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The Swan House is a Storybrooke location on ABC's Once Upon a Time. It first appears in the second episode of the fifth season.
History
After everyone returns to Storybrooke, Emma assumes her place as the Dark One and moves into the house that Hook had picked out for the both of them, although he doesn't remember anything that happened in Camelot. Upon hearing Hook summon her, she promptly appears and whisks him to the front of her new home. Emma invites him in, which Hook is surprised at, though she playfully states that they can still be together even if she's the Dark One. He notices a barred door to the basement and begins walking towards it, but he is stopped by Emma, who hands him a glass of alcohol. Hook, however, has other plans and kisses her, attempting to bestow true love's kiss on her. When he pulls away, distraught over it not working, Emma realizes he has been talking to Belle. She insists it didn't work because she has accepted herself as she is, but Hook refuses to believe it, as he can still see the good in her, and asks what happened in Camelot. At first, Emma says she wishes she could tell him, before teasing him about how it'd be no fun to give him a straight answer. She tries to charm him into staying, but Hook leaves. That evening, Regina bursts in, demanding that Emma call off the fury that kidnapped Robin Hood. While Regina believes Emma's unpaid price of magic set the fury off, Emma reveals Regina is the one who didn't pay the price six weeks ago. With growing agitation, she challenges Regina to be the savior and do what needs to be done. By the end of her speech, Emma has forced Regina to back out to the door entrance and then magically slams the door in her face. After Regina saves the town, Emma observes the residents spending time at the diner, before returning home to sit at the table with her dagger. A manifestation of Rumplestiltskin reappears to guide Emma into the basement, where he tempts her with the idea of snuffing the last bit of light inside her, by pulling out Excalibur and uniting it with the dagger. On her attempt to take out the sword, Excalibur blasts her away, as Rumplestiltskin tells her to find a hero to pull it out. ("The Price," "Broken Heart")
Ignoring Rumplestiltskin's advice, Emma steals Happy's pick ax and uses it to unearth Excalibur, but instead, the ax ends up breaking. With no other way, Emma decides she must seek out a hero, namely Mr. Gold, because his heart is now a blank slate. Somehow, she discovers Belle is putting together a healing spell to wake Mr. Gold from his coma, but the last ingredient needed is something that touched him when he was still a man. After setting up a faux date with Hook, Emma tricks him into revealing a time when he threatened Mr. Gold, then just a cowardly man, with a sword. She steals the sword, and then kidnaps Mr. Gold to her home basement, where she crushes the weapon over him. As the sword's remnants scatter onto him, he awakens, fearfully realizing Emma is now the Dark One. To him, she reveals her plans of making him into the hero she needs to free Excalibur. ("Siege Perilous")
In the home basement, Emma gazes at a middlemist flower as she twirls it in her hand. Behind her, an imprisoned Mr. Gold tries to talk her out of giving into her darkness, as he knows what that once felt like. He tells her to consider letting him go, but she reasons that he is the only one who can get the sword for her. He has doubts about being the hero she wants, though she hints there is a secret weapon to help him become that hero. ("The Broken Kingdom")
After fetching Merida, Emma returns to the basement to free Mr. Gold, who continues to ask her to let him go. He warns that no matter her good intentions, she will always lose her loved ones in the end, like he did. Emma contemplates his words for a moment, before commanding Merida via her heart to bring Mr. Gold to the woods to make him a hero, as she herself leaves the house for a nearby shed. Later, Henry turns up on her doorstep, persuading her to join him on an Operation Cobra mission to rescue Violet Morgan's horse Nicodemus. While she is gone, Regina, Robin, Belle and Hook arrive, intending to break into the house. They are unable to enter because of a door enchantment, but when Belle guesses that Emma would probably let Henry in, Regina conjures Henry's scarf, using it to bypass the barrier. Wandering into the basement, the foursome find Excalibur in the stone, noting that the sword's markings are the same as the dagger. Hook moves to pull it out, but Regina stops him, warning about the sword possibly being booby trapped. Belle finds evidence Mr. Gold was previously in the basement, prompting Robin to suggest they search the rest of the house, but they scramble to leave after Regina gets a text from Henry about Emma returning home. On the way out, Hook opens a box containing a dreamcatcher, leading Regina to realize Emma used it to take their memories. ("Dreamcatcher")
