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scribbles-by-kate · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on 6.19 “The Black Fairy”

I know I’ve said a couple of times that my favourite episodes are the ones that fill in things about characters, that shine more of a light on their stories and their motivations. As a Rumple fan, this episode does that in spades for me. It’s a really satisfying episode for me.

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The Saviour - well, I did not see that coming at all! Yet, at the same time, it makes a lot of sense. Looking back, it gives more meaning to Rumple’s relationship with the Darkness and why he took it back. Now I understand why he craved power. He was trying to fill the hole his mother left, chasing a destiny that should have been his, and because that was cut away, he sought power in the wrong places and his life became a twisted version of what it should have been. It’s really clever, and I wonder if it’s been planned for a good while. Not from the very beginning, I think, but a few seasons, at least? I just think of all the paralleling of Rumple and Emma they did in season five and the fact that they’ve both been hero and Dark One… This reveal adds so much to Rumple’s story. I love it.

Rumple’s birth - so sweet. We finally get to see a baby Rumple. I love that scene with the candles going out and relighting, and the fact that he’s born on such a cold winter’s night, but is meant to bring hope. And I love Tiger Lily being his godmother, but I think originally it was meant to be Tinkerbell, and helping Fiona was the first mistake Blue referred to back in season three. Only, of course, Rose is not on another show, so we’d be unlikely to have her back for long enough to play this out.

The breath of a dead dragon - I’m sorry, but I fail to see what’s so dark about this? Rumple is essentially filling the role of like a hedge witch or a village healer. The dragon is dead anyway, so why shouldn’t its breath fulfil some worthy function? I don’t get why Emma calls this dark even for the Dark One. Ok, she didn’t grow up in the Enchanted Forest, I suppose, so she’s probably not familiar with the customs, but Rumple is actually doing a good deed here… And I’m sure the dragon egg is a valuable commodity that he’s using on Blue, even though he hates her. Credit where credit is due?

Rumple and Belle outside the shop - I really love that she comes out after him and sort of smiles exasperatedly at his show of temper. She really knows him, and the way she tries to talk him out of his funk is lovely, as is the way he says Gideon is lucky to have her. All the support between them is lovely.

Ginny Goodwin does an English accent - I love that! You know something’s up when Snow tries to choke Blue, so she had to be the Black Fairy in disguise. It’s a nice touch to have Ginny do the accent, rather than have Jaime do a voice over.

Rumple’s got good reflexes - the way he just snaps that cuff on Gideon! Poor Gideon looks kinda betrayed, but it’s for the best, kid!

Zelena and Regina - I like the sisterly scenes. Zelena feeling powerless without her magic is realistic, and I like Regina trying to help. It’s good that Zelena is willing to adapt. I love the ‘No, I trust Henry to raise you’ line, though Henry is the child Zelena tried to kill not so long ago. Really not sure I’m comfortable with her taking Henry.

Gideon and Belle - so Belle is trying to get him to tell her where his heart is, and even though he’s been ordered to feel terrible pain when he resists his grandmother, he tries to anyway? And he thinks he’s a coward? I love him, and I love Belle crouching down to talk to her little boy.

‘D’you trust me, Belle?’ - I love this moment. I love that he’s asking for her trust before he goes into their son’s dream, and I love that Belle thinks for a moment before telling him what exactly she trusts him to do. She’s not trusting him with her heart, yet, but she’s trusting him with a lot given all the crap that’s gone on between them. It’s a special moment, because it re-establishes trust between them, and it gives him confidence to keep on the right path. You can see he’s grateful, and stands a bit taller. And I like that Belle isn’t asking him for specifics: she’s trusting him to have a good plan and do what’s right for them.

Gideon’s wariness - it doesn’t surprise me that he looks a bit askance at his father with this dust in his hand, because they’re still establishing a relationship, and this is kind of a call back to when Gideon was in utero and he and his mother didn’t trust Rumple, but, by the end of the episode, they’ve established complete trust, so this is fine.

Rumple’s dream - I love this. I even like the snarking with Emma, because they haven’t really seen eye to eye: she hasn’t seen him as really human, but she starts to get more of an understanding of him here, which I think she’s been lacking. She starts to act with a bit more humanity towards him and his son, more like the Saviour she’s supposed to be. I love that eerie singing, and the cottage, and how freaked out Rumple is. The way he jumps and Emma freaks out because he’s freaked out is brilliant. Robert is great in this scene, and Jennifer does act well off him, at least.

The half of the wand is a little too easy to find - I thought that should have taken several episodes, but, oh well. And now we know why curses and stuff always start in the clock tower - because it’s the geographical heart of Storybrooke. I suspected that anyway, so, yay, head canon confirmed! And, finally, they address the issue of people being able to disguise themselves as other people! Only took you six seasons! I love that bit with Zelena running the Black Fairy over. Zelena is good as comic relief. I just can’t forget how nasty she was at first. It’s like a different character.

The ‘great evil’ - yeah, I knew it was Fiona. I kinda think she and Malcolm were well matched, actually: there’s an undercurrent of selfishness and darkness in both of them that definitely becomes more overt as their back story episodes progress. I don’t doubt that Fiona loves her son, but there is that desire for power in her too, and it’s pretty clear that protecting her son is only an excuse to get more power. She comes to love power more than Rumple, so, I’m sorry, but she gets no sympathy from me for what happens to her. The fact that she chooses her own power over her son’s is disgusting. How dare she take away his potential like that?

