I agree with Rumplesgoldfan that some comic lighter moments have been missing a bit. I used to love those! I also think seeing Henry have a true friend (lol at the dancing around the fire bit) would be most welcome.
I don’t know if they can get Paige/Grace but it might be a good way to “check in” with Jefferson without having him on screen. She can just say her Papa’s been very busy with his new custom hat business or whatever they want to drop because I’m highly doubtful they’ll get him back.
I was so underwhelmed by Giancarlo’s cameo as Mirror that I”m not expecting much out of Red popping back. These producers just….well its the game they have to say things in the best spin they can. There’s just a point where you feel you know they’re being disingenuous. That floating head was not really even important to the scene in some way that it was Mirror telling Regina. They could have had any lackey tell her or we didn’t even need to see her reacting. The meat of the story was what happened later with her challenge to Snow, saying she’d been seeking revenge the wrong way and what she wanted now was Snow to validate her claim of rule, so she could take everything that was to have been Snow’s.
Mirror had no role in that!
Anyway it is what it is. They have a huge roster of characters that they can never give adequate screen time to again for various reasons. I’d love if they took the graphic novel or social media approach to putting some more content out about the side characters where they don’t have to film anything, but just write it up. Like a fake Storeybrooke Mirror newspaper website (Smallville did that at one point!).
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass