Recap / Once Upon A Time In Wonderland S 1 E 6 Whos Alice

Traveling through the Rabbit Hole, Jafar visits Victorian London to see if he can learn more about Alice. Posing as “Dr. Sheffield,” Jafar visits Bethlem Asylum and asks Dr. Lydgate about Alice. Dr. Lydgate is disturbed to think about Alice after the bizarre way she escaped, and he pretends he doesn’t know what “Sheffield” is talking about.

Dr. Lydgate: I don’t recall any Alice, I’m afraid. We have so many patients…

Jafar: Well of course you do. But how many of them escape in the company of a talking rabbit?

Dr. Lydgate: I have no idea what you mean.

Jafar: Really? Even after you saw it with your own two eyes?

Dr. Lydgate: A talking rabbit? That’s madness.

Jafar: Sometimes the maddest stories are the truest ones.

Jafar opens his briefcase to reveal the White Rabbit. Dr. Lydgate is horrified, as he has tried hard to surpress this memory. Jafar demands that Lydgate tell him everything about Alice.

In Wonderland, the Red Queen visits Jafar’s dungeon with one of her Tweedles, but is surprised to see that not only is Jafar not here, neither is the genie. The old prisoner refuses to tell her where Cyrus went.

Cyrus is in the process of climbing down the cliff below Jafar’s castle. As he looks down from the mountain, he sees a flash of light, telling him where Alice is. The amulet around Alice’s neck glows as it senses Cyrus.Alice sets off to find Cyrus. Two outlaws try to stop her on the road and steal her necklace, but she fights them off.

As she continues on her way, Alice thinks about the last time she went home from Wonderland. She had fallen through the Rabbit Hole and ended up back in the garden of her old house, where she lay dazed and depressed, crying at the thought of Cyrus being killed by the Red Queen. Suddenly a young girl named Millie arrived and asked Alice what she was doing there. As Millie offered to help Alice, her parents suddenly arrived. To Alice’s shock, she realized that Millie was actually her half-sister, as Millie’s father was Alice’s father. It seemed that Alice’s last adventure in Wonderland lasted several years in Victorian England, during which time her father had remarried and had another child, thinking that Alice was dead. Her father wasn’t able to make any sense of Alice’s ramblings about Cyrus being killed by the Red Queen, but he told her she should come home with her new family.In the present, Alice enters the Black Forest of Wonderland. The forest is ominous and marked with numerous signs urging travelers to turn back.

Alice: Seems like an awful waste of wood, when one sign would do.

The entrance is a passage of pure darkness. Alice starts to feel a little uneasy, but she ventures onward.

Having been restored after being turned to stone, Will wanders around disoriented, trying to find out where Alice went. Will soon learns from the outlaws that Alice has headed into the Black Forest.

Alice’s torch goes out, surrounding her in the inky blackness of the forest. But a moment later, a great light shines out from the trees. Alice heads towards the light and ends up in a strange grove filled with trees with purple spores that send puffs of purple mist into the air. A man tells Alice that he is the Carpenter, and this place is the Boro Grove. He suggests that she stay here for a while. As Alice tries to talk, she suddenly finds it hard to remember what she was doing.As her memory slips, Alice thinks back to what happened after she returned home. Adjusting to her being home again after so many years was difficult for her father, stepmother, and half-sister.

Edwin: Alice, there’s something you must understand. I have a new family now, and they will love you as I do. But Millie is quite young and impressionable. If you truly want to stay, there can be no more mention of Wonderland or this genie.

Alice: He had a name: Cyrus.

Edwin: Alice, wherever you really were, whatever really happened, these things are best forgotten.

Alice: So I should just sweep him under the rug like you did with mother and with me?

Edwin: (Stung) I spent a long time clinging to painful memories. And then one day I realized I had to stop clinging to be happy.

Alice: I don’t think I can be happy again. And Not without him.

Edwin: You will be if you want to live in this house. Can you do that? Can you try to fit in, to be happy in our home?

Alice: I have nowhere else to go. I’ll try.

Edwin: And you will forget about Wonderland and this Cyrus? (A tear rolls down Alice’s cheek) Alice?

Alice: Are you glad I’m back, Father? Do you really want me here?

Edwin: Of course I do Alice. Of course. (Alice looks at him uncertainly)

In Wonderland, the Red Queen goes genie-hunting, hoping she can beat Jafar if she has both Cyrus and the bottle.

Will finds his way to Boro Grove and finds Alice. Alice is happy to see him, but Will notices that she seems a bit loony. She has a vacant smile and has made an odd work of art consisting of her sword stuck in the ground decorated with flowers and Cyrus’ necklace. She can’t remember how long she has been here. Will is nervous when he sees the Carpenter.

Alice: Oh, that’s just the Carpenter. Don’t worry about him

Will/Knave: (Sarcastically) Right. Don’t worry about the man with the saw and the scary grin.

Alice: (Sincerely) Exactly!

Will/Knave: How long have you been here, Alice?

Alice: I don’t remember. A while.

Will/Knave: And you took the necklace off and just stopped everything to pick flowers, with Cyrus still a prisoner?

Alice: …Yes?

Will/Knave: Why would you do that?

Alice: Because it makes me happy.

