Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz Interview: ‘Once Upon a Time’ Season 6

Once Upon a Time Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, and Cast Season 6
Jared Gilmore, Adam Horowitz, Lana Parrilla, Emilie de Ravin, Colin O’Donoghue, Rebecca Mader, Josh Dallas and Edward Kitsis at Comic Con 2016 (Photos © Richard Chavez)

Once Upon a Time series creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz said Oncers can expect the sixth season to concentrate on our favorite Storybrooke characters, circling back to the style and tone of season two. Storybrooke is front and center this season as Emma (Jennifer Morrison), Hook (Colin O’Donoghue), Regina (Lana Parrilla), Henry (Jared Gilmore), Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin), Charming (Josh Dallas), and Belle (Emilie de Ravin) squaring off against the Evil Queen. Mr. Hyde, Aladdin, Jafar, Princess Jasmine, Morpheus, and the Count of Monte Cristo will also be involved in the fantasy series’ sixth season.

What else can Oncers expect? Here’s what Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz had to say during roundtable interviews at this year’s San Diego Comic Con:

What are the flashbacks going to be like this season now that we have the Land of Untold Stories?

Edward Kitsis: “Episode two we’re going to see the Count of Monte Cristo. We’ll have a tie-in where we’ll see to our beloved characters in the Enchanted Forest. Of course, you can’t introduce Jekyll and Hyde and not tell that story.”

Adam Horowitz: “I’ll say also it’s not all the Land of Untold Stories. There’s a mix and match of different things that we’re doing. Unlike the last couple of seasons, we’re not doing a, ‘We’re going to a new land and that’s where we’re going to be for the first half of the season.’ We’re kind of in Storybrooke, the Land of Untold Stories characters have arrived like we saw last year, and that is part of the story we’re telling. The arcs we’re doing this season kind of touch on a bunch of different things.”

Edward Kitsis: “I think what you’re going to see is the paradigm of the show is these characters from the Land of Untold Stories have run away because they don’t want their stories to play out. And so now that they’re back in Storybrooke, they’re going to play out. So once again you have Emma in the position of savior trying to help these people find their happiness. The villain is, of course, you know we met Hyde – but there’s another one out there that’s far scarier and her name is the Evil Queen. We may find ourselves in an Emma, Regina, Snow, Charmings against the Evil Queen trying to help people once again.”

Will we explore why she didn’t actually die when they crushed her heart?

Adam Horowitz: “Absolutely, yes, and what happened to her and why the Evil Queen was able to come back.”

Edward Kitsis: “Can she be destroyed? How do you cut off the darkness and that kind of philosophical (questions).”

Adam Horowitz: “Can we even really split the darkness out of yourself? All of those are questions that we intend to explore.”

We saw that Aladdin will be a savior. What does it take to be a savior?

Adam Horowitz: “Hard work.”

Edward Kitsis: “I think for us the very first thing we hope people realize is that Emma wasn’t the first. So, once you realize Emma wasn’t the first, then it makes you wonder, ‘Well, last year we learned about the Dark One mythology. Is this the year we learn about the savior mythology?’ And the answer would be yes.”

Adam Horowitz: “Maybe. (Laughing) Yes. The answer is yes.”

Will we find out who the original savior is?

Edward Kitsis: “That could be a perhaps. That is a possibility. But, one of the things that we’re really excited is to…last year we saw Emma say to Hook, ‘I love you,’ when there was no problem, when there was no doubt. So, she was able to let in those new emotions. One of the things we want to get into this year is Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan’s head is, ‘What is it like to finally find your parents? What is it like to have the pressure of being the savior? What is it like to fight all of those fights?’ And I think the Aladdin thing kind of showed you what happens to the savior. We saw Jafar kind of say, ‘All that’s left is the stump.’ And so for us we really want to explore for Emma to look at is, ‘Is my job just helping other people? Do I get my own happiness? Does this happen to all saviors? What do you mean I’m not the first?”

So we can expect to see some parallels between Aladdin in how things could go for Emma?

Adam Horowitz: “I would say that what we’re going to do with Aladdin we will slowly reveal, but it’s certainly I think from the get-go we might see that there will be some hints from that scene in the beginning to whatever we’ll be facing in the present.”

Are they going to meet at some point?

Edward Kitsis: “I hope so.”

With the new characters we’ll be exploring from the Land of Untold Stories, would you say there’s going to be more of a season two feel to season six?

Edward Kitsis: “Absolutely. I think the construction, the paradigm, even just back to the small town stories. We’re very excited to see Archie come back and Leroy. We just really wanted to get back to Storybrooke and kind of tell those small town stories.

Adam Horowitz: “It felt like a natural progression which is after a couple of seasons of going to Neverland or Arendelle or Camelot that we wanted to be back in Storybrooke and really focusing on how all of these events cumulatively have really affected our characters. What does it mean for Snow and Charming after all of this now to see their daughter going through this. The characters from the Untold Stories are one piece of the character puzzle of what’s going on with all of our main characters.”

What themes are you exploring this season?

Edward Kitsis: “I think there’s a few different themes. The biggest them, of course, is can you really separate the good from the bad? Are we really able to say we’re all one thing or another? I think we’re going to see that going throughout. I think we’re also going to kind of question what is happiness and what is a happy ending. Is it just living your life or is it one final moment with a ‘The End?’ And I think that’s what we want to explore because we started the show off with Snow White being woken up with what was the end of her fairy tale, so we want to dive into a lot of maybe this is the happy ending and we have to actually start living it and stop fighting every monster that comes to town.”

How much do you work with the actors on their characters? How collaborative is it?

Adam Horowitz: (Laughing) “They do what we say!”

Edward Kitsis: “No. The thing with this cast is the cast of Once Upon a Time in our opinion is the true star. What’s so great is you write one thing but each one of those actors knows their role and their character so well that you really get this great combination where you collaborate. So, we have an idea, they have an idea, and we kind of get it together. Or, you know we’ll write something and an actor will start playing it a different way than we thought and then we’ll start writing to that. Then it becomes this thing. So, after six years we have such a shorthand. It’s like a basketball team where you can do the behind the back pass and you know where they are in the court. That’s how I think we are as a team.”

Adam Horowitz: “Our job in terms of writing the show and overseeing the mythology and storytelling and all that is so all encompassing it’s really great we have this cast that takes such ownership over each one of their roles. They all become kind of the guardians of who those characters are. So that when we write these stories and when we develop them, they have incredible insight after years of playing them to really help us to make it this one unified thing.”

Edward Kitsis: “Because when you write a script, the first time you write it you write it through the prospective of every character. And what’s great about these actors is there’s checks and balance. They really know their characters really well.”

Watch the full interview with Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz: