Once Upon a Time – Is Ethan Embry Rumpelstiltskin’s Lost Son?

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One of Once Upon a Time’s more engrossing mysteries may soon be answered if we’re to examine Ethan Embry’s recent casting a little more closely. And that mystery is: what happened to Rumplestiltskin’s son, Baelfire? So far we’ve only seen him flashbacks as a child and have witnessed his father’s tragic transformation from a poor coward to the Dark One, but along the way Baelfire was lost in a portal to another world. Since then Rumplestiltskin has been searching for a way to reunite with his son and believes him to be somewhere outside the town of Storybrooke, in the real world. Could Embry be playing Baelfire all grown up? Or do we already know?

According to TVLine, Embry’s role isn’t being billed as anything more special than a visitor to Storybrooke and will be recurring. But, and this is a big but, so far the only outside visitors to Storybrooke have been former residents of the fairy tale world who managed to escape Regina’s curse, those visitors being Emma and August/Pinocchio. The way things have worked is the fairy tale characters are trapped inside and the rest of the world is locked out. Unless things have changed now the curse is broken, nobody non-magical should be able to get in, making Embry’s character a very likely candidate for Baelfire.

The reunion between Baelfire and Rumple is sure to be one for the history books. Will Baelfire be angry and bitter toward his father who let magic consume him so, or will he be glad to see his dear old dad again and be pleased to see the new leaf he’s been turning over thanks to the nurturing love of Belle?

As hopeful as I am that Embry will be playing Baelfire, I can’t shrug off the notion of regular folk wandering into Storybrooke. I think that would be an interesting idea for Once Upon a Time to pursue, but with all the regular craziness that has been going on in Season 2 there might not be time to explore that particular option.