Recap / Once Upon a Time S2 E7 "Child of the Moon"

Season 2, Episode 7:

Child of the Moon

Anita: Humans make us seem that we are the monsters. You only become one when you start believing in it.

Belle: It's not every day you find out your friend is...
Ruby: A monster?
Belle: Hunted. I was going to say hunted.

Ruby's fear about turning into a wolf during the first curse-free Storybrooke full moon is confirmed when one of the town's residents is viciously murdered and Ruby is the prime suspect. Albert Spencer threatens to expose David as a shepherd, not a prince, and not fit to run the town as sheriff, as Leroy stumbles upon some treasure in the Storybrooke mine that could help bring Mary Margaret and Emma back into our world. Meanwhile, in the Enchanted Forest that was, Red Riding Hood finds a kindred spirit in Anita, a charismatic and mysterious leader of a pack of humans who, like Red, turn out to be werewolves.

Tropes

• Action Girl: Red is usually one in conjunction with her ability to turn into a wolf; in this episode, she takes down Quinn as a human.
• Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Henry gets one from Mr. Gold in order to survive in and control the netherworld.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Anita is implied to be one to Granny.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Anita. She's introduced as a loving mother who helps Red learn how to control the wolf, but her true colours are shown when she tries to kill and eat Snow for something that wasn't her fault.
• Couch Gag: The title card features Red Riding Hood.
• Evil Matriarch: Not so much evil per se, but Anita is ruthless and bloodthirsty enough to try and kill Snow.
• Family Eye Resemblance: Anita shares her green eyes with her mother and daughter.
• Fully-Embraced Fiend: Riding Hood's mother and her clan completely succumb to their instincts as werewolves, going so far as to attack normal humans.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Anita hates humanity for hunting werewolves like her, and is willing to kill Snow White as soon as she sees her.
• I Am a Monster: Red was convinced of this until taught otherwise about her wolf self by Anita and her pack; despite being forced to kill her mother when defending Snow White, she still embraces both sides of her nature. In Storybrooke however her long time without changing has robbed her of her control, and this (plus Spencer's Frameup with Billy) convinces her she's a monster again, to the point she chains Belle up instead of herself and offers herself to the townspeople's Torches and Pitchforks mob. Thankfully, David finally convinces her otherwise.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Variation. Ruby is so convinced she is a monster, and that she killed Billy/Gus thanks to her loss of control, that she willingly changes and offers herself to the townspeople as penance. David, then, has to appeal to who she truly is inside, not to fight against her "monstrous" nature, but to convince her of her own innocence so she will change back; the minute he succeeds, she has her control back.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Despite the fact their fight takes place in wolf form, this is how Anita ends up being accidentally killed by Red, rather than via fangs and claws.
• Internal Reveal: Emma and Snow finally learn from Aurora at the end of the episode that she is sharing her nightmares in the netherworld room of fire with Henry (thanks to Gold's amulet letting him control the dream).
• Jerkass: While he had good intentions, Quinn not only tried to burn Red's cloak, her only defense against turning into the wolf, but he also tried to strangle Snow.
• Kick the Dog: Not only does Albert/George kill Billy/Gus, frame Ruby for it, and reveal to the whole town that David is a shepherd rather than a prince (and thus unworthy of leadership), he destroys Jefferson's hat so there is no way for anyone in Storybrooke to help Emma and Snow get back—and this right after Leroy and the other dwarves had found the diamonds Blue and the other fairies could have made into the dust to restore the hat.^* He seemingly gets away with this too, until it's finally revealed in Season Six that he's been locked up in the asylum ever since, presumably by David as acting sheriff. Regina certainly wouldn't have minded at this point, even if she hadn't been focused on Henry and resisting magic.
• The Leader: Anita is this for her current wolf pack.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Lesser example, but because Emma never told David what she did to obtain the potion of True Love, Regina is still focused on Henry/resisting using magic/grieving over Daniel, and Gold is busy with Belle, neither he, Ruby, nor Granny are aware of the cavern under the library which would have been a much safer place to chain Ruby up than the diner freezer. Neither is Belle, though she does offer to chain her in the library itself.
• Matricide: Red Riding Hood kills her mom to save Snow White, albeit on accident.
• Meaningful Name: In Sanskrit, Anita means "without guile; leader", which makes sense since she's the head of the wolf pack.
• Missing Mom: Anita is the mother of Red Riding Hood, who abandoned her in order to live wild with her werewolf pack.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Completely unintentional, but because Red missed her agreed-upon meeting, Snow follows the wolf tracks to the pack's den...and this leads the Evil Queen's soldiers there which results in Quinn's death. Despite both her and Red's protests as to her innocence, Anita casts the blame on Snow, which has dire consequences indeed.
• Number Two: Riding Hood's mother isn't the sole leader of the werewolves; a man named Quinn helps her as the second-in-command.
• Of Corsets Sexy: We first see Anita in a rather revealing corset and leather pants much like another character we've seen before. Given how the show rarely does things without reason, the savvy viewer should figure out her less-than-admirable nature before the reveal.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: This episode goes to show that werewolves in Once can transform at will, once they learn to accept who and what they are.
• Pet the Dog: Gold gives Henry the amulet to help him with his dreams — no strings attached.
• Proud Warrior Race Girl: Anita holds werewolves in high regard and is dedicated to fighting hunters and killing humans before they get the chance to kill one of her kind.
• Shout-Out: A group of gothic, sinister, darkly supernatural creatures, living in a sunken room which had once been part of an ornate, sumptuous building, offering one of the protagonists the chance to join them and have control of their own destiny via the same powers they share. And the leader even ends up getting Impaled with Extreme Prejudice!
• Take a Third Option: As Red herself points out, her grandmother wanted her to choose being a human and fear her wolf self, while Anita and her pack want her to embrace being a wolf no matter what the cost to her morals or humanity, with neither caring what she herself wanted. In the end she chooses to be both, because Snow White, her only true friend at this point, is the only one who accepted her as both.
• Title Drop: Done courtesy of Quinn.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Unsurprisingly, Spencer/George incites one of these against Ruby, through a combination of the Frame-Up with Billy/Gus' death and her uncontrolled wolf-out. David has to both calm her down and talk the townspeople into being reasonable.
• True Companions/ Heterosexual Life-Partners: Red all but confirms that she views Snow White as this.
  Red: I didn’t lose my family today. I protected it.
• What Could Have Been: invoked Red's backstory here was meant to lead to more, but the show soon grew so complicated that there wasn't any room for it and Meghan Ory was released from her contract.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: King George justifies killing an innocent man with the fact that he was actually a mouse. Ruby beautifully calls him out on just who had the true humanity.