OUATIW- Happily Ever After?

Okay, I know it’s been months since Once Upon a Time in Wonderland ended, but there is a reasonable explanation for the delay in this post. I wrote a wonderfully fabulous follow up right after the season ended but, like a religious cult follower, I had a little too much faith in something I shouldn’t have. Word to the wise: never save important/not-that-important-except-to-me files on a flash drive. Sometimes they decide their time has ended and nose dive off of a metaphorical cliff taking all of your precious documents with them.

So basically I’ve been trying to recover emotionally from the loss of two months’ worth of work. Here goes attempt number two on this post.

Previously on OUATIW, Alice was so close to finding Cyrus finally and Jafar was so close to finalizing his master plan.

Let’s begin with my hopes for the second half of the season:

·       Jafar kills the Queen. The writer’s clearly meant to toy with my emotions on this one. I got my wish, but unfortunately it didn’t stick. I’ll get into that momentarily.

·       Alice makes her final wish. I was correct in that this happened on the mid-season finale. BUT I had forgotten that Alice promised the Knave a wish if he helped her find Cyrus, so this final wish making went to him. As wishes must always be made in the oddest ways in order to achieve plot objectives, the Knave, after Alice is inadvertently struck by a thunder cloud of doom, wishes to end her suffering. Not only does this wish heal Alice physically, it also releases Cyrus from his genie bonds. Double meaning there, eh?

·       We see the consequence of Alice’s first wish. Jafar, determined to wreak havoc on the lives of Alice and gang, creates a storm cloud to chase them down. The lightning strikes the Knave, who immediately starts dying and, consequently, so does Alice. But she doesn’t die. See above.

·       Someone good turns evil. This didn’t happen, but I guess there really wasn’t enough time. Maybe if there had been a season two.

·       The ever-classic love triangle. Apparently these writers do not feel the same way I do about love triangles. Which, there again, they only had one season so okay whatever.

·       The Knave gets his heart back. He does! And just like I feared, it was back to loving Anastasia. Bah!

·       The special effects get better. Not a chance.

Here’s a rundown of the second half of the season:

Alice finds out that Cyrus has escaped and believes she knows where he will go. To an invisible love tent in the middle of an open field, where else? She and the Knave head there after a stop for the rabbit. They will need his help to get back to wherever. But the Queen has kidnapped the rabbit’s family so Alice offers to rescue them because she loves rescuing people apparently. But they find the rabbit’s family whilst searching for Cyrus’ bottle so no rescue needed this time.

Meanwhile, the Red Queen goes in search of Cyrus after she discovers that Jafar has stolen Cyrus’ bottle from her. She finds him in the woods but decides to let him go because she’s trying to be good or something. As it turns out, the bottle Jafar had stolen was fake and Ana takes Cyrus to her old house wagon to get the real bottle.

The lot of them meet up at the invisible place and no one is happy to see the Queen. Cyrus, who is now Team Queen Scarlett, defends her while she cries about how she made a mistake and wants Will back. Alice and Cyrus finally reunite and just when you were thinking their relationship is annoying and they haven’t even gotten back together yet… just prepare yourself.

But before the rabbit can work his mojo and send them all home, the massive storm cloud arrives and takes out Alice and Knave. After the Knave makes his wish to end Alice’s suffering and Cyrus is freed from his bonds, he vanishes. And here’s the catch to his wish because all wishes have catches. Cyrus is no longer a genie. But… the bottle must have a genie!! And, you guessed it, Will is now a genie in a bottle, baby.

Unfortunately, Will is now trapped in the bottle; the bottle that just flew off out of reach of our band of merry misfits. Not to worry though because the bottle is retrieved from a river by Lizard. Remember Lizard! She was that girl that helped Alice that one time. Anyway, she lets Will out and is granted three wishes. She decides to give her first wish to him for some reason (prolly cause she’s got the warm fuzzies for him) and he wishes for beer. The Knave is such a guy.

Lizard decides to use her second wish to make herself over into a woman Will might desire. It doesn’t work though. Now, we have to give Will the benefit of the doubt because he doesn’t have a heart and stuff, but it’s hard not to feel bad for little Lizard. She finally confesses her feelings and when the Knave rejects her, she says she wishes he could feel something for her. We all know how wishes work at this point. The only thing Knave can feel is regret I guess because she promptly falls to the ground dead. RIP Lizard.

