Once Upon a Time Review: Ill-Boding Patterns (Season 6 Episode 13)

One much-loved ‘ship is taking off in a major way, one is slowly but surely being repaired, and one finally gets the last nail in its coffin on Once Upon a Time Season 6 Episode 13.

(In case you were wondering, the answers to the above hints are, in order: Captain Swan, Rumbelle, and Outlaw Queen 2.0.)

“Ill-Boding Patterns” shafts a few of the main characters (sorry, Snowing) in favor of an increased focus on Rumple and his sons, both living and dead — a memory from his past with Baelfire eerily parallels his current predicament with Gideon.

After the heavy focus on David for last week’s Once Upon a Time Season 6 Episode 12, I’m pretty much OK with shelving him for a bit.

The action of this hour split our remaining main characters into (for the most part) pairs, with the majority of the installment dealing with Rumple and Gideon.

Rumple and Gideon

Robert Carlyle is amazing during these scenes (both past and present), and Giley Matthey does a stellar job keeping pace with him — which in itself is incredibly impressive.

I’m less impressed by how the flashbacks actually unfolded than the larger, satisfying thematic parallels derived from them.

The past scenes, back in the Enchanted Forest, take place during the beginning of the Dark One’s reign. We see Rumple defeat the army of ogres in one fell swoop, ending the first of the Ogre Wars. He’s hailed as a hero, and all is well (ish).

And then this guy shows up.

Beowulf is such an unbearable prick. From the moment he’s introduced, I’m already over him completely. He convinces that poor nameless dude to run directly to his death-by-ogre-foot in his first few moments on screen! THE WORST.

That said, I don’t buy Baelfire’s sudden turn towards darkness near the end of the flashbacks. Sure, we see that he’s being bullied by the baker’s son, but to all of a sudden rebuke everything he stands for, commanding his Dark One dad to kill Beowulf?

Right after insisting that his father can defeat “Grendel” without any dark magic? Nope. It’s far too quick a 180 (and far too out of character for what else we’ve seen of his character) to be believable.

I understand why it needed to happen, though. Rumple erasing Baelfire’s memory of commanding him to off Beowulf, thereby taking all of the blame for killing that horrible man, needs to happen in order to parallel Rumple’s actions with Gideon in the present. And that, at least, is consistent — Rumple will do anything, no matter how terrible, in the name of protecting his children.

In the present, Rumple works on talking Gideon out of his quest to kill Emma, even trying the same memory potion trick he used on Bae back in the day. Of course, it’s not that simple with Gideon — try as his father might, he can’t convince Gideon to give up the pain of his past and resolve to be a better man.

Gideon is sure that his path to being a hero involves killing Emma, because of years of psychological torture at the hands of the Black Fairy/his grandmother (who, by the way, I am very excited to see at some point, in the flesh, this season). His motivations make so much more sense than Past-Baelfire’s plot-convenient lapse in judgment.

In the end, Gideon manages to briefly take control of his father so that he can go take the Blue Fairy’s magic in order to put the sword needed to kill Emma back together without Rumple’s interference. Luckily, Rumple is a step ahead of his boy, draining Blue’s magic himself so that Gideon doesn’t corrupt his own soul.

OK, so, let’s be real here — logically, this doesn’t make a lick of sense. Just because Gideon himself doesn’t drain Blue that doesn’t make him an innocent in this equation. It’s all because of him that the good fairy is currently comatose, despite the fact that it’s technically Rumple who does the deed.

For whatever reason, Rumple’s actions make sense to Belle, and they do have a cute moment. It’s no passionate reunion kiss, but Rumbelle fans are definitely pleased with the implications of that hug and, even more, with Belle’s understanding of why Rumple did what he did to Blue (with the hopes of restoring her magic after they talk Gideon off of his Savior-hunting ledge).

In that way, Rumple’s present-day actions accomplish two important things — he prevents Gideon from darkening his heart, and he also convinces Gideon that he’s on his side and will help him defeat Emma. As a bonus, he manages to get Gideon to hand the Dark One dagger back over (which seems a little short-sighted on Gideon’s part, but whatever).

Things are looking up for Rumple.

