Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

Don’t mind me while I sit in my corner laughing about how Once hit a series low in the ratings last night and went below a 2.0 for the first time all season… 😉 #karma

That’s very telling, isn’t it? I didn’t even watch last night, not out of malice, but out of sadness over what the show has been reduced to now. This show used to make me happy, but instead it did the opposite after 3×15, and based on all of your comments, I have no desire to watch. I think it’s not only fans of Swanfire or Neal who feel the show has gone downhill. I think the general audience might think similarly, as indicated by the all-time low ratings for S3. The current direction of the show is not the outcome people thought of as a happy ending for Emma and Henry.

After I watched 3×16, I’d hoped this would be a big misdirection, but after reading your comments about 3×17, even that shred of hope has fizzled. I’d been thinking that perhaps Zelena’s “second chance”  AU Enchanted Forest could’ve reversed Neal’s death. Isn’t Zelena’s entire aim to be the one whom Rumple chooses to unleash the dark curse, rather than Regina? Well, Rumple’s entire motivation was to find his son, and without that driving force, Rumple wouldn’t choose anyone to cast that curse. So if Zelena really wants to be the one whom Rumple selects, then she has to bring back Baelfire so as to motivate Rumple to go through “all that trouble” to locate his son. So, perhaps A&E will cry, “shenanigans” and all, but honestly, that would ring hollow to me. Any happiness at his return would somehow seem tarnished now by how the writers decided to mishandle his death in a very cursory way. Now I’m thinking that “believe in second chances” should’ve been Hook’s S3 motto, rather than Neal’s poster motto.