Once Upon a Time: “Devil’s Due” (Exes Always Bring Trouble)

First Aired March 20th 2016.

Hook (played by Colin O’Donoghue) refuses to choose which of his friend’s souls Hades (played by Greg Germann) will take. As punishment, Hades dangles Hook over the River of Lost and threatens to condemn him to purgatory.

Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (played by Robert Carlyle) tells the group they need a dead soul in order for the living to get through Hades’ barriers to rescue Hook. Rumple finds the soul of his dead wife, Milah (played by Rachel Shelley), condemned to being a crossing guard and asks for her help saving Hook (once her old love). He introduces Milah and Emma (played by Jennifer Morrison) and Milah is slightly aghast that Emma had been with her ex-lover and son. Milah gets them through the barrier and Emma barely saves Hook from the River. Meanwhile, Milah tells Gold her unfinished business was her regret for abandoning their son to go off with Hook. Regina/The Evil Queen (played by Lana Parrilla) enlists the help of Cruella (played by Victoria Smurfit) for help finding her first love, Daniel, as Cruella has a map of “UnderBrooke.” Regina finds his tombstone and sees it tipped over (a sign he has moved on) and finds peace.

The only thing worse than being up the river without a paddle: swimming in one as a tortured soul. Sometimes it’s easy to forget the convoluted family tree on the show and it’s always funny to watch someone new piece it together. Saving Hook seemed relatively easy in this episode, but realistically how long could they stretch that out? It was good that Daniel moved on, not just because it gave Regina a moment of actual peace (and generally she’s just given heartache after heartache), but mainly because there are already enough “rescue trapped soul” missions happening that adding another would have slowed the main narrative considerably. The whole B story was basically stuffed in to give Regina a reason to be in the episode, and she’s too good a character to waste in the background.

Flashbacks show Rumple and his wife Milah struggling with their lives in the village. Young Baelfire is bitten by a poisonous snake and given a day to live unless Rumple and Milah kill a healer named Fendrake (played by Aaron Douglas) for his magic. Although scared Rumple agrees and in the meantime Milah meets Hook at a bar and becomes smitten. Rumple can’t kill Fendrake but is given a cure in exchange for his secondborn child. Milah is furious but Rumple sees no issue because they have no other children anyway. In the present, Hades appears and offers to send Gold home if he destroys the boat that can get the others out of the Underworld. Gold then sinks the boat and Milah and throws herself into the River of Lost Souls, telling Emma and Hook it was Hades. Regina tries to split Emma’s heart to bring Hook to life but is unable to because Hades marked Emma as one of the three people to remain in the Underworld himself, the other two being Regina and Snow White/Mary Margaret (played by Ginnifer Goodwin), effectively trapping them.

When you see the extent of what Milah put up with as Rumple’s wife, it’s hard to blame her for leaving; stuck with a husband who not only was a coward but sold the child they could have potentially had. Gold is always on the cusp of achieving the kind of redemption Regina has but power always wins. Destroying the soul of his ex-wife and trying to condemn the others to the Underworld officially confirms that he is a lost cause. Rumple and Gold may be completely different but they have one thing in common: throwing anyone under the bus to save themselves. When it looked at first that Emma couldn’t save Hook fan shippers of the couple must have went crazy. Rescuing Hook early was the way to go because there was no way to stretch that over eleven episodes. Shifting the focus to fighting Hades for the souls of Regina, Emma and Snow, both keeps the narrative fresh and moving forward and brings more action in the remaining episodes.

Gold goes to Hades and asks to be sent back home but Hades is hesitant to send him back. Hades reveals that Belle (played by Emilie de Ravin) is pregnant and Fendrake, who Gold killed long ago, signed over the contract to Hades. Since the contract promising Gold’s secondborn is now still effective if Gold doesn’t do as he’s told Hades can take Gold’s unborn child. Gold should have known better than anyone that there’s never a loophole to those magical deals. Now he’s been relegated to being Hades’ new attack dog and I’m sure this will once again destroy his relationship with Belle when she inevitably finds out. That will be a nasty shock to learn that she’s pregnant and that the Lord of the Underworld technically owns her kid.

Quotes & Thoughts

“Don’t worry, I’m not dead, just visiting.”

Rumple abandoned one child and sold the other. Some people just aren’t meant to be parents.

“Everything I did to save my friends all went to give you back your power. I should kill you.”

Hades is a great villain so far but that blue hair effect makes me laugh every time.

If you enjoyed Manny’s review, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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