Subtext Recap: Once Upon a Time 3.16 – It’s Not Easy Being Green

In my desperate attempt to catch up for the season, I shall be Once Upon a Timing for several days in a row. All necessary components, including myself, willing.

So, further catching up, let me just get right out in the open right now that I adore the word “wicked”. It has a lovely, specific meaning, and it’s one of those words that just feels right in your mouth because it sounds like exactly what it means. And this show has managed to make me so fucking tired of the word in just a few episodes, I’m ’bout to grab a shovel and bury it proper.

It’s the most grating when the dialogue sets up the entire scene just so the word can be shoved in like a damn shiv.

This isn’t the Wild West.

No, Dear, it’s the Wicked West.

I don’t care which West it is. I just hope somebody pulls out a pistol and shoots that word with a quickness.

So, onto the usual debate. “What did you do to this angry woman, Regina?” Which at least gives Regina one good quip – “Stick to the lasagna, Lady.” Then, she gets her feelings hurt and runs off, and gets her feelings hurt again by the fact that her Mommy loved her lost-and-found sister too, ’cause why not?

Then, shit starts to get real, as Regina, who has slowly built a relationship with Emma and Snow over the past two seasons, becoming a better person as a result, who has kept her secrets secret and her fears to herself, suffering alone and in silence the majority of the time, just flat out spills all to Robin Hood. Because he was there.

And, oh yeah, because she saw the tattoo that proved he was her soul mate. This is fantastic. Apparently, when you have been hurt again and again and again, when you have done horrible things and barricaded yourself from everyone else, when you have erected walls to hide your emotions, all you need to get over them is a whisper from a fairy and a tattoo. So, keep that in mind people who have endured great loss, suffered great pain, and been left to the world on your own for years.

This is so out-of-character and painfully forced, I don’t even forgive them when Emma says Regina is going to get help whether she wants it or not.

Then, Zelena tries to take Regina’s heart, but she doesn’t have it. Because she gave it to to Robin Hood to keep safe for her.

You are many things Once Upon a Time. Subtle, you are not.