In PaTF, the bad guy Dr. Facillier cannot maintain the illusion spell without fresh blood so he needs to keep Naveen alive. I could see something similar here with why she’d kidnap rather than kill Neal but it is a bit of plot-armor but certainly no worse than we’ve seen before in this show why some characters do not kill others. Anyway, I think Wicked would send Walsh to keep Emma busy, and to try to entrap her in a sleeping curse of some sort so she could never die to break the curse, nor use TLK to break it either. So her eventual goal with Emma is to lure her to town to trap her. Hook shows up though and disrupts the WWW’s plans by bringing Emma to town early. From there, I am not sure at all what happens. I think the Wicked has Rumple’s dagger up her sleeve, and it is a big shock when he appears. I’m completely confused though why Walsh would reappear unless he’s a monkey double-agent perhaps, because he’s working with the Wicked only to help free HIS true love Rapunzel or something like that. Maybe he’s not originally a monkey either but it is a curse he’s suffereing and they transfer it to Neal. I have no idea. Weird show is weird.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass