Once Upon a Time — Red Riding Hood would so be on Team Jacob

What to deduce from the Fairy Tale Land hunt for the wolf and Storybrooke’s hunt for Kathryn? There’s got to be some kind of a connection between them, likely through Mary Margaret/Snow White, right? The Little Red Riding Hood story was meant to parallel the investigation of Kathryn’s disappearance? Or am I reading too much into the stories because I’m well aware that former Lost writers, from a labyrinthine drama, are among the Once Upon a Time staffers?

Here are the commonalities:

Fairy Tale Land: Little Red Riding Hood had a secret love, Peter. Red’s grandmother wanted to keep Red away from him. Why? Because Red’s a wolf and when the moon is full, Red blacks out and goes on a murderous rampage. Red wound up unintentionally mauling her beloved as her grandmother and her new pal Snow White, whom Red helped and took under her wing, colluded to cover up her crimes.

Storybrooke: Mary Margaret had a secret love, David. David’s wife Kathryn (as well as Regina) wanted to keep Mary Margaret and David apart. But when the pair wouldn’t/couldn’t stay away from one another, Kathryn learned of their love affair, tried to flee town and simply disappeared. Ruby found a human heart inside a box buried in the woods that had Mary Margaret’s fingerprints on it, while David went into some kind of weird trance in the same woods which he didn’t remember when he “woke up.”

A large portion of the Once Upon a Time stories deal with star-crossed lovers, people making sacrifices for their loved one’s benefit, some even willing to risk death. But most of the stories, like Grumpy’s last week, seem removed from the central Snow White-Prince Charming love affair. However the Red-Riding-Hood-as-the-wolf story provided an unexpected tweak. The person in love morphed into a monster and killed her sweetheart. I don’t recall seeing another so-called “good” character murdering a loved one. Yet.

So does this mean that Red/Ruby is has more in common with The Evil Queen/Regina who sacrificed her own, doting father in order to successfully execute her powerful curse throughout Fairy Tale Land? Red has always seemed to have a bit of a dark side, certainly darker than Mary Margaret/Snow White so it’s somewhat plausible even though Red has no clue she’s a wolf.

With all this dramatic build-up — David’s catatonic state in the woods, Mary Margaret’s fingerprints on the heart in a box discovered by Ruby (using her powerful wolf sense of smell), Emma’s search for Kathryn — I hope that there will be a payoff and that we’re not being led to a dead-end.

Meanwhile, amidst the thus far fruitless investigation into Kathryn’s disappearance, I’m finding myself missing Henry, the boy with all the answers. We still don’t know why the mysterious writer guy stole Henry’s fairy tale book, after Regina ordered Henry’s special playground (and location of said book) demolished, and then appeared to rewrite the book and then leave it for Emma to find. We also don’t know if the book’s content has been altered — there’s been no mention of it — or if the writer dude who was hitting on Ruby in the diner just wanted to copy it for Regina.

So many questions … I hope Once Upon a Time doesn’t let me down as it heads into the last half-dozen+ episodes of its freshman season.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Mar 12, 2012 @ 13:17 EST5EDT