@DanielJLewis wrote:
Also keep in mind that Mr. Gold placed the key in Mary Margaret’s prison cell before Emma had come to him and told him that she approved of his results.
Good point. So the timeline had to go:
Making a deal with Regina
Planting the key (which must have happened during Mary’s interrogation, coz it was the only time the cell was vacant)
Offering to be Mary’s lawyer
Emma telling Gold she’ll do whatever it takes (and more)
Which suggests he was dealing with Regina first. Though if he was already planning to offer his legal services, then the timing probably doesn’t really matter, because he’d figured out what he needed from everyone involved already, and even if Emma hadn’t have come to him when she did, he still would have helped her and Mary out anyway. It’s just that now, Emma is aware they’re working together, and probably feels like they’ll be equal partners in the scheme, (sorry luv, not so much).
@rumplegoldfan wrote:
So I’m actually wondering if Gold and Regina were somehow working together to try to contain the crime to SB and actually have the whole thing post-poned. I think Gold wants something to happen BEFORE anything would go any farther with the trial and he was just giving Regina what she wanted as his way of helping make sure nothing about the situation leaked out of SB.
For sure they wouldn’t want it to get to the stage where involvement from people outside Storybrooke would be required. Would that even be possible? Suddenly some town that isn’t even on the map has someone who needs to go to trial for murder? So yeah, they’d need it contained, and I imagine that’d be motivation enough for Gold to work with Regina. Planting the key and having Mary make a run for it and disappear would certainly put a halt to the trial proceedings.
And also, this….
@Sam993 wrote:
This is going to be a stretch, but I think that Mr. Gold agreed with Regina to get Emma out of the job. As in, Regina planted the evidence not to make MM’s life miserable and arrest her (but that must have been one of the perks), but to make Emma look bad. Mr. Gold planted the key so that MM will leave and not come back, which would get Emma fired. Like he said in the beginning of the show, if she didn’t find MM, then she can kiss her badge goodbye.
…would be a classic case of “two birds, one stone” as far as Regina was concerned, so I can totally see her planning it that way, though I think Gold wants Emma to keep her job. So I can totally see that Gold’s words to Emma about “find her or it’s your badge” would have ensured that she got out there and found her and brought her back in time. Then Regina gets all irritated about how the plan didn’t work (which is a WIN for Gold coz he likes to watch her squirm), but he can shrug and say, “Well I played my part, but it’s not like I can actually control their actions, so it’s not my fault she came back.”
Oh that Mr Gold, he’s such a tricky lil devil, isn’t he. 😉