My happy ending is finally feeling at home in the world. Robin is just a part of that world. – Regina

*spoilers, of course*

With Once Upon a Time returning soon let’s go back and remember how we got here in the first place.

And by here, I mean here:

Let’s go back to season four when Frozen was incorporated into the storyline. It wasn’t everyone’s favorite, but we saw Emma’s power start to grow as she and Elsa became good friends. They had an understanding: each had a power neither wanted, sometimes it went out of control, and they hurt people.

Emma’s the product of true love and you can’t get more light than that. But we found out in season 4b Emma has (had) potential to turn dark. Because of this Snow and Charming transferred all of the dark in Emma into another baby. Why this was a thing and Snow and Charming couldn’t just trust they would raise her right (I have to save the nitpicking for Thoughts On later this week.)

Eventually Emma finds out and is pretty freaking pissed at her parents and how could you blame her? Not only have they hid this from her the entire time, but they risked the life of another baby (okay they thought it was a dragon) just for the hope Emma would never go dark.

Actually I will talk about this.

Why would they think this “potential darkness” would have any effect on Emma in the future? Whether someone goes good or bad is from what happens in their lives. Something causes them to switch paths and take a different route (unless your Lord Voldemort and born evil, but this isn’t the case for anyone on the show.) It’s all how she is raised and if she’s raised right, they would never have to worry about it. Their logic about all this pissed me off then and it’s doing it now.

Moving on…over time Emma changes. NOT from the potential darkness, but from what has happened to her. She’s watched friends die, she has to defend her family constantly, and deal with villains who are a pain in the ass. These are the things that turn a good person bad (I wouldn’t say Emma turned bad though.)

Throughout all of this Rumple is dealing with his own darkness, completely taking over his heart. He needs to change the story, get him good again, or else he will die. An alternate reality does happen, but is wiped away thanks to Henry.

But what about Rumple? Well all of that darkness taking over can be taken out, and it is, but apparently darkness needs a host. At first it goes to Regina (I was screaming at the screen to leave her alone) but Emma takes it for her. Immediately it attached to Emma (even though it seemed like it was going to kill Regina) and she’s swallowed up into a vortex of darkness.

And all that remains is the dagger with Emma’s name on it. The new dark one.

Oh I thought that was cool. It was a nice twist. That whole season had been a little bleh, but that really changed the whole story up.

What’s in store for everyone now? Well I assume trying to get the darkness out of Emma, a lot of characters from Camelot will be introduced, and even Merida (who my sister says they better do right or she’s kicking ass) will make an appearance.

I’m actually looking forward to this season of Once Upon a Time more than other shows (some other shows.) This and Supernatural are using a new “darkness” storyline. It will be interesting to see how they both go about it. How dark is Emma? Even when Rumple was the Dark One he still loved Belle and even cared about people (at times.) Will Emma be like that or has the darkness completely taken over?

And other questions: will Henry’s new author title have anything to do with this season or will it never be brought up? Is Rumple even alive? Will Snow and Charming get over themselves and do what’s right to save Emma? How much ass will Regina kick?

In a little over two weeks, we’ll find out.

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