YOU BET YOUR SWEET BIPPY, THIS POST IS FULL OF SPOILERS!
This episode is all about how important it is to let go o the past and move forward, unless, you’re Alice, in which case you never let go of your past love and you talk about how wonderful and perfect it was all the time to make your lovelorn best friend, the Knave of Hearts, feel terrible.
So, it turns out that the Knave of Hearts was originally Will Scarlet, one of Robin Hood’s Merry Men, because EVERYBODY MUST BE AT LEAST TWO THINGS! Well… He was one of the Merry Men for about two days, just enough time for them to help him break into Maleficent’s castle so that he could steal a magic looking glass. Maleficent’s castle didn’t have any guards and seemed pretty deserted, but he need them anyhow.
I was pretty bummed that it seemed like Kristin Bauer van Straten literally phoned in her performance in this episode, because all we get of her is her voice. If they couldn’t actually get Kristin to show up for this episode, then why did it even have to be Maleficent’s castle at all, they could have used a new witch. Hopefully, they’re just reminding us that Maleficent exist because she has a bigger role in an upcoming episode.
I dislike that the are relying so heavily on characters from their parent show, Once Upon a Time, I would like for Once Upon a Time in Wonderland to stand more on its own.
In the present, the Knave of Heart and Alice are still searching for the genies bottle. They need to know who stole it, if they are find it, but there weren’t any clues left behind. If only they could look into the past! Well, they can! Yay! All they need is the Forget-Me-Knot, a magical rope that lets you see the last thing that happened at any spot. So, it should just show them themselves looking into the empty hole and looking disappointed since that is the last thing that happened there, or, you know, a butterfly that flew near the hole or any number of random things that could have happened near the hole subsequently, but, whatever, stop questioning to overly convenient magical dealies, Laurel.
Alice and the Knave travel to Underland, which is like Wonderland, only underground and rife with hashish abuse, to get the Forget-Me-Knot from the evil Caterpillar. Well, it turns out that he doesn’t have it. He wants it, though, and he’s willing to consider the Knave’s debts to him erased, if they let him have the Forget-Me-Knot, after they are done using it.
If they fail to retrieve the Forget-Me-Knot for the Caterpillar, however, then it’s off with the Knave’s head.
Why is everyone in Wonderland so obsessed with taking other people’s heads? Are they like Princess Langwidere from Ozma of Oz and they put different heads on their shoulders like fashion accessories?
The Forget-Me-Knot is at Grendel’s house. Is it the “Grendel” from the Old English poem, Beowulf? Um, I sure hope not? Although, if he is, that means that his brother is a dragon and that might be fun.
Meanwhile, Jafar and the Red Queen take time out of their busy day of looking fabulous and flirting to send a monster after Alice, so that she’ll be forced to use one of her wishes. One of the monsters they consider using is the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi. They need to stop dropping shout-outs like that and straight up have a Jedi on, otherwise I’m going to explode. Anyhoo, they decide instead on the Frumious Bandersnatch, which is an actual thing from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and not some other unrelated story, so they get extra points from me for doing that.
Grendel had been using the Forget-Me-Knot to stare at his lost wife all day, because everybody’s backstory has to have something about true love in it. The Knave of Hearts uses his pain from loosing his love, Anastasia, to empathize with Grendel and get him on their side, so that after they defeat the Bandersnatch he decides to give them the Forget-Me-Knot.
And then Alice and the Knave of Hearts use the Forget-Me-Knot to find out that the White Rabbit is a turncoat for the Red Queen and that it was he that dug up the genie’s bottle. They should have been able to guess that, though. I mean, really, burrowing into the ground is kind of the White Rabbit’s thing.
So, long story short, it turns out that the Red Queen was Anastasia in the past, because EVERYBODY MUST BE AT LEAST TWO THINGS. She and Will Scarlet used the looking glass he stole to get to Wonderland. Sometime between then and now they had a falling out and she took over Wonderland and became the Red Queen. I wonder if they were able to get Barbara Hershey to play the Queen of Hearts in a future episode? I want to see Will Scarlet become the Queen of Heart’s Knave and then see how he reacts when it turns out he choose the wrong side and his old love, Anastasia, defeats the Queen.
One other thing: when are we going to find out who the guy who is sharing the dungeon with Cyrus is? He can’t just be some random prisoner. Everybody on this show has to be some fairy tale character.