Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20170327005929/@comment-25926288-20170328022620

I would save this for the end of the season but a nice note is the Counterpart Arc. This was a clever way to perform Regina's reconciliation with herself without having Regina necessarily backslide. If you really think about it, it's sort of like those split personality ideas in movies or shows, just more literal.

Queenie represented the dark parts of Regina's heart, but given form and could do the nasty things that we wouldn't want to see Regina do. Imagine if Regina regressed into EQ. So, when Regina sent Queenie off, if you forget the under-developed wish ream, Regina was making peace with herself and allowing herself to be happy. A part of her could live out her dream that she could and would not ever fulfill because she has people that love her.

So, just look it as if it was one of those movies with split personality, but instead of a big reveal it's more like reconciliation and a send-off to a portion of character. Then two points, seeing Regina's inner struggle with darkness over 16 episodes wouldn't be too fun (or risked not being great); second, the writers love writing Evil Queen so they had their fix and established a main villain for the first half.