Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-27060727-20161201052050/@comment-31564770-20170320225040

As much as everyone is saying the flashback is gonna suck, I think it'll end up being legit good and surprising. Here's my reasoning: we haven't seen a true and full EQ flashback for a really long time. What that probably means is, on the optimistic hand, had her story in mind and didn't have the right time to reveal till now, or on the pessimistic side, had no ideas until now. Either way, I believe that the writers are smart enough to not hold out on us this long without a good plan. If their plan ends up not being good, well, they're human and deserve forgiveness for anything that isn't too horrific such as ruining Regina's character forever, and while some may think she's already ruined, I'm talking nuke-her-backstory's-value level of destruction. I realize I might sound a bit forgiving, but fact is I love Regina- she's so incredibly human and tangible, and Lana portrays her emotions so well. Anyways, I feel like how this is gonna go down is Regina will find out some way how her life would have gone if she had met Robin in the tavern. My personal preference would be her having a dream that night after Tinker Bell leaves, and she sees both glimpses of what is now her future and what would've been her future. This somehow ties in to Isaac, my vote is this is the moment he's doing some "experimental writing" (read: writing the alternate page 23) and because it's about Regina it manifests in her dream. Regina is deeply affected by this dream, and she goes on a quest to be in control of her fate, but somehow fails. Keep in mind this is all just my fantasies of what I would love to see go down, but I do have some basis for it. Basis A: This wouldn't be the first time Regina's had a dream that changed her real life, there was that one in 4B that led her to be worried about Robin and her finding out about Marian/Zelena. Basis B: How many times has this show teased "higher powers"? I mean, come on! Isaac has said it. Regina has said it, repeatedly. We know Zeus and Hades are real, and we've seen Olympus as the "better place" in the Underworld arc. It's about time we got to meet Fate! I've been quietly begging the writers to JUST DO IT ALREADY for like ever. So if they put in the Black Fairy, which they've teased LESS THAN THIS, and say they've been teasing it for years in an interview, I say it's high-freakin-time they give us this.

Ok, I've got that off my chest, now for the other thing: This isn't strictly a theory so much as an "I really want this to happen" thing. I want the Serum Queen to be reabsorbed, but I don't want that to be the last we see of her. Quite frankly, I love Serum Queen- she brings all of Regina's worst parts into the light, which if nothing else is fun to watch. Here's my idea: even before the first curse, all the way back to when Regina went fully dark, the EQ and the Regina parts of her were constantly fighting. At first, and for a long time, the EQ won out and partioned Regina into a dark and tiny corner of her soul. In SB, with the addition of love in the form of Henry, the fight began anew, and this time the reverse happened: Regina took over, and locked the EQ away where no one could find her. But then Robin's death happened, and Regina felt the EQ trying to get out. Desperate, she used Jekyll's Serum and made an attempt to end the fight once and for all. We all know how that ended. But if/when Serum Queen is reabsorbed, we have a new conundrum: Regina and the EQ each were their own beings for a while, and were mostly separate souls. One was all Regina loved about herself, the other was all the things she hated which in this case happened to align with the part of her that is the EQ. So if one entity becomes two, what happens when you put them back together? Before the split, Regina was in control and the EQ was partitioned in what I'd call an 80-20 ratio. However, Regina (and everyone) has a dark side that's probably more siginficant than 20%, more like 40-50%, and it was just that Regina's light side was more in control than the dark side which doesn't necessarily mean it's any less of her being. Thus, post split we have 50% in one body and 50% in another. If, as I want to happen, they recombine in this episode, we will probably end up with control split 50-50 as well. What I'm saying is, Regina will be internally fighting with the EQ and might have some non-split Jekyll and Hyde moments, where in one Regina is in control and then next moment the EQ takes over. I'd love that so much honestly, I think that'd be so entertaining and such a good continuation of Regina's story.

Sorry for the long post, I had a lot I wanted to say.

TL;DR I think this EQ flashback will be super interesting at worst and "all my prayers have been answered" at best, and that Serum Queen should be reabsorbed but that that shouldn't mean the end of the war between Regina and the EQ.