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So I just watched the episode again and two interesting things I found.
First, when MM first blurts out to Emma that Neal is alive, Emma doesn’t believe it. She starts to say “Neal is dead” but only gets as far as “Neal is . . .” and then right before she is going to say “dead” she looks at Killian and he looks directly into her eyes and she finishes the sentence with “alive” instead. This is super significant. MM has been trying to be supportive of Emma’s grief about Neal and she is her own mother but she doesn’t necessarily believe her when she tells her that Neal is alive. So when she is confused and needs someone to look to who she knows will be honest with her who does she look too?? Killian!!!! She doesn’t even have to ask anything and he doesn’t even have to answer anything. They had an entire conversation without even speaking and she knew that if he told her that Neal was alive then she could believe it. She doesn’t even realize that she trusts him more than anyone else, including her own parents. But he did, after all tell her to look at him after she chained him up and asked her if he lied to her when they went to get the compass. He has continued to prove himself trustworthy whether she realizes it or not.
Second, as someone else pointed out – in the Echo cave after Hook told his secret and the bridge had started to form, Emma stepped toward Killian and started to reach for him and started to say something but then David started talking and it interrupted her. She was going to respond to what Killian had just said to her but never had the chance. Later in the episode when Ariel goes to back to Prince Eric but the EQ takes her voice the EQ says “The only thing worse about telling your prince how you feel and rejecting you is never telling him at all. Never knowing. Never having a chance at true love.” I think this is REALLY important.
Both Emma and Neal have told each other that they love each other but it’s not been a huge deal. First they said it when they thought Neal was going to die and Emma later made the comment that people sometimes say certain things when they think they are going to die. Then Emma told Neal that she loved him when she was telling him her secret – but he never said it back, and he never said it after they got out of the cave either.
Killian has now told Emma that she has made him realize that he can move on from his first love. That was his biggest secret because he is Captain Hook who has had the Villain reputation and who has been defined by 300 years of determination of seeking revenge. Telling this secret to anyone completely changes everyones impression of who he is. He had made it abundantly clear that he loves Emma even though he hasn’t said it yet – I think they are waiting for that to be a BIG moment. Emma has been terrified of being rejected which is why she always throws her walls up. I think this is why she has made such a big deal about the kiss not being a big deal – I think she is still afraid of being rejected so if she pretends that how she feels about Killian isn’t a big deal then she won’t be hurt if he rejects her. But the thing is, her biggest secret wasn’t how she felt about Killian because that isn’t a secret that she would NEVER tell another person – because when someone is your TL you will obviously tell someone that “secret.” Which is exactly why Killian’s secret couldn’t be that he loves Emma.
So, if I’m making any sense here: as the EQ said, the only thing worse about telling your prince how you feel and being rejected is never telling him at all. Never knowing, never having a chance at true love. They couldn’t use that opportunity to tell each other their secret that they love each other AND when Emma was going to respond to Killian’s secret, she was interrupted and the moment was gone.
The rest of the EQ’s speech is “That’s right dear, he’s gone. Time to swim back home.”
It may be that as part of the love triangle Emma’s biggest burden is going to be not telling Killian at all because things keep getting in her way. She has relied upon him in NL because it’s kind of “his” territory but when they “swim” home and have Henry back and, regardless of what happens with her and Neal, she and Neal are spending time with Henry – there won’t be as much interaction with Killian unless she MAKES it happen.
It will be interesting to see what Emma chooses to do.
[adrotate group="5"]Loved this episode so much!!
Favorite moments:
They picked the perfect actress for Ariel. Little Mermaid has ALWAYS been my favorite so she had some big cartoon shoes (and shells!) to fill as far as I was concerned. I think she did a great job.
Dinglehopper!! And stabbed by a Dinglehopper. Is it possible to have a favorite weapon??? Cause I do now!
Loved that they showed Hook come directly out of the woods and tell Snowing straight away about Neal being alive – they purposely showed that he didn’t even have to take any time to think about it.