When Mr. Gold escapes, Emma sends Merida to kill Belle so he will be forced into action. Instead, a captured Merida is brought back to the basement by Mr. Gold and Belle, where Emma is already waiting for them. Mr. Gold offers to try pulling out Excalibur if Emma returns Merida's heart and reveals the whereabouts of Merida's brothers. With the heart, Emma holds it as she approaches Merida, commenting that she was done using the heart anyway, before shoving it into the redhead's chest. When prompted about the fate of Merida's brothers, Emma impatiently states that they're fine and currently with their mother. As Mr. Gold goes to the sword, Belle asks what will happen if he fails to pull it out, with Emma callously remarking that Belle will have to clean up after his ashes. Before going ahead with the attempt, Mr. Gold tells Belle that if he could change things, he would be the man she deserves, to which she encourages him, saying that it's never too late. Mr. Gold succeeds in freeing Excalibur, and before taking his leave with Belle, he cautions Emma to not underestimate him now that he's a hero. ("The Bear and the Bow")
Using the last flame ember from mankind's original fire, Emma merges Excalibur and the Dark One's dagger into one weapon, as all the previous Dark Ones, including Rumplestiltskin and Nimue, are present for the ceremony. As the reforged weapon lingers in the air, Emma hesitates in grabbing it, recalling the warning Merlin gave her when she was a young girl about not taking Excalibur. With encouragement from Nimue, Emma eventually takes hold of the sword. ("Nimue")
Sometime during one day, Emma steals squid ink from a safe in Mr. Gold's pawnshop. She brings it to her house and then hides it behind a wall painting. After saving Hook twice to keep him from realizing he is a Dark One, Emma leads him into her house, where she allows him to look through a telescope at the sea, a scenery she knows he is fond of. She then reveals the house was his idea back in Camelot, and that everything she's done since then has been to sustain the future she wants with him. Hook lets down his guard, believing Emma will finally tell him the truth, and is drawn into a kiss by Emma. She breaks the kiss, admitting she cannot reveal everything to him until after it's finished, because if he knew what she had planned, he would try to stop her. When Hook passes out from the kiss's effects, Emma chains him in the basement. She leaves momentarily to collect Zelena from the hospital after she has given birth, and then imprisons the redhead in the basement with Hook. Once Hook is awake again, Emma reveals she plans to put all the darkness in Zelena and then kill her with Excalibur. This will extinguish the darkness in Emma, and unknown to Hook, himself as well, but Hook speaks out against Emma killing someone to secure their future, even if it's Zelena. After Emma leaves, Zelena convinces him to use his hook to take off her cuff, restoring her magic so she can free the both of them. The pair head to the main floor of the house, where Zelena leaves out the back door, while Hook stays to confront Emma. He finds squid ink hidden behind the wall painting, tossing it onto Emma, who becomes paralyzed by the ink, before he questions her on her motives. Zelena returns to provide the answer by stabbing him in the chest, proving he is immortal, and then lets him view his memories in the dreamcatcher, which shows Emma reviving him after his death by turning him into a Dark One. ("Birth")
Seeing Emma's lies as a betrayal, Hook steals her memories to make her forget about his plan to bring all the Dark Ones to Storybrooke. While Emma is engrossed by the aftereffects of her memories being taken, Zelena puts the cuff on her, making her unable to use magic. Soon after both Zelena and Hook are gone, Regina, David and Mary Margaret barge into the house to find Emma. She admits what she did in Camelot to Hook, with Regina and Mary Margaret expressing disapproval over her trying to fix the problem herself and the fact she didn't come to them for help. ("Broken Heart")
With her loved ones bound for the Underworld after they are given the mark of Charon by the Dark Ones, Emma decides she must sacrifice herself to save them. After getting Excalibur from Mr. Gold, she puts it in a closet at home and departs for the diner, where she leaves a farewell note to her family. When she returns home to get the sword, Hook demands it from her. He justifies that if she can't die since he owes her for helping him becoming the man he is. When Emma asserts that the Killian she knew didn't care about revenge, Hook states that he did, except that she briefly distracted him from it. She questions if it's worth it if he becomes the thing he had hated the most, to which he quips that if she hadn't wanted him to change, she should have let him die. She apologizes, stating she couldn't let another person she loved die, while he darkly asserts that now she can watch all of her family die. Emma then tries to kill him, but Hook tricks her into giving him the sword by reappearing as Henry in disguise. Following Hook's death, in which he sacrifices himself to destroy the darkness, Emma goes home, lying on her couch as she holds the ring Hook once gave her in Camelot. Suddenly, she hears the call of the dagger, prompting her to go to Mr. Gold at the pawnshop to find out what is going on. ("Swan Song")
