Recap / Once Upon a Time S6 E19 "The Black Fairy"

Season 6, Episode 19:

The Black Fairy

With the Black Fairy beginning another angle of attack by kidnapping the Blue Fairy, Snow, Charming, Regina, and Hook seek out the other half of the wand that can finally defeat her. Meanwhile Gold, with Emma in tow as he seeks out Gideon's heart in the dream realm, discovers the true reason why his mother abandoned him, and must make a critical choice.

Tropes

• Actually Pretty Funny: When Regina tells Zelena that she trusts Henry, not to be raised by her but to raise her, she both smiles and laughs openly about it.
• Arc Words:
  • Even Fiona, as she is being banished to the Dark Realm, says a form of the show's iconic "I will always find you" mantra as she swears to Rumple she will come back to him.
  • After the prophecy had claimed a great evil would be born in the winter, only for it to be not a baby but Fiona herself making desperate choices that corrupt her, Tiger Lily says they were wrong, the evil "wasn't born, it was made."
• Beyond the Impossible: Fiona managed to turn herself from a human into a fairy, which should not have been possible.
• Car Fu: Zelena runs over the Black Fairy with her car.
• Chronic Villainy: Gold again, since despite the commonality he has with Emma, the love and desire he has for a family, the fact he doesn't care for anyone else in Storybrooke (even Henry, Baelfire's son!), and Gideon and Belle being put safely to sleep so the Final Battle will not harm them, causes him to forgive his mother and join forces with her. And it ended up more sincere than a bluff.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The Black Fairy intends to use this on Blue to find out from her where the other half of the wand is hidden. Although there is an immediate Discretion Shot due to Smash to Black, she must have succeeded since the next time we see her, she's walking into Granny's diner.
• Continuity Nod: Back in Season One's "The Return", the Blue Fairy was given the name Reul Ghorm, a Gaelic phrase. In this episode it is also Gaelic which is employed by Fiona to transform herself into a fairy, thus establishing Gaelic as the fairy language (or at least their Language of Magic).^note The Scots Gaelic that she spoke, which has been interpreted as "winged magic", literally means "with wings power magic."
• Couch Gag: The title card features the Blue Fairy, Tiger Lily, and Fiona.
• Crazy-Prepared: Just as Gideon is about to leave, Gold slaps an anti-magic bracelet on his arm to stop him.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: For different values of good, since her reasons amount to "I did it to gain power/cut you off from your heroic destiny so I could protect you", but the Black Fairy did have a good reason since she was forced to abandon him by the Blue Fairy. Of course if she hadn't committed the dark acts she had, this wouldn't have happened to begin with...
• Death Faked for You: Gold shows the gang a black heart, making them think it's the Black Fairy's. Naturally, she's alive and well as they're now working together.
• Distinguishing Mark: The Black Fairy is obsessed with finding an infant bearing the mark of the person destined to kill her son - a crescent moon. After she takes Tiger Lily's heart, the mark appears on her own wrist.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Mysterious, powerful beings aligned with the side of good descend from the heavens to proclaim that a baby just born in midwinter would be a Savior who would face great evil (and, it is eventually revealed, will die in the attempt). One of said beings, later filled with remorse at her role in what occurs, strips herself of her own powers and wings, so becoming "fallen". The great evil was banished to another, dark realm and is now free to face the Savior in battle...
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Rumple was supposed to be the Savior, but is instead the Dark One. Kind of makes all those times he said he could never be a good man or a hero (or, as seen in this episode, that Emma has the luxury of doing the right thing but he doesn't) hurt a lot more, doesn't it?
  • Rumple is convinced that his mom never loved and abandoned him without a second thought. When in fact she wanted to save him from the Darkness, which ultimately caused both of them to embrace the darkness.
  • The Darkness destined to kill Rumple? Fiona herself.
  • The Dark Curse was created to keep Rumple safe from a great evil, so that he would never be taken from his mother. Instead after falling to evil, Rumple trains proteges (Regina and Zelena) to use the curse himself, so that he can get back to the son who had been taken from him. Also, the curse was originally intended to take other children away and then remain unbroken so as to protect a Savior from being killed by a great evil, when instead it got used to take a Savior herself away so that she would later be able to break it and then face great evil.
