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Once Upon a Time Postmortem: Is Elsa the Big Season 4 Villain?

[Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Sunday's season finale of Once Upon a Time. Read at your own risk!] The Once Upon a Time season finale, aptly titled "There's No Place Like Home," was all about finding home, and Emma (Jennifer Morrison) did just that, but she wasn't the only one!

Natalie Abrams
Natalie Abrams

[Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Sunday's season finale of Once Upon a Time. Read at your own risk!]

The Once Upon a Timeseason finale, aptly titled "There's No Place Like Home," was all about finding home, and Emma (Jennifer Morrison) did just that, but she wasn't the only one!

After going back in time to see her parents Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) meet and fall in love, Emma realized that Storybrooke was where she and Henry (Jared Gilmore) truly belong. But the time portal they used to return to town brought along two familiar faces that are likely to cause a lot of drama next year as they've also now found a new home in Storybrooke.

Once Upon a Time Finale: Did Emma find her home?

First, the less surprising is Maid Marion (Christie Laing), who was reunited with Robin Hood (Sean Maguire), much to the anguish and heartbreak of Regina (Lana Parrilla). Emma, who seemed to get her happy ending with Hook (Colin O'Donoghue), better watch out because Regina looks thisclose to turning back to the dark side after blaming the savior for Marion's arrival.

But, more importantly, the final minute introduced Frozen's Elsa, who appears to be the villain in the fourth season — or is she? TVGuide.com pressed executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz for the scoop:

Introducing Elsa was a great surprise! She's not really a villain in Frozen, though I have to imagine that she'd be pretty pissed after being locked up in that vault. What can you tell us about her and have you cast her?
Adam Horowitz:
We have not cast her. We haven't started that process yet. As for her being a villain, the thing we loved so much about that movie, among a million other things, was that Elsa was misunderstood.
Edward Kitsis: She was never a villain. She was only thought to be. For us, that's powerful.
Horowitz: We truly want to honor the character that everybody has fallen in love with so quickly. When you see how our interpretation of her and what we do with her, you will see that's exactly what we're trying to do.

Is there a possibility to see Anna, Olaf and others from the Frozen world?
Horowitz:
We would be very disappointed if Elsa was the only one from that world that you saw. Who else may appear, we're not ready to tell you just yet.

Have you guys heard of the theory that The Little Mermaidand Frozen are connected? That the shipwreck in The Little Mermaid is the boat that Elsa and Anna's parents died in. Is there any chance you guys might explore that?
Horowitz:
We're not really familiar with that theory, but our plans for Elsa and how she'll fit into our world we hope will be a surprise.

Will Regina now set her sights on destroying Emma after losing Robin Hood?
Kitsis:
That is the question that we wanted to leave the audience with. The finale was our 66th episode. We've seen so much growth from her, so how does she handle this? Regina's greatest villain is her own weakness. We want to see how she handles this setback. Does she revert to her old ways? Does she continue on a new path? And also, how does Emma react? Does Emma feel the guilt like her mom did when she found out about Daniel? All that messiness is what we want to get into. We think it's more complicated than her returning to her vault and killing Emma — unless, of course, she returns to her vault and kills Emma.

Lightning Round 13: Once Upon a Time bosses answer your burning questions

Will we see Robin Hood return next season and see him struggle with his feelings between Regina and Maid Marion?
Kitsis:
Absolutely.
Horowitz: The journey of Robin and Regina is something we really want to explore when the season starts.
Kitsis: It took us this many episodes to get Regina to put her wall down, just as we saw with Emma.

Emma has seemingly found happiness deciding to stay in Storybrooke and be with Hook, but happiness never lasts long on this show. Should we expect her world to get quickly turned upside down?
Kitsis:
I hope so. It would be a lot easier for me and Adam to just write Emma and Hook go out to dinner, then come home and decide whether or not to watch Orphan Blackor catch up on Game of Thrones. It would be a great hour. We're hoping there's some drama and crisis next year.

Will you be exploring more of what it's like for Emma to be in this relationship with Hook?
Kitsis:
Yes.
Horowitz: What we saw in the finale was the beginning of something, which could go in many different ways and many different avenues down which they could go. It's not like they're going to suddenly go to order Chinese and watch Netflix. There's going to be some challenges ahead and we're going to have to show you some surprises about where the two of them go.

What will raising baby Neal be like for Charming and Snow White?
Kitsis:
It will be interesting for them to have a newborn because we've never seen them have that experience. They had to put Emma in a wardrobe and she came back to them 28 years later. Don't forget — they both share one heart. We still have to dive into what that means.

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It's only a matter of time before Belle (Emilie de Ravin) learns that Rumple (Robert Carlyle) killed Zelena (Rebecca Mader). Will you address that head on next season?
Kitsis:
Rumple, as he's told us, is a difficult man to love. He's clearly up to something. As we've said before, his love for her and those vows were genuine. He's also the same man who promised her he wouldn't kill Regina and then found a loophole with the wraith. She's definitely going to be upset when she finds out. It's a matter of when and how. Last year, what we loved is that Rumple finally broke the cycle of bad dads from his family and sacrificed himself, and then Neal (Michael Raymond-James) brought him back from the dead. We didn't really get to explore what is going on in his head because he was held a prisoner by the Wicked Witch, so we really want to focus on Season 4 and get in depth into what he's thinking. What is it like to lose your son? To die and come back to life? What is it like to marry the person? What is it like when you get what is supposed to be your happy ending?

Now that Elizabeth Mitchell's and Josh Holloway's shows have been canceled, do you have anything in mind for bringing these Lostalums onto Once Upon a Time?
Horowitz:
We love those guys so much.
Kitsis: Once has always been a beautiful home for people who were stranded on the island. But to be honest, we locked the cut [of the finale] about a week ago, so I can say that Adam and I are off the grid.
Horowitz: To be perfectly honest, we delivered the cut of the finale Friday.
Kitsis: We haven't even thought about casting.
Horowitz: Our eyes are just opening up and we're trying to catch our breath. Obviously we love those guys.

I vote for Mitchell to play Elsa.
Horowitz:
Your vote is noted.

Who do you think should play Elsa? Hit the comments!

Once Upon a Time will return this fall on ABC.