In the past, Alice had to try hard to pretend to be happy when she was trying to adjust to living back at home. It wasn’t long before her stepmother started pressuring Alice to think about moving on with her life and finding a husband, despite Alice still being in mourning for Cyrus. Her stepmother was exasperated with Alice’s reluctance, and her father was having a difficult time supporting her since he also thought that Alice’s stories were all imaginary.

In the present, Cyrus is being pursued by Jafar’s guards, but uses some clever thinking to get them off his trail.

Will thinks that the Carpenter must have done something to Alice to make her lose her mind, but when he looks more closely, Will sees plants growing up around the Carpenter. Looking back at the spore-covered trees, Will notices human faces on them, and realizes that each tree was once a person who got stuck in this grove. He desperately tries to get Alice to leave, but Alice can no longer remember her own name.

In the past, though Alice tried to fit in with her family, she couldn’t forget her adventures in Wonderland. She frequently had nightmares of Cyrus being thrown into the Boiling Sea. Milie tried to help Alice talk through her nightmares, but her parents grew increasingly exasperated with Alice’s lack of progress.

Alice: I’m sorry.

Edwin: We don’t need you to be sorry, Alice. We need you to be better. And if you won’t stop believing this foolishness, at least have the decency to keep it to yourself.

Alice: I want to be. I want to be happy. I am trying.

Sarah: Not nearly hard enough. We really thought you could forget this nonsense, Alice. It appears we were wrong.

As Alice’s mind continues to go, the Knave tries to forcefully drag her out of Boro Grove. Alice gets upset and lashes out at him. Alice screams that she’s happy here, but Will tells her that this isn’t real happiness. A tree starts to grow around Alice, making it impossible for Will to move her. He realizes that the only way she can get out is if she wants to go.

In Alice’s past, Alice hit her breaking point when her father and stepmother tried to introduce Alice to a young man in the hopes that she might marry him. After storming out of breakfast, Alice quarrelled with her father, who told her that she could not spend her entire life in mourning.

Alice: It took you years to get over mother. You were sad my entire childhood. Why do you think I can forget Cyrus in just a few days?

Edwin: Because, unlike him, your mother was bloody real!

When Alice insisted that she could not move on with her life, her father said that she could not stay with them anymore. Unable to believe Alice’s stories and unable to find a compromise, he offered Alice a choice:

Edwin: You can let Sarah find you a husband, or you can live in a hospital, but you can’t sit here pining for a make-believe life, Alice. The choice, Alice, is entirely yours.

Alice chose to go to the psychiatric hospital. This was how she ended up in Bethlem Asylum.

In Boro Grove, the Knave warns Alice she needs to choose quickly before she is trapped inside a tree forever. Trying to get her to remember, Will throws Alice Cyrus’ necklace. When she catches it, Alice’s memories of Cyrus flood back, and she recovers. Once she is able to think again, the tree roots stop growing around her and she is able to cut herself free.

To Cyrus’ horror, he finds that Jafar’s castle is actually on top of a floating island, suspended in the air. Without being able to fly, there is no escape. At this moment, the Red Queen catches up to Cyrus.

As the Knave helps Alice get out of Boro Grove, Alice feels emotional pain as her memories all return at once. Will looks sad when Alice mentions the pain in her heart, but he says he doesn’t feel anything like that. He thanks Alice for curing him from being turned to stone, but Alice tells him she didn’t save him. Thinking about it, Alice guesses that the Red Queen must have restored him, since she had the magic dust. Will is disgusted at the thought of receiving help from her, but Alice points out it’s better than being a statue, and perhaps Anastasia still has some feelings for him.

Will/Knave: Well not only don’t I love her back, I can’t. I made sure of that a long time ago.

When Alice presses him on the issue, Will tells her that when she returned his heart a long time ago, he never actually put it back in his body.

Will/Knave: Anastasia broke my heart. I knew the minute I put it back in me chest, I’d feel all that again.

Alice: You didn’t want to feel?

Will/Knave: Not that. So I thought, why not put off the misery until tomorrow? Then the next tomorrow, then the next. And after a while, I kind of got used to it, the emptiness.

Cyrus’ necklace starts to glow. At that moment, the Red Queen tells Cyrus that he is trapped, but when Cyrus sees the light from the necklace mark Alice’s location, he takes a chance and leaps off the floating island, falling far down to the sea below.Back in Victorian England, Jafar arrives at Alice’s family home and tells Alice’s father that he knows where Alice is.

Tropes

• A Glass in the Hand: Alice accidentally breaks a glass in her hand when her Stepmother starts pressuring her to start thinking about finding a husband.
• Kick the Dog: The Red Queen tries to beat information out of the old prisoner by slamming him against the bars of his cage.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Boro Grove has an effect on the mind that makes people forget their lives and want to stay there forever. Unfortunately, prolonged exposure to Boro Grove has the side effect of imprisoning people inside trees.
• Narnia Time: Shows up in a horrifying way in the flashback. When Alice returned to Victorian England after losing Cyrus, she found that she had been gone from her home for more than 5-7 years (judging from Millie's age). Her father had assumed she was dead and had started a new family.
• No-Sell: The mind-altering properties of the spores of Boro Grove have little effect on the Knave because his emotions are dulled due to not having a heart in his body