  • During her taunting of the Black Fairy, Regina points out that she never even cast her own Dark Curse. But as we know, the only way to cast it is to destroy the heart of the thing you love most...which for Fiona is eventually revealed to be Rumple himself. So the spell she created to save Rumple and let them be a family was the very thing which would have taken him away from her just as much as facing the great evil would have. Apparently she was so desperate she didn't bother to read all the fine print of the spells she was combining—this is what happens when you do Things Fairies Are Not Supposed to Do.^note Unless this was part of the spell Rumple added later as the Dark One to make it even more potent and evil, though there is no proof one way or the other.
• Exact Words:
  • Blue tells Emma and the others that the other half of the wand is hidden in "the center of Storybrooke." Literal-Minded Snow assumes this means the Clock Tower since it is in the geographic center of town, as well as also being the site of numerous magical showdowns, secret spellwork, and hidden Plot Devices, and being a general symbol of the town through being stopped for 28 years, then starting again with Emma's arrival. But Regina realizes Blue actually meant the emotional center (i.e. heart) since "fairies are all about love and hope"...as in, Granny's diner. Amusingly, the exact hiding place is under the jukebox since it was music that brought people together there.
  • Gold tells Gideon and Belle "no matter how it appears at the time, everything I do is to help and protect you." Immediately after this scene, he puts them both to sleep, thereby protecting them from the coming Final Battle. Because he knows Belle would be horrified by him aiding his mother in killing Emma and destroying Storybrooke, he prevents her from interfering, knowing when she awakens he can truthfully say his actions did protect her and their son, just nobody else.
• Face–Heel Turn: Gold ends up siding with the Black Fairy, desperate to have any semblance of the family he never had as a child.
• Foreshadowing: The amount of hints and clues as to Rumple's original destiny are actually rather impressive when put together with this episode—his being "the Light One" in Isaac's Alternate Universe, his being a true hero who could draw Excalibur from the stone, his being the father-in-law of a Savior and the grandfather of an Author, the implication he was going to use the Shears on himself and later did try to use them on Gideon. There's also the unicorn vision regarding Emma, stating she could either end up being the greatest hero or the blackest villain the realm had ever seen and how this ended up connecting her with Lily, as well as her becoming the Dark One—i.e., the suggestion that in these sorts of stories, the central figure always has the potential for good or evil, light or dark, Savior or destroyer. Which also suggests that Rumple's choices and decisions in the Final Battle may be just as critical as Emma's in the end.
  • Another bit of Foreshadowing from way back when, relevant to this episode: in Season One's "The Return", Blue told Baelfire that "his [Rumple's] powers do not belong here." Because they're an aberration, something never meant to occur until the Shears severed Rumple's fate as a Savior with light magic? Although considering the Dark One itself would never have existed if not for Nimue's choice, Blue could also have been referencing the Darkness in general.
• From a Certain Point of View: Blue tells Malcolm that Fiona is "gone" and has sacrificed herself for their son; the sacrifice was forced upon her by Blue, but it did protect Rumple as much as he could be after the worst was already done (the Shears), and Fiona was certainly gone from his life as far as Malcolm was concerned. Blue obviously did this because she believed telling him his wife had turned to evil and been banished to the Dark Realm, after destroying their son's heroic destiny, would only hurt Malcolm. Unfortunately, as usually happens with this trope, the lie still caused harm anyway since it made Malcolm blame Rumple for "causing" his wife's "death."
• Glamour: The Black Fairy and Gideon use magic to pose as Snow and Charming in order to get at the Blue Fairy.
• History Repeats: Gold notes that this is just what his family has always been doing. His mother used dark magic to save him, and he used it to try and save Baelfire and later Gideon...but in each case, it just made things worse.
  • Like Rumple, Fiona created, and had also intended, to use the Dark Curse to preserve her family.
• How Is That Even Possible?: Said almost verbatim by Tiger Lily when Fiona manages to use her wand to transform herself into a fairy.
• Hypocrite:
  • Despite her protestation in "The Return" that fairies don't lie, this episode shows that Blue lied to Malcolm that Fiona died, and that she lied to Belle in "Changelings" when she said that she didn't know why the Black Fairy turned dark. (She also lied to Snow and Charming in "The Stranger", but that was under duress from Geppetto, who wouldn't build the magic wardrobe otherwise.)
    • Not true about the Fiona part since "Fiona", who was good, is dead and the evil Black Fairy has replaced her. In Exact Words, Fiona is dead.
  • Fiona spurs Tiger Lily to help her create a new spell with the thought of ensuring no mother has to lose their child to the great evil, but she's actually creating a curse that will separate every mother from her child. At least, every mother with a child born that winter.
• I Am What I Am: Gold again, after the Black Fairy notes that while he was meant to be a Savior, he adored being the Dark One: "I do seem to have an affinity for the darker things in life." He then observes the same is true of her as well.
• It's the Only Way to Be Sure: Said verbatim by Fiona when she insists the Dark Curse can keep her son safe at the expense of countless others.
• Like Father, Like Son: This episode took the time to reveal Rumple's similarities with his mother, having already done so with his father. Fiona's desire to save her offspring caused her to turn to magic, then to dark powers and become fully evil, all to save her son from his dark fate. Sound familiar?
• MacGuffin: Despite how important Tiger Lily said it was in stopping the Black Fairy (because as her own former possession, it was the only thing that could banish her back to the Dark Realm), the wand this and the previous episodes revolved around ends up not being important after all—Regina restores it and Gold takes it with him to face Fiona, but after he chooses to join her instead, it's never shown what happens to it. Nor is it involved in anything Gold or Emma does in the finale.
• Mama Bear: Deconstructed—Fiona's desire to protect her son from the Darkness ended up turning both of them evil, as well as her husband, all of whom embraced dark magic and used it to their advantage.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Hook tells Henry when asking him to be his best man that after the Wookiee Prisoner Ploy and their time on the Nautilus, his request now is for "the most important mission they'll ever undertake together."
• Mundane Utility: The Black Fairy is so focused on fighting Regina she doesn't notice until the last second Zelena ramming her with her car.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Tiger Lily decided to show the human Fiona a Book of Prophecy that told her the fate of Rumple to die in a great battle. That pushed the Fairy to give him up and set in motion the events that turned Rumple into the Dark One.
  • She also gave Fiona slews of books on fairy lore that Fiona managed to use to transform herself into a fairy. And she was the one to show her the Shears of Destiny and explain what they did, in hopes that Fiona would use them to cut herself off from being the great evil so her son wouldn't have to kill or be killed by her. Instead Fiona cut him off from being the Savior.
  • The Blue Fairy banishing Fiona, leaving her to stew in the Dark Realm and Rumple to be raised by Malcolm alone, was probably the worst thing she could've done; instead of you know just taking away her power. Although there is no actual evidence she can do this; the show has made it clear all along that fairy magic, at least the good kind, is often fairly limited.
  • To top it all off, it was thanks to his wife turning to dark magic and leaving him alone that caused Pan to treat his son with such disdain all his life, eventually abandoning him to embrace dark magic himself, causing their son to do the same as well.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Emma points out that, for once, she understands Gold, having grown up without parents. Then defied by Gold snapping on how his mother never even gave him a name and had much different reasons for giving him up.
• Operation: [Blank]: When Hook asks Henry to take on a very important role for him in the wedding, he calls it "Operation Best Man."
• Origins Episode: Of the Black Fairy.
• Out-of-Character Moment: While it's understandable after her role in the events, it's hard to believe Tiger Lily punished herself by stripping her wings when this sort of thing is more the Blue Fairy's stock in trade...and considering what she did (showing secret texts of fairy lore, prophecy, and magic to a human that allowed her to become a fairy herself; letting her into the fairies' secret vault and helping her make a new spell, which is expressly forbidden and turns out to be the Dark Curse; helping create one of the greatest forces of evil in the realm; allowing a Savior meant to stop it to have his destiny severed by the Shears so that he becomes weak and cowardly and so prone to the lure of the Dark One's dagger, not to mention Fiona's husband and Rumple's father also turning to dark magic, meaning Tiger Lily is technically responsible for THREE of the greatest forces of Dark Magic ever to exist, all in one family), there's actually far more justification in stripping Tiger Lily than there ever was for Tinker Bell. Whether this is Unreliable Expositor on Tiger Lily's part or it was her actions that caused Blue to be so much harsher with Tink and Nova later remains unknown.
