‘Once Upon a Time’ season 3 spoilers: Emilie de Ravin on Belle’s future

Even though Emilie de Ravin is still a series regular for the third season of “Once Upon a Time” (at least at the time of this writing), she’s definitely in a different position that almost every other full-time actor on the show. Just ask Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Josh Dallas, Lana Parrilla, Jared Gilmore, or Colin O’Donoghue, who are currently all traveling aboard a pirate ship to Neverland while she is planted firmly back in Storybrooke.

Basically, the “Lost” actress is being given a very difficult task, in particular for a woman who really just gained her full identity back: Keep bad things from happening to the town. This, of course, is also so much easier said than done. How do you really keep everyone safe, given that so many of them barely know who you are?

For Belle, this is probably going to be a multi-step process. As Emilie de Ravin explains in a new interview with TV Guide, her first goal is going to be trying to get over how Mr. Gold behaved during the time in which she was her rather saucy alter ego Lacey:

“She was going along with it though, so therefore you can’t blame him if you’re the one saying, ‘Kick that guy’s a–‘ … But also she’ll gain her strength back and she’ll have to if she’s going to protect an entire town.”

Belle will probably have some help preserving the town from some of the other people that she can rely on, but sadly, one of them probably won’t be Ruby. We don’t mean to beat this story to death, but Meghan Ory’s absence (thanks to landing a new series in “Intelligence”) is going to be felt much more in this regard than quite possibly anywhere else.

Photo: ABC