I think it’s a mix of the clever show explanation but more so that they hadn’t formed Zelena totally yet. Adam and Eddy have stated that they write the show arc by arc with only a general idea of what happens next. For example: at the end of S2, they knew they wanted to go to NL, but it wasn’t until the summer before S3 began that they came up with PP being Rumple’s father.
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"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"