The Cycle of Abandonment

Once Upon A Time, S02E14

Rumpelstiltskin, Emma, and Henry arrived in New York and found the apartment of who they assumed was Rumpelstiltskin's son.  Emma was shocked to find that Baelfire was actually Neil, and she struggled with the decision to let him go or turn him into his father.  In the past, Rumpelstiltskin went to war and met a seer who predicted the birth of his son and Rumpelstiltskin leaving his son fatherless.  Regina, her mother, and Hook looked for information about the whereabouts of Rumpelstiltskin's dagger.  Greg also got video proof of magic in Storybrooke.

Wow.  This episode was incredible.  I actually realized that Baelfire might be Neil when I saw that they were in New York City.  Before I had thought that they were just going to that airport, but going to a different city.  It's weird that I didn't immediately think New York City.  I'm just glad I had gotten to that conclusion before Emma had chased Neil down the street otherwise I would have kicked myself for not piecing the obvious clues together.

I can't believe that Neil is Baelfire, making Henry Rump's grandson.  Henry has some kind of amazing blood ties and non-blood ties (if you count Regina and her mother).  Also, Emma is firmly connected to Rump more than ever now that Rump is her son's grandfather.  She's never going to be rid of him.  I really like that they decided to do this.  Baelfire's identity has been something I've wanted to know for the longest time, and it was satisfying to know that we've already seen him, but we just didn't know who he really was.

I don't blame Emma for not telling Rump right away about Neil.  The reunion of that father and son was inevitably going to make the father-son reunion of Neil and Henry, and Emma didn't want any part of that.  I was just scared when Rump knew she was lying and started to threaten her even without magic.  He's still pretty scary without fire coming out of his hands.

Neil, even with his abandonment issues, has some nerve giving Emma crap about hiding Henry from him.  He can go straight to hell, as far as I'm concerned.  I know that Neil only acted as August had told him to, but I could give two craps about that.  That's actually another lie that he kept from her--knowing that she was the savoir.  I don't think her ending up in jail for his crimes while pregnant was such a small thing that she should have been looking for Neil a long time ago.  Yeah, right!  I would never want to see his punk ass again!  Anyway, Neil being involved would have stopped Henry from ending up in Regina's hands and Henry bringing Emma to Storybrooke.  So if Neil was so damn concerned about following August's advice to get her to Storybrooke, he didn't need to know about Herny in the first place.  I was pissed that he wanted to be outraged.  

Still, I got a little teary-eyed hearing that Neil went sleep every night seeing his father let him go as a boy.  That's damn harsh.  No wonder he turned out to be a thief who would send his girl to prison.  I can't imagine the kind of trauma that put upon him.  I would hate to see that happen to Henry (although, you can't feel too abandoned when you think your father's dead to begin with).

I was disappointed in Rump's first words to Neil.  Instead of talking about the struggle he went through to be reunited, he kept talking about making up their separation with magic.  What the hell was he thinking?!  Who wants to have magic turn them back to fourteen so their father can raise them again?  That's so messed up.  Rump could have done so much better.  He didn't show that he had changed at all.  And he has changed, to some degree.  I never thought that Neil and Rump would get off to a good start, but Rump pretty much killed their reconciliation before it even began.  Damn.  I hope that he finds another way to redeem himself with Neil.  I really want him to show that from the first moment he held Baelfire, he just wanted to be there for him.

In the past, I felt bad at how manipulated Rump was by his own fate.  Once that seer had put the fear of the future in him, he was doomed to be the father he never wanted to be.  It's so damn sad.  Milah was so quickly disgusted with the way he had injured himself so he could come home alive to his son, and his cowardly decision to desert the war only put him the fast track to become the Dark One.  Rump's story is such a tragedy because all he wanted was to not be a coward nor an absent father.  His efforts to avoid that put him directly on that path.

The past also showed that Rump will be undone by Henry one day.  How ironic that the boy the seer foretold ended up being his grandson.  Rump declared that he would just kill him, but is he going to live up to that promise?  He'd have a lot of people against him if he tried.  Maybe Henry will be the one to break him of the Dark One status or something.  Those futures are so vague, it's not quite clear whether Henry is a life-threatening danger to Rump or not.

