‘Once Upon a Time’ season 4, episode 20 review: Is Regina incapable of having children?

Tonight, “Once Upon a Time” brought us an episode entitled “Mother,” and it definitely made some sense when we watched it. After all, mothers were in many ways key to this installment as we started to figure out more about the complicated mother / son relationships that were peppered over the course of this episode.

For example, the past brought us the return of Barbara Hershey to the show as Cora, where we learned that she tricked Regina in the past into almost marrying her “true love” who sported a fake lion tattoo. This was a way for her to try to get even more control and an heir, but it completely fell apart. At first, this was not the most relevant story in the history of the series; it was just more of a reminder that Regina had a rough life, and she still does since Zelena has done everything in her power to destroy her happy ending. Luckily, she has the Author on her side, and with that, she hopes to craft her own happy ending.

Luckily, this story did pick up steam when we learned that all of this led to Regina drinking a potion, which will keep her from ever having biological children. This may explain further the affection she has for Henry and has had for so much time. Yet, she did not want to change anything when presented with a chance to do so.

Meanwhile, Lily finally came to Storybrooke tonight, met her own mother in Maleficent, and spent a little time trying to run away from her when she realized that she was far from what she expected. This was a chance for revenge, but Maleficent was not really interested in vengeance so much as mother / daughter time. This was a little bit of an education for her to start to figure out that these relationships are complicated.

So what was the cliffhanger of the night? After Regina decided that she did not want a new ending, Rumpelstiltskin decided to use the Author as a means to get the happy conclusion to his story that he so desired. The words “once upon a time” were fittingly written, and now we have to wait and see what happens next. Grade: B+.

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