thinks it’s ridiculous. Regina picks up on the possibility that Zelena might love him back and also gets Zelena to admit she is likely the god’s weakness. I really hope this doesn’t end with Regina sacrificing Zelena to get to Hades. But before we can even get to Regina sharing this new intel with the rest of the family, we have to get Emma to admit she’s scared of everyone dying and it being her fault. But a little pep talk from her mom brightens her up and they agree to face the monster together.

Belle and Rumple head to Gaston’s place of work and after bickering about whether Rumple uses magic to break into Gaston’s locker is dark magic, Belle discovers that she is Gaston’s unfinished business. So she decides to wait for him to come back and sends Rumple away. But she doesn’t get her fiancé stopping by. Instead, Hades pays her a visit with an offer. He’ll take the mark off the baby if she lets Gaston and Rumple face off and one of them pushes the other into the River of Lost Souls. Interestingly, he doesn’t’ specify which guy needs to take the plunge. I still can’t see Belle making such a dark decision. When Belle finally catches up to Gaston, he is kind of a raving jackass. He rants about he’s tried to throw the book out because it reminds him of how and why he died. He kind of blames her and he’s even more pissed when he finds out Belle married Rumple. And her day just goes from bad to worse when she fills Rumple in on the deal Hades offered. He’s going to accept that deal and shove Gaston right into the water. Yep, Rumple definitely tries to do that but Belle runs in at the last second and stops him. Well she kisses him and grabs his dagger and orders him not to harm Gaston. Too bad Gaston isn’t under the same influence. Oh, and then in Belle’s attempt to keep him from hurting Rumple, Gaston falls into the river. Guess they may just be keeping their baby safe after all. Or not because Belle was the one who pushed Gaston in.

And it turns out the monster the rest of the gang is hunting isn’t a monster after all but wolf-form Ruby. Well that’s interesting and I hope we get to see some more fun stuff with her and Mulan in the coming weeks (or next week as the case may be). I’m still kind of shipping Mulan Rouge here. Besides, I think the writers said there would be a same-sex relationship and Mulan is the only LGBT character we know of so far.

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