Recap / Once Upon a Time S7 E18 The Guardian

Season 7, Episode 18:

The Guardian

Following Nick’s death, Weaver discovers the Dark One Dagger has been taken and sets out to get it back, even if it means betraying Roni’s trust. Meanwhile, Margot takes Tilly on a date, but their time together takes an unexpected twist. In a flashback, Rumple, desperate to be reunited with Belle, pays Alice a visit.

Tropes

• All for Nothing: So after finding the Dark One's dagger gone from the evidence locker, and naturally assuming Samdi took it (both because he was the only one in town known to want it and because evidence by Nick's body placed him at the scene), Weaver goes on a spree both terrified and vengeful to get it back—confronting Samdi, demanding Regina help him get the dagger back via the magic elixir Samdi gave her, and eventually going behind her back to steal it. All of this leads him to discover it...in Tilly's backpack, because as the Guardian it went to her when it was in danger. So he earned further enmity from Samdi, nearly lost Rogers's support with his unexplained actions, may have destroyed Regina's only chance to cure Henry's poisoned heart, and lost her friendship and alliance, for no good reason. Lampshaded furiously by Regina herself.
• Arc Words: "All magic comes with a price" finally returns again...and in one of the more poignant and heartbreaking manners in the series.
• Because You Can Cope: When Regina insists she needs the elixir for Henry's heart and it can't be spared to help him find the dagger, Weaver rather disparagingly references this trope by noting Henry is fine for the moment and can "do without your hugs". He has a point, since letting the dagger which can control him fall into anyone's hands (but especially Facilier's) is a very bad idea, but Regina doesn't take this well.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • The one from last episode is actually addressed again, as despite Nick's crazed nature, Henry can't get the possibility of the paternity test being right out of his head. So he prevails on Rogers to let him back into Nick's apartment to get the paper, and once he checks with the hospital finds out it's true.
  • Played with for Samdi. Despite admitting freely that he did kill Nick, when he claims to Roni that he did not take the dagger, Weaver (eavesdropping from nearby) does not believe him. But it seems clear that had the dagger not teleported to Tilly's backpack to avoid the danger, either Samdi himself or Drew (who was outside the police station) would have taken it. And since Samdi knows Tilly is the Guardian, he surely knew what happened to it but very much enjoyed keeping this information from Weaver, knowing he wouldn't believe anything he said.
• Character Development: Like Regina, Rumple has finally learned a number of painful, hard-fought lessons—that tempting others into darkness is not the right path, that immortality is not worth the price, that he will not sacrifice others for his own gain no matter how badly he wants it or how justified he believes it to be, and that retaining the dagger is necessary not for the power it can give him but to keep anyone else from being weighed down by that burden. Slightly subverted in the present as Weaver, where his fear of losing the dagger to someone else and his distrust of Samdi make him regress (whether in threatening Samdi, breaking Regina's trust by stealing the elixir from her, keeping secrets from Rogers, or nearly attacking Tilly in a rage when he finds her with the dagger)...but in the end, he still displays remorse and anguish over what he did or came close to doing, he accepts Regina's anger and rebuke, and he is clearly distressed over having lost her trust and friendship.
• Clingy MacGuffin: The Dark One's dagger again—this time in that it will also cleave to the Guardian in times of peril, whether she (or Rumple) wants it or not.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Once again, a villain magically makes proof of another's murder at their hands disappear from camera footage—this time Samdi using his already-established power over electricity to short out the police station's hard drive rather than Gold simply altering the footage directly. (Amusingly, this time it's being used to hide the truth from the one who did this the first time.) However, Samdi didn't count on Rogers being clever enough to check the bank ATM camera across from the station; or perhaps he did, since the only one filmed was Drew, not him.
  • Remember how Emma, by virtue of once having been the Dark One, could hear the voice of Darkness calling to her from the dagger? Tilly/Alice, as the Guardian, can too—except it is telling her how to contain and control it, rather than tempting her to use it.
  • Once before, Rumple tempted a young girl with the power to achieve her greatest desire, if she could only commit a dark act by taking and crushing someone's heart. This time the girl passes—and that's exactly what he wanted.
  • Once before, Rumple threatened the life of someone both he and Hook loved. This time, he spares her, earning forgiveness and friendship rather than enmity from the pirate.
  • When speaking to Alice to convince her to disregard Hook's letter warning her away from him, Rumple mentions how he only wanted to make sure she and her father got to be together again, a veiled reference to his own separation from Baelfire. His and Alice's conversation about people on the Other Side, hoping they're in a place where they never have to think about the living world again because "it would be awful always being cut off from those you love", while it's most painfully referring to Belle, also applies to Bae.
• Contrived Coincidence: Drew happens to go to Nick's apartment to look for some evidence he might have on Samdi that could free him from his debt at the same time Rogers and Henry are there looking for evidence—and after Rogers, having gotten the ATM camera pictures, knows what he looks like.
• The Corruption: The darkness of the dagger returns again, but in a different context—while Rumple has redeemed himself, the longer he goes without finding the Guardian and freeing himself, the more the darkness will poison his heart again and encourage him to commit evil acts, symbolized by the creeping return of his "crocodile" skin. Subverted in the end when he willingly allows it to take him over so that Alice won't have to bear the Guardianship (and the burden of immortality), and that while this makes him unhinged again, it doesn't seem to have made him evil the way he was before.
• Couch Gag: The "Once Upon a Time" logo is made out of the flowers Rumple has decorating his shrine to Belle.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • In the New Enchanted Forest, Rumple choosing to spare Alice a life of immortality burdened by guarding the dagger, even though this condemns him to the darkness again and keeps him from rejoining Belle, convinces Wish!Hook that he truly has redeemed himself...and so, like with the original Hook, they bury the hatchet and become friends, with him saying he owes Rumple a debt he promises to repay. But in Hyperion Heights, Weaver's actions in going against Samdi and trying to locate the missing dagger turn Regina against him, leading her to contemptuously and viciously snap that he hasn't changed and never will before cutting off all ties with him.
  • Lacking their memories of the Enchanted Forest, Margot and Tilly exchange the friendship bracelet just as they did before, and with just as emotional a meaning to the moment.
  • Henry comes to Rogers seeking out closure on what he learned from Nick, asking to speak with him...right after Rogers and Weaver found him dead.
  • In Hyperion Heights, during their date, Tilly bemoans how she has always been stuck there, never getting to leave and see the world, only using books to do so in her imagination, while Margot has been the one who got to travel to loads of amazing places. Meanwhile in the New Enchanted Forest flashbacks, while Robin has had some adventures, it's Alice that we know has traveled to Wonderland ("and other places") and thus had all the incredible experiences she's been denied under the curse.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Regina, devastated that Weaver took the elixir she needed to finish the potion for Henry's heart (and for something it turned out was all a waste), refuses to have anything more to do with him—though it's also because she thought he trusted her, and she felt it betrayed their many years as allies and even friends in the end.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Subverted twice. In the Enchanted Forest it appears as if Rumple has succumbed to the lure of the dagger once again, refusing to let Alice drain his darkness and take control of the talisman because he still can't stand being powerless...but it turns out no, he actually had realized Hook was right, that he could not condemn her to an endless life of constant watchfulness against the evil that would claim the dagger, or a life of loneliness as everyone she loved grew old and died without her, and so he took it back—even though this kept him from Belle. In Hyperion Heights, he both resists shooting Samdi and attacking Tilly for the dagger...and while he did steal the elixir and thus lose Regina's friendship, it's clear this loss has shaken him and not a price he wanted to pay to get the dagger back.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Of a very different sort—Rumple sacrifices his own goodness (and sanity), as well as his chance to be with Belle again, to keep Alice from having to live forever without Robin or Hook.
• Hypocrite: Regina points out that as important as it is to keep the dagger away from anyone who would misuse it, and as much as she understands how Belle's death hurt Rumple, dismissing why she needs the elixir is an awful thing to do when it's his own grandson whose life is on the line. Weaver is noticeably distressed before he seems to brush it aside.
• Idiot Ball: Did Facilier really believe he could hurt the Dark One with a voodoo doll?
