Once Upon a Time: Think Lovely Thoughts (3x08)

I've been checking out some comprehensive family trees of this show, and let me tell ya, it's getting really twisty. Let's go through the plot very quickly. I apologize in advance for the short length of this review, even though the episode is so weighty and important, but I'm on a serious time crunch.

So, in flashback we learn the story of Rumple and his father. His dad is a gambler and a cheat, but one day two old women give little Rumple a magic bean that can take him away to a new land for a fresh start. Rumple goes to his father and his father remembers a land he used to visit in his dreams as a child. It's called Neverland. The two of them use the bean to create a portal to Neverland, and when there, Rumple's dad seems a lot more excited than Rumple himself is. However, Rumple then meets a creepy shadow, who says the only way for him to fly and use his imagination like he used to is if he becomes a kid again. And the only way to do that is to let go of his son. The shadow takes Rumple away and back to his home, while Rumple's dad becomes... Pan! The shadow tells Pan that he has broken the rules in choosing to stay in Neverland, and that his youth will not last forever.

In the continued efforts to save Henry, we now have all of our rescue team together once more. Neal tells everyone that Rumple is here to kill Henry, not save him, and although Rumple tries to profess his innocence, nobody trusts him. He hands over Pandora's Box to Neal to prove himself. He also agrees to help save David once they get off the island, since he says there is another way to counteract the poison, and this way David can come home with his family. When they all arrive at Pan's camp, they discover that Henry and Pan are nowhere to be found. They then find Wendy, who tells them that Henry's heart will save Pan and make him more powerful than ever, but if Henry gives his heart, he'll die. The group splits up - Mary Margaret and David to go fetch more water, which can keep David alive away from Neverland until Rumple makes the cure. Hook and Tink stay to watch over the boy's camp, and Rumple, Regina, Neal, and Emma go to find Henry and Pan.

The four of them reach Skull Rock, but Pan and Henry are already there, and Pan makes it impossible for anyone with a shadow to get past his barrier. Rumple is able to go in, and Neal gives him back Pandora's Box. Meanwhile, Emma and Regina try to blot out the moon to stop themselves from having shadows so that they too can follow and try to help save Henry. Inside the cave, Pan tells Henry that he has to hand over his heart, which at first Henry is obviously nervous about. Rumple then shows up and Pan goes to deal with him. The two of them talk for a bit, and then Rumple tries to trap Pan in Pandora's Box. However, Pan has used trickery to switch the box out with a fake one, and Pan then opens the real Pandora's Box and traps Rumple.

Pan then goes back to Henry and tells him that there is a price to pay - if Henry hands over his heart, he'll have to stay on the island forever, but that it will be worth it because he'll be saving magic. Henry pulls out his heart and is just about to hand it over when Emma, Regina, and Neal show up. They try to convince him not to, and while Henry says that he does love them, he knows he has to save magic. He shoves his heart into Pan's chest and collapses on the ground, as Pan rises into the air, clearly more powerful than ever before.

Okay, so this episode did a lot, and a lot of it worked very well. I'm going to start by talking about the weakest elements, however.

- Child actors. I'm really sorry, but the boy who played young Rumplestiltskin just wasn't up to the task. He did a very unbalanced job of it. He was adorable though. And again, Jared S. Gilmore does a fine job as long as he's not given anything too complex to work with. Here, unfortunately, he failed to hit the mark.

- Rumple and his father's back story was perhaps too strong of an echo from Rumple's own story with Bae. I'm cool with some parallel storytelling, but they practically used the same dialogue.

- The rules of Neverland are not really made clear... the shadow (Marilyn Manson) was confusing. He said something about Neverland being a place for children to visit in their dreams, but how was the magic bean even able to bring them there? On the same sort of note, who were those two women who gave Rumple the bean in the first place? I was scratching my head at some of this stuff. Maybe it will be explained later?

But now onto the good stuff:

- That twist! I actually totally called it. I really wish I had written it down in my last review as proof, but you can ask some of my friends - I totally guessed that Pan was Rumple's dad. Still, it's a great twist and it adds yet another fascinating dynamic to the crazy family tree.

- That end scene with Henry choosing between Rumple and his moms and dad worked really well. Now that we have a supposedly dead Henry and an all-powerful Pan, I'm curious to see what the next step is.

- Wendy. I really like the girl playing her, and I thought her reunion with Neal/Bae was really cute. I hope we get to see a lot more of her, and of her brothers, as we move forward. 

- Rumple. Just, all of Rumple in this episode. I liked how nobody trusted him, but how he is genuinely trying to be a good person. I'm particularly interested to see what's going to happen now that he's trapped in Pandora's Box. (As a side note, do you think we're ever going to get it explained to us how that thing works? Also. why is it that Rumple thinks the only way to kill Pan is through his own death? I want answers!)

There's a lot more I could say... again I'm sorry to be so brief. I think the big plot developments outweigh some of the weaker spots, and I'm getting more and more excited to see how we move forward from here.

8/10