It bugs me that it happened during a storyline when I think they could have had him doing more interesting stuff instead (like RG said, he’s Captain Hook in NL and we barely even saw him interact with Pan), but I don’t consider it out of character, nor do I consider it unbelievable that he still wants Emma just as much a year later.
Yeah. I see a lot of “he’s had been thinking about her for a whole year and that’s totally significant” and my reaction is, “well of course he has!” It would be OOC for him to NOT have thought about Emma. Not because of messy stupid triangle-ness but because his character trait is an obsessive person. And that’s actually very traditional to Hook in Barrie’s work. I have no doubt that he spent every day obsessing over Liam until he met Milah. And then he spent 300 years obsessing over Milah. And now..focus change. But after he met Milah we’ve seen no evidence that he ever mentions Liam again (in fact when he is bonding with Bae he tells him a totally different story to win his sympathies) and he hasn’t mentioned Milah at all after the kiss even though he had been reunited with Milah’s son, the one he almost raised. Hook in all his various literary and movie/tv iterations is a myopic and obsessive.
Now, I’m not saying that when he flips those switches it’s a hollow thing (which is why I wanted a better term than “one eyed” because it sorta has that hollow connotation), because each time it’s happened, it’s been emotionally motivated. The loss of his brother, the loss of his love, and the realisation that he can move on and love again – all very emotionally loaded situations.
Same. He’s not a child with a new shiny toy every single time. He is just greatly affected by emotions. But my question is does he understand what he’s feeling. When Liam died and he turned pirate he said it was out of honor and because the King had lied, but like POM pointed out, we don’t actually know WHAT the king thought. Hook was operating on his grief not out of some wounded sense of honor. When he struck out against Rumple, vowing to kill him, it was out of grief but his continued quest to kill him was part of his obsessive nature. He’s Captain Ahab in other words. And Milah was his white whale for so long that like many I have a hard time seeing him absolutely moving on to another woman because I think his emotions changed but it’s a new obsession.
I am praying to every deity that there will be more flashbacks of Hook in NL in the not too distant future, because WORD. All we know is that he did some dirty work for Pan and there was some incident that resulted in the death of Rufio, and frankly, that’s just not a satisfying amount of storytelling when it comes to Captain fricking Hook’s history with Peter fricking Pan.
This is why I’d really be ok with a Once Upon a Time in Neverland SUMMER hiatus special. 5 or 6 episodes that is just PP, Hook, and Tink, and the Darlings. (don’t even get me started on the fact that PP and Tink weren’t in one scene together)
Just had a thought, what if Pan told Hook to kill Rufio, and Hook did it in exchange for Pan letting him off the island.
Interesting. We have yet to hear or see anything more on the “dirty work” Hook was doing for PP.
Actually, since we’re talking about it: what do you guys think it was? I’ve seen a bazillion theories but I don’t think I’ve actually seen any from the CSers. (I could be totally wrong. I read all your stuff but I generally do it really quickly)