'Once Upon a Time' Season 3, Episode 8: 'Think Lovely Thoughts' Recap

A man hosts a card game. He cheats, and is beaten up. His son steps in to try and help him, to no avail. He is robbed - the little boy is Rumplestiltskin.

Pan convinces Henry that Wendy is getting worse. He must truly believe. Henry agrees he will save magic.

Gold and Regina walk with Pandora's box. She finds out he saw Neal, who is alive, but Gold won't tell her the whole story.

Rumple's father brings him to two ladies spinning, where he will stay. Rumple begs not to be left. His father gives him a gift - the doll that haunted him on the island. He promises to return.

Emma is upset that Snow is going to stay on the island. She wants to keep her family together. She reminds her there is always a way.

The group runs into Regina and Gold. They show off the box. Neal tells everyone about the prophesy, and they all turn on Gold.

Rumple is taught to spin, and is gifted at it. He wonders if he can make money, and bring him and his father together. The women tell him his father is a cheat and a coward, and he must get away from his name. They give him a magic bean to open a portal and start a new life. They say he is never coming back... he is at the pub, it was all a lie.

Gold insists he is not planning to hurt Henry. Neal insists to prove it he hand over the box. Gold tells Neal he doesn't know what he's up against - Pan destroyed his father.

Little Rumple goes and finds his father, not finding a job as he had said, but doing his cheap card tricks. Rumple says they can go somewhere and start over and be a family with a fresh start. They try to decide where to go. His father tells him that when he was a boy, sold to a blacksmith, at night he would remind himself to think lovely thoughts... and in his dreams, he would travel to Neverland.

They open a portal and jump.

Emma talks to Hook, trying to find a way that Charming could leave the island. Hook insists it's impossible. Gold reminds him he was poisoned with it once, by Hook, and he survived (with the candle that takes anothers' life). He says after that, he studied the poison. He can create an elixir to cure Charming entirely. But, that's a big favor.

Neal tells him no favor exchange. He'll save Charming and do it because it's the right thing to do.

They have arrived at Pan's compound. Arming themselves, they sneak in. Neal refuses to let Gold do magic, so Regina knocks the boys out. Pan and Henry, however, are missing.

They hear Wendy yelling for help and find her in her cage. Neal recognizes her. He frees her and they hug. She tells him she came back for him, she couldn't bear for him to be without a family.

Rumple and his father land on a beach. His father tells him anything is possible if they believe it here, even flying. However, he can't fly. He remembers they need pixie dust and run off in search of it.

The group finds Pan's camp. Since Neal won't let Gold do magic, Regina knocks the boys out. Pan and Henry are gone, however. They hear Wendy calling for help, and rescue her from the cage. She and Neal are reunited, and she tells him she came back for him. Once they promise to help her brothers, she admits that Pan is dying and needs Henry's heart to make him immortal, but Henry will die in the process.

Pan and Henry arrive at Skull Island, and Pan puts down a protection spell.

The group plans to keep Charming and Snow back to guard the lost boys, and they will gather water to bring back with them so Charming can be cured.

Rumple's father takes them to the trees where he will find the pixie dust in the flowers at the top. He tells Rumple not to be afraid, but Rumple tells him he doesn't want to fly, or climb the tree. He's afraid. His father says he will go up and get it. He does, and sprinkles dust on himself. The shadow that has been watching them swoops around him. It says it is the sole inhabitant of the island. He asks why he can't fly. The shadow tells him he has to believe to make the dust work... but he doesn't belong there.

The group gets to Skull Island, but can't get through the protection spell. Only Gold can walk through it... the spell will keep out anyone who has a shadow, as Pan has planned to draw Gold in. Neal realizes he was telling him the truth. He gives him back the box.

Neal, Emma, and Regina, left behind, decide they can't just wait. Emma notes the moon gives them a shadow - Regina and Emma all concentrate their magic on blotting it out.

Henry and Pan get where they need to be, but Pan realizes something is wrong. He goes back, leaving Henry. Gold pulls out his doll, remembering.

His father finds him crying, sure something had happened to him. His father tells him he was right, the magic only works for a boy. He realizes he's never been a good father, and if they go somewhere else, he'll just go back to his own ways. He says he can get back the magic of his childhood; he has to let go of the thing holding him back and keeping him an adult - the shadow comes and snatches Rumple, taking off with him. The pixie dust works suddenly... his father becomes a boy again. Peter Pan.

Gold encounters Pan. Pan gives him one last change - stay with him, and let it go. They can start over. He thought he would be more understanding since he did the same thing for Baelfire. He insists he still cares for his son.

Gold says he's going to make a fresh start - but not with him. He tries to open the box, but it won't work. Pan pulls out the real box which he has swapped out for a fake. He opens it, and it absorbs Gold.

Rumple returns to the women who taught him to spin. They ask where his doll is, and he tells them Peter Pan is gone forever.

His father, newly Peter Pan, picks up the fallen doll. He flies to Skull Rock. The shadow shows him the giant hour glass that represents the magic filling his youth and letting him stay there. The shadow tells him he's breaking the rules - Neverland was for children to visit in their sleep, not to stay in.

Henry stares at that same hour glass, now nearly out of time. Henry asks what he has to do - Pan tells him he needs his heart. He tells him he'll have to stay on the island forever with him, but he'll be a hero. Pan puts magic on Henry, and he pulls out his own heart.

Neal, Emma and Regina run in and tell him to stop. They argue with him about saving magic, while Pan tries to convince him they are lying.

Henry decides he must save magic. He tells them he loves them, and puts his heart in Pan's chest. He falls.