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Welcome to Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, the spinoff that was spawned when some ABC exec apparently said to his or herself, "You know what's not wacky enough? Alice in Wonderland. Needs more genies!" And here we find ourselves with an Alice warring with not just an evil queen, but an evil (and Soul Glo'd, not that I'm complaining) Jafar as well. Basically, ABC is on an unprecedented amount of crack right now. Love it or leave it, people.
So Alice has been visiting Wonderland since childhood, a fact her wealthy father finds quite annoying and difficult to accept (understandable), so he has had her institutionalized as a young adult (mean! But also kind of understandable!) to rid her of her delusions. Trouble is, her delusions are real, and her one true love, a young, hot genie named Cyrus, is trapped in Wonderland, and once she gets word that he's still alive, she's determined to go back there to reunite with him.
After fan-servicing us a brief Storybrooke cameo, the Knave of Hearts and the CGI John Lithgow White Rabbit bust Alice out of the loony bin (she busts herself out, really – Alice is kind of a Krav Maga badass in this canon) right in the nick of time before her scheduled lobotomy, and the three set off searching for Cyrus in Wonderland.
But nothing's that easy, of course. Jafar is holding Cyrus captive as bait for Alice, who is still holding on to the three wishes Cyrus gave her. Jafar wants these wishes. He wants 'em bad. Did I mention the wishes in this story come in the form of cute little red charms? Just go to your local Michaels Craft Store, Jafar!
Oh, also? The White Rabbit is a low-down, dirty double agent. He's working for the impossibly fabulous Red Queen and her Collagen-plumped lips, who herself is working for Jafar under duress. So Alice's only ally in Wonderland right now is the Knave of Hearts, and he's not only on the run from the Wonderland law right now, he's also finding Alice's wishes very difficult to resist stealing. She can't even count on the Cheshire Cat these days – he tried to eat her in one scene. You can never go home again, guys.
All that, plus some truly awful CGI, some even worse Green Screen, and actually a fine little actress in our Alice, played by Sophie Lowe, who I think will make all this tolerable at the low points. And you know they will come. In the finale Alice will convince Abraham Lincoln (Hall of Presidents – stay with me here) to travel to Wonderland to fight a Muppet with Disney-owned ESPN anchors calling the play-by-play. You know I'm right. All hail synergy!
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We begin with a flashback to Alice’s childhood in Victorian England. (I guess? Time and space are blurred in this show, as you’ve no doubt noticed). Young Alice bursts out of a rabbit hole in the charming English countryside wearing the blue and white dress and apron famously depicted in the Disney animated feature. She runs to her father’s front door and finds him very surprised to see her. She starts to tell him all about the White Rabbit and her adventures, but he stops her to inform her that she was gone "a very long time" and that they thought she was dead. We then see Alice spying on her father talking to a nefarious bald man who tells her father she is delusional, and that he can cure her. Uh, with Victorian-era pharma? Good luck, bro.
After the credits we’re in "Present Day" (a Chyron told me so) Storybrooke, where a man is strolling down the middle of the damn street as a yellow VW Beetle (yes, yes, it’s Emma Swan’s car. I get it) honks and swerves out of his path. Whoever this guy is, he plays real fast and loose with traffic laws!
He heads straight to Granny’s, which has just closed for the night (hi, Grumpy!), but he storms on in anyway. So lawless! He pours a cup of coffee, leaves a dollar on the table, reconsiders, and takes the dollar back. I mean. He is a wild man. Suddenly the joint starts shakin' and the John Lithgow CGI White Rabbit bursts right through the floor, leaving a glowing golden rabbit hole right in the floor of the diner. Have fun dealing with the insurance company over that one, Granny.
The Rabbit reveals that the man is the Knave of Hearts. The Knave’s pretty annoyed his coffee break has been interrupted, but he softens when the Rabbit tells him they’re late to help Alice.
Cut to Bethlem Asylum in London, which is as dingy and creepy as it should be. Patients convulsing in the decrepit hallways, a lot of anonymous screaming in the background, and Alice, walking handcuffed and escorted by two large orderlies. They take her to a meeting with the nefarious bald man and his lackeys, where they discuss how she’s been there a year and has yet to recant her ludicrous stories of talking caterpillars, food and drinks that can alter one’s size, and a murderous Red Queen. Alice is withdrawn, trying to change her story and claim that she doesn’t remember any of that.
But she’s lying, of course, as we’re treated to a Wonderland flashback with CGI by Friskies. It’s awful. But, we do get to see Roger Daltrey’s Caterpillar (he looks worse than normal Roger Daltrey), and a look at Alice deftly outrunning the Red Queen’s soldiers (or the Queen of Hearts’? I don’t know whose soldiers they are) in a hedge maze. Alice finally evades the soldiers by chomping on a mushroom that shrinks her down to ant-size.
Back to the asylum scene, the bald man is yelling at Alice in frustration. She tells him her story wasn’t true, and that she made it all up. He doesn’t buy it.
Back to the hedge maze. Shrunken Alice decides to hide out in a discarded bottle she finds just hanging out in the side of the hedge maze road. This bottle turns out to be a genie’s bottle, because, oh yeah, this Alice in Wonderland tale is mashed up with Aladdin. Don’t ask me why.
The good news for Alice is the genie is young and hot, and they have some sassy flirtatious banter. He tells Alice his name is Cyrus, and that he’s from Agrabah, and she’s immediately smitten. Oh, also she reveals to Cyrus that she has kidnapped the White Rabbit and plans to drag him back with her to England as proof that Wonderland exists. On a first date she does this!
Back in the asylum, Bald Man is still berating Alice about her stories of being in love with Cyrus, which cuts to Alice and Cyrus on a romantic Wonderland date overlooking some boiling oceans. Deadly hot springs! Cyrus proposes to Alice (she accepts, natch) and they get some make-out time in before he explains to her that their hearts are entwined now, which means that his necklace will glow red when she is near it. He’s very lucky she’s a teenager. Try talking about your glowing red necklace love GPS to a grown-ass woman, Cyrus. Maced in minutes, I tell you.
Suddenly, the newly betrothed couple is ambushed by the Red Queen and her soldiers. Alice and Cyrus pull swords and fight the soldiers and win! Hooray! But then the Red Queen waves Cyrus off the cliff and right into a certain death in the boiling sees with her magical Queen hands. Alice is devastated, and the Red Queen coyly says "Oops." The Red Queen is kind of a bitch. Comically oversized lips, though!
Asylum time. Bald man tells Alice a "new procedure" can take away her pain. A tearful Alice wants in, and literally sings right up for a lobotomy. You know, how unmarried Victorian women were always making their own medical decisions.
As Alice awaits her “procedure” in her padded cell, the Knave of Hearts barges in and tries to rescue her, but she’s reluctant because he isn’t "real." So I guess she wasn’t lying to Bald Man? She actually believed him? No time to think! Guards are here! Alice is about to let the Knave be taken when he tells her that Cyrus is alive – the Rabbit saw him. Alice springs into action and puts the Kung Fu hurt on the guards, which means that at the very least her martial arts skills were real all along. Also means she could have escaped on her own this entire time and chose not to.
They meet the Rabbit in a tunnel outside the asylum, and alright. This show is getting cancelled, so I’m only going to say this once. The Rabbit moves from present day Storybrooke to Victorian England? So he’s a time traveler too? I knew he could do amazing things to Ginnifer Goodwin’s crotch, but I didn’t know he could do all that. I mean, this is fantasy and not sci-fi so they can kind of do whatever they want, but I’d like an explanation when they do. A throwaway line about this ability is all I require, people.
Anyway, on their way out Bald Man sees the Rabbit, so hopefully feels pretty dumb now. And it’s on to Wonderland, where the Knave and Alice land in the “Mallow Marsh,” which is a (delicious) marshmallow quicksand lake. Alice learns about s’mores! They almost suffocate to death in a sweet, sugary goo of doom listening to the Rabbit admit that he hasn’t actually seen Cyrus, but that the Hatter has and it’s not like he’s totally insane and not credible or anything. It’s fine!
The Rabbit runs off to find help, but Alice again finds a way to help herself, this time by squeezing a dragonfly (they’re real dragons in Wonderland) into torching the marshmallow surface enough for them to walk on.
With that drama over, the Knave gets to whining about how he wants to leave Wonderland because Cyrus is probably dead anyway (supportive friend!), and besides, everyone in Wonderland wants to assassinate the Knave for some mysterious past crimes of his anyway. Alice is no dummy and quickly shuts him up by offering to pay him for his help. The currency is these little red gems Cyrus gave her, which are wishes redeemable by your nearest live genie. They make a deal that the Knave gets one of them when they find Cyrus. Neither of them are eating any of the delicious free marshmallows during all this, by the way, which is very upsetting.
Meanwhile, the Rabbit runs into the Red Queen (and her hilarious lips) on the road, and we find out that he’s secretly working for her. The Rabbit was tasked with bringing Alice back to Wonderland and continuing to spy on her in exchange for some mysterious terms. Then, the Rabbit cries like a bitch and crawls off back towards Alice. I have to say, I really resent this cowardly characterization on behalf of all pathologically punctual people everywhere.
The Knave and Alice are now in the woods on the way to the Hatter’s house, but things are getting spooky. There is fog everywhere! And NOISES! She arms herself with a stick (this show is garbage, but you do kind of have to love the incredible efforts they go to present Alice as a badass) and leads the way further into the woods.
Back at the Red Queen’s chess board castle, our puffy-lipped lady steps out onto her balcony to find a shadowy figure standing on the railing like a buckwild teenager. She reports to him that Alice is back in Wonderland and looking for her genie, "Isn’t that what we wanted, JAFAR?" She really punches that so we know that this man is another piece in the Aladdin integration here. He jumps off the railing and approaches her, his perm edging closer to her collagen lips, and explains that "what we want" can’t happen until Alice has made all her wishes and they have Cyrus’s bottle. Then they fight! We find out the Red Queen is working for Jafar, who is really the one in charge here. He yells at her, chokes her and flies away on a magic carpet. Classic Jafar!
In the woods, the Knave and Alice come upon a wanted poster with his big ole British face on it, but he declines to explain what he’s wanted for. Alice quickly moves on to climbing a tree, saying "If I get high enough, I can see the Hatter’s house." How many conversations in the Once Upon a Time in Wonderland writers' room would you bet start with "If I get high enough…"?
Alice takes her shoes off (even though shoes definitely help you climb trees) and throws them on the ground. The Knave instantly goes bonkers because Alice is keeping her wishes in the soles of her shoes, and he can’t resist stealing them. He is lawless for life! Once up in the tree (in her SOCKS), she can see the Hatter’s house, which is great. Unfortunately, she can also see the Cheshire Cat, who materializes behind her, angry and enormous.
The CGI on the Cheshire Cat looks the best out of everything in this episode, but, you know. Still looks like they spent about 14 dollars on it. The Cheshire Cat explains that the woods are empty of food these days, and that sorry, he’s just going to have to eat her. A chase ensues, but luckily the Knave has a change of Hearts and shows up in the nick of time to throw a shrinking mushroom into Cheshire’s mouth and reduce him to house cat size. Alice glosses over that bit and calls him out on stealing her wishes, which brings out some helpful exposition that you can’t "steal" a wish, it has to be granted.
At the Hatter’s house, Alice and the Knave find the White Rabbit and a ton of hats, but no Cyrus. The Rabbit tries to keep spinning that Cyrus just stepped out for a moment, but Alice is inconsolable. On her way out, however, she finds Cyrus’s glowing red necklace and knows he was indeed there after all. She resolves to stay in Wonderland and find him.
Cut to Cyrus in a cage suspended in a tower, and a flashback to him falling off the cliff on his way down to the boiling seas, where we see that Jafar’s magic carpet caught him just in time. Jafar walks into the tower and smirks at his prisoner.
Then, you guys. Alice, the Knave and the White Rabbit walk down THE MOST INSANELY AWFUL CGI VALLEY I HAVE EVER SEEN. It looks like Myst. So, maybe it's retro?
See you week in Wonderland, everybody! If ABC can bring themselves to air more of this!
Want to tweet about this poor, god-forsaken show with me? I am available at all times and spaces at @garnisheater. I am the White Rabbit of social media and so can you!