Once Upon a Time season 6 episode 13 review: Is the Blue Fairy dead?

This Once Upon a Time season 3 episode 16 review kicks off with flashbacks … a lot of flashbacks. This episode was almost entirely about the relationship between Rumpelstiltskin and his sons. We had it in the past between him and Baelfire, and then we saw it in the present with him and Gideon.

How was it? Well, this is probably an episode we’ll forget about in a few weeks time (or at least this storyline) just because there’s so much that we’ve learned about Rumple over the years that the flashbacks didn’t actually feel all that necessary. We knew that Rumple was a defector and a coward during the days of the Ogre Wars, just as we also know that he was also someone steeped in death from the moment that he became the Dark One.

What we did not realize along the way was that Rumple was not the only person hurting himself in the past. At one point, his one said used him in order to kill in the midst of the Beowulf story. Having this character come out of nowhere was a rather interesting turn, but we were more transfixed on the notion of when Bae first allowed his heart to become immersed in some darkness. This really wasn’t something we’d thought much about before tonight, and we’re also not entirely sure that it is something that we needed since we liked Baelfire’s memory being what it was — granted, Baelfire doesn’t have any memory of the incident, either, and actually convinced him that he was the one who did the killing instead. (This episode did make us miss having the adult version a.k.a. Neal on the show, so we will give it that.)

The flashbacks were transposed with the present, which featured Rumple trying to get things under control when it came to his new son Gideon, someone intent in killing Emma thinking that this would make him the Savior. He wouldn’t let him do it. Knowing what happened in the past in order to cause so much chaos and destruction, he made it his priority to tilt his priorities to taking down the Black Fairy, who poisoned his mind into such thinking in the first place.

Then … we lost the Blue Fairy. The character’s blood was needed in order to forge the sword to take the Black Fairy down, and that was great news. The bad news was that it seemed to take away her soul in the process. She’s not dead (hooray!), but it will take going through the entire journey to stop the Black F

Helping Robin of Loxley

It’s interesting that this character had such a quick exit from the show after such a recent arrival, but the logic here is clear: He took Regina’s spells to figure out a way to leave town, feeling like there was no way in which he could live in the town where he would be constantly compared to Robin.

Well, here’s the problem: Robin actually met up with the Evil Queen at the end of the episode (she’s free!), and in the process of that, he learned that she may be able to give him a very different sort of ending.

A modest proposal

Well, this was awkward! Hook proposed to Emma rather than telling her the truth about what happened with Charming’s father, but this came in the midst of her actually finding the ring in advance. He didn’t have a chance to tell the truth.

This moment, plus the cliffhanger with Robin, gave this episode a few interesting developments. However, we’re not so sure about the rest. Grade: B-.