‘I think you already have’ - that scene with Rumple and Gideon is beautiful. It’s one of my favourites ever. It’s so well acted, and Gideon’s line says so much more than that Rumple has physically found his son. He’s found him emotionally as well. Gideon understands his father better and knows that he loves him and is trying to save him. That’s why he’s able to say ’Thank you for fighting for me’, and Rumple’s ‘I would do anything for you, son’ shows who he really is, a good father who wants the best for his son and would do everything in his power to ensure his safety.

Emma shows some compassion to Rumple - that’s been a long time coming. We finally see that she’s starting to understand Rumple on a personal level, which has been missing from her interactions with him for ages, and that’s coloured how she interacted with Gideon, who was just ‘Dark One Junior’. It’s been all about how she can use Rumple or how she can stop him, but now she understands him better and understands that he’s not so different from her in some things. Ideally, I would have liked Belle on this journey with Rumple and Gideon, but Belle does understand Rumple: we needed to see that Emma could. This is a learning experience for her as it is for him. And now maybe she’ll treat him and his son less as pariahs and more as people, as the Saviour should.

‘Gold, this is on you’ - I think Emma’s been evading the Saviour thing for a while. Although she told Gideon she’s fated to die and she will, she’s not really facing it, so, of course, now that Rumple’s a ‘Saviour’, she quickly fobs the task off on him. The Emma from earlier seasons would say, ok, let’s go take her down together: two Saviours are better than one. But, because Rumple’s apparently been revealed as a Saviour, she happily leaves it to him. I get it: no one wants to die, but it’s not very heroic of her.

Belle and Rumple - I love this. The way she’s all I knew it and now you do too is so lovely. She’s always trying to lift him up, and she must have always known there was something special about him, something more than what he could see. Belle knows people, so it doesn’t surprise me that she’d know this. It’s not that she’s on board because he’s suddenly a Saviour: it’s that he now has proof of what she’s been saying all along, and isn’t that wonderful? Now he can know for sure that she was right all these years. And the way Rumple says ‘I don’t know what I know’ is so relatable as well, because, damn, this is a shock, and it changes everything he thought he knew about himself. He’s having to re-process everything in his life, reconfigure his relationship with power, and that’s bound to make him say I don’t know about this, and that’s ok. The fact that he gets up, fixes the wand, and says he has to do this (face his mother) is amazing given that he must be in such turmoil. He’s so much stronger and braver than he gives himself credit for.

Rumple facing his mother - is brilliant, because now he’s learning how Belle felt when he was trying to have it all, and he knows what it’s like, now, when someone chooses power over love, and the consequences it can have. When he says he’s someone who’s made the same choices as his mother and knows a lie when he hears it, he’s realising how hurt Belle was, how devastated she was when he lied to her, when he went behind her back, when he embraced the Darkness and acted like it was for her. And he knows how he’s suffered for what his mother did. She doomed him to a life of cowardice because she took away what he should have had, so he didn’t know what he was supposed to be. Now he’s got first-hand experience of someone putting power before him, and it hurts. He’ll definitely be a different man, not just because he was meant to be the Saviour, but because he understands Belle’s point of view better, and it’s time to make some choices.

Fiona using the shears on Rumple - that was such a sad moment for me. You just see this little wispy thread of light coming from him, and she just cuts it almost casually. It’s so cruel and heartless. I can never have sympathy for Fiona. She got herself banished because she put her needs and wants above her son’s. That isn’t love. Rumple even said she didn’t have to be banished. If she’d given up her power, they could’ve been together, but she was too selfish.

‘So you understand’ - yes, I think Rumple does understand his mother, but I also think he’s different from her, because power isn’t the most important thing to him. I think Rumple’s ideal relationship with the power is to be able to use it as a tool to protect the ones he loves, and I think that’s the decision he’s making in this episode. He’s used his power for his loved ones before, but I think now he’s specifically putting the power in the service of his loved ones. He’s very specifically telegraphing his intentions to Belle and Gideon and the audience in a way he never has before. He’s saying he might do questionable things, and it might look bad, but he’s doing what he’s doing to protect them. He’s never been that clear before. He’s very deliberately choosing love, while using the power to service that love.

‘Can you forgive me?’ - hmm… Rumple doesn’t answer. He never forgives people who hurt his family, though, so even though it looks like he has by the end of the episode, I’m sure that’s a misdirect, especially because he’s so clear in his intentions with Belle and Gideon.

Malcolm chooses his son’s name to be cruel - sort of like Frollo with Quasimodo. And Blue and Tiger Lily thought it was a good idea to leave Rumple with him why? He was obviously going to turn out to be a horrible father and they just left him with him. I suppose now that he was no longer the Saviour, he was no longer useful. Fairies can be cruel too.

What do Belle and Gideon know? - Can’t be sure, of course, but I think they know a fair bit, if not everything. Belle doesn’t mention Rumple banishing his mother: she only talks about facing her. I think both wife and son know a deal’s been made for their protection and the return of Gideon’s heart. I don’t know if they know what Rumple has to do for his mother, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they know a curse is coming. The fact that Belle doesn’t argue when Rumple says everything he does is for them even though it may not look like it is a big indicator, for me, that she knows something. She’s willing to trust him anyway, and that’s what’s important. The fact that Rumple explicitly tells his mother that Belle and Gideon have no idea of what’s to come seems like a big red flag that he’s telling a whopper. His mother trusts him, so he’s playing on that and telling a bare-faced lie. He’s not on her side. She hurt his family and Rumple never forgives those who hurt his family.

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