ONCE UPON A TIME There Was Filler. Lots of Filler.
Episode 304 “Nasty Habits” & 305 “Good Form”
OK. Catching up on the last few weeks with a Two-fer this time out. Because both episodes are in the “setup with filler” category — lots of back story to get us to a certain point in some future episode.
First hour, “Nasty Habits”, spends a lot of time re-establishing the disconnect between Rumpelstiltskin The Dark One and Baelfire the rebellious teenager. It’s mostly the same riff on the song we’ve heard before, only the focus this time is on Baelfire’s chafing at being cooped up in the house all the time. The Dark One has enemies, and in his twisted way he’s protecting his son.
So when Bae runs away, Rumpelstiltskin tracks him to Hamelin — where the PIed Piper takes a bunch of children — and it’s outside of town that Rumpelstiltskin confronts Peter Pan, who turns out to be the Piper, using his music to lure away disaffected children. The confrontation does not go well, and Pan uses the incident to further drive a wedge between the Dark One and his son. And there’s a clear indication that Pan knows Rumpelstiltskin from long ago. Could Rumpelstiltskin have been a Lost Boy at some point? His reaction to Pan seems to indicate that their history is not an enjoyable one.
On the island, Gold and Neal find each other and set out to rescue Henry from Pan, who is doing his best to make Henry lose hope of rescue and embrace the idea of being a Lost Boy. And even as the two manage to rescue Henry, Pan still manages to get the last word, mentioning the prophecy. Once Neal finds out the details, he can’t trust his father (he thinks), and his split from Rumpelstiltskin gets them caught by Pan again.
Rumpelstiltskin, meantime, is still having visions of Belle. The whole “undoing” wording of the prophecy leaves wiggle room, methinks. It doesn’t have to mean Rumpelstiltskin’s death. It could mean his separation from the Dark One Dagger, undoing his access to the magic and leaving him a regular person again. The way the show’s been all “doom and gloom” on this point leads me to think it’s a misdirect.
So the whole of the hour is really a setup to get us from point A to point B and back to point A again — Neal doesn’t trust Rumpelstiltskin — and it really is a tale nicely told, but doesn’t really get us much further into the story on Neverland. The one twist when Neal hits his father with squid ink is the one twist in the whole show, and it only serves really to put Neal and Henry back in Pan’s clutches. It’s not really character development for any of them.
Whilst this is going on, the Rescue Rangers are going over the rescue plan with Tinkerbell, who refuses to help after finding out they don’t have an exit strategy. Just like that, she walks off, never to be seen again in either of these hours. What the what?
The others, realizing she’s right — that they need to have an escape plan — follow Hook to a cave, where Baelfire spent a lot of time drawing. And making planetariums out of coconuts. He’s devised a star chart — in code, of course, so he’s the only one who can read it. But of course, they all still think he’s dead. But he’s not.
The next hour delivers Hook’s back story, taking up most of the episode to get us to one very particular moment in the present day on the island. Which… OK, if you’re going to do this, fine. And yes, it was at least interesting. The Jones brothers — Hook being the first mate to his Captain Brother — embark with their ship to Neverland, using a magic sextant and a sail made from the hair/feathers/something from Pegasus? So the ship can fly. Which in those days, was perfectly reasonable, right?
Why wasn’t at least one member of the crew freaked out by the sorcery? Really? Too many people have Pirates of the Caribbean as their touchstone now. Witchcraft was a Very Bad Thing back then.
The other question is how the king found out about Neverland in the first place. But we’ll probably get that in another filler episode later.
The crew has been sent out to find the deadly Dreamshade plant, for the king to use in a nefarious plot to do whatever it takes to rid himself of all enemies, foreign or domestic. Only he’s told the good Captain Jones that it’s a medicinal herb. So when Peter Pan warns them, they don’t listen. Until Captain Jones (who isn’t Captain Kirk) scratches himself with the plant to prove it’s harmless — and very nearly dies.
Pan, of course, knows the secret. A water source that cures the Dreamshade poison. Only catch is that anyone who takes the cure can never leave the island. This is something the Jones brothers find out after they get back to their own land — and Captain Jones dies.
Now, here’s where this episode runs off the rails for me just a bit. I’m supposed to believe that a full crew of loyal Royal Navy seamen are going to take the word of one single man, grief-stricken and rambling wild accusations against the king, their sovereign, and all of them are going to flip to being pirates in the space of about five minutes? Really?
In the present day, after wandering around in the jungle a little more (kind of like The Walking Dead a couple of seasons back?), Team Rescue splits up. Hook convinces Charming to come with him to retrieve the magic sextant, when he’s actually being a bit of a hero and saving Charming’s life with the magic fountain. Of course, Pan has to be a pain in the tuckus and try to get Hook working on the Dark Side. Tries to make a deal with the good captain to kill Charming in exchange for a way off the island.
Hook, it seems, has been smitten a bit. So he’s not about to blow his chances with Emma by letting her father die.
So when Pan reveals that Neal’s still alive and on the island, after the moment all the Captain Swan shippers have been waiting for, Hook now has a choice to make — tell the truth and be an upstanding gentleman, or be the cad and not tell her and pursue the promise behind that kiss. If a promise even exists…
Next episode: Ariel and the Disney movie hour!
[Official Show Site at ABC] [Previous recap: “Quite a Common Fairy”]
