He was burried, Zelena wasnt and before people mention archie, lets not forget that archie being alive was shown on that same episode, in order to let GA know that he was alive. Zelena had nothing to link her there and she wanted revenge on Regina and she had magic, Neal had no magic, had a son and father( wont mention emma) and he didnt want revenge, so he had no reason to appear almost a year after like nothing happened and he was just on a holiday and if is true that composer thing that sets that Neal is dead. The thing is the writers didnt knew what to do with him and didnt care about him, so yeah, no Neal, especially bc the writers only see ships, so for them Neal is someone that can get bwt Cs. Also, why people keep wanting GoS to fail and MRJ back at OUAT, people should be saying even if GOS gets cancelled, MRJ deserves something better and i wish him luck, people should be wanting the cast to get free from this show. This is not GoS vs OUAT, Gos is not the thing that is in the middle of MRJ going back to ouat. The show simply doesnt want him back and to tell u the true i doubt he would want to go back at all, especially full time. Lets not forget that MRJ did 2 works for Disney after ouat, Sons of liberty on history( owned 50% by abc/disney) and finest hours, if they wanted him back, they could after all these projects bond him again to ouat, but they didnt.
A body that looked like Neal was buried. They thought that Archie was dead in his office for awhile. Cora was pretending to be half the characters on the show. Zelena pretending to be Marian. I know that some people want to pretend it is hard for Neal to be back, but it’s not even a little bit hard. Not in this show were pretty much any random thing might happen. I am not saying, he is going to be back. I don’t think they want him back, but not because it is somehow difficult for him to be back alive. Zelena disappeared for awhile before she was randomly back, wasn’t it half a season later.
Neal has every reason to appear as well. His story was not even remotely finished properly and his removal from the show has had catastrophic effect. Even if he didn’t get back with Emma, he should not have been killed off the show because of Rumpel and Henry as well as interesting conversations he could have had with Belle about Rumpel or Snow and Charming about kid Emma. Like i said, i don’t think Neal is going to be back on the show for more then a cameo at most, but not because it is somehow difficult. Not in a show where magic can do anything and characters disappear only to reappear seasons later.