Q&A With the Creators of ABC's 'Once Upon a Time'

Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis on what's in store for the Season 1 finale

By Lie Shia Ong
MSN TV

Once upon a time, 15 years ago, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz's partnership began when they met at film class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now, years later, the duo known for the writing behind shows like "Popular," "Felicity" and "Lost" have made their fairy-tale dreams of making it in Hollywood with their ABC show "Once Upon a Time."

MSN TV spoke with the duo about what is about to happen in Fairy-Tale Land and in Storybrooke now that the season finale is about to air.

Bing: More about 'Once Upon a Time' | Related: Has 'Once Upon a Time' been renewed?

For those of you not caught up, we last saw Emma telling Henry she was going to leave town. Regina had just given Emma a poisonous apple turnover, and to prove that the curse was in fact real, Henry had taken a bite of the poisonous pastry, collapsing to the ground.

MSN TV: The Season 1 finale of "Once Upon a Time" is coming this Sunday. What can you tell fans about what to expect?

Adam Horowitz: Expect the unexpected. Our hope is that the finale will be both unexpected and satisfying. We hope that fans walk about not just excited about this season, but about the potential for the future.

Last we saw on the show, Henry took a bite of Regina's poisonous apple turnover and collapsed. Will there be resolution in the finale, or will it end in a cliffhanger?

Adam Horowitz: I can tell you that Henry's fate will definitely be resolved. I'm just not going to tell you which way.

"Once Upon a Time" has not only brought our favorite childhood fairy-tales alive, but you've also added some twists to the classic stories. How has fan response been to these changes?

Edward Kitsis: I think one of the things that Adam and I wanted to do -- we never wanted to retell fairy tales. We wanted to kind of tell you either what happened after the happy ending, before: Why is Grumpy grumpy? Why is the Evil Queen evil? Therefore, we kind of wanted to filter it through our own imagination, and of course you're always frightened that people will say, "There's not an eighth dwarf named Stealthy, and how could you kill him?" But we created an eighth dwarf named Stealthy and we killed him, and the audience has thus far seemed to be going with us and excited about it. I've even seen "I miss Stealthy" things. So it is fantastic, because Adam and I just really wanted to write a show that we really love and that we're really proud of, and when other people like it and go with you down the rabbit hole, it is humbling and gratifying.

What's the process you two work through to come up with these different story lines?

Edward Kitsis: The first thing you do is you kind of, like -- for instance, the Mad Hatter: We wanted to tell the story about how he became mad. And what if he actually knew the queen? And we started to say, who is this character and what does he want? One thing we learned on "Lost" is character [comes] first. For us that's where we start. What is the character and what is or her emotional need and what is he trying to achieve? And then we start from there.

Adam Horowitz: Yeah, like with the Mad Hatter for us, that's a great example of taking that character and saying what is relatable and understandable about him that could make him mad, and it's that he wants his daughter back. It's a very simple yet deep emotional need that these writers could really key into. We try to do that with all the characters, starting with the second episode where we explored the Evil Queen. It was really important to us to make it clear that this was a woman who wasn't evil just for evil's sake, but there was deep pain and something missing in her that was creating the evil.

Is there a fairy-tale character you haven't introduced yet that you hope to bring next season?

Edward Kitsis: Yeah, I think one that we've mentioned is Ariel. There are a lot of characters we would love to introduce, and it's just a matter of time and when we can get to them. I think that what's great is that there's a lot of characters we didn't get to this year that in we're aware of and that we're excited to introduce.

Fans of the show tweeted and Facebooked in questions they wanted me to ask. Heather wrote, "Can you bring back Graham? Please. Thanks!"

Adam Horowitz: I'd say watch the finale!

Edward Kitsis: Jamie Dornan is returning. We can say that.

Katie wanted to know, "How do you keep track on set with so many characters and so many plotlines intertwining? Has it been hard balancing the story lines between Fairy-Tale world and life in Storybrooke?"

[Both laugh]

Edward Kitsis: It's incredibly hard. That's one of the biggest challenges of the show.

Adam Horowitz: I will say in our writers room we have the timeline and it gets added to all the time where we literally have a timeline of fairy-tale and Storybrooke up so we can refer to it. 'Wait a minute ... wait a minute ... Did that happen before the curse? OK!'

Edward Kitsis: It's difficult, but it's also what makes it fun, is that we get to jump around.

Natasha wants to know if more will be revealed about Mr. Gold. He's been playing both sides all season. Will we finally know if he's good or evil?

Adam Horowitz: Well, I don't know if we'll find out if he's good or evil, but we'll definitely see some surprises from him.

What was your favorite fairy tale growing up and who is your favorite fairy-tale character on the show?

Edward Kitsis: My favorite fairy tale growing up was Peter Pan because I loved the idea of a boy who could fly and never had to grow up. It's too hard to say who my favorite character is on the show because it's like asking which one of your children you like best.

Adam Horowitz: Eddie only has one child, so it's easy for him. Snow White was my favorite. It was the first movie I remember seeing and it had such a huge effect. It's the first time I remember being terrified -- was seeing the Evil Queen in that movie and I think that either screwed me up or set me straight.

Edward Kitsis: I would go with screwed you up!

Adam Horowitz: Yeah.

Edward Kitsis: I've been his partner for 15 years, so I'm gonna go with that.

Adam Horowitz: Yeah, and maybe my mom took me to that and I was a little too young, but anyway, here I am and here we are doing this show, and as far as someone with more than one kid, I can agree with Eddie's sentiment. You can't pick a favorite character. It's funny it's like every time we write any one of the characters. It's just so much fun to slip beneath the surface and dig into who they are.

Any funny moments from filming that stick out in your memory from this season?

Edward Kitsis: Yeah, it's interesting. We're actually going to have a little gag reel on the DVD where you can see some fun things that happened through the way. It's hard to say like in a moment because a lot of time, something small, like Ginny [Goodwin] taking too big of a bite of the apple and can't deliver the line and we have to do another one, is funny.

Adam Horowitz: It's not quite funny, but one of my favorite moments in the pilot was watching Robert Carlyle become Rumpelstiltskin for the first time on set and seeing him do that performance and watching Ginny literally jump back when he performed his jail cell scene.

The Season 1 finale of "Once Upon a Time" airs Sunday, May 13, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

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