Season 1, Episode 15:
Red-Handed
Centric Characters: Red Riding Hood
Previous: Dreamy | Next: Heart of Darkness
Peter: Let me in or I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow the...
Red: (laughs} You'll huff and puff.
Peter: I could think of nothing.
Red: Oh, so you thought you'd level the house with the power of your breath [sniffs] Well, a case could be made.
Red: (laughs} You'll huff and puff.
Peter: I could think of nothing.
Red: Oh, so you thought you'd level the house with the power of your breath [sniffs] Well, a case could be made.
Henry: You know, you can let Ruby do more. She's Little Red Riding Hood.
Emma: With the little basket? Yeah, she seems like a badass.
Henry: She is. She just doesn't remember how cool she is or what she's capable of.
Emma: With the little basket? Yeah, she seems like a badass.
Henry: She is. She just doesn't remember how cool she is or what she's capable of.
At the police station, David denies being on the phone with Kathryn when the record says he was. Since Emma knows he's still not lying and that there's no evidence of foul play in Kathryn's disappearance, she sends him home but advises that he find a lawyer.
Meanwhile at Granny's, Ruby is enthralled in conversation with August about his travels while Granny nags her to get back to work.
FLASHBACK! Red Riding Hood is visited by her boyfriend Peter in the night and they talk about running away together and steal a kiss before Widow Lucas, Red's grandmother calls her. A hunting party is at the door, seeking to kill a wolf that slaughtered a dozen sheep. Red wants to go with them but Lucas denies her, telling her that the hunters are fools and reminding Red to keep her hooded cloak on, since the color supposedly keeps wolves away. Red tells Lucas that she hopes the hunters succeed so that she doesn't have to stay shut in all the time. The two women then barricade every way into the house, and Lucas guards the front door with a crossbow.
Granny wants Ruby to work more hours so she can train her on various paperwork forms, but Ruby has none of that and thinks Granny is too hard on her, prompting her to quit her job on the spot.
FLASHBACK! In the morning, Red and Lucas take down their fortifications and Lucas sends Red to check on the chickens. In the henhouse, Red collects eggs and is about to leave when she hears movement and finds the fugitive Snow White stealing eggs, although Red doesn't know who she is. Snow tells Red that she heard something terrifying in the night and sought safety and shelter in the henhouse. Snow doesn't want to tell Red her name since she's a wanted woman, and comes up with a pseudonym to use.
Snow: Uh, Margaret. Oh, no. Uh, Mary. Mary.
Red has "Mary" come with her, going to get water from the nearby well before heading back to the house. Red explains that what "Mary" heard was a monstrous wolf that terrorizes the locale and kills livestock during what's known as Wolfstime. As Red brings up the bucket, she finds the water stained red with blood before the two girls see the mutilated remains of the hunting party scattered in the snow.
Emma fills in Mary Margaret on David's second interrogation and her lack of progress on the case while preparing Mary Margaret to face the immense suspicion the townspeople will place on her and David. The two come across Ruby at a bus stop repeatedly turning down Dr. Whale's offers for a ride, and after Emma intimidates him away Ruby explains to them that she's on her way out of Storybrooke. Emma and Mary Margaret are concerned for her since there currently isn't a bus out of Storybrooke and Ruby doesn't even know where she wants to go yet, and they decide to have her stay with them for the time being.
FLASHBACK! Lucas, Red, and "Mary" arrive at a town gathering, where Lucas tells them all that the wolf is too powerful for them to kill, and tells them the story of how a similar wolf slaughtered her father and brothers and bit her arm before leaving, showing the scars to the townspeople. Lucas warns the town that all they can do against this beast is hide from it.
Back at the house, Red confides in "Mary" that she feels trapped living with her grandmother, and "Mary" quickly deduces that she wants to be with Peter, having seen the two exchange looks at the gathering. "Mary" says that she doesn't have anyone like that, and while Lucas is right about how dangerous the wolf is, "Mary" doesn't think that she should be using it as an excuse to keep Red and Peter apart. Red decides that they should remove that particular excuse and kill the wolf by attacking during the day unlike the ill-fated hunters. "Mary" thinks that this is a really bad idea, but Red has made up her mind.
