I don’t think that the Emma/Hook relationship is the single cause for the decline in the show. I think the way Regina was written in Season 2 was the first major problem with the show. She was written as doing all of these horrible things, but we, the audience, were supposed to feel sorry for her. The good guys hung out with her and forgave her in a way that did not make any sense at all. I think that was the initial problem that caused the decline in the show as well as then having entire episodes with pretty much no Snow and Emma. Hook was not even remotely a love interest in Season 2, in my opinion. That was created for Season 3. That was jumping the shark. Hook had til that moment been awful, trying to kill Emma and Snow, working with Cora, trying to keep Snow and Emma from getting back to Storybrooke, shooting Belle to hurt Rumpel, being locked up in jail and then wandering off to help Cora again, taking part in the torture of Regina, stealing the bean. It was only when the writers decided to change their intention for Season 3 and do Neverland and they decided to do a love triangle with Emma, Neal, and Hook that they jumped the shark. As i said before, i believe the show was declining and making Hook a love interest, creating a love triangle, was the gimmick they thought would keep the viewers interest, a failed gimmick, which i believe was the point at which the show strayed irretrievably from it’s original formula. I am not even sure if Emma and Neal would have gotten back together. This is not about that. I just do believe that Neal and his relationships with Emma, Henry, and Rumpel were central to later plot points. That Neal’s connection with Neverland as well as being the son of a dark one, now a significant other of a dark one, via Emma becoming the dark one would have made much more sense in light of Neal then Hook. I think the complication of dark one Rumpel’s son and the true love couple Snow and Charming was supposed to be central to the show. I believe that the moment they decided to make a love interest of Hook as a gimmick that they thought would bring in viewers as jumping the shark and that it irretrievably changed the show from it’s original formula.
The way Regina was written in season 2 was horrible, however they managed to fix it with 303 and 309. I don’t recall that the heroes hung out with her except the awkward dinner in 210 that no one paid any attention to her, and Emma kind of invited her as an obligation, and they never forgave her until 3B.
I agree about Hook, he was never ment to be a love interest. His actions in season 2 are too hateful to make him a love interest (which I think every character forgot about it, Belle and Archie sure did). The love triangle was a bad choice. Emma and Hook’s kiss was disgusting and Neal came off as a jerk by competing with Hook while his son is in danger, but I honestly think those were only two instances from what I consider to be a pretty good season (3A).
Neal had more potential (than Hook) as a character because the conflict he had with Emma was real, unlike Hook’s confilcts, which are pretty much forced and pretty much the same (keeping a secret about cursed lips and what he did in the missing year, keeping a secret about doing shady things with Rumple, keeping a secret about his connection with Ursula – basically keeping a secret of some sort). Neal also had a real conflict with Rumple that wasn’t made out of nowhere, and he’s Henry’s dad.
The thing about 3B- 5A is that the narrative revolved around ships, more so CS and OQ and apologizing for bad characters’ behavior (mainly Rumple, Hook, Regina and Robin). That’s why to me 3B is when the show jumped the shark because it wasn’t about family anymore, it wasn’t about what makes sense, it never had a natural plot development, the characters became templates to put the plot on them (ie they served the plot and not the other way like it should), and everything is forced to enable OQ and CS.
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