S03.E10: The New Neverland

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

Pan's plan threatens the citizens of Storybrooke's joy over Henry's return; Snow and Charming spend their honeymoon searching for a mythical being that could stop Regina.

Written by Andrew Chambliss

[KAOS Agent]

I feel a bad for Medusa here. She was just minding her own business and along comes Snow to chop off her head. I thought heroes didn't kill. Not cool. Snow and David deserve to be turned to stone for the attempt.

Since I'm bagging on Snowing, I'll just continue. First, Regina has threatened them directly. They know it is coming. Instead of spending a little time thinking of non-Medusa related ways to neutralize her, they decide to hope for the best and try for a baby immediately. I get not wanting to put your life on hold indefinitely, but is it too much to ask them to put it off for a few months while they are facing a direct threat? It's just irresponsible to consider bringing a baby into that situation. The fact that Emma is the one who suffered the most due to their reliance on Hope™ makes it worse.

Then there's Snow's lamentation that Emma didn't listen to her about Neal. It's obvious nobody heard Emma's Echo Cave confession besides Neal. I still don't think they know the entirety of the Neal/Emma saga. There's way too much water under that bridge for other people to be meddling in whatever might/should happen between Emma and Neal.  

On that note, I liked the Hook/Neal conversation. Hook not wanting to be a reason for another family being separated was a nice touch. He's willing to let things play out without inserting himself into the equation, which I appreciated. The shade he threw at Neal about walking out on Emma before and his doubt about her letting it happen again was excellent. Hook is miles ahead of Snow in terms of understanding Emma.

Edited December 1, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[andromeda331]

8 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I feel a bad for Medusa here. She was just minding her own business and along comes Snow to chop off her head. I thought heroes didn't kill. Not cool. Snow and David deserve to be turned to stone for the attempt.

Since I'm bagging on Snowing, I'll just continue. First, Regina has threatened them directly. They know it is coming. Instead of spending a little time thinking of non-Medusa related ways to neutralize her, they decide to hope for the best and try for a baby immediately. I get not wanting to put your life on hold indefinitely, but is it too much to ask them to put it off for a few months while they are facing a direct threat? It's just irresponsible to consider bringing a baby into that situation. The fact that Emma is the one who suffered the most due to their reliance on Hope™ makes it worse.

Then there's Snow's lamentation that Emma didn't listen to her about Neal. It's obvious nobody heard Emma's Echo Cave confession besides Neal. I still don't think they know the entirety of the Neal/Emma saga. There's way too much water under that bridge for other people to be meddling in whatever might/should happen between Emma and Neal.  

On that note, I liked the Hook/Neal conversation. Hook not wanting to be a reason for another family being separated was a nice touch. He's willing to let things play out without inserting himself into the equation, which I appreciated. The shade he threw at Neal about walking out on Emma before and his doubt about her letting it happen again was excellent. Hook is miles ahead of Snow in terms of understanding Emma.

That's what drives me crazy about Snow and I really like the character in season one and hate what they've done to her since. In this episode is another one of those. Snow decides to be pro-active which is great its what she needs to be. She knows Regina's going to do something, she just threatened them at the wedding. But decides to go chop off poor Medusa's head. Medusa hasn't done anything wrong she doesn't even seem to leave her home to terrorize people or anything. But Snow realizes she was wrong but they take it to the extreme. Yes it was wrong to go kill someone who hasn't done anything wrong. But its not wrong to be pro-active to a direct threat. Nope she decides to let go of all of it and try for the best. What? Why? Why can't they do both? Why can't they find another way or at least try before deciding on the wardrobe. They could have had Regina and/or Rumple working to keep the Charmings and army from stopping Regina.

Then she doesn't think Emma's listening to her about Neal. This makes her look either really stupid or really uncaring for trying to get Emma together with the man who sent her daughter to prison for his crime which also lead to her giving up her child. Who would do that? Why would anyone want? But they also never make it clear that Snow knows that. If not why wouldn't Emma or Neal tell her that? It makes no sense for her to keep cheering on Neal given what he did to Emma and also that he never told Henry when Henry was mad at Emma. That doesn't make Neal come off good and as her mother Snow should be weary of him. Not president of the Neal-Emma fan club. The other reason that would make a lot more sense that's been mentioned in the threads would be if Snow thought they were true love. Snow grew up in EF where everyone has a one true love. Its not a world where people date different people, have relationships and find someone that way. It would have been a great way bring up the differences between EF and LWM Emma explaining that's it completely normal to date. Snow trying to get used to the idea. Or hell even just one scene where's really angry with Neal at what he did to her daughter. Maybe Charming too. Its very frustrating. Mary Margaret and Emma had such a beautiful friendship in season one it sucks that we never got to see it continue or turned into a great mother and daughter relationship later.

[Camera One]

I just didn't see anything in this episode which suggested Medusa was meant to be anything but a straight-up villain.  She did have a bunch of victims and the bad CGI just didn't evoke any emotions of sympathy in me.  A&E clearly didn't bother reading up on her backstory, nor have they ever cared.  

[KingOfHearts]

47 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I just didn't see anything in this episode which suggested Medusa was meant to be anything but a straight-up villain.  She did have a bunch of victims and the bad CGI just didn't evoke any emotions of sympathy in me.  A&E clearly didn't bother reading up on her backstory, nor have they ever cared.  

I sure hope we get to explore more Greek mythological characters on the show!

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, KingOfHearts said:

I sure hope we get to explore more Greek mythological characters on the show!

This show is the perfect vehicle to have a half-season about that.  Can you imagine how much worldbuilding they could do?  

I was disappointed they didn't CGI an Ancient Greek realm, which is of course walkable from the Enchanted Forest.  

[KingOfHearts]

2 minutes ago, Camera One said:

This show is the perfect vehicle to have a half-season about that.  Can you imagine how much worldbuilding they could do?  

It would be great to see how religion works in the Enchanted Forest universe. Greek temples, their views on the afterlife, morality, etc. Does that clash with the Arthurian Christian mythology? Are there different religious sectors? I can't see wait to see what they do with what they've setup.

Edited December 1, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, andromeda331 said:

Mary Margaret and Emma had such a beautiful friendship in season one it sucks that we never got to see it continue or turned into a great mother and daughter relationship later.

That was the saddest aspect of 3A for me.  I still don't buy the rationale that Ginny needed less screentime for her pregnancy since they still continued to give her pointless lines and subplots.  It's about how you use characters than how much time they're onscreen.  We also got more of Snow over-reacting whenever she saw Regina hurt.  At least Emma and David still hardly reacted.

On the plus side, this was the first episode where I felt Emma and her father was finally able to have a nice conversation and "bond".  

The hand-wave Dreamshade cure was another lazy "let's get rid of this plot device now that we no longer need it to cause drama" decision.

Back in 3A, I suppose body snatching wasn't completely over-used yet, but still, no one believing Emma was just another replay of no one believing Regina in "The Cricket Game".  

This was also the beginning of every mega-villain dreaming about ruling Storybrooke.  What a coup.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

I just didn't see anything in this episode which suggested Medusa was meant to be anything but a straight-up villain.  She did have a bunch of victims and the bad CGI just didn't evoke any emotions of sympathy in me. 

But all those victims were in her home, so was she evil, was she fed up with having to defend herself from home invaders trying to cut off her head to use her powers, or did she have a bunch of stupid home invaders who made the mistake of looking at her? I did notice that they hung a lampshade on the fact that Snow was unwilling to execute Regina when she'd been tried and convicted but now she was willing to turn her into stone, but her explanation didn't make sense. Regina had always been a threat to the whole kingdom, not just the Charmings. Did Snow forget about the slaughtered villages?

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Back in 3A, I suppose body snatching wasn't completely over-used yet, but still, no one believing Emma was just another replay of no one believing Regina in "The Cricket Game".  

It's interesting that this round of not believing Emma comes right after Tamara was able to get the jump on them in the first place because no one believed Emma when she said she was suspicious of Tamara. You'd think that a week later when Emma said something was up, they'd have actually listened to her instead of jumping straight to "you're just jealous" (again) or telling her she needed to take a break and enjoy the little moments instead of worrying so much.

