SPOILER ALERT! IRONIC EYEWEAR CONTAINED HEREIN!
In tonight’s episode, Belle protects Storybrooke from two misguided hipsters.
Really? Everyone has only been on Neverland for five days? It seems like they’ve been wandering around in the wilderness for an eternity…
So, we’re back to Storybrooke and a bunch of the side characters – the ones whose actors that haven’t yet moved on to other shows- show up to remind us that they still exist and to help Belle cast the cloaking spell that Rumpelstiltskin left her around Storybrooke.
However, they don’t cast the cloaking spell in time and a pair of nefarious hipsters affiliated with Peter Pan manage to sneak in. What are they up to with their thick-rimmed glasses and their scarves?
Ariel shows up with Rumpelstiltskin’s message to Belle. He tells Belle that she can find a special magical object in his store with the power of their love.
That should be easy. All Belle ever talks about is Rumpelstiltskin and their wonderful love and how magical it is. She really doesn’t seem to have a life outside of her relationship with Rumpelstiltskin at all.
Ariel continues to be fascinated by the world of Man, so she’s too busy being entranced by random object in Rumpelstiltskin’s shop to help Belle find the magical trinket. At least she seems to have gotten over her kleptomania.
It turns out that Rumpelstiltskin and Belle’s love is represented by the cup that Belle chipped oh so many years ago.
I’m still waiting for this stupid cup to come to life and blame Belle for maiming him.
It turns out that the hidden magical object is Pandora’s Box. Belle says that in contains great evil inside, but, if I recall correctly, Pandora already let all the evil out of the box and the only thing left inside was Hope.
I always wonder why Pandora left Hope inside the box. You’d figure that it should be let out in order to combat all the evil.
Hey, this, along with Pegasus, is the second reference this season to an ancient Greek legend. Does this mean that Hercules is going to show up soon? I bet someone calls him “Jerkules”.
Oh no! The hipsters arrive just as Belle finds Pandora’s Box and they point their guns at Belle and Ariel all ironic-like.
The hipsters aren’t really bad guys, though. They’re really John and Michael Darling. Peter Pan has kidnapped their sister, Wendy, and has holding her hostage for a hundred years. They have to get Pandora’s Box or Pan will kill her.
Eventually, Belle explains to the Darling brothers that giving Pandora’s Box to Rumpelstiltskin will allow Rumps to stop Pan, so they let Ariel have the box back and everybody is friends now.
A pair of beautiful gals in short skirts and tied up? The internet is going to have a field day with this.
Meanwhile, in Neverland, Snow White is seriously peeved-off with Charming or lying to her. As it turns out, Snow would gladly stay on Neverland with Charming because he’s all she really needs.
What about Emma? Shouldn’t Snow be upset that staying on Neverland probably means being separated from her daughter? Is she really just giving up on Emma and starting over with a new baby, like Emma never happened in the first place? That won’t be good for Emma’s feelings of abandonment.
Wendy and her brothers tried to rescue Baelfire from Neverland many years ago, but they failed and Wendy was thrown into a cage for 100 years.
It’s going to be one weird family reunion when the Darlings and Neal are together again. Everyone is the wrong age now. Then again, Neal was in a cage right next to Wendy’s for a little bit. I wonder if they’ve spoken to each other already? If Wendy came to Neverland so many years ago to save Neal, why did he leave without her? Did he not know she was there?
Anyway, Pan forces Wendy to use her mad acting skills to convince Henry that magic is leaving Neverland and that it’s causing the island and its inhabitants to die. Henry must use his “heart of the truest believer” to bring the magic back to Neverland.
Peter Pan is still being really vague about what his true intentions with Henry are. Pan says that what he really needs is for Henry to believe in him. We aren’t given the slightest hint at why Pan wants this or what it will do. I’m getting tired of all the vagueness. Not everything has to be some big mystery that spans several episodes. Sometimes is fun when people plainly state what their intentions are.
Neal had used Pan’s Shadow to escape Neverland the first time. It turns out that the coconut starmap doubles as a Shadow trap, because they didn’t feel like building another prop. Wait, if the coconut was the starmap and shadow trap that Neal used to escape Neverland, what was it still doing in Neverland? Wouldn’t it have had to have come with Neal to New York?
So, Neal, Captain Hook and Emma journey to the lair of the Shadows AKA Dark Hollow. It is a very dangerous place, but Neal and Hook waste time fighting eachother for the love of Emma, because apparently Neverland is just like high school and hormones always take precedent over the task at hand.
Emma refuses to choose between the two of them, because, really, they’re supposed to be saving Henry. I bet in the end she meets a third person to fall in love with and breaks both of these guy’s poor hearts.
Emma uses magic to trapped Peter Pan’s Shadow. I felt that Neal should have seemed more upset by that. Magic ruined his relationship with his father, after all.
Oh, and what happened to Rumpestiltskin’s Shadow, anyway? Couldn’t they have just used that Shadow?
Next week, Henry has to travel to the mysterious Skull Rock and believe really hard for mysterious reasons. MYSTERIES!