The spell is finished – Amara squats by her son, ready to
resurrect him as she is now one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world
(with Jafar). Which involves turning her back on Jafar – which is damn foolish
Jafar refrains from killing when his dad arrives and
tells him to stop because Jafar has super-epic, legendary daddy issues. The
ex-sultan makes a plea for mercy which, it has to be said, is rather rich from
the man who tried to drown his child. Jafar’s not impressed and uses his magic
to finally claim his dad’s love. His father proclaims his love and devotion for
his child – and then Jafar reals the second half of the plan; having secured
his dad’s love he will then kill him so his dad can know what it’s like to be
murdered by someone he loves. He then drowns him
Epic epic EPIC daddy issues. Y’know, all this seeking
power has ended rather anti-climactically.
At least Jafar’s little act of patricide gives Alice,
Cyrus and Amara chance to escape – by carrying him until they find a carpet to
enchant. They flee to the White Rabbit’s burrow where Amara uses her magic to
heal Cyrus. Introductions made, Amara announces that now they have to take down
Jafar.
Jafar goes to hunt the Jabberwock with the Vorpal blade –
because now he fears nothing. He stabs her with the sword (she’s apparently
lost her teleport/super-speed ability) and pins her to the wall, imprisoning
her.
Next he summons the Knave and tells him he’s brought
Anastasia back from the dead! The Knave is overjoyed – except the catch is
Jafar’s also used his magic to make Anastasia fall in love with him. Yes,
Anastasia now loves Jafar – in a twist that is extra rape-tastic. He also
decides to raise an undead army.
Amara’s plan is to return the water to the Well of
Wonders, undoing the genie curse, removing the spell and her and Jafar’s super
powers. Alice, not realising that Anastasia is back, protests that they
promised to try and bring Anastasia back but Cyrus is on Amara’s side – they
risk losing the Knave if they launch an outright magical war against Jafar. So
new plan – Cyrus and Amara return the water to the well while Alice gathers an
army to take down Jafar (he’ll still be a wizard even without super-god-power).
Jafar makes a stirring speech to his army – so they may
be back from the dead but they’re not zombies – sending them forth to hunt
Amara.
Alice delivers a much soggier speech to her army (that
the Rabbit has recruited).
The first battles begin between the different forces - Amara
isn’t much delayed – but Cyrus decides Alice won’t stand a chance without magic
and, yes, she is defeated and captured and dragged before Jafar to be tied to
the furniture. Jafar wants to know where Amara is and rather than use magic to
read Alice’s mind or force a truth spell (hey all powerful and all that) he
threatens Alice with going back in time and changing the past – making it so
Alice and Cyrus never met.
Alice strikes back – her love is real and she doesn’t believe his magic can erase it. She mocks his power – the illusory love he thinks he has, his army that are walking corpses: none of it real (the army looked pretty real, I have to say). And LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE CONQUERS ALL SO HE WILL NEVER WIN!
This bothers Jafar. Personally I would have lopped off a
limb, but that’s because I’d be a much better villain. He’s distracted by some
necessary messenger killing of zombie-soldiers telling him Amara went through
the doors (which lead to the Well) so doesn’t ruin Alice’s life – but he does
realise that Anastasia has been their ally for some time now and knows all
their little secrets – so asks her instead.
Jafar heads off to the Well, leaving Anastasia to guard
them – and she does stop the White Rabbit from sneaking in and freeing Alice.
Instead the Knave talks to Anastasia, appealing to her love and when she gets
close enough to his magic barrier she asks “what is love?” and he pulls her to
him (Jafar, most powerful sorcerer in the world – terrible at cages) and kisses
her.
True Loves Kiss kills all curses, it’s is a Once Upon a Time rule. Anatasia is
restored to her senses.
And at the Well, Amara makes her goodbyes to Cyrus – when
Jafar ambushes them. He zaps Amara – and kills her. Cyrus is knocked aside (but
not killed for REASONS)… but with Amara’s death the water that was used to save
her life falls to the floor. Jafar needs to do better research (or ask
Anastasia more questions).
