Can’t argue with most of the points here. Neverland arc still had many flaws, and I agree with most of what you said. I just really had many issues with season 2 so I just meant that I understood why A&E started splitting them up.
They need to get rid of all the main characters except Emma, Henry and Regina while promoting new characters, which will be August, Lily, Maleficent , Mulan and Ruby. Snow, Charming and Rumple and Belle’s stories are done and they should just let them finish. Hook, Zelena and Robin are underdeveloped and they just bring the story down (No more ships bullshit). All I want is Regina doing Mayor stuff, Emna being the sheriff and along with Henry, they help bring back the Happy endings of characters that returned from forgotten characters island.
And unfortunately what you are asking can never happen. But a big problem they ran into, were cast members leaving. Remember how great Jefferson was? And how interesting it was to see all the doors to portals in Jefferson’s hat? But then Sebastian Stan did other projects. Same with Ruby. Same with Mulan. Same with August. So while some of the blame is the writers just not pursuing certain story lines they set up for us (eh hem Malificient and Lily), part of the problem was also actor’s availability.
But I think you laid out quite a compelling plot for a possible final season with Lily’s dad being the main villain. I just feel like these writers have plans like this for the very end. I mean who just sets up a “black fairy” and sets up Maleficient’s father and doesn’t come back to it, ever. They obviously had an idea of who the black fairy was, of who Maleficient’s father was otherwise they wouldn’t have dropped these pieces of information. As I’ve said before, my hope is that they’re stalling til the end and Oz, frozen, UW were just bridges to get to where we are now. I think they genuinely always wanted to tell the origins of the dark one, they just screwed it up. My hope is they are stalling til the end and once in the final season, we will see at least some of these old themes that you mentioned, pop up again.
There’s no reason they can’t give us more Ruby and Mulan. We know we are! We know we are going to get some sort of Regina atoning for her sins. There’s no reason they can’t give us more Maleficient and Lily. The writers have said they plan on telling that down the line. But I suppose they could be lying. It’s just because of the shear ability to be able to do some of these things, that makes me think there’s a chance.