You can’t go home again – that is, not if you’re Mr. Gold. It’s been six weeks since Frozen left our lives and Belle booted out everyone’s favorite dealmaker from Storybrooke. The Darkness on the Edge of Town reset the board with new players and new secrets, but also made sure to show us just how together Rumple is compared to his peers.
Some Spoilers Follow
First things first – yes, we got more Mr.Gold/Rumplestiltskin this episode and dare I say, it’s about time. Sitting out a nauseating half-season of Frozen might’ve left him better off, but it’s hurt to see the show’s most valuable player out the limelight and albeit strangely. So be it that for the first time in the present day, Rumple’s finally accepted his fate because an evil Rumple’s long been the best Rumple. On the lam from Storybrooke’s crowd, it’s Ursula’s Manhattan apartment that we find him sulking in a bowl of ramen and along with her fish tank (Little Mermaid references and all that). It’s up to him to get off his butt and round up a gang of only the very best fairy tale femme fatales to take back the town – Ursula, Cruella de Ville, minus the present-day’s Maleficent.
It’s nothing but a smart story arc putting Rumple on the edge and watching him build his way up to his golden pedestal than the ease with which he’s dominated this series thus far. Robert Carlyle’s best when he’s spinning language and his door-to-door super villainess pitches to each of his evil dearies made for quite an amusing montage. He’s certainly the best motivational speaker here and we can thank Disney for being the one studio that’d ever dare to show such a thing as a “Devil” license plate for a certain dog-hating villainess, much less include a sheepish-looking Rumple at a drive-thru on the way back home. Hil-ar-i-ous.
“Why can’t we be friends?” might very well have been the theme of our episode, than it weirds me out about just how chummy Emma and Regina have gotten in episodes past. Guess enduring Frozen with the person you hate does that to anyone. Even Lana Parrilla and Jennifer Morrison seem more comfortable with each other, whether they’re joking about food or battling demons. At the very least, it doesn’t hurt that Parrilla gets the best lines admits the show’s notoriously bad dialogue. You can always count on Regina to wonder just what’s destroying property values week after week in her usual deadpan delivery. There aren’t many shows where someone could get away with the “E-word” joke, and Parilla nails it every time.
Fantasia hasn’t left Once Upon a Time yet and this episode finally brought us a Chernabog. Like last season’s dabbling with the Sorcerer’s Hat, the surprise appearance was worth its weight in fan-service and a decent excuse for an action sequence. And it paved a silky smooth distraction to let Cruella, Ursula, and Rumple a backdoor into Storybrooke. If it was darkness the thing was looking for, though, I for one can never believe that it’s in Emma’s baleful eyes. Let it go Disney, we all know it’s always been – and always will be – Regina.
It’s true that we haven’t really seen Emma tempted by her dark side much so far in the series (or at all, honestly and I’m wracking my brain to know what it could be to throw her over the edge and join Rumple’s “Queens of Darkness” or whatever half-baked name they took out of a hat. Could it be something to do with whatever secret Snow and Charming are super paranoid about keeping hush-hush? Or Snow or Charming dying this season? I know I’m a bad person for hoping it’s both, because Neil really needs some real, observant parental figures right about now.
Storybrooke’s gotten to be achingly familiar after four seasons and at the cost of sparing us any more Grumpy or Pinnochio stories for a change, I’ll admit that Rumple’s Not-So-Angels feel like fresh faces. Victoria Smurfit’s arguably given Glenn Close a run for her money as Cruella de Ville as the haughty, smoky-eyed devil in a (canine?) coat everyone’s loved to hate since 101 Dalmatians. It’s difficult picturing her in a past Enchanted Forest and even harder still to believe the show makers did manage to give her a superpower, odd as it is. And Ursula’s just there for her Doc Ock arms.
It’ll be interesting to see them undo Storybrooke from within with Rumple as their ringleader and of course, which of them can inevitably be redeemed. Based on track record alone, my bet’s on Cruella – even Glenn Close’s Cruella got reformed for ten minutes by the time of 102 Dalmatians. But nobody’s ever static for too long in Once Upon a Time, especially Hook, who I’ve never decided whether I think he’s just here to creep on Emma or legitimately graduated from a Goth-pirate rehab facility.
The Darkness at the Edge of Town was nothing amazing and nothing terrible – at best it was something of a menial start to a promising back end to a rocky fourths season for Once Upon a Time. Whereas I found myself impressed with where Frozen’s arc was leading to and so very soon was disappointed with the places where it didn’t go, I see potential in the arc here, even if it’s as rough around the edges as it is. If there’s anything I like, it’s a Rumple led season, and knowing the actor behind him, that can’t be all bad.
Once Upon a Time airs Sunday nights on ABC at 8/7 Central. Catch all the latest episodes at ABC.com and all the latest reviews here at BagoGames.