OUAT Gamechanger: Neal’s Death
Look, when A&E were talking earlier about the death to come in S3, they called it a gamechanger.
I went to try and google my way back to that exact quote, but what I found was that they are very fond of employing that word. About things they do on the show like breaking the first Curse. So, I leave it for someone else to find the exact quote…
But here’s the thing. That was one of the words that led so many Swanfires to dismiss the notion that Neal would die. How would killing Neal change the show and its focus? Killing Neal would in fact, negate the Second Chances and Happy Endings the season and the series promised. (Of course, THAT would be a gamechanger—that would be like going from playing Candyland to playing Risk, but we didn’t expect the basic tenets of the show to alter so drastically—even though I doubt, still, that the creators would admit/be able to see that this is what they’ve done.)
So the death was a gamechanger. Okay. I accept it (that it was meant to be a gamechanger—not that I’m going to keep watching the changed game). Because what that means is: Swanfire was the game. FamilyFire was the endgame. Baelfire/Neal was a *major* player in the game.
I didn’t imagine or misinterpret what the show was about, what I was being shown every Sunday night at 8pm. What I was being promised would come about in future seasons. I was correctly following the game.
They really were interested in learning how two people overcome and deal with all the hurt in their past and come together again. With their son, whom they’ve only just met. (For awhile, they were interested for awhile.)
And then they weren’t. And they CHANGED THE GAME.
(I will try not to dwell too long on the visual image of small children dumping the board game onto the floor in a fit of temper, spoiling it for everybody.)
They changed the game. Neal and Swanfire were the game.