When 'Once Upon A Time' Season 7 Returns, It'll Bring More Magical Drama

Once Upon A Time opened a new book in 2017 and almost completely started over. When Once Upon A Time Season 7 comes back, who knows what will happen next? The exact return date has yet to be announced, according to TVLine, but the show will be back in early 2018. For context: The last four seasons all had spring premiere dates in the first week of March — the same will probably hold true for Season 7.

UPDATE: TV Line reports that OUAT will return Friday, March 2.

EARLIER: For the past couple of years, Once Upon A Time has told distinct "A" and "B" arcs that last for half a season and focused on either a specific fairy tale or realm — like Frozen, Neverland, or the Underworld. That said, with the way this year has relocated to Hyperion Heights and changed everything, the second half of the season might not be another drastic left turn.

It will all boil down to Friday, Dec. 15's episode. According to an official ABC press release, in the midseason finale titled, "The Eighth Witch," more will be unveiled about the bizarre world that Emma Swan's heroic son found himself in this season. "When Drizella threatens the realm with a dark curse," ABC reveals, "Henry and Ella take extreme actions to protect Lucy and the others; and Regina is forced into making an unimaginable choice."

There are also a lot of parallels to some familiar storylines from earlier seasons. "In Hyperion Heights," the press release continues, "Roni recruits Henry to travel to San Francisco to search for her sister, but when he learns Lucy has fallen unconscious, Henry rushes to be by her side. Meanwhile, Gothel earns the trust of Anastasia and the consequences of their budding relationship could prove to be fatal."

Doesn't a lot of that sound like what Emma went through at the end of Season 1? Who knows what this could all be leading up to and where these characters could possibly be going next. If this is paralleling the Season 1 finale, one could assume that the curse on Hyperion Heights will break.

At least we'll finally figure out how all of them got there. Was it really Drizella, or someone else? “You will learn by the winter finale who has cast the curse and why,” said actor Lana Parrilla in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “There will be some fun magic battles. The most exciting thing that’s happening in the winter finale is we are seeing a familiar character return, and we are also going to learn who cast this curse and why.”

That character, as it turns out, is Zelena. According to an interview with Rebecca Mader in Entertainment Weekly, Regina's cursed sister is kind of hilarious. "It’s so the antithesis of Zelena," she said, "who just wants to punch everyone in the face and have a glass of whiskey. My cursed character is the complete opposite. She’s super duper healthy and just adorable. It’s really funny. When you find my character, I’m in San Francisco, and I’m actually a spinning instructor, which is classic, because Zelena was never going to the gym ever. Why would you when you’re that powerful?" As Kelly (get it — a shade of green) she is unaware that she ever had this much power. She also has a grown-up daughter now, played by Polly Cooper from Riverdale actor Tiera Skovbye.

Title spoilers, per Horowitz's Twitter, tease upcoming episodes "Secret Garden," "A Taste Of The Heights," "Knightfall," and "The Girl In The Tower." That should be plenty to chew on during the hiatus as well.

All in all, the reintroduction of Zelena, combined with Anastasia being awake and the potential for this new curse to come crashing down should create a lot of potential drama for Once Upon A Time when Season 7 returns sometime in spring of 2018.