Recap / Once Upon a Time S2 E12 "In the Name of the Brother"

Season 2, Episode 12:

In the Name of the Brother

Victor: I just wanted you to have two sons again.
Alphonse: And now...now I have none.

Dr. Whale: I wanted my name to stand for life...but everybody just thinks it's the name of a monster.

Dr. Whale is tasked with mending Hook’s wounds and performing surgery on the stranger whose car crashed upon entering Storybrooke, but some of the townspeople fear that the stranger may have seen magic — which could expose their true identities to the world — and think that leaving him to die would be the best solution. Meanwhile, as Mr. Gold tries to reunite with a despondent Belle, Cora attempts to reunite with her daughter, Regina, and in the land that was, Victor Frankenstein desperately wants to prove to his disapproving father that he can, indeed, bring back the dead.

Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Alphonse Frankenstein demeans Victor for his scientific studies and ends up shoving and screaming at him at the end of the episode.
• The Ace: Gerhardt is intelligent (though in more of a "wisdom" way than his Mad Scientist brother), a decorated hero, and handsome, compared to his more melancholy and unethical older brother.
• Art Shift: Dr. Whale's flashbacks stand out because he is from another story universe, where everything is black and white. Except for Rumplestiltskin, who shows up in a flamboyant red coat.
• Asshole Victim: Alphonse was shoving and insulting his son before Frankenstein's monster choked him to death.
• Back from the Dead: Using a heart Victor received from the Enchanted Forest, Gerhardt is revived as an unspeaking shadow of what he once was.
• Badass Boast: Emma delivers one on Gold's behalf.
  Emma: You're chained down. He's on his feet, immortal, has magic, and you hurt his girl. If I were to pick dead guy of the year, I'd pick you.
• Calling Me a Logarithm:
  Victor: Are you a philanthropist?
  Rumplestiltskin: Well, I've been called worse.
• Came Back Wrong: Gerhardt Frankenstein is brought to life, sure, but he can't remember his old life, can barely speak, and is violent enough to choke his own father to death after he gets in an argument with his brother. Victor is almost willing to euthanize him, but shooting his own brother in the face is too much for him. For all we know, Gerhardt is still alive, rotting away in the Frankensteins' estate.
• Cliffhanger: As usual, two—Gold comes to Emma, cashes in on the favor she owed him since "The Price of Gold", and demands she come with him to locate his son (now that he knows where he is thanks to Cora's magic globe)...while stating that if anything happens to Belle while he's gone, he'll kill all of them. Meanwhile after Greg had told Emma he saw and remembered nothing from the accident and claimed it only happened because he was texting, he calls the unknown "Her" and tells them, "You'll never believe what I saw."
• Couch Gag: The title card features Rumple (as the only thing not black-and-white) in the Land Without Color.
• Death by Irony: Alphonse ended up being beaten to death by his favorite son, who was brought back from the dead by his other son's experiments who he always looked down on.
• Death Glare: Once again Red is all "Heeey" when Grumpy worries what would be done to a werewolf.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Alphonse Frankenstein didn't approve of his son's aspirations to bring the dead back to life and even went as far as to purchase an army commission to stop Victor from conducting further experiments.
• Freudian Excuse: According to Victor, Alphonse became the man we saw in the flashbacks after his wife’s death and Victors reason for trying to reanimate the dead was to reunite them.
  • In bitter irony, it was Victors efforts to do so that caused his relationship with Victor to degrade to the point that Alphonse calls him a disgrace to their family. Not to mention Alphonse ended up being beaten to death by his other son who Victor did resurrect. So looks like Victors experiments did end up reuniting his parents after all, but not in the way he intended.
• Foreshadowing: Gold fails to make Belle remember everything with a True Love's Kiss.^* Two seasons later we find out his true love is his own power.
• Grave Robbing: How Victor initially plans on finding a body to attempt resurrection before his brother dies and is used instead.
• I Am Not Shazam:
  • In-universe example, lampshaded by Victor Frankenstein. "I wanted my name to stand for life...but everybody just thinks it's the name of a monster."
  • Later, Emma also notes that Dr. Whale doesn't have bolts in his neck, and Henry corrects her, saying Frankenstein wasn't the monster.
  • Subverted in that in this universe the monster is also a Frankenstein.
• I Have No Son!: What Victor's father said to him when he lost his younger brother. Twice.
• Ignorance Is Bliss
  Ruby: Regina thought she was punishing us by erasing who we were. She underestimated just how much crap we wanted to forget.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Ruby's Death Glare to Leroy when he's worried about her being cut up.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Alphonse clearly favors his son Gerhardt, who followed in his father's footsteps and joined the military. He also pressures Victor to join the military as a camp physician.
• Locked Out of the Loop: When everyone is gathered at the hospital and finds out Whale has been drinking (and seems in no state to operate on the outsider), Charming has to explain what happened when he brought Daniel back from the dead—which, since they weren't there for this, greatly confuses and startles Emma and Snow.
• Mad Scientist: Victor Frankenstein, of course. He's not a cackling madman but he does watch impassively while the reanimated Gerhardt beats their father to death.
• Magic Map: Cora gives Rumplestiltskin a blood-activated globe that enables him to locate his son.
• Magic Versus Science: Rumplestiltskin is interested in Victor's work because, although he prefers magic, only science stands a chance of reanimating the dead.
• Manipulative Bitch: Cora disguises herself as Henry to get into Regina's vault, and because of this (as well as the Frame-Up with Archie) Regina refuses to accept her overtures of love and atonement and intends to have her turn herself in to Emma. But thanks to the judicious use of a memento Henry made for her when he was much younger, and some careful appeals to family and solidarity, Cora is able to convince Regina to join her instead of people who will never forgive her, and work to steal Henry back.
• Medium Blending: Everything in Victor's world that has its origin from another world with colors keeps them. Lampshaded when Rumplestiltskin references his "rosy complexion."
• The Mourning After: In "In the Name of the Brother", Victor reveals that his father was never the same after his mother died.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Gerhardt after killing his father and later after attacking his brother.
• Nice Guy: We don't see much of Gerhardt, but he seems like a genuinely good guy before he dies.
• Overly Long Gag: The patient's Star Wars ringtone. It's as if Disney's saying "We own Star Wars so we don't have to pay for the song!"
• Parental Favoritism: Victor's father clearly liked the younger son, Gerhardt, for his military experience compared to his older son, who pursued fanciful scientific experiments with his father's money.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Nicely averted. Despite the fact that most smartphones only have a four-digit passcode, random guessing gets them nowhere. Emma plugs some device into it to get past security.
  Mary Margaret: You can't just guess, there are millions of combinations—
  Ruby: Ten thousand.
  David: Leroy, can't you, I don't know, hack it?
  Leroy: You do know computer hacking and pickaxe hacking are different, right?
• Self-Made Orphan: After Victor brought him back to life, Gerhardt killed their father because he went after Victor for failing to bring Gerhardt back properly.
• They Would Cut You Up: Grumpy voices his concern about allowing the stranger to live out of fear that he would expose the magic of Storybrooke to the government.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Gerhardt is a kind and sweet guy who loves his brother, and dies in his first (and only) episode, only to be turned into a monster.
• The Un-Favourite: Victor. See Parental Favoritism above.

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