The next day, Mary Margaret drives to the town line where Kathryn disappeared and walks into the woods where she hears something moving in the foliage, and is surprised to see that it's David. Mary Margaret realizes that, like her, he's there to search for Kathryn, and promises him that eventually Kathryn will be found and until then she'll stick up for him, but David is seemingly in a daze, only able to repeat the words "I'm looking."
FLASHBACK! Red and "Mary" look for tracks in the woods and soon find huge, blood-tinged paw prints with massive strides.
At the police station, Henry tries to help Ruby find a new job. Ruby notices the police station phone ringing, which Henry explains sends non-emergency calls to a machine for Emma to review later. Ruby starts answering calls and Emma is impressed with her skill in handling the people, and offers to hire her to do it along with other tasks at the station. Ruby leaves to pick up lunch as Mary Margaret arrives to tell Emma about David's strange behavior.
FLASHBACK! Red and "Mary" follow the tracks and are bewildered when the tracks morph from paws to boots, and the strides changing to a human walking pace.
"Mary": Red? What kind of monster is this?
Red recalls that Wolfstime happens once a month around the full moon and starts to bring up a mythical beast she's heard of before the tracks lead them right back to the house, right to Red's bedroom window. They put together the clues and realize that Peter is the wolf, transforming at night and losing his humanity which causes him to blindly kill both man and livestock. Mary convinces Red to tell Peter that he's the wolf if he doesn't know already, and to work with him to find a way to save him from the townspeople and vice versa.
Ruby goes to Granny's to order lunch, and she and Granny cannot resist taunting each other while the food cooks.
FLASHBACK! Red explains her discovery to Peter, and although he's dubious, Red insists that this is a good thing since they can run away together, sparing the townspeople from the terror of Wolfstime, during which they can just keep Peter bound until he returns to his human form. Peter agrees to try it that night, suggesting that they use some chains that he has from his blacksmith job. Red tells him that she's going to stay with him while he transforms, even with the risk that he could break out.
Henry puts his storybook in a locker at the police station to keep Regina from discovering that it wasn't destroyed, and tells Emma that Ruby is Red Riding Hood and that she can trust her to do more before heading home. Ruby arrives and brings her along on a search for David, deciding to take Henry's advice. In the woods, Ruby mutters that she can only screw things up before suddenly stopping and saying that she can hear David. Emma follows Ruby and they find David unconscious with a head wound. Emma wakes him up, and finds that the last thing he remembers is being at the police station with Emma the night before.
Emma takes David to the hospital, where Dr. Whale finds nothing out of the ordinary but suggests that David's episode is a lot similar to when he was first coming out of his coma. David worries that he could have actually made that phone call to Kathryn and not remembered it. Regina arrives since she's David's secondary emergency contact after Kathryn and orders Emma to keep searching for Kathryn.
Emma calls Ruby at the police office and tells her to go to the Toll Bridge and use the tracking ability she demonstrated to look for evidence of David being there recently, since that was where he had gone during his first episode. Ruby's unsure of herself but Emma insists that she can do it.
Ruby arrives at the bridge, and Emma directs her over the phone to search for clues, telling her to follow her instincts. Ruby flips over a wooden plank and digs under it, finding an ornate wooden box while Emma reminds to find "something of Kathryn's". Ruby opens the box and screams.
FLASHBACK! At the house, "Mary" lies on Red's bed wrapped in her cloak in order to fool Lucas into thinking that Red is there, but Lucas discovers the deception and as "Mary" explains that she and Red discovered that Peter turns into the wolf at night and that Red has him tied up somewhere, Lucas is horrified and hurries off to find them.
In the woods, Peter is chained to a tree as Red, the real wolf, pounces on him.
Back at the police station, Ruby can't bring herself to look at the box's contents. Emma comforts her and tells her that she's done well.
