Once Upon a Time season 5 is planning to spend a great deal of time with Emma Swan. What will set her apart from the Dark Ones before her?
There are many questions swirling around the Once Upon a Time season 5 premiere, but we have some information that may ease the painful wait between now and Sunday night! We round up answers to some of the burning questions surrounding the Dark Swan’s debut!
Where is Emma?
“She is now where all darkness is born. In your realm.” But how will the heroes get there? From the way Hook flipped that curtain, it looks like he is willing to try anything to get back to Emma’s side. The Apprentice has another solution — a wand that will transport them back to the Enchanted Forest.
How will Emma be different from previous Dark Ones?
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Jennifer Morrison offered a bit more insight to the type of Dark One Emma Swan will become. Morrison says, “There are bits and pieces of all of the Darkness from before that come with the Darkness once you’ve surrendered to it. There is an element of Rumple, and Zoso, and whoever else we may establish was, at some point, a Dark One. But the difference for Emma is that she wasn’t raised in fairy tale land, and she wasn’t raised around the villains of fairy tale land. She was raised in the real world. So her villainy, selfishness and Darkness is more rooted in the real-world version of villainy, selfishness and Darkness. That’s where the shift is.”
Taking what we already know about Emma’s brushes with Darkness in the real world, namely her former job and run-ins with the law, she can fend for herself against the darker side of things. But in the Enchanted Forest the Darkness grips her from deep inside and a gun simply will not do.
Who comes to Emma’s rescue?
The unlikely leader of Emma’s rescue may surprise you. Emma is dealing with this new struggle between doing what is right and facing the urge to give into the darkness. Someone needs to save Emma from herself.
Morrison continues to explain the struggle, saying, “There was always this fight within her to be able to overcome things and try to be a stronger, better person, and now that she has this Darkness within her, her instincts are to be selfish, which has never been her instincts as good Emma. That immediately changes every decision, and it immediately changes the way that she is capable of being manipulative, and conniving, and vindictive. All of those things were things that she was constantly pushing down and not dealing with as good Emma and overcoming and making the good, positive choice. And now, because she has that Darkness fueling her, when she’s faced with decisions, unfortunately, the selfishness is what’s pushing forward first.”
What about her parents?
It will depend on how much Emma gives herself over to the Darkness. Expect to see the story unfold over the season.
“We’re going to see Emma at different stages of her Darkness. We’re going to be seeing her all the way surrendered to it, next to her barely surrendered to it, next to her somewhere in the middle surrendered to it. Her relationship with her parents and her feelings about certain things are going to be more extreme based on what phase of the Darkness she’s in,” says Morrison.
Hook, Henry, and hope
There are so many people lined up to not only help Emma, but also steer clear of her when she is on the war path. Hook may believe he is the key to helping Emma remember who she is, but Morrison has another idea. “It’s interesting because, so far, what you’ll see is that Henry (Jared Gilmore) is Emma’s kryptonite as Dark Swan because that love is so pure and so strong and similar to how Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James) was kryptonite to Rumple’s Darkness,” says Morrison.
But don’t worry, Captain Swan fans, Morrison doesn’t leave the poor Captain hanging. She says, “And then Hook is the next most powerful force after that in the sense that she does truly love him, and she doesn’t stop loving him just because she’s now the Dark One, similar to how Rumple continued to love Belle even though he was the Dark One.”
Once Upon a Time season 5, episode 1, “Dark Swan,” airs Sunday, September 27 at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC.