‘Once Upon a Time’ season 2, episode 16 preview: First video of Rose McGowan

Before we even start to get into some analysis of the first sneak peek we have to share for Sunday night’s “Once Upon a Time,” can we very quickly give a massive round of applause to the folks working within the show’s casting department? Rose McGowan was an intriguing pick to play Cora from the moment that we saw her name announced; but now that we have actually seen the video of her in action, she is almost the splitting image of what you would expect a younger version of the Queen of Hearts to look like.

With that being said, Cora was not always a queen at all; as a matter of fact, she was the daughter of a lowly miller, forced to deal with much of society looking down on her. Just in this clip alone, we learned that Snow White’s mother Queen Ava (a princess in this scene) hardly embodied some of the manners that she later passed along to her daughter, as she intentionally tripped Cora just so she would be forced to apologize and grovel on her knees.

What is mostly interesting about this scene is that it shows that almost no character within the “Once Upon a Time” world is really evil just for the sake of being evil. Rumpelstiltskin was not a part of the dark side until he was transformed into the Dark One, and we already know that Regina became the way that she did after Daniel was taken away from me. Captain Hook you can say was always a scoundrel, but isn’t there a difference between being a scoundrel and being evil?

What do you think about this video, and is McGowan a worthy substitute for a young Barbara Hershey in your mind? Be sure to share some more of your thoughts below! If you want to see some early scoop on the season 2 finale, you can do so here.

Photo: ABC