‘Once Upon a Time’ 3.08 Episode Recap and Review: Think Lovely Thoughts

This was the most exciting, edge-of-your-seat episode so far in this season of Once Upon A Time! Peter Pan is Rumpelstiltskin’s father!

At first, the story of Rumplestiltskin and his father felt a little slow. I couldn’t believe it. Stephen Lord appeared as Rumplestiltskin’s father, Malcolm, and did a wonderful job emulating Robert Carlyle’s voice. Malcolm spends his days swindling other drunks out of their money at the local cyberpub. And he wasn’t the only intriguing guest star, either. Marilyn Manson voiced the Shadow!

Rumple had gotten a magical bean and immediately turned it over to his dad. They disappeared hand-in-hand into Neverland, which Rumple’s dad remembered from his dreams! To stay forever in the island, he had to be young, and to be young again, he can’t to be a father. Solution? Rumple must leave Neverland.
Of all the horrible, abandoning, emotionally stunted characters, Rumple’s dad was by far the worst. He wanted to just go to Neverland and do magic and fly and eat cake.

Back in the present, Emma and Snow had a conversation about what to do next after rescuing Henry. Snow wants to stay with Charming in Neverland. So much for proving Emma wasn’t a Lost Girl! Snow claimed she didn’t want to, but raising her New Clean Babies in a treehouse with David maybe wasn’t sounding so bad to her after all.

They found Wendy, and besides being a patsy, she was also a world-class liar, and she started rattling off some tale about Henry to the grown-ups until Rumple interceded and called her out. Finally they know where Henry is and the rescue plan has begun.

Pan made a spell trying to get them out, but Rumple crossed over the line (it was magicked to keep out anyone who had a shadow, sure, whatever) and stood face to face with Pan, who confronted him with his own Pandora’s box!

Emma and Regina decided to cause a lunar eclipse to get rid of their shadows so they could follow Rumple up into the Skull Room.

Henry truly believed Pan’s story. He hears their parents (all three) pleas, tells the trio that he loves them… and hands his heart over to Pan anyway. A giant magical pulse swept through all the land.

The fact that he refused to listen to all of his three of his parents speaks to how much influence and power Pan has over him.

Anyway, by this time we’d learned the shadow had given Peter Pan a finite amount of time to be a youthful demigod, and that time was running out, and only by slappin’ Henry’s young dumb heart into his own breast could he continue to be Peter Pan. We also learned that Rumple’s doll had been named Peter Pan.

In 2 weeks we’ll see if they get Pan or commit Henry’s body to a hasty sea burial.

Best Quote:
“A child cannot have a child” –Malcolm to Rumple.

Things to ponder:
If Pan can magic anything into his hand and is amazingly deft at snatching things from people, why didn’t he just take Henry’s heart in the first place?

Wait, where was Henry while his great-grandfather was imprisoning his grandfather in a Greek myth? Why didn’t he hear any of their conversation?