As the heroes begin their search for Mr. Gold, who stole Storybrooke's magic, Emma suggests Regina should sit out from the mission because she's still grieving over Robin. Regina, offended that Emma believes she will revert to being the Evil Queen, disappears to look for Mr. Gold herself. Before going to join her family, Emma instructs Henry to stay at her house, where it's safe., but instead, the boy goes to the pawnshop to formulate a plan to destroy magic for good. ("Only You")
At her house, Emma is the midst of making out with Hook when they both notice the table shaking. The two head outside to see what is going on, and spot a dirigible flying overhead. ("The Savior")
One morning at her house, Emma is surprised when her father makes her an abundance of pancakes and asks him what's wrong. David admits he's worried about not seeing her as often now that she and Hook are living together, but she insists this changes nothing with her family. Snow prepares to leave for her first day back at her teaching job, but on her way out with Henry, Regina and Jekyll arrive with bad news about Hyde. At David's urging, Snow and Henry continue on to school, while he and Emma deal with the situation. After revealing Hyde escaped his cell, Jekyll recalls finding a necklace in his inn room that belonged to a woman he cared for, and his belief that Hyde purposely left it to taunt him. ("Strange Case")
On another day, Hook goes to the shed near Emma's house, where he hides the shears in a toolbox. After Emma leaves home to look for Aladdin, Henry tries to assure Hook that he doesn't have to keep him company, but Hook asks him to show him how a webcam works. Hook notices Henry's breakfast and dumps it out, much to the boy's dismay, before deciding he'll cook him a better meal. As Henry is putting out the trash, the Queen plays on his growing resentment towards Hook by helping him find the shears in the shed, as proof Hook doesn't have Emma's best interests at heart. Henry leaves for the harbor to dispose of them, and Hook later goes to stop him, upon realizing what happened when he finds both the boy and the shears missing. ("Dark Waters")
Following Emma's defeat of Gideon, she and her family return to her house, where they have a toast to celebrate the victory. Later, David goes outside to sit on the porch steps and look at a video still of Snow. He hears a noise and gets up to investigate, but upon turning around, he sees his deceased father Robert covered in blood. When David passes out, Hook comes out of the house and shakes him awake. He urges him to wake Snow and get some rest, but David snaps at him, stating he doesn't need advice from a pirate. Once Hook backs off and goes back into the house, David spots Robert's coin on the ground and picks it up. After getting David's blessing to propose to Emma, Hook walks home. Outside the house, August rides up on his motorcycle to deliver some missing storybook pages to Hook and asks him to give them to David. Hook looks through them, and in one page in particular, he sees a drawing of Robert, whom he is shocked to recognize as a man he killed long ago. He quickly hides the pages in his back pocket when Emma pops out of the house to welcome him home. Once the blonde has gone back in to make a snack, Hook pulls out the ring box, opening it to reveal the ring meant for Emma, before a conflicted look falls over his face as he snaps it shut. ("Murder Most Foul")
Sometime after this, Hook hides the ring in his sea chest somewhere in the house. While he is away from home, Emma finds the ring and realizes he is going to propose to her. She comes down the stairs to greet him with a kiss when he returns and notices he has been drinking rum. Hook admits he needed it to give him courage for what he's about to tell her, to which Emma excitedly proclaims her answer is yes before revealing how she found the ring. Knowing that he meant it to be a surprise for her, Emma returns the ring to him so he can propose to her as he originally intended. Hook obliges by kneeling and asking for her hand in marriage, and he slips the ring on her just before she tearfully says yes. As she embraces him in an tight hug, Hook smiles joyfully as well, until he recalls the weight of his secret. ("Ill-Boding Patterns")
Unable to be honest with Emma or live with his guilt, Hook sits by the fireplace in Emma's house, where he takes his dreamcatcher and looks through his memories of killing Robert. Emma walks in on him and realizes he intended to burn the dreamcatcher without even telling her the truth. Hook explains his fears about her reaction and his ability to face her parents, but a tearful Emma angrily suggests he could've come to her for support so they could deal with the weight of the burden together. Seeing as he is not the man she thought she was marrying, Emma returns the ring to him, telling him that they can talk when he is ready to trust her. Later on, she returns home to find Hook is gone. ("Page 23")
Believing Hook has abandoned her for good, Emma packs up his things into a box as Henry sits beside her on the couch. She longingly toys with one of his rings, which Henry notices and asks if she is all right. Emma affirms she is and then gets a phone call about a fight that broke out at a bar. As Emma leaves the house to go investigate the incident, she tells Henry to take the box out to the shed later. Henry agrees but becomes too distracted by his phone. Emma returns home to find the box where she left it and takes it with her on her way down the house steps. Suddenly, she hears Hook's voice coming from the box and she reaches in to retrieve a conch shell. Hook tells her that Gideon forced him out of Storybrooke and that he is on his way back to her. Emma is elated by the news, but when she attempts to respond to him, he doesn't hear her. Aesop, a bartender she befriended in the earlier evening, shows up to reveal himself as Gideon, and that if she wishes to have Hook back, she'll have to help him kill the Black Fairy. ("A Wondrous Place")
Directly after receiving the ultimatum about Hook and the Black Fairy, Emma walks back into her house as Gideon follows her in. She grabs his neck in a vice grip while demanding he undo whatever he did to keep Hook from coming home, but Gideon continues to ask for her assistance. This only further angers Emma, who drops her hold on him and slaps him hard, drawing blood from his lip. Gideon instead tells her about his experience with the depravity of the Black Fairy's soul and what she has done to other enslaved children, all of whom he promised to save and Emma will either have to comply with his demands or never see Hook again. With that, Gideon teleports out, leaving Emma to contemplate the deal. ("Mother's Little Helper")
One morning at home, Emma is cooking pancakes at the stove when Hook playfully interrupts her. She returns his ardor with heated kisses and the couple's fervor for each other grow in intensity, however, things cool off once Snow unlocks the front door and comes in looking for Emma. Upon seeing the two, Snow realizes they were in the middle of something and offers to come back later, but Hook decides to go upstairs to take a cold shower. Emma is somewhat surprised when her mother shows her a whole binder of wedding plans she has been putting together since the first curse broke. Snow explains that her enthusiasm is due to her desire to be involved in Emma's special day when she wasn't able to be there for other milestones in her life. Emma, touched by her mother's sentiments, embraces her in a hug before she is phoned by Regina. ("Where Bluebirds Fly")
With the Black Fairy defeated by Mr. Gold, Emma and Hook's wedding is scheduled to take place the next day. That night, Hook drops by Emma's house to ask Henry to be his best man and gives him the rings to keep until the ceremony. Emma comes downstairs to greet Hook, who tells her that he doesn't intend to stay for the evening as it's bad luck to see his bride-to-be on the eve before the wedding. ("The Black Fairy")
In the hours before her wedding, Emma is still trying to decide which dress to wear when Snow offers up her old wedding dress to her. Snow later returns from the dry cleaner's with the dress as Emma is sharing drinks with Zelena and Regina. Emma barely has any time to look at the dress before it is suddenly dyed black by none other than the Black Fairy, who reveals she is still alive because her son Mr. Gold did not banish her as the heroes assumed he had. Rather than wait for the final battle to play out between them, the Black Fairy suggests Emma can forfeit her heart to her now and even attempts to weaken Emma's resolve by reminding her of who she has always been: a little lonely orphan girl. However, Emma is unmoved, to which the Black Fairy directs her to the clock tower to see what she has in store for her. ("The Song in Your Heart")Visitors
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Trivia
On-Screen Notes
- According to Adam Horowitz, Emma is legally the only owner of the house as she is the one who bought it.[1]
- The address number is 710.[2] ("The Price" et al.)
