Once Upon a Time's Jennifer Morrison on Emma Swan's swan song

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from the season finale of Once Upon a Time. Read at your own risk!

The Savior made the ultimate sacrifice during the Once Upon a Time season finale.

After the new curse left Emma (Jennifer Morrison) with no memories in a Storybrooke run by the Black Fairy (Jaime Murray), the ABC fairy tale drama came full circle as Henry (Jared Gilmore) was forced to once again try to get Emma to believe. Her family and friends, meanwhile, were sent back to Fairy Tale Land, where all the realms began to crumble at the Savior’s lack of belief.

Though Gold (Robert Carlyle) ultimately killed the Black Fairy, breaking the curse, the Final Battle was not abated — the Black Fairy had ordered Gideon (Giles Matthey) to kill Emma, who refused to murder an innocent, thus she sacrificed herself. Fortunately, her son Henry’s kiss resurrected her, leading to what appears to be a happily ever after alongside her family as Morrison exits the drama after six seasons. (Read part 1 of our interview with Morrison here.)

“I’ve always wished for Emma’s happy ending,” Morrison tells EW. “As the woman who plays Emma — and even as a fan of the show — of course my heart’s desire is for Emma’s happy ending. I don’t think there was ever any part of me that was wishing for her death. I just always wanted to have an end to her story, at least in what we’ve seen so far, be something that was a fresh start, a new start for her, her facing life with new possibilities, with her walls down, with growth behind her.”

• READ MORE:
• Once Upon a Time renewed for season 7
• Once Upon a Time: Jennifer Morrison to exit ahead of season 7
• Once Upon a Time: Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas, Emilie de Ravin and Jared Gilmore exit
• Once Upon a Time: Rebecca Mader exits
• Once Upon a Time: Jennifer Morrison speaks out on her exit
• Once Upon a Time: Relive Emma Swan’s best moments
  Once Upon a Time‘s Ginnifer Goodwin on Snow and Charming’s ‘bittersweet’ goodbye
• Once Upon a Time bosses unveil plans for season 7

Unfortunately, our heroes are all missing in action sometime in the future, where — in a scene that echoes the pilot — an adult Henry’s (Andrew J. West) supposed daughter (Alison Fernandez) comes to him with a storybook, exclaiming Henry’s family needs his help. “I’m excited to see what this means,” Morrison says. “I love this idea that they’re rebooting it with the future Henry. I think that gives them a lot of room to do really fun things in the story line. The way that we jump around, and leap through time, and go between lands, it sets them up to have endless possibilities for the show to continue with really interesting and creative possibilities.”

While Morrison is exiting, Colin O’Donoghue will continue on with the show next season, as OUAT reframes around his character Hook, as well as Regina (Lana Parrilla) and Rumple (Robert Carlyle) — see who else is exiting here. While Morrison is slated to return for one episode next year, ostensibly her story will somehow continue on through Hook and adult Henry. “I have no idea how they’re planning on doing that,” Morrison says. “I don’t know what the pitch is for the one episode that I’m doing. I’ve always blindly had faith in them having great plans for those things, so I’m excited to see how they choose to set that up. I’m very happy for Colin continuing on the show, and I’m sure they’ll find a creative way to make it work.”

Once Upon a Time is expected to return this fall on ABC.