Was anyone else let down when August turned out to not be Rumpy Jr.?
I was all caught up in Mr. Gold’s emotional arc and thrilled to put a Fairytale Land identity to August Booth, only to have it yanked away. August isn’t Rumpy, Jr. Just a sick guy who needs a magic cure and can’t wait for Emma to come around.
August has a friend, though. Someone who knows “the plan.” Maybe the friend is Rumpy, Jr.?
Otherwise, “The Return” was wrapping up some stuff (the murder case), prolonging other stuff (David and Mary Margaret turmoil), and providing background (why Rumpy had that curse in the first place).
To the pictures!
This was a missed opportunity, Show.
Here you have a good looking man with some hair on his chest, rolling out of bed….and you put a shirt on him. Come on
It must have sucked to be Rumpy Jr. Kid can’t even play a friendly game of soccer without his dad showing up and killing people.
- Imagine a parent-teacher conference with him.
Best card for a teacher, ever.
- “We’re so glad you didn’t kill Mrs. Noonan!”
Hey, look! It’s David and Mary Margaret having a moment!
- “You’re not reasonable! I can’t possibly suck that much!”
- “You do. You suck exactly that much.”
I love this.
Mr. Gold is so obviously not used to anyone being altruistic toward him that he’s examining Archie’s simple offer to talk from every angle. The uncertainty is all over his face. Archie probably just said the nicest thing to Mr. Gold/Rumpy since Belle was around.
And that’s what Once Upon a Time does really well: giving an emotional core to the baddies without turning them into guests of honor at their own pity parties. I love the Queen and Rumpy for how rotten they are, but I want them to get their emotional settlement, too. It was gratifying to see Mr. Gold breakdown and air out his guts to August.
It was also gratifying to see how quickly Mr. Gold went from this:
To this:
So, August isn’t Rumpy, Jr., but he is connected to Fairytale Land (which opens up all sorts of other questions: if so, why wasn’t he in Storybrooke to begin with? All I can think is that he’s offspring, like Henry).
Also, in case anyone forgot this is Disney, Mr. Gold has a 20 year old Mickey Mouse phone in his shop:
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
I’m getting really annoyed trying to figure out who he is. When he first showed up, I was sure he was The Wolf and I was patting myself on the back for figuring it out. Oh how wrong I was.
By the way, here’s some lolz you might enjoy:
http://data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzxubvjzEV1qiiiaao1_1280.jpg
Much as I love Rumpelstiltskin and Mr Gold, I got really bored during this episode. And Rumpelstiltskin punctuating every sentence with “Bael” got on my nerves after a little bit. And I don’t find the fairies to be particularly compelling creatures.
There were some nice moments, though. I did enjoy the Rumpelstiltskin and Jiminy scenes. And I liked the moment that David and Katherine had.