Once Upon A Recap

By Kelvin Cedeño

Nasty Habits

(Episode 3x04)

The Enchanted Forest Flashback

We join young Baelfire not long after his father Rumpelstiltskin has become the dark one. Rumpel keeps Bae indoors at all times for fear that his enemies will come after his son, but Bae believes the real reason is because Rumpel’s afraid he will run away. The two have an argument over this, and when Rumpel returns later hoping to win him over, his fear has been realized: Bae’s gone.

Rumpel tracks Bae to the village of Hamlin. All the children in the town have been lured away overnight by a mysterious cloaked figure playing a pipe. Rumpel waits for the stranger and his music to return and hears it that night. He follows all of the children drawn to the music into the woods and finds them all dancing around a campfire. The cloaked figure with the pipe turns out to be Peter Pan.

Peter has been lonely in Neverland and has lured away boys who feel unloved by their parents to join him on the island. Rumpel doesn’t believe Bae could be persuaded so easily, so Peter lets Rumpel ask Bae for himself. Instead, Rumpel magically transports himself and Bae back home. Bae is furious. Peter told him beforehand about making the offer to Rumpel, and Bae’s upset that Rumpel didn’t trust him enough to even ask if he wanted to stay with Peter, especially since he would’ve gone home if given the choice.

Neverland: The Quintet

Snow White, David, Emma, Regina, Hook, and Tinker Bell all hatch a plan to break into Peter’s campsite. Unfortunately, upon finding out the group hasn’t come up with an escape plan, Tink leaves. Hook mentions that there’s been only one person who’s managed to leave the island without Peter’s permission: Bae. They head over to a cave Bae lived in during his stay and find it covered with drawings. Emma discovers a coconut with holes at the top and a candle inside. The holes form a map of the stars on the ceiling – a map to home. The group is discouraged, though, when Hook realizes Bae disguised the map with a certain code only he could understand.

The Bae-centered evening takes its toll on Emma, and she runs off upset over her lost love. Neverland: Rumpel, Bae, and Henry Bae is caught by Felix upon his arrival to Neverland but escapes. He runs into Rumpel who at first thinks he’s an illusion like Belle has been. Upon realizing Bae’s real and alive, Rumpel joins him in a plan to get Henry back. The two of them kill a squid in order to retrieve its ink, ink that can freeze a magical being like Peter.

Peter tries to get Henry to join the other Lost Boys in the festivities, but Henry refuses. When Peter tries to play his pipe for him, a pipe only boys who feel unloved can hear, Henry hears nothing. Suddenly, everyone but Peter is knocked out by a sleeping spell, and Rumpel and Bae make themselves known. Bae shoots an arrow at Peter, and although Peter catches it, the intention is done: the arrow was laced with squid ink. Bae retrieves Henry, but as he and his father leave, Peter mentions the prophecy.

After they’ve gone, Bae demands to know about the prophecy and is horrified to know Rumpel had considered killing Henry. Rumpel swears that’s no longer the case and that he’s a changed man ready to sacrifice his life for Henry’s, but Bae doesn’t want to take the chance. He freezes Rumpel with squid ink and carries a still unconscious Henry away. After the spell wears off, Rumpel confesses aloud to Belle his concerns over Bae’s mistrust and whether or not it’s valid. Despite her comforts, Rumpel sends the vision of Belle away.

Bae arrives at the quintet’s campsite but is caught by Peter and the Lost Boys. Henry wakes up after Bae’s already been taken away. Peter and Henry talk, and during the conversation, Peter stresses the fact that Henry thinks Bae’s dead and that Emma still hasn’t come to rescue him, yet. Playing his flute again for Henry, Peter’s pleased to see Henry can hear it, now, and Henry proceeds to join the Lost Boys in the celebration.

Once Upon A Theory

The biggest surprise of the episode is the revelation that Rumpel and Peter knew each other as children. Rumpel mentions Peter betraying him somehow, a plot point we’re sure to get a flashback narrative for at some point. Peter seems to know an awful lot about Rumpel as he mentions how both Rumpel’s father and wife Mila have left him, the latter being something that happened presumably long after Peter and Rumpel parted ways. Turning Pan into the Pied Piper of Hamlin was a clever touch, and it’ll be interesting to see what other roles he may play in the series. At the moment, Rumpel thinks Bae still has Henry, so we have yet to know what his next move will be. As soon as he somehow finds out Peter’s got Henry again, it wouldn’t seem out of the question for Rumpel to sacrifice his life by the season’s end as it would complete his character arc of trying to become selfless.

It still hasn’t been revealed, yet, how Bae escaped from Neverland as a boy, so that’s something else to watch out for. There’s also the ticking clock of David’s dreamshade wound which only Hook knows about at the moment. It’s already been explained in the previous episode by Tink that Regina’s magic can’t work against dreamshade, but that doesn’t mean Rumpel’s can’t, either.

Despite the visions we have of her (the cause of those still being a tad unclear), we don’t know what Belle’s up to at Storybrooke, nor do we know what any of the town residents are up to. Despite this clearly being a Neverland-centric season, with the cast of characters the show has at its disposal, it seems only logical we catch up with the town (not to mention the present-day Enchanted Forest). There’s still an obviously large gap in Aurora and Phillip’s story that needs to be filled soon.