Echo cave – what a creative idea. Loved Killian’s secret. Loved Emma’s secret and that she is finally realizing that she has to deal with her emotional baggage. I think Pan’s plans just keep back-firing on him.
Rumple and Pan scene – can’t wait to find out what the heck the history between these two actually is. Robert Carlyle rocks!!!!
Regina and Rumple working together.
Any scene with Colin O’Donoghue – he doesn’t have to speak, his facial expressions and body language say it all.
Least favorite moments:
Ummm, wow things move fast in Fairy Tale Land. Eric talks to Ariel for 2 minutes and invites her to travel the world. A bit more character development between them as a couple would have been nice.
David getting annoyed that Hook kissed his daughter who is now what, like 30 years old?? But only because he has never seemed to even care that Neal got his daughter pregnant when she was a teenager which is SO much worse. If they had at least showed some kind of confrontation between David and Neal, this scene would not have bothered me. And I will now step off my 41 year old mother soap box.
On a side note when David told Snow she couldn’t have another baby with him I momentarily forgot that he couldn’t leave the island and was monumentally confused. I honestly cracked myself up when I thought we were going to get a soap opera moment of finding out his secret was that he had a vasectomy when he thought he was married to Katherine.
Snow has been annoying me lately. I feel like she could be the poster child of dysfunctional relationships. “Ariel, this guy has no idea who you are – how sweet, it’s love at first sight.” “You have a fish tail again, won’t be an issue, just go to him. He met you last night, invited you to travel the world with him this morning, I’m sure the half fish thing won’t be important to him at all.” “Emma, you just kissed Hook. That’s sweet. Now let’s go find the guy who knocked you up so you can get your happy ending.” “Charming, I couldn’t survive without you but my darkest secret that I would never tell anyone, including you – my husband – is that I want to have another baby.”
Neal’s reaction to Emma’s secret. I get that you can be supportive by just listening but everyone on the face of the planet was emotionally affected by Emma’s secret and Neal just . . . sat there.
Why didn’t Neal have to reveal a secret to get out of the cave?? Telling Emma his secret is that he will never stop fighting for her once they were outside of the cave doesn’t count.
No acknowledgement at all between Hook and Neal after they rescued him. Hook was also deeply affected by Neal’s death but then they never even addressed that he would also be relieved he was alive in spite of the Emma triangle. Hoping that will come later because Hook and Neal have some healing to do as well.
Okay, I feel like a drunken guy from a bad 80’s movie but can I just say how much I love you guys!!! Everyone here has the BEST insights and finds the most amazing “stuff” from all the episodes!
Totally missed the parallel with Snow watching David hug Katherine after waking from his coma – but YES!!! The whole MM, David, Katherine triangle is kind of a parallel in general because I think a lot of Emma’s pull to Neal is out of a sense of loyalty of feeling that she should be with him because of Henry – that it is the noble thing to do, even though she really feels this desire to be with Killian. And it is a lot like Regina reminding David that he needed to be with Katherine, kind of like Snow keeps nudging Emma towards Neal.
As far as the Charmings not knowing all the details of Emma’s past with Neal, they are at least aware that they were never married so they do know that he got their daughter pregnant when she was a teenager. As a parent I am STILL perplexed that this has never been addressed and am more confused that the Charmings would encourage her to get back together with a guy who got their daughter pregnant. Especially since David freaks out when he discovers that Killian kissed Emma when she is now, what, 30 years old???? The only thing I can make of this is that it has been purposely done by A and E and the writers. In other words, so far this season we are seeing Killian bonding with David and hopefully getting on Snow’s good side by saving David and confiding in her about Neal. He shared his secret about his feelings about Emma in front of her parents. He has been, along with Emma, leading them on the quest to save Henry and completely led the effort to save Neal. Everyone knows that when a relationship starts to get serious it’s time to get to know the parents. But Neal is Henry’s father and there has been basically zero interaction with Neal and Snowing since he was found.
