Wow. Totally different reaction from me. I teared up a lot, and felt they expanded on Neal as a character by quite a bit. And I can wait on the full story between Rumple and Pan. That being put out there, does anyone else think Neal is not going to make it to season's end?
Neal may be "frumpy" but he's got a better heart than ole Capt. Guyliner. Neal is someone that can empathize with Emma more than just about anyone.

You see, I'm of the opposite. Not so much that Emma deserves to be with Hook, but that she is so much better than Neal, if just for one simple fact: he let Emma go to jail for his crimes and did absolutely nothing to correct that. Yes, he knew she needed to become the savior, but after she found him again, he did nothing to explain it to her, and even acted like he was better than her about the stuff with Henry, and let Henry think she was the villain in all this. Then in Storybrooke he acted like a *****e when Emma suspected Tamara for good reason. And he's shown he's not above using people, even children, like when he put Robin's boy in danger from the shadow, to get his own needs. I'm more than fine if she moves on with Hook because Neal doesn't deserve her. Emma's not perfect, but most of the time she owns up to her mistakes.
Some more thoughts on tonight's ep:
Liked Regina's smirk when she learned Tamara and especially Greg were dead.
Real good character work tonight.
Pan is a great villain and the actor is doing some great work with him as well. To those who don't think he's evil, I've got a bridge in New York I'd like to sell you for cheap.![]()

Yowza, yowza, yowza!! Wow. Remind me not to get on your bad side. Yeesh.![]()
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Lol, I really don't even get that worked up about him, but it's just that how he's been written so far, I don't see how he can be considered a full good guy/hero when he hasn't atoned at all for his own mistakes.
Loved tonight's episode. Love the Neal/Gold stuff and Henry succumbing to Pan's games.
But, yeah, them doing a pre-The Return flashback for Bae with the same actor is questionable considering the actor is now almost two years older than he was then. But it is better than getting a different young actor. Why would it be one actor for Rumple becoming the Dark One and later for falling down the portal, but then another actor entirely for an event taking place in between?
The Rumple and Neal scenes were the highlight for me. I too will admit my eyes got a little wet. The Rumple and Belle scenes are sort of funny in that they remind me of Gollum/Smeagol from LOTR.
I like the actor that plays Peter Pan, he delivers his lines perfectly like a brat you want to punch, but I'm still not sold on him living up to the role of big bad. Cora would crush him with her pinky.
Underwhelmed that nobody on Team Emma-Regina-Snow-Charming-Hook had much to do.
I like Pan. He feels like an older person on the inside with the body of a youngster. Still, I want some more and they are parceling it out.
As for the lack of forward momentum with our "rescue team", I actually wish we did have a little less of them, believe it or not. I like what I've seen so far, but I miss Storybrooke and the other characters this season. Also, does anyone else get the feeling Hook will eat it next ep? On LOST, they famously almost always had the full revealing of a character's back story in the same ep in which they knocked them off. Just saying.
I actually wouldn't mind if the "rescue team" weren't shown in a few episodes. It just seemed like the writers didn't know what to do with them tonight.
And yes! I couldn't put my finger on it, but I too miss ole Storybrooke, it's almost like I'm homesick, lol.
Never heard of him, but this should be good.Exclusive: Once Upon a Time Casts Rumplestiltskin's Father
by Natalie Abrams
The Dark One's daddy issues are about to surface in a very big way.
British actor Stephen Lord has been cast as Rumplestiltskin's father on Once Upon a Time, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.
On the series, we've learned that the father of a young Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) was branded a coward, so Rumple was desperate to prove he wouldn't follow in dear old dad's footsteps. But when he was drafted to fight in the ogre war, a seer prophesized that he would die in battle, so Rumple intentionally injured himself to sidestep the prophecy. Unfortunately, that also led him to also be branded a coward.
Lord (EastEnders, Shameless) will appear via flashback in at least one episode, slated to air Sunday, Nov. 17. Suffice it to say, we'll get to learn exactly why he wasn't such a great father.
"We've hinted in the past that his father was a coward and that his father's name was something that haunted him and that his father left him," executive producer Edward Kitsis recently told TVGuide.com. "This is a man who wants to break the cycle of his past. He wants to be a good father, but it's like that quote, 'I can resist everything but temptation,' so that's also his weakness."
Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8/7c on ABC.
Unlike, say, Regina, Neal deserves to be cut TONS of slack.

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