Big changes are in store for "Once Upon a Time" season 5 especially now that Emma Swan has ventured into the dark side and took on the role of the Dark Swan.
Last season, Emma sacrificed herself so that Regina would have her happy ending, and save Storybrooke in the process. When season 5 opens, audiences will find her reborn as the Dark One; however, the transition to the dark side will not be easy given Emma's naturally good heart.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jennifer Morrison, the actress who plays Emma in the show discussed her character's surprising switch.
"When we saw Rumple (Robert Carlyle) take on the Dark One, he obviously had good reason for it. He wanted to be able to save his son, and be a hero, and have power in a way that he thought was positive. He had good intentions in the decision to do it, and then we watched him through flashbacks struggle with the good and the bad inside of him once he took that on," she said. "There's a similar journey for Emma, which is that once you've agreed to surrender to the Darkness and be the Dark One, that doesn't mean that you're consumed with it immediately. It means that it's within you, and now there is the struggle between what was once you and how to reconcile that with the Darkness that's also within you at this point."
Morrison explained that Emma's instincts are now incredibly dark and violent, but there is still a part of her that wants to overcome the darkness that is growing inside of her.
"There's this internal struggle. There's definitely a journey for her in terms of how long it will take for her to actually surrender to the Darkness inside of her," she said.
There will also be some differences about Emma being the Dark One as opposed to Rumple as the Dark One. Unlike Rumple and his predecessor, Emma wasn't raised in fairy tale land so her villainous streak is more rooted to the real world.
"That's where the shift is. We're not seeing a fairy-tale villain. We're seeing this woman who is impacted by this accumulation of Darkness, but it's coming out of her in a way that she has seen villainy in the world, not in a way that we would've seen a fairy tale villain in fairy tale land," she explained.
