RubyTuesdays

I liked the episode better than some of the last ones. I thought there would be more with Regina and the Snow Queen, but maybe there will be soon. I like the relationship odf Regina and Snow better than that of Regina and Emma, but the scenes were nice.

Koda

I feel like I should have liked this episode more than I did. And I did enjoy it, certainly more than the episodes with next to no Regina screentime we got before, but still... I guess I'm just not quite as invested in the Regina and Emma dynamic as I used to be. I also felt the flashbacks didn't tie in with the episodes all that well. I understand what they were intending to parallel with them and how they were necessary to set up the Snow Queen reveal at the end, but they weren't exactly a highlight of the episode for me although I like the actress they got to play younger Emma.

I did enjoy the subtle bits of insight into Regina's inner workings that you guys already mentioned a lot, though, and these recent episodes with him reminded me of how much I missed Sidney. I do wonder if we're going to see him again now, but I don't exactly expect it. Elizabeth Mitchell as the Snow Queen is still fun, but I kinda groaned a bit when her endgame was spelled out for us. I'll be able to live with it, though. And I'm glad we got an episode that focused very much on 4 of the 6 original characters, with only Rumple and Henry missing from the canvas.

GrhmLz

I agree with your point regarding the flashback parallels. I actually enjoyed them for what they were and really like the young actress who plays Emma. The general idea with the flashbacks was understood but, once again, felt a bit rushed in regards to character & relationship development. I am still of the opinion that the limited character development we do get is now suffering more visibly due to all the strong emphasis and focus on the Frozen arc and its characters. They are trying to squeeze everything in. Thus, these deleted Regina and Snow scenes.

I know there are those who will critique Regina and her reactions in this episode but clearly this was supposed to be seen from Emma's perspective. She does believe she screwed Regina over after the progress they have already made, even if it was unintended. That is the current focus and has nothing to do with the past and Emma being hung up on Regina casting the Dark Curse. Emma is supposed to be relating to Regina not being able to let her off the hook just like she could not let Lily off the hook inside her own past. Emma does not want history to repeat itself from her end by allowing herself to close off, not forgiving, and walking away. Both of them are also magically inclined so they stand out in SB. But sometimes it just feels like everything is jumping from point a to z so quickly.

However, in bringing this back around to Regina, I agree with some others that her remarks are very telling in regards to her own emotional inner workings. Regina still clearly views herself as someone who can never deserve love, good relationships ... friends. She resigned herself to that a long time ago. Clearly, she is aware she has hurt people, she acknowledged that and admitted that she lives with it. This is probably were the snark arises from because ... It is her defense mechanism. She can not change what is already done and like others have expressed, she really does not believe she is worthy of forgiveness for the past so she does not ask for it nor does she rarely offer verbal apologies. Which makes sense if she still views herself as the villain. Instead, she has recently tried to make some amends in action and with her choices. Emma is one of those people whom her past decisions have hurt so Emma declaring the idea of a possible friendship inspite of everything was probably the last thing she expected.

Very telling that she openly confessed to Emma about trapping Sidney in the mirror because she originally thought to take Marian out of the equation by killing her but changed her mind. She pointed out Emma would not have believed her anyway so Regina really believes for people to always see the worst in her and has no faith in people believing in her changes when she is trying to change.

Rhonwen

I agree with this. First , the Frozen story and all the newly added characters are taking away character devlopement from the core cast. I have vented and ranted about what they are doing with RUmple and we'll see how the rest of S4 plays out to see if I want to even bother..

But onto Regina. She's a very complicated character. Has strong emotions and emotions whether they are right or wrong are relevant. We can't help how we feel, even if it's misplaced.

Regina has lost love, and been portrayed as a villain even when she was trying not to be. regina knows that much of this is her doing and I think that is what guides her to lash out. She's frustrated and upset that love and happiness is being denied her again, and probably believes that she doesn't deserve it, or the world is telling her that. She feels like no one cares about her.

Sadly the Snow/regina scene being cut would have been a wonderful thing.

Regina is angry and hurting as her way of building up her wall of protection from all that is to fight and lash out. I tihnk peopel are upset that she did that to Emma, but I think Emma understood that Regina can't stop her feelings and needed a punching bag.

It's a process that we'll see regina go through. It makes sense, and the fact that she admitted her fist impulse was dark but she didn't do that is a giant step in the right direction.

Imzadi

thats what I was always afaraid of when I heard about frozen. that they would not only take time away from the core characters but also intrude in their development.

and yes I think Emma needs to understand that sometimes apologizing may be a nice guesture but it doesnt help the person much. done is done, there is no way to come back from bringing someones dead wife back from the dead. you can apologize over and over and regina even knows it wasnt intentional, still, it doesnt help her situation or makes her less hurt. Emma really wants forgiveness and I get that, but its not easily given, especially with things like that. Emma needs - as REgina pointed it out - to learn to live wiht it. she wont always get her way, savior or not

Neverlight

In my opinion Emma has to know when to give someone space too.

GrhmLz

It is definitely a process. Which is maybe one of the details being shown in the episodes faring pretty realistically. It will take time for Regina to sort through her old ways of coping because the old ways became so comfortable to her. It became easy to rely on her magic as a quick solution and short-lived form of what she considered due payback. In reality, what I think she was doing was using her dark magic as a shield to bury pain and to avoid certain hurtful truths. For example, it became easier to displace all the blame to Snow White rather than facing the reality of what her own mother was and what she did to her. She gave into a very reactive based emotion - pure anger that seethed beneath a craftly-woven calm facade. Then the lines blurred between her feelings of justifiable anger towards the wrongs committed against her and out of control reactive anger meshing together to the point where anybody became a target and was somehow at fault regardless of how untrue and irrational it was.

I think Regina was never able to experience the stages of grief in the normal sense. I think too much was happening all at once {her mother, losing Daniel, being forced into a loveless marriage, becoming a Queen when she did not want to be one, Rumple's influence and agenda} ... I think it all came to a head and she emotionally snapped. This foundation weakened her and made her vulnerable. It was so much easier to take the path of least resistance - the darker path.

Unfortunately, it took something as drastic as the Dark Curse for her to realize that making everyone else miserable simply because she was miserable, was never the key to her own happiness. All of the misplaced anger was for naught and she has very recently been trying to reel that reactive nature back in. Gone is the desire to just inflict any and all pain on others at the drop of a hat. However, now she is stuck with facing the reality that life is not always fair only this time without giving into a dangerous coping mechanism. She is struggling on how to deal with it all accordingly.

I think the next step is working on avoidance. She has been avoiding Emma for the most part. She tried to do it with Henry until he confronted her about pushing him away. At least this episode, whether rational or irrational, she put voice to her feelings instead of keeping them buried. It is dangerous to repress because that could lead Regina back to being openly reactive in a dangerous way.

Regina is clearly not comfortable in her own skin right now. She is fighting to find the Regina who is not angry, hurt, and vengeful. It was a drasticly new experience to have Robin Hood so openly accepting of her, believing in her changes, and not holding her past against her. I think she honestly expects everyone else to hold the past against her indefinitely. They say it is much harder to accept forgiving yourself once you accept you did not like the person you once were or the wrongs you committed. Much more so then openly accepting forgiveness from another.

I believe that is why Regina was surprised by Emma's admission that she had some hopes of maybe being friends inspite of everything. Regina knows her past actions hurt Emma and lead to her family separation and bad experiences. She is also aware of the extreme measures she inflicted on Snow. Which is why I definitely feel there is the mechanism in place of lashing out and being snarky with them. She must find it uneasy to accept their forgiveness of past events she still has trouble forgiving herself for.

In addition to this, I think Regina also lashes out because she truly does not understand how all the bad things happened to her and still happen to her when she was not the villain and is not being the villain in the present. She must question what was the difference between herself, and all the other characters, who all started innocent like herself, why was her happy ending {with Daniel and with Robin} denied her, but not ultimately denied to the others inspite of the bad experiences any of them may have experienced. Even Rumple was given a chance with Belle, despite his bad choices that may be affecting the outcome of his chances to be happy. Whereas death took Daniel and now a time portal resurrected Marian in the present. Two things completely out of her control. I think this is what is driving and propelling the book journey forward from her point of view too.

