Posted by Dustin on 10.23.2012 at 12:16 pm

This week’s episode of “Once Upon A Time” was pretty much exclusively about Gold/Rumple and Belle.

In Storybrook, Belle went missing. Her father, with his memory back, returned and stole her away from “The Beast.” When he learned she wanted to be with him, he tried to have Mr. Smee smuggle her out through the mines, where the dwarfs were searching for fairy dust. Gold asked the new acting sheriff Charming to help him find Belle. They found her just in time before she crossed the town limits and forgot everything . . .

In Fairytale Land’s past, we learned about Rumple and his wife, Bey’s mom. She was very unhappy with him. Captain Hook (before he was Hook) came to town and stole her away. When Rumple begged for her back, he demanded they duel. Being the coward he was, he wouldn’t fight him. Years later as “The Dark One” he sought out Hook, who claimed his wife died long ago. That was a lie, we learned the wife was a live and happy with Hook. Rumple was livid that she left not only him, but their son. He ripped her heart out, and then cut off Hook’s hand.

The final few scenes showed Fairytale Land as it is now. We learned Hook’s ship got stranded during the curse somehow, and he is safe. We saw him with Cora! She’s planning to use the portal to get to her daughter and grandson, and Hook wants to find Rumple and get revenge . . . .

I thought it was an okay episode, but nothing special. It was a back-story filler episode before sweeps. I actually enjoyed the previews of the next episode more than this one. It seems the show is planning a “Halloween” themed episode for us during which it appears Dr. Whale brings Regina’s former love, the stable boy, back to life. I hope they aren’t going to make him Dr. Frankenstein. That would be so out of whack with everyone else. However I know of no fairytales that dealt with the topic. Hopefully it’s just something for the holiday.