Recap: Once Upon a Time Issues a Red Alert — Plus, Are We Getting [Spoilers] Next Episode?!

Things got hairy this Sunday on ABC’s Once Upon a Time, as Ruby feared her first full moon as an uncursed werewolf, Red realized you can’t go home again and Henry got dragged back into the nightmare room.

IN THE FAIRYTALE LAND THAT WAS…. | While fleeing the queen’s guards, Red and Snow agree to split up, seeing as wolfstime was near and Red wanted to protect her gal pal. During their separation, Red meets Quinn, a fellow wolf who leads her to a den of people just like them — and is lorded over by Anita aka Red’s mother! (Granny lied about Red’s parents being killed by hunters, to conceal the truth of the girl’s lineage. Or something.) “Humans want us to believe we are monsters; I see things differently,” Anita told her kin. “You just need help embracing your true nature, by accepting the wolf as a part of you.” After agreeing to doff her protective hood, Red enjoys — and fully remembers — a night of wolfly carousing. Things turn dark, however, when Snow tracks Red to the den and is quickly accosted. Just as Red begs for her friend’s freedom, the queen’s guards storm the place and a fight breaks out, leaving Quinn dead. Seething, Anita announces, “We’ll feast on a princess tonight” and has Snow tied up. As Anita turns and readied to tear into Ms. White, Red-as-wolf tackles her mom, inadvertently impaling her on a spire. “You chose [Snow],” Anita says as she fades. “No, I chose me,” Red corrects. “I am not a killer.” Upon burying her mom, Red tells Snow, “I didn’t lose my family today; I protected it,” because whereas Anita and Granny both wanted Red to choose a side, Snow is “the only one who says it’s OK for me to be both.”

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IN STORYBROOKE…. | Shine bright like a diamond! That is precisely what a cache of jewels does once unearthed by Grumpy during the dwarfs’ dig. If ground into fairy dust, the gems can turn Jefferson’s tattered hat back into a portal. But until then…. Ruby is struggling with the imminent arrival of the first full moon since the curse was lifted in Storybrooke. As such, blowtorch-toting Granny reconfigures the diner freezer into a cage for Ruby — and yet the next morning, the cage is found open and clawed, its captive missing. Granny and David find Ruby in the woods, then get called away to deal with someone’s double-parked car. (Crime is out of control in Storybrooke, I tell ya.) The vehicle turns out to be a tow truck belonging to Billy, a onetime rodent resident of Cinderella’s pantry who now crushes on Ruby. Billy, though, has been cleaved into two 8 o’clock hour-friendly halves, and Ruby’s convinced she is responsible. Hearing David insist she is innocent, Spencer (aka King George) sets out to pit the townsfolk against the sheriff, saying he’s putting them in peril.
    That night, replete with torches and pitchforks (!), an angry mob led by Spencer hunts down Ruby, until David arrives to reveal the truth: Spencer chopped up Billy with an axe, then framed Ruby for the mess. (Non-surprise!) After David calms Ruby-wolf and turns her back with her reclaimed hood, he finds Spencer on the shore. “I wasn’t trying to hide,” says the vengeful erstwhile king. “I just wanted to see the look on your face when you realized you’ll never see your wife and daughter again” — and with that, he brandished and pitched Jefferson’s hat into a bonfire. “I told you, you should have killed me when you can,” he sneered.
    Elsewhere in Storybrooke, Henry had that nightmare again, where he’s trapped in a red, windowless room whose curtains are aflame, and a strange woman is across from him. And this time he comes out of the dream with a very real burn on his hand! Regina appeals to Gold for help, and while he can’t stop the dreams — which take place in a netherworld between life and death, created by Lindelof and Cuse the sleeping spell — he can help Henry control his actions within. With that new ability, Henry the next time calls out to the woman in the room with him…

IN THE FAIRYTALE LAND THAT IS…. | … and it’s Aurora, as was heavily suggested last week. Sleeping Beauty wakes from this latest terror to inform Snow and Emma that it was different this time, that the other person in the room spoke — and it was a boy named Henry! And on that note, we have the seedling of a way for the Charming family members to communicate.

Now, a few quotes and notes, and then the promo for the next episode (airing Nov. 25) which appears to involve zombies! Someone go fetch Daryl….

* “Granny’s is having a 2-for-1 special on mead!”

* “Just because it’s called Happy Hour, Happy, doesn’t mean you have to be there.”

* “I’m surprised you cast a curse you know so little about.”

* “[Wolf hearing] ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially when you run a hotel.”

* Is it me or did the scale of Ruby-wolf change during the mob scene? She seemed to start off as a large dog, but grew to almost a small bear as David got close to her.

(“Into the Deep” Promo Courtesy of YouTube.com/TelevisionPromos)

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