It’s been one long hiatus for the show, huh? And that really wasn’t working in this episode’s favor since it’s been building hype for about three weeks. The episode was pretty good, and strange, but considering it’s one of the four final episodes of the season it felt a little bit like filler. Let’s get into it…

Storybrooke

The episode started with Henry’s birthday party – a scene that was hyped in promotion pictures for weeks. The scene ends with Gold turning Henry into porcelain and then destroying him (yay!) but it turned out to just be a dream (ugh). I guess this proves that Gold has the same dreams all of us have, really: that Henry would just go away.

Anyways, Gold finally visits Belle in the hospital to reveal he didn’t die after he left her that (creepy) phone call a few… days? Weeks? Hours? Guys, I’m not going to pretend I know what the timeline of this show looks like right now. But Belle was pretty stoked to see him and even asked him to help her remember who she was. So sensing Gold had happiness coming his way Regina obviously had to intervene and made Belle remember who she was – but as her cursed persona: Lacey. Lacey was basically anti-Belle: a bar-fly with a penchant for bad boys.  And speaking of bars – has the one Lacey was hanging out at always been there? You’d think these people, realizing they’re Fairytale characters and have duel lives, would drink more often.

After Gold tries to court Lacey, with a little wingman help from Charming, he finds that she thinks he’s too nice for her. So naturally she sneaks out mid-date to make out with some guy in an alleyway. But, when Lacey sees Gold beating the crap out of the alley-guy she gets real turned on. So basically, Gold gets the girl and he gets her in a way where she doesn’t care about how awful he is; it’s a true love story for the ages.

Elsewhere, the bean field is growing exponentially and talks of going back to Fairytale Land and taking residence start to come about. But that might be a problem because Regina ends up finding the hidden bean field after Emma acts a little shady around her. Uh oh.

The end of the episode shows us what Tamara and Greg are up to – basically making out and kidnapping pirates for their latest scheme. Quick question – when is Hook NOT bound and gagged? You’d think for a pirate he’d be a little wilier.

Fairytale Land that was

We got a little more Rumple-Belle backstory this week and learned how their romance arose. As Rumple chases down a thief (Robin Hood, no less) that stole a sword from his castle he slowly starts listening to Belle’s plights for him to be good. When they find Hood, and realize he stole the sword to heal his pregnant wife, Rumple shoots his bow and misses purposely. I guess Belles requests for him to not leave a child fatherless really hit home for the shiny Dark One. When they return back to Rumples castle he decides to a do a familiar beastly thing and give his beauty a room of books.

Questions/Notes

-So we can all agree it wouldn’t be too much of a shame if Henry was turned into a lawn gnome and destroyed, right?

-Having to kiss Rumple in his full shiny and scaly Dark One makeup must be the worst.

-Apparently Henry and now-a-child August are hitting it off. That will never not be weird.

Alexa can be reached at [email protected].