The Knave is now masterless but not for long. After taking the time to get engaged, Alice and Cyrus decide to show up and save the Queen from angry villagers. (Why? Your guess is as good as mine.) They find Will but Ana grabs up his bottle before Alice can say rabbit. Knave believes she will use her newfound masterdom to leave Wonderland and abandon Cyrus and Alice, who can’t leave because Jafar has Cyrus’ brothers.

Backstory time! Cyrus’ mom, Amara (yes the same one who slept with Jafar that he turned into a snake staff!), was dying and her sons set off on a mission to save her. They found this pool in a gazebo in the woods with water that would cure her. But the chick from The Ring came popping up from the pool and told them they’d better not even steal her water or there would be consequences! Boys will be boys though, and they stole it anyway. They managed to cure their mom before creepy turned them all into genies. The only cure for geniedom is to return the water they took. Can I also take this time to mention how Cyrus’ brothers are both a lot more Middle Eastern looking than he is? I think someone had a different daddy.

So anyway, now Cyrus can’t just leave his brothers behind. The Queen says she will stay and help them defeat Jafar and I don’t really care as long as the Knave is still around. Speaking of people being around, where is Aladdin anyway?

Meanwhile, Jafar decides to find the Jabberwocky. I did a little Wikipedia research on the Jabberwocky and this is what I found out:

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of a looking glass.

The Jabberwock is like a giant dragon thing. Here’s a pic!

Jabberwocky was also a character in the Tim Burton version of AIW. On OUATIW, the Jabberwocky is a woman with too much makeup and bad hair. As far as I can tell, she torments people by reaching into their minds and facing them with their greatest fears. Mental torture. This is exactly what she plans to do with Will and Ana after she manages to kidnap them.

For some unknown reason (not really because we all knew why!) the Jabberwocky is unable to affect the Knave with her evil powers. She can use her powers on the Queen though. Ana hasn’t made any of her wishes, which renders Jafar’s newly acquired bottle useless. With a little mind probing, the Jabberwocky gets the Queen to make all three wishes. Way to stay tough, Ana. Jafar attempts his spell, which fails because the Knave is resisting. How can he resist all the things?! Because he doesn’t have a heart.

Jafar threatens to kill Ana if the Knave doesn’t reveal where his heart is and Will concedes because of reasons I don’t agree with. Like, this is our chance to be rid of her! Don’t ruin it! But anyway, turns out his heart is in Storybrooke! Alice and Cyrus hear this news because they’ve managed to break into the castle (Jafar really needs to work on his security. I mean, are you an evil sorcerer or what?) and then scramble off to beat Jafar to the heart.

Now this…this is probably the funniest Alice and Cyrus have ever been in their lives. The White Rabbit opens a portal to Storybrooke for them and leads them to Will’s humble abode where they spend most of their time fascinated by ice makers and light switches. They do manage to find his heart, hidden behind an accurate drawing on the wall. But just as they get back to Wonderland, Jafar appears and steals the heart. All that dealing with modern technology for nothing! Well, not for nothing. Cyrus’ Jack Sparrow compass points straight at Jafar’s staff/Cyrus’s mom and reveals to the group that Amara is still alive. Amara, who still has a mind of her own, pulls her staffy self from Jafar’s grasp and flies into her son’s open arms. Family reunions are so sweet.

Jafar takes the Knave’s heart back to the castle and rudely slams in back in. Will realizes he still loves Ana (ick) and they make out for too long. :/ Not liking this display any more than I do, Jafar pulls Ana back and stabs her. Could this be real? Is she really gone? No hopes shall be gotten up at this time.

In backstory world, Ana meets Cora, the Queen of Hearts (Regina’s evil mother who hurt Hook so we hate her forever). Cora, who is disappointed in her own daughter, offers to teach Ana magic and she somewhat reluctantly accepts. Will comes to the castle one night and asks why she left him, which is a pretty damn good question. He decides to give her another chance and tells her to meet him at their wagon if she still loves him. Cora is none too happy to find out Ana plans to leave the castle.

 

She heads off to beat Ana to Will and tells Will Ana isn’t coming. He believes her because why not? Then he asks her (ASKS HER!) to remove his heart so he doesn’t have to feel the pain. Cora obliges and that is the beginning of the Knave of Hearts. By the time Ana shows at the wagon, Will is gone. Too bad.

Back in the present, she is dead and Knave is sad. I feel for him, I really do, but I don’t for one second think she will stay dead. Jafar decides to manipulate the Knave by offering to bring his beloved back from her Snow White-esque grave. If he can complete the spell, he says, he can bring back the dead, which sounds like a terrible idea. In order to accomplish such a feat, he needs his staff. So Knave runs off to find Alice and Cyrus.