• Internal Reveal: A whole slew of them. Not only does Weaver tell Regina that there is another Guardian despite Anastasia having left town, he finds out from her that Samdi gave her the elixir from Anastasia to use for her potion for Henry. Also Rogers and Weaver find out Nick is dead, that the cause was from having his heart stabbed from the inside, and that Drew is working for Samdi (Nick's killer) under duress. Regina also learns Samdi killed Nick, Henry learns Nick is dead and that the paternity test was real, and he then shares this with Jacinda.
• I Shall Taunt You: Facilier, when he enters Rumple's shrine to Belle, is as cruel as he is silkenly (and falsely) sympathetic. Considering how powerful Rumple is with the magic of all the past Dark Ones in him, Facilier had to be supremely confident (or as it turned out, overconfident) in his magic to protect him.
• Madness Mantra: After succumbing to the darkness again, Rumple has a rather broken and pitiful one: "Spin, spin, spin...spin, spin, spin...spin, spin spin..."
• No-Sell: On Facilier being able to hurt Rumple with a voodoo doll. Whether this is simply because he's the Dark One or because he has specifically protected himself/his heart from injury is unclear.
• Not Me This Time: Samdi gets to say this when both Regina and Weaver demand answers about the missing dagger. On the other hand, he would have taken it if he could (and the implication is that the dagger teleported away to keep him from doing so), and he did admit to killing Nick, something he feels he should be thanked for rather than blamed for.
• Papa Wolf: Unsurprisingly, Hook is this when it comes to keeping Alice safe, even (or especially) from the bloody Dark One.
• The Reveal:
  • The other possibility to be the Guardian? Alice. Ironic, that Gothel was seeking elsewhere in Rapunzel's line when it was her own daughter who had the potential as well all along. Also foreshadowed in that Alice was the first person (other than Henry) Rumple ran into after he left the Edge of Realms to seek the Guardian.
  • What was it Rumple did that made Alice feel she owed him, and why was he his impish self again, back in episode 10? Because he gave up the chance to be free of the Darkness, and rejoin Belle, so that she wouldn't have to be immortal and alone. No wonder she believes so strongly in the good in him, and wants to help him so badly! Huge.
  • The above is also the reason Wish!Hook and Rumple weren't at odds before the new Dark Curse hit.
• Secret Test of Character: As would be expected, after Facilier tells him (by communicating with Belle's spirit on the Other Side) that Alice is the Guardian but she must be proven pure of heart before she can free him from the curse, Rumple provides one of these for her—claim that there is something in Facilier's shop which can cure Hook's heart, teach her how to take a heart so that she can make Facilier give them this cure, and then reveal that all she has to do is crush his heart and she'll have the ingredient they need. Like Regina (the first time), she passes of course.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Cave of the Departed is one big shout out to Coco. It's decorated with sugar skulls and the same orange flowers from the film, and the way Rumple places Belle's photo on display in the cave resembles an ofrenda.
  • When Tilly tells Margot her reason for enjoying the bookshop is because "you can go anywhere in the world without taking a single step", this is rather reminiscent of the famous John Lubbock quote, "We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth." Even better, the quote was actually made directly once before in the show—by Rumple to Belle when he gave her the Storybrooke library. Fitting, considering Rumple has been very much a mentor to Alice/Tilly, and this episode reveals how he had hoped her Guardian powers would let him be reunited with Belle.
• There Is Another: Inverted—Alice was actually the first potential Guardian Rumple knew about, but because he had already refused to give her the burden he had been seeking another elsewhere. However, since Gothel was focused on first Rapunzel, then Anastasia, everyone believed she was the first possibility and Weaver has to tell Roni there was a second who came first.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Regina's reaction to Weaver taking the elixir for the tracking spell to find the dagger, thus making it so she most likely can't cure Henry's heart.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Samdi teleports Weaver (with gun) back to his police car, he has a mild version of this (not that he's really a villain at this point, though he is backsliding a bit).
• Wham Line: Two.
  • Regina, after finding out Weaver took the elixir and made it so she can't cure Henry's heart, and it didn't even matter because the dagger protected itself and wasn't with Samdi: "We're through."
  • Henry, revealing to Jacinda about the paternity test—not so much that he is Lucy's father (although that is a wham to the two of them), but that he acknowledges this means everything she told them about the fairy tales in his book may be true as well: "Lucy was right."