Recap / Once Upon A Time In Wonderland S 1 E 3 Forget Me Not

Years ago in the Enchanted Forest, Robin Hood and his Merry Men pulled off a daring robbery of a stagecoach with the help of their newest member: Will Scarlet, the man who would later be known as the Knave of Hearts.

In Wonderland, Alice and Will (the Knave) strategize on how they can find Cyrus and the genie bottle. Will comes up with the idea of learning who dug up the bottle by using the Forget-Me-Knot, a magical lasso that can show the last thing that happened in any particular place. Unfortunately, the Forget-Me-Knot is currently in the possession of the Caterpillar, who has a price on the Knave’s head.

In Jafar’s dungeon, the Red Queen and Jafar have a feast while Cyrus watches. Jafar shows Cyrus the paper crane that Alice tried to send back to him and tells him that Alice is determined to find him.

The Knave decides to confront the Caterpillar and make a deal with him to lift the bounty on his head. He and Alice go to the Caterpillar’s hideout, a seedy den known as the “Underland.” When Alice and Will talk to the Caterpillar, it turns out that he doesn’t have the Forget-Me-Knot. The Knave makes a deal that if the Caterpillar tells them where it is, they will get it for him on the condition that he erases the debt the Knave owes him. The Caterpillar agrees and tells them the Forget-Me-Knot is in the possession of the Grendel.As they leave, Alice is unhappy at the idea of giving the Forget-Me-Knot to someone as evil as the Caterpillar. Will tells her it’s just part of being a thief, which is why Alice needs him.

Will thinks back to his past when he was part of the Merry Men. After initiating him into the gang, Robin Hood explained their code.

Robin Hood: You’re one of us now. For life.

Will Scarlet: A thief for life?

Robin Hood: No, not a thief. People call us that, that’s not what we are.

Will Scarlet: Then what are we?

Robin Hood: We help those in need. A thief only steals for himself.

Will Scarlet: Right. And that’s not us?

Robin Hood: We have a cause that’s bigger than any one of our own needs. And that cause is humanity. When you steal for personal gain, the first thing you lose is yourself.

Will then proposed to Robin Hood that for their next heist they should steal from Maleficent’s castle. Robin at first refused, saying that the castle is full of magic, and magic is too dangerous to mess with, but Will insisted they would only be stealing Maleficent’s gold, not touching any of her magical artifacts. And because Maleficent would be away from the castle for several days, the Merry Men would only need to worry about getting past her guards. Robin was impressed by Will’s daring.

Robin Hood: You’d steal the pitchfork from the devil himself.

Will Scarlet: And be out of Hell before he realized it was gone.

After Robin agreed, Will went home to his girlfriend and told her about the success of his plan. Will never really planned to be staying with the Merry Men, this was all part of a plan to build a new life for him and his girlfriend.

At Jafar’s dungeon, Jafar has the Red Queen read a list of magical monsters to send after Alice. As she reads, Jafar tries to watch Cyrus’ reactions to decide which monster would be best to send, so Alice will be forced to use her wishes to save herself. When the Red Queen mentions how Alice was terrified of the Bandersnatch as a child, Jafar sees fear in Cyrus’ eyes and decides it must be the perfect monster to send after Alice.

As Alice and the Knave approach the Grendel’s house, Will comes up with a plan. He will cause a diversion to draw out the Grendel while Alice goes in and steals the knot. Unfortunately, they get caught in a pit trap before they can even reach the door of the house. Alice and Will wake up to find themselves tied up in the Grendel’s kitchen. The Grendel, a huge and hideous ogre, starts sharpening his knives. Will suggests that Alice use one of her wishes to get them out of trouble, but Alice suggests that he use some of his thief skills, if he’s really as talented as he claimed.

Thinking back, Will remembers how he led the burglary on Maleficent’s castle. While the Merry Men split up to find Maleficent’s hidden treasure chest, Will snuck away and poked around among Maleficent’s collection of magical artifacts. Eventually he found what he was looking for: a small looking-glass.

In the present, Will notices that the Grendel is talking to the Forget-Me-Knot. In the loop of the Forget-Me-Knot, he sees a man kissing a woman. Alice wonders what the Grendel did to those people, but Will realizes that the Grendel is watching a memory from his own past. Will tries to talk to the Grendel, telling him he knows how losing a loved one can change a person for the worst.

Grendel: How do you know?

Will/Knave: Because the way you look is how I feel. Believe me, I understand what you’re going through.

Alice: Keep talking, it’s working.

Will/Knave: I say that the only way to move on is to leave the past behind you. Looking through that knot, thinking about her, seeing her, remembering her, it hurts too much. You want to move on? You have to let go of the hurt. It’s the only way.

The Grendel gets upset and grabs an axe, planning on preparing the Knave for dinner.

Will remembers that after the Merry Men escaped with Maleficent’s treasure, the voice of Maleficent had called out to them in the woods. While she didn’t particularly care about the gold, Maleficent was furious that one of her magical artifacts had been stolen.

The Grendel goes to chop some more firewood, and Alice manages to wriggle out of her bonds by using the sharp corners of the wish tokens to help pick at the knots. She unties Will and they are about to escape, but the door is blocked by the Bandersnatch, a monster that looks like a gigantic wild boar with spines on its back and a spiked tail. The Grendel is knocked down under the Bandersnatch’s onslaught, but Alice and Will trick the Bandersnatch into running through the Forget-Me-Knot and catch it in the noose. Before it can break free, Will finishes it off with a sword thrust.

