A fan-made trailer for Season IV of Once Upon a Time based on the OperationOUT theory and recent spoilers for the upcoming season.

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|| “This season is going to be different from past because it’s not going to be Hyde comes to town, we fight with him for 10 episodes, and then in the winter finale, he dies and we move on,” Kitsis said. “We are changing around what we’re doing this year and going back to that season 1 mentality of small town stories and smaller arcs.” Added Horowitz: “We’re also planning a 22-episode story as opposed to breaking it up into two halves this year. It’s been really exciting and fun.” ||

This further confirms @colyssa’s findings in her ring structure post, that if Once Upon a Time has 7 seasons, the first season will parallel the last one and season six will parallel season two. The second season was Regina’s lowest point. We learned about the depth of Cora’s abuse and how she had been manipulated by Gold. We saw her reluctantly become Archie’s patient.

|| TVLine has learned exclusively that Once Upon a Time original cast memberRaphael Sbarge is set to reprise his role as Jiminy Cricket’s human alter ego, Dr. Archie Hopper, in the ABC drama’s Season 6 premiere — “and our favorite cricket-shrink is going to find himself with a new patient,” says series co-creator Adam Horowitz. ||

Emma and Regina have been described as the Yin and Yang, so no better candidate to become Archie’s patient than Emma to parallel Regina in season two. Not to mention that the show’s been pointing out Emma has issues to deal with.

|| “There’s a lot of questions to be asked about what it means when you separate parts of yourself and can you really separate these parts of yourself?” executive producer Adam Horowitz says. ||

Since the Evil Queen and Regina split, it seems easy to assume this is about Regina and that she will have to accept the Evil Queen as part of herself. Notice the use of the plural in this form. This is about Emma. She has completely compartmentalized herself in all these different archetypal characters. This has allowed her to get to know herself better, but she’s given into the temptation of distancing herself from the parts she didn’t like. She’s allowed herself to forget about the darkest parts of her past.

Meanwhile Regina splitting from the Evil Queen was Emma starting to distinguish between reality and the dream. The Evil Queen and Regina shouldn’t merge again, they really were separate. The Queen is an archetype representing Regina’s darkness, but also Emma’s Id. Regina never raped or murdered in the way we saw it happen and we should expect the story to eventually make that clear.

|| “The intent is that these new characters and new stories are really a reflection on what’s going on inside of our characters,” says EP Adam Horowitz. “With Lana and the Evil Queen, that’s the starkest example, which we’ve already teased. We’re literally going inside her and pulling her apart. There are elements of that that we’re planning to do for each and everyone of the characters.” ||

This works on two levels. Everyone still has their real world and their fairy tale identity. Emma splitting them indicates she is ready to come back to our world again. All of these characters also represent aspects of who she is and issues she needs to deal with. By exploring their issues, we will be exploring what’s going on with Emma on an emotional level.

|| The introduction of the Land of Untold Stories basically opens up storytelling avenues to, well, “everyone,” according to Edward Kitsis. “What’s funny is in the pilot if you watch when Emma sees the wolf that stops her from leaving town, the book flips open and we see all these worlds,” Kitsis says. “It’s time to tell new stories, broaden the show and move forward.” As for why these stories have not yet been told, Kitsis points to something Hyde said in the finale: “As he said, I need a place where these stories can play out, which would make me think for some reason they weren’t being played out, they were pushed on pause.” ||

They specifically reference the moment Emma’s Inner Journey started, she saw the wolf and had the accident. The reason life in our world was put on hold. Emma is waking up, but she needs to deal with the life she - albeit mentally - ran away from before she’s ready to fully come back. This spoiler seems to suggest the untold stories are about her past and about her future.