Season 6, Episode 9:
Changelings
Gold makes use of fast-aging magic to send Belle a message regarding their son, even as she goes into labor. Meanwhile, the Evil Queen attempts to kill Zelena to earn Gold's favor and Jasmine discovers a magical lamp, while Emma faces more of her dark vision. In the Enchanted Forest of years past, Rumplestiltskin steals Jack and Jill's newborn child in order to contact a powerful fairy for mysterious but critical reasons of his own.
Tropes
- Arc Words:
- When Rumple asks why his mother gave him up, the Black Fairy laughs "Sometimes you have to choose power over love."
- Belle also justifies giving up her son as "giving him the best chance".
- Batman Gambit: The Evil Queen laces Belle's tea with the potion knowing that everyone will automatically blame Gold and there's nothing that can be done. It works.
- Call-Back: Just as Emma gave up her child to give him his best chance after giving birth to him in prison, she gets to help Belle give birth while "imprisoned" behind the magic barrier in the convent, and then Belle gives up Gideon for the same reason. Realizing the parallel even helps remind Emma why she keeps fighting as the Savior, urging her to go and look for whatever set off her vision in Gold's shop so she can face it.
- Can't Live Without You: Regina stops the Evil Queen from killing Zelena by tearing out her own heart and threatening to crush it as without Regina, the Queen can't live.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The Black Fairy will turn out to be very important later on in the season.
- Cliffhanger: Again, two for two. Gold, having realized that it was the Evil Queen who laced Belle's tea with magic sand to speed up the pregnancy, resulting in him being blamed for it and losing his son (again) when Belle sends him away with the Blue Fairy, vows vengeance on the Evil Queen (who in turn blames him for trying to make her kill Zelena). Meanwhile, Emma and Hook discover the sword from her vision in Gold's shop and now believe they have the means to find out who is going to use it to kill her, and stop them.
- Cool Aunt/Evil Aunt: Lampshaded by Zelena to her daughter. One of the rare times these two tropes go together.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Evil Queen brings up how Rumple has always had a hatred for fairies.
- Belle reads "Her Handsome Hero" to the infant.
- Attacking Zelena, the Evil Queen says "looks like evil does beat wicked."
- Learning the Black Fairy is Rumple's mother helps explain an odd comment Blue made to Baelfire way back in Season One's "The Return": "You’re not untouched by magic. There’s something dark in your life." Even before Rumple became the Dark One, dark magic was affecting the family and its destiny.
- Couch Gag: The title card features a swing set.
- Didn't Think This Through: Everyone thinks sending Gideon away is a good idea...forgetting the lengths Rumple went to last time to find his son.
- Dreaming the Truth: Played with; because "Morpheus" was exposed to the dream sand just like Belle was, he can continue to appear to her in the dream world, and while he can't directly tell her what to do, he is able to guide her to realize the truth by focusing on what's "right in front of her"—which turns out to be literally true, as when she wakes up in the library, she was lying on the book with the squid ink in it. A later example doesn't even occur when she's dreaming but instead during the birth scene, and consists only of him telling her she knows what the only way is to save him from Gold, and then having a tearful parting.
- Easily Forgiven: Averted. Regina makes it clear that no matter what, she just can't forgive Zelena for Robin's death and all her other horrible deeds - even though others have forgiven her for hers, something Zelena lampshades.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted. The Evil Queen openly states she won't kill her own sister, even for the power Rumple offers, but ends up trying to do it anyway.
- Evil Versus Evil: Thanks to Gold forcing her to try and kill Zelena, the Evil Queen decides to get revenge by poisoning his love with Belle. This in turn has now set him firmly against her.
- Express Delivery: This time it's Belle's turn to have her pregnancy sped up so as to make her give birth. Somewhat ironic, given that the person who had this happen to them in the previous season is the same one whose baby she first tried to protect from the mother, then took care of for the mother, and finally sought out for help herself to keep Hades from taking her own baby.
- Frame-Up: The Evil Queen magically induces Belle's pregnancy knowing it will drive Gold and Belle apart as revenge for Gold trying to use her.
- Genre Savvy:
- When Belle finds the squid ink and plans to use it to trap Gold so the others can find the Shears, Emma and Hook immediately point out that if she does so, he can just use the aging potion on her baby and that instead they should be the ones to use the ink on him.
- Belle refuses to tell Gold the name of their son, knowing it's a way he can find the child.
- The Evil Queen laces Belle's tea with magic sand, knowing that Rumple cannot say he didn't do it, since everyone would blame him anyway. It works.
- Give Him a Normal Life: Belle tearfully gives up her son for the Blue Fairy to take away, thinking that Gold will never stop coming after him.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Rumple is revealed to be one since the Black Fairy is his mother.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Aladdin allows himself to be bound to become the Genie of the lamp to aid Jasmine.
