The most anticipated episode of the season, “Manhattan,” aired on “Once Upon A Time” on Sunday, Feb. 17 and took Emma, Henry and Mr. Gold on a quest to find Gold’s son Baelfire in the Big Apple.
Gold has the address and the trio arrives at what they believe is Bae’s apartment building but his name isn’t on the mailbox. Emma presses the doorbell for an apartment that has no name at all and they hear a commotion. Stepping outside, they see a man using the fire escape to get away. Gold tells Emma her favor is catch the man and make him talk to Gold.
She gives chase and after a clever move, tackles him, knocking them both to the ground. When she is able to see him clearly, she realizes it, as we all expected, Neal, the man who abandoned her when she was pregnant to go to jail for the watches he had stolen.
Emma batters him with questions about whether or not he knew who she was the whole time and if he ever really cared for her. He tells her he didn’t know her identity until August (Pinocchio) appeared and told him who she was. Then he left her to her fate.
Emma returns to Henry and Mr. Gold and tells them the man got away. Undaunted, Gold opts to break into Bae’s apartment and learn what he can about him. While there, Bae returns, wanting to make sure Gold didn’t harm Emma for not fulfilling whatever bargain she made with Gold.
Gold wants to talk to Bae. From the way they are talking to one another, Gold realizes Emma and Bae knew each other before today. Bae/Neal sees Henry and asks Emma if that is his son. Henry asks if that is his father. Henry now learns his father isn’t dead as Emma had told him and climbs out onto the fire escape.
Gold tells Bae that Emma’s deal was to get Bae to talk to him so Neal agrees to give him three minutes. Gold admits he’s made mistakes but offers to take Bae to Storybrooke where there is still magic. He can make Bae 14 again and they can start over. Or he can erase his memories and they can have a fresh start. Neal isn’t interested.
Neal explains that for so many years, the last thing he sees every night is the image of Rumplestiltskin letting go of his son’s hand over that pit. Bae grew up fatherless in a strange world because of it. Now it is time for Neal to let go of Gold and he tells Gold his time is up.
Meanwhile Henry asks Emma why she lied. She explains Neal was a bad guy, a thief and she didn’t want Henry to be hurt but mostly it was because she didn’t ever want to see him again and be hurt again. Henry says she is just like Regina who always lied to him. He asks to meet his father.
Emma asks Neal not to break Henry’s heart. Neal apologizes to Henry for it taking so long for them to meet. Henry says it’s okay because Neal didn’t know.
In Fairytale Land, we learn that Rumple saw a witch the morning he was to report for battle in the ogre wars. She told him his wife was pregnant with a son and that his actions on the battlefield would leave the boy fatherless. He assumed he would die in battle so instead, he hobbled himself so he could be sent home. When he gets there, Milla is unhappy with him and calls him a coward when she learns what he did.
Later, after Bae has left him, Rumple returns to the witch. Now he wants to be able to find his son. She tells him it will take many years and will involve a curse cast by someone else and broken by someone else before it can happen. He wants to know more and she says the only way is if he takes her gift of vision from her so he does.
He is unable to make sense of what he sees and she explains it will take time to sort the image of what might be from those that will be. Before she dies, she tells him it is a boy that will lead him to his hos son. That boy is more than he appears and will also be the undoing of Rumple. Rumple replies, ‘I’ll just have to kill him.”
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