Imzadi

she does. but as the savior name tells us.. she wants to save people, and she wants to save EVERYONE so she tries and tries and tries

Koda

And while she means well, I do hope that part of Emma's journey is understanding that her savior role only goes so far. She broke the curse and she has enough magic to continue to play a very important role in protecting Storybrooke. If it's something that she wants to do, she can support Regina and be her friend. But Regina is the one who has to find her way to her happy ending and Emma can't procure or "fix" that for her.

freifraufischer

My own head canon for a while has been that Emma has been interpreting the savior title too literally. That in addition to the grand stuff like breaking the curse and trying to protect the town, she's a personal savior on some levels. She's Regina's savior because although Emma backslides a fair bit with her (mostly in season 2), she's been the adult who most consistently offered Regina a chance for some acceptance.

I just don't think Regina ever thought tolerance and acceptance was the same thing as friendship. In this way I don't think the growing relationship with Snow counts, because Snow has always seen Regina as family (even if David has only recently understood that).

I will say that after a night's sleep I think Regina's admission that she had the dark impulse to kill Marian but that she stopped herself is really important. In the past when she needs to be pulled back from the cliff it was Henry who was directly responsible for that. After Emma gets over the shock of Sydney in the mirror she make take hope from that.

I've always thought that Regina's redemption arc looks something like this. She's her most evil most crazy when she cast the dark curse. Her time in Storybrooke during the curse was almost a calming period where no matter how dull it was, she was able to slowly recover her sanity. She's still evil in season 1 when Emma shows up, but she does have some perspective. In season 2 she doesn't think she's a villain but she wants to change for Henry's sake. But you can't change for other people no matter how much you want to. She finally has to admit she wants to change for herself, "Let me die as Regina."

In 3A she admits for the first time that she is a villain. It's a stage of acceptance, and I think that's when Snow is finally able to see a concrete change and acknowledges it to the town. Going back to the EF throws Regina for a loop because because her redemption was tied to the new world of Storybrooke and even if she doesn't fall back into evil she falls back into a certain attitude and armor of the Queen. I wonder if she would have had an easier time adjusting if she hadn't been dressed in the crazy evil dresses. Different armor. Just like she starts wearing more color in her SB clothes as she reforms. Anyway, a year without Henry was hard on her but it taught her that she could maintain the changes without him as a crutch and so in 3B she finally is changing for herself not for anyone else.

So when bad things happen to her in 4A she is finally has some tools to act as her own break rather than needing someone else to stop her.

I also have a theory about the effect Robin has on her, at least in SB. The original SB residents have seen her be evil to them recently, and have seen her back sliding, and while they might also accept that she has changed they have seen it happen incrementally. For Robin the last time he encountered her it was the height of her truly cray cray period. Yet the woman he encounters is a lot softer, a lot more self aware, and even if still mysterious and dark, I think it's a lot easier for him to accept the radical change for what it is.

*Dark_Angel*

YES. And we saw Emma struggle with that in 4x3. I want Regina's journey to ultimately be HER finding her happy ending and really loving herself for who she has become, not by having someone else retrieving it for her. I really do think that's what she's learning to do right now, albeit her constant struggles & tendencies of using other people for her own gain (and she ultimately was the one to judge herself for using Sidney again when she made that comment to Emma yesterday).

phoenix_shine

^I totally agree with this. And while most of us, like Regina, may think that her happy ending is with Robin, I think that in the end of her quest to find the book's author she will realize that her happiness lies with her. With her accepting herself as a good person now and letting go of her past, of her evil deeds and the harm she may have caused, the same way others around her have done. Snow has forgiven her, Emma wants her to be her friend, Henry sees her as nothing less than a hero and Robin, knowing that she had his wife imprisoned, never for one second thought of her as a monster. Ultimately Regina will have to realize that if she wants to be happy she is going to have to stop seeing herself as a villain and start seeing herself as the woman she is. Not the evil queen, but Regina! That girl whose only dream was true love. Then and only then she will be ready to fully commit to the ones she loves without holding back, like Snow said!

Captivating

Hookified

I totally agree with you Phoenix. I still think that it will take Regina a while to get there because she was surround with horrible people all her life. Even if she had not got the genie to kill Leopold then she will still be miserable because even though Snow knew, Snow would have been like papa Henry all over again. Knowing how unhappy Regina is but not able to stop it.

Neverlight

Yes. This is well said.
Sometimes Regina is like a little girl still because she has no experience with people being good to her and being caring in her life and she has had very little friends.