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I want to talk about this moment because I think it’s one of the most heart wrenching moments these two have.
It was Emma’s idea to steal the watches. He tells her he can’t let her do that. And she counters “I love you,” and that’s what changes everything.
Let’s talk about Neal up to this point. At 14, he was willing to go fight in a war that meant his certain death, because the law said he had to, and why should he be any different than his friends and neighbors? At 14, he was willing to leave not only his home, but his entire world if it would take away the dark magic destroying his father. At 14, he gave up the Darlings, a family he actively considered his own, in order to keep them together. So when he sees the wanted poster, he thinks emma can’t be in the car beside me. Because his first instinct has always been to protect. He looks so defeated in this scene, because this is what it always comes down to. He’s doomed to make these choices his whole life. It’s not that he’s continuously abandoned, though we do see that happen— if people don’t leave him, he has to leave them. That’s so jarringly sad to me, to be the person who always has to leave.
But then Emma finds a way to fix it, and that’s not really something he’s been given before (to his knowledge— he obviously didn’t know the darlings came after him at this point, or even that his father was trying to come back for him). But that’s not what convinces him. MRJ has said the I love you is what made him let her try it, that he absolutely was not going to let her until that point.
Because in that moment, she wants to do for him what he would do for her. She wants to protect him the same way he wants to protect her. He knows where she’s coming from because it’s where he’s coming from. Someone wants to do for him what he’s done his entire life for other people. And when he tells August “I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to her,” it’s because of this moment. He truly believes that, but I don’t think he could have without believing she loves him the way he loves her. She’s the best thing that happened to him. Because they promised to protect each other.
And for Emma— we don’t know a lot of details about her backstory before this point. We know she grew up thinking her parents left her on the side of the road, we know she was given back by her first foster family, we know she went from foster home to foster home for 16 years. We know she’s been alone. She probably hasn’t heard an I love you for a very long time, if ever, and she’s never had anyone to fight for her— but she also doesn’t have anyone to say it to. She doesn’t have anyone to fight for. And I think this moment shows how much she craves that, how she’s not going to let him go because she needs to love him as much as she needs to be loved.
And then it obviously goes to hell. But I think this moment right here defines the core of what a happy ending is for both of them: Someone you love who loves you back. Someone you’d fight for who wants to fight for you. To take care of each other. Because that’s family. And what more do two lost children want than family