The Living and the Dead Evil Queen

SPOILER WARNING

If you have not seen last night's Once Upon a Time or tonight's Warehouse 13, please leave the blog and return later. The following Review and Initial Reactions contain spoilers.

Once Upon a Time - "The Evil Queen" - Review

Am I the only one completely confused by Regina's character? First it's: I am the most evil person to ever live in both the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke. Then: I'm going to reform for Henry's sake, because I want him to love me. Then Cora gets to town and it's all: I hate you, I'm going to turn you in. But wait, you can help me get Henry back exactly how he doesn't want me. I'll go ahead and be evil again because two seconds of talking about Henry with you makes me want to make you proud again. And then she just goes back to being evil. Now though, she's decided to ignore everything Henry says to her in order to screw everyone else over. Hey, Regina, Henry's not going to love you if you kill everyone. He's even told you as much. Frigging pay attention and get some psychiatric help.

When then brings me to the Enchanted Forest flashbacks. Here, Regina is characterized as extremely dense. Rumple, and later Snow, tells her that wholesale slaughter isn't going to win her the love of the people, which is what she apparently wants. Then, she doesn't listen to a word Rumple says about the rules of him disguising her. Regina saw for herself how people would be seeing her, but apparently she forgot that really quickly. I'll overlook the parts where she make "magic gestures" because that sort of thing is second nature to her, but that's the only reason I'm looking that over.

So... as of right now, I'm back in the camp of not taking Regina at all seriously as a villain. the way she thinks just doesn't make sense to me at all.

The interesting bits of "The Evil Queen" were invariably less annoying than Regina's inconsistent characterization. Turns out Rumple orchestrated King George's need for money. That makes me wonder about the assassin who killed Prince James and why George is still on good terms with Regina after the fact. She was the one who cut off trade with him.

I thought Maleficent's "zombie" form was incredibly creepy and well done. I had wondered how they were going to bring her back, since Emma killed her at the end of last season. It was interesting and not a cop-out.

I thought Greg and Tamara's tech turning off Regina's powers was interesting. People have been speculating about the "science" killing magic since Storybrooke became accessible to the outside world. Not sure I like it so much, but it's perfectly reasonable. I also thought it was nice that Greg didn't tell Regina what his and Tamara's plans were. He apparently took that bit in The Incredibles about monologue-ing to heart.

Lastly, I thought the Emma and Henry bits were nice for once. I think I've made it clear that I'm not at all a fan of Henry. I thought he worked well in this episode, but my internal jury's still out on whether or not I'm going to actually like him. I thought it was kind of a stretch for Emma to think Tamara was hiding stuff under a hotel room floorboard. That sort of hiding place makes more sense in someone's home. Besides, Granny's is 28 years old at this point. It's bound to have a few creaky floorboards.

Warehouse 13 - "The Living and the Dead" - Initial Reactions

• Flashback?
• Yay awkward helicopter rides.
• Well that was unconvincing fake news.
• James Marsters?! Yay!
• Of course religion would be the origin.
• That was a horrible pun.
• Lol, Freudian clock.
• That's awesome. Of course it'd be the Warehouse.
• Dude, splitting up is never good.
• That's kind of a weird accent.
• I do believe I like him.
• Ick, snakes.
• Lol, Pete.
• God, I missed this show.
• Jinks-y's good at pep talks.
• I'm really not sure how I feel about the news bits. Leaning toward not liking them.
• Love you, Pete. This is why we think before we speak.
• Smart professor is smart.
• That was cool.
• James Marsters gets to play the best characters.
• Claudia is awesome.
• Nice misdirection there, Pete.
• Poor Artie.
• Yeah, really not liking the fake news.
• That's actually pretty cool.
• Lol, Pete liked Twilight.
• Pete, your accent sucks.
• But why put it on the sarcophagus and not the corpse?
• W00T booby trapped tombs.
• Well ow, but it doesn't look very deep... and then poison.
• That sucks, I liked him.
• Even if that's a good thing, it still looks creepy.
• I'm gonna miss Leena.
• Claud's making me cry.
• Of course it is. That's a lot of trauma he has to deal with.
• So... who's Charlotte now? And of course he's not dead!

Love ya, Jessie.