• The Promise: Mirroring the previous episode, Regina tells Zelena that if they lose to the Black Fairy, or if she comes to harm during the Final Battle, she wants her sister to take Henry to New York with Robin and protect him.
• Real Dreams are Weirder: When Emma and Gold are in the dream realm, Emma wonders why there aren't "flying pigs and talking donuts" (a Call-Back to Neal at the start of Season 5B). Gold dryly suggests she stay behind if she isn't impressed, but they do end up finding some weirdness since it turns out they are in Gold's subconscious, leading to them discovering the cottage he was born in (constantly filled by the sound of his mother singing a lullaby) and his blanket and bassinet in the snow.
• Retcon: Prior to this the Black Fairy had claimed to be the source of all darkness, something which, unless she had lived for millennia before having Rumple or had lived a very long time ago, was both manifestly impossible and contradicted the origin of the Darkness as seen with Nimue in the time of Merlin. This episode corrects both the origin and timeline (she was once human, became a fairy and then evil, and lived in the time of Malcolm and Rumple) but does not explain her claim of being the ultimate evil. The options are a) typical Evil Gloating to make Emma and the others fear her b) lying as part of her plan to make Rumple hate her or c) Believing Their Own Lies thanks to how long she was exiled in the Dark Realm.
• The Reveal:
  • The Black Fairy was once a human named Fiona.
  • Tiger Lily was once Rumple's fairy godmother.
  • Rumplestiltskin was to be a Savior. Before Fiona used the shears on him.
  • The wand which can banish the Black Fairy? Her own wand from when she was good, which Tiger Lily severed to stop her from creating and casting the Dark Curse.
  • Why is the Dark Curse so dark? Because it was created by a fairy in order to separate every single child from its mother (at least within a certain time period), something that is diametrically opposed to the fairies' mission in life.
  • How did Blue end up with the Black Fairy's wand, to give to Rumple in Season 3A? When she arrived at the sacred vault, conjured Tiger Lily's heart back, and exiled Fiona, the wand was dropped and easily confiscated by her afterward. (Though it doesn't explain how he had it in the past, during Hook and Emma's Time Travel episode at the end of 3B...)
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Fiona's attempts to stop the Darkness destined to kill her son end up turning her into the very thing destined to kill him.
• Spot the Imposter: Snow finally brings up the variety of bad guys who use illusion spells and how they should be prepared for it.
  Snow: We need a safe word.
• Start of Darkness: Fiona taking and trying to crush Tiger Lily's heart is what fully transformed her into the Black Fairy. Rather like Nimue and Vortigen.
• Unreliable Expositor: Blue's lie to Belle back in "Changelings" regarding not knowing why the Black Fairy turned to evil makes her this; clearly she was too ashamed of what happened (and her part in it) to reveal the truth, unless it was simply more of her usual attempts to ensure the fairies only have good PR.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Believe it or not, Malcolm used to be a very decent human being and doting father... until Fiona got banished, but the fairies made it seem like she was killed trying to save her son. Then he began to resent his son for taking his wife from him and became the Psychopathic Manchild that would become Peter Pan.
• Villain Has a Point: If Fiona had cut her own fate instead of Rumple's, he'd still be the Savior and another great evil might have arisen to destroy him instead, since that's apparently something that happens to all Saviors.
• Was Once a Man: The Black Fairy was once a human before she turned herself into a fairy.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: All of Fiona's terrible actions in her backstory was to protect Rumpelstiltskin from the dying fate that comes with being Savior. Nowadays, we can clearly see that she's gotten much, much worse and clearly enjoys it.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Turns out Malcolm gave Rumplestiltskin such an odd and off-putting name deliberately, out of resentment for (he believes) causing his mother's death and thus no longer being "perfect."