The latest episode of OUAT focused on one of the more enigmatic and self-serving characters, Rumpelstiltskin. But like the other season one antagonist, Regina, Rumpel has been forced to make some changes since the curse broke, and is at a crossroads in his life.
The episode began with Rumpel’s live-in love Belle having a nightmare about Rumepl acting in his usual monstrous way. Obviously she’s worried that he has not really turned over a new leaf for her. Her suspicions are confirmed when she spies him doing simple magic in the basement late at night.
Cue the first of many flashbacks to the Magical World, where a pre-Dark One Rumpel comes home to find his young son alone, his wife missing. He finds her drinking with some men at the local pub. She calls him a coward and only comes home with him reluctantly when their son Baelfire enters and asks for her. His wife, Milah, is clearly unhappy with him. She says she wants out of their village, but he asks her to stay and try for their son.
Back in Storybrooke, Belle confronts Rumpel about his magic, asking why he brought it to this world in the first place, and why he feels he needs that power. “You don’t need power Rumpel. You need courage to let me in.”
In the past, Rumpel is told by a neighbor that some men from the pub have taken his wife. He goes to the docks to save her and meets the man she had been drinking with, Captain Killian Jones. Jones says that if Rumpel wants her, he’ll have to take her, and he throws him a sword. But as usual, Rumpel is too scared. “A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.” The ship leaves with Milah onboard.
In Storybrooke, Rumpel goes to talk to Belle but finds that she’s gone. She makes a missing person sign and beings to ask around, even going to Belle’s father. Not only has he not seen her, but he didn’t even know she was still alive. He still hates Rumpel, of course.
Flashing back to a later time in Rumpelstiltskin’s life, we see him as the Dark One meeting with a man in the village pub. This man claims he has access to a magic bean with the power to transport between worlds, and he’ll give it to Rumpel in exchange for eternal life. After Rumpel offers to instead make him young again, he sees the Captain who took his wife enter the pub.
In Storybrooke, Belle is pounding back ice teas at Granny’s, having discovered ice and loving it. Ruby comes over and the two begin to bond over Belle’s troubled love life. Ruby offers her a room at Granny’s, and suggests that she could try and get a job opening the old library since she explains that she loves books. Belle heads over and peaks through the boarded up windows, clearly intrigued. But the man who offered Rumpel the magic bean so long ago appears and kidnaps her.
In the past again, Rumpel walks by the sailors at the docks who stop him and call him a crocodile. He then reveals himself as the Dark One, visibly scaring them, and asks Captain Jones where Milah is. He replies that she died long ago, and Rumpel challenges him to a duel at dawn, “so you can spend tonight knowing it’ll be your last.”
In Storybrooke Rumpel goes to Charming for help finding Belle, playing the shared “lost love” card for sympathy. Of course it works. But no one in town is willing to help Rumpel, who has hurt so many of them in the past. When Rumpel awkwardly asks Charming for relationship advice, he tells him “hardwork and being honest with one another.” Not exactly Rumpel’s strong suits.
So what happened to Belle? She was kidnapped and brought to her father, who was trying to save her from Rumpel. When she tries to explain that she was with him by choice and loves him, her father is upset. She says she’s an adult and can make her own choices, but he replies that he will “save” her, that no he has no choice.
Flashing back, Rumpel meets the Captain for their duel. Because of his magic, he easily toys with Jones and then disarms him. Just as he is about to make him suffer, he is stopped. By Milah! Apparently she left all those years ago willingly, having fallen in love with Captain Jones and wanting to see the world. She tells Rumpel she knows he wants the magic bean, that they took the man from the pub and will give Rumpel the bean in exchange for her and Jones’ lives.
In Storybrooke, Ruby lies to Charming and says she hasn’t seen Belle because she doesn’t trust Rumpel. But in seeing how much he cares about her, she relents. Apparently since the curse broke, some of Ruby’s wolf powers have returned and she offers to sniff out Belle. The trail leads to Belle’s father’s flower shop, and he claims that she’s safe and they should stop looking. He won’t let Rumpel “destroy” Belle, and he has to make Belle forget Rumpel, “no matter the cost.” He has sent her across the town line, where she’ll lose all her memories. They try to find out where he planned on crossing the line, and when Charming sees mine dust on his hand, he realizes that her father planned to use the tunnels that the dwarves had been digging under the town. Flashing back to Jones’ ship, Milah gets the bean from their prisoner and throws it to Jones, asking Rumpel if they have a deal. He says he has one question: “how could you leave Bae?” He is obviously angry with her. She says she was a coward and is sorry, but that she was miserable and never loved him. Rumpel responds by ripping out her heart, killing her. Jones goes into a rage and attacks, but Rumpel simply cuts off his hand to get the bean and leaves him alive to suffer.
In Storybrooke, the man who kidnapped Belle ties her into a mine cart to send her across the line. Lucky she’s pulled back just in time by Rumpel’s magic. She yells at both Rumpel and her father, saying that if either of them cared about her then they would’ve listened, and that she doesn’t want to see either of them again.
Back at the diner, Ruby offers Belle a room, and gives her a box that had been left for her. Inside is a key to the library. At the library, in a move directly from a Disney movie, Belle discovers that Rumpel sent her the key and offers her the job and the apartment upstairs. Then he finally explains himself to her: he has always been a coward, and he used magic to make up for it. But it meant losing his son. Ever since he did all he could to find Bae, including giving Regina the curse that would send him to the world where Bae was. But he brought magic there because it’s his crutch. And now he can never leave town to find Bae. He explains that he had been using magic the other night to begin to try and break this new curse, and he didn’t want to lose Belle without her knowing everything. As he leaves, though, she stops him and asks him if he’d like to get a hamburger sometime, since she heard they were good.
Flashing back, Rumpel opens Jones’ hand to find there’s no bean in it. He’d been tricked! Jones still has the bean on the ship, and calls up their prisoner to offer him a position in his crew. They’re off to a land where they’ll never grow old, and where Jones can find revenge on Rumpel. The prisoner introduces himself as Mr. Smee and asks where they’re going. As they sail into a portal made by the bean, the Captain attaches a hook where his hand had been cut and says “Neverland.”
In Storybrooke, Rumpel goes home to where he has Smee tied up, and asks about Hook. Apparently Smee has never seen him in Storybrooke, the curse didn’t take him.
Back in the Magical Land, Hook is on a beach looking at the Island Haven. Cora arrives and shows him the ash from the magic wardrobe, explaining that it will help them get to Storybrooke so that she can see Regina and he can “skin a crocodile.”