Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: A- | 6 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Rumpy's Choice
By Tippi Blevins | Season 1 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.22.2012
As Emma heads back into the party, she finds herself face to face with Mr. Gold. "Hard to let him go, isn't it?" he asks. "Yeah, pretty much the hardest thing," she agrees. "Speaking of things we weren't talking about..." She segues into asking Gold if he's the one who took Kathryn and just to her back. Instead of answering her, he points out the flaw in her line of questioning: "Are you proposing that I'm working with Regina, or against her?" She stumbles a bit. "I don't know... Maybe diagonally!" Heh. He invites her to keep working on that and asks her about August. He tells her about finding August poking around the shop earlier. He thinks "August Wayne Booth" is a false name and knows from false names. Nonetheless, Emma says she trusts August, at least more than she trusts Gold.
Fairy Tale Land. Rumplestiltskin and Baelfire return home. A young woman is tidying up the modest cottage and stops when they walk inside. "Thank you, Onora," Rumplestiltskin says to her. "You can fetch our supper now, dearie." She leaves the house. Is she getting takeout? "You killed that man," Baelfire says. "You were hurt," Rumplestiltskin says. "Speaking of which -" He raises his hand to work some mojo on Baelfire's scrape, but Baelfire gently pushes his hand away and fetches a medieval first-aid kit. Rumplestiltskin gives in to the boy. "You've changed," Baelfire says while his father tends his wound the old-fashioned way. "You see it, don't you? You hurt people all the time." Rumpy looks genuinely hurt by this. He tries to explain about stopping the Ogre's War and saving all the children. "Surely a man who's saved a thousand lives -" "- is done," Baelfire finishes for him. He makes an impassioned plea to his father, but Rumpy's not hearing him. He wants more power, not less, and tries to convince Baelfire (and himself) that's all to protect him. Baelfire points out that he wouldn't need to be protected in the first place if his father didn't have power.
Rumplestiltskin tries a different tack: "Well, I can't get rid of it!" But kids always have a follow-up question: "Have you tried?" Rumplestiltskin pulls out his special knife and shows it to Baelfire. "If someone kills me with this, then they gain the power," he exposits. "Now, you know that, Bae." Then why are you telling him again? Also, it doesn't exactly answer the boy's question. Onora walks back in with supper, just in time to hear something she wasn't meant to hear. It just got all Downton Abbey up in here. Rumpy tucks the knife back into his coat and waves Onora away. Baelfire is still pressing the matter. "If I find a way for you to get rid of the power - a way that doesn't kill you or hurt me - will you do it?" Rumpy insists it's not possible, but Bae is persistent, even when his father offers to conjure up anything his heart desires. What Bae wants is his father, or what his father used to be. Rumplestiltskin softens. "If you find a way, I'll do it," he says. Bae brightens and extends his hand to seal the deal. Rumplestiltskin stares at his son's hand for a moment before shaking it. "The deal is struck," Baelfire says with a grin. "Struck," Rumplestiltskin agrees.