By Natalie AbramsUpdated September 25, 2016 at 12:00 PM EDT
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Credit: ABC
GINNIFER GOODWIN, JOSH DALLAS
Once Upon a Time
Show MoreAbout Once Upon a Time
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Warning: This story contains major spoilers from the season 6 premiere of Once Upon a Time. Read at your own risk!
Being the Savior is not all it’s cracked up to be; Emma Swan learned that the hard way during Once Upon a Time‘s sixth season premiere.
Facing an influx of new characters coming to Storybrooke from the Land of Untold Stories, along with the villainous Hyde (Sam Witwer) claiming ownership of the town, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) started to have visions of the future — a grim one that sees her fighting a hooded figure who ultimately gets the upper hand and killed her.
Hyde spotted Emma’s hand tremors — a side effect every Savior before her has faced — and sent Emma to follow the red bird that would lead her to an oracle. Like with every Savior before her, the oracle explained, the future she glimpsed cannot be prevented; the journey to get there may change, but the end result will always be the same. In short, Saviors don’t get happy endings.
So, is there no way to save Emma Swan? “That is a question we are posing,” executive producer Edward Kitsis says. “That’s what we’re going to explore this season.” Though, EP Adam Horowitz is quick to remind fans that OUAT “remains a show about hope.”
Now the question is: Who’s under the hood? As Hyde points out, as the Savior, Emma will want to help the new characters from the Land of Untold Stories, but one of them could ultimately be her killer. “Emma is going to wonder who that is,” Kitsis says. “We’re definitely going to be exploring that. It could be someone we’ve met before. I definitely would say it is somebody we’ve met before. Who’s in the hood is going to be a mystery. To tell you now would be like, ‘Here’s who shot J.R.‘”
(Side note: My theory is that the oracle is actually Jafar in disguise, the red bird looking far too similar to Iago from Aladdin. The visions may be a trick that causes Emma to second guess herself, leading to her being more vulnerable to the villain from Agrabah, who is actually under the hood.)
Emma’s fate hanging in the balance is all part of the show taking a deeper look at what happy endings really mean. “What we really wanted to do was get inside Emma’s head,” Kitsis says. “Six years ago, when we met her, the very first thing she did to Henry is she said, ‘I don’t believe any of this.’ She even denied having a kid. We’ve seen her grow and fight and [go on] all these travels. We thought, what would happen if you really did all this? Is it fair to return the happy endings to everyone else and be told yours doesn’t come? Would you still keep doing your job? Are you doing it out of the sake of duty or because you believe in it? What kind of role model are you? We really wanted to get into Emma’s head this year, in a character way, and really explore what it means to have this responsibility.”
For now, Emma’s keeping what’s in her head to herself, lying to Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) about her tremors and the visions. “It’s a lie that’s coming from what’s a good place in her mind, but he’s probably not going to feel that way when he finds out,” Horowitz says.
“The fun thing about the six seasons, at least as writers, is you get to revert to that,” Kitsis says. “When Emma has a problem, she reverts back to season 1 — wall goes up, ‘I’ll figure it out myself, I don’t need to tell anyone.’ That’s the journey for her and Hook, which is now that she said last year, ‘I love you,’ well if you’re letting that wall down and letting all the good things in, all the bad things are going to come in. It’s that push-pull that’s going to be driving them.”
Suffice it to say, keeping the truth from Hook and her family will start to weigh heavily on Emma. “It affects her in the way that that anytime you keep a lie from the people you love, it starts to eat at you,” Kitsis says. “What happens usually is one of two things: You have to come clean or you have to continually double down and it only make it worse. Emma will absolutely double down.”
Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Stay tuned for more OUAT news on the rest of the Storybrooke residents.
Episode Recaps
GINNIFER GOODWIN, JOSH DALLAS
Once Upon a Time
Everything you’ve ever read about fairy tales is true—the residents of Storybrooke are living proof.
In Emma's case, the answer is that she needs to be saved from the darkness that possesses her. But is Emma truly as evil as she seems? By the conclusion of the Dark Swan arc, it is revealed that Emma is never quite as villainous as everyone thinks she is, which is ultimately one of the biggest mistakes of the season.
Fortunately, her son Henry's kiss resurrected her, leading to what appears to be a happily ever after alongside her family as Morrison exits the drama after six seasons. (Read part 1 of our interview with Morrison here.) “I've always wished for Emma's happy ending,” Morrison tells EW.
Regina Mills/The Evil Queen is the one who cast the Dark Curse, bringing everyone to Storybrooke and erasing their memories. Arguably, the entire run of the series is about her road to redemption, but when she was bad, she was very, very bad.
He then aimed to derail Henry's pursuit of Cinderella and take claim the other Hook's life and wife. But once the news that Emma had been waiting to share with Henry got out — she is pregnant with her and Hook's first child together — the pretender pirate had a change of poisoned heart and aborted his plan.
Well, in this Sunday's first episode, “Birth,” Emma was finally moved to tell (mostly) all to Hook: that she plans to transfer the Darkness from herself into a new vessel, Zelena, whose pregnancy she accelerated. (In short: It's a girl!)
A devastated Emma goes to Henry's body, whispers to him that she loves him and kisses him on the forehead. This act is seen as "true love's kiss:", therefore the pure love shockwave occurs. Emma has broken the curse, bringing Henry back to life and causes everyone in Storybrooke to regain their memories.
A sad, crying Emma goes through with his wishes and impales Hook with Excalibur, which kills all of the previous Dark Ones. As Hook dies, his neck wound from Excalibur returns, and Emma is transformed back into her normal self, with Excalibur disintegrating afterwards.
Emma is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming from the fairytale Snow White. She also alludes to the swan from the fairytale, The Ugly Duckling.
After Emma became the "Dark One" at the end of the fourth season of the series, Morrison began doing research with mythology books and old fairy tale books and looking back through the history of swans and the etymology of 'Swan' to prepare for this new trait of her character.
My contract was up. I felt like Emma's story had naturally reached its happy ending. There wasn't really a new place for that to go for her. The things that we were aiming for creatively over those six years had all culminated in a really beautiful way.
As Parrilla notes, Regina's happy ending does not include a love interest, but the character was briefly reunited with Robin Hood (Sean Maguire) in a dream during the finale — read more about that scene in our interview with executive producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis here.
Killian proposes to her and she excitedly says yes. He assures her that no matter how uncertain her future is she can be certain that he will always be by her side. They get married, vowing to love each other for all eternity in front of all their friends and family.
But rather than let Hook die, a desperate Emma tethered him to the sword, effectively turning them both into Dark Ones. In Storybrooke, Hook was incensed to learn of the fate Emma thrust upon him.
Emma, on the other hand, didn't show up for the rescue mission, but she had a very good reason. She needed the extra time to let Henry know that she's pregnant! That's right, Hook and Emma are having a baby and, even better, they get to enjoy their happy ending together.
A devastated Emma goes to Henry's body, whispers to him that she loves him and kisses him on the forehead. This act is seen as "true love's kiss:", therefore the pure love shockwave occurs. Emma has broken the curse, bringing Henry back to life and causes everyone in Storybrooke to regain their memories.
While Hook was hell bent on getting revenge, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) plotted to absorb all the darkness and then run herself through with Excalibur, thereby getting rid of that darkness forever and preventing her family from ending up in the Underworld.
Introduction: My name is Horacio Brakus JD, I am a lively, splendid, jolly, vivacious, vast, cheerful, agreeable person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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