FLASHBACK! Lucas and "Mary" rush through the woods as Lucas explains that she always knew that Red was the wolf, as Red's mother was one too before she was killed. Red's cloak is enchanted, as Lucas got it from a wizard, and keeps her in human form as long as she keeps it on, but she often removes it and unknowing transforms and escapes the house. "Mary" recalls Lucas' story, and she reveals that that wolf was Red's grandfather who turned Lucas into a werewolf as well, and although Lucas no longer transforms she still has heightened senses during Wolfstime, which she explains to "Mary" is how they're tracking Red and Peter. Lucas loads her crossbow with a silver-tipped arrow which can incapacitate the wolf as they draw closer. They emerge into a clearing where the wolf is eating Peter's remains, and Lucas downs the wolf before "Mary" throws the cloak over it, transforming Red back into a human. Lucas and "Mary" try to get Red away as another hunting party draws near, but Red sees Peter's remains and begins to have a breakdown as she realizes what she is and what she's done. Lucas stays behind as Red and "Mary" flee together.
Ruby goes back to the diner and apologizes to Granny, noting her scarred arm which gets more pained around the full moon. Ruby has decided to return to her job at the diner and explains that while she's scared of new responsibilities, working with Emma has taught her that she's more capable than she knows, but doesn't want to continue in that line of work. Granny tells Red that the reason she wanted to train Ruby on new tasks was to prepare her to take over the diner when Granny retires, since she only trusts Ruby to do it.
Mary Margaret tries to reason with David at the pet shelter where he's distraught over not being able to trust himself due to his blackouts. Emma arrives and tells them about the box, which contained a human heart. Although DNA tests haven't returned, Emma's doubtful that the heart could belong to anyone other than Kathryn since there's no other missing person case. As David breaks down, Emma adds that there were fingerprints inside the box's lid matching those of someone in Storybrooke. David offers himself for arrest but Emma refuses as the fingerprints weren't his, but Mary Margaret's.
Tropes
- Animalistic Abomination: The scene where Granny tells the people of the village about what the wolf did to her father and brothers when she was a child is a truly chilling and unsettling example of this, particularly the way she emphasizes how unnatural the wolf was in the way it acted toward her. Ironically, Granny herself is a wolf (though no longer able to change), but this just acts as another source for her knowledge's reliability—she knows from experience that turning into the beast makes you a rampaging, immoral killer. The fact the wolf came back to change her, and ended up becoming her own husband in the years to come, just adds an extra disturbing layer to how bad this Big Bad Wolf was.
- The Big Bad Wolf: Red Riding Hood.
- Bloodless Carnage: Averted with the hunting party that the wolf killed. Not to mention the well water.
- Call-Forward: The assumed names Snow White offers to Red are Margaret and Mary.
- Contrived Coincidence: Ruby happens to get fed up with her life at the diner and strikes out on her own...right when Emma could use extra help at the sheriff's office and her (unrevealed until the latter third of the episode) wolf nature will allow her to track down both the wandering David and the evidence needed to proceed with Kathryn's case.*
- Couch Gag: The title card features Red Riding Hood.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Ruby. Her Enchanted Forest counterpart felt stifled and trapped, and wanted to explore and see the world, but didn't specifically seem to be lacking in an actual purpose.
- Double-Meaning Title: Or even triple meaning. It's all about the backstory of Red Riding Hood, it involves evidence incriminating Mary Margaret for Kathryn's murder being found (her fingerprints, but also on a box containing a bloody heart), and in the Enchanted Forest the truth about Red being the wolf is revealed through her literally changing back by what's left of Peter's blood-soaked body. It's even more literal than most, since the episode had earlier had Granny claiming red was a color that protected against wolves, and in the end it turns out the red cloak magically does (by preventing/reversing the transformation). Also, see Red Herring below.
- Eaten Alive: Poor, poor Peter is eaten by Ruby when she turns into a wolf. She's horrified when she wakes up and realizes what she's done.
- For Your Own Good: The reason Granny didn't tell Red the truth about herself, to keep her from having to bear that burden.*
- Frame-Up: The box with Kathryn's heart is found at the toll bridge, where David had previously collapsed after awaking from his coma and where he and Mary Margaret had been meeting. But it turns out this works both ways, since it being their special place also works to frame Mary Margaret once her fingerprints are found on the box.
- Human-to-Werewolf Footprints: Inverted; Ruby and Snow find the wolf's tracks, then see them turn into booted human footprints.
- Idiot Ball: Granny has taken a lot of flack since this episode for not just telling Red about the curse. She even admitted herself that it was wrong to keep it from her.
