In many ways this is Henry’s episode – but also Regina
and Emma’s episode and shows how awesome the three of them together can be.
But first we have Snow and David tag-teaming each other’s
sleeping curse. Surprisingly the whole town is not celebrating about having
half of their sogginess being reduced. At least the sogginess is somewhat
reduced by David in that vest – but I’ll never understand people who dress in
so many layers to sleep (is Snow dressed in a cardigan to bed?) What we do have
is Regina’s guilt because of what her alter ego has done to the charmings
(really, reducing the sogginess by 50% isn’t nearly good enough if it also
comes with this much angst)
Thankfully Emma is there to stop any of Regina’s thoughts
of sacrificing herself – because if she is doomed because of her Saviourness,
she needs someone she can trust to step up. And the only person she trusts to
get that done is Regina. And rightly so.
So the plan is to let Henry escape some of his teenage
angst (despite the awesome advice from his mothers) and use him as bait to trap
EQ, who still thinks of herself as his mother, in an enchanted mirror
A nice idea – but the EQ is very very cunning and turns
the tables on them with Emma and Regina now trapped in the magic mirror with no
way to communicate with the outside world and no magic
They’re in a bad place
But not as bad as the EQ would have been because, as Emma
points out, they have people out there who will try to rescue them. This has
always been a theme of Once Upon a Time
but is more so this season – and it’s an interesting one. Especially in this
era of superheroes and in a genre that specialises in awesome protagonists or,
occasionally, protagonist pairs, here we have a group that has repeatedly sent
the message that strength rests in your family, strength rests in the people
who have you back, who stand besides you, who care about you. I think the lone
hero trope is overplayed and this is a really nice change – especially when we
consider that, as the “Saviour” it would be easy to play the lone hero
narrative.
With them trapped, EQ pretends to be Regina to play
mother to Henry – and show the part of Regina she is that raised Henry. The harsh,
tough, critical part of Regina. The one that is uncompromising. The one that makes
hard choices. And part of that, of course, raises the question of how much she
is right? I mean, obviously some of the things she presents to Henry are
generally harsh and uncompromising and not good things for a child to learn –
but not all and maybe not when we remove the extreme she pursues. How much of
Regina’s drive, her determination is EQ?
