With nearly 7 weeks until the second half of season 6 returns on March 5, 2017, fans of “Once Upon a Time”, or "Oncers", as they call themselves, are still left in uncertainty whether their savior will survive this season. The new shock came directly from the star of the show, Jennifer Morrison (Emma Swan), who in last week’s The Drop-In with Will Malnati podcast commented that her contract is about to expire in April.
Uncertainty lies ahead
Jennifer stated she doesn’t know yet what the ending of her contract means. According to her, not even the actors are sure whether the show will continue with its 7th season or not: "They haven't picked up the show officially yet - they might, they might not.
We’re just waiting now to see if the network decides to continue with the show -- and if they do continue with the show, if they're going to rework it to be something else, or if they're going to invite people to stay. We're just in a holding pattern right now."
Based on her words, even if the show gets renewed for another season, it doesn’t necessarily mean she will stay. We previously wrote about a possible death of “Emma Swan”, a rumour, sparked after series creators Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis refused to comment on the possibility that one of the major character in "Once Upon a Time" would die when the season returns. So far, nothing has been confirmed yet, but there are theories why Jennifer's character could die in the following episodes.
Apart from her destined undoing in the form of Gideon (Giles Matthey), son of the Dark One himself (Robert Carlyle), some are of the opinion that the last couple of seasons are more centred on Regina and the Evil Queen (Lana Parilla) and not so much on The Savior anymore. This means that even with Emma out of the picture the series could easily continue.
Whether Oncers would like the latter or not is, of course, a completely different story.
What will the outcome be?
It seems that we have no choice but to wait with Jennifer to see whether her contract gets prolonged (meaning Emma survives) and whether we will see her and the rest of our heroes return for another year.
