Villainess Review: Anita (Once Upon a Time)

How I loved Once Upon a Time! This was a Sunday habit for me; though it wasn't easy. After all, the show conflicted with The Simpsons on Fox, so I often had to watch episodes on demand. Even so, I was all in. A series that took the world of fairy tales to immense levels, and it was absolutely amazing. The show lasted seven seasons on ABC, with the core cast including Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin, and of course, Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills (aka the Evil Queen).

As I recall, the first few seasons delved into the core fairy tales; Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Snow White, you name it. It wasn't until the heart of the series that the Disney universe got involved. I still remember seeing Cruella de Vil and Ursula among the crop of villainesses on the series. Speaking of, it goes without saying that the villainess pool on this show was quite delicious, and it includes the episode, "Child of the Moon."

To this day, I still remember the Red Riding Hood twist in this show. They decided to have Red as the wolf, a werewolf if you will, with the revelation coming in the first season. Since then, Red (Ruby in the real world) has been doing her best to keep her bestial side at bay, and that includes the events of the aforementioned episode, which saw Red helping Snow White evade the Evil Queen's guards, who basically wanted her head. The pair separated due to Red noticing that the cloak that prevented her transformations was slightly torn, and she feared that the tear would hamper the cloak's power. To her relief, that's not what happened, but after waking up, Red's cloak was taken from her from a man who only introduced himself as Quinn.

As it turned out, Quinn was just like Red, and he later took her to meet Anita, who appeared (glowing yellow eyes and all) and revealed herself as Red's actual birth mother. Anita claimed that Red's grandmother abducted her and forced her to surpress the wolf within her, which was followed by Anita coercing her daughter to embrace being a wolf, which she does. To Red's surprise, she sees Snow appear, though Red's happiness over seeing her BFF is hampered by the guards crashing in, bows and arrows a-firing. Quinn ends up killed in the crossfire, and as for Anita, she was thrown off the deep end.

Anita blamed Snow for Quinn's death, and she later orders Snow to be tied up and killed by moonrise. As an added villainous bonus, Anita even ordered Red to kill Snow. Of course, Red refuses and pleads with her mother not to harm Snow, though Anita shifts into her werewolf form and slowly moves towards Snow, only for Red to fight against her evil mother. The result of the fight saw Anita impaled on a spike, but before she expired, the maniacal villainess accused Red of choosing Snow over her mother, only for Red to state that she was choosing herself.

"Child of the Moon" was the seventh episode of Once Upon a Time's second season, and aired on ABC on November 11, 2012. The episode featured Annabeth Gish as the evil Anita, and she was a deliciously bloodthirsty villainess under that assumingly motherly shell. When I first watched this episode and saw Anita, I had a bit of a feeling that there would be something sinister about her. I didn't know what, but something had to be up with her, and sure enough, the proverbial other shoe dropped when Anita gave the order to have Snow killed, using her misplaced blame towards Snow for Quinn's death. Anita doubled down on her heel turn by actually ordering her own daughter to kill her best friend, and that moment was a fiendish one from Anita, as she was obsessed with her delusional revenge mission. Part of me also thought (and still thinks) that wanting Snow killed had nothing to do with Quinn's death; it was Anita mostly wanting Red to herself, and she saw Snow as an obstacle.

Anita was a very amazing one-shot villainess, and unsurprisingly, Annabeth Gish played her very well, especially during her climactic villainous turn, which saw Gish act out Anita's insane and bloodthirsty demeanor to perfection. Gish has played her share of villainesses, which include (but aren't limited to) Alice Sands in several episodes of Rizzoli & Isles; for my review on Alice Sands, click here.

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Check out Anita's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!