Spoilers ahead! The promo for this week's episode of "Once Upon a Time" promised an interesting twist to the clas sic story of "Beauty and the Beast," and teased some dark moments from the character of Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle). The episode certainly didn't disappoint.
The episode, entitled "Skin Deep," starts out with the revelation that Belle (guest star Emilie de Ravin) is not the poor, book-loving young lady we are all familiar with. Instead, she is betrothed to Gaston and is the daughter of a rich nobleman whose village is under the threat of the encroaching ogre wars. Belle comes into Rumpelstiltskin's pos session when she agrees to go with him in order to gain his protection for her village. Her pushy, manhandling fiancé Gaston clearly disapproves of losing his promised bride, but Belle goes willingly anyway.
Despite being given a dungeon room and assigned maid duties, Emilie de Ravin's Belle looks on the bright side of life and faces her imprisonment with confident poise. As a beacon of female empowerment, she says she agreed to come with Rumpelstiltskin because she finally had the opportunity to be a brave heroine in a world dominated by male heroics (yay for girl power!). Belle starts to chip away at Rumpelstiltskin's cold heart just as much as she manages to chip his china teacups.
Back in Storybrooke, Mr. Gold cruelly repossesses the flower truck belonging to Belle's father, Moe, the local florist. Shortly after, his house is broken into and mildly panicked, he tries to con vince Emma that he knows who broke in and that he is perfectly capable of handling the situation himself. Despite the fact that Emma manages to recover the stolen property within 24 hours, Mr. Gold tells her that all of it is insignificant and one important thing is still missing.
In fairy tale land, Belle continues to try and connect with her master, but when she begins questioning him about what happened to his son, he assigns her the task of going into town to buy him more straw, giving her a chance to run away. If she returns, which he clearly thinks she won't, he says he will tell her the story of his son.
On her journey to town, Belle has a run in with the Evil Queen, who manag es to weasel out Belle's feelings of love towards Rumpelstiltskin. The Queen convinces Belle that all she needs to do is kiss Rumpelstiltskin and his curse will be broken and he will be a normal, mor tal man once more. Belle returns to Rum pelstiltskin and carries out the Queen's advice, and Rumpelstiltskin begins to turn back into a normal man.
Unfortunately, he halts the transforma tion and becomes angry when he finds out Belle spoke to the Queen. He tells Belle that no one could ever love him, and believes she is working against him with the Evil Queen in order to turn him mortal so the Queen will finally be more powerful than him. He locks Belle in the dungeon, but realizes that he does in deed have exploitable feelings for her. He releases Belle from the dungeon, tell ing her to leave because he values power more than her. Belle calls him on his lie and calls him a coward for giving up the happiness he could have had with true love. The Evil Queen arrives later and tells Rumpelstiltskin that after Belle re turn to her village, she was scorned and mistreated by her father, and she threw herself off a tower and killed herself.
In Storybrooke, Mr. Gold has kid napped Moe and taken him out to a cabin in the woods to try and get him to confess the whereabouts of what he stole and who told him to steal it. Now, actor Robert Carlyle is no stranger to violent and intimidating roles, so he was completely prepared to give a con vincing performance as Mr. Gold when the pawnbroker proceeds to beat and torture the bound Moe with his cane, shouting, "You shut her out! She's gone forever and it's your fault!"
Emma arrives and arrests Mr. Gold, and Regina visits him in jail, reveal ing that she does have the stolen item he's looking for: the china teacup Belle chipped in fairy tale land. She tells him to "tell me your name," and she will re turn it. Mr. Gold reveals that he does in deed remember his life in fairy tale land, and that Regina will still never be more powerful than him.
The episode ends with a cliffhanger revealing that Belle is in-fact alive and imprisoned by Regina in a cell under Storybrooke Hospital.
