Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: B | 349 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT The Drama Queen
By Cindy McLennan | Season 2 | Episode 20 | Aired on 2013.04.28
Storybrooke Library. Regina realizes Cora's wrist cuff is responsible for her impotent state. Hook tells her Tamara and Groan rigged it with something that blocks her magic. Regina sneers about Groan doing magic on his own, but he declares it "Science." The entire audience screams that in this show, science should not be able to beat magic, and a SCIENCE BRACELET powered by an Inarticulate Explanation The Stupid Audience Should Mistake For Science shouldn't even be able to slow it down. I'm not going to insult your intelligence further by quoting him.
Tamara takes her Fairy Tale Identity list out of her pocket and asks with whom they're dealing. Groan stammers that this is the Evil Queen, then reminds Regina that here and now, she's nothing. Regina is impressed that he's done all this to find his father. She insists she doesn't know where Kurt is, but Groan won't buy it, and adds, "But that's not my mission." When Regina asks what is, Groan smiles and says, "I'm not telling you." I would like to empathize with this grown man who was once wee Owen, but since learning his main mission isn't to save his father, my empathy for him has been rendered weaker than Regina's mojo. Groan shoots a look at Tamara and says, "Bag her." As Tamara covers Regina's head, we fade to black.
If my episode grade was based only on all of Emma's scenes, and on the scenes in which Regina as "Wilma" was touched by Snow's capacity for forgiveness, I would probably have given this episode something in the A range. But I can't divorce myself from how the character of Regina is failing for me. The crazier she gets, the less accessible she is. As I mentioned in the recaplet, while I certainly understand that, at the time, Snow wasn't determined enough to let herself kill Regina, it's harder to take when she's still standing over the open mass grave of an entire village that died to save her. I think it does the character of Snow a disservice somehow because it's not only about how much personal pain Snow is willing to accept from Regina. It's also about how much Snow will let others suffer, to maintain the vanity that she will always find a way to live up to her mother's ideals. Before I leave you, allow me this...