Neal/MRJ got the shaft! I’ve never seen a character treated so dismissively by a writing team. The episodes leading up to his death and the episode itself was awful! It was poorly done. It is even more grievously felt because Neal was their creation. Their own fairy tale. They created him, Emma and Henry. And this was their master plan? This was how they wanted to end Baelfire’s life! I can believe it! Very hard pill to swallow.
Especially when A and E went to MRJ specifically to play this part. They’ve only done that with two others: Bobby (and they never in a million years expected Bobby Carlyle to actually take the part) and Ginny.
Just to address the whole Neal represented the “real world” fairy tale in this whole show and people die in real life argument I keep seeing. I 100% disagree. He was a born in the EF. Spent how many years in never land? He’s at least 200 years old. Father the dark one. Grandfather Peter Pan. His TL is the TL daughter of Snow and Charming etc etc. He was not the real world version. If anything he was the EPITOME of a fantasy character. So why cant we expect a fairy tale ending for him?
I would also argue that SF isn’t as “real world” as is often said.
Daughter of true love. Son of darkness.
The breaker of the curse and the reason for it.
Fate, Destiny, Prophecy.
All of that is in the very fabric of basic fairy tales and story telling.