Once Upon A Time #2.14 “Manhattan” Recap & Review

Henry, Emma, and Mr. Gold find Baelfire in New York, while Hook, Regina, and Cora search for Rumple’s dagger. Here is a recap and review of “Manhattan.”

Recap:

Rumplestiltskin is recruited for the Ogre War, excited for the chance to overcome his father’s cowardice. A fellow soldier tells Rumple to guard a cage containing their chance of winning. It’s a young seer, who reveals that Rumple’s wife, Milah, is pregnant and Rumple’s actions will leave his child fatherless. After the seer escapes, Rumple assumes he’ll die in battle and crushes his own leg to avoid fighting. Milah is disappointed he took the cowardly way out.

In New York City, Henry, Emma, and Mr. Gold arrive at Baelfire’s apartment. They buzz his room, and he runs out the back. Under Gold’s order, Emma chases him and discovers that he’s Neal Cassidy, Henry’s father. At a bar, Neal tells Emma he was intentionally running from his father and the mysterious magical box August showed him contained a typewritten note reading, “I know you’re Baelfire.” Neal denies knowing who Emma was before meeting August.

Cora informs Regina they’re going after Rumple’s dagger to make him vanquish their enemies without Henry blaming Regina. Regina visits Belle and uses magic to float the contents of Belle’s purse, stealing a notecard with a number on it. With Hook and Cora in the library, Regina follows the number to a specific book and there finds a map. Greg decides he’ll stay in Storybrooke and sends “Her” a video of Regina using magic.

Emma returns to Gold, but doesn’t tell him anything. Gold realizes that Emma knows Neal when she holds a dreamcatcher in Neal’s room. Neal barges in and Henry exits the bathroom to learn their relation. Henry tells Emma he could have handled knowing, but she wanted to forget. In the three minutes Neal gives Gold to speak, Gold suggests taking him to Storybrooke and using magic to regain lost time. Neal strongly disapproves. Henry and Neal formally meet and Henry accepts him.

Rumple meets the seer in the forest. To find his son, Rumple takes her ability to see the future and receives jumbled images. The seer tells him that a young boy who is more than he appears will be his undoing. Rumple decides this means he must kill Henry.

Review:

“Manhattan” lived up to the hype in an episode that answered many lingering questions and stuck to the core characters of the show. It can easily be ranked as the best of the season and ranks high on the list of the series’ best.

First and foremost: the reveal of Baelfire. Although it did not come as a huge shock that Baelfire was Neal Cassady because there has been speculation of the sort, the way that the story played out was a pleasant surprise. A happy reunion was not expected, considering Rumple let his son be pulled through the portal, but the subtle animosity that Neal portrayed towards his father was more compelling than if he had gone the rout of a shouting match or expressed feelings of unworthiness and self-guilt at thinking Rumple did not love him enough to try harder to save him. Neal’s independence parallels Emma’s from a young age and further explains the bond they once shared.

Neal justify leaving Emma for her to fulfill her destiny and him accepting his son without bitterness towards Emma for her not telling him were two actions that set Neal apart from his father. If Rumple was in Neal’s situation, Rumple would have worked some magical way around abandoning his love and then thrown a fit at not being told something. One of the best sarcastic moments of the episode was when Neal impersonated Rumple’s eccentric hand gestures when motioning towards “all this” in his apartment.

In contrast to the many episodes of Once Upon A Time that focus on the idea of motherhood, “Manhattan” centered on the theme of fatherhood. On the one hand, watching Henry connect with Neal was a long-awaited scene that played out just as sweetly as desired. For an eleven-year-old, Henry has an amazing strength about him and continually steals the scene, as seen when he forgives Neal for being an absentee father because he didn’t know about his son. On the other hand, Neal’s reluctance to accept his own father was warranted. The audience conjures up feelings of sorrow for Neal at having to face his father and one wonders whether or not Neal would have been better off not having to face Rumple again. But, this encounter provides Neal with a potential way to overcome how his father treated him by being a suitable father to Henry (of course, all dependent on where the writers take the show).

I have been unable to praise Jennifer Morrison since Emma has not been in the center of the action lately, but now is a good time to make up for that. Her scenes alone with Neal, and later with Henry, were gripping and wonderfully done, mixing anger and confusion and sadness and guilt. As she is scolding Neal for letting her be arrested and not telling her why he left, she is questioning herself for keeping secrets. She displays a range of emotions without ever going over the top, even while yelling at Neal. In balancing guilt with strength, Morrison explains her decision to Henry to lie about his father. Henry tells Emma that she’s just like Regina for lying to him and making decisions to benefit herself, and in part, this makes sense given the context of the remark, but Emma has slowly proven she can change, where Regina is still scheming.

Finally, we learned the contents of the mysterious box that August showed to Neal. Not a glowing ball of fire or magic. Not a portal into another world. A simple note, persuasive by its content, but not a threat. A perfect explanation for what was inside a typewriter box. This could have been a disappointing reveal, and although it sounds overdramatic to place so much weight on four words, it was a good call to keep it subtle and believable.

Rumplestiltskin has been one of the most difficult characters to care about because his actions constantly override any redeeming qualities that he may have. His selfishness and cowardice repel the audience, along with those characters around him. Also, he tends to make up his own rules as he goes along. Didn’t Gold already tell Emma he was cashing in that favor she owed him by having her tag along on his journey? But now he insists the favor is for her to get Bae to talk to him. That sounds like one and a half favors, or two contingent upon one another.

David and Mary Margaret provided some comic relief in their one scene this episode. In case the audience was confused or overwhelmed when remembering who was related to whom, they gave us a run down, complete with a joke about dysfunctional family holiday dinners. Though having a minimal amount of screen time, they were a great addition to the episode.

Hook, Regina, and Cora, always up to no good, begin a quest that could be a fascinating story of a power struggle and of mind control. Based on the preview for the next episode, Hook is bitter about being thrown out of the club and has other plans in mind for his crocodile, and a rogue pirate in New York would be a sight to see. Regina’s desire to win Henry back seems hopeless at this point. Henry called Emma “Mom,” more than once, and even if Regina can get rid of Snow and David without blood on her hands, there’s no way Henry will not be suspicious at the persecution of his grandparents, who his adoptive mom despises.

Delving into the mythology of the show, the seer was a creepy and effective addition. But why the eyes on her hands? Not only did her character provide an explanation for Rumple in the past gaining the ability to see the future, but it also brought about a future storyline. Several of the stories told in the Enchanted Forest have provided explanations for the characters or displayed the relationships among them, but this one actually provided a present plot purpose. I assume that it was Gold’s inability to sort through his visions that prevented him from realizing all along that the boy was Henry. His determination to kill Henry will be an interesting plan to watch play out. The chances of the writers killing a kid off the show seem slim, but that it not to say that Henry will avoid being in danger.