Recap / Once Upon A Time In Wonderland S 1 E 11 Heart Of The Matter

Cyrus goes to Underland and talks to the Caterpillar to see if he can get back the compass he traded years ago. As the Caterpillar talks to him, a shrunken Alice sneaks into the Caterpillar’s belongings and steals the compass. Cyrus starts a bar fight and he and Alice escape.

Jafar puts the three genie bottles together and starts to cast the ritual to rewrite the laws of magic. The ritual creates an earthquake that can be felt in the dungeons by Anastasia.

Anastasia thinks back to what happened after she was engaged to the Red King. The day before her wedding, she was visited by Cora, the Queen of Hearts. Cora was impressed by Anastasia and offered to teach her magic.

Alice and Cyrus try to use the magical compass to find Cyrus’ mother. Tweedledum meets them at their secret tent and delivers them a message from Anastasia that Jafar has all three genies and they should get out of Wonderland while they still can. Alice asks Tweedledum to show them how to get into the palace through the secret tunnels.

Jafar continues trying to perform the ritual, but he sees that Will’s genie bottle doesn’t react to the spell. Frustrated, Jafar lets Will out of the bottle and demands to know how he is resisting. The Jabberwocky tries to listen to Will’s fears but has a hard time reading him. Will casually tries to help her out.

Will/Knave: I’ll save you some time. Water, hairy spiders, being stabbed in the head, and, uh, raisins. Grapes are fine, but raisins, no thank you.

Jafar: Enough!

Jabberwocky tells Jafar that there’s something off about Will. Jafar speculates that the Red Queen must have put some kind of protection spell on him. They decide to interrogate Anastasia.

Will thinks back to the night before Anastasia married the Red King. He snuck into the palace to see her. He begged her to tell him that her going with the Red King was all part of their heist and that she would soon come back to be with Will. Anastasia said that though she cared about Will, she was trying to do what was best for both of them. Will reminded her of the good times they had together and pleaded with her to come back home with him. Guards arrived and Will was forced to flee, but before he left, he told Anastasia to meet him at their wagon at dawn.

Alice and Cyrus sneak into the dungeons and briefly talk to Anastasia. They hide quickly as Jafar and the Jabberwocky approach. Jafar demands to know what Anastasia did to Will, but she has no idea why the spell didn’t work on him. The Jabberwocky senses Alice’s fear and figures out the answer: the ritual didn’t work on Will because he doesn’t have a heart. Alice and Cyrus manage to slip away, but Jafar discovers the secret tunnels. The tunnels had previously been used by the Red King to sneak lovers into the palace. When Jafar asks where he can find the Knave’s heart, Anastasia says truthfully that she has no idea where his heart is, since she didn’t even know it was missing.

Alice tells Cyrus that she knows where to find the Knave’s heart, but it isn’t in Wonderland.

Jafar confronts Will and threatens to kill Anastasia unless he tells him where his heart can be found. Anastasis begs Will not to do it, but he agrees.

Will/Knave: My heart’s caused me enough suffering. Nobody needs to die for it. Not even you.

Will thinks back to one of his saddest memories. The morning after he had pleaded with Anastasia to come home, he waited and waited for her, but she never came. When he heard footsteps, he almost felt hope again, but it was the Queen of Hearts who approached him instead. She told him that Anastasia was going to be the Red Queen, and she didn’t need any ex-boyfriends to distract her from her future. Will questioned Cora’s opinion on love.

Will Scarlet: Why would a friend keep her from following her heart?

Cora/Queen of Hearts: In my experience, hearts are much more trouble than they’re worth.

Will Scarlet: I think you might be right about that. Every day I wake up thinking, “maybe she changed her mind, remembered how much she loved me. I bet she’ll come home today.” But she don’t come. I go to sleep alone. My heart’s broken all over again. And then the sun comes up and I think “maybe today’s the day.”

Cora/Queen of Hearts: But it never is the day, is it?

Will Scarlet: No.

Cora/Queen of Hearts: It’s time you realize it never will be. Otherwise, that pain in your heart will never, ever go away. You served your purpose for her. You brought her here to Wonderland, you helped her realize she was meant for more. We all come into each other’s lives for a reason. Sometimes, it’s just for a different one than you thought.

Will Scarlet: Then there’s a reason you’re in mine.

Cora/Queen of Hearts: And what might that be?

Will Scarlet: I know what you do. I know what you do to people’s hearts. And I want you to do that to me.

Cora/Queen of Hearts: Do you understand what you’re asking for?

Will Scarlet: Yeah.

Cora/Queen of Hearts: Really? A man without his heart…

Will Scarlet: …is a man without heartache.

Cora/Queen of Hearts: You won’t be able to love again.

Will Scarlet: I’d rather feel nothing than feel like this. Do it.

With more sympathy than she was accustomed to, Cora took out Will’s heart. Rather than crush it, she decided to keep it. She ordered Will to be on his way. Later, she would force him to work for her as the Knave of Hearts.

Alice and Cyrus arrive at the White Rabbit’s house, where they see several soldiers leaving. The Rabbit explains he is trying to persuade people to join the fight against Jafar, but it’s not going well. Alice asks the Rabbit to take them to Storybrooke.In Storybrooke, the White Rabbit shows them the Knave’s apartment.

In Jafar’s dungeon, Anastasia marvels that even without a heart in his body, Will still saved her life.

Will/Knave: I’d have done the same for anyone. I don’t want blood on me hands. It gets messy.

Anastasia: No, you’re no knave. Will, you’re a good man. The same good man I fell in love with all those years ago.

Will/Knave: You didn’t love me, Ana. And you don’t love me now.

Anastasia: How can you say that, Will?

Will/Knave: You love the memory of me. You love the times we had. You loved how simple it was before all of this, but you didn’t love me. If you did, you would have showed up at the wagon that day.

Anastasia thinks back to that day. She actually had decided to go back to Will, but Cora caught her as she was about to sneak out of the palace. Cora manipulated Anastasia by talking about how special she was and all the potential she had. This particularly hurt, as Anastasia was reminded of how her own mother had told her she was a failure.

Cora/Queen of Hearts: What I see in you is a desire to make a mark in this world. Someday we’ll all move on. And when we do, do you really want to be buried behind some rickety wagon, not even a stone to mark your grave? Or do you want thousands to gather around, celebrating the glorious life you led, the life you were meant for?

Despite Cora's words, Anastasia still wanted to go back to Will, but Cora used her magical mirror to show Anastasia the wagon, with Will nowhere to be found. Cora told Anastasia that Will had abandoned her, and he would never love her again. Brokenhearted, Anastasia resolved to become the Red Queen.

Alice and Cyrus search Will’s apartment and find his heart hidden behind a drawing of the Red Queen which Will has been using as a dartboard.

In the dungeons, Will and Anastasia continue to talk. Thinking about Anastasia’s plan to change the past, Will asks her which part of it she would have changed. She tells him she would have changed it so they never came to Wonderland at all.

Anastasia remembers how Cora taught her how to use magic. Anastasia’s fears and feelings of inadequacy made it difficult for her to learn at first.

Cora/Queen of Hearts: Anastasia, you don’t need anyone’s approval. Whoever it was that made you feel this way, that you are somehow flawed or unworthy, you need to take that pain, the fear that they were right, and use it. It’s the root of your power. Let it drive the magic and prove them. ALL. WRONG! (Anastasia’s magic causes a plume of fire to leap up from the brazier)

Ecstatic, Anastasia wondered why the Red King didn’t like magic when it seemed so useful. Cora said she probably wouldn’t have to worry about the Red King for much longer.

Alice, Cyrus, and the White Rabbit arrive back in Wonderland, but Jafar catches up with them before they can hide the Knave’s heart. Jafar steals the heart and tries to blast Cyrus with his staff, but to everyone’s amazement, the staff backfires on Jafar and sends him flying. Cyrus grabs the staff, and when Jafar tries to summon it with magic, the staff resists him again. Jafar flees. Trying to figure out what happened, Cyrus notices that his magical compass keeps pointing at the staff. Cyrus realizes that his mother is imprisoned inside the serpent staff.In the dungeons, Anastasia apologizes to Will for what she did to him and for trying to use magic to win him back.

Anastasia: I know you’re never gonna love me again. But do you think you might possibly be able to forgive me?

Will/Knave: You know as well as I do, Ana. Anything’s possible in Wonderland.

Anastasia: I really don’t want Jafar to succeed, but I do hope you get your heart back. You deserve to feel something for someone. Even if it’s not me.

Jafar and the Jabberwocky return and painfully jam Will’s heart back into his chest. Anastasia pleads for Will to look at her, and when he does, he feels the love he once felt for her. He kisses her through the bars of her cell, but the Jabberwocky pulls Will away, and Jafar kills Anastasia.

Tropes

• Badass Normal: Cyrus, who's no longer a genie, but can still fight.
• Brought Down to Badass: Cyrus may not be a Genie anymore, but he can still handle himself in a bar brawl exceptionally well.
• Dartboard of Hate: In Storybrooke, the Knave has a picture of the Red Queen set up as a dartboard.
• Does Not Like Magic: The Red King, who believes it would separate them from the people.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: When Alice visits Storybrooke, she marvels at modern technology, thinking it to be magic.
• Forced to Watch: Jafar kills Anastasia in front of Will, ostensibly to test that his heart is still working.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: A non-lethal version. In the flashback, Anastasia almost gave up being Queen to return to Will, but Cora took out Will’s heart and tricked Anastasia into thinking he had abandoned her just like she did him.
• Love Is a Weakness: Cora says this word for word to Will, and he decides to follow her example by asking her to take his heart out.
• Mythology Gag: Upon arriving in Storybrooke, Alice exclaims “Curiouser and curiouser,” a famous line from the original book of Alice in Wonderland.
• No-Sell: Because Will has no heart, the Jabberwocky can’t read his fears and Jafar can’t perform the ritual.
  • When Jafar tries to blast Cyrus with his staff, the staff fights back, refusing to harm Cyrus because it's his mother.
• Sarcasm-Blind: When the Alice admires the nice things in the Knave’s apartment, the Rabbit says most of it “fell off a truck.” Not understanding his meaning, Alice asks how it ended up here.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It's never made clear what happened to the Red King. This episode reveals that the King had secret tunnels for smuggling in lovers, which implies he was unfaithful to Anastasia, and Cora's line about Anastasia not needing to worry about him anymore implies that Anastasia may have gotten rid of him with her magic somehow, but oddly, none of the other inhabitants of Wonderland have ever accused Anastasia of banishing or murdering the Red King, so his fate remains a mystery.