- The newspaper ad for the house says:[3]
NANTUCKET STYLE HOUSE
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One of Storybrooke's |
rock work and night lighting, 2 bedrooms on 2nd floor, master bedroom can easily accommodate a King Bed and has lot of closet space! 3rd floor addition allows for full height and is fully finished for use as a den, bedroom, office or combo. There is a detached single garage with plenty of room for storage. Exterior shed may be used for more storage. Open House Sunday 12-5 |
Production Notes
- The show creators originally wanted Emma to get her own place in the fourth season, but the cost and the budget was prohibitive, and every time they tried to do it, they could not afford it. It was moved to Season Five instead.[4]
Popular Culture
- Once Upon a Time co-creator Edward Kitsis is a noted fan of the rock band Grateful Dead.[5] The address number, 710,[2] is a reference to the Grateful Dead House on Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.[6] The famous rock band lived at 710 Ashbury Street from 1966 until 1968.[7] According to Edward Kitsis, this reference was meant for him and Josh Dallas.[6] ("The Price" et al.)
Prop Notes
- Many Storybrooke locations contain nods to the Enchanted Forest. In Emma's house, there is a framed picture of a winter woods scene,[8] which she uses to hide the stolen squid ink. ("Birth," "Page 23")
- The same picture can be seen over the fish tank at the Storybrooke Pet Shelter in "7:15 A.M."[9]
Set Dressing
- When David is making Emma breakfast, the label on the bottle of orange juice says Andana;[10] the Cebuano word for "floor, storey".[11] ("Strange Case")
- It is the same prop that was used for the orange juice that Zelena served Mary Margaret in "Quiet Minds".[12]
- The bottle of breakfast syrup sitting on the table[13] is the same prop that was sitting on Emma and Henry's breakfast table in their New York apartment in "Going Home".[14]
Filming Locations
- The Angus and Margaret MacDonald House[15] in Burnaby Heights[16] doubles as the Swan House for exterior scenes. The house is one of Burnaby's Landmark Residential Heritage Buildings, and is a four story Queen Anne revival style house built in 1909. One of its most notable features is a three-story front turret.[15]
- When shooting outside the house, the production crew paid the young family who lives there to stay in a hotel.[17]
- This location also doubles as a group home in the iZombie episode "Virtual Reality Bites" (a show which stars Once Upon a Time guest stars David Anders and Rose McIver and an episode which features Once Upon a Time guest star Christopher Gauthier and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland guest star Sarah-Jane Redmond).[18]
- The interior scenes were filmed on a television set built at The Bridge Studios in Burnaby, where Once Upon a Time was filmed.[19] This set also featured a replica of Emma's front porch.[20]
- The scenes in Emma's basement were filmed on a set at the same location.[21]
Appearances
| Once Upon a Time: Season Five | |||||||||||
| "The Dark Swan": | "The Price": | "Siege Perilous": | "The Broken Kingdom": | "Dreamcatcher": | "The Bear and the Bow": | "Nimue": | "Birth": | "The Bear King": | "Broken Heart": | "Swan Song": | |
| Absent | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Absent | Appears | Appears | |
| "Souls of the Departed": | "Labor of Love": | "Devil's Due": | "The Brothers Jones": | "Our Decay": | "Her Handsome Hero": | "Ruby Slippers": | "Sisters": | "Firebird": | "Last Rites": | "Only You": | "An Untold Story": |
| Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Mentioned | Absent |
| Once Upon a Time: Season Six | ||||||||||
| "The Savior": | "A Bitter Draught": | "The Other Shoe": | "Strange Case": | "Street Rats": | "Dark Waters": | "Heartless": | "I'll Be Your Mirror": | "Changelings": | "Wish You Were Here": | "Tougher Than the Rest": |
| Appears | Absent | Absent | Appears | Absent | Appears | Appears | Absent | Absent | Mentioned | Absent |
| "Murder Most Foul": | "Ill-Boding Patterns": | "Page 23": | "A Wondrous Place": | "Mother's Little Helper": | "Awake": | "Where Bluebirds Fly": | "The Black Fairy": | "The Song in Your Heart": | "The Final Battle Part 1": | "The Final Battle Part 2": |
| Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Absent | Absent |
| Once Upon a Time: Novels | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Once Upon a Time: Specials | ||||||||||
| "Magic is Coming": |
"The Price of Magic": | "Journey to Neverland": | "Wicked is Coming": | "Storybrooke Has Frozen Over": | ||||||
| Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | ||||||
| "Secrets of Storybrooke": | "Dark Swan Rises": | "Evil Reigns Once More": | "The Final Battle Begins": | |||||||
| Absent | Absent | Archive | Archive | |||||||
| Other Appearances | ||||||||||
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Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.
References
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