“Old habits die hard,” according to Lana Parrilla. Her Once Upon a Time alter-ego, Regina Mills, may not have completely had her membership revoked from the villains’ club.
Regina becomes the Evil Queen again in an upcoming Once Upon a Time episode. Since season 2, Regina has been on a path of redemption. She’s had a few hiccups along the way. This season, however, showed a completely different Regina. One determined, despite everything, to be good.
Emma (Jennifer Morrison) killed Regina’s chance of happiness with her true love Robin (Sean Maguire). Emma brought his dead wife Maid Marian (Christie Laing) back from the past. Therefore taking Regina and Robin’s relationship status from “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated.” After the incident, everyone predicted Regina would rush back to the dark side. Instead she planned to find whoever wrote the enchanted fairytale book and change her fate.
TVGuide recently toured the set of Once Upon a Time. They found Parrilla fully dressed in her Evil Queen costume. Parrilla revealed that the costume wasn’t for a flashback scene. Parrilla said that she thought that “everyone’s going to enjoy” what happens with Regina’s decision to become the Evil Queen again. She also revealed that something happens to make her lose control.
Interestingly, tomorrow’s Once Upon a Time episode involves Emma’s powers spinning out of control due to the Snow Queen’s interference. Could Regina be the victim of a similar fate?
Regina also has an important scene with Robin Hood on tomorrow’s episode, “The Snow Queen.” Robin is still conflicted. He loves Regina but he’s married to Maid Marian. Regina tries to do the right thing by pushing him away. She wants to distance herself from him so he can fall in love with Marian again. Therefore, allowing true love’s kiss to work. This will save Marian from the spell.
A scene from Once Upon a Time season 4 episode 7 shows that letting Regina go will not be an easy task for Robin.
Parrilla shared this with Entertainment Weekly about the Regina-Robin-Maid Marian love triangle:
There’s a part of her that’s really hopeful that he’s going to choose her. Even though we saw that true love’s kiss didn’t work because he loves Regina, that’s great, but that really complicates things even more for her. On some level, I bet she wishes that he didn’t say that. But she has to put him first and that’s true love. She has to find a way to save Marian. It’s tricky because I personally think she’s pretty much dead, ‘Let her die!’ but I’m impressed with Regina. This is a side of her that we’ve never seen, where she’s chosen to put someone first. That’s a bit growth spurt for her.