Once Upon A Time: “In the Name of the Brother”

Grade: B-

Airdate: 1/20/12

This episode of Once Upon A Time picked up right where last week’s left of: with Belle (Emilie de Ravin) screaming “who are you people?” after the fight turned car accident at the town line.

Rumple (Robert Carlyle) uses magic to fix Belle’s gunshot wound causing even more freaking out as the Charming Family Sheriff Department arrives. Emma (Jennifer Morrison) sees Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and he makes some sex jokes before Rumple tries to kill him and Emma and Charming (Josh Dallas) throw him off. The EMT arrives and Emma tells them to deal with the Pennsylvania car guy before Hook. She and her parents then realizes the outside has come to Storybrooke and that would be our major conflict for the episode.

And for some reason, Dr. Whale (David Anders) has the back story focus of this episode. It seemed a little too random. Anyway, he is getting drunk in the basement of the hospital and then we hope back to wherever Frankenstein is supposed to be from. This whole back story is why the episode got a B-. In “The Doctor” we were already told all the changes OUAT had made to the Frankenstein story. The monster was his brother–his name is Gerhardt– and Victor made a deal with Rumple to trick young Regina (Lana Parrilla) and get a heart from her. So, not that interesting.

The Charming family, Ruby (Meghan Ory) and Leroy (Lee Arenberg) get Hook, Belle and the Pennsylvania guy to the hospital. Emma gets into the guy’s phone discovers he is a regular guy named Greg Mendel. Our heroes also realize that Cora (Barbara Hershey) must be in Storybrooke too because Hook is, so Regina didn’t “kill” Archie. But, sadly just like last week Regina is M.I.A. for most of the episode.

Greg needs surgery or he might bleed to death. Rumple refuses to use magic to help and everyone tries to decide between saving his life or saving the town because he might have seen Rumple use magic. There is a small disagreement but eventually Charming orders Whale to save him.

Back in British Literature World, Victor’s dad has cut off his money supply. Rumple appears and tells him he will give him all the money he needs because he will need a favor from him one day. Yeah, tricking young Regina by not saving Daniel and causing her to become evil Regina. What was the reason for this back story?

In Storybrooke, Cora appears in Rumple’s shop and gives him some weird globe thing. He can use it to find the one person who might still love him, Baelfire, if he agrees to a truce with Cora and helps her find the same person for her, Regina. They shake hands and Cora says, “let’s seal it like we used to” and they kiss. That added a little more credence to my theory that Rumple is actually Regina’s father. Rumple looked confused about Cora kissing him.

Whale’s back story pretty much follows the Frankenstein story from this point forward. His brother is shot in the graveyard as Victor is trying to steal the body. He uses his brother’s body–we know– and Rumple tells him he can give him a more powerful heart–we know. Gerhardt comes to life, kills their father, Victor tries to kill him but can’t and says he will find a way to save him.

Back in Storybrooke, Whale is doubting his doctor abilities and flees from the hospital. Emma, Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Leroy find out that Whale is Frankenstein and Ruby goes off to find him so he can save Greg. She does and they talk about being or being mistaken for monsters in their worlds. Ruby says Regina gave them a chance to start over and they should take it. Whale agrees and goes back to the hospital.

Rumple goes to the hospital with the chipped cup, which he enchanted, to see Belle and try to restore her memory. He freaks her out again and she throws the cup at the wall, breaking it and making it clear that Belle is gone. Rumple walks past the pieces of the cup, which seems to tell us he has given up on Belle.

Hey, remember Regina is a main character? Cora breaks into her house and realizes Henry (Jared Gilmore) is her weakness. Henry then goes to the heart vault to find Regina, who was hiding in some secret room. She lets Henry in but it’s not Henry it’s Cora. Cora apologizes to Regina and tells her she failed at parenting but wants to be better know. Regina almost calls her a bitch and tells her she blew her chance for redemption.

Later on, Regina tells Cora all she wants is Henry back. Cora tells her she will never have him as long as Emma and her parents are around. Cora and Regina team up to get him back. Regina, you already tried to get him back using magic and seemed to be fully aware that it didn’t work. I’m not really sure if that scene effectively set up a villain for us.

So, the villain might be guy named Greg, whose ringtone is the Star Wars theme. Whale saves him and Emma goes to question him alone after telling her parents that the family sheriff thing isn’t normal. Thank you for realizing that, Emma. Greg says he didn’t see anything and but calls his wife at the end of the episode and makes it clear that he saw something unbelievable.

Rumple used his magic globe thing and located Baelfire, who might be in Virginia. The Charming family is at home and has a funny little scene that I hope was an intentional self parody. Emma also makes fun of Snow for sleeping with Frankenstein. Rumple then knocks on the door and tells Emma she is coming with him to find Baelfire because she owes him a favor. He warns the rest of her family and says if anything happens to Belle while he is gone he will kill all of them. Well, I guess Rumple is still a villain.

I feel that this is a time for me to address the many fan theories about Baelfire’s age. The show better give a very good explanation if Emma and Rumple don’t find an elderly Bae or just a tombstone. Tracking Bae’s age is hard but I’m going to make up some ages and let’s give it a go.

We don’t know how long ago it was when Bae used the magic bean, but he seemed about 12-years-old at that point. Let’s say right after that happened Rumple started training Cora, who was probably the same age as when Regina started, so 18. Cora has Regina when she is 20, so Bae is 14. Rumple starts training Regina when she is 18 and Bae is 32. Regina is 30 when she enacts the curse, so Bae is 44. And wait 28 years for Emma to break the curse, so Bae is 72. OUAT, you better have a good explanation prepared.

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