Unfortunately for Once, I think they will find too late that when you yank the heart out of something, the limbs that provided visible movement might keep waving for a while, but without that central support, it will collapse upon itself. It was so astonishingly clear upon our watchback that this show oriented itself around this story, often in subtle, quiet ways, but now there is no purpose for several of the characters nor the overarching theme of the show. Rumple will have a back-and-forth with Belle, until they sort this dagger nonsense out, and then? His reason for being is gone. When they ask themselves, “Where did it all go wrong,” I think the answer will be blindingly clear, especially since I think A&E already know. Watching that, in my heart of hearts, I saw the story we should have had and watched them try to tell it through the story they had to tell… realizing that’s what’s been going on the last few eps. They tried to hang onto that heartstory as best they could while putting the focus elsewhere, but they can’t do that forever. Whatever went down, I think Once3B is an indicator of what is to come and at some point, there may be a strange, last-ditch effort to save the show. It won’t succeed; the show won’t make it long with the storytelling we’ve just been witness to, and that makes me sadder than anything. When you sell out to fanservice at the expense of the story, and damage it beyond repair, you can’t go back to the story and expect it to work – but that doesn’t mean they won’t try.
Problem is that I don’t think the story will be lasting much longer for them to get to a point of “where did we go wrong”