That's what I found amusing about this episode. They went with the thematic flashback link, but the Valuable Lesson learned in the flashback that they were trying to apply to the present was actually wrong for the present. This was not a time to just assume everything was okay and take time off to date and have fun. They'd been talking about how fiendishly clever Pan was, and they knew he had all kinds of powers. He'd been able to get Henry kidnapped across realms in the first place, and there hadn't been a body, so assuming they were safe and didn't have to be on the alert was just silly. I don't agree with Emma that being Savior means never getting a day off, but the day you return from barely escaping from a powerful villain who's still alive and still needs something from you isn't the day to take a day off.

Spoiler

Then again, these are the idiots who threw a big wedding and were dancing and singing when they knew that the villain of the day was still out there and was out to destroy them, so at least they're consistent.

I still crack up every time at Snow's speech calling out Regina for helping rescue Henry. I guess the rest of the town didn't know that she'd saved them from the failsafe (that she was planning to use on them) and that she was "good" now (not that Snow had any assurance of this -- Regina had just helped them rescue Henry, which was her own agenda. She hadn't said anything about changing, not wanting to kill them, etc. In fact, she'd said she didn't regret all the murder and evil), so she was letting them know Regina was good. I guess she didn't feel the need to mention Hook since he'd barely been in town and most of the townspeople might not have assumed he was evil. Still, the guy saved her husband's life and he doesn't get a shoutout?

Colin was having way too much fun in the scene when Hook drunkenly tried to proposition Tink and then when they ran into Emma and he was trying to make her jealous.

[tennisgurl]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I sure hope we get to explore more Greek mythological characters on the show!

When you can see the future, there is irony everywhere ;)

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's interesting that this round of not believing Emma comes right after Tamara was able to get the jump on them in the first place because no one believed Emma when she said she was suspicious of Tamara. You'd think that a week later when Emma said something was up, they'd have actually listened to her instead of jumping straight to "you're just jealous" (again) or telling her she needed to take a break and enjoy the little moments instead of worrying so much.

Ah, yes, I forgot all about that, and that was even more recently.  No wonder there was a deja vu.

Quote

But all those victims were in her home, so was she evil, was she fed up with having to defend herself from home invaders trying to cut off her head to use her powers, or did she have a bunch of stupid home invaders who made the mistake of looking at her? 

Maybe but I seriously doubt that was what the Writers were going for.  That's the thing with these Writers... there are so many ways viewers can get the wrong message which they could have avoided easily.  I don't think they were even trying to make this a grey aka "complex" situation.

What I did find funny it this time, they had Charming saying "Are you sure you want to condemn Regina to a fate like that?", regarding turning her into stone.  The Snow/Charming "insert opposite dialogue here" begins.

[Shanna Marie]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

What I did find funny it this time, they had Charming saying "Are you sure you want to condemn Regina to a fate like that?", regarding turning her into stone.  The Snow/Charming "insert opposite dialogue here" begins.

And we had two flashbacks during this arc in which Snow doesn't have hope and has to learn a Valuable Lesson, after they started the season with Snow giving a speech about always having hope. Though I guess Snow improved from the last time in that she didn't just lie down to become a victim. However, Regina's trial came after Snow decided she could fight and beat Regina, and that she had to win back her kingdom to protect her people.

Someday when I'm bored/have spare time, I ought to do a chronological outline of events in this series. If you put them in order of how they happened rather than in juxtaposition with present-day events, I'm sure this show would look even crazier.

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

 

Someday when I'm bored/have spare time, I ought to do a chronological outline of events in this series. If you put them in order of how they happened rather than in juxtaposition with present-day events, I'm sure this show would look even crazier.

With "Lost", I think once a community suggested rewatching the series in chronological order based on the flashbacks for each character.  This might allow us to discover there were 2 Snow clones, one naive hopeful one and one depressed emo one.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

41 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Maybe but I seriously doubt that was what the Writers were going for.  That's the thing with these Writers... there are so many ways viewers can get the wrong message which they could have avoided easily.  I don't think they were even trying to make this a grey aka "complex" situation.

