‘Once Upon a Time’ season 5 spoilers: Michael Socha no longer series regular

Knave of hearts -While we heard the tremendous news earlier this week that both Sean Maguire and Rebecca Mader had each received promotions to series regular for “Once Upon a Time” season 5, we are falling a bit back to earth today with some more unfortunate news: Michael Socha will not be joining them for a second straight season.

According to TVLine, Socha is not necessarily leaving the show, but he will not have the series-regular title after first getting the promotion last year. We’re sad for him as an actor, but also not exactly surprised, either. The moment that his appointment was announced, we were somewhat perplexed about what the show had planned for him, given that Will Scarlett was mostly known for “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland” and had few direct ties on this show beyond Maguire’s Robin Hood. There were insistences that he was going to have a major part in the story in time, but it never really materialized. Instead, he was mostly just used as a foil to Rumpelstiltskin and a temporary love interest for Belle in Storybrooke.

Ultimately, this is just the sort of thing that does happen at times in TV. You bring someone on board in hopes that they will be a part of the story for a long time, but then one thing or another happens and it just does not stick. Maybe there were originally more ambitious plans for Will that didn’t materialize because something else happened instead. This is comparable in a way to how there were originally plans to do more with Dr. Whale and Red seasons ago, but nothing ultimately came out of that, either.

We will have some other news throughout the hiatus, so stay tuned. You can click here for now to see more on the promotions.

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