If you murder a character with inconsistent dialogue and behavior, can’t you bring them back to life with better writing and less plot driven motivations?
Yes, they could bring the characters back with better writing and less plot driven motivations. That doesn’t change the fact that the last few seasons have been terrible. That happened and while the show can be better, it can never recover, in my opinion, for how bad those seasons has been. It can never recover from the loss of Neal and how that took away the very story that the show was supposed to be about. The show can be about a new different thing, they can write the characters from the point they are at now and write them consistently and that would be better, but the integrity of the story is out the window and that is not recoverable at this point.
I am totally looking forward to Mulan and Red being back and whatever LGBT relationship there may be with one or both of them. I am looking forward to Cora and Regina scenes and Rumpel and Pan scenes. I am looking forward to Milah being back and interacting with Rumpel and Emma, but just because there are things that i think will be interesting next season, does not mean that the integrity of the story has returned. That’s gone and that cannot come back. The cohesion and coherence of the grand story is out the window, the morality of the story is out the window. Those things have happened and while i may like things that happen in later episodes, that cohesion of the grand story is gone forever.