'Once Upon A Time' 207 "Child of the Moon" Review

ABC

Ruby’s scared of her first full moon after the breaking of the curse, and other things happened in tonight’s episode that felt like stories that should have been told in season one on Once Upon A Time. Ruby was a delightful highlight of last season and Meghan Ory is plenty charming enough to warrant her being made a series regular. It’s just a shame that the story they felt the need to tell with her character just wasn’t anything of consequence for the rest of the show.

ABC

Sure, we got to see another tragic backstory, this time having to do with Ruby meeting her mother, (I couldn’t be the only person who initially felt like she was just lying to get her on her side). We met Anita the leader of a pack of human wolves as well as Quinn a charming and capable beta wolf that had some real chemistry with Red during their meet-cute when he steals her magic red cloak. It was a doomed family reunion as Red was forced to choose whose side she wanted to be on ultimately and she chose Snow when her friend finds her and clashes with her pack.  

ABC

But by the end of it both Anita and Quinn die and so we’re likely never going to spend time with these interesting wolves again. It was all of such little consequence to introduce them and it was clearly an instance where the flashback is only meant to be the parallel story to what’s going on in the present-day. Ruby has trouble controlling her wolf without her cloak this is something we already know and we didn’t really need a whole hour dedicated to that fact. But her issues wind up getting twisted up in the rivalry that spans kingdoms and dimensions between King George and Prince Charming.

ABC

George, or Spencer as he’s known in this world remember, is the one who set up Ruby so that he could try to show the rest of the townspeople how unfit David is to lead. I have to agree with the king here as well…he couldn’t even find the body at a crime scene before someone else could. Besides, if they don’t want Regina to be their mayor anymore why aren’t the characters holding any sort of election to replace her—David needs to be given the ability to focus full-time on getting Mary Margaret and Emma back if only so I don’t have to hear him mention it again.

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It works for a show like this to have a quest to keep the characters focused on a similar goal. The first season was all about breaking the curse and now, when they should be trying to figure out how to leave Storybrooke, well everyone’s caught up with this magic portal shenanigan. It might be nice to feel like something took a hit other than Jefferson’s personal wardrobe when King George burned the hat in front of David. Just look at Rumple’s stash of magical fixes—there’s always another answer and that kinda kills the drama of it all. I can’t wait for Emma and co. to get back home so we can see what the next leg of story this season is going to consist of because right now there are more glimmers of the intriguing than lasting runs of it. Of stories and of characters that you want to know more about and that could feed into the future of this series.

Actually no, there have been some genuinely interesting moments, it’s just that the show shelves them for things that aren’t really important. Such as having Dr. Whale’s true identity be revealed then it just not mattering right away afterward. And it’s not as though the story in the current enchanted kingdom isn’t good it’s just that it feels like there are worthwhile stories there too, but we’ll never know them. That whole arc is likely just going to serve to add yet more people to Storybrooke when those who have been there first can’t even get a decent story themselves. This show really needs to learn which of their characters’ stories should be focused on and followed through with because testing the patience of a genre show’s audience is not a great idea.