In a new interview, Once Upon a Time writer Jane Espenson makes some interesting Battlestar Galactica connections and previews Sunday’s “We Are Both”!

Speaking to TV Guide, Espenson talks about the Regina-centric episode which airs this Sunday, “We Are Both” – although of course Once Upon a Time isn’t strictly focusing on one character’s past and present anymore, what with the three story line threads going on.

Espenson says that this new way of telling the characters stories is really going to “step everything up” (and not just from the way Lost used to do it). “We just felt this excitement when we got to the end of episode 2×02, when we do that reveal that these two stories have been happening at the same time,” Espenson says. “We can still tell stories from the past, so we’ve got three different colors of story on the board; we write on the white board with different color ink. We’ve totally fallen in love with these stories.”

Espenson also makes a great connection to Battlestar Galactica, on which she was also a writer, likening the ruined post-curse fairytale land which Emma and Snow now find themselves in to the ruined remnants of the legendary earth which Adama, Roslin and their crew discover on the show. As such, the story is about “what happens when you find the place you’ve been yearning for and it’s not what you thought it would be.”

And it’ll be full of dangers, including of course Captain Hook. The FTL (yes, another BSG reference) will have, “a number of dangerous characters,” and at the end of Sunday’s episode, we’ll “get a glimpse at some real danger. It’s not just ogres. It’s so much worse.”

But what about Emma’s magic? Espenson says, “I wouldn’t take [Emma facilitating Regina’s magic in the first episode] to mean Emma can do magic,” but, “yes: Emma. Magic. Some sort of loop around those two words.”

Speaking about Sunday’s episode, Espenson says that Regina, and Rumpelstiltskin (who she meets for the first time in a flashback) are, “the main focus of this episode, but there’s an awful lot going on in town with David as well. They’re sharing the spotlight.” She also teases that the origin story isn’t necessarily all that transparent: “I’d listen carefully to what Rumple says about their first meeting,” she says. “Maybe this is their first meeting, but maybe they go even further back.”

Fairytale connoisseurs of course already made the connection that Regina’s mother Cora is probably the very same miller’s daughter from the original Rumpelstiltskin story. So it is likely that Cora and Rumpelstiltskin made some kind of deal when Regina was a baby – which may also have to do with Regina’s magic.

We’re sure all (well, some) will be revealed this Sunday, at 8/7c on ABC!