The Season 5 premiere of Once Upon A Time, titled “The Dark Swan,” just ended on the East Coast, and if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read any further, as spoilers are being discussed.
What’s next for Once Upon A Time?
Emma appears to have gone full-on Dark Swan! After a recent screening of the Once Upon A Time season premiere in Burbank, California, we talked to Executive Producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz about what that means and how she got there.
“Emma is trying to — as we see in Camelot — resist the darkness, and then she went full-on Lady Stardust at the end of this premiere, so we’re wondering what happened, and how did that happen, and that’s kind of what we’re going to explore. What makes you succumb to the darkness? What makes you resist it? Her relationships with everybody are going to be tested. We love the idea of watching Hook fight for her as well as Regina and her family, because Emma came to Storybrooke a non-believer, and now she is a leader and she’s united everyone, and as you saw there, when you take the leader out, everyone starts bickering,” Eddy Kitsis teased about what’s coming next for Emma.
What exactly happened with the Dark One’s dagger will be explored in the Camelot flashbacks. Adam Horowitz spoke a bit about what that means for Regina. “It’s a lot of responsibility for Regina [to have the dagger,” he said. “Regina is a character who has grown a lot over the years and has tried to put her evil behind her and do good, but that part of her — the evil and the darkness — is a part of her, so she is struggling with how does she do the right thing and how does she help Emma.”
Now that the characters have returned to Storybrooke, Regina will again have to take a leadership role. “As we saw, as good as Sneezy was as sheriff, he went down pretty quick, so it’s going to be everyone looking at the Mayor. It is one thing to ask everyone’s forgiveness. It’s another thing to lead people. We’ve seen Regina on our side helping out the heroes, but she is going to be thrust into a leadership position in saving the town — a town that, quite honestly, a lot of people are still frightened of her,” Kitsis said.
How will that affect Snow, who has also been a leader that people have turned to? “It becomes hopefully very complicated and messy in a good way, in which these familial and adversarial connections are forced to interact in a new way.” Horowitz told us.
Once Upon A Time airs Sundays at 8PM ET/PT on ABC. If you’ve just watched the season premiere and want to talk about it with other fans, come by our Once Upon A Time forum!
