ONCE UPON A TIME: Beauty Is Only “Skin Deep” But Grudges Span Worlds

Previously on Once Upon a Time, my DVR refused to record because the episode was scheduled until 9:01 so it conflicted with two other programs. When I finally had time to watch the episode online, it was, in a nutshell, the story of how the Evil Queen acquired her Magic Mirror and exposed the latest plot by Regina to keep tabs on Operation Cobra. I have to admit, Sydney had me as fooled as Emma. Could he be running a triple-cross and end up helping Emma anyway? We’ll have to wait and see. This week, we’re changing focus to one of the most enduring fairytales: Beauty & the Beast. And what a heartbreaker it is.

In Fairytale Land, the war with the ogres is not going well and a kingdom is falling. As the King and his advisors stress, the beautiful princess, Belle (Emilie de Ravin), holds out hope the “he” is on the way to help them. “He” turns out to be Rumplestiltskin and his price for helping the kingdom is Belle. A strapping young man, Gaston, bristles at the demand. He is her fiance, and he forbids it. Ah, but Belle has a mind of her own. In exchange for the promise that her family and the kingdom will be safe, she promises to go with Rumplestiltskin as his caretaker.

Rumple treats Belle as his servant, taking some happiness in humiliating the princess in the familiar yellow dress, but she is up to the challenge. He gives her a room in the dungeon and startles her so that she drops a teacup, chipping the rim in yet another nod to the Disney movie. (Timeline Note: Rumple already has the puppets from Jiminy’s episode.) Some time passes and we see her in the blue and white dress, up on a ladder trying to open the curtains in the Great Hall while Rumple spins straw into gold. They’re teasing each other, clearly more at ease in each other’s presence, when Belle falls off the ladder, right into Rumple’s arms. It’s a charged moment, hinting at their growing feelings.

Belle is a talker, and inquisitive. She tells Rumple that she’s found a room with small clothes and asks if he had a son. He confirms that he did, to which she gives a small, satisfied nod. “So you were a man, once. An ordinary man.” She’s definitely seeing more in him than the beast he thinks himself to be.

Just as their relationship starts to turn this corner, Gaston appears at the castle door to claim Belle. He’s full of puffed up bride and ego, but not a lot of intelligence. Before he can do more than bluster, Rumple turns him into a red rose, which he then gives to Belle. I have to say, her clipping the end off the rose before putting it in the vase made me wince.

With a glimmer of hope in his eye, Rumple asks Belle why she chose to come with him. Now, one of the reasons I’m so enjoying this show is that we’re getting a look at the various fairy tale princesses beyond their traditional “damsel in distress” portrayals. Belle has always seemed to me to be one of the strongest and bravest heroines in fairy tales, and the Once Upon a Time Belle bears that out. She tells Rumple that she chose to come out of “heroism”. She’d always dreamt of being a hero, of being brave and seeing the world, but such opportunities for women are almost nonexistent. This was her chance, so she took it. Her dream of seeing the world didn’t work out, but she did get to save the village.

Rumple then asks if she misses her fiance. You know, the one she just put in a vase on the table. Belle confesses that it was an arranged marriage and she didn’t love him. Considering the way he strong-armed her while “protecting” her from Rumple back in her father’s castle, I’m thinking Belle wouldn’t have been happy with him. She tells Rumple that she believes, “Love is layered. Love is a mystery to be uncovered.” Gaston was too superficial. For someone who looks like Rumple, those words had to have held special meaning.

In what could be interpreted as either selfless (he really wants to set her free) or selfish (he’s afraid of his feelings) Rumple decides to send Belle to town to fetch more straw to spin; when she returns, he’ll tell her about his son. “You trust me to return?” “Oh Belle, I expect I’ll never see you again.”

Indeed, Belle appears to be leaving him when she encounters the Queen on the road. Sensing an opportunity, the Queen dismounts from her carriage and walks with Belle for a bit. She quickly surmises that Belle is running from a lover as well as a master. Belle confesses that she could love him, except that something evil has taken root within his soul. “Sounds like a curse to me,” the Queen says, as though everyone knows that. But she knows what to do, and helpfully tells Belle that, “True Love’s Kiss will break any curse.”

Full of hope, Belle eagerly returns to the castle with her basket of straw. Rumple sees her coming from a window and races to the spinning wheel so it doesn’t look like he was watching for her. Oh, you two. Belle settles into Rumple’s personal space and claims her story. It’s short, but that’s OK with our young miss who takes advantage of the moment to kiss him. Immediately, the curse starts to break. Belle is ecstatic, but Rumplestiltskin is furious. He suspects someone told Belle how to take his power, and it doesn’t take him long to reach the conclusion that it was the Queen, trying to gain the upper hand. Either that, or Belle was trying to be a hero by killing the Beast. In a rage, Rumple throws Belle in the dungeon, yelling over her protests of love and innocence, “No one could ever, ever love me!” He takes his anger out on the house, destroying the treasures he’s amassed, shattering the china service, until he gets to the chipped cup. An item he treasures too much to destroy.

Back under control, safe in the coldness of his power, Rumple releases Belle. Heartbroken, she calls him out for not taking the chance on happiness with her. “My power means more to me than you,” he tells her. “No, it doesn’t,” she says sadly. “You just don’t think I can love you. Now you’ve made your choice. and you’re going to regret it forever. All you’ll have is an empty heart and a chipped cup.”

