After coming together for Henry’s sake, Regina and Emma have been a bit on the outs ever since Emma saved Marian’s life and brought her to Storybrooke. With Elsa and the Snow Queen in town, they will be forced to work together on Once Upon a Time Season 4 Episode 5, “Breaking Glass.”
BuddyTV spoke with Lana Parrilla on the Vancouver set of Once Upon a Time earlier this month to get the scoop on their troubled relationship and whether Regina will be able to overcome the sense of betrayal to team up with Emma to fight off a greater evil.
While Regina wants to believe that Emma didn’t bring back Marian purposefully to hurt her, she’s not sure. Parrilla explained, “She’s hurt by Emma, deeply. She doesn’t know if it was intentional. I think deep down inside of her, she hopes it was a mistake or an accident, but it’s going to take her a little bit to come around, and to open her heart again.”
Regina’s not going to be quick to forgive though. In tonight’s episode, Parrilla explained the interaction between the two. “There’s an episode coming up where I remember reading the script going, ‘Oh my God, Regina’s so awful to Emma! She’s saying one horrible thing after another.'”
“Regina is lashing out. It’s just non-stop,” Parrilla continued. “And Emma just takes it, because she knows it’s deserved. …. You also see it comes from a place of pain and that’s why she’s lashing out. But she really has no choice. As angry as she is with Emma, there’s this other entity, this powerful [Snow] Queen. And they have to work together to defeat her. She’s too powerful to take on solo.”
There will be a bit of humor in their interaction as well. As angry as Regina is at Emma, she also becomes frustrated at the Savior’s magical ineptness, “Regina’s a bit frustrated with Emma, because she hasn’t taken the time to learn her craft. And that’s where Regina becomes this mentor.”
“And [Regina] says it several times: ‘If you learned how to control your magic, if you just took the time and studied it, maybe these things wouldn’t happen.’ There’s a lot of humor to that. It’s funny. And you will laugh when you see the episode. But I like that. I like that she’s become a mentor to Emma. They both learn quite a bit from one another.”
The tension between Henry’s two mothers won’t continue indefinitely though. “It’s just one day where she’s just really upset and wants to punish her. And I think she just needs to get it off her chest and they’ll move forward,” Parrilla said.
“I’m excited about their relationship because they’re very similar. They have something they were born with, which is this magic. Emma and Regina don’t have a lot of people they can relate to. So it’s nice they find comfort in one another.”
Could Emma and Regina ever become friends beyond their need to be friendly for Henry’s sake? It seems like that’s definitely a possibility according to Parrilla, “Because I do believe she cares for Emma on some level. It’s almost like a sisterly bond they have.”
“And that mirrors the Elsa and Anna bond. You see in that first episode, that famous behind the door scene and that mirrors the Frozen scene. To me, they are setting up that kind of relationship between the two. I love what happens to them.”
Would you like to see a sisterly bond between Regina and Emma? Or, do you prefer it when they are at odds?
Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8pm ET on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC.)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
Contributing Editor and Writer for Collider, BuddyTV, TV Fanatic, CliqueClack, and other publications. TV criticism, reviews, interviews with actors and producers, and other related content. Founder of TV Diehard.
