What's Going To Happen To Zelena's Baby?

It's crazy to think that Once Upon A Time has only been back on our TV screens for two weeks so far. It feels like so much has happened already, what with all the realm-hopping to Camelot, Emma giving in completely to her Dark One status, Henry finding his first girlfriend... you get the point. However, there's still one big elephant in the room that we haven't really dealt with, and that's Zelena and her impending motherhood. While we know the lunatic Wicked Witch cut her own hand off and punched hook in the face (not mad about that last part) in order to get her magic back and steal a wand to open a portal back to Oz before eventually being foiled by the former Evil Queen and new Savior, we haven't really dealt with the whole baby thing. Thankfully, we're going to get on with it (sort of) in Sunday night's episode, "Siege Perilous".

In a newly released clip for the third episode of Season 5, Zelena and Regina talk privately about their predicament — at least, Zelena does once Regina restores her dear sister's voice. Regina wants to talk about why Zelena tried to make off to Oz with Robin Hood's baby, but Zelena's telling her same old story about how this baby is going to love her like no one else in her life ever has and Regina's not happy about it. At the end of the day, Robin was tricked into fathering the child and Zelena's a psycho, so it's reasonable to assume that she shouldn't really be in charge of a child — and Regina plans to make sure that doesn't happen.

I feel conflicted about what's happening here. On one hand, it seems clear to me that Zelena is not mentally stable in any way; on the other hand, much of her behavior could be compared to Regina's back in her Evil Queen days, to be honest. While Regina cast a Dark Curse and killed random innocent people and torched villages, there was one thing she would never do, and that's hurt Henry. Why are we to assume any differently about Zelena? Of course, lack of direct child abuse doesn't a fit mother make, but Regina's insistence on stepping in here seems like it's more about assuaging her own past guilt than it is about protecting the kid (though she obviously cares about that, as well) from Zelena.

All of that aside, a question worth asking is what Once has in store for Zelena for the rest of Season 5. It's still early days in terms of her pregnancy, but time flies, and now that Rebecca Mader is a series regular, it seems fair to expect more than for Zelena to play the Savior's silent handmaid in Camelot, don't you think? After all, "Wicked always wins", at least temporarily, and I'm actually looking forward to seeing her step back into her evil shoes for a bit. I'm not particularly interested in the pregnancy storyline at all, given that it was conceived during a glorified rape, magic or otherwise, but it's what we've got and it'll have to be dealt with in one way or another.

One thing I don't want to see is a redemption storyline for Zelena. We've already been put through that rigmarole with Hook, and I think I speak for many of us when I say I've been unimpressed with the results. Whatever happens, I just want to keep some of that good old Zelena rage and bottle it, because it seems like everyone in Storybrooke's gone soft (save for Emma) and we need all the good villains we can get.

Images: ABC; regina-queen-mills/Tumblr