'Once Upon a Time': Charming in charge and Regina's redemption

In "Once Upon a Time" this week (in an episode entitled "We Are Both"), Charming takes control, we find out what happened to Cora (Regina's evil mom), and Regina gets her powers back. There's the general; here's some of the specifics:

The boundary of Storybrooke: With magic back in Storybrooke, it stands to reason that people would want to know what's going on with the world outside. Leave it to the dwarfs to be the ones to discover it: If a Storybrooke resident leaves the town, they will be back under the town's curse -- not remembering their fairy-tale lives. As Grumpy says, "Terrible news!" Sneezy was sacrificed, though.

The townspeople are in a frenzy for some reason. They've lived the last 28 years under essentially false IDs, but there seems to be an extra portion of chaos. And to quell the chaos, everyone looks to Prince Charming/David. Their hero. Their liege. Despite being bombarded with questions about a plan for what to do about everything, Charming's focus is on getting Snow White and Emma Swan back.

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Enter Regina, and the Mad Hatter's hat. Having lost her powers, Regina can't help Charming open the hat portal to his family. Her magical impotency seems to have jarred her memories, as she relives her painful past under her power-hungry magical mom, Cora. So overbearing was she that Regina got rid of her by pushing her through a mirror.

It is the beginning of the relationship between Rumpelstiltskin and Regina, as he is the one who helped her access her magic. These flashbacks force her to realize that she needs her mother's spell book in order to regain her powers.

As she receives that revelation, Henry tells Charming who owns the hat. Got to start listening to the kids! Anyway, both Regina and David know that they need magic, or items that will help them get magic, so that means a trip to Rumpelstiltskin's/Mr. Gold's shop.

After a bout of back-and-forth blackmail, Regina gets her mother's spell book -- a book that her mom, who may have been more evil (eviler?) than she is, used to keep everyone in check.

This seems like a doomed idea -- and the fact that Mr. Gold gave her the book with no strings is also strange. Even with the threat of revealing the existence of the magical forest, Rumpelstiltskin doesn't just give things away without a plan. Regardless, it works, and Regina gets her powers back.

Meanwhile, in the second visit to Mr. Gold's closed shop, Charming gets a locator potion and finds the Mad Hatter. He's still a bit crazy, and can't help with the hat because he also has no magic.

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'Once Upon a Time': Charming in charge and Regina's redemption