Once Upon A Time -- Crossroads

I thought when I heard that in the promo that maybe Pompous said need instead of heed, but no. He said, "We don't heed strangers in this town." Yeah, and in this country, we don't heed someone stealing someone's throne and castle, like you and your band of merry thugs did back in Fairy Tale Land. It's hilarious watching this punk go around acting like he's in charge of the town when for 28 years he was taking a nap. You don't want people you don't know coming to town, then maybe you should post guards down at the town line to make sure no one enters town.

This was actually one of the few episodes that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. Probably because the Charmings and their bots were put in the background, finally, and weren't dominating the show like they've had for most of the season. We got some more of Whale's past life as Dr. Frankenstein and we got a tantalizing glimpse of Cora and Rump's past relationship with some very twisted possibilities.

The big action in Storybrooke was the accident that happened at the town line. The Three Stooges came down to the town line to decide what should be done. I was thrilled later in the episode when Emma told Snoring that she's the sheriff, not them, and to basically butt out while she does her job. Anyway, Emma found a braying Hook hee-hawing on the ground bragging about how he made Belle forget Rump. Rump used magic to heal Belle but she screamed and wanted him no where near her. She did the same when she woke-up and he was kissing her and she hurled their chipped tea cup against the wall and smashed it to bits. Meanwhile, the fairy tale characters feared what the stranger, Greg Mendell, saw and what threat he could be to them.

Per usual, they expected Rump to fix their problems and make it all go away. Only he told them he didn't owe them anything and in a lot of cases they owed him. In short, fix your own problems. It was about time. It got tiring seeing Rump help them and they in turn thanked him by looking down their noses on him like they were so much better than he is.

Meanwhile, Emma paid Hook a visit. He treated her to what he thought was irresistible flirting. Only his idea of flirting was like the foreign brothers Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd played on Saturday Night Live back in the 70's whose hottest pick up line was, "Ah, the foxes. We know you can't resist the big bulges in our pants. Would you like to come back to our apartment and make with the sex." Or the two head bobbing idiots from A Night At The Roxbury. In short, he's the jerk at the bar you pour your drink on and get away from as fast as possible. Why is this annoying fool still alive? He adds absolutely nothing to the show.

Whale was called in and he was fine with letting the stranger die, something Dumpy was all for, too. Only Pompous decreed the man must be saved, then once they found out what he knew, then they'd decide if they killed him or not. You know, I wonder if the rest of the fairy tale characters in Storybrooke are aware that Pompous and his band of sycophants think they have some God given right to make up the rules for everyone in Storybrooke to live by.

Whale pretends like he's going to operate on the stranger and basically says F U to the Charming Mob and takes off. He's going to take a swim by jumping off the bridge. Charming Bot Red grabs him before he can jump and tells him how she ate her boyfriend and convinces him to go back. My stomach turned at the possibility of some kind of romance between these two. I think I'd rather see Whale macking on amnesiac Belle. Imagine the triangle that would emerge. Since Rump is the Man of Magic and Whale the Man of Science it would spice up their debate on which is the strongest: science or magic. Or better still, how about Belle and Jefferson? Although the Beauty And The Beast fans that were affronted because beast didn't turn out to be a handsome prince and was Rump instead must be thrilled at the development of Belle having no memory of Rump.

After the surgery, Emma went to question the stranger, and once again we had proof of the fiction that Emma has some magic lie detector that tells her when someone is lying right to her face. Greg Mendell lied his head off that he didn't see anything because he was texting while driving and Emma bought every word he said. When she was out of the room he called his girlfriend and revealed to her just what he saw. I kept expecting them to show the mysterious HER and it would be a fairy tale character we all would recognize.

Whale's back story was about how his father didn't give two craps about him and loved his brother best. When Victor was digging up a corpse, his brother helped him escape, and got shot fatally. Rump was able to get to Victor's realm of existence via Jefferson's magic hat and he offered to give him a heart for pulling a con on Regina. Once he had that heart, he managed to resurrect his brother and brought him to see his father.

When Daddy Frankenstein attacked Victor his brother attacked Daddy Frankenstein and Victor just stood there watching Daddy Frankenstein getting bitch slapped by his favorite son. Yep, Vic was getting a little sweet revenge for Daddy treating him as the lesser son. Then he told his brother that he killed their Daddy. At one point Victor was going to kill his brother to put him out of his misery and couldn't do it, not even when his brother put the barrel of Victor's gun to his head. Victor said there had to be another way.

Meanwhile Cora made her move to sink her claws back into Regina. She went to Rump giving him a magic globe that would show him where Bae was, she also said she wanted them to have a truce and to seal it the way they used to, with a nice kiss on the lips. I'm calling it right now that Rump is going to turn out to be Regina's real father, which is really going to mess her up when she finds out. In turn, Rump told Cora where she could find Regina.

Cora really fooled me when Henry appeared looking for Regina and calling her, "Mom." I should have known it was Cora in disguise, since the day wouldn't come where that kid would go looking for Regina. Cora explained she wanted Regina back and she was just showing Regina what the so-called good people of Storybrooke really thought of her. Cora managed to sink her claws back into Regina when she told her she had a few ideas how Regina could have Henry all to herself.

Rump finally decided to call in the favor Emma owed him and told her she's leaving Storybrooke with him to hunt down Bae. He also gave Snoring a warning that if anything happened to Belle while he was gone he'd come back and kill them all. In short, Rump has put up with enough of the Charmings and their tude and no more Mr. Nice Guy.

The magic globe Cora gave Rump indicated Bae was located out of town, but if you were Cora, wouldn't you want to lure the most powerful being in Storybrooke away so you could take over the town, yourself?

It was an interesting episode in which you had Red, one of the big Charming Bots suggest that Regina's curse was actually a blessing in disguise for a lot of them who wanted to escape who they were and what they've done. The show also seemed to try and add a bit of culture shock between the fairy tale characters and the modern world they found themselves in. Snoring and the others had no idea of the capabilities of a cell phone, while Cora reacted to driving around in Regina's car.

The show is going on hiatus for three weeks until February sweeps when will probably get more culture shock when Rump travels in the outside world looking for Bae.