‘Once Upon a Time’ season 3 spoilers: Will the second half be Storybrooke-centric?

“Once Upon a Time” seems to be developing a pattern with the way in which it runs its seasons: The first half is set in another world, and then it starts to navigate back to Storybrooke for the second half. We saw this in part last year courtesy of Snow and Emma, and this time, the focus has been in Neverland.

But just like in the spring of 2013, we’re getting ready to see an arc this March that focuses all about the tiny Maine community. The confirmation (which you surely saw coming) is courtesy of executive producer / co-creator Adam Horowitz, who said the following in a chat with TVLine:

“It’s not a ‘journey to another land’ paradigm … We always have the ability and the desire to dip into other lands, which it’s more than likely we shall do, but it will be in the way that we’ve done it in the past, as opposed to locking all of our characters onto a boat and sending them [to a new realm].”

One of the hot rumors out there was that we could be seeing a trip to Oz, but that was brought on more by fans eager to see something new than anything that the show was actually planning. Whatever does happen to come up story-wise will most likely be teased in the next two episodes of the season, which will be set back in Storybrooke after spending the entire season so far away. That’s great news for you fans of Emilie de Ravin, and probably for all of the actors that were tired of shooting out in the forest late at night. (Given that this is Vancouver we’re talking about here, we imagine this being both rather cold, and rainy.)

There are two “Once Upon a Time” episodes left to air this fall, and they begin on Sunday night. Click here if you want to watch a preview for the first one, and we’ll have a sneak peek in the days ahead.

Photo: ABC