Maid Marion Gets a Makeover – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Heart of Gold”

You are what you steal. If this episode of Once taught us anything, it’s probably that.

From the time that we’re little, all of us are told to be good. Be kind. Don’t break the Ten Commandments, and such.

But are there times when the end justifies the means . . . loopholes where you can accomplish deeds traditionally seen as “bad” or “wrong” and yet still be able to look at yourself in the mirror each day and say, “I’m a good person?”

Maybe . . .

There sure was a lot of stealing going on in this episode, some for “moral,” “honorable” purposes, others for ridiculous, psychotic evil purposes. There were the tangible things like bottles of magical juice, both real and fake, money, a wallet, rent-controlled apartments. And then there were the less tangible things: a heart, a happy ending, the life of another, the face of another?

Confused? Perhaps, I should backtrack a bit . . .

Worst Chase Scene Ever . . .

Let me pose a scenario for you. You have a middle-aged, not particularly athletic-looking, alcoholic writer type running through the woods . . . well, actually it’s more like a leisurely, albeit slightly asthmatic jog. This gentleman is being pursued by two opposing parties.

Party One consists of a former thief and expert marksman, a kickass bail bondsman (who also happens to be a former thief), a dragon-slaying prince, and a swashbuckling pirate, all in their late twenties and relatively physically fit.

Party Two consists of a kind of rough-looking late 50-something guy who walks with a cane and occasionally, when it is convenient for the plot, has a severe limp.

So, how do you think this is going to go? Here are the three options:

1. Middle-aged, out-of-shape writer bests them all and gets away
2. Party One tackles his ass
3. Party Two limps his way to victory

If you chose answer (b) like a logical person or answer (a) like a slightly less logical person with a flare for the creative, you clearly have not been watching this show for a long enough time.

Rumpel wins this round, as we all knew he would, easily overtaking the Author, while Snow and Charming continue to fail miserably at every aspect of life that doesn’t involve “Twue Wuv” and Emma once again proves herself to be the worst bail bondsman ever.

Rumpel finds the Author attempting to slice some wood off a tree and use it to literally write himself out of the mess he’s gotten himself into. There’s only one problem. Apparently authors of fairytales can only write with quills from the Enchanted Forest, and Storybrooke’s forest is just a boring old forest whose only enchantment is the occasional Gypsy Moth problem . . .

Fortunately, Rumpel has a magical pen for the Author to borrow . . .

Unfortunately, he wants him to use it to turn Emma into an Asshole and give all the other Assholes in this story the happy endings they don’t deserve . . .

Ruh roh . . .

Still feeling high from his victory, Rumpel visits Regina in her lair to taunt her with a napkin Robin Hood used to scribble his digits for Regina. People who don’t use modern technology are so precious . . . except when they’re the Unibomber . . . or cultists.

Regina looks longingly at her cell phone into which Robin’s number has been dutifully entered. Should she call it? Wait for him to call her? Send a text with vaguely sexual innuendo-laden emoticons?

As she ponders this age-old question, we flash back to the not-so-distant past . . .

You can check out the rest of this recap HERE.