- Title: Once Upon a Time – Breaking Glass
- wiki: link
Pushing Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Regina (Lana Parrilla) together to find the Snow Queen (Elizabeth Mitchell) and the missing Elsa (Georgina Haig), whom the Snow Queen has taken prisoner, “Breaking Glass” plays on a long-running theme in exploring Emma’s unhappy past and distrustful nature (which is something she comes to realize she and Regina have in common). Through flashbacks into Emma’s past (involving a girl with an intriguing birthmark…hmmm?) we see another example of where her initial distrust of strangers comes from while also providing a clue to Emma’s relationship with the Snow Queen which goes much further back than anyone suspected.
The trend against the show making the obvious or easy choice continues here as despite their disagreements, Regina’s reveal about putting Sidney (Giancarlo Esposito) back in the mirror and her momentary contemplation of killing Marian (Christie Laing), the latest season refuses to put Regina squarely back on the villain’s path making her a far more richer character, and the choice of the show attempting to making the pair of Emma and Regina into real friends (despite the amount of water under the bridge) offers a multitude of new stories for the show to explore.
Several characters get the week off as Emma and Regina take the lion share of the episode. The B-story involving Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Charming‘s (Josh Dallas) night out being disrupted by Will Scarlet (Michael Socha) escape from prison isn’t as interesting but it does offer a humorous conclusion and reveals the fact that Will is in Storybrooke desperately searching for something he left there. What exactly that might be, and how it might play into the season’s larger themes and the battle against the Snow Queen (and whatever she’s going to to do with this new magic mirror) is yet to be seen.