Does anyone else feel that it is especially awkward when Snow talks to Emma about Neal? I’m wondering if this will change now that she has heard what Killian’s secret was and what Emma’s secret was. But, excuse the pun, it seems like she is living in a fairy tale land when it comes to Emma’s relationship with Neal. I don’t feel like Emma has ever said anything that has given the impression that Neal is her TL or that she really wants to get back together with him. Even when she told Snowing that she still loved him it was in the context of saying she was ticked at him. I guess I am confused about this – especially since there has been zero interaction between Snowing and Neal. You would think that if they were so excited over the prospect of Neal and Emma together that they would have at least been interested in getting to know him as Henry’s father when he first came to Storybrook – even if he was engaged to Tamara, but they showed zero interest in him then.
Also, did anyone find it interesting that Neal didn’t have to reveal a secret inside the cave to be freed? He told Emma outside the cave that his secret was that he would never stop fighting for her but remember that Killian said that in order for the secret to work inside the cave it had to be your darkest secret – something you would never share with anyone else. And we have established that each of their secrets was used to try to drives wedges between them. I doubt that Neal’s deepest secret is that he will never stop fighting for her. So I agree that once again Neal was just the object that was used to further the plot line of the other characters.
Someone who’s good at symbolism out there, I’m sure there is some significance to the fact that Neal was locked in a cage in that scene. I’m not deep enough to figure it out. Maybe that on his own, Neal is so powerless that he is literally just locked by himself in a cage and that it takes the depth of the other characters to let him out of the cage when he is needed for some reason???
I sometimes feel like I am really hard on Neal and it makes me feel bad. I don’t want to not like him but I just feel so “blah” about him. It’s really NOT MRJ. I had really high hopes when he did the “Is this my son” scene. I know he’s a good actor so I just have to think they are purposely making him a blah character.
I was totally prepared for Emma telling Neal that she loved him but I honestly felt a bit nauseous when it happened (poor Killian having to watch the whole thing). And when she told him “I love you, I probably always will but my secret is . . . ” I was so hoping she was going to say “I love Hook more.”
I girl can dream . . .
Oh, I forgot. Is there EVER going to be a moment when David goes all shot gun crazy on Neal????
He started to freak out when he heard that Killian KISSED Emma. Uuuuummm, Neal did a whole lot more than just kiss his little girl. Has this fact somehow escaped the Charmings???? They seem so eager for Emma to get back together with the guy that got their teenage daughter knocked up and purposely imprisoned?? As a parent myself who watches this show about fairy tale characters who are real I find THAT fact the most unbelievable and disturbing part of the entire show!!!
Loved this ep!
My thoughts:
Of course Killian went first in telling his secret in the cave to save Neal!
Killian called Milah his “first” love not his “true” love.
Neal had like zero emotional response to Emma’s speech, that HAD to have been scripted. He basically just sat there.
Emma/Killian parallel: Hook spent 300 years thinking he would never be able to get over his first love and then he met Emma and realized he could. Emma thought she was over Neal then saw him and realized she still had these unresolved issues. The princess of True Love – Snow White – is pushing Emma into getting back together with Neal because he was her first love. Emma is now going to spend time thinking she can’t get over her first love and will waste time, just like Killian did. Not 300 years, but still it will be time wasted because she will think that because she still has these feelings it must be true love not “first” love so they have to try to get back together.
BUT – the other parallel between Killian and Emma is that Killian’s Milah WAS dead and it STILL took him 300 years to find someone that made him realize that he could love someone else – it took him 300 years to find his true love. Emma said she hoped Neal really was dead so she could move on. At the end of the day – it doesn’t matter whether Neal is alive or dead (as proven by Killian) Emma has to deal with how she was wounded by Neal before she will be able to move on and be with her true love (Killian). The problem for Emma is that she is just opening herself up to more pain, trying to make it work with Neal again is going to make it worse not better because he has NOT grown at all as a person.
Neal’s comment “I’ll never STOP fighting for you.” I’m sorry, did I miss a few episodes somewhere??? When, exactly did he ever START fighting for her????
