I guess I don’t see Emma NOT interacting with Henry for an episode or two as that big of a deal. Probably because my son is the same age as Henry and I know what 12 year old boys are like – you really don’t spend a lot of time staring lovingly at each other. You are happy when you get a grunt and a short but informative sentence of how their day is going. I love my son to pieces but at his age he has his interests and I end up being the chauffeur to get him back and forth to said interests – that is the how I talk to him, he is held captive in the car and has no choice to listen and grunt responses when I demand them in return.
Plus, as a woman I also have my own interests not to mention that I am married so I also spend time alone with my husband. My husband and I do actually go away on our own vacations (and so do all the other happily married couples we know). When we are on those vacations our rule is that we focus on US, not kids. We don’t talk about kids, about household stuff, parenting, etc. It is US time. Doesn’t mean I don’t love my son – does mean my entire world does not revolve around his existence. He will grow up a much healthier person because of that, but I digress.
Emma did talk about Henry in the EF. When she told Killy that SB is her home she talked about how Henry brought her to SB to bring her home not to break a curse. And they did already touch upon the implications of a Henry not being born if Emma wasn’t born back in
Regina’s house when they first discovered what Zelena was up to.
I just think the whole finale was about Emma figuring out that SB and the people she loves are her home, and the way she did that was to go back and LIVE out the Fairy Tales herself instead of just reading them in a book. So knew everyone’s SB side and had HEARD of their fairy tale character sides but until she actually experienced them in the EF and understood that they were still people JUST LIKE HER who had the same kinds of feelings and challenges and experiences – she was NEVER going to feel that she belonged with them. So the focus HAD to be on her parents and it had to parallel something that she was currently experiencing. Snowing didn’t have a child yet so Henry really didn’t play a role in the fairy tale storyline that was needed to help Emma – there wasn’t a parallel there. I thought it was also meant to give closure to Emma finally accepting her parents for who they really are . . . her parents. As much as this life might not have been one that Emma would have ever imagined for herself – it IS actually HER life, she DOES have parents who love her and she finally realized that she loves them.
I honestly think they have established that Emma loves Henry and vice versa, and that Regina loves Henry and vice versa. I think the next thing that happens with Henry will be him getting his own arc of some kind. Keep in mind a lot of what they can do with Henry is limited by Jared’s age. He can only work so many hours a day and can only work between certain hours of the day due to his young age. Unfortunately a lot of OUaT is filmed late at night or very early in the morning, outside of when he can film. So he just isn’t able to be on the set all the time.
I don’t think the show is perfect either. I found Snowing naming the baby Neal . . . awkward, but only until I saw the look on Rumple’s face and then I thought it was a sweet gesture to HIM and something that made sense from Snow’s perspective. Knowing how Snow is about family I think she would be concerned that Rumple would feel cut off from the rest of his “family” after Bae died and it seemed like them naming the baby Neal was a way for them to, not only honor him, but also reach out to Rumple and let him know that they still very much consider him a part of their family. Yet . . . still it will be awkward every time they refer to Neal now.
As long as we don’t have Rumple making out with any other older and/or deeply disturbed or psychotic women on the show for at least a season, I can deal with just about anything though.