‘Once Upon a Time’ Hero and Villain of the Week: Savior Complex

Warning: Spoilers ahead for this week’s episode of Once Upon a Time.

Good vs. evil — it sounds so black and white. But as we’ve seen time and time again on Once Upon a Time, it’s not so simple.

This season, especially, we’ve seen how gray those terms are, how mutable the lines. Emma, once the savior, is now the Dark One. Regina, once the Evil Queen, is now the only hope for Storybrooke.

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And even within those characters, they aren’t wholly good or wholly evil, wholly benevolent or wholly selfish. They’re all human — and they can be all of those things at some point in their lives, or even at once, as we see with Regina this week. She earns the awards for Hero and Villain of the Week, because she’s as complicated, flawed, wonderful, good, and bad a character as this show has ever produced.

Here’s our rundown of who did good, and who did not-so-good this week:

Hero of the Week: Regina

Both in the present day and in Camelot time, it’s up to Regina to be the new savior. In Camelot, she steps up to pretend to be the savior, supposedly to protect Emma from using dark magic to free Merlin from his tree prison.

In present-day Storybrooke, Regina is less confident in her abilities — particularly whether she can inspire respect and belief in the town’s denizens. After all, most of them remember her as the Evil Queen. Robin tries to encourage her, until he’s whisked away by an evil Fury!

Regina’s powers can’t take down the Fury, and it looks as if Robin’s life is lost. And then, in a final battle, she decides to sacrifice herself. She presents herself to be taken by the Fury — until Snow, then Charming, and others step in with her.

That negates the Fury’s powers, and it goes poof! Now Regina knows that people are behind her, are pulling for her, and would even put themselves in harm’s way for her. Maybe she is the new savior after all.

Villain of the Week: Regina

OK, Regina might be a hero now, but that doesn’t make her perfect. After stepping in as the “savior” to help Emma, Regina soon forgets her original goal. After donning a pretty dress and taking dance lessons from Prince Charming, Regina is beginning to like this whole savior business.

At King Arthur’s ball, Regina is too busy making goo-goo eyes at Robin to realize that one of Arthur’s knights, Percival, has been plotting against her! He gave her a necklace that allowed him to spy on her, which revealed that she was the Evil Queen. And Percival’s been holding a grudge against her for a long time.

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But instead of taking out Regina, he wounds Robin. Regina’s magic can’t save him, so she asks Emma to do it. But wait, what about stopping Emma from using dark magic? What about preventing her from becoming the Dark One? Well, now that’s out the window because Regina’s love is dying.

Emma bravely offers to heal him, and does. But it comes at a terrible price — the beginning of her descent into Dark One-ness. Yes, Regina asked for it out of love, but she will come to rue that day in Storybrooke, six weeks later. She, and everyone else, will learn that age-old truth: Love hurts.

Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on ABC.