Regina and Robin 2.0 (and Zelena and the Evil Queen)

Things are definitely not looking up for Regina. Mostly because Robin 2.0 is a big ol’ jerk.

On last week’s installment, we saw Robin steal from Regina, but we didn’t know what his purpose was. This week, we find out that Robin stole magic from Regina with the goal of escaping from Storybrooke, which still has that protection spell over the town border preventing anyone from leaving.

He wants to get out to go find more people to rob, despite the song-and-dance he runs on Regina about wanting to make his own way and escape her expectations of him being just like her Robin. So shady.

Faux-Robin also enlists Zelena, and she goes along with it. Because of course she does — he correctly guesses that Zelena has no reason to stick around Storybrooke either.

Naturally, the attempt to bring down the protection spell border fails, meaning Robin (and Zelena) are stuck in Storybrooke for the foreseeable future.

Regina, out of the kindness of her heart (and because she falls hook, line, and sinker for Robin 2.0’s gross manipulation) offers to find her lost love’s doppelgänger a way out. I don’t think she’ll be too pleased once she finds out what his real purpose in leaving Storybrooke is.

Or once she finds out that he’s teaming up with her worse half.

To be honest, I’m not thrilled that the Evil Queen is back. There are so many villains flying around at this point, it’s getting to be a bit crowded. However, I’m intrigued by the idea of Robin 2.0 and the Evil Queen teaming up and what that will do to Regina. I imagine it will be very emotionally taxing and dramatic.

I also have a vague suspicion that Robin 2.0 won’t end up walking away from Storybrooke unscathed. I’m sure he’ll get caught in the crossfire, which will be heartbreaking for Regina — regardless of the fact that he’s clearly proving himself to be far less than the man she wants him to be.

Emma and Killian

I mean…

Need I say more?!

OK, fine, I can say a little bit more.

While I think just about every Captain Swan fan (myself included) is peeved that this lovely marriage proposal got stained by the fact that Killian’s keeping this massive secret from Emma, WHOA BOY did I love it. All of it.

Those are some top-notch, phenomenal performances by both Jennifer Morrison (those tears!) and Colin O’Donoghue. It’s all so heartwarming, particularly Emma’s “No walls, no secrets” line. That’s major for her, and it’s true — Hook broke down all her walls over the past few years.

For what it’s worth, I obviously would have preferred that Hook come clean to Emma prior to proposing. But logically, it wouldn’t have made any sense for him to back pedal and not propose once Emma admitted that she’d found the ring.

Archie brings up a good point in Hook’s first scene of the episode. The fact that Hook feels uncomfortable keeping this secret from Emma and is compelled to tell her is a good sign. Granted, he ends up not being able to confess, but it’s the thought that counts…?

Who am I kidding? Of course it’s not the thought that counts. This secret is going to blow up in a major way, but I sincerely hope that the writers take the unexpected path and have Emma be understanding about the fact that Hook has changed from the man who indiscriminately killed her grandfather for no reason.

TBH, I don’t think my heart can handle any more Captain Swan drama. It’s getting tedious, and they both deserve just a minute of real, uncomplicated happiness.

Stray thoughts:

• While I love the fact that we finally get the long-awaited Captain Swan proposal, does anyone else feel like their scenes are awkwardly shoe-horned into the episode? They don’t quite fit.
• Snow and David are completely missing from the action on “Ill-Boding Patterns.” Guess David tuckered his lil’ old self out after all that vengeance action and drama on Once Upon a Time Season 6 Episode 12. And apparently Snow is only useful now for dispensing advice to other people, like Regina. Sigh.
• Oh, I guess Henry doesn’t show up at all either. Meh, I care less about that.
• Zelena gets the best dialogue. And the best hats!
• Is it bad that I was totally fine when I thought Rumple had actually killed the Blue Fairy? Honestly, she’s a pretty useless character and keeps screwing things up! Losing Gideon to the Black Fairy is only her latest in a long line of stupid mistakes.
• So… Are Aladdin and Jasmine ever coming back this season? I assume they must be, because otherwise… what a disastrously lame arc that was.

What did you think of this episode of Once Upon a Time? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8/7c on ABC.

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