'Once Upon a Time' Season 2, Episode 14: 'Manhattan' Recap

Rumplestiltskin comes to tell his wife Milah the good news—he has been called to the front. Milha is upset, but he believes it’s the chance he’s been waiting for… he can finally prove that he isn’t a coward like his father. She tells him when he returns they can start a family.

In modern time, Gold, Emma, and Henry step out of a cab at the correct address... the apartment building of Gold's son. Gold hesitates, and Emma realizes they aren’t expected.

Cora comforts Regina, who is upset that Henry is gone. Hook overhears, and realizes Gold will be vulnerable without his magic. As the three weren’t victims of the curse, they can leave and have their memories unaffected.

Cora reminds him that they can search for his dagger now that he is gone—the one item that can kill him in Storybrooke.

Gold, Henry and Emma look at the apartment name list, trying to figure out which one may be his son. Emma presses one of the buttons that is unmarked, and someone answers. She says she has a package.

Emma realizes the occupant is running, and they dash outside. He goes down the fire escape, and Gold yells to Emma that this is the favor he needs from her—to get him to talk to him. Emma rushes after him.

She chases him down the street and manages to tackle him. However she looks up in shock—it’s Neil. Henry’s father.

They stand slowly. Emma asks him if he’s Gold’s son, but he doesn’t know what she means.

“You played me!”

She asks him about his father, Rumplestiltskin, and he realizes. He gets upset that Emma brought him back, but she insists she’s the only one allowed to be angry. He won’t talk to her in the open.

Meanwhile, Gold and Henry wait and enjoy a hotdog. Henry tries to reassure him that Emma will get his son, and convince him to forgive his father. Gold thanks him for bringing Emma to Storybrooke.

“You are a remarkable young man.”

Neil tells Emma that he was in hiding, and has been running from his father. He didn’t know about Emma… he found out later. He explains how August showed him the trunk… inside was a typewriter, and on it, written “I know you’re Baelfire.”

Emma is still not happy that he left her, and she went to prison. He tells her he tried to help her by getting her home. She insists it wasn’t a coincidence that they met. He blames it on fate.

“Maybe we met for a reason. Maybe something good came from us being together.”

Emma says no. She just went to jail. She doesn’t mention Henry. She tells him she’s over it, and him, but he notes that she wears the keychain he got her.

She tells him she made a deal with Gold and has to bring him to see him. He tells her to lie, and she’ll never have to see him again.

Gold is in the army now. A soldier tells him to guard a cage with his life. It contains a prisoner who can help them with the ogres. A voice comes from the cage, knowing his name, and he lifts the covering. It is a girl, with stitches across her face, and eyes on her hands. She is a seer. She tempts him with his future.

She asks for water, and tells him Milah is with child. However, his actions on the battlefield will leave his son fatherless. He begs to know how to avoid that, but she tells him he can’t. He gets mad and calls her a liar, and claims that when cows are ridden into battle, he will know she spoke the truth.

Emma calls Snow to tell her what happened. She doesn’t want to tell Henry about his father, but Snow thinks she should.

Gold and Henry still wait, Gold getting increasingly nervous. Henry tells him he can see the future—shouldn’t he know what’s happening? Gold tells him it’s tricky. Emma comes back and tells Gold that his son got away.

Regina goes to see Belle in the hospital. She says she believes Belle can help her find Rumplestiltskin. She puts Belle to sleep and roots through her purse using magic, finding a call number on an index card.

Regina believes Belle wouldn’t have left town without leaving the whereabouts of the dagger with someone he trusts. She finds, instead, a map, at the place the book should be.

Meanwhile Snow and Charming try to puzzle out their family tree.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have Thanksgiving in our land because that dinner would suck.”

Gold breaks into the apartment building, insisting that his son will come back. He breaks into Neil’s apartment, despite Emma urging him not to.

At his soldier’s camp, Rumple stares in horror at the wounded men returning, but another solider tells him that they’re lucky to get out that way. A captain tells the men they’ll be riding into battle on cow’s… slang for the leather saddles. Rumple is horrified. He goes back to the seer, but she is gone.

Rumplestiltskin sees a hammer, and he slams it against his leg.

Inside Neil’s apartment, Emma eyes a dreamcatcher. Gold thinks she knows something. Emma sends Henry to the bathroom. Gold insists that he tell her, threatening her, yelling.

The door bursts open—Neil tells him to leave her alone.

Rumple limps home from the war. Milah nurses their new son. She asks him if it’s true—the reason he injured himself. He admits he did it to himself, and he tells her about the seer. She tells him he left because he was afraid, just like his father. He says he is not like his father—he would never abandon his son. Milah gives him his son and storms out.

In the apartment, Neil says he didn’t come to see his father, he came to make sure Gold didn’t hurt Emma. Gold realizes they know one another. Henry comes out of the bathroom, and calls Emma “Mom.”

She tries to hustle Henry back out as Neil asks him how old he is. Henry shouts that he’s eleven, and Neil asks if Henry is his son.

Henry insists his father died, but Emma admits he is Neil’s son. Henry jumps out the window onto the fire escape, and Emma goes after him.

Gold tells Neil if he wants Emma to get out of her deal, he has to talk to him.

Back at the hospital the car accident man, Greg, tells someone on the phone he is being released, but is going to stay longer. He sends a video of Regina going through Belle’s stuff that he took.  

Cora and Regina get the location of the dagger from Hook—and then knock him out. Cora wants the dagger, so she can control the Dark One.

Emma tries to explain to Henry that Neil was a part of her life she wanted to forget. Henry thinks she’s just like Regina, lying. Henry wants to meet his dad.

Neil and Gold talk. Gold wants to make up for his mistakes. He can take him back to Storybrooke, and make him 14 again. He can take away the memories—Neil rejects the idea. Neil tells him before he falls asleep, all he sees is Rumplestiltskin’s face as he lets him fall into the portal. He walks away.

Time has gone forward—Gold is the Dark One now. And the seer is a young woman. He tells her to find his son. She tells him he will find him… but it will not be an easy path. She tells him what will happen, and to take the burden from her if he wants to see. He takes her hands, but he says he can’t see anything—it’s all a jumble. She falls. She tells him he will be reunited, but it will come in an unexpected way… a young boy will lead him to him, but that boy is more than he appears. There will be a price. The boy will be his undoing. The seer dies.

“Then I’ll just have to kill him.”

Emma tells Neil to talk to Henry, but not break his heart. Neil goes and introduces himself to his son. Gold watches through the window, his face intent.