Re: theory from next week’s preview

I think that is a very interesting theory.

I think Mr. Gold is attempting to expose Regina for framing Mary Margaret for murder. Since Mr. Gold is defending Mary Margaret in a court of law in ep.16, he must have a master plan to publicly reveal the falsity of Regina's “evidence” against Mary Margaret. We know from episode 12 that Rumple has a reason to hate Regina. There is probably a darker and more profound reason we’ve yet to discover.

One might argue that Mr. Gold is the one framing Mary Margaret for murder, but I think that Regina has the strongest reason to ruin Mary Margaret’s life (i.e. Snow White revealed a secret that ruined Regina’s life in FTL). We already know from episode 13 that Regina burned the letter Kathryn left for David. We also know from episode 14 that Regina gave false phone records to Sydney. In ep. 15, Regina appeared very upset that Emma was asking medical questions from Dr. Whale about David’s condition instead of “doing her job.”

I still haven’t worked out how Mr. Gold would expose Regina, but we know from ep. 7 that Graham saw Mr. Gold with a shovel in the middle of the forest “doing a bit of gardening.” We also know from ep. 10 that Rumple gave Snow White the potion to forget her love for Prince James in exchange for some of her hair. If Rumple had Snow White touch the box with the human heart in FTL, maybe he was hoping to catch Regina. Perhaps Mr. Gold wanted to bring Snow White to trial just to publicly defend her and then pin the blame on the real culprit: Regina.