Sometime later, the Queen drops by the castle to strike a deal with Rumple about “a certain mermaid.” Ha! Bet she has red hair and sings. Rumple is still upset about her attempt at breaking his power with Belle’s kiss and greets her request with more than his usual disdain. Spotting a wound, the Queen promptly rubs salt in it by telling him that with her fiance having “disappeared” and after living with him, Belle was basically ruined. Her father shunned her, cut her off, shut her out. In a moment of hope, Rumple thinks maybe he can offer a home. Oh no, says the Queen, her father had her locked in a tower and sent in clerics to “cleanse her soul” with scourges and flame. Eventually she jumped out off the tower and committed suicide. The pain on Rumple’s face… Robert Carlyle may be the real star of this show.

Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, Mr. Gold visits a florist who has defaulted on a loan. It’s the day before Valentine’s Day, but Mr. Gold shows no mercy and take the man’s truck in payment. He then meets Regina on the sidewalk; she wants to talk, but he refuses. A subtle reminder of who has the real power in Storybrooke.

At Granny’s, Mary Margaret and David sit at separate tables, carrying on a not-so-secret flirtation. Yeah, they’re not fooling anyone. Emma arrives, rolls her eyes at them both, then settles in so Mary Margaret can give her a report on Henry. When a harried Ashley shows up and hands off the baby to Granny, Ruby senses that a Girls Night Out is needed. Emma declines, but Ashley and Mary Margaret are in.

Mr. Gold arrives home to find that his house has been broken into. Emma arrives, after neighbors called the police because they noticed that the door was open. This really is a small town. After a tense moment, Mr. Gold says that some things were stolen and that  he thinks it was the florist, Moe. (P.S. Moe was Sir Maurice, Belle’s father, in Fairytale Land.) Acting on this tip, Emma retrieves the stolen goods in record time. I mean, she gets it done that same day. Watch out, criminals, Sheriff Swan is on the case! Mr. Gold acknowledges that most of the items are there, but something is still missing and I’m pretty sure it’s the chipped teacup from the china service.

Meanwhile Ashley and Mary Margaret aren’t quite the upbeat companions Ruby imagined for Girls Night Out. Annoyed, Ruby goes to flirt with some men at the bar. Ashley is frustrated because Sean is always working and hasn’t even proposed yet, while Mary Margaret agrees that if people are meant to be together, then they should be together. The man she wishes she were with is just down the street buying Valentine’s Day cards. Two of them. One is a lovey dovey card, the other is a cute, rather childish card. Ten points if you know who the intended recipients are.

Mr. Gold is also at the store, buying duct tape and rope. I am concerned. Sure enough, he kidnaps Moe, using his own van. He hauls Moe up to that cabin in the woods where David and Mary Margaret escaped the rain, and beats him to find out where “it” is. He’s totally lost control, seeing Belle’s father and screaming that he hurt her, that he took her away forever. This scene was intercut with Rumple destroying the treasures after Belle’s “betrayal” mentioned above, and it’s a powerful character moment in both worlds. Emma stops him, somehow knowing to visit the cabin in the middle of nowhere at that precise moment.

While Emma is off preventing a beating death, Mary Margaret and Ashley continue to bond over their love lives. That is, until Sean shows up at the bar to see Ashley with roses and an engagement ring. All romanced out, Mary Margaret decides to head home but meets David outside the bar. He’s knew she’d be there, because he’s a stalker it’s a small town. David gives Mary Margaret a Valentine’s Day card, but hands her Cathryn’s by mistake. It’s the cutesy one. While Mary Margaret isn’t happy about the mix up, and for a moment there I thought she was going to call off their relationship entirely, they left it at “there must be a better way.” So the saga of Mary Margaret and David continues. And you can vote for them to get on with it in our poll.

Back to the main story, Emma has arrested Mr. Gold for battery and somehow he doesn’t get out on bail immediately. Because he has no one to post it for him? At least Emma has some sympathy and offers him half of her sandwich as repayment of the favor she owes him. Mr. Gold isn’t taking that deal. Regina arrives and offers Emma 30 minutes with Henry in exchange for time with Mr. Gold. With promises to return with an ice cream cone for the prisoner, they take off. It quickly comes out that Regina put the florist up to breaking into the house, to take what’s his, and that she is in position of the mysterious “it”. She’ll give it back in exchange for the answer to one question.

“What’s your name?”

OMG!

He tries to play innocent and hems and haws around, until he finally says it.

“Rumplestiltskin.”

And, it’s ON. Regina has confirmation that Mr. Gold is not under the curse, but he reminds her that he’s the one who holds the real power in both worlds. She returns the teacup.

But just when it appears that she’s met her match, Regina has more trump cards up her sleeves. Cut to Regina visiting a restricted ward at the hospital. She gives the nurse on duty red rose (do we recognize the nurse?) and inquires after a patient. No one has ever been to see her. Ever. Regina walks down some creepy corridors, passing a Dwarf?, and peeks through the door of a padded cell…it’s Belle.

Now, in order for Belle to be in Storybrooke, she had to have been alive when the Curse took hold, so clearly the Queen lied about her committing suicide. Cannot wait until Mr. Gold finds out about this!

New characters this week: Belle

Next week: Regina tells Cathryn that David is having an affair, and a siren tempts Prince Charming.