Is the Blue Fairy dead? Where did the sword come from? How will they break the protection spell? All these questions plus some thought on Rumple’s confusing role, the Gideon-Dark One storyline, Queen cobra, and more on our initial reactions of this episode, Ill-Boding Patterns, that will be all over the place, just like the storyline is and Bae’s abhorrence of magic.
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When Gideon resumes his mission to kill Emma and become the Savior, Mr. Gold steps in to ensure that the use of dark magic does not poison his son. Meanwhile, Robin proves willing to ally himself with anyone offering the possibility of escape from Regina and Storybrooke. Hook gathers the courage to come clean to Emma, but not before she discovers he’s been keeping a secret. And in a flashback to Fairy Tale Land, the legendary folk hero Beowulf sets his sights on Rumplestiltskin after the Dark One uses his powers to defeat the ogres and win the war for humanity.
These are our first thoughts about this Once Upon a Time episode. We’ll share more about “Ill-Boding Patterns” in our upcoming full discussion (usually live on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m., USA Eastern Time). For this week, however, our full-discussion will be recorded on March 21, Tuesday, at 7:00 p.m., USA Eastern Time.
Initial Reactions
Remember, these are only our initial reactions regarding tonight’s episode so please bear with us if we’re a bit all over the place. If you have your own thoughts, feedbacks, or theories regarding tonight’s episode, however, send them over to us and join our upcoming full discussion!
If you were to take the Bae part out of the episode, it was okay. The Gideon-Dark One storyline in Storybrooke was enjoyable, but wasn’t as big of a fan of Robin-Regina woes that were happening; they’re just kept being a flashback, separating all of the things that were okay about the episode. For this episode, they seemed to be going back a lot and changing some very key assumptions that we had. We liked the flashback, except for the part where Bae was using the dagger seemed so totally out of character for him. The other stuff that happened with the flashbacks that fit in nicely with the timeline was when someone said something about Rumplestiltskin stepping into the battlefield and defeated all of the Ogres. It was really cool to see that moment in history.
We do like how they explained the sword in the past, but disappointed about with how they killed the Blue Fairy at present-day Storybrooke. Is the Blue Fairy dead? If it was that easy to kill the fairies, wouldn’t Rumple have done it 300 years ago? That said, here it seems like Rumplestiltskin was actually protecting her at first, until he did the deed himself for his son. However, by bringing the Blue Fairy at Mr. Gold’s shop and telling Belle what happened makes it kind of seem like Rumple didn’t really want to do this and he wants to save the Blue Fairy.
Where did the sword come from? Was it always Emma’s sword? Rumple, at one point, gave Emma her father’s sword to defeat the Maleficent dragon back in season 1, but then presumably that sword went back to David. So, where did this sword come from?
How will they break the protection spell surrounding the town line? Maybe some squid ink, mix it with blood magic but using blood from the burning red room? When did this particular spell came? What was the purpose of the protection spell?
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It was a bit confusing what Rumplestiltskin is doing, whether he is in the side of good or bad. Now, it seems like he’s really still taking these dark actions to save Gideon, which would in turn save Emma but the wrong thing done for the right reasons is still the wrong thing. Other than the fact that he doesn’t want his son to the dark side because of this retcon with Baelfire actually having gone to the dark side until he forgot about it.
That aside, Rumple wants to see the Dark Fairy defeated and she certainly deserves to be taken out of power, especially if she is torturing little boys and causing all of this harm and abuse. However, the Dark Fairy is also trapped in the Dark Realm, so if she’s trapped there then how did she get baby Gideon? Did the Blue Fairy bring him to the Dark Realm? Perhaps the Blue Fairy did something to trap the Dark Fairy in the Dark Realm?
The Evil Queen is back. Does she still wants to see them tear themselves apart? What is the Evil Queen up to now that she’s back? What does she want to do with Robin? The entire Robin-Evil Queen-Regina storyline is so confusing at best. What is the purpose of bringing Robin back if they’re just going to make him into another villain? We did like the idea that him and Zelena were going to run-off together because they seemed like they were made for each other because both of them still have that evil streak. On the other hand, Zelena seems like she returned good and was turning good because she was doing all those wonderful things. She just seemed like she wasn’t necessarily going on with all the Evil Queen stuff completely, so perhaps she will be a great mother after all and be on the good guy’s side.
Honesty is a good quality you look for in someone who’s going to ask you to marry them. It was admirable when Hook said that he knows he could go to the grave with his secret, but he wants to tell Emma. He was right there to be completely honest with Emma, until Emma interrupted him by telling him she found out about the ring. On the other hand, Archie and Hook’s exchange had us laughing. It was a great sentiment what Archie provided about how Hook has changed. But why would Hook need to be drunk to propose to Emma? Can Hook still tell her after proposing to Emma? She said yes, and it was nice to see he finally put a ring on it, but at the same time, there is now this secret.
What do you think about tonight’s episode? Send us all your feedback and theories early this week as we will be recording our full-discussion this coming Tuesday, March 21, at 7:00 p.m., USA Eastern Time in-depth, including the history of the sword, the protection spell surrounding the town, and some other things that would be great to understand a little bit more!
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