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November 2, Once Upon a Time airs “Family Business,” which will explore Belle’s (Emilie de Ravin) back story, and, it seems will begin unfolding the revelation that the dagger Belle holds in her possession is not the genuine Dark One dagger, but a fake. Maybe we’ll finally begin to learn why Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) has been such a nasty piece of work lately. We also learn, in the process, that Belle and Anna have a past in Arendelle, in which Belle seeks to discover lost memories about the fate of her mother.
In the meantime, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) continues to be perplexed about her lost connection to the Snow Queen (Elizabeth Mitchell), who, it was revealed last week, had been Emma’s foster mother. Why had the Snow Queen erased Emma’s memories? And how is it that the two women obviously have met in Storybrooke, yet Emma can remember nothing of it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwz6esNmI3w
But the Snow Queen is in hiding, doing who-knows-what with that mirror she’s nicked off of the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla). Why go to all that trouble for a glass shard? And what does Snow Queen’s fractured mirror do? Maybe it will all tie together by mid-season, or maybe it’s a red herring. Or something. By the way, I really loved Lana’s performance in last week’s episode. From snark to real introspection, and it was nice to finally see her get some screen time.
Getting back to Belle for a moment, we learn that she attempts to use the dagger (the fake dagger, of course) to force a reluctant Rumplestiltskin into into disclosing the Snow Queen’s whereabouts. Hmm. So Belle isn’t above using the Dark One dagger? How unlike her (and we can’t blame it on the dagger, because it’s a fake). Maybe it has a placebo effect, drawing her towards magic, even if the object, itself, isn’t magical? Again, hmmm.
And what, oh, what shall transpire when she figures out she hasn’t got the real dagger? Or will Rumple pretend it is, in fact, the real dagger and play along with Belle to expand the charade? We shall see. I know Rumple is now the evil villain-designate, and any good in his history has been erased like a it was embedded in an Etch-A-Sketch, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll find the method to this madness. People keep trying to convince me to wait and see. That there’s more to Mr. Gold’s evil turn than meets the eye. What do you all think?
