This episode was a bit of a shocker for many that I spoke to, including me! Boy- if anyone was still complaining that the show wasn’t moving the story forward, they were in for a surprise this week! Because this week lots of things happened, and most of them either filled in missing parts or added more to the story of the town awakening to what they really are.

Of course, the main part of the story in Storybrooke continues to be the search for the missing Kathryn. It is kinda handy that Emma can tell when someone is lying, as she therefore knows that when David says he doesn’t know what happened to her, he is telling the truth. But for me the fun part of the story is that it was all about Red/Ruby this time. She has always been my favorite character and this week the spotlight is on her.

That story starts with Ruby in Granny’s Diner, where as usual she is acting flirtatious with a customer, this time it is August as he tells her stories about his travels. Granny lets her know very clearly that she needs to stop flirting and start working. And that segues nicely to our Fairyland story, where we see Red talking and flirting with Peter (as in Peter and the Wolf?) who is a local boy who is quite smitten with Red and wants her to run away with him.

Granny is dealing with a pompous Mayor and his crew of wolf hunters, trying to convince the men it is a bad idea to form a posse to go look for a dangerous wolf that is prowling the area. When they leave we see Granny and Red go through all kinds of preparations to lock any roaming wolf out of their home. Red is reminded to wear her red hood that repels wolves and then Red heads for bed, with Granny holding down the fort in the living room with a crossbow on her lap. Man- I would not want to mess with that woman!

Back in Storybrooke Ruby and Granny are at it again, with Granny telling Ruby she needs to start working Saturday’s too – they are just too busy for her to have that night off. When Ruby accuses her of punishing her, Granny says my favorite line – “you dress like a drag queen during fleet week” along with Ruby’s great comeback, “and you dress like Norman Bates when he dresses like Norman Bates mother.” Those two can really get at each other, and these lines were so in character! So- when Granny tells Ruby to stop acting like a kid and Ruby retorts she just wants to have some adventures it is inevitable that the argument would escalate until Ruby quits.

We return to FairyLand to see Red waking up to find Granny still awake in the chair, crossbow still in lap. When Gran sends Red off to check on the chickens Red finds Snow (my name is Frosty- no Margaret, no it is Mary. Talk about connecting the Fairyland lives to the Storybrooke lives, this one was clever) hiding in the coop to escape the horrific howls that filled the night. The explanation of the big bad wolf that is stalking the area comes out and as the two walk out to the well to get water they find it completely fouled by blood – blood from the Mayor’s hunting party, dead with their throats slashed. Seems they found the wolf after all.

As we return to Storybrooke we take a break from Red’s story to see Emma and Mary Margaret talking about how David is doing and Kathryn’s disappearance. Emma is warning Mary Margaret of how most people would assume that she and David had something to do with Kathryn’s disappearance when they comes across Ruby with suitcase in hand. She explains what happened and that she is taking a bus out of town. (I thought no one could leave town? If so – why is there a bus that goes through town? This is confusing.) Luckily, Emma and Mary Margaret convince Ruby to give the plan a few days and stay with them until then.

Soon, we are back in FairyLand where Granny is telling the Mayor he has to stop trying to hunt the wolf- you can’t! She tells of losing her brothers and father to a wolf, showing them the scars to back up her story. You can’t beat this wolf, she says, all you can do is hide from it. But this running from the wolf doesn’t sit well with Red, who tells Snow/Mary that they can’t sit around waiting for the wolf to pounce, they need to track it down during the day when it is more vulnerable. So Snow and Red take bows and arrows and go off to track down the wolf, with Red telling White, “when I want something I am good at tracking it down” Hmmm, could mean more than just a wolf, I am thinking.

Meanwhile in Storybrooke a different kind of tracking is going on as Mary Margaret is out in the woods on the edge of town looking for Kathryn when she comes upon David, looking dazed and out of it. All he can say is “I’m looking for it”. We aren’t sure what “it” is, but what happens later has me wondering what his role in the grisly affair at the end of the show must be.

Meanwhile, Henry is at the Sheriff’s office using the computer to help Ruby find a new job. Someone at one of the fan sites noticed the same thing I did about this scene – that Henry and a few others who are getting aware of just what the story is in Storybrooke are getting more tech-savvy. In fact, if you look at the episodes you will notice that early on the technology was out of date, now it seems to be catching up. Could this be part of the spell losing its grip on the town?

While Henry and Ruby are looking online for work for her, the non-emergency phone line rings and Ruby picks it up. When Emma walks in to find Ruby handling a problem over the phone with ease, she tells her that she has room in the budget for someone to help with phones and such; does she want to be her assistant? Well, an assistant to the Sheriff sounds much more adventurous then being a waitress to Ruby, so she says yes. Ruby takes off to do that all important run to the diner for lunch as Mary Margaret walks in. She is worried about David; he is acting strange and wandering the woods. She tells Emma she is worried because he isn’t acting like himself, it is as if he was a completely different person.

We return to FairyLand to see Red and Snow tracking prints that are slowly turning into a man’s boot print. It becomes obvious to all of us that their wolf is a werewolf, and as they follow the prints to her window, they come to the conclusion the werewolf is Peter. They decide they have to save him by revealing what he is to his human side. When they tell him he is skeptical but believes her. He tells her to chain him so he won’t hurt anyone. She says she will stay with him during the night to be sure he is all right and when he seems amazed she would do this for him she affirms, I would do anything for you.

Meanwhile back in Storybrooke Ruby picks up lunch at the diner, as Granny tells her that she hopes she finds what she is looking for. Ruby says she is doing just that and leaves. It is very prophetic in many ways. We see Henry telling Emma that Ruby is Red Riding Hood and that Emma needs to let Ruby do more. When Ruby returns looking down, Emma takes Henry up on his suggestion and tells Ruby that she needs her to do a wilderness search with her in the area where David was last seen. As they are walking through the woods Ruby says she hears David, and they come across him lying unconscious in the woods. She hears an unconscious man? When they rouse him he says he has no memory of anything after he left the Sheriff’s office the night before. Could he be the wolf? Why does he keep blacking out like this? Is it related to a weakening of the spell?

When they examine David at the hospital it seems that this is another episode like the last one, where he walks around in a daze and later has no memory of anything he did. Of course, from Emma’s questions we realize that she is beginning to wonder if the reason it seemed like he wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know what happened to Kathryn is because he did something in this dazed state and just doesn’t remember it, so he isn’t lying at all. Could he be capable of kidnapping or killing Kathryn?

But Regina walks in and tells David he needs to lawyer up and stop talking to Emma, then reads Emma the riot act about not reading David his rights. When Emma says she isn’t arresting David, Regina then retorts that if that is so shouldn’t she be out looking for Kathryn instead of sitting her harassing David? So Emma calls Ruby, tells her to take her Volkswagen bug out to the bridge where they found David today and start looking around. She tells her to just trust her instincts, which have proven to be really good so far. So Ruby does so- wandering around on the shore until she comes across a piece of plywood that is covering something hidden in the sand. It is a box. When she opens it – she screams.

We kick back to FairyLand now, where Granny discovers Snow in Red’s bed, to disguise the fact that Red has been all night with Peter to watch over him as he goes through the change. Snow is even wearing Red’s hood – which causes Granny no end of grief. Telling her she is a stupid girl, they take off to the wood after Snow explains that Red is safe because Peter is chained and Red is with him. Granny mutters “the poor boy!” and heads out. It turns out it is Red that turns into a wolf, and now she is alone with a chained human as willing victim. The hood was from a wizard to prevent Red from changing. We can hear Peter pleading for his life but luckily we don’t see onscreen the horrible slaughter by Red as the wolf. As Granny and Snow make their way through the wood to Red and a now dead Peter we learn the truth behind the wolf story. Apparently lycanthropy runs in the family. Granny was turned by the grandfather although she is barely affected outside of a really good sense of smell. Red’s mom, Granny daughter, did the full change and was killed by hunters after marrying and having Red. Red inherited the trait and Granny got the red hood from a wizard to control her shifts, but she never told Red the truth about herself. As they come upon Red, she is in full wolf mode, and Granny is forced to shoot her with a silver tipped arrow to prevent her from killing them. She only wounds her, and quickly tells Snow to put the red hood on a now dropped wolf, which changes it back to Red again. But they are too late for poor Peter. Faced with the truth, Red and Snow decide they must both take off for the woods to hide.

Back in Storybrooke, Emma and Ruby are talking because Ruby is really upset about what she has discovered down at the shore. Emma tries to reassure her she did really well, first finding David and then the box with its gruesome contents. But Ruby is shook, and returns to the diner to ask for her old job back. She has had enough adventure for now. When Granny reveals to Ruby that the reason she wanted her to work Saturdays was because she wants her to learn all aspects of the business so she can take the diner over when Granny retires, Ruby is floored. Why her? But Granny says who else but someone I love who loves me too? So we leave Ruby at the diner looking much happier.

Finally, we close with Mary Margaret and David talking at the vet where he works. He is quite upset about his blackouts and worried that he might be the one who has hurt Kathryn. Mary Margaret is trying to convince him otherwise when Emma walks in with the news that Ruby has found something- a box with a human heart in it. Could this be the “it” that David was looking for when they came across him in the woods? She thinks it may be Kathryn’s heart. To make matters even worse, there are fingerprints inside the box. At first David insists they arrest him then and there, but Emma says no, they aren’t your prints. The prints belong to Mary Margaret.

Okay- so talk about a shocker of a show! Who would have thought this one up? Ruby is a werewolf and now we find what looks like Kathryn’s heart! But is it? Remember all those hearts in a box that Regina was checking on in the underground room a few episodes back? Could this be the huntsman’s heart from then? What do you think? I get the feeling things are going to heat up pretty quick at this point – because more than just Henry is starting to come out of the fog that the spell created in everyone’s memory. Who will be next? And just whose heart is in that box?