Uhhh that would be awful. What I’m hoping is that her handsome hero is referring to Rumple, and she sort of is making fun of Gaston. Like, she doesn’t need him, her handsome hero is right here, and his name is Rumple.
I think generally speaking, when OUAT plays with inversions, it’s predominantly one-directional. I.e. known fairytale baddies tend to be bad on OUAT (though sometimes they have a redemptive arc), while some famous good guys (Pan, Arthur) turn out to be bad as well. I can’t think of an example of a notorious villain being recast as straight-forwardly good.
This would, of course, be a lovely opportunity for the show to reflect on the “handsome hero” trope in the first place. At this point, OUAT’s heroes are already so problematic that I can’t imagine the title would be straight forward.
On the other hand, I’ve no doubt that they can botch it spectacularly. The fact that it’s written by Jerome Schwartz is making me nervous. He also gave us “Enter the Dragon” (if I recall, this is the one where being evil = taking shots and trashing cars) and “Broken Kingdom” (wasn’t that the magic roofie episode?) Point is, I don’t love the gender politics in this fellow’s writing. I think he’s trying to tackle “difficult themes” but he isn’t always, shall we say, successful.