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In my estimation, the main reason that Hook is so divisive is because he embodies great contradictions. On the one hand, he’s clearly a handsome bad boy who has broken all the rules, yet he also can be gallant. Hook has a very shady past as a womanizing, dangerous and vengeful pirate, but he’s also capable of love, as his relationships with Milha and Emma have revealed. Hook repels a great many people with his tendency to be vengeful, womanizing and murderous, but he also endears himself to others by his romantic gestures like surrendering his ship in favor of fetching Emma. Some people will also be swayed by the actor’s good looks and foreign British accent (this is called the halo effect). I was kind of excited for Hook very early in S2, but only up until he betrayed Emma, called her dried up and useless, and then left her and her mother for dead in the magically-fortified prison. There really was no coming back from that for me. Still, it’s not a mystery why he appeals to some women (who want to date him) and men (who want to be like him). He’s a heart-throb anti-hero who’s been “tamed by love” — and there are many people who imagine that they would like to date the dashing rogue and turn him into a handsome prince. However, when I look at CS, I don’t see a great romantic story. Instead, I see a cautionary story. Still, people see what they will.
Otherwise what was the point of the entire S5 season?
Perhaps the point was to show how unsuited Hook is for Emma and she for him. Emma defied his dying wish not to be turned into another dark one — which is exactly what she did. The darkness brought out Emma’s and Hook’s worst traits: Emma’s selfish insecurity and Hook’s vengeful nature. Hook saw it as the worst thing she could have done to him, the worst form of betrayal. In revenge, Hook murdered Merlin to cast the dark curse and then tried to mass murder Emma’s entire family by unleashing Nimue and all of the dark ones who’d ever existed. Hook did literally fall on his sword at the last moment (thanks to Regina), but only after he tried to kill Emma’s son and parents. That does not make for a healthy long-term relationship. In fact, the theme of S5 was “love is a weapon,” — and while I don’t doubt Emma and Hook love each other, I see their love as being a selfish kind of love, not the kind of sacrificial love that Snow and Charming have. In fact, I’d go so far as to propose that Emma and Hook were definitively revealed not to have true love in season five whenever their kiss failed to break Emma’s dark one curse (on multiple occasions) or when Emma failed to share her heart with Hook in season 5b. I know CS fans will point at the “true love shove” as “evidence” that Emma and Hook share real love, but in my estimation, all it revealed was that Emma’s heart has true love because she is the product of true love. It was just ambiguously written enough that people will interpret it according to their prior assumptions. While I don’t think A&E are especially gifted writers, I think they’re just talented enough to keep people guessing and debating it.
– I want Hook to have a story outside of emma, and here is the thing, this season has perfectly set it up. HIS BROTHER IS IN STORYBROOKE! Let the guy go on some kind of seafaring adventure or something!!!!! Let them bond. Let them fight. There is so much potential that could be created with that.
That is exactly what I was considering when I saw Dark Waters. When you think about it, Captain Nemo was offering Hook a chance to be the kind of man Hook always wanted to be but never was: a man of honor. I would bet that the reason Hook’s brother, Liam II, and Captain Nemo were even introduced this late into the story would be to give Hook another potentially different happy ending. (I’ve always thought Hook’s real happy ending isn’t so much a woman as much as it is his ship or being a sailor at sea). I think he’s too popular a character to be killed off (plus he’s already died and been resurrected), and I don’t think he’ll sacrifice himself again. So, if Emma and Hook ever did break up (not saying they necessarily would), then I could potentially see Hook joining Nemo’s crew aboard the Nautilus and having a family with his little brother. Nemo represents the kind of sea captain that Hook wanted to be like but just wasn’t: forgiving and compassionate. Also, Nemo offered Hook a chance to join him and to put revenge aside, but Hook was too bent on killing Rumple at the time. To me, that is what Hook has really always wanted but hasn’t quite achieved yet: to be a real man of honor who does the noble thing just because it’s the right thing to do (and not just to get something out of it for himself). Why else have Captain Nemo survive his wounds and reintroduce Liam II if not to have them play more of a role in Hook’s story later on? I think there were spoilers that the actor playing Nemo had been filming again, though I might not be remembering that correctly.