Speaking of Henry, I hated that he didn't quite understand why Emma lied to him.  Even if she was being selfish, she did have a decent reason for being so.  Likening her to Regina is a bit childish.  If he thinks everyone is just going to tell him the truth all the time, than he's a bigger child than he looks.  Maybe Henry could have handled the truth, but Emma sure as hell couldn't.  And if Emma did tell him about Neil, we know Henry would have sure as hell went looking for him.  He's that kind of gun-ho kid.  It pisses me off.  He has no idea the pain that Emma went through.  Him thinking his father was a dead hero isn't so bad as the reality.  Get over it, Henry.  As if Neil in your life would have made everything better (then again, maybe so because he might not had to live with Regina).

Back in Storybrooke, it was sort of weird to see Regina, Cora, and Hook hanging out together semi-publicly.  They were all at least in the library (which is closed, granted) looking for that book.  I think that Cora is straight-up playing Regina.  She's probably after Rump's power, not seeking to use it to destroy their enemies.  Hook isn't going to get anything out of helping them.  He's been played like a damn fiddle.  I would have loved to see him go to New York and fight Rump fairly.  Rump probably could still kick his ass with just that cane, I bet.

Regina was a moron in this episode, though.  Not just for believing that her mother is just going to use that power to get Henry back, but for openly using her powers to go through Belle's purse.  What the hell?  I knew that was going to be a problem, but I hoped it wouldn't be.  Nope.  Greg got it all on video!  Damn.  Well, the only good thing is that perhaps Regina will get involved in keeping Greg quiet later on.  If it's just left to Charming and Snow, I don't think they'll be able to keep a lid on the town's secret for much longer.

Also, Charming sounded like such an idiot when he was getting confused about how it was possible he was Henry's grandfather and Rump was too.  Um, duh!  Charming is really lucky he's brave and good with a sword because he's sometimes a moron.

Can't wait to see if Rump can get somewhere with Neil.  With the way he started to repair their relationship, Rump has a very long way to go.  Emma also needs to smooth things over with that moron Henry.  Sure he feels hurt that he's been lied to, but Emma's situation is too complicated for me to feel that Henry was betrayed severely.  Henry's getting to meet his father, so he should get over already.  Now that Neil has been named Baelfire, and Henry has been named Rump's grandson, it's unknown whether Rump will still see Henry as a threat and do away with him for his own sake.  Rump probably has a greater threat from Regina and Cora, who are conspiring to find the dagger that can kill and control him.  I'd hate to see Snow and the others get killed, but it would be entertaining to see someone use Rump as a puppet for a while. That could make a really awesome story down the line.

Nick From The Future

New Girl, S02E02

Jess embraced her freedom from employment by creating a few new identities that she used to hook up with a couple different guys.  Nick met a man who claimed to be him from the future.  Schmidt tried to get into the pants of Winston's sister while she and her mother were visiting.

This episode wasn't quite as funny as the first one, but it was still pretty good.  Schmidt and Winston's story was just as about entertaining as Jess pretending to be someone she wasn't all for the sake of what she thought were some no-strings attached hook-ups.  Those weren't horrible stories, but Nick thinking that a random man at his bar was Future Nick was the funniest of them all.

What I liked best about the Schmidt and Winston story was when Schmidt was bragging to Winston how he was going to do disgusting things to his sister and had no idea that Winston's mother was standing in the room.  But points to Schmidt for still being Schmidt and not letting it deter him in the least and hugging Mama Winston right there.  I loved her reaction to that.

[Winston's mother] You gonna take care of this?

[Winston] He's dead to me.

Thankfully, because I think it's creepy for Schmidt to go after Winston's sister, nothing really came out of his advances (so far, I guess).  As far as Jess' story went, all of her lies came crashing down when all of the guys interested in her came together in one bathroom (and you can kinda include Nick in that category as well).  I didn't mind her pretending for the sake of getting some, but what was annoying was that Nick thought that Jess was interested in Bearclaw.  Ugh!  Seriously, Nick??  But it was funny that Nick was so into Bearclaw, in a way, that he was trying to comfort the guy after he found Jess making out with another guy in a bathroom stall.  Nick is such a mess that it distracted me from the mess that Jess was currently in.  However, it was nice that the guy she pretended to meet online was still interested in at least sleeping with her.  A win is a win.  And with her being jobless at the moment, that's better than nothing.

Oh, but I did love at the beginning where Jess showed them a portrait she had done of the guys.  That was creepy in a humorous way, mostly because they guys looked so friendly and happy to be with each other in the picture.  I couldn't even imagine those guys posing for a picture like that unless they were all drunk or high.  It's too bad they all hated it because I think it adds to their apartment, which doesn't have that much style to begin with.