- It Makes Sense in Context: "Emma was my lemur." Explanation Also something of a Memetic Mutation eventually.
- Meaningful Name: Peter's name is a reference to Peter and the Wolf, and should let you know that the Wolf and Peter are separate individuals.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Granny has an understated version of this as she berates herself for not telling Red the truth and thus allowing people to be killed. Red herself has the much more heartbreaking and severe version when she sees Peter's body and is told of her nature.
- Mythology Gag: When Peter comes to see Red at her window, he speaks of huffing and puffing and blowing her house down. Also, in Storybrooke Henry keeps trying to find jobs for Ruby that involve carrying things in baskets.
- Never Mess with Granny: After locking the doors, Granny orders Red to go get some sleep and herself sits down facing the door with a loaded crossbow.Red: Didn't you sleep?Granny: I'll sleep with the trolls in the afterlife.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Passed down through the family, and it has quite a few parallels with the menstrual cycle, considering it started when Red was 13 and Granny (who is obviously menopausal) speaks of the transformation and most of the wolf abilities fading with age.
- Red Herring: No pun intended.
- Peter was set up to be the wolf, being a hairy stranger who convinced Riding Hood to disobey her grandmother, but it turned out Riding Hood herself was the big bad wolf.
- In Storybrooke, Mary Margaret finds David wandering in the woods, seemingly looking for Kathryn, but lost in some sort of fugue state where he can't even recognize her, making it look like he might have killed Kathryn without knowing or remembering it. Turns out it's just him starting to get flashes of his fairy tale memories again. Also the unknown call from him to Kathryn acts as this, as well as finding the box with the heart at the toll bridge, since the fingerprints end up incriminating Mary Margaret instead.
- The Reveal: Red being the wolf. Helped along not only by the similarities to other versions of the tale where this was the case but by the Foreshadowing where Ruby was able to track down both David and the box with the heart without knowing how she did it, the moon clearly being full at the time (from a scene where Mary Margaret and Emma were talking), and the fact that if Peter wasn't the wolf, the only other person whose footprints could have led to the cottage window was...
- Reveal Shot: The pan out to show the slaughtered hunting party around the well.
- Shout-Out: The episode holds many similarities to the 2011 movie Red Riding Hood.
- Silver Has Mystic Powers: The only time in the series this is brought up—Granny has silver-tipped arrows to use on werewolves. But rather than the usual modern examples of Holy Burns Evil or this weakness being both fatal and the only thing capable of killing them, all it does is weaken the wolf enough to stop it from attacking (and in this case, give them time to put the cloak over it). In fact a later episode reveals werewolves can indeed be killed by mundane means.
- Too Dumb to Live: While admittedly being informed you may be a werewolf is traumatic, you'd think Peter might have had the sense to have locked himself up alone somewhere safe and not in the middle of the forest on the off chance that hey, his girlfriend might be wrong and he'd end up sitting there tied to a tree with a werewolf attacking him...
- The Unreveal:
- It's never revealed who the wizard was that gave Granny the red cloak for her granddaughter, but chances are it was probably Rumple. He does later tell Belle, after Granny treats him rather coldly at the diner, that he has a "complicated past" with most people in town, including her. Thus it's also never revealed what she had to trade to him for it.
- It's also never revealed just what was up with the unexplained call from David to Kathryn that made him at first seem to be the guilty one; this episode implies he simply forgot about the call due to his real memories trying to return and putting him in fugue states, but it's entirely possible Regina just doctored the phone records (considering she had them all along, as well as the photos of him and Mary Margaret), the same way she did the heart and the rest of the evidence against Mary Margaret.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Peter doesn't survive the episode. This may have fallen under Doomed by Canon, the show's own anyway, if not for the nature of the Dark Curse to explain why Peter hasn't been around.
- Wham Line: "The fingerprints weren't yours. They were Mary Margaret's."
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The whole episode in the Storybrooke segments is about convincing Ruby of this, first from Henry, then Emma, and finally Granny. The last part consists of a So Proud of You moment, and noting that the reason she wanted to give Ruby more responsibilities at the diner was because she believed in her ability to handle them.
