Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28883990-20160629232119/@comment-24674051-20160702210432

There were a few things about that scene (in Swan Song) that could tie into the how the town line curse was broken.

1. While Killian absorbed the darkenss from the other dark ones with excalibur, Emma and Killian retained their darkness until Emma killed Killian, at which point they reverted to their uncursed selves. while we know that the darkness went to Rumple, there could still be significance in that final transference.

2. Killian died. And one thing about death that we have seen is that most of the spells and curses also expire upon the death of the caster. Now, the Dark curse is a bit trickier, but it is possible that because curse 3 was cast on top of curse 2, the 2 were intertwined, making a complete reversal impossible. but it is conceivable that the town line curse from curse 3 was in fact removed with Killians death, leaving the one in place that allowed crossing, but only allowed return by way of the Apprentices scroll. which could easily have been obtained by Emma or Regina before they left, or by having Mother Superior bringing it to them at the town line when they returned.

3. Part of the scene involved a kiss between Killian and Emma. And while they did not show the typcial "whoosh" seen with other TLK (possibly due to the other magic also happening at the time due to the darkness), we do know that Emma and Killian are TL, and that kiss could easily have been enough to break the town line curse, especially given the circumstances.