But what makes Medusa different from Regina? We've seen the village slaughter Regina traffics in, so how come it's fine to kill Medusa but not Regina? It's more of this show's nonsensical morality. If they are going to stick with the heroes don't kill explanation to justify Regina and Rumpel's plot armor, then they need to be consistent with it with other "villains". In this case, Medusa wasn't remotely shown to be a threat to them. She was the subject of some stories Snow had heard from palace servants as a child, which says that she wasn't out there causing problems any time in the last decade or so. There is no excuse to go kill her as part of an ill thought out plan to stop Regina.

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's interesting that this round of not believing Emma comes right after Tamara was able to get the jump on them in the first place because no one believed Emma when she said she was suspicious of Tamara. You'd think that a week later when Emma said something was up, they'd have actually listened to her instead of jumping straight to "you're just jealous" (again) or telling her she needed to take a break and enjoy the little moments instead of worrying so much.

That's pretty typical of this show. They always brush off Emma's suspicions. I can't think of a time where Emma had a feeling about something and turned out to be wrong. It's not like she gave them reason to disbelieve her instincts. Then Snow took it even further when Regina was upset about falling for the switch by telling her that they all had. No, Snow, Emma repeatedly questioned things to all of you.

[Camera One]

32 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

There is no excuse to go kill her as part of an ill thought out plan to stop Regina.

It is the Writers' usual shifting morality where one set of rules apply to Regina/Rumple/main villains, while another applies to one-off's.  In this case, the Writers seem to consider Medusa a "monster". 

Snow also tells Charming that Medusa is immortal and cutting off her head isn't going to kill her.

Spoiler

Speaking of monsters, in Season 6, Gaston was evil for torturing an Ogre but in previous seasons, it seemed okay to kill Ogres.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

But dont you know? Its only evil to kill when it negatively impacts Regina, or can be used to drag Snow and Emma through the dirt. Yeah, Snow and Charming can hunt down and destroy Medusa for the crime of attacking some intruders breaking into her home trying to kill her, and they're hearts are rosy and perfect, but Snow killing the woman who was trying to murder her, her family, and all of her people, in self defense? Thats a black spot on your soul, missy! 

[daxx]

It’s too bad they didn’t have a brief scene of Emma telling Hook about her concerns because it would be in character for him to believe her gut instincts. It could have been interrupted so nothing would come of it. It would have been nice for someone to believe Emma.

[tennisgurl]

Regina really is super easy to manipulate, isnt she? All you have to do is talk about how great she is, and she will be handing out her social security number faster than you can say mommy dearest. 

The flashback was pretty much pointless, and makes it seem weird how killing is sometimes so horrible, but turning Medusa into stone is considered totally alright. Yeah maybe she was a monster, she was certainly creepy, but compared to Regina and her cronies? Why is she the only one they're allowed to kill? Is it just because she is ugly and not human?Because thats a pretty crappy look for the heroes. I did like some of the Snow/Charming banter throughout, especially when Charming was like "now I know how Frederick felt", and when he was reminding her that it was Snow who didnt want to execute Regina, when Charming was all for it. And wanting to have a kid is great, but seems pretty stupid when they have a murderous psychopath with magic powers coming after them. Maybe start painting the nursery after the threat is over?

Yeah, go ahead and give Regina all the credit, Snow. If anything, Hook was the one who did most of the work, and if it wasn't for him, they never would have even made it to Neverland in the first place. I did like Hook telling Neal that he wants to give him a chance to get with Emma, while also throwing some shade at him for ditching Emma in the first place, and basically being like "you clearly need the head start, because I am pretty much irresistible". Hook is also definitely a "get drunk and flirt with another woman to get the girl he really likes to pay attention to him" kind of guy. He was practically pulling Emma's pigtails in that scene outside of Granny's. 

Wow, no one gives a single fuck about Blue dying beyond "oh dear, Pan is back!" and putting a sheet over her. Please tell me they at least had someone move the body? And for a super fairy, she certainly didnt put up much of a fight, huh? Almost like good magic in this universe is useless until the plot says its not.