[adrotate group="5"]"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
Pretty much unless they were going to actually end the show like it was originally intended to be written before ABC and the fans got involved and it changed, then i don’t want them to bring Neal back for any short arcs. I think there are going to be a lot of people that are happy to see Robin back and then annoyed all over again when he just dies again or vanishes or whatever stupid thing they are going to waste a bunch of screen time doing.
THAT
"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
Okay, we’ve talked about the reference to Baelfire and Swanfire being destined, no matter what. Are we going to talk about how Princess Emma was humming “Someday My Prince Will Come” while picking flowers when suddenly Regina arrived — dressed like a prince? How are we supposed to interpret that? Regina being dressed as a prince didn’t seem like just a coincidence.
"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
Also, the current Cancellation Bear still thinks OUAT is a tossup, but is leaning a bit more towards a renewal:
Which is pretty much what Matt and I have been saying for awhile now: ABC can’t cancel everything so even though it’s not pretty, there are things with a far greater chance of cancellation. Source
I’d say it all depends on whether there are any potentially good, less expensive new shows that could replace the “family show” during the 8 PM time-slot, especially because each episode of OUAT is so darn expensive to make. A few years ago, Robert Carlyle estimated that the cost per episode was between 4 and 5 million dollars:
According to Robert, “I think each individual episode is between four and five million dollars an episode. You could make two or three movies back here [in Scotland] for that,” Robert noted. “So the production values are so high, and all the post-production and the special effect and etc, etc. It’s as big as any movie. It’s as good as any movie.” Source
Each episode of OUAT costs ABC approximately $4.5 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive shows on network television. Source It costs ABC about $99 million dollars a year to make one season of OUAT for 22 episodes and $103.5 million for 23 episodes. That is a lot of money for ABC to spend, especially for a show that is going fractional and maybe not getting enough traction for advertisers to want to spend a lot of money. A show as expensive to make as OUAT which is losing viewers in key demographics won’t attract enough advertisers to break even. The article I quoted gave a reference point: NBC made a loss on the final season of Friends, despite how popular the show was, because it paid a lot to the cast ($1 million per episode in 2002).
On a show like OUAT that has a cast with some well-known actors like Robert Carlyle and Ginny Goodwin, actors’ salaries also account for a lot of the total cost per episode. Imagine how much more OUAT would have to spend to keep those big-name actors past their five-year or six-year contracts. I bet ABC would have to spend more money than is currently being spent now just to get the actors to renew for one more season.
Moreover, A&E just said in an interview that the theme of S6b would be happy endings:
EK: I would say that the definition of happiness and happy endings is a theme we explore in the second half, so that is the uber question we are going to try and answer.
AH: That’s kind of the driving force of the second half of the season for all the characters, which is ‘What is a happy ending and is it possible?’:
If you ask me, it sounds like season six is gong to be the final season. You don’t plan to answer what everyone’s happy ending looks like unless it’s the very end of the series.
"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
MRJ has never said no to them. When they needed Neal, they got him.
How do you know MRJ has never said no to them? It’s possible the writers wanted him back in addition to 5×12, but he said no. As @rainbow pointed out, MRJ only did it to give Neal fans closure (well as much as they were going to get). Would MRJ really ever want to come back now? Sadly, I doubt it since MRJ already said it was a nice bookend to that character.
On a related note, A&E actually directly addressed the issue of why Baelfire was dead in the wish-world. It’s not because Emma wished that Henry would grow up without knowing his father. Rather, it was as I speculated before: Baelfire being dead in the wish-world is the price that comes with the wish.
Adam Horowitz: This is how we’ve established the rules of wishes on Once Upon A Time, the case of when you make a wish, there are unintended consequences. These were the twisted consequences of the Evil Queen asking to have Emma’s wish realized, which is why there are things like, you know, Baelfire clearly died and he’s her hero in an oil painting there, and clearly didn’t go off to visit the Darlings and have that stuff happen. The history is slightly different. It’s not a ‘Back to the Future, you went back and changed one thing in the past’ [situation], this was a wish that conjured up a realm to teach Emma a lesson which is due, and the lesson was ‘Don’t wish to undo all the things that made you who you are.’ And I think by the end of the episode, you saw Emma realize that she liked who she was, and that she wouldn’t want to change that. Source: Once Upon a Fan
So, Baelfire being dead was a “twisted consequence” of the wish. In other words, be careful what you wish for since it always comes with a price.
