I’ve been aware of this for awhile but am now only putting it into words. I see Hook as being Neal’s literary foil. Jennifer Morrison has said that Hook reminds her of Neal. So it’s natural that Emma would feel some sort of spark with Hook. Yet, for all the similarities that Neal and Hook have (e.g. one is a former thief, and the other a pirate who both love Emma), they differ significantly in lots of other ways too which I’ve mentioned before. It will be interesting to see where the writers take this, since I think they’re intentionally putting Hook as a stand-in for Neal in what should be Neal’s natural setting: NYC. Yet, I think we’re going to see Emma, even in her cursed sate, start to gravitate back to Neal, her true home. Emma’s talisman being the dreamcatcher would be a very good way to demonstrate this concept. Dreamcatchers catch the bad dreams only to let the good ones in. It’s a very interesting dynamic they’re setting up of Hook being there mid season for Emma but Emma gravitating back to the dreamcatcher, even in her cursed state, just as David Nolan seemed to know to go to the troll bridge when he had amnesia. Despite being cursed, David was inexplicably drawn back to Mary Margaret. Could Hook be to Emma as Kathryn was to David during the curse?
Ok. I just rewatched. I think it’s VERY significant what Hook says after failed kiss in NYC “I had to try. It was a long shot. I was hoping you felt as I did.” Doesn’t that pretty much sum up the whole relationship?
Yes, that sums up CS in a nut shell for me. Any attraction that Emma has for Hook is rooted in the fact that he reminds her of Neal, her true love. Yet, attraction and true affection are not the same thing.
"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy