Fairy tales are stories for children, and as such are full of magic, fantasy, and wonderment. What we tend to forget, however, is that murderers lie in wait for the princesses, and monsters lurk in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to destroy happiness. Episode 2 of The Wolf Among Us, "Smoke and Mirrors" reminds us that our fables are full of twisted characters who prey on the innocence or desperation of others. It's harsh and bleak and will make you uncomfortable, even when you're not examining the corpse.

As a quick reminder, the characters of Wolf Among Us are Fables, the actual characters from our storybooks, who've fled their Homelands and taken up residence in a section of New York called Fabletown. You play as Bigby Wolf, sheriff of Fabletown, who is continuing his investigation into the murder of Episode 1, "Faith," finding himself with another dead body and even more questions. Between his responsibilities as sheriff, his checkered past, and his own less-than-stellar interpersonal skills, Bigby's constantly being pulled in several different directions at once - is he the wolf, or the lawman, the reasonable symbol of justice, or a thug? He is all of these things, and more, and the events of "Smoke and Mirrors" reveal his complexities. He's a marvelous character to role-play, never quite one thing or the other, and he provides the anchor that the story needs to keep from spinning off into the darkness.