The Once Upon a Time Season 5 finale saw the introduction of new characters (Sam Witwer as the evil warden and Hank Harris as the warden’s patient) and an interesting twist for Regina (Lana Parrilla): she attempts to destroy the evil in her and ends up releasing The Evil Queen in her own form. This means Season 6 will see Regina vs. The Evil Queen in physical form.
“Regina never should have let me out to play,” said the Evil Queen in the episode. “I came to set the record straight. There was a battle raging inside of Regina and she may have won the fight, but this is a war. And it’s just begun. The queen is back."
Below are spoilers about Season 6:
1. Parrilla revealed in an interview that Season 6 will feature a new world. “The other heroes — Hook, the Charmings and Zelena — are pulled into a portal,” said Parrilla to Hollywood Life. “They get pulled into this portal and enter this new world that we haven’t seen. They’ll encounter new characters and some new villains. There’s like a patient who’s in an institution and his overbearing warden. Those are just a few characters who are going to appear in season 6 for a period of time.”
2. Season 6 will delve deeper into Harris and Witwer’s characters. “Where they’re from, who they are, and what they’re doing does tee up an element of what we’re doing for season 6,” said executive producer Adam Horowitz to Entertainment Weekly. “It’s more like opening a door, rather than introducing the whole of what season 6 will be. Hopefully we’re giving you a little taste of what’s to come.”
3. Henry’s (Jared Gilmore) character will be evolving. “As Henry is becoming a teenager, and he's got all that power, I'd watch out,” said Horowitz to The Hollywood Reporter. Co-creator Adam Kitsis added: “He wields a lot of power as the Author and he's the heart of the truest believer, so we're going to see in the finale what happens when Henry goes rogue.”
4. Overall, the structure of Season 6 will be completely unique from Season 5 or any of the previous seasons. “The paradigm for what season six will be is a little bit different than what we've done the last few years, and we're very excited by it. It involves our core group of characters, Storybrooke and flashing back to other realms,” said Horowitz to The Hollywood Reporter. “It doesn't necessarily mean a journey to someplace else. I think at the end of the finale you'll get a little bit of a taste of how we're going to approach it — it's both a little something old and something new.”
5. The Underworld story arch is mostly done with, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely gone. “The arc of the Underworld story that we were planning to tell this year we intend to conclude this year,” said Kitsis. “Which is not to say that some elements of it may not come into play in the future, but this particular story has a set ending that we're planning to reach quite soon.”
6. What is in store for Rumple (Robert Carlyle) and Belle (Emilie de Ravin)? Her pregnancy and her sleeping course, according to Kitsis, will be addressed in Season 6.
Once Upon a Time Season 6 returns to ABC this fall.
