TV Review: Once Upon A Time (5×14): Devil’s Due

(ABC/Jack Rowand)
(ABC/Jack Rowand)

This week’s episode was all about first loves, with Rumple and Hook with Milah, and Regina with Daniel, all seemingly receiving closure. Along for the ride we also got a surprise new pregnancy, a river of lost souls, and nasty deal gone wrong. Let’s get into “Devil’s Due”:

Saving Hook

At the end of last week’s episode, Hades gave Hook the option of substituting three of his friends to take the places of the three souls that left the Underworld because of them. Hook refused to do this, so Hades damned him to be lowered into the river of lost souls.

Meanwhile, Rumple called in some help from his ex-wife/Hook’s ex Milah to help them get to Hades’ dungeon as they needed the aura of an already person to get through. It was a bit of an awkward situation when Rumple introduced Milah to Emma, explaining that not only was she the lover of Milah’s ex, Hook, but has a child by Milah’s son, Baelfire/Neal. It helps to confirm how truly complicated all their lives are. Milah uses the line “You’ve been with my former lover and my son,” which hilariously puts it into perspective.

Emma and Milah worked together well; I’m glad that they didn’t waste time on petty jealousies. Yes, they both love the same man, and they both want to make sure he is safe. So we got an awkward quadrangle with Emma – Hook – Milah – Rumple, but we also got a great team together who did eventually manage to save Hook (Emma got to him just in time, and they had an adorable moment where she confirmed that she was never going to listen to him telling her not to save him).

Even though the whole “save Hook” escapade was simple and seemed a little too easy, Hades of course interfered and upped the drama level by telling Rumple to burn the boat that’ll take them back home and “sort out” Milah or else they will all stay forever in Underworld, if Rumple helps him Hades will allow him to go home.

Milah had a touching moment with Emma and Rumple where she said her unfinished business was Baelfire. The fact that she abandoned him to take off with a sexy pirate, even though he did nothing to deserve that fate, and he shouldn’t have been on the receiving end of her hatred for her husband. Emma informs Milah that Neal had gone onto a better place, and Rumple assures her that if he could forgive all the bad things that Rumple did, he would forgive Milah.

However, Rumple once again messed up all the good he did by taking Hades’ deal and tossing Milah into the river of lost souls and burning their boat home, and of course lying and saying that Hades did it all.

The flashbacks

In this episode’s flashback, we see Milah and Rumple arguing while Baelfire gets bitten by a snake. The venom makes him ill quickly and when they got to a healer for help he tells them that there is nothing more that they can do for him with medicine but magic might be able to help them. However, the potion is much more than they can afford.

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Milah tells Rumple to kill the healer and just take the potion, saying it’s what they need to do in order to save their son. Rumple is scared of having to kill another person, and Milah sees him as a coward, which ends in her sitting alone in a tavern and entertaining the advances of Killian Jones.

(ABC/Jack Rowand)

Rumple eventually goes to the healer, Fendrake and attempts to murder him in his sleep but he awakes and Rumple instead makes a deal with him for the poison – he agrees to give him his second born child.

This, of course, upsets Milah because Rumple sealed their fate and this is the catalyst which causes her to leave him. Although I think we can all agree that nothing excuses her for the way she treated her child.

The second child

So naturally after that flashback, one would be thinking of the relevance it has to the current storyline other than just bridging the gap between Rumple and Milah, and Hook and Milah, well there was a reason behind it.

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In the beginning of the episode, Rumple goes to what is essentially Peter Pan’s shop and makes a potion whereby he can see something through a crystal ball, and he sees Belle back home in Storybrooke having lunch at Granny’s this seems normal like Rumple just checking up on her, but Rumple seems shocked and breaks the crystal ball.

In another flashback, Rumple returns to Fendrake as the Dark One, and kills him as this is apparently a loophole in the contract, this is apparently when Rumple was trying to make a baby with Cora.

Later, Hades reveals to us why he broke the crystal ball  as apparently Rumple wanted the crystal ball to show him his child, and the ball revealed Belle – who is pregnant with his second child (Sidenote: We saw this coming after it was announced that Emilie de Ravin was pregnant). But they are in Underworld so death did not make the contract with Fendrake null and void, and Fendrake signed the contract over to Hades which means if Rumple does not do Hades’ biding he will take his child.

Regina and Daniel

In a side plot, Regina discovers from my favorite, Cruella, how the graveyard works – there are three types of tombstones: upright means that the person is still in underworld, tipped over means that they’ve gone onto a better place, and cracked tombstone means that they’ve gone onto a worse place.

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Regina and Snow look for Daniel’s tombstone which they eventually find tipped over, and Regina gets to say a few sweet words to her first love before moving on. That moment also allows her to get a magic back, which she uses to heal a horse. So yes folks, animals also have a purgatory.

The three tombstones

Regina’s next magical task is splitting Emma’s heart in two so that Hook can share it and return to the land of the living with them again. However she is strangely unable to do it, and they discover that even though Hook didn’t want to choose three names to go onto those tombstones, Hades decided for them, putting three names on them – Regina, Snow and Emma. Therefore Emma is now dead and unable to share her heart.

So is Hades a misogynist who only wants to kill the women? Or does he want to keep them to himself? Either way it’s pretty creepy that he only chose the women.

Rating: 7/10

Favorite line: “I see you admiring my fur, doe-skin of all things. I’m not saying it’s Bambi’s iconic dead mother and I’m not saying it’s not.” – Cruella de Vil

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