As someone who’s been rewatching season 3a I don’t believe for a second that his death was anything but recent development. There were no indications whatsoever that he was going to die. On the contrary, all things were pointing in the opposite direction. For one: he already “died”. First episodes of the season were dedicated to characters mourning his death (which was done million times better than this time around). It seems kind of pointless to mourn a character and then learn he is alive only to kill him again a couple of episodes later. Than there were the small moments: Rumpel telling Bae he can have a happy ending, Bea telling Henry he now has a father till forever! and than when they were saying goodbye in “Going Home” he said he will see Henry again. He never did!
It is clear that whatever happened happened after 3a was finished and they changed there intended plan. Maybe we will never know why they did it. I don’t believe it was story driven for a second. There is literally half of the others they could have killed that would have made more sense. If they killed him when the series ended or if they actually made a sense of killing him than maybe I’d believe it. But they barely showed him in 3b, there were no flashbacks to just Neal’s life and he died in the most ridiculous way. It was so clear they just wanted to rush his death, because there was no build up to that moment where he used dark magic to bring back his father. I could understand the writers wanting to show the story of Neal being so desperate to get back to his family to make the same mistake his father did and that way for him to finaly understand the things his father has done, but the thing is….they didn’t show that. If they had built up to that this entire season and showed Neal having no other way and being desperate to do anything to get to them and than doing what he did could even make sense. But no. He knew it was a trap, he didn’t even try anything else (Belle sugested there could be another way), and just went for the dark magic in a heartbeat when he avoided it his whole life.
What’s even worse is the way he actually died was even less meaningful. He died so Rumpel could tell them who they are up against. What??? Are you really telling me Rumpel couldn’t summon a single moment of lucidity to just say Zelena’s name? And they couldn’t find some way to save him when everyone and their mothers have been revived in this show? Plot driven.Yeah, right…..