- His Story Repeats Itself: Not only does Gold lose his son again, something Belle warned him would happen if he didn't stop his plans and which the Evil Queen cruelly lampshades, but it turns out he was abandoned twice as a child, since his mother the Black Fairy left him with Malcolm.
- Hypocrisy Nod:
- Zelena brings this up with how Regina can't forgive her for all her horrible deeds when Regina has been for her own.
- When Gold accuses Belle of having abandoned their son after she sends him away with the Blue Fairy, she angrily and quite rightfully points out how he doesn't have any room to talk.
- Ironic Echo:
- In flashbacks, Belle reads "Her Handsome Hero" to the baby Rumple abducts. She later gives the book to Blue to read to her own son.
- Rumple realizes how he and Belle's son was given up to give him a normal life...just as his mother abandoned him centuries before.
- Irony: Learning the Black Fairy is Rumple's mother makes it darkly ironic that it was her wand he used, back in Season 3's "Going Home", to switch back the souls of her great-grandson and...her former husband. Particularly since this also was reuniting a child with his family, the opposite of what she's being doing for all her villainous existence.
- Luke, You Are My Father: The Black Fairy is quite shocked when Rumplestiltskin reveals that he's the child that she abandoned years before, now all grown up.
- Meaningful Name:
- Belle names her baby after the protagonist of "Her Handsome Hero", hoping he will grow up to be the greatest hero of all.
- The episode title, referencing as it does the idea that fairies would take human babies and replace them with fey changelings — not only does Rumple steal a baby in the flashback to summon the Black Fairy (and it's revealed that taking human babies is what she does), but this is Foreshadowing to the inversion which occurs in the next episode.
- Motif: The theme of having to give a baby up to give them their best chance (though the exact words aren't quoted this time) comes up again, this time with Belle.
- Motive Misidentification:
- Thanks to his having possessed the Black Fairy's wand in the past, the viewer would be forgiven for thinking it was to obtain this that Rumple stole the baby in the flashback. Instead he desired some much more personal information.
- Zelena thinks Regina luckily happened on the farm to save her from the Evil Queen, or else that she had come to apologize; instead she was just there to look for magic to reverse Gold's aging potion.
- Never My Fault: Gold blames the Evil Queen, Belle, just about everyone but himself for losing his son.
- No-Sell: Downplayed with the squid ink; while it does hold Gold for a while, the effect doesn't last long because (as he tells Belle) he's too powerful, seeing as he holds the power of all the Dark Ones. The same is true, unsurprisingly, of the Black Fairy during the flashback.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Zelena's expression when the Evil Queen arrives, knowing Gold wants her to kill her sister.
- Also, the Black Fairy when she realizes the Dark One is the son she gave up long ago.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech: Both Gold and the Evil Queen trade several of these, but in the end the Evil Queen mostly comes out on top.
- Retcon:
- In the past, it was implied Rumple's hatred of fairies stemmed from blaming Blue for Baelfire running away. Here, it's revealed that it's actually because his mother was a fairy, and abandoned him.
- Also, despite no indication in the prior seasons, it seems Belle knew of the Blue Fairy before—because she was the one who helped her escape Rumple's library so as to rescue the baby he was offering the Black Fairy, although apparently her magic wasn't strong enough to go up against the Black Fairy directly.
- The Reveal:
- The Black Fairy is Rumplestiltskin's true mother, which is why he hates fairies.
- The hooded figure from Emma's vision kills her with a certain ruby-hilted sword which turns out to be in Gold's shop.
- Rule of Symbolism: In Belle's dream, the book she consults to try and figure out how to stop Rumple is literally called "Manual on Defeating the Dark One" and contains an image of a Red String of Fate...except it doesn't connect two lovers, it connects Belle with her son, and represents what Gold will cut with the Shears. It also leads her to the mines under Storybrooke, which is Foreshadowing of an important moment during the Final Battle.
- Turn Out Like His Father: Two-fold. Not only did Rumple grow up to become a manipulative coward like his father, but became someone who chooses power over love every time just like his mother. Make it three-fold: let's just say the stealing children business runs in the whole family.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Regina's lampshading that Gold is just using her leads the Evil Queen to get revenge by turning everyone permanently against Rumple; unfortunately this has the cost of Belle giving up her child, as well setting up a confrontation between the two that could end up having major collateral damage.
- Wham Line:
- "Oh, but I'm afraid it can... mother."
- When Belle's pregnancy is suddenly accelerated, the immediate assumption of the characters (and most of the audience) is that Gold went back on his word and put the potion in her drink anyway. The episode seems to be running with this...until we get to his later confrontation with the Evil Queen and Gold drops this little bombshell:
- What You Are in the Dark: In the end Gold couldn't bring himself to pry his son away from Belle...even though everyone else believes he tried to.