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has said they haven’t been able to “bond” with Neal as a character. This has been a major source of confusion for me with the show and I am so relieved to hear that others feel the same. I am so NOT an actor basher and I truly did NOT feel like the problem was with MRJ because I feel like he does a great job (especially in the scene where he first saw Henry and asked if he was his son – ripped my heart out!!) but somehow I keep feeling like he doesn’t fit in with rest of the characters and now I know why! I think the link to the post about how we have really no details on Neal as an individual except in relation to helping the other characters develop or explain the other character’s “walls” has made him somewhat flat as a character compared to the others. Even using Belle as a comparison is tough because Belle has so many redeeming qualities because of the GOOD she has brought out of Rumple and that fact that her continuing presence is needed in order for Rumple to be reminded of who he really is and WHY he wants to be a better man – because this genuinely sweet, intelligent, strong, woman believes in the good in his heart and soul makes her necessary to the show. Neal may love Henry but so does everyone else on the show – his love doesn’t really do anything particularly special for Henry. And even if he really does love Emma, that love won’t really do anything special for her – the damage for Emma was already done long ago and she will always wonder if she can really trust him again so he isn’t going to do much to “build” her character.
Here’s the thing that bothers me the most about Neal. I LOVE Baelfire (probably because the kid that plays him does such a great job) he always seemed wise beyond his years when he interacted with his dad both before and after he became the Dark One. But for someone who was always criticizing his father for making the wrong choices (power over family and love) he certainly never learned how to take his own advice and he never learned how to learn from his own mistakes. He may have left NL and physically grown older but I don’t think he ever grew up. The other characters may all struggle with doing the right thing and may falter back and forth but they ALL seem to learn from their mistakes and want to improve. With Neal I feel like he thinks he is just fine the way he is and doesn’t need to change. I don’t think he even recognizes that he has issues – I think he only sees other people’s issues – primarily his father’s. He may say he loves Emma and Henry but he doesn’t seem motivated enough by either of them to want to make changes. Take for example, trying to save Henry on the island. Instead of thinking about how Pan works and thinking about how his father has been trying to change and reconcile with him he is still acting like a bratty teen and making rash decisions to “save” Henry which resulted in him doing exactly what Pan wanted him to do – so Pan got Henry back and Neal was captured. This is compared to Emma who has recognized that in order to save Henry everyone needs to be mature and put aside their personal issues and use their individual strengths to get Henry back. Even though everyone might not like having to do this, at the end of the day they all know it is the only way to save him so they are all working together. It has taken growth and maturity among all of the characters in order to accomplish this. Neal hasn’t even considered trying to JOIN the rest of the group to help, even when he knows that they think he is dead!!! He doesn’t seem to even care that Emma would be heartbroken thinking he is dead. He doesn’t even seem to consider himself part of Henry’s “family” – he is just doing everything on his own. Meanwhile, Emma and Regina are making decisions together for “our” son and saying “WE love you” to him. They are co-parenting Henry even though they don’t like each other.
Then you have Hook who isn’t Henry’s father but wants to help save Henry because of Emma. He also WANTS to grow as a person and has learned from his mistakes. He is mature enough to have learned from the past and because of that he can make decisions that help save David and Henry, and he is being supportive or what Emma needs. Everything he does he does for Emma, yet because they are so well suited for each other as he does things to help her he also ends up growing and learning himself and becoming a better man, which in turn makes Emma more impressed with him which gives him more confidence. Because of what he has been doing he is, in some ways, becoming a member of the family by being accepted by David and Mary Margaret. Neal IS a member of the family but won’t even try to join them and hasn’t ever seemed to care about trying to bond with Emma’s dad.
I think that A and E have something very specific in mind when they talk about true love. If I had to guess I would say that it has to do with a love that is more unconditional than anything since we have True Love’s kisses between couples that have broken curses but then we also have Emma’s kiss with Henry that broke his sleeping curse (and the curse in general). I don’t think Regina could have kissed Henry and broken his sleeping curse even though I believe she does truly love him because I don’t think her love for him is unconditional – she NEEDS him for a specific reason, she needs to feel loved and wanted so she wanted a child to love and to love her back.
