Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: B+ | 460 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Hook, Line and Sinker
By Cindy McLennan | Season 2 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2012.10.21
Milah asks if they have a deal. Can they go their separate ways? Rumpy grandstands -- saying she really wants to know if he's "over it." He can see they're twuly in luv and has just one question: "How could you leave Bae?" The wind kicks up. Ropes tied to the rail, fly free. Rumpy continues. "Do you know what it was like walking home that night, knowing that I had to tell our son his mother was dead?" Milah starts to make some excuse and says she wishes she'd had the courage to tell the truth. Admitting to her cowardice, she also blahs about how there's not a day that goes by that she doesn't feel sorry about leaving Bae, but I don't like it, and not just because this is all a very heavy-handed lesson for current, Storybrooke Rumpy.
Sidebar: As a mother, of course I mostly don't like that she could leave her boy, just to run off with her lover. I understand some marriages sour into a loveless state, and others, perhaps, never had any love at all. I don't understand how a parent abandons a child. But let's put my self-righteousness aside for a moment. What I really don't understand is Milah's characterization. As soon as she saw Bae in that tavern, she rose to her feet and rushed to his side. She was ashamed, to be sure, but she also struck me as protective. While she was glad to get away from Rumpy and carouse with pirates, the mere sight of her boy was enough to straighten her out and send her home. And then she just leaves? And now -- now she's back saying she feels sorry for leaving him, every single day, and yet -- she hasn't once asked about him. Bah. Maybe I do understand her characterization, and I just don't like her. I guess that's not problematic writing, so I'll stop babbling at you and return to the story because I like what comes next.
Sorry isn't enough for Rumpy who lambastes her for letting Bae go. I wonder how much of his anger is self-recrimination. Milah moans that she let her misery cloud her judgment. Rumpy looks her up and down. "Why were you so miserable?" Milah: "Because I never loved you." Rumpy glares at her for a moment, and then shoves his hand into her chest. Jones rushes at them, but Rumpy magically throws him off and ties him to the mast. He pulls out Milah's heart. I miss Graham. Jones yells, "No." The heart glows candy apple red. Jones cuts himself free. A hook falls to the deck. Jones rushes up behind Milah, who leans back on him as she looks at her own heart beating away in the hand of the man she betrayed. Jones lowers her to the deck. She caresses his face, and whispers, "I love you." Rumpy squeezes the heart. Milah gasps her last breath and dies. We watch as the dust that was once her heart spills out of his still clenched fist. He opens his fingers to release it.