Season six of Once Upon a Time has finally premiered, and boy do we have a hell of a season to look forward to. Is that good or bad, you ask? Only time will tell.

Spoilers ahead, dearies.

Many years ago

In a land that we can only imagine is Agrabah, the sinister figure of Jafar (played by the one, the only, the GORGEOUS Oded Fehr) rides a magic carpet to a small house where an unnamed girl and Aladdin appear to be in hiding. Jafar mocks Aladdin for failing as the “Savior.” Aladdin’s hand is shaking uncontrollably, which delights the evil sorcerer.

The Land of Untold Stories

Thanks to his deal with Mr. Hyde, Rumple has a brief window of time during which he can enter Belle’s dream and attempt to wake her from within. In her dream, Belle is still the Beast’s servant, and is afraid of Rumplestiltskin. Rumple is determined to make her fall in love with him again, and manages to nearly succeed….until Belle realizes that this has all happened before. Remembering all his lies and broken promises, Belle refuses to let him wake her for the sake of their unborn baby.

Morpheus, the god of dreams who had shown Rumple where Belle’s dream was taking place, reveals himself to be their unborn child. He warns Belle to stay away from the man she’d once called her husband before kissing her forehead to wake her from the enchanted sleep.

Finally awake, Belle tells Rumple that she will go back with him to Storybrooke, but not as his wife. (YOU GO GIRL.)

Storybrooke

Emma and the gang are forced to deal with the reality that the evil Mr. Hyde and a bunch of people from the Land of Untold Stories have crash landed in their town. (Can’t Emma and Hook get, like, one hour to themselves without the world blowing up? What about Snow and Charming? Really. These people need a vacation and some alone time with their significant others.) A huge dirigible (which I’m crossing my fingers to be out of a Jules Verne story) came to ground in the forest, and the gang searches for survivors. Meanwhile, thanks to the smarts of Dr. Jekyll, they’ve managed to imprison Hyde in the Sheriff’s department.

In the midst of all this, Emma begins to have strange visions of her in a fight to the death with a hooded figure. Each vision leaves her with tremblings hands, but in true Emma fashion, she opts not to tell anyone what’s going on. Instead, she asks Hyde for help (yeah, that’s a great idea). He gives her a few clues that lead her to stumble across the girl who was with Aladdin in the first scene. The girl calls herself an oracle before telling Emma that she has seen the moment of her death.

Regina is trying her best to be part of the action, but finds herself doubting her abilities now that she has destroyed her evil half (or so she thinks). She is also struggling with her newfound relationship with Zelena, whom she subconsciously blames for Robin’s death. She eventually confronts Zelena, who storms off, only to come across the Evil Queen.

Wait, what?

Although a lot of things happened during this first foray into season 6, there is one huge plot point that has fans worried. Is Emma really going to die? Well, this could go a variety of ways. If OUAT is trying to wrap up its run and is planning for this to be the final season, then it wouldn’t be too surprising if Emma sacrificed herself in a huge showdown against the forces of evil to protect everyone she loves. Heartbreaking, yes. Surprising, no.

However, if this is not the end of OUAT, then it is unlikely that Emma will die. And if she does die, she won’t stay dead. After all, Hook was literally just brought back from the dead last season. What’s more, we know that villains lie to make people believe terrible things. It was alluded to several times throughout the episode that Hades may have lied about Robin’s soul being utterly obliterated. And as one clever Twitter user pointed out, how do we know that what the oracle said was true?

For non-Wonderland people:
Jafar can change his appearance. Red bird w/ glowing eyes. I’m 99% sure the Oracle girl was Jafar#OnceUponATime

— Hope (@HopeMullinax) September 26, 2016

There is obviously some kind of connection between Aladdin “the savior” and Emma “the savior” and the unifying factor could very well be Jafar himself.

Until next time, dearies.

-The Collected Mutineer