Loved it? Hated it? What did you think of "The Miller's Daughter?"

[closetclana]

Sad to see wimpy David make his return these past two episodes.

But,

So happy to get evil Regina back! Let the Regina butt kicking begin!

[Leonatus]

Rumple didn't know if Snow would go through with it or not- so, he probably did think he was going to die. Not that he's not a manipulator, also.

No, I think Rumple knew right after he was struck that he wasn't going to end up dying. All he had to do was tell them to go to Storybrooke...after all, he would have his powers there, so he should be able to heal himself, right? At least, that's what he would make the characters believe so they'd take him there. If you noticed when they got into Storybrooke, he didn't even TRY to heal himself. He was more concerned with fortifying his shop and making them stop Cora, and the minute everyone except Snow is in the room, he tells her to get blankets. I don't even think it's that he couldn't heal himself, but he didn't want to. He knew that the candle would strike a chord with Snow, and he knew even more that the idea of using it on the woman who killed her mother (and ironically presented the candle in the first place) would start to sway her thoughts a little. No, he didn't know for sure that she would use it (unless he had looked into the future deciphered that he lived through the poison), but he played on her weaknesses enough to speak to the dark part of her, even for a short time, to do the deed that would keep him alive.

[SteelyGal]

I agree Leonatus, Rumple knew he wasn't going to die. We have been shown how far into the future Rumple can see. In his jail cell, he left a parchment for Emma to find before she was even born. He knew she would grow up, break the curse and then be sent back to FTL where she would need the parchment to get out of his former cell. In the flashbacks, he tells young Cora that her future child will be a girl and will be quite important. He also told Cora after she said the a bride needs to be snow white that when you see the future there is irony everywhere. Later he tells Cora as she is preparing to kill him that he had a vision that told him about this day. I have no doubts he knew he wasn't going to die because he already seen it.

[Leonatus]

I agree Leonatus, Rumple knew he wasn't going to die. We have been shown how far into the future Rumple can see. In his jail cell, he left a parchment for Emma to find before she was even born. He knew she would grow up, break the curse and then be sent back to FTL where she would need the parchment to get out of his former cell. In the flashbacks, he tells young Cora that her future child will be a girl and will be quite important. He also told Cora after she said the a bride needs to be snow white that when you see the future there is irony everywhere. Later he tells Cora as she is preparing to kill him that he had a vision that told him about this day. I have no doubts he knew he wasn't going to die because he already seen it.

Exactly. If anything, the past 2 episodes weren't hinting only at Cora's death...but they were also hinting at the fact that Rumple KNEW (or at least had an excellent idea) that this was all going to happen. He just played the part of an actor (though his words to Belle might have very well been true) and lured the audience into believing him. You saw how quickly Bae forgave him after that speech. As I said, the words to Belle may have been true, or he could have worded it perfectly knowing that Bae would be taken in by them. The one thing we do know is that Rumple is a master puppeteer. He orchestrated every fiber of the curse from its creation to its breaking. He helped mold Regina so that she'd orchestrate the curse, and he manipulated everyone he's come across so that he could achieve his goals. The only things he didn't plan on was Cora's unexpected change in her path, and Henry's birth being partly because of his own son.

But that doesn't change the fact that overall, like I said, he's a master puppeteer. He knows the right strings to pull to get people to think what he wants them to think and do what he wants them to do. We've seen him heal wounds before, and we were never led to believe that he was too weak to use magic, or that the poison was immune to his dark magic. He could have been playing Emma like a harp when he told her that she had to cast the protection spell around his shop. I mean, Rumple pretty much did what the Seer said foreseeing the future is like...he gave them a vague idea that they'd need magic to cure him, and in essence he was right. He just left out the part that the magic was in the form of the candle, and that he was going to get Snow to do it.

[InactiveUserID]

This was their best hour.

Lots of early episodes left me wondering if anything had really happened that week. This one was astounding. It got me up off of the sofa and cheering like it was a sporting event. ~ Minute 48 or thereabouts was when Snow took this episode from a 10 and turned it into an 11. When she took it upon herself to become an Odysseus, a wily fooler of greater powers. The heart trick (to have Regina doom her own moms) blew my mind. Didn't see it coming, didn't think the show was capable of it, didn't believe they were going to squeeze so much awesomeness out of the Cora finale. But there it was. And it's the perfect snap-back into evil for Regina so she can get back into character, too. And, as a worthy lesson, we saw how Regina's own decisions got her mixed up in Cora's shenanigans, which has now led to her being swept back into full evil mode by a tide of rage and vengeance. Well, honey, if you hadn't put yourself in that position in the first place (where the white-hats were forced to treat you as the enemy) then they wouldn't have tricked you so cruelly like that, as if you were...... evil and deserving of it.

This is the first time I've saved an episode of this show on the DVR. A fine hour!

(The only confusing thing about Once Upon a Time for me is they show the flashbacks from so many POV angles, and spread them out over so much time, that it's impossible to keep track of which characters started off as royals and which ones stole their crown, and whom they stole it from, and it what order. I swear that two different sets of royals must have been killed to make room for different people's ascendence. Right? For instance, in previous epidodes why did Cora have to kill a queen and arrange for Regina to catch the eye of the newly-single king when in this episode it seemed that Regina was already in line to be queen from birth? oh well.

[Leonatus]

This was their best hour.

Lots of early episodes left me wondering if anything had really happened that week. This one was astounding. It got me up off of the sofa and cheering like it was a sporting event. ~ Minute 48 or thereabouts was when Snow took this episode from a 10 and turned it into an 11. When she took it upon herself to become an Odysseus, a wily fooler of greater powers. The heart trick (to have Regina doom her own moms) blew my mind. Didn't see it coming, didn't think the show was capable of it, didn't believe they were going to squeeze so much awesomeness out of the Cora finale. But there it was. And it's the perfect snap-back into evil for Regina so she can get back into character, too. And, as a worthy lesson, we saw how Regina's own decisions got her mixed up in Cora's shenanigans, which has now led to her being swept back into full evil mode by a tide of rage and vengeance. Well, honey, if you hadn't put yourself in that position in the first place (where the white-hats were forced to treat you as the enemy) then they wouldn't have tricked you so cruelly like that, as if you were...... evil and deserving of it.

This is the first time I've saved an episode of this show on the DVR. A fine hour!

(The only confusing thing about Once Upon a Time for me is they show the flashbacks from so many POV angles, and spread them out over so much time, that it's impossible to keep track of which characters started off as royals and which ones stole their crown, and whom they stole it from, and it what order. I swear that two different sets of royals must have been killed to make room for different people's ascendence. Right? For instance, in previous epidodes why did Cora have to kill a queen and arrange for Regina to catch the eye of the newly-single king when in this episode it seemed that Regina was already in line to be queen from birth? oh well.

I think part of the problem is that Regina wasn't in line to be queen. Cora wasn't even a queen even though she was married to Prince Henry...she was still a princess. So somewhere down the road, Cora left her life at that Kingdom (most likely purposefully, driven by vengeance/power), killed Eva, and then used her death as an opportunity to replace her with Regina so that her wish for her daughter to be queen would be fulfilled.