While I hate that the Charmings were trying to push Emma and Neal together, I did like the Charming and Emma talk. Its impressive how much they can feel like father/daughter, despite being about the same age. His joking about Hook was cute too, and came across as less overprotective and condescending than he could be about Hook sometimes, and more teasing. Actually, I kind of remember wondering if this was leading to a conflict between Snowing about the Emma triangle, with Snow pushing for Neal, as she wants Emma with her son and baby daddy, and Charming, being overprotective by nature, would still be wary of Neal, and after his bonding sessions with Hook in Neverland, he would come around to the idea of Emma/Hook. But, well...

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

It is the Writers' usual shifting morality where one set of rules apply to Regina/Rumple/main villains, while another applies to one-off's.  In this case, the Writers seem to consider Medusa a "monster". 

Snow also tells Charming that Medusa is immortal and cutting off her head isn't going to kill her.

  Reveal hidden contents

Speaking of monsters, in Season 6, Gaston was evil for torturing an Ogre but in previous seasons, it seemed okay to kill Ogres.

 

Spoiler

Yes the before seasons it was totally okay to kill Ogres but now that Gaston is torturing one no that is evil. According to Belle who ends up marrying the Dark One with how many kills? Who also tortured someone too.  It insane that she has such a problem  with Gaston but ends up with someone so much worse. 

Edited December 2, 2018 by andromeda331

[scarynikki12]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I guess she didn't feel the need to mention Hook since he'd barely been in town and most of the townspeople might not have assumed he was evil. Still, the guy saved her husband's life and he doesn't get a shoutout?

Hook is a threat to Snow's fantasy of Emma's Happily Ever After with the man who abandoned her to take the fall for his crime and would have successfully stayed away had she not tracked him down.  And Snow would never just sit down with Emma and have an open talk with her about what/who she really wants and why.  She'll just make assumptions and ignore her daughter instead. 

In real life I have a fair number of acquaintances who watched Once and rooted for Emma and Neal to end up together.  Here's the thing: none of them rooted for them because they thought they fit, had the best chemistry, or any of the typical reasons people ship.  It always came down to "Neal is the one who got Emma pregnant therefore they should end up together".  Personally, I think that's a dumb reason to ship because what if the show had decided to continue to have Neal follow in Rumpel's footsteps and he reaches a point where he decides to kill Emma?  Would his sperm still be enough for the ship?  I've asked this question and the answer is some variation of "but Neal was never abusive so I'm not going to answer that".  Now, to relate this back to Snow being the biggest Emma/Neal cheerleader: if this had been her position I think it would have made way more sense.  Snow wants Emma to be with Neal because he's Henry's father.  That she's just super old fashioned on this point and that she'd have rejected Graham for the same reason if he'd lived to end up in the same position as Hook is now.  It's also a position that can be changed and could be an interesting arc for Snow but instead it's part Snow hates Hook and part Snow genuinely seems to believe Neal to be Emma's True Love which should trump everything.

[companionenvy]

To be fair, Emma told Snow and Charming that she loved Neal several episodes ago. I may think as a viewer that Emma is misinterpreting her own emotions, but Snow and Charming can't be blamed too much for taking her at her word, especially as they didn't hear the Echo Cave speech where Emma sharply qualified what she meant by "loving" Neal.

Two questions that will never be answered: First, when did Emma get the impression that being "savior" is a permanent job title, rather than simply a description of her destined role in stopping a single, specific curse? If Emma feels that she has to live up to the reputation she acquired in breaking the first curse, that's one thing, but there shouldn't be any actual reason that she can't allow herself to move on and live her life at least as much as Snow and Charming can.

Second, wasn't Eric a prince in the EF? And now he's a fisherman? Are he and Thomas and all the other ex-royals all OK with becoming working-class average Joes? Aren't some of the people of SB their subjects, rather than Regina's (and, really, Snow's)? It was a minor detail in this episode, but it reflects a major worldbuilding fail. 

[profdanglais]

7 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

It always came down to "Neal is the one who got Emma pregnant therefore they should end up together". 

Replying in All Seasons

[KAOS Agent]

14 hours ago, companionenvy said:

To be fair, Emma told Snow and Charming that she loved Neal several episodes ago. I may think as a viewer that Emma is misinterpreting her own emotions, but Snow and Charming can't be blamed too much for taking her at her word, especially as they didn't hear the Echo Cave speech where Emma sharply qualified what she meant by "loving" Neal.

