‘Once Upon A Time’ Recap: The Queen Commits Murder — Again

Plus, could the mysterious new stranger in Storybrooke have the power to change the ‘Once Upon A Time’ story?

We learned a lot about Regina (Lana Parrilla) and her wicked fairy tale counterpart on the Jan. 29 episode of Once Upon A Time – and now I can’t decide which of her two sides I hate more. The once-good queen pretended to fall in love with a genie (Giancarlo Esposito), so that he would help her kill her husband. So, as it turns out, she was never really “good.”

When she revealed she’d been using him all along, the genie used his one wish — it’s a long story, so don’t ask — to be with the queen forever, always looking upon her face. And that, my friends, is how the genie with the horrendous mustache became the Magic Mirror.
(Side note: I’m actually relieved the queen was only pretending to be in love with genie. The whole time they were together, I was like, “Girl, are you serious? You can’t be serious. Oh, OK, you’re not serious. Good.”)
Back in Storybrooke, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) looked into Regina’s secret shenanigans with a little help from her own personal “Deep Throat,” Sidney Glass — who also happens to be the real-world counterpart of the aforementioned genie. It looks like Regina’s having a new playground built in town, which is suspiciously based on a design she saw in the Once Upon A Time book. Suspicious!
Meanwhile, David (Josh Dallas) and Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) carried on their adorable love affair — emphasis on “affair.” I think Emma put it best when she said, ”You two are doing a whole lot of rationalizing.”
We also learned a little bit about the mysterious stranger who just arrived in Storybrooke — and I do mean a little. All we gathered from his conversation with Henry (Jared Gilmore) is that he’s a “writer,” which we kind of already figured out when Emma discovered his typewriter.
Of course, we also caught him perusing Henry’s Once Upon A Time book. Also suspicious! So let the speculation continue…
So what did you think of this week’s episode? Are you still rooting for David and Mary Margaret to be together? Do you have any new theories about the mysterious stranger in town? And why do you think Regina is REALLY building that playground? See you in the comments!

— Andy Swift