Once Upon a Time fans curious as to why Regina (Lana Parrilla) has largely been left out of the Frozen storyline this season do not have to worry about her being sidelined for too long.

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Despite Regina having her special fireball powers, she was conveniently away from Emma (Jennifer Morrison), Hook (Colin O'Donoghue) and Charming (Josh Dallas) after they were trapped in Elsa's (Georgina Haig) wall of ice in the latest episode. TVLine brought up the lack of Regina's involvement thus far to series showrunners Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz in a Wednesday report. The showrunenrs suggested that there is a longterm plan in place.

"'The Frozen story' is not the way we look at that. It's 'the Frozen characters coming into Once Upon a Time,' and when they do, how it affects everybody," Horowitz explained. "An important thing for fans to know is that while we are telling this arc with the Frozen characters, we are in no way leaving the arcs of characters like Regina aside. We still want to explore them."

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Kitsis added that their plan for Regina in Season 4 is "one of my favorites. . . . Although she is a part of the Frozen storyline [and] is affected by it, she also has a few arcs of her own that we're introducing at the beginning of this season, so I think fans should wait and see what that is."

Regina is a fan favorite among the Once Upon a Time fanbase, so she will likely be given more to do beyond finding the author of Henry's (Jared Gilmore) storybook.

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

Watch the promo for the next episode of Once Upon a Time here:

Tags: Once Upon A Time television ABC