Once upon a Time Rewatch 2.7, "Child of the Moon"

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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2.7, "Child of the Moon"

Written by Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss
Directed by Anthony Hemingway

Synopsis

There's one way to get a break...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Following a recapitulation of earlier events, the episode begins with the dwarves at work in the mines under Storybrooke. They reach the end of their workday, but Leroy resists leaving work, inadvertently opening a new tunnel in his dudgeon. David rushes to the scene, along with Henry and the Mother Superior, and they find that the found tunnel contains the diamonds that can be processed into the fairy dust they need for magic to function. Hope returns that Emma and Mary Margaret can be returned. Celebration ensues, and Ruby tends to the restaurant until she is met by a local with whom she had been enamored before the curse was broken. He asks to get to know her better, and she demurs out of concern for her lycanthropy. Meanwhile, Henry voices his concerns about nightmares, David offering comfort until he is confronted by George. A tense exchange follows, as do preparations for restraining Ruby.

Peter Jackson oughta sue somebody...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Ruby recalls escapades with Snow White in the Enchanted Forest, the pair fleeing in the night to evade Regina's forces. Her hood is damaged, and Ruby, as Red, frets about the implications, sending Snow White away out of concern for her safety. She remains struck by Snow White's kindness--and she is observed as she departs from her friend.

Granny returns to the restaurant the next morning to find that Ruby has escaped restraint--evidently as the wolf. To add to matters, in the night, Henry had again suffered a nightmare of a flaming room, seeing another figure within it; he is roused from the dream by Regina, present because David is answering an emergency call. She notes a burn on his hand--as David and Granny find Ruby asleep in the woods. She has no recollection of events and panics that she has caused harm; David tries to comfort her until he is summoned away.

In a hole in the ground there lived a...pack of wolves?
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Back in the Enchanted Forest, Red wakes to find her cloak still functioning. It is soon stolen from her, and she pursues the thief through the woods. The thief, Quinn, confesses being a werewolf and presses her about her experiences and attempting to recruit her into the local lycanthropic community, living hidden in the forest in what "used to be the grand hall of a castle, until it sunk underground." She is struck by the organization of the community and is introduced to the local leader, Anita--her mother.

David conducts Granny and Ruby back to town. Along the way, he stops off to address a reported illegal parking job--where the three find the dismembered corpse of the local who had expressed interest in Ruby before. David refuses to accept that Ruby is culpable, but she calls for her own incarceration against the threat of a relapse.

Regina consults with Gold about Henry's injury. Gold notes that the nightmare is a side-effect of the sleeping curse--and that the scene of the nightmare is a spiritual realm that stands between the living and dead worlds. Henry has been traveling there, and Gold offers some assistance to Henry: a talisman that will allow him to control his presence in that realm. Curiously, Gold attaches no price to his aid.

Red and Anita confer, Anita noting that Granny had stolen Red from her and explicating the nature of their shared lycanthropy. She notes, too, that embracing her lupine nature is required for controlling it, and she offers to teach her how to do it. Red begins to study the technique--but Ruby is jailed, as she requested. George intrudes, demanding the surrender of Ruby to the mob. David refuses.

Red exults in her lupine exploits, prompted by Anita and the others. She wakes at peace among them--unlike in Storybrooke, where George incites a mob against Ruby and David. They break into the jail, only to find Ruby's cell empty, David having taken her to the library and restraining her. David tries to find proof of Ruby's innocence.

Snow White makes to rejoin Red and is captured by the other lycanthropes. Red intercedes, and Snow White is spared. She tries to take Red off, but Red seeks to remain among the other lycanthropes. Surprised, Snow accepts the decision and readies to part in amity from her friend--only to be interrupted by an attack that, while handily defeated, kills Quinn.

Belle remains with Ruby, trying to comfort her. Ruby restrains Belle and departs to face the mob in an act of atonement. Meanwhile, David and Granny stalk through the town to search out the actual killer. They find Ruby's hood and a bloody axe--in George's car. Ruby's howl summons them.

Well, there's your problem...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

In the wake of Quinn's death, Anita determines that Snow White is to blame and must be made to pay for his death. Snow White is restrained in favor of being eaten after the moonrise. Red refuses to participate, and Anita moves to execute her prisoner. A brief melee ensues, leaving Anita impaled. Red sorrows over the accidental matricide.

In Storybrooke, the mob George has gathered pursues the transformed Ruby. David and Granny arrive in time to intervene, saving Ruby and revealing George's perfidy. George flees, Ruby and David pursuing him. They find him on the beach with a fire burning, into which he casts Jefferson's hat. Hope for the return of Mary Margaret and Emma dims.

Red and Snow White reconcile and continue on their quest. Ruby considers David as he considers Henry and the loss of a means of inter-realm travel, offering comfort before she returns to her wolf form. Mary Margaret and Emma consider their return to Storybrooke, and Aurora dreams of terror--until Henry offers comfort and she wakes to report what she has found.

Discussion

The present episode clearly follows up on "Red Handed" from the first season, and I find it echoing or resonating with Hobb's presentation in the Realm of the Elderlings novel of the Wit (associated with lycanthropy, as I've noted) as a metaphor for homosexuality (discussed here and following). Both cases concern themselves with is an inborn quality that meets with a lack of understanding and anger, prompting sometimes-violent, sometimes-armed oppression that leads those with that quality to suppress it to the extent they can among the broader community. Both also see focal characters mentored by scarred, stern foster-parents to enact that suppression. Both also serve as uniting forces of hidden / sequestered communities that dwell in hiding in the forests, bringing in wayward members that happen their way. Certainly, there are more parallels to explicate. Just as certainly, enough time passed between the first mention of the Wit and the presumable drafting of the present episode's script that the writing staff could be familiar with it, although I'm not aware of any direct connection and am not accusing the writers of cribbing--any more than any writer ever really does. An adage about ideas under the sun comes to mind...because, again, the lycanthropy serves as a (somewhat frustrated) metaphor for homosexuality.

The episode does not frustrate the metaphor quite as much, however, in that it falls into the same problem with its stand-in for homosexuality that it does with many, many other minority groups: it reinforces stereotypes, rather than rejecting them. Hobb's Old Blood are presented with nuance and sympathy, and while there are evil people among them, they are themselves a minority within that minority. In the present episode, the werewolves are, overall, evil, with Red the token "good one," and only that because she was raised outside the community. Indeed, the episode seems to be working in the racial-essentialist paradigm that pervades fantasy literature and the RPGs that emerge from it (if less now than previously). And while that paradigm is prevalent in medieval literatures and cultures (though less than is often assumed), and some might argue that "it's how it was, so you have to show it," other arguments--including many of those linked above--rightly point out that there's a limit to how "realistic" a work that includes overt magic and such creatures as dragons and lycanthropes can be. (And, again, things were far more complex and nuanced than is often admitted by the people who want to argue "That's how it is." Funny, that.)

If it's alright to bring in magic, it's alright to move away from harmful tropes, as well.