Once Upon a Time Recap: “Red-Handed”

by Tracy Ladd:

Once Upon a Time Recap: “Red-Handed”
Original Air Date (ABC): Sunday March 11, 2012
Season 1 Episode 15

Watching the “previously on” scenes at the beginning of this episode made me long for the days of Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan).  They showed a clip of him as the Huntsman and I had hoped that we might see him, but alas.  We didn’t.  Sad face.  What we did get however was the back-story of a character I’ve been wondering about since this series launch.  Ruby…or as we know her in FTL, Red Riding Hood.

The thing about Ruby/Red that intrigues me is her Storybrooke persona is so different from her FTL persona.  Most of the other characters have carried over their basic personality traits from one world to the other, but Ruby seems to be a polar opposite of Red.  The history of the Ruby/Red character was the big draw for me this week.  Not to mention that this episode was penned by the great Jane Espenson.  Espenson has written some of the strongest episodes so far including Skin Deep (the Beauty and the Beast story), Desperate Souls (the Rumplestiltskin back-story) and That Still Small Voice (the Jiminy Cricket back-story).  The jumps between FTL and Storybrooke were fast paced this week so to make this an easy read, I’ve recapped each world separately.  We’ll start in Fairytale Land.

We start with someone courting Red through her shutters.  When she opens them, she finds Peter outside.  He won’t leave until she gives him a kiss, which she does quickly so she doesn’t get caught by Granny, who’s busy preparing to ward off the wolf that is terrorizing their village.  Granny demands that Red stay inside, with all the doors and widows locked, and to keep her red cloak on, because red acts as a wolf repellant.

The next morning, once the threat of the wolf has passed, Red heads to the chicken coop to gather eggs and make sure the chickens aren’t dead, but finds Snow hiding inside.  Snow first introduces herself as Frosty but that doesn’t go over very well.  Red tells her that she needs something to call her so Snow says her name is Margaret….then says no, to call her Mary.  Nice tie in there.

The two women go to gather some water but find that the scouting party that came by the previous night have all been slaughtered and the well is filled with blood.  Gross.  The town gathers to get a plan to kill the wolf, but Granny speaks out and says they should just hide instead, and that she knows from experience.  She shows her arm that is scarred from her encounter.  She tells them about how she encountered a similar wolf when she was younger.

Later on, Red tells Snow about how she wants to run away with Peter but she can’t get away from Granny and how Granny thinks she needs to protect her from the wolf.  Snow tells her that she deserves a chance at love, which gives Red the harebrained idea that if they kill the wolf, then she’ll be free to love Peter.  So Snow and Red set off to do just that.

Turns out Red is quite the tracker and they soon find wolf prints in the snow.  The tracks then turn into boot prints that lead to Red’s window.  Red is convinced that Peter is the wolf and tells him so.  He tells Red to chain him up so she does, telling him she’ll stay with him.  Meanwhile, Snow is posing as Red, but Granny finds out.  Snow tells her that Peter is the wolf, and that Red went to stay with him.  Granny freaks out at the news that Peter is chained up and tells Snow that they have to find him.

While en route to Peter and Red, Granny tells Snow the truth…that Red is the wolf.  Granny tried to protect her from the truth, but now it’s time to come clean.  It was a trait handed down by her grandfather, and Granny was once a wolf too, but the trait has faded with age.  They find Red, in wolf form, but she’s already killed Peter and the hunting party is closing in fast.  Granny shoots Wold Red with a silver tipped arrow and they cover her with the red cloak.  It’s a magical cloak that prevents the transformation, and soon, she’s back as Red.  In order to hide her secret and save her, Snow and Red make a hasty escape.  So this explains what Snow did for Red.  I’ve been wondering about that.

In Storybrooke, Ruby makes eyes at August (they mysterious writer) as he tells her of his adventures.  She wants to travel and experience life, but is stuck at the diner.  Granny calls for her and gets annoyed and tells Ruby that she’s going to have to learn how to do the books for the diner, and to stop flirting with everyone who walks in.  Ruby, in frustration, tells Granny that she quits and storms out.

Meanwhile, the search for Kathryn continues and Emma has David at the station.  He says he can’t explain the phone call listed on the phone records and swears he didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance.  Emma believes him and lets him go.  Emma and Mary Margaret walk down the street talking about the case when they come across Ruby at the bus stop having a conversation with Dr. Whale, who is being sort of creepy.  Ruby tells them that she’s leaving, but doesn’t have a plan.  MM invites her to stay with them until she figures something out and Ruby agrees.

MM goes to the woods sporting a fabulously cute umbrella, (to try to find something relating to Kathryn I guess) and ends up running into a very zoned out David.  He’s wandering around in a daze and isn’t himself at all.  MM gets worried and heads to the station to tell Emma.

Ruby is at the station with Henry and he’s helping her find a job.  He keeps hinting at her FTL identity asking her if she likes to deliver things in a basket.  When the phones start to go crazy, she answers and helps the caller.  Emma overhears and tells her that she’s hired.  MM gets to the station and tells Emma about David wandering around like a zombie in the forest so Emma heads out to find him with Ruby in tow.

They get to the forest and while Ruby’s self-confidence meter is in the negative, she’s the one who finds David.  Seems that she carried over those tracking skills from FTL.  David is out of it and has a cut on his head and the last thing he remembers is being in Emma’s office.  Emma takes him to the hospital, where Dr. Whale tells them that it could be attributed to his being in a coma for so long.  Regina shows up because she’s still listed as his emergency contact and has words about Emma finding Kathryn.

Emma sends Ruby out to the troll bridge on a hunch and tells her to look for anything out of the ordinary.  Ruby’s spidey-sense leads her to dig and she finds a box and what it contains horrifies her.  She takes it back to Emma and decides that working for the Sheriff’s department isn’t for her.  She goes back to Granny and tells her that she wants her job back.  She says that she left because she was scared she wouldn’t be able to do everything that Granny wants her to do.  Granny tells her that she’s grooming her to take over because when she retires, she’s giving the diner to Ruby.  The two hug and make up and all is well…for them at least.

MM is with David at the animal shelter trying to figure out what’s happening to him.  Emma shows up and tells them that they found a box and inside was a human heart.  Emma tells them that she’s having tests done on the heart to try to figure out whose it is, but also inside of the box, were fingerprints.  David tells Emma to arrest him immediately but Emma tells him that the fingerprints weren’t his….they were Mary Margaret’s!  Yikes!

So of course MM is being set up, most likely by Regina.  But the question remains…where is Kathryn?  Is that really her heart?  And why wasn’t it in Regina’s vault?  More on this next week!

DarkMedia contributor Tracy Ladd has been writing about film since her days on the her high school newspaper. Even though she took a decade or two off to explore other things, she’s back to doing what she loves. She also bakes, can knit a pretty nifty scarf and makes lightsaber sounds with her knitting needles. Or chopsticks. Especially with the lightsaber chopsticks.

You can find her on Facebook, on Twitter @ReelGoddess, and on her website The Reel Goddess.