Once Upon a Time: Will Hook Destroy Storybrooke to Save Emma?

[Warning: The following contains spoilers from Sunday's episode of Once Upon a Time. Read at your own risk!]

Hook (Colin O'Donogue) is probably about to make a really terrible decision on Once Upon a Time in the hopes of saving Emma (Jennifer Morrison) from the prophecy that says she's going to die. It's not only bad news for Storybrooke, but also continues a terrible pattern for Hook and Emma's relationship.

This week's episode revealed Aladdin's (Deniz Akendiz) backstory and the way for Emma to escape the "Fate of Saviors." The key is a set of gold shards that once belonged to the Three Fates, which can be used to separate a Savior from their destiny, which seems to always be death in battle. The problem is that after Aladdin used the shards, Agrabah fell to Jafar (Oded Fehr). Thus, when Aladdin gave the shards to Emma, she handed them off to Hook to make sure they were destroyed because she isn't willing to risk Storybrooke just to save herself.

However, it seems that Hook has a different set of priorities. Emma sent him off on his way to take care of the shards, but the look on his face at the end of the episode makes us pretty sure he's not intending to do what Emma asked. If he uses the shards to save Emma, he not only puts Storybrooke at risk of being taken over by the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla), Zelena (Rebecca Mader) or an unknown villain from the Land of Untold Stories, but he also robs the town of their Savior to prevent the villains from winning.

What's even more frustrating than the idea of Hook putting the entire town at risk just to save Emma is that it perpetuates the couple's "keep secrets now and talk about it later" pattern that hasn't been doing them any favors. They made huge progress at the end of last season when Emma said she loved Hook without being under any duress. Mere days after that confession, though, she started keeping the secret of these visions from him. She apologized for that in this episode and once again promised there would be no more secrets between them -- so now it's Hook's turn to be withholding?

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This is a mistake that both Emma and Hook have made before and all it does is impede their progress as a couple. A large part of Emma's anxiety over her visions is that she's worked so hard for everyone's happy endings and is terrified that hers will be ripped out of her hands. If she and Hook don't figure out how to be better communicators and learn to truly trust each other, they'll be the ones to ruin their own happy ending with absolutely no help from hooded figures that are really good at sword-fighting.

Hopefully Hook comes to his senses and doesn't use the shards for anything that could jeopardize Storybrooke or his future with Emma.

What do you think of the pirate's decision?

Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8/7c on ABC.