Having CaptainFire feels, which led to CSF thoughts.
Hook: I can change, Bae. For you.
Bae: You say that, but I know you’ll never change, because all you care about is yourself.
Bae walks away. Hook looks completely shattered. Then his face hardens.
Hook: Thank you, for reminding me what I’m all about. Killing your father.
Lost Ones board the ship.
Bae: You’re not letting me go.
Hook: How would that help me?
Bae: You hate my father so much, you don’t even realise you’re just like him.
Colin’s constantly changing facial expressions and tone of voice give away so much about what he’s thinking and feeling.
“I can change, Bae. For you.” Honesty and fragile hope. Even if Colin hadn’t confirmed that Hook’s offer was genuine, there’s no mistaking his intent due to the softness and quiet desperation in his voice when he says that line.
When Bae walks away from him, unwilling to give him a chance, his expression is utterly broken, no doubt thinking of Milah, and how he’s failing her son, wishing what Bae had said wasn’t true, but knowing it probably is…
So he gives in, throws his angry wall back up and it shows in both his expression and his voice…
“How would that help me?” In other words, “Well DUH, kid, didn’t you just tell me a moment ago what an irredeemable, selfish douchebag I am? Look at me, proving you right, congratulations!”
Then as soon as Bae is down in the Lost One’s boat, the sorrow and regret creeps back into Hook’s face, but what’s done is done and now he really can’t change anything.
So, how will that impact on the potential CSF triangle?
Hook is gonna get another chance to give Bae his family back. He’s gonna get another chance to show Bae, and himself, that yes, he can change, that he’s not just always out for himself. He screwed it up royally that night on the ship, but he’s gonna get a do over.
Neal won’t buy it at first, because he has no reason to automatically believe in Hook, actually quite the opposite. If Hook is anywhere near Emma in any capacity, romantically intended or not, Neal isn’t gonna like that. Hook will have to put in a concerted effort to change the kid’s mind this time. “A man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.” Hook wants to make amends with Bae, and become a better, less selfish man. Him not interfering with SF sorting their stuff out and ultimately getting back together wouldn’t be a sign of weakness, it would be a sign of growth, a sign of love, and “love is strength”.
Eventually, Neal will see and accept Hook, when it’s evident that he truly doesn’t intend to try and come between him and Emma like Neal expects. Then I envision an exchange like this…
Neal: I didn’t think you’d ever be able to change.
Hook: Thank you, for reminding me what I should have been about all along.
Writing an all out, emotionally overwrought, fully involved love triangle between these 3 would only serve to cause momentary drama that would result in people being hurt and would ensure that the CaptainFire relationship could never be healed. And this show is supposed to be about hope, and I believe that K&H care about their characters in a way that they wouldn’t want them to endure a juvenile love triangle. The backstory they’ve written where they showed Hook failing Bae, is the perfect setup for a redemption arc. If that’s not where they’re planning to go, then why show what they went through, the conflicting emotions that Hook went through within himself, in the past? Why go to the trouble of cramming 4 distinct emotional changes into one character in one scene that lasted just under 2 minutes, if that emotional struggle isn’t meant to be significant in the future?
Obviously, I can’t actually get inside K&H’s heads to know their thought process, all I can say is what makes sense in my own head. But I think that the natural progression of the story that they’ve already been telling, would be for Hook to become emotionally close with Emma, perhaps even become tempted in a romantic sense, but acknowledge that ultimately, he loves her as a friend, and wants to have a similar relationship with Neal. They can still write triangle-ish drama when Neal is justifiably paranoid, but that drama doesn’t have to be so over the top that it results in relationships being completely destroyed, it can actually result in them becoming stronger.
So whatever writers in the media suggest, whatever soundbites of K&H quotes get used in those speculative articles, I’m not gonna worry too much about it in relation to the future of SF, because I suspect that the story the media is hyping up isn’t actually exactly what K&H have planned in the long run.