ONCE UPON A TIME She Did a Bad Bad Thing
Episode 219 “Lacey”
[Photos: Jack Rowand/ABC]
Oh, well, this is a new wrinkle, isn’t it?
It was just a matter of time before we circled back to the Beauty and her Beast, and this episode gives us a little more back-story, and really falls short in delivering on its overhyped promise of introducing Robin Hood to the Once mythos.
Back story first, because it’s simple: Belle has just begun her imprisonment and life of servitude with Rumpelstiltskin, and is still very upset about it. Rumple, in the meantime, isn’t too happy with the crying and carrying on. He’s especially annoyed when an archer makes the attempt to rob the Dark One. Bad idea. Rumpelstiltskin takes him prisoner and begins a regimen of torture, and Belle wants no part of it. She goes behind the wizard’s back, sets the thief free, making Rumpelstiltskin terribly upset.
So they go hunting.
Ending up in Nottingham, they bump into the Sheriff, who has an interest in Belle as payment for giving information to Rumpelstiltskin regarding a certain thief named Robin Hood.
Ah. So we’ve introduced Robin Hood. Sort of in an off-hand manner, and without the usual frills when bringing in a new character. I’m used to a scene that involves the writers being clever in the reveal. This one… meh.
On the other hand, the Storybrooke elements were pretty well-crafted. Knowing that Rumpelstiltskin is going to make trouble, she decides to make trouble preemptively, restoring Belle’s “real world” memories as whiskey swilling pool shark barfly Lacey (and she looks pretty good as a bad girl). Lacey still doesn’t have a clue who Gold is, but she’s heard stories about just how bad and terrible he can be. Gold, of course, needs Belle to help him be who he can be, not who he always is. With Charming as his adviser, Gold tries to rekindle a relationship with Lacey, who’s just not feeling it. She’d rather be out back of Granny’s with Nottingham.
Gold doesn’t cotton to that too much. He finds Nottingham later and beats the stuffing out of him. And when Lacey catches him doing it, we get a bit of a surprise. The mean nasty evil Gold is actually attractive to Lacey. Thus setting up Storybrooke’s version of Bonnie & Clyde?
This will be an interesting dynamic, as it sets up a paradox within the relationship. Gold needs Belle to remember who she really is and make him a better man. His nightmares about killing Henry are clearly driving him to want to be better. In order for Belle to remember, Gold has to use True Love’s Kiss, which means she needs to fall in love with him. But for Lacey to fall in love with him, how far will Gold go in the opposite direction? And when Belle does finally remember everything — and we know she will — how much of everything will she remember? She’s sure to remember all the bad things she did as Gold’s moll.
Meanwhile, Emma lets a little something slip and gives Regina cause to be suspicious of the dwarves and Charming. She finds the magic bean field that Anton has been tending.
Dun-dun-dunnnn.
On balance, the show has yet to find balance this season. The good writing has lived within either one time frame or another, but generally not both. And while this episode was a pretty good one, the hype about Robin Hood was way overdone, in my opinion. For one, Robin Hood wasn’t any big deal as a character. He could have been interchangeable with any random thief stealing a wand to save his woman. Nottingham had more to do in this ep, and being part of a triangle between Rumpelstiltskin and Belle was a nice connection between Fairy Tale Land and Storybrooke.
You know this is the second time Gold has gone to David for advice on women. Can we say the third time will be a… charm?
At least it wasn’t an exposition episode…
[Official Show Site at ABC] [Previous recap: “Selfless, Brave and True”]
