Once Upon a Time - Red Handed

What happened-

Fairytale World: Red Riding Hood/Liza likes a guy named Peter who keeps visiting her window, despite Red’s Granny wanting to keep them apart. There is a wolf in the village, killing sheep and all the men who hunt it at night, and Granny thinks Red should stay indoors rather than go Romeo and Julieting all over town. Red is brave and kind, and she wants to join the villagers to hunt the wolf, but Granny won’t let her. Granny says the color red keeps wolves away, so Red has to wear her trademark cloak all the time. Granny tells the town to just stay indoors because she saw the wolf as a girl. It scratched her arm and killed her father and brothers. That’s why Granny totes a crossbow at all times.

Red finds Snow in Granny’s chicken coop, stealing a couple of eggs. Red lets Snow stay with her. They go to get water from the well and find it filled with blood. They turn around and see the bodies of the latest wolf-hunting party. Red and Snow discuss true love, and Red decides to get rid of the wolf so that her Granny will have no good excuse to keep her away from Peter. Red tells Snow that if they hunt the wolf during the day, they will have the advantage. Red tracks the wolf’s footprints until they turn into half wolf and half human. Then they just turn human and lead back to Red’s window. Red and Snow remember that Peter goes to Red’s window.

Snow convinces Red to go to Peter and tell him that he’s the wolf. If anyone can tell him this horrible news, it’s Red. Peter trusts Red pretty quickly and agrees to be chained up that night for the change. Red promises to stay with him. That night, Granny realizes Red is missing and tells Snow that Red is the wolf, and Granny has been keeping her lycanthropy a secret from Red. The wolf was Red’s grandfather and he scratched Granny so that he’d know where to find her.

Granny turned into a wolf and bore a wolf daughter. Because Granny is so old, she is no longer transforming. Red started changing at 13. Granny gave Red an enchanted cloak that keeps her from changing, but sometimes Red takes it off. Snow and Granny go to find Peter and Red, but Red is already eating him. Granny shoots the wolf with an arrow and Snow throws the cloak over the wolf’s body. Red turns back into a girl, seemingly unhurt by the arrow, and Snow rushes her home.

Storybrooke: Granny gets upset when Ruby flirts with August (in Granny’s defense, it was shameless and just the sort of thing that made us think Ruby was a floozy at first). Ruby quits her job at the diner and Mary lets Ruby stay with her. After realizing that Ruby is tougher and more competent than she seems at first glance, Emma gives Ruby a job as her assistant.

Mary goes looking for Kathryn and stumbles on David wandering around in the woods, acting strangely. He doesn’t seem to know what he is doing or who Mary is. The next day (nice), Emma goes looking for David, taking Ruby. Ruby is able to find David, and he is unconscious on the floor of the woods. They take him to Dr. Whale, who suggests that David’s brain is still wonky from the coma. David doesn’t remember anything from the past night. Emma remembers that the last time David was found unconscious, he was at the toll bridge, so she tells Ruby to go look for clues. Emma thinks there might be something related to Kathryn’s disappearance there, because everyone is suspecting David of foul play.

Ruby finds a jewelry box buried in the dirt. She opens it and freaks out. We find out later that it as a heart in it. Emma goes to tell Mary and David, assuming that it’s Kathryn’s heart since she is the only missing person around. David demands that Emma arrest him, thinking that he wanders around hurting people in his sleep. But Emma tells them that the prints on the inside of the box are actually Mary’s.

Comments -

First of all, Red is gorgeous. She looks a little too harsh with bright makeup and straight hair, so we didn’t notice just how pretty she was earlier. Why did Peter just happen to have a bunch of chains with him? Weird. This show needs to work on its internal logic. The wolf eating Peter was the nastiest thing we’ve seen on this show, even if we didn’t see much of it. The bucket of blood was pretty gross too. We’ve always wanted this show to get a touch more macabre. If we had it our way, it would be super dark and Brothers Grimm-like, but this is a family show and we like its family ratings. This level of dark is fine. We think it’s pretty clear that Granny got raped by a wolf and maybe that’s TOO dark. We like the way they kept that subtle though. The kiddies won’t get it. Another thing they won’t get? Wolfing out only happens when women menstruate. Weird.

Granny really needed to tell Red what she was a lot sooner. It’s easier to live with the burden of being a wolf if you NEVER KILLED PEOPLE and kept your cloak on. Clearly, this situation was not under control. Of course Red would take her cloak off indoors and at night when she gets in bed. Ugh. We were surprised that Peter got eaten. With this show, we assumed Granny and her crossbow would get there in time. The heart in the jewelry box is Graham’s, right? We love the lack of damsels in distress in this fairytale show. We would expect nothing less from a show containing LOST writers, since that show had well-rounded, mysterious woman. This episode was one of the strongest in the show’s season so far. It was mostly coherent, had believable relationships (something this show struggles with occasionally), and contained just the right amount of Henry.

Episode grade: A