Red-Handed

Plot

In a small village in the Enchanted Forest, Red Riding Hood flirts with her love Peter through her window before being called away by her Granny, also known as the Widow Lucas. Villagers arrive at their cottage to hunt a giant wolf killing their sheep, but Granny refuses to let Red join and orders her to stay inside with her cloak on. The next morning, Red finds a sleepy Snow White, who asks to be called Mary, and agrees to help her. At the well, they discover blood in the water and a trail of slaughtered bodies.

During a town hall meeting, Granny recounts her own encounter with a wolf that killed her family 60 years earlier and left her scarred, claiming the creature cannot be killed. Red and a reluctant Snow decide to search for the wolf themselves. Red, a superior tracker, finds wolf prints that morph into human boot prints leading to her window, where she only remembers seeing Peter. That night, Red tells Peter he is a werewolf and ties him up on full moon nights, promising to stay with him.

Granny finds Snow posing as Red in her cloak and explains that Red is the wolf, the curse passed through the family. Granny, once a wolf herself but weakened by age, tracks Red by scent. They find the tree where Red tied Peter, but she has already transformed and devoured him. Granny strikes Red with a silver-tipped arrow and orders Snow to put the magical cloak over her, which prevents the wearer from becoming a wolf.

Red returns to human form, horrified at what she has done, and Granny tells the girls to escape into the woods as the hunting party closes in.

Reception

Aired on March 11, 2012, this episode saw a drop in ratings and viewership compared to the prior week, a decline potentially linked to the start of Daylight Saving Time in the US. It earned a 2.9/8 rating among adults 18-49 and drew 9.81 million viewers. In its timeslot, it tied for first place with CBS's The Amazing Race, while outperforming FOX's The Simpsons and NBC's Harry's Law. In Canada, the episode ranked twelfth for the week with about 1.512 million viewers, a rise from the previous episode's 1.44 million.