‘Once Upon a Time’ season 3 spoilers: Lana Parrilla on Regina’s romance; plus, returning favorite

While Regina may be an “Evil Queen” on “Once Upon a Time” season 3, we feel like we want to root for her to find happiness. After all, just remember everything that she does bring to the table: There’s a good heart in there somewhere, she has loved before, and maybe the right person could help her somewhat when it comes to softening up what has been a pretty rough and rigid exterior.

We’ve heard already that Regina will have an opportunity to be with someone this coming season, and it makes sense in some ways that the primary target here would be Robin Hood. Why? He’s going to bring something new to the show this year (and a new actor playing him in Sean Maguire), and he’s also not someone that could be too aware of the full extent of her evil just yet, mostly because he’s too busy robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.

For those of you hoping today that Lana Parrilla would confirm that Robin Hood is the lucky man in an interview with TV Guide, tough luck; however, she did not exactly deny that he could be a candidate:

“Regina’s love has to be very manly, and Robin Hood is that. I’m getting very excited.”

The sad news here? This romance apparently has a pretty tragic turn, which is not a good sign when you consider what happened with Daniel. Eventually, the Queen is going to have to make a choice here as to what she wants to do with her romantic life, or if she may give up on the idea of love altogether.

As for a couple of other scoops from the season:

-Just as we heard over the weekend that there would be possibly other characters from the “Little Mermaid” universe appearing, Parrilla suggested that some of these characters are not exactly going to be kind while their ship is out at sea.

-Expect more backstory for both the Blue Fairy and also Nova, who we have not seen since the first season. We hope this means that Amy Acker is returning for the role, but she also has a series regular position over on CBS’ “Person of Interest” so that could be tricky.

Photo: ABC