Baddies Cora and Captain Hook clash with Snow and Emma in this weekend’s midseason finale of ABC’s fairytale-inspired drama “Once Upon A Time,” as they all fight to get to Storybrooke for very different reasons.
In recent weeks, in her quest to get back to her son Henry, Emma double crossed the raven-haired captain, swiping the all-important portal-related compass for herself, leaving him tied up in the giant’s home up the beanstalk. But Jennifer Morrison, who plays Emma, said the move was justified.
“I feel like he should understand that obviously I couldn’t trust him. I’m just saying!” Jennifer laughed, after ABC flew us up to the Vancouver “OUAT” set, and AccessHollywood.com asked how Hook is feeling when they characters meet again. “But… from my perspective, she didn’t want to leave him, she wanted to believe him, but I think that’s the beautiful thing about putting those two stories next to each other. You see why she can’t take that risk.”
Emma will finally have to answer for those actions when she sees Hook once again, but with his occasional fondness for her, things could go any which way.
“They come face to face and… I think it’s very honest,” Jennifer said, when Access asked what to expect of the confrontation. “I think it’s what it would be… Unfortunately, Emma’s put in a situation where she now needs something and he has the upper hand and so there’s a constant ping pong back and forth of the power shift with them. It’s like he needs something and uses her and she needs something and uses him and then they’re always sort of like trying to rely on their abilities to charm and manipulate to get each other to do things. “
Emma will have a lot on her hands in the episode. In addition to dealing with Hook and Regina’s even more evil mother – Cora – Emma’s still trying to comfort her mom – Snow — who was left devastated in last Sunday’s episode.
After heading into the fiery room people go to after they’ve been placed under a sleeping curse – and seeing her husband David/Prince Charming waiting in there too — she found she couldn’t break the curse he undertook to find her and give her instructions on how to defeat Cora.
“The dynamic between Emma and Snow shifts a bit because of that experience and Snow needs a bit of caretaking after coming face to face with Charming and thinking that they were going to be able to be together — even if it was in this sort of hallucinatory dream state,” Ginnifer told reporters during a brief break from filming on the “OUAT” set.
Filmed from every camera angle possible, the scene where the two star-crossed lovers couldn’t touch in the fire room brought Ginnifer to tears.
“I cried every time I read that scene in the script,” Ginnifer explained. “I had not quite realized until we were filming the scene — that is the shift in the dynamic between Emma and Snow when Emma really has to… get Snow under control and take over as leader.”
On the other side – in Storybrooke — Regina (Lana Parrilla) and Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) – have a heavy task on their hands too – keeping Cora out.
“She is terrified,” Lana said, when Access asked how big of a threat Cora could be. “Think about what [Regina’s] done to Cora and we know what Cora’s done to her — and we only know some of it. And you have to think — Regina has banished her mother and sent her to another land. [She] pushed her through a mirror and just got rid of her and tried to kill her.”
Robert said his character has a similar view on Cora, propelling his character to do whatever it takes to keep her from coming through that portal.
“She’s bad news to have around. She’s nasty,” Robert said during the set visit in Vancouer. “I think that Rumpel’s about himself. I don’t think he’s necessarily world domination nasty and I think that Cora probably is.”
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