The best thing about the Nick story was simply that the old man was able to convince Nick (as stupid as he is in the first place) that he was really himself from the future.  I mean, what kind of person does that?  Who has the time to stalk someone and then claim to be an older version of them?  Obviously, since the man ran outside to a cardboard-made time machine, he was out of his mind, but the man had a clear understanding of Nick beyond what any stranger should have been able to have.  Then again, maybe it just suggests that Nick's personality is pretty close to one of a mentally disturbed homeless man.  If anything, I think it should make Nick take a hard look at himself and think about ways for improvement again.

I think it was also funny that even I was starting to believe that the guy was Nick from the future (even though it's not that kind of scifi show) when he was able to argue such compelling evidence:

[Future Nick] Well, I know you didn't shower this morning.
[Nick] Good guess--it's a Wednesday.

Then it was strange that Nick found felt like he could see why he wasn't the best conversationalist:

[Future Nick] Hey, tell her you’re sorry.
[Nick] What for?
[Future Nick] You’ll find out.
[Nick] I mean, I’m sure I did something stupid,but what did I do?
[Future Nick] You just tell her you’re sorry.
[Nick] What did I do?
[Future Nick] You did something stupid.  So tell her you’re sorry.
[Nick] Now I know why people get annoyed with me.  It’s hard to talk to us.

I'm almost a little disappointed that he didn't turn out to be Future Nick, but he was nonetheless wise in the case of dealing with Jess.  He might have been crazy, but I think his brand of crazy responded well to Nick's and that's why he was able to give him advice.  I wonder if he'll ever show up again?  I liked that he played with Nick's mind a little bit.

I liked this episode, but I'm about ready for Jess to get herself a new job already.  Realistically, it shouldn't happen with the snap of the fingers, but this is television, so I can expect things to move a little quicker than real life.  I'd love to see more things where Nick is being fooled by obvious lies like a future version of himself coming to see him.  It reinforces that sort of innocent side that Nick has despite his pretty cynical view of the world.  What I wouldn't like to see is Schmidt get anywhere with Winston's sister.  It was hard enough to stomach him doing Cece--I'd prefer his conquests to be more random girls I couldn't possibly care about one way or the other.

Will This Show Be On In Three Years?

How I Met Your Mother, S07E20

Barney thought he wasn't ready to prove he wanted to be serious with Quinn, but he eventually saw that his days of switching from woman to woman wasn't really his style anymore, and he chose a future with Quinn.  Ted and Marshall reminisced about the futures they had imagined for themselves at 3-year intervals, starting from the time they were in college.  Nothing had worked out for them the way they had wanted most of the time, but it seems that in 2015 Ted will finally break his losing streak with finding the one and have the family he's always envisioned.

The way Ted and Marshall pictured their lives was just ridiculous. And not in a way I could laugh at.  The first time they thought about it (in their college days) was a little funny, but that was mostly because they were still naive and young, so their ambitions of long hair, mustaches, and rock-star wives was appropriate.  However, they just kept thinking of grander and richer scenarios, which made no sense when their lives seemed to get worse and worse.  I got a little blue watching it myself, thinking of how sad Ted was and how many people in his age range probably have the same disappointments in life.  You think that you're going to be in one place, and 3 years later you haven't made any progress or are worse than you started off.  At least we know that Ted's story will have a happy ending, but for those who don't live in TV land, we have to hope our efforts pay of in the next 3 (or whatever) years.  Anyway, I wonder when this show is going to be through.  I feel like it has maybe one more year in it.  2015 would be pushing it.

I never thought that the relationship between Barney and Quinn would go without consequence (that would be too improbable for someone like him), so I was surprised at first that Quinn moving in didn't seem to faze him.  That surprise didn't last long.  I was more surprised that he struggled to let Quinn have the smallest piece of ownership in their apartment.  If Barney was finally going to let a woman move in (he never even let the girls he slept with stay for breakfast), I would have figured he would go all the way.  I guess it makes sense it wouldn't be that easy for him to change completely.  I was happy that the little stroll down memory lane of how his plan for the future always involved a different woman made his see that a future with Quinn was infinitely better.  It raises my hopes that they will stick together in the end and not be a disaster like him and Robin (ugh).

I felt like this story was a bit of a downer and a tease.  Just hurry up and show us the girl that Ted is going to get with.  I don't want to know the appropriate time it'll happen--let's just get to it.  After all, I don't think this show has much time left.  I feel like they've done a lot and most fans have to be getting sick of Ted whining about being single.  Even Barney is looking like he has met the girl he might be marrying in those future scenes they've shown us.  So let's not waste any more time.  I know for sure that, even as much as I like this show, I won't be patient for another 3 years.