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I’m so glad that Emma is there to witness the reunion between Neal and Wendy! Finally, she’s learning more about Bae’s history!

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I think that might be a good bet. We still don’t know what Hook was doing for PP, but PP called it “his dirty work.” And then there is whole, “I gave a young boy to the lost ones,…sorta like how your son was kidnapped in a similar fashion. After I had promised him a family.” But Neal’s other story is “I saved a young boy from the shadow we have in our coconut because they took me in and loved me and it was the least I could do”

I know a lot of people don’t want to consider this theory, but what if the “dirty work” that Pan had Hook do was capturing the Darling children? This would put a very stark divide between Hook and Neal since Bae tried so hard to save them.

"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

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There are still some plot elements to play out.   We don’t know if Neal kept the swan key chain and he has yet to try to return it to Emma, and she has yet to turn him down.   There are things she doesn’t know, about Hook and about Neal, and I think it’s mostly positives about Neal and negatives about Hook.

I firmly believe that Hook was introduced not just as a suitor for Emma Swan, but also as the lover of Milha, Rumple’s wife and Bael’s mother, for a distinct reason. What kind of a father figure was/is Hook to Bae? Not a very good one from what we’ve seen. As Milha’s lover, Hook didn’t seem to care too much that she would be leaving a small boy motherless, even though Hook himself knows what it feels like to be abandoned by his dad. Also, even if Hook was in theory willing to be a family to Bae and says he would have fought for him, he didn’t. I was re-reading an older interview from last year in which Edward Kitsis had this to say about the kind of father figure that Hook would make to Henry:

Kitsis once again tackles the subject of Emma’s suitors saying, “I think what’s interesting is the love of Emma’s life last year was Henry and this year we actually met the one person that she has fallen in love with [Neal]. Hook is obviously eye candy. I don’t know if she would stare at him and think he would be a great father to Henry but he might be fun in Vegas.”

I think that Adam and Eddy were setting up this conflict for a distinct reason: Hook was not a good father figure to Bae so that would give Emma serious pause in considering Hook as a potential father-figure to her son. And as Emma said in 3×7, she’ll always choose Henry. A lot of CS fans like to say that Henry is not a very important calculus in Emma’s decision in who she should choose, but Emma just made Henry THE criterion. Henry’s dad will always put his son’s best interests first. Hook, on the other hand, probably would have to do a major shift in priorities if he were ever to be a serious contender in Emma’s eyes. Single mothers are not at liberty to just do whatever fancy comes upon them; they must think of their kids. I think Emma regrets that kiss between her and Hook now because she realizes it was just a diversion from finding Henry.

"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

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Posting this excellently made SF video because it’s just that good:

Neal and Emma – A Thousand Years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDs1ek7OpDU#t=98

Lovely SF pics from Tumblr:

"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

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Pardon me while I ramble now but I think Neal was completely in that preservation mode when we met him in Manhattan and while wonderful bits of that vulnerability are starting to come out, I fear he may start reverting back into that self preservation mode that he was in for so many years while dealing with this whole Emma-Hook thing, Henry’s kidnapping, and also with his father. He seems to all ready be doing that now and shifting his focus onto Henry (which makes sense since that should be priority #1 for everyone right now) and IMO, I think that mode is probably part of the reason he and Emma fell in love in the first place.

While I think Neal was certainly in self-preservation mode leading up to “Manhattan” I think that he is a new man with a mission now: to get his son and Emma home. Then, once their son is safe, Neal and Emma can start to unpack their misconceptions about their past and to rebuild trust. The reason he’s saying to Emma that she’s right to focus on Henry is because he is their son and loving parents should put their children first. Neal knows better than to force anything on Emma (as Hook has done), and he apologized for fighting about the lighter, which oh by the way, was really Hook egging him on. So, I’m not concerned that Neal is just settling back into his old, passive self-preservation mode. If anything, he is stepping up to the plate of being there for Henry, and by consequence, for Emma. He is going to prove he’s a strong presence without having to force anything with Emma, because that would only alienate her, as we saw Hook’s attempts to make her choose backfire majorly. Neal is a smart man not to stoop to Hook’s tactics. Yes, Neal will continue to fight for Emma, but not with words, but by his actions. He loves her and he isn’t going to make the same mistake twice of taking the easy way out. He’s here to stay, if only for Henry’s sake, but really also for Emma’s sake. She said in 2×21 she needs him, and Neal said in 3×3 that he needs her. They’re stronger together than they are apart.

"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

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Some more lovely GIFs to grace our beloved SF safe-haven. From Tumblr:

And what has Emma always been searching for? A home. Tallahassee, baby.

"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

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Yes but the question is how. We know Rumple thinks that he and PP were quite close and grew up together. But we also know that Rumple’s father abandoned him. *sigh* Please 308 give us some good answers.

We know that Rumple thinks his father left him. But what if Malcom just got turned into PP as the result of Pandora’s box gone awry? That would make Rumple be Luke Skywalker.

"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

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Hmm…The more I think about. As creepy as it sounds Pan being Rumple’s father is starting to make sense. Now all I want Pan to say is “I am your father” and the Star Wars circle would be complete.

Yep. Daddy issues. Plus we know Adam and Eddy are total Star Wars fans.

"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

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So maybe moving the moon (if that is what Regina and Emma are doing) is the breaking of a Curse and brings daylight to NL. And that causes TL rainbow???

Yes, that is exactly what I think is happening. NL being in perpetual darkness signifies it being under a “shadow of doubt” or a curse. Bringing daylight signifies the breaking of that curse. As we saw when Emma broken Henry’s sleeping curse with a maternal true love kiss, we know the combined power of Emma and Regina’s love for Henry could be powerful enough to break any curse, resulting in rainbow beams shooting out as the sun returns to NL.

"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

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sidenote: I heard a rumor that the love triangle was suppose to be August and Neal originally, not Hook. Hook came later after Eion left the show for another opportunity. Which makes me wonder that if they always intended for Neal to be the one  for Emma, that the other guy was easily replaceable????

I’ve read that rumor before and I think there could be something to it. We know that Pinocchio was planned from the beginning to play a large role in Emma’s story. August and Emma went on a “date” to drink the well water of SB. Neal asked August to take care of Emma since he couldn’t be there for her. There was a pretty large following of Wooden Swan shippers out there. Despite what CS fans like to claim, Captain Hook, by contrast, was not in the cards until the writers had acquired the rights to PP, which was leading into S2.

What we do know is that A and E planned for Baelfire from the start. They told both JMo and Bobby about Bae and he was always going to be a big part of the show (naturally, the entire curse was to find him).

Precisely, Adam Horowitz confirmed they always intended for the savior of the curse to fall in love with the reason for the curse. It’s poetry; it’s the stuff that dreams are made of and the making of fairytale legends. Swanfire had been planned from the very beginning. I have faith that Adam and Eddy will be true to their vision; even if Neal and Emma have to struggle through years of trial to be together, the payoff will be that much sweeter and all the more rewarding when they do find their way back to one another, emotionally and not just physically. Love is a journey, not a destination.

At the end of the day, it’s not about how attractive two people look together or how much smolder a kiss can generate in the heat of the moment. It’s about making a commitment to another person, to building a home together, and about lasting love. With over 10 years in the making, SF has already been tested in that regard. Its foundation is still in tact; all that remains to be done is to rebuild after the hurricane of the dark curse tried to tear them apart. Yet, the kind of love that Emma and Neal share is the kind that can weather even the strongest storm, the kind that brings forth life and gives birth to the truest believer.

I read another quotation on Tumblr that supposedly comes from Edward Kitsis, though I cannot find the original source online.

Eddy Kitsis: “When you have a love like Emma and Neal, you choose love.”

I wrote the person who posted it, who said it came from a magazine from summer 2013 but couldn’t exactly remember which one. Can anyone here verify it? If it’s authentic, then that would make me even more certain where SF stands.

"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

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