Once Upon a Fangirl...: The Stable Boy

In this episode, we finally learn the real reason why Regina hates Snow White (not because she thought Snow was prettier than her as mentioned in the Pilot). In her late teens, she had a secret love with her stable boy Daniel, despite her manipulative, controlling mother Cora (Barbara Hershey) wanting her to get married for status. she saves a young Snow White (Bailee Madison) from a horse gone wild, leading up to her father King Leopold to propose to her so his daughter can have a mother. However, Cora accepts the proposal for her, which leads to Regina wanting to elope with Daniel, only to be caught by a confused Snow White and promises not to tell Cora about their liason. However, Cora manipulates Snow into telling her by pulling the 'I want my daughter to be happy' card and ends up killing Daniel in front of Regina, forcing her to marry Leopold & become queen. Then she discovers Snow broke her promise & thus begins her slow into The Evil Queen, despite Cora setting everything up. Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, the trial for Kathryn's murder is under way as Mary Margaret is interrogated by the DA (King George's Storybrooke counterpart) & admits she wanted Kathryn gone as she was the only thing in the way of her relationship with David. Gold (and the audience) understandably, is pissed off as he's her lawyer, which leads Emma to take the case in her own hands along with August, discovering a piece of a shovel at the scene of the crime which matches the shovel in Regina's shed, only to find it gone the next day & accuses August of lying to her. However, it turns out Regina knows Mary Margaret didn't commit the crime & reveals she's doing it for revenge, which leads up to the big reveal that Kathryn is in fact alive.
Overall, I loved this episode as we get finally to see Regina's backstory as an innocent young woman & wasn't born evil. Lana's performance was fantastic, as was Barbara Hershey essentially playing the fairy tale version of Rose from Gypsy & manages to make the character literally the mother of all evil. Bailee Madision, not only resembling Goodwin, also manages to show child actors can actually be good managing to copy mannerisms of adult Snow White & convey her innoncence with the situation. Emma in Storybrooke, I personally thought was a bit too harsh throughout to August, just trying to help her with the murder case. And Mary Margaret, I personally thought was pretty stupid especially during the interrogation as she knew that all the evidence was going against her & anything she could've said could've been used against her. Anyway, Ginnifer's acting was also great, but I personally thought the flashbacks made the episode & honestly, is partly why this is considered one of my favourite season 1 episodes!

I wonder what the significance of that ring is..

Hmm! Nice to see the origins of the deal between Gold & Regina to ruin Mary Margaret's life!

Nice to see a more youthful Regina!

Hi Erica Sayers/Nina's mum from Black Swan!

The stable boy looks cute!

This is textbook example of child abuse & manipulation! I already hate Cora yet we've only seen her for 2 minutes!

Aww!

Considering how much of an ass he's been, I can understand why Emma wouldn't want him near Mary Margaret!

So Cora was a miller's daughter...maybe from Rumplestiltskin?

Oh my God, Bailee Madison looks so much like Ginny, it's scary! They could be long lost sisters, they look that much alike!

Aww! Nice to see how sweet their relationship was before everything went horribly!

What a bloody coincidence that Charming's tyrant adoptive father is the DA in Storybrooke!

Gold's reaction to Mary Margaret wishing Kathryn was gone=the entire audience!

Love her dress!

Ever since 3x18, this has been much more creepy given the subtext & that he was engaged to her mother & according to the writers, he knew who Cora was in this scene!