“I’m going to finish this damned quest and get back the man I love and you cannot stop me.”
- Guinevere
This episode spent 99% of its time in Camelot (during different time periods). I think this may have been the first time we had that happen (or at least since the Neverland era). I thought it was an interesting way to give us the much-needed backstory on the Camelot crew. We first meet a young Arthur and Guinevere when Arthur shares Merlin’s prophecy that he will one day pull the sword from the stone and become King of Camelot. A bunch of older village boys tease him, since he’s just a stable boy. But we see him pull Excalibur from the stone, to find it broken. He’s a bit crushed about the fact he’s got a broken sword to rule a broken kingdom but he fools his people by keeping it sheathed and only showing part of it.
Unfortunately, it becomes clear that Arthur is obsessed with making the sword whole again. At first Guinevere understands but eventually she sees that it is driving him mad. He’s holed himself up in a tower, trying to decipher a scroll when he should be out spending time with his wife on her birthday. But nope, he’s too intent on discovering the location of the Dark One’s dagger. This apparently all takes place five years ago which is a little confusing to me timeline wise for everyone else since all of the Enchanted Forest people we know were in Storybrooke five years ago (even if the show has only gone 4 years or so). Anyway, that comes up a little bit later in the episode. First, Arthur thinks he’s decoded the location of the dagger and races off (leaving Guinevere in Lancelot’s care). Yeah I’m pretty sure he’s not gonna be happy about that one, either (although we do see that Guinevere and Lancelot are friends and it sounds like he was the one who organized the party. After Arthur sets off, Guinevere decides she’s going to find the damn dagger herself so she can get her husband back. She’s got the gauntlet that will lead her to Arthur’s weakness (aka the dagger) and Lancelot says he’s going along because Arthur would never forgive him if something happened. So yeah, this is the part where I was a little confused on the timeline. They get to the vault (a bit of retconning here because they just have to push some symbols to unlock the vault rather than use a key). Then again, maybe it’s different purposes. Anyway, Guinevere and Lancelot share a kiss after she saves him from being consumed by the darkness. But they both swear that’s all that will happen. They find the dagger but Rumple is protecting it. Oh boy. He convinces Guinevere to make a trade. She gives him the gauntlet and he gives her magic sand that can fix anything (or at least give the appearance of fixing things). He also not-so-subtly throws in a dig at the ex-wife with a comment about a heart torn between duty and desire never ending well. I snickered.
Guinevere is going to use the sand on Excalibur but she can’t bring herself to lie to Arthur (he also thinks she’s been messing around with Lancelot behind his back). He ends up using the sand on her to keep her in the marriage and support his dagger obsession. And then he uses it to repair Camelot. The dude is clearly nuts and I kind of want to just run him through with the part of Excalibur he has!
In Camelot of six weeks ago, Emma is kind of losing her mind a little bit. She keeps seeing fake Rumple and he even tries to convince her to get past Regina’s protection spell on the dagger. Ultimately, Henry and Hook help her out at least temporarily. Henry takes her to Violet’s family stables (and totally lies to his mom about his feelings for a girl). And Hook manage to get Emma’s mind off the demon in her head by horseback riding. I kind of cracked up at Emma’s reaction to Henry having a crush and lying. She’s all “but I’m the Dark One”. Hook reminds her that she’s also the kid’s mom and he probably is still trying to decide which part of her scares him more. She and Regina need to loosen up. Their little boy isn’t so little anymore!
The rest of the Charming family is having a bit of a fight over whether to trust Arthur. David says that Arthur can use the dagger to make Excalibur whole and free Emma. Snow warns that Lancelot says they can’t trust Arthur. So David goes to Arthur and spills the whole story. He wants to reunite the dagger with the sword to save his daughter but the dagger is gone. Snow heads to Granny’s where Lancelot is waiting. They’re going to hide the dagger in the Dark One’s vault so that Arthur can’t get to it. But he follows them, thinking he’s led David astray so he can get the dagger for himself. For some reason we don’t yet understand, Arthur does want to rid the darkness from the world and he wants to kill Merlin. Um, what the hell dude? David shows up and he and Snow reveal that they were both in on it (Lancelot wasn’t however) and they now know they can’t trust Arthur. Too bad Guinevere shows up at Granny’s, blows some sand ta the Charmings and tosses Lancelot in the dungeon (where he meets Merida). She’s no fan of King Arthur and it makes me wonder if maybe he’s the one who kidnapped her brothers? It’s unclear. But I’m excited for a team up nonetheless. At the end of the episode, we jump to Storybrooke in present day where we see Emma telling Rumple that he’s going to be a hero whether he wants to or not and she tasks Merida with making him “brave” (nice play on words there Adam and Eddy). This is going to be very interesting and I have a feeling things might get a wee bit unintelligible with the two Scots going at it. Bring it on!
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