I know it will be super-shocking to all that I am riding in the train car with Slurpeez & Phee.
I expect that IF we get MO322, whatever changes to make that happen will “magically” fix it so that we don’t need life-for-a-life to get Rumple back.
What’s interesting about the tweets that Jaxer found is that Adam isn’t just his normal, “no spoilers.” He continues the conversation down the page with the fans, as if he needs to be really really adamant that he’s not going to spoil the finale. Why the need for adamancy if Neal is going to be dead in mere days?
I don’t know how much Emma will need to tell Rumple, but it’s going to be a decent amount. THAT Rumple is in the 110% mindset of “do these things to get to Bae.” He’s waited +/-200 years to get to the point in history where he has the right people to enact the dark curse. He manipulated Cora to get Regina; he trained Regina to get her magic to the right level; he played switch-the-twins to get Charming into a position to get together with Snow. He is now ALMOST at the point where his plot plays out – he is so close to getting back to Bae that he can taste it. Then all of a sudden, poof, in comes this girl and she screws it all up, messes up Snow and Charming’s meeting. Rumple will be PISSED. Then he finds out that this girl is the “what true love creates” that he’s going after, plopped back from the future? His FIRST questions – if she doesn’t offer – are going to be assessing who she is, what does she know, did she break the curse. Once he finds out whether or not the curse is going to be broken, he is going to want to know, “DID I FIND MY SON?” Emma is not a terribly good liar, so “Well, yes, but…” is going to ask more questions.
The thing with Rumple and Emma is that Bae IS the link. It’s what made Manhattan so brilliant. Rumple is a bright, perceptive guy – remember, he deduced from two words to each other that Emma and Neal knew each other, and all it took was Henry walking into the room for him to put the whole story together. Emma has never been afraid of him, she can go toe-to-toe with him, but she’s also no match for him, in terms of trying to hide what’s really going on in the situation. So sure, she can say, “I took you to him in New York,” but it’s only going to ask more questions. How is he? How old is he now? Did he forgive me? What’s his life like? Etc.
Conversely, if he doesn’t ask about his son – no one knows – it is the one thing that gives Emma credibility. She DOES know. I think it’s too big, too central, too juicy a piece of information to get left out. And once it’s brought up, yeah, Rumple’s gonna flip his junk.
It only matters if we get MO322, but incidentally, having Emma see Rumple as the DO in his prime DO form might have some really interesting repercussions in terms of having her understand some of Neal’s actions with regards to running from his father. The arguments for him leaving her in “Tallahassee” are either that he wanted to get her to her destiny, or that he was running from his father. I had always felt it was motivated primarily by the former, and I think that portion is resolved in the sense that it is aligned exactly with what Snow and Charming did. Letting her go to give her her best chance. They have done a very nice job of setting up that parallel; her parents did it to her, Neal did it to her, she did it to Henry. There seems to be understanding of that facet from multiple sides. But even though she’s seen Gold as kind of a scary butthead, seeing DO Rumple as manipulative and ruthless may provide some additional understanding to resolve that little voice of, “He did it because he was running from his father.” She’ll understand WHY.
A random thought, but the plot of WoO is that in order to go home, Dorothy must bring the Wizard back the broomstick of the witch. Perhaps, after Rumple finds out the future-past events that led to Bae’s death, he agrees to help Emma ensure her very existance for the price of the broomstick? That would neatly fulfil the book of records prophecy as Slurpeez was saying, setting her as Dorothy 2.0 in Oz (BTW I stole that from someone else, maybe Phee?) and setting Rumple as the Wizard. I guess it would be a little weird for him to be the Scarecrow and the wizard, when we already have a Wizard in Walsh but –
Oh HA HA HA if Emma goes to Oz and meets Walsh-the-wizard it’s gonna be epic hilarious. “WTFFFFFFF you haven’t aged a day in like 30 years either! No, no, we’ve never met before…” I want to badly for her to find out that she dated the wizard and not just some random flying monkey. Anyways.
It would be a little random, but since he’s Rumple and also the Beast and also the Crocodile and also the fairy godmother, scarecrow, probably more I can’t remember – why not?
(BTW, did Glinda write the book? She is the keeper of the book of records and she’s hangin’ in the EF…)
The biggest thing I wanted to address from the last few pages is, I don’t think there’s going to be any “hint” he is still alive. I think we are at MO322 or DO322. I know I was preaching AO322 but the spoiler of doom was quit clear that whomever dies will be toast, forever. I think we either get absolutely nothing, not a peep, not a whisper – or we get Hook dead in the past (which would explain why the character is definitively and completely gone) and Nealfire alive due to past-changing events.
I also like the theory of 3B being the alternate timeline, and this setting things right. The imagery throughout the season with broken stuff (dreamcatcher, wheel, etc) and the nightmares seeping through would go right on with that theory.
Gotta run. More later.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...