Once Upon a Time 1-15: Red-Handed

I never in a million years would have guessed where they were going with last night’s episode of Once Upon a Time. Well, okay, maybe I figured some of it out early on, but they still managed to throw some twists I wasn’t expecting. I think this was the darkest trip to Fairy Tale we’ve had yet.

I find it easiest to break the episode into the two settings, so I’m going to keep doing that, starting with Fairy Tale. We meet up with Red as she is flirting with Peter, her long time friend turned boyfriend through the window on Granny’s cottage. But it doesn’t last long because Granny insists that the cabin be locked up tight. A group of hunters even comes to the door talking about tracking and killing the wolf that terrorizes the village, but Granny says the best approach is to stay inside and wait out his time, two more days. Granny also insists that Red wear her famous red cloak because it repels wolves.

The next morning, Red and Granny are safe and sound. Red goes out to gather the eggs from their chickens and finds someone hiding in the coop. It’s Snow White who doesn’t want anyone to know who she is. First, she tries to go by Frosty, then almost picks Margaret before sticking with Mary. Nod to her Storybrooke persona? (And I’ve read Mary Margaret is her name in another version of the fairy tale, too.) Red offers her food and a warm place to stay, which Snow accepts. They are going to collect water when they find the dead bodies of some of the hunting party.

Later that morning, there’s a town meeting. The villagers are rallying to go out and kill the wolf that night. But Granny is there to talk them out of it, talking about how powerful it is and how an older wolf killer her father and brother years ago and left a bite mark on her arm.

But Red gets a brilliant idea – go out and track it during the day and kill it while it is sleeping. She talks Snow into going with her. They finally find the wolf’s tracks, but then discover that its wolf tracks turn into boot tracks and head straight for the cabin window. Only one person visits at that window, so it means that Peter is really the wolf.

Yes, they went there. Werewolf territory.

And while we’re breaking the action, is the name of Red’s boyfriend any accident? I don’t think so. Peter and the Wolf anyone?

Red decides that she will go tell Peter, and they decide to tie him up with chains so he can’t harm anyone that night. Red will stay guard to make sure that no one kills him.

Meanwhile, when it is time to bolt the cabin closed, Granny finds that Snow is hiding in the red cloak. And that’s when she flips and tells Snow the truth. Red Riding Hood is the werewolf. Granny was turned by the wolf she encountered all those years ago, and it has passed down to her daughter and granddaughter. The two rush out to try to save Peter, but when they get there, it is too late. Granny has to shoot Red/wolf to knock her out, and then Snow puts the red cloak on her. The cloak’s real power is to keep Red in her human form. When she transforms, comes to her senses, and finds out, she starts crying, and Snow has to lead her away to keep her from the hunting party.

Wow. I still can’t believe they made Little Red Riding Hood a werewolf. Yes, they’ve changed lots of things before, but none as drastically as this.

Okay, so over in Storybrooke, David’s still denying having talked to Kathryn on the day of her disappearance and can’t explain the phone records. Emma lets him go, but tells him that he might need a lawyer.

Meanwhile, over at Granny’s, Granny and Ruby get into it and Ruby quits and storms off. Emma and Mary Margaret find her waiting for the bus out of town and convince her to stick around and figure out what she wants to do with her life while staying in Storybrooke before she just sets off.

The next day, Mary Margaret sets off to see if she can find any clues to Kathryn’s disappearance only to run into David in the woods. Assuming he’s doing the same thing, she starts talking to him. He only repeats one phrase twice and then walks off. Worried, she sets off for the sheriff’s station.

Meanwhile, Henry and Emma have been trying to find something new for Ruby. She isn’t interested in anything having to do with carrying things in a basket. When she answers a phone, Emma hears her and offers to hire her to help out. First order of business, go get lunch at Granny’s. Ruby’s all excited until it’s pointed out to her that she’s doing the same thing she’s been doing, serving food. Discouraged, she returns with lunch, but Emma invites her along to search for David.

In the woods, Ruby almost immediately is drawn to where David is lying on his back. He comes to, but doesn’t remember anything since he left the sheriff’s station the night before.

Emma takes him to see Dr. Whale (yeah for David Anders coming back). He explains that David has blacked out again like he did right after getting his memory back. Emma and David quickly come to the same conclusion – another blackout might explain why he doesn’t remember that phone call to Kathryn on the day she disappeared. Just as they are making the connection, Mayor Regina shows up and asks why they are talking without a lawyer present. Gee, wasn’t it just last week that she was pushing Emma to arrest David? Now it looks like she wants him left alone. She basically tells Emma to get lost.

But Emma has an idea. She calls Ruby and asks her to go to the bridge, the place David went last time he blacked out, and see if she can find any trace of Kathryn. Right away again, she finds some, a box with a human heart in it. A box that looks just like the box Regina kept her collection of hearts in if you ask me.

Repulsed by her day at the sheriff’s office, Ruby heads back to the dinner to ask for her job back. As she and Granny are making up, Granny confesses that she wants to train Ruby in more of the business side of things so Ruby can take over the diner when Granny retires. (Granny also reveals the same scar her Fairy Tale counterpart has and says it bothers her during the full moon.)

Meanwhile, Emma is doing all she can to work with that heart. However, since there is only one missing person case, it seems obvious that it’s Kathryn’s heart. She explains this to David and Mary Margaret, and David holds out his wrists, “So arrest me.” Emma explains that she found some fingerprints in the lid of the box, and was able to identify them even if she had to send the heart out for analysis to confirm her suspicions. Anyway, the finger prints inside the box weren’t David’s. They are Mary Margaret’s.

And that’s where they left us.

My thought on that heart? It’s really the huntsman’s heart and Regina planted it there for someone to find. I’m wondering if David’s blackout spells are drug induced and she’s behind that as well. I’m wondering how she got Mary Margaret’s fingerprints to frame her, but I’m sure that’s easy enough to explain somehow.

Why, yes, mystery is my normal genre of choice, why do you ask?

Of course, this still all assumes that Regina is really behind Kathryn’s disappearance. I’m working under that assumption, but if you’ve got another theory, I’d love to hear it and anything else I missed in this episode.

Next week, we get more on Snow and her Fairy Tale feud with Regina while in Storybrooke, Mary Margaret deals with being a murder suspect. I’m quite anxious to see where they go with that.

On a different note, this weekend, I went to see John Carter. Click that link to read my review and then make plans to go see it yourself. You’ll be quite happy you did.