'OUAT' Season 5 Needs A New Villain, But Who?

I know what you're all thinking: Once Upon A Time Season 5 already HAS a villain, and it's going to be Dark!Emma! And yeah, fine, fair enough — maybe we'll have to deal with that for half a season or so, until Emma's back to being the Savior and the Dark One is banished forevermore. But come on, let's be honest with each other. We all know Emma's not going to be pure evil, and we need someone who will. Who that's going to be is anyone's guess, especially since our options seem to be pretty limited at the moment. Where have all the bad guys gone?

If you think I'm overreacting, let's remember this: Gold is no longer the Dark One, meaning he's essentially powerless and won't have much in the way of malice left in his heart. Maleficent gave up her fire-breathing ways, for the most part, now that she's got Lily back. Regina long ago embarked on the road to redemption and is the best shot we've got at a new hero come Season 5. Where does that leave us? We can't really speculate on characters we haven't met yet, at least not too much, so we'll have to look to our current cast of characters and see if anyone's going to step up to the plate.

Zelena

Zelena is the most likely candidate for the big bad villain of Season 5, but eh, we've been there, done that before. Frankly, she's already been set up for her own redemption ark, what with that ill-begotten baby/pending motherhood situation (not that the audience will ever forgive her/the writers for that) and the way she softened to Regina's whole spiel on true happiness in "Operation Mongoose". I suppose she could terrorize Storybrooke for a while, but I imagine it'll be somewhat half-hearted.

Hook

Killian was always a jerk, and it's only recently that he's been following Emma around like a lost puppy, trying to be a good guy, which has just seemed so wrong. Hook is a villain and that's how it should be. Considering he's now lost Emma, who sacrificed herself to the Darkness for the sake of Regina's happiness, he's not going to be too happy about that and will likely act out and go back to being a jerk. AS IT SHOULD BE. I like Killian a lot more when he's got a little gumption.

Merlin

We haven't even met Merlin, I know, and it might take a while to find him. If he's the Merlin we all know, he'll be wise and thoughtful and not at all evil, but hey, I guess anything could happen. Whether they'd dare have him as a villain is beyond me, and I think it's pretty unlikely, but anything could happen!

Lily

Lily seems to have chilled out a bit since Maleficent sat down and gave her a mother/daughter chat, but she's only just got her magic, now, and we know it can be unpredictable when you don't know how to control it. She's got plenty of emotions she hasn't dealt with yet, and something tells me they might manifest in some rather negative ways. I don't think she'll be an all-out villain at all, as she'll likely become part of Operation Savior, but we'll probably see some of her dark side here and there.

August

August is back and we know he's generally a good guy, but Pinnochio has a penchant for making bad decisions, and I don't think it would take much convincing to get him to do the wrong thing. The likelihood that his wrongdoings would amount to anything substantial are pretty slim to none, but I'm grasping at straws here, people.

Images: Jack Rowand/ABC (1); museelo, supagirl, onebluesky, thejeweloftherealm; Giphy (1)