Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-25926288-20170728205559/@comment-27060727-20170801070539

ChocolatEyes613 wrote: Henry is an adult now. So, there is no need for his grandfather and stepfather to rescue him. Unlike Regina who just has Henry, Rumple and Hook have families of their own. This will just be some piss poor excuse, to sideline Henry's biological mother. Since, we all know Emma was originally meant to be a regular in S7. I've said it before but the writers' hands are tied. They chose to keep the real Hook and Henry on the show without her, so it's an extremely awkward situation to have to erase those dynamics on-screen.

I can see no option for writing Emma out that will be satisfying, given Jen only gave them 1 more episode after 6x22 should've been the happy beginning/ending for everyone. They will absolutely be presenting some random, probably OOC excuse as to why she's not present. Or maybe Emma did want to help but didn't end up getting a choice in the matter, if they don't want to leave her painted in a negative light. But the only solution to remedy this would be if this season was scrapped altogether or had been done with a totally new main cast. I'm not expecting the excuse to make much sense or to align with what we've known about the types of decisions these characters have made in previous seasons.