1) I can’t imagine a reality where Neal doesn’t want to be an active participant in his child’s life. He wouldn’t pack up and move many states away where he could only see Henry on some weekend and every other holiday
Is hilarious that everyone is making lots of theories about this, i dont even know why people are thinking to much about this, especially bc we dont have media making a big deal about it, where are the articles about what character would that be, i think that most likely is nobody important and that is a SB person that we dont see a long time, or maybe they mean Violet that will stay in SB for next season. I continue to say is not Neal.
But to answer your question, MEMORY LOSS, or how about Rumple does to Neal what Regina did to Emma on 311, Rumple would know that neal seeing emma with Hook would be painful, so he makes the ultimate sacrifice, let it go of his son, would erase his memories and give him happy ones, Neal would not remember anything, would never seen again until the plot requests and if requests. Obvious, Rumple would not say to anyone this, bc is not like he cares about any of the others and bonds with henry, so would also be on character with rumple, keep secrets from everyone or maybe he would tell Belle if they dont break up for real.
Or bring Dylan as teen Bae, with no memories and no one would say anything about it, bc they dont have deep conversations anymore and Bae would not have his memories and would think he always lived with rumple.
2) I can’t imagine A and E pulling a character “out of heaven” and make them live in this world and claim it was any kind of happy ending. I mean…S6 of Buffy, anyone?
Well using some comments i saw online and fits the show, something called retcon, was simply Emma having a dream, or hades gave her that vision and was not really Neal. Or neal got a second chance from Heaven to have his happy ending on earth.
By the way didnt thought much about this, simply used what the show is doing now, memory loss and retcon, so would fit very well, would make neal fall in love with someone off screen and if they wanted him again on last episode of the show, he would sudden remember, but would have his new TL, and bla, bla, bla.
I dont want any of this and neither i want MRJ back at this show, not even for one scene, but the show no longer follows logic, so in that case is very easy to do things that confuse the viewers and stil bring ratings, bc people would eb like , will neal appear again?? will he remember, etc, etc, and one thing appears for sure, MRJ appears to admire A&E very much at least according to Matt M.