Once Upon a Time – Her Handsome Hero

• Title: Once Upon a Time – Her Handsome Hero
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Hades‘ (Greg Germann) plans to continue to screw with the trespassers to the Underworld continue with an appearance from Belle’s former flame Gaston (Wes Brown) who has been toiling in the Underworld ever since he was killed by Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle). Pitting the hunter versus the Dark One, Hades sits back and enjoys the show as Belle’s attempts to appeal to Gaston’s better nature (something her previous experience with the man should have taught her better) lead to the woman making a choice between the beast which is her husband and the monster who was once her fiance.

This version of Gaston is more duplicitous than the version from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. More charming and less of a braggart, it takes Belle several flashbacks to see the monster beneath the man. Even then, to help protect her home from the ogres attack (likely caused by Gaston’s treatment of one of their young), Belle agrees to marry Gaston filling in a good chunk of her backstory. More interesting to me is the creature haunting Emma‘s (Jennifer Morrison) dreams in the episode’s B-story which prove prophetic as an old friend arrives in town and Once Upon a Time returns one of my favorite characters to the fold in Red Riding Hood (Meghan Ory).