the problem with using the rating as a meter is this: if A and E are telling the truth that the death was planned in between S2 and S3A then the ratings of S3A (and it’s heavy Hook focus) have nothing to do with the death. The death precedes the less than stellar S3A ratings. I think A and E love Neal, a lot. I think they were very excited to introduce the audience to Neal but at the same they introduced Neal’s foil in Hook. And Hook took off. He was a classic character, he wore leather and eyeliner, and he was very sexy. HUGE portions of the fandom took to him like a fish to water. And so they promoted the heck out of him because he was a shiny and pretty. And Neal got left in the dust, time and time again forced to play second fiddle. They put the focus elsewhere. And now it has been over a year since our introduction to Neal and we’ve never had a proper NEAL episode. But we’ve had two for Hook and one more coming in 3×17. It’s easy to talk about centrics being “death” episodes but if that were true, then we’d have no characters left–Snow, Charming, Rumple, Regina all get tons of centrics and they’re alive. I adore Neal and if they kill him then I am going to be rethinking my love of this show because I don’t think it makes narrative sense to kill him. But I can see A and E doing it because Neal wasn’t as well received as Hook. Clear the way for the more popular endgame, in other words. But I do have faith that A and E are telling their story (but the question remains, “how much of their story has been tainted by fan demands)