Neal: was in NL for a time as a young boy, grew up in our world. Only tie for flashbacks is Emma, but how much is there? We do need to see the rest of the story with August. And because Eion hasn’t been on set I don’t think the death has happened YET. They have to give that story first if it is Neal.
The thing is we don’t know how they plan to go about telling the story between August and Neal, if they even still plan on telling that story. For all we know, the story could involve August/Pinocchio and Neal/Bealfire in their youth, so even if MRJ was no long on the show, they could still technically explain it with Dylan Schmidt there instead. Or perhaps we find out how August figured it out without Neal actually onscreen. Even if this were to be a dropped storyline idea, which would frustrate us demanding for more fill in the blanks, I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first storyline idea they’ve dropped.