So, in case you missed it, the premiere of the seventh season of Once Upon a Time premiered on Friday with multiple changes to the series. Some new additions to the cast, a new town, and yet another new curse, much like the Dark Curse from the first season.
The New Curse

This new iteration of the show is seemingly so similar to the first season of the show. It’ll be interesting to see how the writers decide to change it up. So far, my initial observations are fixated on Roni or the new/cursed Regina. She’s also always been my favorite character if I’m being completely honest. It’s refreshing to see Regina as someone who seemingly knows exactly who she is as well as a beacon of hope in this cursed town (besides just Lucy, aka the new Henry). Especially after seeing how her character transformed from the Evil Queen to the hero, she is now.
Henry’s Cursed Backstory

Henry says that he had a family; a wife and a child, that died in a fire. Yes, I know he’s cursed and it might be nothing but what if it’s not? Is his backstory really just an illusion from the curse or did he really live another life? I think the easy way of thinking of it is just assuming that it’s all curse-related. But it would be interesting if he really did have a family because it all obviously still haunts him.
I don’t think they said how long they’ve been cursed so anything’s possible. I don’t see why Henry couldn’t have had a whole other family. In the first season, the curse had been in play for 26 years if I remember correctly, which is a long time. But getting at the fact that the flashbacks use the same actors (other than Henry), I’m assuming it may not have been too much time. So maybe it has only been a handful of years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s too little of a time to have and lose a family.
Sabine/Princess Tiana

We saw a glimpse of her in this episode in the current day and in the flashback. All that I got from it though is the fact that she’s Cinderella/Jacinda and Lucy’s roommate and friend. At the ball in the flashback scenes, we saw her in a beautiful dress and saying no to eating the frog leg hors-d’oeuvres. And that was it so far. But from what I’ve heard, Jacinda and Sabine will have a similar friendship that Snow White and Ruby/Red Riding Hood did. So, I’m excited to see more of that.
Belle and Emma’s Absence
Gold and Hook are obviously still in the show, even though they’re cursed. Interestingly enough though, they’re both now detectives so I’m wondering if we’ll see if they’ll like each other in this cursed world. Because they’ve never gotten along before. But because they’re still on the show, what happened to Belle and Emma? Yes, they’re cursed but what’ll happen when the curse breaks? The show has clearly put CaptainSwan (Hook and Emma) and Rumpbelle (Rumple and Belle) as big relationships on the show. So, it doesn’t seem to make sense for it to just disappear. And what about Gold and Belle’s baby, who will, at this point, be what I’m assuming will be a teenager?
Aside from all the questions I still have about the show, I trust the writers have something good for us Oncers. Even with the batch of new characters, they’ve thrown at us. What intrigues me is what changes they’ll make to differentiate it from the original story from the first six seasons. What other questions or thoughts do you guys have? Comment below or tweet me @mzsnguyenthai.