"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
I like how he almost says Emma and Neal are meant to be in every version of the show
It’s almost like it was fate, destiny, or whatever you want to call it, that brought Emma and Baelfire together and that they were meant to meet for a reason, no matter what. As usual, Adam’s explanation makes no sense, however, because had Bae not met the Darlings then he wouldn’t have gone to NL and he would’ve passed away in Victorian London and never made it back to the EF. Bae needed to be in NL for a century and then return to the EF in order to meet Emma and father Henry. While I like that Adam pretty much confirmed that Emma and Baelfire were fated to fall in love and have Henry no matter what, as usual, Adam’s (lack of a coherent) explanation doesn’t do the story justice.
Moreover, I also think that perhaps Baelfire was always meant to die (as Emma told Henry in True North that his dad had died a hero). However, I also think it was supposed to be Baelfire, not Hook, who was then meant to be resurrected (as the name Baelfire from Wheel of Time strongly suggests). Emma and Bae were strongly paralleled with Will and Anastasia (whose name means resurrection in Russian and Greek).
"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
Very easy answer, bc unlike Sean, They didn’t get the actor.
Agreed. The writers either couldn’t get MRJ to come back, or they feared the retribution of the CS crowd (as they’re prone to do). Hence, they did homage to Baelfire because he was the original character they made and the person who was always intended for Emma. However, he’s gone, and the actor probably won’t be coming back (unlike Sean Maguire or Eion Bailey). Hence, Prince Baelfire died a hero, he’s honored, he’s missed, but he’s not coming back (less the Hook crowd hound the writers too much).
But even if it wasn’t, while we have heard the titles Kings and Queens, we’ve never been shown how their titles are passed. Legitimacy may only an issue if the paternity is unknown *and* relevant to a child’s status. Maternity is not in question, and the mother is a princess. It would be different if a woman was claiming to have gotten pregnant by royalty (like Cora). And, unless Neal Jr is around – and males are first-in-line, then Emma is next-in-line for the Throne(s).
I’m not sure everything in the AU was really Emma’s wish or the price of it. Would Emma have really wished to be a singing princess who surrendered her kingdom to a perceived enemy? I don’t think so since it was the price of the wish (“all magic comes with a price.”). I was actually going off of real history and historic fantasy. Usually, in that genre of historic fantasy or fiction from medieval times, legitimacy is a big issue. In medieval times, people, especially royals, really cared about whether a child’s parents were married and whether or not the mother was cuckolding the father. A child had to be legitimate in the eyes of the law to inherit the title, throne, castle, or what-have-you.
"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
How did they meet? Did Neal help put Rumple in the cage?
Maybe upon his arrival back in the EF, young Baelfire joined the royal army and helped King David and Queen Snow defeat the Evil Queen, a feat for which he was knighted. After that, Emma fell in love with Sir Baelfire, a knight of her father’s table. Soon after he married Princess Emma, Prince Baelfire died in combat, but not before he got her with child and secured an heir to the throne, as was his royal duty. Rumple went insane upon the death of his boy, after which the dark one had to be imprisoned because an insane dark one is a danger. You can probably tell I’ve thought about this a lot since I watched the finale.
"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
Do we think WishWorld!Emma and Neal were married? How did they meet? Did Neal help put Rumple in the cage? *sigh*
I’m guessing they were married since Emma grew up in the Enchanted Forest where marriage amongst teenagers and teenage pregnancy was the social norm (e.g. Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty), and a bride, especially a princess, had to be snow white. Plus, this is an Emma raised by Snow White and Charming, who’re all about true love and marriage. Emma would have seen that model and sought to have emulated it. Also, if Henry had been born out of wedlock in the Enchanted Forest, he would have been stigmatized as illegitimate, not honored as a knight of the realm or an heir to the throne.
"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
It was good to see Baelfire as Henry’s dad (even though they never bothered to explain how Bae could be in the EF or how Rumple had a magic bean in the AU). At least they didn’t insert Hook as Henry’s dad in the AU, and at least Baelfire being honored as a prince gave “Hookers” something to complain about. 😀
"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
