In the Enchanted Forest, Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Red Riding Hood (Meghan Ory) fight off the Evil Queen's men and escape from them.
But Red's hood has torn, and she worries it won't prevent her from turning into a wolf during that night's coming full moon.
After Leroy (Lee Arenberg) resists taking a break, he punctures a wall and discovers the diamonds needed to create fairy dust.
The Mother Superior (Keegan Connor Tracy) tells David (Josh Dallas) to protect Jefferson's damaged hat and that they will be ready to bring back Mary Margaret and Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) within a day.
At Granny's, Billy the tow truck driver introduces himself to Ruby as Gus, a mouse who lived in Cinderella's pantry, and asks her out for a drink.
Henry (Jared S. Gilmore) drinks coffee to avoid sleep, due to his curse-induced nightmares, but David reassures him.
Granny's tracking skills lead David to uncover Ruby's hood and the real murder weapon, an axe, in the trunk of a car registered to Spencer.
Aurora wakes up and stuns Mary Margaret and Emma by telling them that she met a boy in her dream, and "his name was Henry".
"Child of the Moon" was co-written by producers Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss, while Shameless veteran Anthony Hemingway served as episode director.
This outing would be the lowest ever in the series' run, placing a 2.7/7 with only 8.75 million viewers tuning in, a 23% drop from the previous episode.
Entertainment Weekly's Hilary Busis loved this episode: "A moment of silence, please, in honor of cute werewolf Quinn, Gus-Gus -- can you believe that Storybrooke hottie Billy once looked like this?
Between those three and all the knights who got their necks snapped in the Wolf Pack's secret furry lair, tonight's Once had a bigger body count than usual.
Club gave this episode a C: "After the first few episodes of this season proved to be a nice change of pace, the show’s new status quo introduced a set of challenges that the writers haven’t fully met (see last week’s abysmal installment), and this week’s chapter is a Storybrooke-centric story that suffers from many of the problems of last season.
But this episode is minimally concerned with bringing back the exiled women, instead focusing on Ruby to tell a half-assed mystery/horror plot.
[5] The Huffington Post's Laura Prudom was also pleased with the outing, even if it had some flawed moments that did not fit the storyline: "Generally, episodes of 'Once Upon a Time' fall into two categories: those that propel the mythology forward in big ways (such as last week's 'Tallahassee') and those that tread water by focusing more on character backstory, and/or form building blocks for the next mythology episode.
"[6] Amy Ratcliffe of IGN gave it a 6.9, citing that "This week's Once Upon a Time put the focus back on Ruby, with mixed results," and thought that there was stiff dialogue throughout the episode.