Jafar realizes that the Bandersnatch is dead, but Alice didn’t use her first wish. Cyrus confides to the other prisoner in Jafar’s dungeon that he had planned this all along, pretending to be afraid of the Bandersnatch because he knew that Alice would be able to handle it.

Alice excitedly tells Will that Cyrus taught her all about Bandersnatches when she had told him she was afraid of them. The Grendel thanks Alice and Will for saving him, and when he sees that the Forget-Me-Knot now shows the Bandernsatch (since it was the last thing that passed through that area) instead of his late wife, he gives the knot to them.

Will remembers how he left the Merry Men after Maleficent’s warning. Robin Hood confronted him and called him out for stealing the magical looking-glass.

Will Scarlet: What are you going to do to me?

Robin Hood: The worst thing possible: nothing.

Will Scarlet: You’re gonna let me go?

Robin Hood: Yes. You will meet the fate you’ve earned. The fate you deserve.

Will Scarlet: That’s rich, coming from the prince of thieves himself!

Robin Hood: Today you’ve shown yourself to be the only thief among us.

The Red Queen and Jafar visit the Grendel and ask him what happened. The Grendel asks if they can bring back his wife, and The Red Queen tells him that if their plan succeeds, it will be possible to bring her back, even though such magic would normally be impossible. The Grendel tells them that he was saved by a young woman, and someone called “Knave.” Jafar is surprised to learn that Alice has help, and he notices a flicker of emotion on the Red Queen’s face when she hears about the Knave. When the Grendel asks to be reunited with his wife, Jafar kills him.

As Alice and the Knave walk along the road, Alice commends Will for how he seemed to connect with the Grendel. She again asks him about his past and who Anastasia is, but he doesn’t give an answer. They return to Mimsy Meadows and use the Forget-Me-Knot to see what happened. The Knot reveals that the White Rabbit stole the genie bottle and gave it to the Red Queen.In Underland, the Caterpillar is visited by Jafar, who has questions about the Knave.The Knave thinks about what Alice said earlier and decides she was right that giving the knot to the Caterpillar is a bad idea. Alice points out that if they don’t give it to him the Knave will still be a hunted thief.

Will/Knave: Actually, being a thief ain’t up to anyone but me. If I give this to him, then I went to steal this thing for me. That makes me a thief. But if I don’t give it to him, well, then I got it for you.

Alice: And what does that make you then?

Will/Knave: Hopefully, someone with a shred of humanity left.

Alice: No “hopefully” about it.

Will burns the knot and thinks back to what happened after he left Robin Hood. He took the magic looking-glass and rode home, calling for Anastasia, who came running out into his arms. Anastasia was a beautiful young woman with blonde hair. She was the same person who would later be known in Wonderland as the Red Queen. Together, Anastasia and Will went through the looking-glass.

Tropes

• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Discussed. Will seems to think of himself this way when he tells Alice she needs him for his thieving abilities, but he turns out to be less of a bad guy than he thought.
• Batman Gambit: Cyrus pretends to be terrified of the Bandersnatch in order to trick Jafar into sending it after Alice. Cyrus secretly wants Jafar to send the Bandersnatch rather than some other monster because he is confident that Alice will be able to handle it.
• Double Entendre: When Will Scarlet says a chest of gold can’t compare to the beauty of a woman, Little John says “it depends on the chest.”
• Exact Words: Jafar agrees to reunite the Grendel with his wife. He kills him, so they are reunited in death.
• Expy: The Caterpillar is Wonderland’s equivalent of Jabba the Hutt.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Caterpillar hopes to cut off the Knave’s head and keep it (still living) on his desk.
• Foreshadowing: When Alice expresses her unease at giving the Forget-Me-Knot to someone as evil as the Caterpillar, Will asks her hypothetically if she would let someone else suffer if it meant she and Cyrus could be together forever. This dilemma will be presented again later when Will is forced to carry out Jafar’s bidding in the desperate hope of saving Anastasia.
• Hypocrite: Robin warns Will against stealing for personal gain, and particularly frowns upon stealing magic, yet in his very first appearance, we see him stealing a wand from the Dark One himself to cure his sick, pregnant wife.
• Karmic Transformation: The Red Queen turned the Grendel into a monster as punishment for stealing the Forget-Me-Knot.
• The Reveal: Alice had occasionally referred to the Knave as “Will,” but his real name is not revealed in full until this episode.
  • When Anastasia shows her face for the first time she is revealed to be the same person as the Red Queen.
• Shout-Out: When reading about monsters, the Red Queen suggests feeding Alice to the Sarlaac.
• "Wanted!" Poster: The Knave’s poster says he is wanted for theft, fraud, posturing, imposturing, gambling, disturbing the peace, and public nudity.
• Wham Shot: In Will’s flashback, when Anastasia runs outside of the house, it is revealed to the audience that she is the same person as the Red Queen.
• Xanatos Gambit: When the Caterpillar makes a deal with the Knave to get the Forget-Me-Knot, he says all outcomes favor him. He hates the Knave, so he won’t care if the Grendel kills him, and if the Knave successfully gets the knot, he will either have to give the knot to the Caterpillar or flee with it, in which case the Caterpillar will have him hunted down and still get the knot in the end.