I think that of the characters that have been considered to have found true love – none of them were looking for it, it wasn’t something that was arranged or discussed for them, and there isn’t anything that they can GET out of it – in fact, it often doesn’t make any sense at all on the surface. And there typically seems to be people telling them why they SHOULDN’T be together – those reasons may or may not be valid or make sense from a logical point of view.
I think the problem is that we can ask these questions about the various kinds of love and the answer is that we are probably going to SEE all kinds of love explored in the show (and so far we have seen many)but ultimately “true love” might not be totally defined until the end of the show when we see Emma completely developed as a character.
The thing I always have to remind myself of with this show since I tend to get so emotionally attached to the characters is that, just like in real life, people can “love” someone for a season and then, unfortunately decide that they no longer serve a purpose in their life or people can chose to leave people behind and move on. Or sometimes people THINK they love someone when that person serves a specific need in their life and they don’t realize until later that love wasn’t really what they were feeling. And I do think it is possible to love more than one person during your lifetime, spouses can die and later people find another person to love. All of these same things can happen on the show. But ultimately I think that A and E have something different in mind than love as it occurs in normal every day when they talk about true love – it is a show about fairy tales after all.
Can I just share that after watching the episode yet again I must say that, not that I wasn’t before, but I am growing more and more impressed with Colin O’Donoghue’s acting by the minute!!
In some interview I either saw or read Colin talked about being awed when he did his first scene with Robert Carlyle because the man is such an incredible actor. I have to say – I see a lot of similarities between the two. They are both able to say a TON without uttering a single word and they have the most amazing facial expressions and body language.
I think that must be part of why I am a huge Rumbelle and CS shipper. They both make it very believable for me – kind of like when those two act and they look into the camera it’s like you can see into the depths of the soul of the character they are playing. Not that the other actors aren’t great as well. I just noticed it when I was watching the episode again. I believe his eyes. Not just when he is with Emma – it hit me when he did the scene with Bae on the JR and discovered who he was and was telling him about being abandined by his own father. And I don’t think it’s the guyliner.
Count me in too! I thought “Wendy” as soon as I saw the other box but now I am totally hoping it’s her!!
And setting aside the fact that I’m a big time CS shipper, can I just say how much I would LOVE a DarlingFire ship!! I wanted that since the minute Bae and Wendy met!!
I just posted this to another thread but I think Emma and Killian are going to have another similar experience to help each other through here pretty soon and it could actually be the thing that makes Pan’s plan backfire even more.
Regardless of how Emma finds out that Neal is alive, when they find out that he has been captured I believe that Killian’s fatherly feelings for Bae are going to surface BIG TIME – regardless of whether or not he thinks Neal’s return could affect his relationship with Emma. As someone pointed out in the other thread, Hook once made the comment to David “The things we do for our children.” Bae is the closest thing Hook has ever had to a child.
So Killian is suddenly going to ALSO be on a mission to save HIS child. Not only that but as both Emma and Hook are trying to save “their” children they will both have to rely on the help of their arch enemies in order to be successful. Emma has come to accept that she needs Regina in order to save Henry, as seen by agreeing that Regina should rip the Lost Boy’s heart out (and she has had two seasons to get used to co-parenting Henry). But this will be the first time Hook and Rumple will have EVER addressed BOTH being a “father” to Bae and working together as two fathers to save him. Since Killian hasn’t had that experience before he is going to have to rely on Emma to help him through it.
So far Emma has been the one depending on Hook to learn how to trust again and believe that she is worth loving and sticking around for. She had to figure out on her own how to be a parent when you feel like you aren’t capable of being one. Up to now Killian has done a lot of self-growth but he might have to turn to Emma for help on how to forgive yourself for “giving up” your child and learning how to be a parent when you weren’t expecting to be one.
I watched Tallahassee again and when they are in the bar Neal tells Emma that Rumple told him there are no accidents, that everything happens for a reason and he wonders if fate brought them together for a reason and says that maybe something good could come out of their time together. Of course, we all knew at the time that Henry was the result, but maybe they were also supposed to be together so that Hook and Bae could eventually be reunited.
