ABC's Once Upon a Time is introducing the Queens of Darkness in the second half of season 4, with some intriguing twists on the iconic villains.

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Once Upon a Time co-creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz recently spoke with D23 about the latter half of the current season. They revealed how Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten), Cruella de Vil (Victoria Smurfit) and Ursula (Merrin Dungey) are introduced into the world of Storybrooke.

"Starting with Maleficent, we introduced her into the Once world in the second episode in a friendship with Regina [Lana Parrilla]," Horowitz said. "And more importantly, we discover there are other connections she has to our characters, which will spiral out, and it will become clear very quickly why these three are together."

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Kitsis explained that he and the writers wanted to bring back the "Can villains get happy endings?" plot line.

"We realize Gold [Robert Carlyle], who now has lost everything, realizes maybe Regina is onto something," Kitsis added. "Maybe it's time for villains to get their happy endings. Heroes always work in a crew. I think we're going to see the villains working together. Maleficent felt like a natural because she was already tied into our mythology. Ursula, we teased at in the Ariel episode. And Cruella... We thought she'd be fun!"

As with many villains introduced on Once Upon a Time, the show is putting their own twist on Cruella's mythology and her overall character.

"She's not quite what you know from the movie, but at the same time we have plenty of nods to the movie and famous things about her," Horowitz said. "Like we do with most of the characters, we've found a connection to our Once universe we are excited to reveal. And she's just delicious to write."

Once Upon a Time returns on Sunday, March 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

Watch the promo for the next episode of Once Upon a Time here:

Tags: Once Upon A Time television ABC