'Once Upon a Time' postmortem: Rumple finds a surprising Disney icon

Warning: This story contains spoilers from Once Upon a Time's season four premiere. Read at your own risk.

Move over, Frozen: Once Upon a Time has introduced yet another Disney property into the mix.

When the ABC fairy tale drama returned for its fourth season, Rumple (Robert Carlyle) and Belle (Emilie de Ravin) missed out on the chaos of Elsa's arrival in Storybrooke proper because they decided to take a small honeymoon in a mansion that conveniently appeared in town after the last curse. The identity of the previous owner is unclear, but Rumple definitely recognized an artifact in the dwelling, which he conjured into a very familiar Disney icon.

"Yes, that's the Sorcerer's hat from Fantasia," executive producer Edward Kitsis tells EW of the magical object, whose properties can be very deadly in the wrong hands. "We wanted to make the stars look real."

The item's appearance came after Rumple pledged atop the grave of his dead son, Neal (Michael Raymond-James), to become a better man. Thusly, he returned the dagger that controls him to his new wife Belle after deceiving her in the finale. "We're going to learn a lot more [about the hat]," Kitsis says. "That's going to be part of something that we tell for a while, but clearly he wanted it badly enough that he was willing to go back on his pledge, because he can resist everything but temptation."

So, who does the hat belong to? Someone we're going to meet, not someone we already know, according to Kitsis, who rules out returning villain Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten).

Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on ABC.