They refuse to let him have the staff. Instead they plan to return the water to the creepy chick to save Cyrus’ mom and brothers. But the Knave steals the staff and makes a break for it. Also he punches Cyrus in the face. LOL. Alice tracks him down finally and they argue about how selfish she is (legit) and then she falls off a cliff. Because the Knave is so awesome, he decides to rescue her instead of escaping with the staff.

In the past we learn that Alice met the Knave when the Queen of Hearts sent him to kill her. She bests him somehow and traps him in a net. He says he has to kill her because the queen controls him. Alice offers to get his heart back for him if he’ll help her in return. She manages the task and the Knave gives her something to take home to show her father as proof that Wonderland exists. A lamp.

Back to present, the gang run into the Jabberwocky, who is super pissed at that double crossing liar Jafar. She agrees to help them defeat him. She takes Cyrus back to the palace as a prisoner to… distract Jafar or something. Also Amara turns back into a person somehow. Doesn’t matter.

So Amara and Jafar get into a magic fight which ends in a shattered piece of glass sticking out of Cyrus’ chest. Now that her son is dying, Amara has no choice but to help Jafar complete his spell so that she can bring him back. After he has the ultimate power, and no one was shocked because we already knew he would, Jafar tries to kill Amara. But his long time prisoner, whom Alice had freed, comes in. The dude, it turns out (to nobody’s surprise) is Jafar’s father that tried to kill him that one time. Jafar uses his new magic skills to make the man love him before killing him. Something about knowing how it feels to be killed by someone you love.

Alice and Amara escape, taking Cyrus with them. They have some future in-law bonding time whilst Cyrus is healing or whatever. The three devise a new plan to take down Jafar. Amara thinks if she returns the water to the well and breaks the genie curse, it will remove Jafar’s powers. And since she must always have a plan involving violence, Alice decides to recruit an army to defeat Jafar once his power is no more. They decide to split up but no one’s plan quite works out like they thought it would.

Alice is captured and taken off to the palace after her army of peasants is defeated. Jafar the all mighty did as he’d promised and brought the Queen back to life. (So the one time he keeps his word is now?  Ugh.) BUT he also used his other skill on her and now she’s fawning all over him. Poor Knave (and poor all of us cause gross) has to watch as they make out in front of him.

Alice is brought into the palace and tied to a chair. And what good is a show anyway if no one ever gets tied to a chair? Jafar threatens to use his third new power to ruin her life. He says he’ll go back in time and make sure she never meets Cyrus. But before he can, he finds out from a lackey that Cyrus and Amara escaped them. The Queen tells Jafar where they went and he runs along to stop them. He arrives in time to kill Amara and stops Cyrus from dropping the water in the well.

Not to be outdone in the heroics department, Alice arrives by way of rabbit hole to help. What Jafar doesn’t realize is now he has taken water from the well. Creepy pops up from the water and turns his butt into a genie. Justice. Although, in Aladdin when Jafar turned into a genie, he was even more powerful and evil. Not this time I guess.

Cyrus’ brothers and the Knave are released from bondage BUT Jafar’s magic has also been undone. And what spells has he cast recently? Making people love him? Bringing them back to life? Poor Will must watch once again as Ana dies. TWICE! They killed the woman twice and yet… Alice and Cyrus arrive back at the palace with some well water (that Grudge girl gave them for free) spouting off some crap about how it isn’t the Queen’s time or something. So Will saves her of course.

Now, what I don’t understand is why Cyrus didn’t die again too? His mother healed him, yes, but didn’t her magic come from the same spell? Maybe not. I don’t know. Why does it matter?

Anyway, Cyrus and Alice get married and the Queen wears a terrible outfit.

The End.

And they all lived happily ever after I guess. GOOD NEWS though. Michael Socha has joined the cast of OUAT for next season. So the Knave is back!! The question is, do his recent adventures in Wonderland take place before or after what’s about to gone down on OUAT. We shall see. My only fear is that the Queen may be with him. On the bright side, maybe Regina will kill her on principle.

When OUATIW began, I thought I would find it as enjoyable as OUAT regular. And at first I could see the potential. But as the show went on, I had a strong feeling it wouldn’t make it past season one. And I was glad for it. I am happy the show was given a proper ending. It’s always irritating, no matter how good or bad a show is, when it is cancelled and just ends. At least give us an ending! We’ve dedicated a good portion of our lives to these shows and deserve a conclusion! (COUGHREUNIONCOUGH)

This pretty much sums it up: