Rockin’ Robin and a Newly-Made Marion

Since this promises to be very hectic week for me, I’m going to have to do an abbreviated recap this episode.

•  In my favorite line from this or any other episode from this show, the Author tells Gold—to his face—that he is “the biggest pain in the ass I’ve had the displeasure of writing about.†Succinct. Letting the insult roll off his back, Gold takes him back to evil HQ to get started on those happy endings.
  
• We flashback to the Hoods’ first days in the big city. It does not go well. There is a mugging, but Robin chases down the mugger because Robin is apparently the only one who’s allowed to be a thief.
  
• In Sherwood Forest past, Robin’s a bartender who’s late with his taxes. The Sheriff of Nottingham is not amused. Luckily Rumple comes in to make a deal: gold in exchange for Robin stealing the Elixir of the Wounded Heart from Oz. Robin answers with my second favorite line of this episode: “That’s a ridiculously self-explanatory name.â€
  
• In NYC, Gold collapses in the Hood apartment because his badness has poisoned his heart. He gets Robin to steal some of the aforementioned elixir to help him. Robin does this because his “code†means he even helps villains.
  
• Robin has a picture of Regina on his phone (because, middle school)
  
• In Oz, we witness the first meeting between Robin and Will Scarlett (who really gets around between realms).
  
• While looking RIDIC in a palace guard uniform, Robin steals the elixir from the witch even though she can fly and he can’t and she has flying monkeys and he doesn’t. Robin lies to Will—says he never got the elixir.
  
• In NYC, the elixir doesn’t work because Marion, aka the Wicked Witch, has switched them out. In a bit of exposition kindly given to us by Zelena accompanied by Gold while he’s having another heart attack, we learn that poor Marion has been dead since just after Emma rescued her from certain death but before she actually got back to Storybrooke. Meanwhile after Gold “killed†Zelena, she didn’t die. She glamoured herself to look like Marion.
  
• Zelena taunts gold while he’s on a ventilator. She monologues about her original plan to make Robin love her as Marion thereby ruining Regina’s happy ending. Since that hasn’t worked, she’s jumping on the Author-Writing-Happy-Endings bandwagon. (I can’t wait to see her with Mal and Cru.)
  
• In Oz, after Robin’s lie, Will tells a sad story about his drowned sister. Robin guesses Will wanted the elixir to mend his own heart and so he sneaks it onto Will’s person.
  
• In NYC, Robin waits outside the hospital for Gold. (Spoiler alert! There’s an Aladdin-type symbol behind him. Can Jafar be far behind?) They talk about happiness bla bla bla. Long story short, Gold advises getting away from Marion (‘cause he knows, but doesn’t say, she’s really wicked) and running back to Regina. What about Roland, Gold? Boyfriend’s got a real problem recognizing the needs of children.
  
• In Sherwood past, Robin has no money to pay the Sheriff since he gave the elixir to Will and couldn’t trade it to Rumple. But he and the Merry Men escape to the woods of Sherwood Forest where he shows real Marion that he has stolen the Wicked Witch’s 6-leaf clover which can transform him into someone else should Rumple come to look for him. (When does Zelena get it back?) Robin also gives us these words of wisdom: “Stealing for yourself makes you a thief; stealing for someone else makes you a hero.†Uuuum, I don’t think that’s true, Robin. Real Marion, though, is impressed and agrees to live a life of crime in hiding with him.
  
• In NYC, Robin vows to Wicked Marion that he loves her and asks “Do you remember what you said to me in Sherwood Forest?†and Wicked Marion answers “Suuuuuure, because I am totally Marion and not the Wicked Witch, but why don’t you say it.†And he does and then he deletes Regina from his phone. NOW he does it, when Marion is Wicked and Real Marion is most sincerely dead.
  
• In Storybrooke present, Regina calls Robin but Zelena picks up. Regina is horrified and becomes even more so when Gold says Regina must do what he says—help him turn Emma evil—or he will sic Zelena on Robin. We end this episode with Regina in the middle of making her choice—happy endings for the villains or Emma.
  

OK, got to start on all the crap I have to do, but I’m still mad, show, that you’ve broken up one of my favorite literary couples just so Regina can have her happy ending. But I guess now we know why Rumple was so mad at Robin that time he was torturing him when Belle got him to stop.

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