By Sarah Kinney
Staff Writer

“Never Land is a place where imagination runs wild,” says Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) in the season three premiere, “Heart of the Truest Believer,” of ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” which aired Sept. 29.

The season opener leaves Storybrooke behind completely to focus on events unfolding in Never Land and in the Enchanted Forest.

If the main villain of season one was Regina and the main villains of season two were Cora and the Greg and Tamara duo, the main villain of season three will be Peter Pan.

Far from the carefree Peter we know, this is more the mythic Pan who brings pandemonium.

With a new villain in the scene, Greg and Tamara exit, permanently, no redemption for these “bad guys.”

Other villains, Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and Regina/Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) ponder their fates as the evil villains and wonder if it is impossible for them to have a happily ever after.

“I hope not or we’ve wasted our lives,” replies Hook.

In this episode two people you thought were dead from season two turn out not to be dead. Additionally, Robin Hood returns to the scene and he is rumored to have a larger role in the events of season three.

Rumpelstiltskin abandons the group to find Henry himself. The episode has a scene between him and lead lost boy, Felix (Parker Croft). He seems to have come to terms with the Seer’s prediction that a boy (presumed to be Henry) will reunite him with his son Neal/Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James), but that the boy will also be his undoing. He seems content with the fact that he may not survive rescuing Henry. Carlyle’s Rumpelstiltskin is probably the best acting in the show. He can go from being the terrifying and threatening “Dark One” to a sobbing father after Felix tosses an old toy of Baelfire’s to him.

One of the most complicated issues with “Once” is time. Since some are immortal (Rumpelstiltskin), others have been frozen in time (Snow and Charming), others have been in and out of time (Baelfire), and other have not experienced any weird time issues (Henry and Emma), there are a lot of issues with age and belonging. Emma (Jennifer Morrison) makes a pointed comment at her parents Mary Margaret/Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and David/Charming (Joshua Dallas) that despite their insistence that they are wiser, she is the same age as them.

Overall, it makes for a strange family dynamic. For instance, Regina is Henry’s adopted mother, but she is also stepmother to his grandmother. Now that we are heading to Never Land, where little boys never grow up, it will be interesting to see how time is warped again.

Emma takes control in a “Breakfast Club”-like moment.

“We just need to be who we are, a hero, a villain, a pirate, we need all those skills whether we can stomach them or not,” she said. She claims that she is a mother and now a leader. It is rumored that in order to rescue Henry, she will have to dig even deeper into her identity. Maybe this will be the season we finally find out what Emma’s fairytale is.

Fans generally seem to be happy with the first installment of season three and the show as a series is ranked 8/10 by over 87,000 users on IMDB.

Sunday, Sept. 16, will air episode three of the season, “Quite a Common Fairy” at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC.