Once Upon a Time (TV Series 2011–2018) - Parents Guide - IMDb
Once Upon a Time (TV Series 2011–2018) Poster

(2011–2018)

Parents Guide

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Sex & Nudity

  • One particular female character in the show constantly behaves in a promiscuous/seductive manor, she is shown touching multiple men in suggestive ways, wears revealing outfits which show large amounts of cleavage and on one occasion she uses her magic to enslave a man into having sex with her repeatedly against his will.
  • There is some kissing and mild making out scenes.
  • Couples shown getting dressed after implied sexual activity; shirtless men, bare-backed women are visible. Some bed-hopping implied. Kissing.
  • Regina repeatedly rapes Graham although we never see it, it's clearly implied.
  • There are mild sex references and innuendo regarding a couple spending a night together.
  • Multiple scenes in Season 6 of Emma and Hook making out for some time.
  • Some scenes of sensuality. A few episodes contain offscreen sex, but we only see people before and/or after; no actual sex or nudity is shown. Nothing explicit.
  • The most sexually explicit scene in the show so far, is a scene in which a man and a woman kiss very sensually and the woman wraps her legs around the man, he appears to rub her butt and she shows noticeable pleasure as he kisses her neck. The scene stops just as the man starts pushing her dress up her thigh, and the woman gets up and leaves.
  • A female character uses mind control on a man for casual sex in the very beginning of season one.
  • Ruby is almost always seen wearing either a midriff shirt baring her abdomen, short tight skirts, or cleavage revealing shirts.
  • Female characters often have mild to moderate cleavage revealing attire
  • Emma often has a slightly see through blouse in which we can see her bra beneath.

Violence & Gore

  • In several scenes someone is run through with a bloody sword or stabbed with a knife. Several people have their necks broken, either physically or by magic.
  • Many, many times a person's "heart" is painfully ripped out of his/her chest. It is not a "graphic" heart, no blood, not beating... more like an internally-lit plastic heart. Still some viewers (especially younger ones) may find this disturbing.
  • Crashes, bloody sword fights, explosions, murder. People's hearts are removed from their chests in a non-gory (but startling) way. Frightening creatures like trolls and eerie monsters. A man is attacked by wolves, a dragon burns people alive. One character is impaled, and dead bodies can be seen after a town is destroyed. Most graphic acts take place off-screen. Arguments/conflict. Characters disguise themselves as other characters to trick people into having sex with them.
  • There are shootings and stabbings (occasionally with bloody aftermath), an assault by a masked attacker, an implied neck break and an attempted drowning. There are also scenes of moderate fantasy violence including humans being attacked by invisible forces and magic spells.
  • Injury detail includes sight of old scars on a wrist, a sewn up eye socket and milder cuts and bruises.
  • Blood is kept at a minimum; there isn't that much. In a few episodes, there are larger amounts, as a character bleeds out and such.
  • There are multiple birth scenes where you do not see anything, but the mother is screaming in pain.
  • Season 1 Episode 15: a wolf attacks a group of men. The attack is off-camera, however the bloody aftermath of the attack is seen from a distance detailing bloody bodies and in one case a severed hand and several legs. There is A LOT of blood in this scene. Before we see this Red pulls a bucket of blood red water out of a well. Also during this episode a wolf eats a man alive. You can't see anything you can just hear growls and muffled screams. The wolf turns into a human and looks at the bloody aftermath of what had just happened. There is some flesh and a couple of bones in the distance for about a millisecond.
  • Season 1 Episode 17: A man is decapitated and his head is held by his hair. His body falls to the floor but his head is still moving. A lacerated wound around his neck is shown but not graphically bloody.
  • Season 1 Episode 6: There is a dragon who burns the knights to death. There is one knight scene who looses his legs from the dragon, but is not killed. Mostly no blood, just skeletons and burns are seen.
  • Season 2 Episode 7: A woman is impaled on a spike. You can clearly see the spike straight through her stomach, and there is a small amount of blood shown dripping from the wound. The woman dies. Also in this episode, you see a bloody body strewn along a road. It is revealed the man was murdered with an axe.
  • Season 2 Episode 20: The aftermath of a massacre of an entire small village is seen. The bodies are piled on top of each other, and bodies of children are noticeable. They are not very bloody, however it can be upsetting.
  • The show does not feature scenes that focus in on gore and often violence is offscreen, which keeps it at a more family friendly level. However, there are many characters, including main characters, who die.

Profanity

  • "Ass," "hell," "suck" sometimes used.
  • There is infrequent use of moderate bad language ("bitch"), as well as milder terms including "bloody", "screwed", "crap", "hell", "bastard" and "piss".
  • "Damn", "hell", "bastard", "ass", and "bitch" are all used occasionally, particularly by Regina and Emma.

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • Some heavy drinking is shown at times. Characters are occasionally shown drunk or with hangovers.
  • A pirate appears to have an addiction to rum, he constantly talks about drinking with other characters and carries a hip flask around which he sips from regularly. A future version of himself is seen who is clearly an alcoholic (dirty clothes, slurred speech etc.)
  • A woman is shown injecting herself with a magical liquid that imitates the effects of drugs; she is heard saying "takes the edge off" and is visibly floppy with slurred speech.
  • Magic is used to create potions etc which imitate the effects of drugs e.g Sleeping curse, poisons, Squid ink
  • Season 7 contains repetitive and regular drinking in almost every episode. One character owns a bar and while not depicted in the show, drinks so many times a day in the real world she'd be considered an alcoholic.
  • Regularly drinking of rum from a flask is presented prominently in several seasons. In every season hardly an episode goes by in which alcohol seems the preferred drink of the series.
  • Rumplestiltskin has an unhealthy and dangerous reliance on dark magic comparable to a drug addiction, often to the point of lying or stealing to get more.
  • Some social drinking (beer, mostly).
  • Most of the characters are seen drinking from time to time. That being said, there is no drug use, and no one smokes in this series.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • MANY emotionally intense scenes throughout
  • Several characters have a love interest who is murdered or otherwise dies. Some love again, but this takes many episodes, and some, especially Regina and Killian Jones, seek revenge on those responsible for the death of their lover.
  • Scenes of moderate threat occur in fantasy and real world settings and include the threat of telekinetic violence, curses and death - occasionally in prolonged sequences.
  • Some mild scenes.
  • The show deals with more realistic versions of the fairy tales we grew up with. They can tend to be darker and even sadder, with final consequences of death. There is also a constant theme of children being separated from their parents for one reason or another (Emma, Rumple, Henry, Neil, Gepetto, Snow White, Prince Charming, Zelena, Regina, Anna & Elsa, Hansel & Gretel, Grace, Lily, etc. ). This could be a touchy subject for anyone who may have had similar home life situations.

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Sex & Nudity

  • Two storylines in the show involved women disguising themselves as other people to trick men into having sex with them. Both times this results in the women becoming pregnant. Later on, the children born from this have a relationship with each other.
  • There are several instances throughout the series in which one character is magically disguised as another character and has offscreen sex with someone else while in disguise. These situations may be considered rape because the other character did not consent to nor realize they were having sex with the disguised character, but believed they were having sex with someone else.
  • There are some very bizarre fictitious situations that create odd relationship situations to occur. However, these odd situations do end up being affairs. In one instance, a married couple forget that they are married because of a curse, and he is made to think he is married to someone else. However, he does not remember being married to this "fake wife" but decides to try to make the marriage work, but then gets involved in an affair with the character who he is actually married to, except he doesn't know that they are actually married, so as far as they know, it's an affair. In another instance, a man's wife who had died is brought back through time travel. He has started dating someone else, and is in love with her. However, the moral problem is that he decides to stay with his returned wife instead of pursuing this new relationship, but then the returned wife is revealed to be someone else in disguise and becomes pregnant.

Violence & Gore

  • Multiple instances throughout Season 5 where Hook is violently injured; he has a somewhat graphic neck wound that appears in two episodes, and for several more episodes he is covered in blood in the Underworld and has a painful-looking black eye.
  • In an early Episode we see Charming defending his newborn baby, and he gets slashed by a sword which leaves a blood trail along his chest. He is also stabbed again, but they focus on his face rather than the wound itself. This wound is not fatal.
  • Stealthy, the dwarf, dies by an arrow. Several characters die. There are some characters that are impaled where a sword or spear is seen going straight through, including through armor. There are very many episodes where hearts are removed from a persons chest using magic. Sometimes the person remains alive, and is controlled by the one holding their heart, and sometimes their hearts are crushed resulting in their death. Some of these situations are tragic, and could be upsetting to younger viewers. For example, a mother kills her daughter's fiance, a queen kills a poor man during his wedding, a woman kills her father, a woman kills her former lover.
  • There are many unintentional deaths that can be quite tragic or disturbing. For example: A woman is tricked into killing her own mother by placing her heart back into her body when it has been cursed. A man desires to be free from his corrupt parents, and taking a potion from Rumpelstiltskin without knowing what it will do, he tries to trick his parents into drinking it, but they switch it with a vial given to a very kind young couple, and the potion turns them into puppets, and the man responsible discovers this right before their young son comes home to find them this way. A man is also tricked into dying by trying to resurrect his father and not being aware that he will have to die as a result. There are scenes where the ware-wolf is unaware that he/she is the warewolf, and kills people that he/she loves. There is also a scene where someone tries to help someone else by giving them magical powers, but it results in the person with the new powers killing their own mother. Not all scenes are shown, but the description is fairly clear, and could creep out younger viewers or could be nightmare inducing.
  • Some scenes that are not bloody but could still be disturbing include scenes with the wraith, that sucks people's souls out (very reminiscent of Harry Potter's dementor). There are also scenes of shadows being ripped away from people, or attempts to do so, which seem to result in death. This is mostly done by Peter Pan and his shadow, which could be scary for younger children.
  • In season 4, Cruella's story can be quite intense. She gets the ability to control any animal and uses the ability to kill her mother. Someone comes in her room and she is seen sewing. He asks where the dogs are. She lifts the coat up to show it's made of their fur and says "they're with mother now."

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


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