Zelena (Once Upon a Time)
In December 2013, Rebecca Mader was cast as the Wicked Witch of the West. She made multiple appearances during the second half of season three and was promoted to a series regular for the show's fifth season. The role of the Wicked Witch of the West was written specifically for Rebecca Mader. It was announced that the writers had chosen not to continue with Zelena's storyline and Mader would not be returning for the seventh season of the show. However, Mader later revealed that she would be returning for multiple season seven episodes.
Kansas (Once Upon a Time)
Around the same time, Gold returns to the pawn shop and is embraced by Belle, who knew that he would return to her because of faith. Belle then gives Gold back his dagger because she believes in him, but on the condition that he promises not to use it to kill Zelena. As Gold takes the dagger, he gives it back to her because he loves her too much to make a risk. Gold then asks Belle to marry him, and she says yes. Unfortunately, it is later revealed that Gold still has not gotten over his vengeance against Zelena because it turns out that the dagger he gave Belle was a fake. Mr. Gold heads to Zelena's jail cell and tells her of his intent to kill her, despite her protests that she is now powerless. Gold then takes the dagger and kills her, which turns Zelena into a clay statue of herself that suddenly shatters into pieces. However, her clay fragments vaporize into a green cloud and vanish, and Zelena's pendant in the vault releases Zelena's remaining magic and essence as a green cloud of smoke, which escapes back to the barn, and is used as the final ingredient to create the time portal.Although it won its timeslot for the fourth week in a row, the episode placed a 2.1/6 among 18- to 49-year-old adults, with only 6.86 million viewers tuning in, a one-point drop from the previous outing.