Once upon a time, Rumplestiltskin refused to face Peter Pan armed with nothing but his good looks.
So I have a lot of thoughts about “Think Lovely Thoughts,” an episode that pulls back the curtain on Peter Pan’s origin and pushes “Once Upon a Time” towards the final act of its Neverland arc.
I’ve seen the twist speculated on and maybe some will decry it as obvious. But considering the central theme of family that crops up throughout “Once Upon a Time” – how it can give us strength or be a burden, how it doesn’t conform to any one mold, how it can unite even bitter enemies towards a common goal, etc. – the reveal that Rumplestiltskin’s father is in fact Peter Pan made perfect narrative sense. And the story was sold every step of the way by Robert Carlyle, Robbie Kay and the actors playing Rumple and Pan in the flashbacks.
When we first clasp eyes on wee Rumplestiltskin and his dad (they never say his name, but he’s credited as Malcolm), it’s clear that their father-son relationship is as complicated as Rumple and Neal’s. In fact, Malcolm off-handedly mentions at one point that his own father sold him to a blacksmith so bad dads are a family tradition! Anyway, Malcolm appears to be a shiftless, stilted con artist, who ditches Rumple with nothing but a familiar straw doll so he can avoid responsibilities and keep playing games.
But even though the kindly women who takes him in and praise his spinning skills suggest letting him go, Rumplestiltskin’s still a little boy who believes in his dad. So when he gets his hands on a magic bean, he goes to his father and convinces him they can have a fresh start somewhere else (…and doesn’t that sound familiar). Malcolm latches onto the idea of going to a land where he was at his happiest when he was a boy. That place? Neverland, of course.
Naturally, there are no happy endings for Rumplestiltskin in Neverland. As his disillusionment over his childhood dream leads him to drag the scared lad across the island, it’s clear Malcolm is only interested in being a playmate and not a parent. And that’s all before the shadow (voiced by rocker Marilyn Manson, which…okay) shows up. At first, I thought the shadow was Pan and he was going to use Malcolm to take human form. But I was giving him too much credit. Instead, Malcolm cements himself as the show’s worst father by resolutely abandoning Rumple so he can become a child forever. Wonderful work from guest stars Stephen Lord and Wyatt Oleff in that heartbreaking scene.
Robert Carlyle and Robbie Kay perfectly played the weight of that betrayal when Rumplestiltskin and Peter Pan came face-to-face late in the episode. Their squaring off was unsurprisingly intense. Carlyle did a nice job showing the scarred little boy inside of Rumple. And I really cannot say enough good things about Kay’s performance in this role. The arrogant conviction when Pan insists that he renamed himself to remember Rumple was such a good choice. I’m gonna miss their dynamic a lot when this arc is over.
Can we talk about how stupid Henry is acting for a minute? Yes, he’s a kid. Yes, Peter Pan cleverly crafted a scenario that played on Henry’s desire to be a hero. Yes, he has been disappointed and lied to by Emma, Regina, and Neal plenty of times. But he really has that much trust in Pan, who had him violently kidnapped him and isolated him from his family? He doesn’t blink an eye at performing a magic ritual in a giant skull cave (although I did think the effects shot when Pan rowed them inside of it was pretty nifty)? He doesn’t suspect a darker intent when it involves tearing his heart out of his chest? Maybe this would have worked for me if he had been under Pan’s influence longer, but it’s been a week. I can’t buy that his belief in his loved ones shattered that much in such a short period of time.
Meanwhile, as expected, Charming’s poisoning turned out to be completely pointless. We already had the deus ex machina a few weeks ago of Hook using the island’s water to cure the incurable poison. And then, in about three lines of dialogue, they threw out the potentially interesting complication of Charming being unable to leave Neverland. Sure, Rumplestiltskin is currently contained and that throws a wrinkle into things, but I can’t be bothered to care at this point. This story really did some damage to Charming as a character (though I did enjoy, in an episode filled to the brim with bad dads, the small fatherly moment between Charming and Emma). And I hope Snow was being honest when she said the issues between them were not resolved, but simply tabled. I hated that, after the numerous times she’s expressed her regrets over missing out on most of Emma’s life, she seemed ready and willing to be separated from her all over again.
Also, Tinker Bell turned out to be something of an afterthought, huh? Don’t get me wrong, I like both the actress and the character. But given the noise about how vital she was to the success of Operation Cobra Rescue when they recruited her, I thought she would have a pivotal part to play, maybe exploiting some kind of magical loophole or weakness in Pan’s defenses. But she literally just led them to the camp. And they didn’t even need her to do that since Rumple and Neal already knew where it was from the failed rescue earlier in the season. Pretty weak payoff. I do hope Tink sticks around as she could add some spice to the forthcoming Hook/Emma/Neal triangle.
A final query – we know, as do most of the characters now, that there is a prophecy stating that Henry will be Rumplestiltskin’s undoing. Is it possible that Rumple confronting his father and becoming trapped in Pandora’s Box, all in pursuit of Henry, is what the prophecy hinted at? Or is there another twist coming in this tangled family tree?
