In this episode, we learn a bunch more about Jenny Mills’ past.
Crazy Lady with a Gun
Still catching up…
The Boston Tea Party was Ichabod Crane’s idea? Is he involved in every big even from that era?
Why doesn’t Ichabod have a change of clothes yet?
Jenny had a string of abusive foster parents after being separated from Abbie.
Jenny travelled the world training with various freedom fighters and rebel groups? When? When she was a teenager?
Jenny also knew Sheriff Corbin and she would procure rare artifacts for him. Really? Again, while she was a teenager?
Why didn’t Corbin get Jenny out of her abusive situation? Why didn’t he tell Abbie that he knew her sister? It’s really bizarre. It seems a bit like he was only using her.
It’s Gunther!
There are sleeper cells of Hessian Warrior pretending to be regular people, but apparently they’re all German soldiers contracted by the British to fight in the against the Americans in the Revolutionary War 200 years ago, so, I don’t, maybe they should check all the German people’s basements for jars of organs.
Hey, Crane knows German. Why shouldn’t he? Crane knows a lot of stuff, yo!
General Washington seemed really concerned with demons and the like. Why didn’t he try to make peace with the British, so that they could join forces and fight the demons together? Were the British in league with the Antichrist.
All this talk about the Apocalypse and Revelations and they never mention Jesus’ role in it…
Boo!
It turns out the the mastermind behind the Hessian sleeper cells is a demon named “Moloch”, like the one described in Milton’s Paradise Lost. It’s the same demon that Abbie and Jenny saw as children.
When Gunther said that the mastermind was someone that they all knew, I was really hoping that it was going to be Sheriff Corbin and then they could have a twist about how he was trying to destroy the Hessian from within or something.
Abbie says that she has a way to get Jenny out of the asylum in six months. This show’s first season ends in January, so I guess we won’t be seeing Jenny for the rest of the season then.
SPOILER ALERT! I’M LATE! I’M LATE! FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE!
I didn’t really like this episode, but let’s see if I can come up with something to say about it anyway.
Yummy!
One of the first things we learn in this episode is that Dr. Lyndgate is doped out of his mind most of the time. I looked it up and laudanum is a tincture of opium. So that’s fun.
Matching Pink Butterfly Net
So, to set the scene, we’re back in the past and Alice thinks that Cyrus is dead. She has been unceremoniously dumped back into Victorian England near her house.
A little girl runs up to Alice. Who is she?
SO MANY FEELINGS
It’s Alice’s half-sister, Millie!?
Time in Wonderland and Victorian England must work differently, because it turns out that several years have passed while she was in Wonderland, enough time for her father, Edwin, to start a whole new family.
Alice is much more concerned about losing the boyfriend she’s had for, like, 3 days, than the father she abandoned for a decade. The most important love is True Love™.
Grrrrrrrrr…
Alice’s new stepmother, Sarah, is evil and hates Alice, because of course she does. Once Upon a Time in Wonderland only subverts traditional female fairytale roles for its heroes, the villainous women have to all be clichés.
Wouldn’t it have been interesting if Alice’s new stepmother was the one that was sympathetic to Alice, the one defending Alice from a father that doesn’t understand her?
Somebody’s baking purple cookies!
Back to the present, Alice is wandering around the forest looking for Cyrus, because the producers paid a lot to rent out this section of the Vancouver forest and, buy gum, they’re going to get their money’s worth out of it.
So, Alice wanders around the Black Forest (Hey! It prefers to be called the “African-American Forest”) and she ends up in the Boro Grove, which is still pretty much the same forest, only it’s more purpley.
The first thing Alice does in the Boro Grove is inhale a strange, purple mist, because, you know, that’s what one should do when they come upon an unidentified gaseous substance. The mist make her all mimsy. Get it? It’s like “All mimsy were the borogoves”. It’s like that thing from that book by that guy!
Where’s the Walrus?
We meet the Carpenter from the poem The Carpenter and the Walrus. He doesn’t do anything really, except stand around and become a tree, because he inhaled the purple mist. His buddy, the Walrus, is nowhere to be found. They’re just name-dropping a character from Through the Looking-Glass to remind us that we’re still in Wonderland, because, really, without the occasional shout-out and fibreglass mushroom, this is just like any other generic fairytale world. I blame all the wandering about in the woods.
It’s a SHADE-OFF!
The Red Queen also wanders around the woods, because they needed to give her something to do this episode. She wants capture Cyrus for evil reasons. but, like, they’re reason’s that are slightly less evil than the reasons that Jafar want’s him for. We still don’t know what either of them are trying actually trying to accomplish and it’s hard to stay interested at extremely vague hints at potential evil doings.
The Red Queen is really mean to her Tweedle. What are the Tweedles, exactly? Is a Tweedle a type of critter, or is it a family name? When are we going to find out how they became David Bowie fans?
Anyway, she better start being nice to the Tweedles, or they’ll probably quit doing her hair up all pretty-like. Oh… And they’ll probably keep reporting her secrets to Jafar, which is what I assume the missing Tweedle is doing.
Awkward!
