Once Upon a Time lets Robert Carlyle chew two realms worth of sceneryS

The chesty fairy must have been on break, because this week's Once Upon A Time was all about Rumpelstiltskin's back story. So where did our favorite scenery-munching imp originate from? A knife. No really! Ah well at least we got close to an hour of Robert Carlyle plunging into the deep end of ACTING!

Spoilers ahead...

Too long have I languished, without the sweet, sweet nacho cheese fix that is Sunday night's injection of Once Upon A Time. To pass the time I've been snorting finely shredded Maxine Shoebox cards, listening to the Suncreen song and telling jokes with your Dad. But nothing compares to the first hit of a righteous CG cricket preaching about morality. So imagine my disappointment when this entire episode was seemingly... normal. Oh don't worry, it had its ludicrous moments (my favorite being when Emma and the Queen were blown up by fire while Emma was saying that she fights fire, with...wait for it... FIRE!

Then again maybe it was just well balanced. *Shrugs* For now, let's focus on the Gouda.


After last time's heart-squeezing (see what I did there?) episode, this one was more of a heart poke. Emma decides that she will replace Sheriff Light Beard as the, um, Sheriff. The Queen/Mayor is all "What ho, no go," and appoints the Magic Mirror/Editor of the Paper as the Sheriff. Emma made the long face of displeasure she makes every episode and the Queen retaliated with her classic press-lipped sneer Note: I love both looks and eagerly anticipate their arrival every week.

You know what that means! ELLLLLLLEEEEEECCCCCTTIIIIIOOOOOOOON (to be screamed like a cliche movie fight where some character runs around alerting the masses that two people are fighting, except infinitely less exciting. So there's an election showdown. But before that, Mr. Gold, AKA Rumpelstiltskin decides he wants to back Emma. So he BLOWS UP the mayor's office. Thus allowing Emma to save the Mayor, thus allowing Emma to rebel against Mr. Gold publicly when she realizes that he committed arson to help her win the Sheriff job. Everyone thinks this is incredibly noble and Emma wins the Sheriff crown. Which was Mr. Gold's plan all along!


But not before Snow and her Prince Charming share a completely adorable nonsensical moment posting flyers for Sheriff. I love this show — it really makes me care about things like Sheriff elections which don't matter because even if Emma doesn't win, she's not leaving the show anytime soon. But that means I get awkward flyer-posting interactions which are just so random and delightful I want to crawl inside this scene and wear Buffalo Bill skin, suit-style. It's Just So Ridiculous, yet so simple.


Meanwhile, during our Fairy Tale Flashback we got to see Robert Carlyle in Human Form. Turns out he was the village coward. Because during the Ogre Wars (no seriously!) he turn-coated, which basically ruined their entire Ogre Wars. And you know the thing about Ogre Wars wars is, once you've painted that Ogre Wagon, it's never going back to Ogre town. But the best part about introducing the said Ogre Wars was, now I have Ogre Wars in my vernacular. BTW, You totally Ogre Wars-ed that, Jeremy.

Moving on — Rumpelstiltskin is a no good deserter and about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. But he loves his son, loves him! So instead of sacrificing his son to the Ogre Wars conscription (HA!) he finds a way to beat the system. You see, the Duke that rounds up all the 14-year-olds to fight the Ogres (perhaps that's why they're losing the war). Rumps sets off but is stopped by the Duke's Dark One. The Dark One is a wizard blah blah, so Rumps has to face his fear and steal the dagger from the genie in the lamp in the castle in Cloud City. You know how this goes.

Long story short, Rumps stabs the Dark One and is tricked into taking his place. Then he murders the Duke (who previously shamed him in front of his kid by making him kiss his boot) and all of his guards. Win Win, we say. But probably not — because apparently, Rump's son appears to be not super thrilled by the fact that his father just stabbed a bunch of people to save his life. Well then maybe he should go fight Ogres in the Ogre Wars, you ungrateful brat? He see a black magic possessed villain, I see a hero.

At the end of the day, Rumps learned an important lesson about deals (i.e. now he's an all powerful wizard of sorts) so now he's all about contracts, and runs a pawn shop. And that's that. Clearly, this isn't the end of Robert Carlyle's scenery chewing (thank goodness for that) and sure we learned a little bit about Storybrook politics (they're fast) , but we're still waiting for this series to bring back the magic.

Until next week, let's all just think about Graham's fleshy beard and sigh. To Emma getting even MORE leather jackets!

Top image via The StarkinWinterfell Tumblr.