'Once Upon a Time' 212 Review - "In the Name of the Brother"

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This week on Once Upon a Time we were treated to the backstory of Doctor Whale’s “fairytale” alter-ego.
 It served as a bookend to his jaunt in fairytale land with Jefferson, who I miss terribly but we probably won’t be seeing him again for a long time, and Regina.  I really want to see more of what happened after especially considering he was brought over to Storybrooke from another land.  Henry was the audience in this episode as well as a hint about what’s to come because we really don’t know who else from where could be there.  Unless Victor was in Fairytale land at the time of the curse.

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Back in Storybrooke, Whale has been having a rough go of things after the whole having to admit to Rumple that ‘Magic was better than science’ thing.  So rough that he’s going to commit suicide, which there’s a far easier way to get rid of the bad memories the curse returned to you. All it takes is a simple walk over the town line.  Of course had he done that we wouldn’t have gotten to see him bond with Red, Monster to Monster... well Monster to Doctor.  They’ve been setting up Red and Whale since season one so I would not be surprised if we find out they start getting up to things when the cameras aren’t on them.

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That is if Red doesn’t have more things to deal with since the first stranger crossed the town line.  Their little town council that includes her and Grumpy being there to always make decisions is amusing, but when it comes down to it they’re going to need to stand behind one person to make their decisions.  This week there was some argument over whether or not they should let the stranger, who may or may not have seen magic (Spoiler: He totally did), die to protect their secret.  Right away I was annoyed that they’d assume this would be the fix since more people will come now regardless if you kill this one man or not so are they really prepared to murder them all?  Would that make them any better than Regina?

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Speaking of Regina, she has a nice little hideout going on, did we see it before, I think we have but it was still amusing to see such a swank pad in her crypt.  But the woman seriously needs an intervention when it comes to Henry.  Cora is right when she explains that if she is good no one in town is going to care, least of all Henry, even if it’s what he wants.  On the other hand if she’s evil he’s still going to hate her so it’s a lose-lose situation.  Except when it comes to the audience who can only win if she goes back to her old ways. I for one need evil Regina back in my life, I need it like burning.  She is at her best in the flashbacks and if it weren’t for this show’s attempts at woobieing every fucking villain she would still be.  

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Strangely enough you could argue the show isn’t making a real attempt to woobie Rumpelstiltskin.  Even though we’ve seen his lighter side, the coward side, the side in love with Belle that doesn’t really stop him from using magic and doing things of a questionable moral nature.  Which included doing everything he could to try and fix the now memory-less Belle.  Seriously Rumple, kissing a girl who doesn’t remember you while she’s sleeping is not going to win you any points, I get that he’s trying to use the true love’s kiss so maybe from the fact that it didn’t work we should all be wondering if this is in fact true love.  

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We also found out that there was a confirmed deeper connection between Cora and Rumple, like her daughter after her the dark one taught Cora everything she knows and well... probably more considering the kiss she laid on him.  Ever since Rumple told Regina he knew her as a baby I’d been wondering about her actual paternity.  I’d so love it if the show actually went there, while he’s out searching for his son his daughter has been right there the whole time.  Of course they’d need some serious counseling from Archie to be anything near familial to each other.