Once Upon A Time - Season 2 Episode 4 - Recap and Review - The Crocodile
Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) is perhaps the most intriguing character on Once Upon A Time, a character that exists as a morally ambiguous answer to Regina's less ambiguous villainy. There's something alluring in the concept of a redeemable villain, the idea that perhaps there's a bit of good in everyone, even someone like Sylar on Heroes, Ben on Lost, and even The Dark One himself. It's a classic trope in literature, particularly in fairy tales, where we've seen beasts transformed by the power of love. The thing is, fairy tales don't often stick around past "happily ever after," so it's hard to see if the transformation ever really sticks. Such is the case with Mr. Gold and his relationship with Belle (Emilie De Ravin). We've seen Gold go through this change half a dozen times, it feels like. He recognizes that he's hurting Belle with his desperation for power, resolves to change his ways, and then ultimately proves that he can't (or won't). By that logic, this should feel tired. Yet, as the focus of "The Crocodile," Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold provides compelling opportunities for the show to tell stories centered more on character than on plot. This results in one of my favorite episodes yet, even if the introduction of Captain Hook (Colin O'Donoghue) underlines one of the bigger problems with the show's structure.
This week skips over dealing with Snow White/Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) completely, and cuts right to the heart of Gold's desire for power. Rumpelstiltskin's wife, Milah (Rachel Shelley), has no interest in being a wife or a mother, and seems to want nothing more than to see the world. She's ashamed to be married to the village coward, and when the dashing, handsome Captain Killian Jones comes into her life, she sets off with him under the guise of having been abducted. Unbeknownst to Rumpelstiltskin, Jones and Milah are in love. Truly. Not that it matters once he decides to take his revenge against Captain Jones with a duel at dawn. As The Dark One, Rumpelstiltskin is able to easily best Jones, and is about to finish the job before Milah interferes, holding the magic bean procured by Smee, on Rumpelstiltskin's behalf, that will allow him to bridge the gap between worlds so that he can search for his son, Baelfyre. The standoff between Rumpelstiltskin and Milah results in years of resentment boiling over. Before Jones can even blink, Rumpelstiltskin restrains him with his own ship's ropes, forcing him to watch as he kills Milah by reaching into her body and removing her heart. Jones, overwhelmed with grief, refuses to hand over the magic bean, and so Rumpelstiltskin cuts off the offending hand, leaving Jones with a stump - and it's hardly any mystery what object he puts in his hand's place.
And here's the earlier problem I was talking about. Once Upon A Time has a knack for creating some pretty great villains, in the sense that they're clearly defined, and easy to hate. It really should be a more pronounced strength for the show than it is, but it seems the show never gets enough credit for the crafting of its antagonists. The reason, I feel, is because the series doesn't allow our villains to be villains for very long before asking us to sympathize with them. We meet jerkwad Captain Jones, yet by episode's end, it's another instance of a character's origin being couched in romantic pathos. While this makes for a more layered villain over time, the show would be better served by adopting a more straightforward approach to its antagonists. A conflicted villain with an origin story rich in pathos is all well and good, but not so much once you realize that it's more or less the motivation behind why Rumpelstiltskin is the way he is, along with Regina (Lana Parrilla), and, it's implied in dialogue from the first season, her mother, Cora (Barbara Hershey). That said, if that's all I really have to complain about this week, then great! Seriously. I like Hook, even if they went a little overboard on the guyliner. And it appears that he'll be getting involved in Cora's end of things, as she's taken the ashes from the burned down wardrobe last week, and placed them in a vial, with the hopes of making a concoction that will open a portal to Storybrooke, and to their revenge.
Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, Belle spots Gold spinning...gold. Or, rather, she catches him practicing magic, which he promised not to do. Belle runs off, makes a new friend in Red Riding Hood/Ruby, and...gets abducted by Mr. Smee, acting on behalf of her father, who wants nothing more than to be reunited with her. Of course, this leads to a series of increasingly ridiculous complications, including Belle's father plotting to send her over the town line so she'll lose all her memories of Mr. Gold, and himself as well. Kind of a convoluted plan, but I've heard a lot about love and all the crazy things it'll make you do, so I imagine that's magnified twentyfold in Storybrooke. It's not a particularly strong storyline on its own (it's made stronger when paired with Rumpelstiltskin's business in Fairy Tale Land), but at least it shows that Gold seems to have some measure of awareness about his constant fluctuations in attitude regarding power. He's desperate to find a way to be reunited with Baelfyre, and while he loves Belle, nothing is going to interfere with that goal. Belle, practically extra-terrestrial in her alien ability to continually forgive, completely understands, and offers to go on a hamburger date with him. Because, despite what Juno would have us believe, hamburgers are more than just phones.
I thoroughly enjoyed "The Crocodile," and I hardly even noticed that we got no advancement on what Snow/Emma are up to, which should probably have been a more conspicuous omission than it turned out to be. Next week has the chance to be cheesy as hell, or every bit as stellar as tonight's hour. At the very least, it'll answer one of the show's longest-running questions: Exactly who is Dr. Whale?
