As far as the mobile goes, I’m actually NOT cool with it being gifted to baby bro. He is their do-over kid; he’ll be raised with his parents’ love and as the kingdom heir. From Snowing’s perspective, I totally get having another kid, no ill will. But from Emma’s end, there’s no way to deny “replacement child” syndrome. She doesn’t seem to harbor any animosity, but still – this girl has so very, very, very few things of her own, from her own childhood – that it seems awfully mean to take the one tangible thing (aside from the blanket) we’ve seen floating around since S1 and just be like, “Here ya go kid, you can have this, too.” It just strikes me as really, really wrong.
My guess would be writers have a specific idea for how to use it down the road – I mean, we had no idea the top was a dreamcatcher til 314 – but who knows if we’ll ever see follow-up on that.
Switching subjects, I had a passing thought that may or may not materialize into something. In 320, we had Glinda/Zelena/Regina introduce the idea of making your own destiny. One of the things with Emma is that she’s never given the choice of how her life will go – her parents opted to “give her her best chance” and let her go; Neal did the same. Henry came to get her and she became the savior. Then at 3×11, although she is the only one who “could” have stayed or gone, she again had no choice in the matter – family to EF, her and Henry to LWM. When Hook came to get her after the lost year, she sort of had a choice – but knowing her family was in danger and Henry’s stance on heroes, not really. Interestingly, she seems to lay that blame on Hook, which (I can’t believe I’m saying this) IMO is not where it belongs. Anyways. We saw it again in 319, when she said it to Hook – “That should have been MY choice,” but again, someone tried to take it from her. All of the people in her life, who claim to hold her most dear, have made choices “for” her and generally, despite the absolute best intentions, it just ends up hurting her.
So when we get to 321, there is real potential for Emma to make her own destiny. If the story is told well, she has the choice to literally erase painful events from her past. Parents never meet? Won’t exist, no pain. Parents meet, but she tells Rumple, “If I tell you where your son is, you don’t enact the dark curse, and I get to be raised by my parents, deal?” Rumple heads to Neverland and baby-Emma stays in the EF, raised as a princess by loving parents… and never having to go through any loss with Neal (no abandonment in Portland, no SSTTR death, no 315 death.)
She also has the ability to look at those situations and say, “The pain was worth the end result, I have my family now and most importantly I have Henry.” Without those two key hurtful things in her life, she would not have that child – and was he worth all of the hurt? (I think the answer is a very easy yes.)
It brings us back to SF – and to echo cave, honestly. Is it easier to lose the life she has, now, than it is to face the pain all over again? And I hope, sincerely, we see it drawn back around – if she has the ability to do something (or ask Rumple to do something) to bring Neal back, is it worth that pain? Or is it easier to wish him to stay dead? She’s had it both ways, and though I wish the answer were as simple a yes as it is for Henry, I am not sure that it is.
The writers have an opportunity to tell a really great story of Emma’s character development with the finale. They have around 85 minutes to tell this story; that’s the length of a feature film, so they certainly CAN tell it well. We have been hearing about finale for a while and all parties involved seem really excited about it. So I am kind of looking forward to it; I am hoping we get MO322 of course but I am honestly hoping for two hours of good storytelling. Having six weeks of crap storytelling to set up an awesome finale doesn’t really EXCUSE those weeks, but if it provides reasoning for it, at least that’s something.
So if Emma is afforded the option to choose her own destiny, what would it be? I can state without hesitation it would include Henry. Based on what we’ve seen lately, I also feel confident in saying she has no need for pirates. As for her TL, if she’s given the option to choose her own destiny, does it include him? I sincerely hope it does. She’s had the opportunity to live that destiny without him, so maybe given the option, she’ll choose a different path.
Might be interesting.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...