2×19 THE EVIL QUEEN Podcast

-In the opening scenes Hook was pretty smug until he sees that Mr. Gold was alive.

Guys- Well yes that's the thing about revenge it feels good until you realize that you've failed.

-Actually really like the whole revenge theme in this piece.

Guys- Yeah I think this was…ummm….a moment where..umm..Hook thought he got revenge and I think like what we saw with Regina in “Welcome to Storybrooke” it's enjoyable for a day, two, sometimes even a week maybe even a month, but at a certain point as he said, revenge is an end, not a beginning.And I think when he sees Gold and Belle walking down the street happy he doesn't just see himself failing, he sees a man who's moved on. And he realizes that's why Gold has beat him. That's why Rumple has beat him, not because he's still alive, but because he's moved on and has found love, and Hook has nothing but revenge.

-I love that perspective. That's actually something that I really hadn't read into it.

Guys-Yeah

-And in the opening in fairy tale land scenes it's really interesting to hear the Queen's perspective on Snow She turns everything around. Snow is the bandit, a thief and even the murderer of her own father.

Guys- Well of course that's spinning.We do know Regina blames Snow for the loss of Daniel and in this moment she is trying to turn the tide against them. She does believe Snow is a vilain. She also knows public opinion is not with her.So she has created a story and as we see that story has not really, you know, landed with everyone.

-And why does Regina allow Rumple to shapeshift her? I mean it's completely vulnerable now he's in complete control of her powers.

Guys- It's something we see in Regina all the time. She's a hot head and her mother's a hot head. It's why her mother said, “I can spin straw into gold, too bad you don't get it.” It's the way that Regina will constantly go head first. She's got a temper. She doesn't think it through. In her mind the capturing of Snow White will out weigh the loss of control, because, in her mind she's too close and Rumple just knows how to play her numbers. And he knows how to push her buttons and so she made a mistake, but clearly as we see, she learned that spell

-And in fairy tale land when Regina's disguised in the town center she does actually receive a taste of her own treatment.

Guys- I think what's interesting about this story for us was, you think she didn't care that she was called the evil queen but you see that it really affected her it actually hurt her feelings. And what we loved about the tragedy of this story was that there was a moment when she was going to say I'm going to give up on revenge, I'm going to allow Snow White back in that's how I'll get people to love me. But when the act of anger, the village genicide, if you will, in the opening comes back to haunt her you realize, once again, that is the kind of pattern of her life. She goes to enact the curse and is willing to get rid of Hook to do it and of course that is her undoing.

-And it is really interesting when Snow is caring for her in the forest she actually hears a completely different story of what happened to snow. It's a new perspective for her because she sees things so differently to how we have seen them.

Guys- Yeah. And I think also in that moment it would have been a lot easier to hear that Snow White hated her as much as she hates her because its easier to kill her. In the scene where she has the sword and you see Snow White's neck she says, “If she was in front of you would you do the same?” Because in a weird way she wanted to justify it. And you know the Queen this year is like someone who is trying to stay off the bottle and she keeps getting back on. And that's how her relationship with darkness is, which is deep down she wants to return to the person she was in “The Stable Boy” spisode when she was in love with Daniel, but sometimes she takes the easy way out and she ends up paying for it.

-Just in that same scene when they are walking in the forest, Snow talks about forgiveness and then she recants it after she sees the genocide.

Guys- Yeah. Snow has a good heart, especially at that point. It hasn't been blackened, or broiled or burned or anything. And, you know and, she likes to believe in those ideals, but when confronted with just such a horrendous act you know even she is put to the limit of what she can forgive. I think in that moment she also feels guilt. These people helped her and now they died because of it. And she thinks that anyone who would do that to people who are defenseless is not worth anything. But we realize that she has a complicated relationship with Regina too, you know, Regina consistently grabs the darkness and Snow constantly flirts with it. That's the truth about people, there's the hard way and the easy way.

-And even when Snow and David are discussing going back to fairy tale land, on the bench, they talk about the implications of bringing Regina back with them.

Guys- Yeah I feel like in that moment Mary Margaret is saying the truth. Which is, we can't just leave her here, it's Henry's mom. And David is like, look I'm tired of giving her second chances, every time we do it comes back to haunt us. So I'll lock her in a cage or I'll leave her here but I'm no longer entertaining the thought of saving her, but at the same respect I think he understands Snow feels a certain amount of guilt for killing her mom and knows that her heart needs to be lightened. You know I think its what David said to her because, you know, David has repeatedly been ok with killing Regina. But he says to Snow, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself and I think that's, that's what we're seeing.

-And Emma's spidey sense kicks into overdrive during her exchange with Tamara .

Guys- Yeah.

-But then Snow questions it. So does Neal later on.

Guys- Well you know we have seen in the past that it is not a perfect super power. But what we've always done is when her emotions cloud her judgement it makes her off. And I think that's true of everyone.

-And Emma says that she didn't want to tell Neal until she had proof. But even after Neal reveals there is nothing under the floor board, I feel that Emma planted a seed. Just this tiny seed of doubt in his mind. Am I reading too much into it?

Guys- Probably. I think what makes it hard for Emma, you know the truth is, is beacuse there is the implication that everyone thinks it's just she's not over her boyfriend. But we knows she's right and that's, to us, what makes it juicy. She's a lot like Rumple. You know as we said in the last episode, Rumple gave Belle the library but instead of admitting he did something nice he's like, it's just another room to clean. I think Emma would in a lot of ways, refuse to admit that she has feelings for Neal unless she was really pushed to.

-Right. And I have to say that my skin crawled when Regina told Henry that she's going to kill everyone and then wipes his memory.

