Recap / Once Upon a Time S2 E14 "Manhattan"

Season 2, Episode 14:

Manhattan

Seer: The future is a puzzle. With many pieces to be sorted. In time, you'll learn to separate what can be from what will be.

Mr. Gold: The future is like a puzzle. With missing pieces. Difficult to read. And never, never what you think.

While Mr. Gold, Emma and Henry go in search of Gold's son Bae in New York, Cora, Regina and Hook attempt to track down one of Rumpelstiltskin's most treasured possessions. Meanwhile, in the Enchanted Forest that was, Rumpelstiltskin realizes his destiny while fighting in the Ogres War.

Tropes:

• Be Careful What You Wish For: Neal insists on getting to know Henry, who is amenable to the idea, but this means he'll have to spend more time with Gold, who is part of the group's journey to Manhattan.
• Blessed with Suck: Rumpelstiltskin explains to Henry that the gift of prophecy is this; it's almost impossible to puzzle out what the future contains, and once you do it's impossible to avoid.
• Blind Seer: Complete with Eyeless Face, the Seer senses her environment through touch, hearing, and her prophecies which provide her with a disturbing amount of insight.
• Contrived Coincidence: Emma and Neal's first meeting. It's lampshaded when she points out that it's too impossible to be believed, and (using one of the justifications for this device as noted on the trope's main page) Neal goes with the There Are No Coincidences line of reasoning.
• Couch Gag: The title card features the New York City skyline.
• Creepy Child: The Seer must be less than twelve when we first see her, but she doesn't appear to have any eyes, and her prophecies drive Rumple to break his own legs out of fear.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: To "Tallahassee". Both episodes have one-word titles named after American cities (or parts of them), both involve Emma's past, and both involve big reveals relating to the show's overall mythology that will greatly change how events move forward from here.
• Domino Revelation: Emma chases down the fleeing Baelfire, only to learn he's Neal. This leads immediately to the explanation regarding August and how he convinced him to leave her, and then when Gold breaks into the apartment and they all confront one another, in quick succession Gold finds out Emma's connection to Neal (and by extension Henry), Neal finds out he had a son he never knew (and inadvertently abandoned, just as had happened to him) while Henry learns his mother lied to him about his father. Oh, and then we learn Henry was prophesied to be Rumple's undoing. Quite the Drama Bomb.
• Exact Words: Meeting with the Seer years later, Rumple acknowledges that her words on what would happen to him because of his actions were correct but "It would have been nice to have known all those pesky details."
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: On the Seer's freakin' hands. Interestingly, Season 3 shows Rumple making the same motions in Neverland in an attempt to use the powers he stole from her.
• Fountain of Youth: Rumple's idea of making up for his mistakes is to offer to turn the clock back, erasing his son's memories of growing up without him. Baelfire is less than impressed.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: The Seer baits Rumple so he would be angry enough to kill her.
• Ms. Exposition: The Seer's purpose is to let Rumple know about his certain death if he serves in the Ogre Wars, which causes him to desert, and to tell him that Henry will lead to his death, which is a problem for him in the present day since now he knows Henry is his grandson.
• Occult Blue Eyes: It's not so much the color of the Seer's eyes that make them occult, but the fact that they are in the middle of her palms.
• Once More, with Clarity: When Neal explains to Emma about August, we are treated to a flashback to the events from "Tallahassee" and just what was in the typewriter box which convinced him to listen: August knew he was Baelfire. How he knew this, however (or for that matter how he tracked down Neal) is left unrevealed (and pretty much remains so for the rest of the show).
• The Reveal: Tons. Aside from Neal/Bae's identity and everything which follows from it as seen under Domino Revelation, there's the Seer's prophecy regarding Henry, and there's what Cora's plan is once she and Regina obtain Hook's help with the map—to get the Dark One's dagger, not to kill Gold but to command him into killing all of Regina's enemies so she can have Henry for herself again.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A seer tells Rumpelstiltskin that his actions on the battlefield will result in his son losing his father. Rumple flees the battlefield, his wife leaves him for being a coward, he becomes the Dark One to save his son, and his son leaves the realm to escape from magic. Rumpelstiltskin is not happy when he catches up with the seer again.
• Shout-Out: The seer has eyes in her hands, just like The Pale Man. (It has also been referenced before, by the Blind Witch sensing the children when they eat her food in True North.)
• Small Role, Big Impact: The seer. She only gets two scenes, but when you think about it, the fact that she shared the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy with Rumpelstiltskin leads to practically everything that happens in the show, including the Dark Curse itself.
• Tangled Family Tree:
  • Lampshaded by David, who jokes that he's glad Thanksgiving doesn't exist in their native world.
  • Also a Big, Screwed-Up Family.
  Neal: I get it; we're all messed up. Let's just say we try to avoid that with him."
• There Are No Coincidences: Stated by Baelfire to be one of the few things he and his father agree on.
• Wham Episode: Rumpelstiltskin is finally reunited with his son, who is revealed to be Neal Cassidy. In turn Emma is reunited with Neal and Henry meets his father. The seer tells Rumple the little boy (Henry) who will lead him to Baelfire will also be his undoing, to which he replies "Well, then I'll just have to kill him." Also, remember Greg? Yeah, he's sent footage of Regina using magic to "her".
• You Can't Fight Fate: The seer mentions that there are some things that can be, and some things that will be. The entire mess with Baelfire was apparently unavoidable.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Hook is knocked out by Regina and Cora once he reads the map. Ironically, the reason Hook read it for them was to find the Dark One's dagger since it is the only means by which he can kill Rumple in Storybrooke...but it turns out Cora has her own reasons for wanting the dagger, and not just because Rumple would oppose her.