Great Emma’s characterization in this episode. We finally see a bit of her we hadn’t seen before, which is her being a coward essentially. Yet, I think most people in her situation would have done the same thing.
So in the Stranger, August points out that Emma doesn’t want to believe. It’s not like Emma doesn’t think it couldn’t be real, that SB could be FTL, but that she really, really, really doesn’t want that to be so. Emma doesn’t want to take up the responsibility of being the savior. So her magic is preventing her from seeing the truth. It’s granting her wish. Shows how powerful she is. Her magic is sooo subtle that she doesn’t even know that its affecting her.