Guys- Yeah she had to tell someone. And this is, you know, the person that she loves most. And she knows that telling him that would illicit the reaction it did. But she had to get it out there and get it off her chest. And then she had to see that she could wipe his memory and in that moment it tells her that her plan could work. She could do all those things. Right, now of course she obviously went in knowing that that spell would work but for us, the way we wrote that scene, is you know, the line when she says she has no one to talk to, is you realize that she's lonely And you realize that when she heard David and Margaret say we're out of second chances, she now regrets going with her mother. She was actually on the way to winning everyone back, but it was taking too long and she felt they'd never forgive them. And deep down she knows they never will. So in her mind she can be the hero Henry wants. She can steal their plan. I'll go back I'll get rid of the ogres, I'll rebuild it. My son will look at me as a hero. I just need to do that one last bad thing. So it was almost a confession, Henry if I just do one more act of evil I swear I'll never tough the bottle again.

-I do get the sense that Regina just never takes responsibility for her actions.She's constantly referring to everyone else making her The Evil Queen.

Guys- Yeah.

-They made me this way.

Guys-Well I think her warped perspective is that she was just somebody that was in love with the stable boy and wanted to run off, and she got pushed into this life by her mom. And when she got there, as we saw last year in the episode where she first came to court, you know she felt lonely, as she said to the genie, Sidney. In her mind she felt like, I was pushed into this. But of course deep down she knows, as we've seen in moments of candor, like with Archie, that she knows she's done a lot of bad. Look, there's no doubt she's had a lot of bad breaks and she's been pushed in a lot of ways but she made choices of how to react and how to act and what to do and those choices were not always good ones. For us it's what makes her human which is, it's so much easier to blame everyone else than ourselves. And it's not until we blame ourselves that we can move on and heal.

-Right. So just following on the Hook storyline, in the scene under the library, Hook says to Regina, “Do you ever wonder if this constant pursuit for revenge is the reason why we have no one who cares for us?” I love those lines when he's talking to her. It's incredibly insightful.

Guys- It's kind of what we talked about last week, which was, you know,when he looked out the window and he saw Gold, what he was really seeing was a man with a woman and that he was in love. And he realizes that he has nobody and when he thought he killed Rumple, he's like, it still didn't do it. And I think right now he's actually beginning to questions whether this is worth it, whether revenge is worth it. What Regina's saying about starting over that's actually starting to sound good. Maybe it's time for him to say, I need to move on from my revenge, and I need to move on from Milah.

-He has a really good perspective, coming from the fact that he thought that he had accomplished it. And then he goes on to say “It's and end, not a beginning.” Which is what you mentioned earlier.

Guys-Yeah.

-But it just doesn't register with Regina.

Guys- Well in her mind it registers in the fact that she is going to do this one deed and this is different because I love someone, and someone loves me, and it's Henry. And I'm going to take him, and we're going to go to the Enchanted Forest, and we're gonna rebuild our lives. You're the one that has no one. Because in her mind she's not doing this for revenge. In her mind she's doing it because as long as there are people alive to remind her that she was the Evil Queen, she'll never get a fresh start. So if she can just erase it all and hit a do-over. But we know in life, most of the time, you don't get a do-over.

–And I had assumed that Malificent was killed by Emma. I have to admit that I'm rather happy that she wasn't.

Guys- Well…she was kind of killed by Emma. The idea is that she created a protection for this fail-safe. And whether Malificent was dead or alive her essence would protect it. So, she was killed last year. You saw it was the ashes. It was the ashes of what she was that were under the influence of Regina's spell. That, that part of the curse that Regina had created to protect the fail-safe. And so even though Malificent was dead she was conjured up to continually protect that fail-safe from anyone getting it but Regina.

-So is Tamara actually going down the list, neutralizing the people with magic?

Guys- I think she's acutually just kind of finding out who's in town and who they are. She's sort of cataloging it. I think when you're uh…you're doing intelligence that requires _____. (I think it was evidence, but not 100%)

-She's obviously been studying for a long time.

Guys- Yes

-So what's your favorite scene or moment from this episode?

Guys- My favorite scene is the scene when Snow White is taking care of Regina and she talks about the goodness in her heart and she says someone saved me. And you see how that effects Regina and that's probably my favorite moment. –I like the ending. I like when Greg and Tamara bag Regina and we see that Hook has been duplicitous. Never trust a pirate.

-Yeah I have to admit I wanted it to continue you, as soon as the hood went on I was like, what? So it's over.

-We have a couple of twitter questions for you. Regina says she could teach Henry magic before she knew Emma had any magical ability. So can anyone learn magic to a certain degree?

Guys-I think that there are people who have inherent magical abilities. I think in that moment all Regina was trying to do was to get Henry to love her. So she was desperate, she showed him the cupcake, she says “you can learn magic, my friends you can make them like you”. But whether or not Henry has magic inside of him is a question….we'll have to explore. She very well could have been saying that just to try to lure him in, or she senses magic in him and she said it. Now the other question is, some people can learn magic, but how many people don't realize they already have it within them like Emma.

-Will we ever find out who wrote the book in Season 2?

Guys- That is something that we will find out eventually.

-Is there any symbolism with Emma's look lately? She went from a red jacket and curly locks to straight hair and a pirate looking coat.

Guys- I think that, like anyone, sometimes you get bored with your clothing. And I think that Emma loves the red jacket and there's no denying that is iconic, but like anybody, sometimes the weather changes and you want to put on a warmer coat and change your hair. I know that if you looked at a picture of me ten years ago I would look a lot different than I do today.

-It is pretty chilly where they're filming.

Guys- Yes Vancouver is chilly. That red jacket does not guard against the cold all the time.