Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20160307020620/@comment-5106672-20160308042520

8Rob wrote: I don't think Regina would leave her father abandoned in Wonderland for a year, let alone 2...

I think there was like a week or 2 between Souls of the Departed and Hat Trick

And Mother comes after Hat Trick.

I just re-watched the Mother flashbacks and I think that was the final encounter between Cora and Regina (especially with Cora saying "take this last piece of motherly advice" and then returning willingly to Wonderland). Besides, Regina found out that Cora didn't need the Mirror to return (she used the White Rabbit), and that's why she asked Hook to kill her mother.

However much time passed between this episode and Hat Trick has to do with logistics, I guess: finding Jefferson, setting things up, and what with the ongoing all-out war with Snow and Charming. I can't picture Regina trustful enough to leave the matter entirely in King George's hands while she goes on a potentially dangerous (= lenghty) rescue mission, but on the other hand she's so prone on personal business that she often loses the general picture and foreleases political common sense.

As for the timeline, I think it's right: Henry Sr. unwittingly summons Cora, she takes him away, Regina seals the looking glass portal in the process, she rescues her father with Jefferson's help, then Cora makes it back via White Rabbit but is totally rejected, in the meantime Regina loses the war while Cora gives up on her and tries to start afresh by mentoring Anastasia, then Regina uses the Hat to send Hook to assassinate Cora.

The only open question is, Cora seemed quite unable to make it back to the Enchanted Forest by herself. For one thing, I guess she was more than willing, at least in the beginning; for another, she seemed stuck until Henry Sr. meddled with mirror magic. Then the looking glass was sealed once again and she had to basically enslave Jefferson to have an alternative portal made. So what gives with Mother? The White Rabbit was kind of available all along and she had all the power to compell him, so why didn't she come back right after she was banished the first time?

That is, unless she didn't know about the Rabbit and only found out much later, perhaps by meeting Alice and learning she had come that way… Mother is still a big open question.