OMG: Oh My Gold

Last weekend's special two hour Once Upon a Time episode was in my opinion, the best one so far this season. There was magic, romance, betrayal, backstabbing, true love, hope, and hate. I came to love certain characters more, hate certain characters less, and completely detest a character I was just starting to understand.

The episode began with a quite risque scene between our favorite Evil Queen, Regina, and her lover/boyfriend/true love/affair/I-don't-even-know-anymore, Robin Hood. First of all, where the heck do they find these men, and how can I get there? Almost every male character in Once Upon a Time is smoking hot, and it's not even fair! I digress. Anywho, the modern day part of the episode started out in Regina's crypt where Robin Hood stated that he had just had the best "sleep" in his life. Mhm, sure you did Robin, but don't worry, your secret is safe with us. Regina seemed genuinely happy, but, always the logical type, explained that their not-so-secret affair couldn't continue. Robin wasn't ready to give her up so quickly and stole Henry's storybook to try to find out how to rewrite Regina's future. I mean come on ladies! Who wouldn't be completely wooed by a man stealing your 14 year old son's storybook/family history to explain that your affair with said man is perfectly okay? It turns out that stealing that book paid off in the end. After questioning why a cat would want a hat, Robin found a page in his messenger bag that was definitely not there before. This page just so happened to have Regina and Robin together as a couple. True love prevails! Something repeated more than once in the episode was that you write your own future. It seems that Regina is finally learning that, and accepting that she might actually have a future with her hottie, Robin Hood.

 After that glimpse of hope, the episode went downhill very quickly. However, I found myself feeling bad for the Snow Queen. This episode revealed that she might not be the main villain in this season. She just wants to have a family again and has a weird obsession with Emma and Elsa. Every step she has taken so far is to reach the goal of getting her family back together. Sadly, those steps might cause destruction for the rest of Storybrooke. At the end of the episode, she released the spell of shattered sight to turn the inhabitants of the town against each other. Right now, I am just hanging on the hope that she doesn't have enough power to enact a spell of that magnitude on her own, because I cannot imagine if Emma and Killian are turned against each other.

Speaking of Killian, Storybrooke's perfect pirate was in a boat load of trouble this week. For almost the entire first hour of the episode, he hung around the Charmings' apartment sulking. He obviously missed Emma and felt terrible about not being able to get her to stay. As soon as he found out she had found a way to get rid of her magic, his thoughts immediately jumped to Rumpelstiltskin and his magic hat that could obliterate, not only her magic, but also Emma herself. His first step was to find his "talking phone" and call her, explaining not to trust Rumpel. When he arrived at Gold's shop and saw Emma's hand-print burned into a box, he called her again. Killian's second voice-mail was much more passionate. In it, he explained how he knew about Rumpel's hat and how he had been lying to her. At the end of his voice-mail he said he hoped she would never forgive him for what he had done, because that would mean that she had lived long enough to listen to it. That was about the point that I lost it. Hook has never been that apologetic in his life, as far as we know. Hearing him say those words while realizing that Emma could die, broke my heart and made me pray (to the all-knowing Eddy and Adam) for some sort of Sunday-night drama miracle.

Emma has struggled with feeling accepted since day one of Once Upon a Time. Seeing the look in her parents' eyes made her feel even more of an outcast and forced her to lose control of her emotions and her powers. My heart broke for her when she accidentally hurt Henry. In that moment, she must have felt so hopeless and like a danger to everyone around her. It is not that hard to see why she went to Rumpelstiltskin for help. Luckily, Elsa was there when she was about to enter a room with magic that would kill her. She explained that in order to control her magic, she would have to accept herself and embrace her uniqueness. As soon as Emma listened, she gained control of her magic and was able to even put on a fireworks display for her family within a few minutes.

Rumpelstiltskin showed his true colors in this episode. I had finally started to feel like he was trying to change, and then he decided to go all psycho on me. How could he revert to being so terrible after the sacrifice of his son to save him? If nothing else, his actions were a flagrant disgrace to the memory of Neal. At first, I could see where he was coming from, because he is addicted to power. Once he started endangering his family, however, there was no going back. The last straw came at the end of the episode when he viciously ripped out the heart of my favorite character in the show, Killian Jones and inadvertently ripped out mine as well. Not only does he now have the ability to kill Killian with a squeeze of his hand, but he can also control everything that Killian does. Rumpel was finally becoming a good guy, and I was actually starting to like him, but then he messed with Killybear. No one messes with Killybear!

There is no OUaT episode this weekend because of some music awards, but tune in on November 30 to find out what happens in the not-so-peaceful town of  Storybrooke, Maine.