‘Once Upon a Time’ season 5 spoilers: Show boss on sneaky Merlin debut

You may not have realized it, but the famed wizard Merlin was in fact in the season 5 premiere of “Once Upon a Time.” Specifically, he was the usher who warned Emma at the start of the episode in a flashback!

This is a character who is going to be essential in what is the larger story to come this season, mostly because it turns out that the famed dagger of the Dark One is actually the end of the sword Excalibur. Who knows what happens when these two parts of the sword unite? It may take a little bit of time to figure this out, but the good news here is that seemingly, there are no plans to keep the secret from you for an extreme amount of time. This is something that show co-creator Edward Kitsis described with the following message per Entertainment Weekly:

“He warned Emma not to pull the sword … We saw Arthur pull the sword, and we realize the Dark One dagger and Excalibur were meant to be whole. We’re going to explain to you why that is, why Merlin is where he is.”

This is also a character that you are going to get a chance to see in a greater capacity sooner rather than later. Therefore, the entire structure of season 5A is not necessarily going to be the journey to find him. Based on what we heard yesterday, almost all of season 5 could still be about the Dark Swan story in one way or another. What we end up seeing in the first half is going to carry over to a certain extent to 5B.

We’ll hopefully have some more news related to “Once Upon a Time,” so stay tuned! Also, you can sign up here to get some further TV magic sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter.(Photo: ABC.)