Spoiler alert for season five of Once Upon A Time. Hint, hint: it’s on Netflix now, so no excuses!

Audiences everywhere cried buckets of tears when Robin Hood (Sean Maguire) suffered the ultimate television blow and was killed during the course of season five of Once Upon A Time. Adding insult to injury, executive producer Edward Kitsis recently declared, “Dead is dead,” to journalists after the season six premiere, giving us no indication that Robin Hood will somehow have a magical Hook-esque resurrection.

So if Robin Hood’s not coming back from the dead, how will he be returning to the show? According to TVguide, Sean Maguire is slated to return to the enchanted series.

Kitsis and fellow executive producer Adam Horowitz are quoted as saying they are excited to show their future plans for Maguire’s character, “which in the wake of his character’s heartbreaking demise, is something we hope is unexpected and surprising.”

Indeed the move is so surprising that even Maguire himself did not anticipate returning to the ABC show. In an interview with TVLine back in May of this year, Maguire was asked about Hood’s death, to which he replied:

“I was a little shocked, to be honest. I didn’t expect that, because given what the writers had written, the fans and I sort of believed there was a different path for Robin. But I have always said that my job as an actor is to serve the writing above all else.”

Interestingly enough, the idea of being brought back onto the show was broached even in the May interview. When TVLine offhandedly asked if Maguire would ever be open to filming a flashback, Maguire replied:

“I don’t know… I’ve been asked to go back to shows that I’ve been on before and I’ve never done it, because I tend to feel that once I’ve played a character, I’ve done that. But you never know.”

So what could make Robin Hood pick up his bow and arrow again? Flashbacks? Someone else assuming his identity? Dream sequences? Only time will tell.

Once Upon A Time airs Sundays on ABC.