Fans witnessed the return of the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) in the Season 5 finale of ABC’s Once Upon a Time after Regina (also portrayed by Lana Parrilla) used magic to get the evil out of herself, which unleashed a separate villain altogether.
“Regina never should have let me out to play,” said the Evil Queen in the episode. “I came to set the record straight. There was a battle raging inside of Regina and she may have won the fight, but this is a war. And it’s just begun. The queen is back."
Without Regina’s empathy, the Evil Queen will be more nefarious than ever before.
“The two roles are obviously going to be very separate in the sense that we saw a snippet of an Evil Queen who looked at what Regina has become and is very disappointed,” said Executive Producer Edward Kitsis to Entertainment Weekly. “If she’s unleashed, she would show Regina what ripping away everyone’s happy ending truly looks like.”
According to Executive Producer Adam Horowitz, the new season will pull Regina apart.
“We’re literally going inside her and pulling her apart,” said Horowitz to EW. “There are elements of that that we’re planning to do for each and every one of the characters.”
This split in Regina will have an impact on all the characters on the show, according to the creative team of the fairytale drama.
“As we hinted in the finale last year, in seeing the Evil Queen [Lana Parrilla] split, it’s allowing us to do that for a lot of our characters — not as literally — but it’s turning inward on a lot of these characters that we’ve been with for five seasons so far,” Horowitz told EW.
Season 5 also saw the death of Regina’s romantic interest, Robin Hood (Sean Maguire). “She’s also getting to a place where she’s starting to believe in karma, and a lot of this I think is karmic for her,” said Parrilla to TVLine. “She’s done so many terrible things in her life — she’s slaughtered villages and hurt so many people — that these two loves [including Daniel] have been taken away from her.”
Parrilla hinted that her character will be coping in the sixth season. “I think mourning will continue, over time,” she added. “Regina is a very private person, she doesn’t really share a lot of what’s going on inside. Internally, she’s conflicted by so many things that she doesn’t even talk about. So I’m curious to see how she deals with this loss at this stage, at this time in her life. There’s been so much evolution, she’s come so far, she’s been in the shoes of the hero for the last couple of years, so I’m curious to see how she’s going to handle this big loss.”
Parrilla also told TVLine her character is losing some of her hope. “I feel like Regina is in a hopeless place right now, and we’re going to see how she deals with those emotions in the season finale and also in Season 6,” said Parrilla.
Once Upon a Time returns Sunday, Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. EDT on ABC.
