Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26235327-20150813025024/@comment-24674051-20150814143822

However, you CAN show the audience a little about where Merlin is without having the characters find him immediately. Go back to both the Oz arc and the Frozen Arc, for example. In episode 2 of the Oz Arc, at the end of the episode, we get to see Rumple in Zelena's storm cellar, but the gang doesn't find out about him even being there until the next episode, and .it's maybe one or 2 more episodes before they actually encounter Rumple.

With Frozen, again, we see Ingrid at the end of Episode 2, But it's a couple of episodes before the gang puts all the pieces together.

So they could easily show Merlin off somewhere in 5x2 (one brief scene), and have some part of the story line seen from his POV, and still keep the main characters from finding him until toward the end of the first arc.