Once Upon a Time: Neal's Peter Pan Connection, Tamara's Boss and 7 More Questions Answered

ABC’s Once Upon a Time has now revealed Tamara and Greg’s anti-magic agenda and fried the Charmings’ beans, putting the good guys’ future in jeopardy. Meanwhile, promos for Season 2′s penultimate episode, “Second Star to the Right,” offer a first glimpse at Wendy Darling and Peter Pan. With these elements now in play, series creators Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis held court with reporters to field burning Qs and tease what’s to come.
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IS A BIG GAP NEAL’S BACKSTORY ABOUT TO BE FILLED? | Yes, he’s Rumplestiltskin’s son. But ever since Emma’s ex mentioned having previously met Hook, we’ve known he has other stamps on his magical passport. Cue the promo for next Sunday, in which Wendy Darling tells young Bae about her shadowy friend Peter. “What happens with him, Wendy and the Darling family is the emotional touchstone of these last two hours,” said Kitsis. “Hopefully, it will inform who he is as a character and also [establish] another land, which is, hopefully, not what you think it is.” Meaning, prepare to eventually plot a course for what the show bosses dub “Neverland-adjacent.” (Awww-fully cute fact: Emma reminds Neal of Wendy, Kitsis shared.)
WILL PETER PAN BE AN ACTUAL CHARACTER? | And not just a CGI creation, as in the promo? After all, it was teased at Once‘s PaleyFest panel that although we’re visiting a new realm, a key player would not be cast until Season 3. Such speculation “would probably be a good guess,” Kitsis allowed. That said, Once‘s version “is probably not the lovely, cuddly shadow we remember,” he noted. “We’re doing [Peter Pan and Neverland] completely differently.”
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FOR WHOM DO TAMARA AND GREG WORK? | In the next episode/one already circulating sneak peek, Tamara alludes to the “Home Office” — and in the May 12 finale, “You will find out who the Home Office is [and] what they want, but you won’t know why,” Kitsis shared. “Since we [as TV viewers] have all been trained with initiatives and secret organizations, we are hoping to lead you down a different path, one that goes, ‘Ah, OK, it’s not that.’”
WHAT HAPPENED TO GREG’S DAD? | Onetime Storybrooke interloper Kurt Flynn’s fate will be revealed this Sunday, Horowitz promises. Important to remember: Despite whatever story Regina spins in the interim, “No one leaves Storybrooke,” Kitsis reminds.
HOW MANY MAGIC BEANS ARE LEFT? | As the Charmings realized this past Sunday, Regina razed their hidden bean field — but not before snatching a total of three beans for her own purposes.
WHO HOLDS STORYBROOKE’S FATE IN THEIR HANDS? | The gemstone “trigger” that Regina retrieved from Maleficent’s Storybrooke lair “is an erase button that returns Storybrooke to what it once was” — meaning nothing, with any inhabitants thusly snuffed, Kitsis reiterated. “Unfortunately for Regina, she’s now strapped to a table and the two people who have it” — Tamara and Greg — “seem to be hellbent on getting rid of this town.”
SPEAKING OF WHICH: IS SOMEONE GONNA DIE? | It sure sounds like it — and “perhaps” in this week’s episode, Kitsis teased.
WILL BELLE EVER TOLL AGAIN? | The producers promised more on the Rumple/Belle/Lacey front before season’s end — including Lacey’s possibly surprising perspective on the prophecy about Henry, were she to get wind of it! — and also hinted it will take something brand-new, and not True Love’s Kiss, to bring Belle back. If, that is, Rumple still pines for the princess. “He seems to be enjoying Lacey because she lets him be who he really wants to be. And his son is who he wants to better for,” Kitsis noted. “So the question is, which one of those will win at the end? That would be the internal showdown for Mr. Gold.”
UM, HOW DO YOU ELECTROCUTE A WOODEN MAN…? | Amidst much talk of Tamara’s evil deeds, Kitsis and Horowitz offered a mea culpa about the Taser-like device she used to fell The Dragon and August/Pinocchio, saying that if they could change any one thing about Season 2, it’d be their choice of gizmo. “When we sat down to do this, we thought, ‘We need a real-world weapon,’” Kitsis explained. “And in the moment of making that decision, we never realized the backlash that would [come]…. We just figured the audience would assume, ‘Oh, it’s not a [regular] Taser.’ But they did not.” Added Horowitz, “The simplest way to think about it is [August] wasn’t electrocuted; the device did something else to him.” Kitsis hinted at further clarity on the weird “science” once the Home Office is revealed.