Back in the past, Alice is having a lot of trouble readjusting to Victorian England norms. Her evil stepmother wants to marry Alice off as soon as possible, because finding a good husband is the best a woman can hope for in Victorian England. Doesn’t Stepmom know that in Wonderland a girl can aspire to be a princess or an evil witch? It’s way more progressive in Wonderland.
And it’s not like Alice offers up any viable alternatives to her stepmother’s plan. Moping over your dead boyfriend and trying to convince people that Wonderland is real isn’t going to put food on the table, Alice.
Alice says that they should believe her about Wonderland, because love means never having to provide proof, or something. You know, my Uncle Vito told us to believe that he had stopped drink because we loved him, and then he drove his Honda Accord into a lake. Sometimes, love means throwing Uncle Vito into rehab. And so, Alice gets carted off to Bethlem Asylum for saying crazy-sounding things.
This is not good.
You know that purple mist from earlier? It turns you into a tree for some reason. Don’t worry, the Knave shows up to save her.
Why doesn’t the Knave start turning into a tree as well, you ask? Well, as it turns out, when Alice got the Knave’s heart back for him, he never bother putting it back in.
But the Knave doesn’t act heartless at all! Actually, I’d say that he seems to have the biggest heart of anyone on this show. He agreed to help the White Rabbit save Alice, even though there was nothing in it for him. He’s always trying to find nonviolent solutions to things, while Alice is going around stabbing everything. He apologized for breaking Silvermist’s heart. These aren’t the actions of a heartless man.
Greeting, my jolly-good chum!
Oh. Did I mention that Jafar is in Victorian England? Well he is and he stole some guy’s clothing and left him dead and naked in a field. Sure, Jafar could have probably just have magiced himself some new clothes, but the other way was more fun.
Jafar is probably going to do nasty things to Alice’s dad.
Again with the falling?
And then Cyrus fell off a cliff again, because it’s his favourite pastime.
Some other stuff:
According to the creators of the show, there is an entire Victorian England realm, so this show doesn’t actually involve any time travel. I’m still waiting for them to go to the Star Wars realm.
Seriously, what the Heck happened to Elizabeth Lizard? Did she die? Why does no one seem to care?
This episode was all about the team learning to work together as a cohesive unit.
MacGuffin
An “0-8-4” is an object of unknown origin. They have found one in Peru.
S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps things like this “quiet and contained” so that the public doesn’t panic. This doesn’t sit well with Skye.
Coulson mentions an antimatter comet incident. A lot of cool things happened in the past, which they can’t actually show us, because the budget is too small. I hope that they don’t mention too many incidents like that, because they risk having things that happened off-screen being way cooler than what we’re shown.
Ward doesn’t trust Skye, but he also doesn’t like working on a team in general. He’s used to being a one person solution.
Coulson has hoes in different area codes.
Agent Coulson had a relationship with the Peruvian Police Commander, Camilla Reyes, in the past. I hope this isn’t a running theme with every country they go to having on of Coulson’s old girlfriends living in it.
Fitz and Simmons aren’t related? I thought they were twins or something. I can’t even tell them apart.
May is easily the most competent of the recruits, but they have her as the driver. When do we get to see the incident that forced her out of the field?
Skye likes the Twitter and the social media and the fighting the power. I think that teenagers are supposed to identify with her or something.
The “0-8-4” is really a tesseract weapon commissioned by the Peruvian government. Reyes wants it to quell a rebel uprising. She has her men take over the Bus.
The team gets over their differences and defeats Reyes. It only took one episode for them to learn to get along. That was fast. Ward especially turns from
Sky is still secretly with the Rising Tide, though, because they’re the only ones that know how to use the power of Twitter for good, like she does.
His name is “Nick Fury” because he’s angry all the time.
Nick Fury stops by to remind us how great the movies were. They need to stop referencing the movies and have this show stand on its own.
In his episode, we learn about Jafar and how his daddy issues turned him evil.
Don’t worry, he’ll be evil soon.
You see, Jafar is the bastard child of the Sultan of Agrabah, who rejects him and forces him to live like and orphan on the streets of Agrabah. He should feel lucky that the Sultan merely cast him out, instead of having him killed. Royal types tend not to like leaving loose heirs lying around.
She’s pretty, but she’s evil.
One day, Jafar sees a chance to get revenge against the Sultan. He’ll get an evil sorceress, Amara, to teach him magic that he will use against the Sultan.
Too bad there’s no fairy tale land version of Maury to sort out this whole paternity mess.
Icky.
Amara’s training of Jafar goes a bit like Rumpelstiltskin’s training of Regina. Eventually Jafar must commit and evil deed, not giving an antidote to a poisoned man, to prove he’s willing to go all the way in this evil magic business. It’s pretty much exactly like how Regina had to tear out and crush a heart to prove herself to Rumpelstiltskin.
Once he’s proven himself, Amara reveals her final magical secret to Jafar: if they obtain the world’s three genies, then they can change the very laws of magic.
Capturing three genies, killing countless people and changing the laws of magic seems like overkill just to show your father how angry you are at him., but, whatever, Jafar is really, really angry at the guy. Just zapping the Sultan in the ace with a lightning bolt of something apparently wouldn’t be enough to get the point across.
