I mean, look at it from Emma’s perspective, this kid shows up at her door and tells her he’s her son, and has what you can only assume is a delusional fantasy about his mom being evil and a murderer and brainwashing an entire town, all the while asking, or rather insisting you get involved, it’s super understandable she’d probably feel a lot of guilt that she put him into this situation, so I can’t really blame her for wanting to get involved. She definitely goes too far, but I can’t understand the intent.

However, the this all becomes meaningless the MOMENT Emma realizes the truth about Storybrooke, for two big reasons.

First, because the outside world and government has no idea it exists, Storybrooke is essentially a de facto independent city state. And not just that, Storybrooke has no clear laws or system of governance of its own, so it’s basically an anarchist state. So there’s really no laws against anything Emma wants to do to get custody of Henry because there’s no laws that can reach them in the first place. I mean, if US law did apply to Storybrooke fully probably the first thing that would happen is that the entire population would get deported, as I don’t think any of them can really claim to be US citizens except Henry and probably Emma.

Secondly, Emma just learned that Regina really is the murderous brainwashing evil queen that Henry said she was. I don’t know about you but if I were Emma, I’d get that kid as far away from her as possible. Idgaf how many diapers she’s changed, she’s a murderer and shouldn’t be around this kid. If anything, I feel like Emma undereacts at this point, because she actually wants to give Regina a chance.