Yeah, promoting MRJ to a full cast member when they did would be pretty silly if they were gonna write him out before the season was over. With all the screen time and promo Hook’s been getting this season, it’d make sense if it’s building up to the climax and end of the character’s storyline IMO. If Neal died now, they’d get no media mileage out of it at all, because the character just hasn’t been promoted. They’d get plenty of mileage out of Hook’s death though, because all the media is already focused on him. Neal’s death would be a *fizzle* in the media, and in the show, because they’ve already shown the rest dealing with his death before. Hook’s death would be a *BANG*.
Adam always says he and Eddy aren’t responsible for promotion, but they do have to sit down with their marketing team and say, “ok here is our story for the season. You figure out how to make it work.” Telling their marketing team that they want to kill Hook or Neal before S3 would be something huge that the team has to incorporate. Hook’s poster came out first. The JR was at ComicCon. Hook’s face was plastered all over SDCC. When ONCE facebook asked for fans to vote for their new cover photo–2/3 all had the “Hook” imagine and the tagline “get Hooked.” Over the past month of hiatus they have created and tweeted more Hook/CS pics than any other (almost exclusivity in fact, the exception being the death of Rumple). During the season they tweeted during the show and it was a TON of Hook stuff. All media about ONCE mentions Hook in some degree. At first I was overly annoyed and now…suspicion.