TV Recap: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland 1-2 - Trust Me

And this is the reason I don’t give up on a show after just one episode.  I enjoyed the second episode of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland so much more than the pilot last week.  It was probably because I didn’t feel that I knew what was going to happen thanks to previews that told too much of the story.

While the show does have flashbacks, it doesn’t quite have the same level of flashbacks that the original show does.  For example, we learn early on that Cyrus, the genie, used to live in Agrabah.  When Jafar showed up at the store of his former master, the master panicked and wished Cyrus far away.  That’s how he and his bottle wound up in Wonderland.

But that was just one scene.  We did see scenes of Cyrus and Alice meeting and falling in love.  They started hanging out so Cyrus could show Alice all she could wish for, but soon they fell in love.  Cyrus tried to send her away, but she promised to never use her wishes so they could be together.  We also learned that wishing for a genie’s freedom is messy – so just wishing for his freedom would have more of the unintended consequences that come with wishes.

So let’s talk current timeline, shall we?

Alice has decided she needs to get Cyrus’ bottle to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.  Admittedly, I didn’t quite follow this, but as long as Alice has her wishes, it seems no one else can get wishes from Cyrus.  It’s not who controls the bottle right now – that will only come into play when Alice uses her wishes.  And the Red Queen and Jafar want Alice to use her wishes so they can then control Cyrus.  But if Alice has the bottle, when the wishes are used up, she Cyrus would return to the bottle, so Alice wouldn’t have to hunt for him any more.

At least that’s my understanding.

Anyway, she wants to get to the bottle, which is in a meadow.  She tells Knave where it is, and they set out, leaving behind a sleeping White Rabbit.  They have to cross a lake, and they call a ferry, I mean fairy, to do so.  Unfortunately, this fairy has a history with Knave, and she drops him into the lake half way across – a problem since he’s been so busy being afraid of water he’s never learned how to swim.  But Alice jumps in after him and drags him to a nearby island.  Only the island turns out to be a turtle, and Alice uses him to get them to the other side of the lake.

Meanwhile, Jafar and Queen are having their own discussions about the bottle.  Jafar is demanding the Queen find out where it is, and she is trying to get her own leverage on things.  But when she finds out where Alice and Knave are going, she is forced to tell Jafar.

Meanwhile, Cyrus writes a note and folds it into an origami bird to send to Alice.  We also find out he is being held in a silver cage, and silver is painful to genies.  There is another prisoner with Cyrus, but we don’t know who he is yet.

So when Knave and Alice show up to retrieve the bottle, Jafar is already there and digging things up.  Alice is not that upset, however.  She’s been lying to find out who they are up against.  While she hasn’t met Jafar before, she does know who he is thanks to Cyrus’ talks about him.

So she and Knave set off to where the bottle is really hidden.  But when they get there, someone has beaten them to it.  There’s a big hole, and the bottle is gone.

That’s when Queen shows up at Jafar’s dungeon.  She has the bottle and will use it to make sure she gets what she wants from her relationship with Jafar.  It’s no longer going to be a one way street.

But how did Queen know?  Turns out that, unbeknownst to Alice and Cyrus, White Rabbit had seen them bury it.  When he went to report to Queen, he told her the truth about where it was.  She has something of his (his wife maybe?), which is why he is doing her bidding when it comes to Alice.

Meanwhile, Alice has begun to wonder if Cyrus has moved on or not.  Stupid doubts planted by Knave, right?  Fortunately, that proves to be the case when the paper swan arrives with Cyrus’ note.  He’s warning her away; the danger of her being in Wonderland is too great so she needs to leave.  But it has the opposite effect on her.  Now that she knows he is alive and in Wonderland, she is going to keep searching.

I’m settling into the story and the characters a bit more.  There is obviously still quite a bit about motives we don’t know, but I’m intrigued.  And they are beginning to flesh the characters out, so I like that as well.

Here’s hoping the ratings get stronger so we can see where this story goes.