Snow being Neal's cheerleader never made a whole lot of sense to me just because there should be major qualms based on past history. It made sense that she and David weren't super enthusiastic about Hook for obvious reasons. I can understand wanting to help Emma with her confused feelings, but I didn't like that Snow was taking a side and really pushing for Emma to do something that she didn't want to do. Snow had her say and Emma decided against meeting Neal. Don't interfere with Emma's decision making once you've given your advice. Part of it is that I personally wouldn't be comfortable giving advice on this subject beyond taking Emma through a basic objective review of the pros and cons of a relationship with Neal. Whether it's worth it to open herself up to the kind of pain Neal had inflicted on her in the past is entirely up to Emma. Maybe the positives did outweigh the negatives (given Echo Cave, I'd say no), but she's the only one who can judge that. I think maybe the only thing I would be absolutely comfortable saying would be that it should not occur only because it would make Henry happy. 

[Camera One]

Snowing probably thought Emma deciding against meeting Neal was due to her walls coming up.  In everyday life, sometimes you might misinterpret what a loved one really wants.  Parents for better or worse give more advice than they should sometimes in their eagerness to "help".  In this situation, what Snowing did or didn't know and their worldview of romance from their past Enchanted Forest lives are fuzzy and undefined, so I saw it more as a misguided attempt to help rather than pushing/cheerleading one love interest over another.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

Snowing probably thought Emma deciding against meeting Neal was due to her walls coming up.  In everyday life, sometimes you might misinterpret what a loved one really wants.  Parents for better or worse give more advice than they should sometimes in their eagerness to "help".  In this situation, what Snowing did or didn't know and their worldview of romance from their past Enchanted Forest lives are fuzzy and undefined, so I saw it more as a misguided attempt to help rather than pushing/cheerleading one love interest over another.

I wonder what Mary Margaret would've said.

[KAOS Agent]

On 12/2/2018 at 5:50 PM, Camera One said:

Snowing probably thought Emma deciding against meeting Neal was due to her walls coming up.  In everyday life, sometimes you might misinterpret what a loved one really wants.  Parents for better or worse give more advice than they should sometimes in their eagerness to "help".  In this situation, what Snowing did or didn't know and their worldview of romance from their past Enchanted Forest lives are fuzzy and undefined, so I saw it more as a misguided attempt to help rather than pushing/cheerleading one love interest over another.

I never saw it as pushing or cheerleading one over the other. It wasn't like I thought Snow looked at the potential of Captain Swan and wanted to nip that in the bud by advocating for Neal. However, it just seems weird to me that she could have a realistic view of Hook and not be trusting of how that relationship would work out, but not look at Neal and also show some wariness. The fact that we never find out whether Snowing ever actually know the truth about the history of Neal/Emma is yet another problem with the show's refusal to show a growing relationship with between parents and daughter. I can buy Snow having some naive view of True Love and fate and all that jazz, but Mary Margaret and Emma had some serious conversations about a lot of things and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that Emma's one night only policy was a direct result of her relationship with Henry's father.

 I kind of wonder if the whole thing isn't some manifestation of guilt at what Emma's life was like. If in all that sadness she met her True Love and was now reunited with him to live happily ever after, then maybe Snow could believe that it was worth it for Emma. As it is, Emma's entire life sucked because of their poor choices and it's not all that great now. She doesn't seem all that thrilled with the role of Saviour and her future isn't particularly promising if she's constantly asked to save everyone. Meanwhile, Snowing are happily planning to move on with their lives with a new baby. If Snow can set Emma up in a happy family with Neal and Henry, it's like the perfect ending to Emma's fairy tale and she doesn't have to feel bad that her life is wonderful while her daughter's life continues to be lonely and leaves her stuck with a job she never asked for and is coming to deeply resent.

[daxx]

I suspect guilt and hope for forgiveness is the reason MM rooted for Neal. If Emma can forgive Neal she can forgive David and herself. Not a conscious decision mind you but pushing Emma toward forgiveness might have been part of it.

Not knowing what MM knew exactly about Neal makes it hard to nail down her motivation.