My personal hope is that they’re doing some sort of reverse parallel. Yes, Rumple is doing crappy things but Belle KNOWS he’s a man who does crappy things. She loves him eyes wide open and in spite of that. They also have history, and love, and a marriage. OTOH, Emma is dating Hook because he’s “changed,” supposedly no longer a bad guy, but he’s still doing crappy things as he insists that he hasn’t. EVERYTHING they “have” is built on a lie. Rumbelle is dealing with a lie, in the context of a relationship that was built on solid ground, at least. But I fear that story is a bit too complex for Once at this point; nevermind that Hook has lied about 57 hundred billion more things than Rumple has (and who is the villain, here?)
Is it horrible that I was hoping that the dagger bit would come out in 406 just so Hook wouldn’t have anything left to hold over Rumple?
It’s interesting to me that they clearly paralleled SF after Snowing – the truest of true loves – and CS is getting paralleled, apparently, after Rumbelle. First of all, that’s a really odd thing to do, and secondly it seems to be some sort of statement (one that strikes me as much as a slam on Rumbelle as it does a slam on CS! Ouch! Kind of offends me, frankly…)
Seriously, when you’re trading out MOST of your fanbase via MULTIPLE fan sections to make this ill-indicated ship sail…
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...