ONCE UPON A TIME Season Premiere Review: A New Story

The Savior’s Story

The primary story of the series has centered on Emma Swan, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. As the story of the show has unfolded, so has Emma’s. From her abandonment as baby to betrayals and heartaches, much of Emma’s stories have been ones of pain and loss. The narrative begins to change when her son enters back into her life and brings her home to Storybrooke to bring back the happy endings as the Savior. She then goes on to face curses, villains, new realms, and even takes on the darkness of all the realms to save Storybrooke and the people she loves most. The price of being the Savior is never getting a day off, and it has a price she has paid time and time again.

Many of this savior’s stories have ended in victory, but what happens when a savior gets a glimpse of the end of their story? In this episode, Emma begins to be haunted by visions of her fighting a masked villain with a sword; she even gets a shaky hand as a physical side effect. When she seeks answers alone, an oracle tells Emma that these visions are actually glimpses of the end of her story, which involves a fatal stab as Killian and her family watches in horror.

Emma wastes no time and goes into her survival mode: facing a problem alone while assuring her loved ones that she is fine. Much of her story has been about survival; look out for yourself and you will never get hurt. She carries the weight on her shoulders all the time, but she is not the biggest fan of sharing that burden with others. Shutting out others creates less collateral damage, right? Wrong.

Emma now has her family and true love in her life; they know that something is wrong even though she does not want to admit it. Emma can’t even tell Killian Jones, a man she loves so passionately and truly. Last season she told him that she was afraid of a future with him because she has never had one. This season is starting to begin that future with him. Now she’s plagued with the idea of losing it. To preserve it, she puts on a brave face and tells her pirate that everything is good. Killian has always been able to read Emma like an open book; he told her that on their first adventure together. He knows she is lying to him, and it hurts him that his true love isn’t being honest with him. They’ve been through too much to not be. But Killian has always respected her. With the walls Emma puts up, Killian continues to scale them and bring them down. He has always expressed his love and support while not pushing her too far. In this new chapter of their relationship, Emma and Killian need to learn how to do life together, in the mundane, domestic aspects to the dark, vulnerable burdens. The truth will eventually come out, and when it does, Killian will be by his swan’s side as they take on this new challenge the way love is supposed to overcome everything: together.

Worth Mentioning

• I’m curious: were those green apple martinis that the Evil Queen brought to Zelena’s farmhouse shaken or stirred?
• Another story I’m looking forward to uncovering is Hyde’s. He is the evil side to Dr. Jekyll, but he has extensive knowledge on all of our Storybrooke characters and their stories. How does he know everything?!
• Speaking of which, when Emma comes to Hyde seeking answers about her hand spasms, he instructs her to follow a red bird. The red bird leads her to the oracle, and the oracle tells Emma that the vision is that of the end of Emma’s story. Here’s the thing: is Emma really seeing the end of her life or her story as the Savior? Also, that red bird is primarily associated with Jafar, who we see in the first scene of the new season. Is there a chance that the oracle is actually Jafar in disguise?
• One of the biggest surprises of the premiere was finding out that Morpheus is the son of Rumple and Belle. He’s a full grown man inside Belle’s dream world. He definitely possesses the intellect of his mother and the craftiness of his father. My big question is how does Morpheus have his own temple when he hasn’t been born yet?
• A friendly face to return to the show was Dr. Archie Hopper. Snow sends him to talk with Emma in hopes she would open up to someone. After everything she has been through and now entering into, simple solutions will not cure the deepest problems. Emma, go ahead and schedule an appointment with Dr. Hopper ASAP!
• A subject that I hope gets touched upon this season is post-traumatic stress. The Storybrooke heroes have had a lot of trauma in the past five seasons and it’s about time to start addressing it. For instance, Killian was a Dark One and died. No one would be hunky-dory after that. Someone schedule the pirate a therapy session with Dr. Hopper!
• I love how Granny’s food was one of the selling points to draw out the people of the Land of Untold Stories from the forest. That lasagna must be legendary.
• Where is Violet? Last I checked, Henry still has his Camelot girlfriend in town. I hope we see the young couple out and about together, in between battling the Evil Queen, of course!