The midseason finale of the ABC fantasy drama series features a heartbreaking twist for a character, but 'he's sticking around' for the second part of the season.
- Dec 7, 2015
AceShowbiz - "Once Upon a Time" just killed off a major character in the midseason finale. Titled "Swan Song", the December 6 episode saw [SPOILER ALERT!] Hook (Colin O'Donoghue) resurrecting all the old Dark Ones as part of his plan for revenge.
To save the town, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) was going to absorb all the darkness and killed herself with Excalibur. However, Hook then had a change of heart, taking on all the Darkness and forcing Emma to stab himself with the sword, thus sacrificing himself for his loved ones.
But O'Donoghue isn't going anywhere. The actor tells EW that he will return for the second half of season 5. How is it possible? "It's complicated," O'Donoghue says, but he teases that it has something to do with the storyline which will see the characters "going to the Underworld for the second part of the season." He goes on assuring that Hook is "sticking around, but in a completely different way and quite shocking."
Still, Hook's death will affect Emma. "She doesn't have a lot of time to think about it," Morrison says. "She's put in a situation where she has to make a decision in the moment. After what she went through - she thought she was doing the right thing by saving his life, even though he said not to, and then she realized there were all these repercussions to it. She realized how much it hurt him that she didn't believe him that he meant to just let him go instead of turning Dark again."
Morrison adds, "When she's faced with that same decision again, she has to make the decision she knows he would want her to make. It's one of those heartbreaking things where the decision that represents love is actually just terrifying."
But there's a relief in a way that Emma and Hook managed to resolve their love before his death. "By the time she has to drive Excalibur through him, they have a whole exchange of him getting to a place where he's able to overcome the Darkness within himself in that moment to admit his truth," Morrison explains. "She's been fighting to believe that - and it's confirmed in the way that he then says, 'I do want to be this man and I am truly the man that I fought to be for you' - her belief that he did still love her, that it was just the Darkness that had taken over him that was pushing him to do these things, her belief in that is confirmed in that moment."
But there's another twist as Rumple (Robert Carlyle) made the sword transfer all the darkness to him, making him the new Dark One. Of how Emma will react to this, Morrison says, "In the immediacy of him sacrificing himself before she knows about Gold, Emma is in a state of shock and she's trying to figure out what to do, and doesn't know if there is a way to get to him."
"The weird thing about finding out that Gold is the Dark One again is that she's furious at him, but at the same time, she now has a way to Hook. If he were not the Dark One, she would not have a way to Hook. As much as she's furious at him, she also is grateful in a weird way that this is giving her a second chance at saving the man that she loves," she shares.
"Once Upon a Time" returns Sunday, March 6 at 8 P.M. ET on ABC. In a preview for the midseason premiere, Emma and others begin the search for Hook as Storybrooke becomes the Underworld where dead people are alive.