Ooooor… Does Jafar really want to change the laws of magic, so that he can change the past and have a good childhood with a loving father?
I found the romantic relationship between Amara and Jafar to be a bit icky, because she had trained him since he was a kid. I bet that’s exactly how the writers wanted the audience to feel about it though.
Poor Sidney
So, who’s the third genie? We’ve already met Cyrus the genie and Sidney Glass the genie from Once Upon a Time. Will the third genie be a new character or someone we’ve met before?
This also messes up the timelines in Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It shows that Jafar was in possession of Sidney’s lamp before Sidney met Regina, but we first meet the Knave of Hearts in present-day Storybrooke where Sidney is now a magic mirror and not a genie. TIME PRETZEL.
Is this the Sultan of Agrabah?
I’m going to bet right now that the mystery prisoner in the dungeon with Cyrus is really the Sultan of Agrabah, but why is Jafar just keeping him prisoner, instead of killing him and getting his revenge?
Throwing shade like professionals!
Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. The Red Queen captures the Knave of Hearts and they have a bunch of angry feelings together over their shared past and betrayal, after which the Red Queen decides she’ll have the Knave beheaded.
One of the Ziggy Stardust Tweedles is really a double agent and sharing the Red Queen’s secrets with Jafar, but I’m not sure whether it’s Dee or Dum. I wonder if this will drive a wedge between the twin brothers?
This lizard needs to be greener.
Hey, we make a new friend! Meet Elizabeth, or Lizard as everyone calls her. The Knave of Hearts helped her out in the past and taught her how to be a thief. Lizard is totally in love with the Knave of hearts now, so she would be really sad if the Knave of Hearts lost his head.
Lizard and Alice disguise themselves as executioners to stop the Knaves execution, just like Socrates and Billy the Kid did for Bill and Ted in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
The Knave is so stoned right now.
It’s all in vain though, because Jafar and the Red Queen just show up right after the rescue to spoil everyone’s fun. Jafar is about to kill the Knave, until Alice uses one of her wishes to stop him. She wishes that she ill die if the Knave dies. For some reason, if you kill a genie’s master, you can’t get any wishes from the genie. Does this mean that if a genie’s master die accidentally, that the genie can never grant any wishes again, or does it only happen if the master is murdered? Anyway, Jafar can’t kill Alice or the Knave, if wants to get Cyrus transferred to him.
Angered, Jafar turns the Knave into stone, hoping that Alice will have to use one of her wishes to turn him back into flesh.
*HISS*
In the past, Jafar had also turned Amara into a magical staff. Jafar likes turning people into inanimate objects. At least she gets to be at the side of the man she love forever now.
*BRAP*
Meet Burp Guard. Burp Guard is my new hero. Burp Guard provides Cyrus with a wishbone that Cyrus can magically use to escape from his cage. Genies have magic over any object with the word “wish” in it, don’t you know?
So, yeah, this episode ends with Cyrus starting to escape from his cage, but I bet it will still be a few episode before he and Alice are reunited. Heck, at the start of next week’s episode, I bet Jafar shows up just before Cyrus is about to break free and stops him while cackling or something.
WARNING! HEREIN LIES SPOILERS FOR THE THIRD EPISODE OF THE FIRST SEASON OF SLEEPY HOLLOW!
In this episode, the Sandman is a faceless nightmare monster called “Ro’kenhronteys”.
Oh, Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream.
Blah. Blah. Blah. I’m still catching up on this show. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Will someone please take Ichabod down to the JC Penny and by him some modern pants?
Are Ichabod and Abbie officially partners now? No one on the force finds that weird? Is it even legal?
Abbie lied about seeing the demon in the forest and that caused her sister, Jenny, to be committed.
A farmer also saw the demon and lied about it and he is killed by the Sandman.
The Sandman or Ro’kenhronteys is a Native American demon that kills people that have turned a blind eye to their fellow man’s plight and have a guilty conscience in their dreams.
Ichabod and Abbie visit a Mohawk shaman named “Seamus Duncan” who is also a sleazy car salesman. This is probably a problematic representation of a Native person.
Seamus uses a special tea on Ichabod and Abbie so that they can enter the dreamworld and fight Ro’kenhronteys Dream Warriors style.
All Abbie has to do is admit that she lied and the demon is defeated.
Captain Irving finds out that Ichabod and Abbie made a giant hole in the wall and are now using the old archive room as their base of operations and he doesn’t really care.
The Captain is awfully quick to accommodate Ichabod and Abbie’s needs. I find this suspicious for some reason. What does he know?
Jenny has escaped from the asylum. She knows the apocalypse is coming. Is she trying to help or hide?
FANSERVICE!
Why did their shirts have to be off?
Now that they’ve already been shirtless, where else can this show go with the fanservice?
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.
Everybody is connected to everybody!
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.
Who are you?
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.
Aaaaaaaaah!
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?
Woof.
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.
What a cute couple. It would be a shame if something happened to them.
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.
What a cute couple. It would be a shame if something happened to them.
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.