The Rabbit burrows in Alice to save the day – and by
“save the day” I mean be captured by Jafar’s magic. He punts the rabbit – and
grabs the water Cyrus tries to move the water into the well – Jafar stops him
and scatters the water. Which means Jafar stopped the water being returned –
Jafar stole the Guardian’s water
Which is Naughty.
As is her wont, the Guardian hands down a genie curse
(hey, can this curse come without the “unwrite the basic safeguards of magic”
codicil? ‘kay thanks!). Jafar is bottled
Itty bitty living space.
The Knave and Cyrus’s 2 brothers are freed from their
bottles, the genie curse on them is broken. The brothers celebrate and Alice
and Cyrus are ecstatic.
He an Alice return to the palace where Cyrus is reunited
with his brothers, though it’s bitter sweet with the knowledge that Amara died for
them.
And Anastasia, resurrected with the power of the genies, dies. Will grieves over her body – but Alice and Cyrus have water from the Well of Wonders; not stolen, given so free from a curse. It wasn’t her time, resurrecting her doesn’t flying in the face of destiny. Apparently anyway. Anastasia is to go on – but the Red Queen is to end. Anastasia is restored to life.
It’s time for Alice and Cyrus to leave Wonderland and go
home. Hone in this case being Victorian London to get married – and her father
finally accepting Wonderland’s existence and blessing their wedding
He could hardly doubt with the White Rabbit running proceedings. We have a beautiful super-satisfying wedding scene. At the end of which, Alice makes her goodbyes to the Knave and Anastasia and they return to Wonderland
Years later, Alice reads the story to her daughter –
ending with a White King and White Queen ruling Wonderland.
Awww… the ending was a little twee, but since Once Upon a Time in Wonderland is
cancelled, I can’t blame them for shooting for a happy, saccharine ending
I do feel it was a little rushed… like the writers
expected (hoped?) to have another season to work with and then had to shoe-horn
everything into the last episode. I think this resulted in a lot of pointless
elements: Jafar’s enthralling of Anastasia was so brief that it seemed
gratuitous and unnecessary. Jafar has spent however many years tormenting his
father for his love – and then resolves his Epic Daddy Issues in 10 seconds? He
raises a vast army, Alice raises another – and we get one small skirmish. Amara
was barely around for 5 minutes and made virtually no use of her magic – and
what was the point of the Jabberwock again? What did she do that Jafar really
couldn’t? And why did she co-operate with him anyway?
It feels like all of these would have had more developed
storylines – but there just wasn’t time to work with them.
I am sad to see Wonderland
go because it had many elements I enjoyed, but I also feel the show had
some major problems in conception. Not enough was made of the Wonderland elements – the Cheshire Cat
appeared once, the chess motif and playing card motif were both minimal, most
of the creatures were brief mentions, even the White Rabbit and the Caterpillar
weren’t major elements. I also think it was too separated from its parent show
– one brief appearance by Cora wasn’t sufficient to tie the two together, or
ensure the fanbase latched onto the new show.
I found Jafar’s motivations to be rather shallow – and
wish that Amara, Jafar’s father, Cyrus’s brothers and Cyrus himself had had a
longer term more active role in the show to counter the POC as villain role he
fulfilled. Jafar did do well in that role though and while there were tropes…
it could have been worse.
We had a number of strong women – but Alice quickly
became wet and seemed to lose her swashbuckling activeness that began the story
and she didn’t really develop the insightful intellect which I think was
supposed to be her hallmark. Amara (she was supposed to be the equal of Jafar)
was depowered and died; Anastasia also depowered – and died; Jabberwock,
depowered – and imprisoned; Elizabeth… dead. These women seemed to be set up to
be brought down. It was also another show with zero LGBT people which is beyond
annoying now.
The Knave is going to become a series regular on Once Upon a Time it seems – which is
awesome since he was the best element of the show – though I will also miss
Anastasia. I think, in some ways, they may have been part of the downfall of
the show – they were both so much more compelling than Alice and Cyrus
