By Jane Espenson
**SPOILERS!**
If you have not watched this episode, please do so before continuing!After the shocking events at the end of the last episode (namely, Alice's father getting shanghaied to Wonderland) I was very excited to see what they would do next.
And.. cue "Jafar The Misunderstood Love Child--Part 2!"
What a let-down. At least we discover how he found out that the Sultan was his father. An oddly not-sad scene opens the episode, where Jafar's mother is dying and leaving him orphaned. Jafar has grown up thinking that he has always lived a life of poverty, and that his father died, but his mother gives him a ring the Sultan had given her and tells him to present it to the Sultan, because "You are his blood. He will not turn you away."
Oh dear me, this lady has an inflated idea of her own importance. He is Sultan, after all; he probably has many wives whose children he would very likely regard as more legitimate than this son-of-a-street-rat from the outskirts of town whose mother he might not even recall. Good luck with that one.
From there we move back to Alice, who is convinced that reaching Cyrus is as simple as climbing a mountain—
Till she discovers that said mountain is situated on an island floating in midair over a really large lake. Oh boy; it's going to take a lot of cleverness to figure this one out. I could really go for an obscure but inordinately specific plot device that possesses the exact properties needed to achieve our goal right now...
MEANWHILE... The Red Queen is conducting a search for the genie, hoping to find him before Jafar even knows he's gone.
Oh, so close! Jafar crashes her little search party, and she's got to tell him, because he's throwing his weight around like he owns the place, commanding her guards and such. The Queen is none too happy about that.
Jafar goes down to the dungeon to see for himself, and the old man won't tell him where Cyrus went.
He goes down to his lair, where Edwin is strapped to a chair. He seems very keen on Edwin's relationship with Alice and all his mannerisms--which hand he uses, how he cleans his glasses, etc. He draws a bit of Edwin's blood for a potion, and his intentions become painfully clear: he's going to steal Edwin's identity and convince Alice to make a wish to save his life.
Back on the shore of the lake, Alice and Will are trying to figure out how to reach the floating island. Alice has them both empty their pockets to see if they find anything useful in them. What we get is a rather entertaining insight into each of their personalities.
Alice: "All right, I have a dagger, my sword, a handkerchief, and the last two wishes." (Really, Alice? I mean, talk about being prepared for a journey into Wonderland... apparently all you need are weapons and a hanky!)
Alice says they need something with the power of flight...
 |
| "It's physics, Knave..." And all I can think is^^ |
Ya don't say! That's nifty! "Alice the Clever" comes up with a plan: they build a basket, attach birdbark branches to it, and float up to the island, rescue Cyrus, and the added weight will cause them to sink back down again. When magic meets science... er, physics....
IN THE FLASHBACK... Young Jafar is brought before the Sultan, having stolen from the guard. The Sultan of course says the well-known law, "Any thief must lose the hand with which he stole." Jafar immediately extends the hand wearing the ring his mother gave him. Astonished, the Sultan recognizes the ring and actually remembers the woman he gave it to. Of course, when Jafar tries to call this man father, the Sultan refuses--and rightly so, I might add.There is no reason why Jafar--a boy who has grown up in the slums--can be expected to lead the life of a king, over one who has been groomed from birth in the palace. Then, too, there is the matter of inheritance--just because a poor woman had a child by the Sultan doesn't make the child royalty. Particularly if the illegitimate child shows up after the Sultan has already designated his heir... even if said heir is a miserable, stammering, spineless twit. The Sultan makes Jafar the prince's servant and tells him never to refer to him as "father."
MEANWHILE... As Alice and Will are building the basket, who should appear but "Edwin" (as played by Jafar)! He is appropriately astonished at actually seeing Alice and the truth of what she had been saying, and furthermore remorseful for not believing her from the first. She's still resentful that he didn't trust her enough to believe her without having to come, but he's here now, so she resigns herself. He offers to help them, and assists Will in readying twigs for the basket while Alice gathers more sticks.
This gives time for some speechification from Will, who tells father and daughter off for their enmity; he tells "Edwin" that he's been a terrible father to Alice, and he should step up and be the person she's always needed him to be. Will then goes to Alice and tells her that she should forgive her father, because it's the right thing to do. "And you always do the right thing, Alice."
Of course, while this is going on, "Edwin" secretly engages in a bit of magic and summons a dragon to perhaps annihilate Alice and Will, or at least create some chaos. The dragon chases them off the beach and into a little clearing a ways away, where it threatens poor, defenseless "Edwin." Alice must jump in and save him, which brings the two of them a little closer together.Continuing the flashback, Jafar is standing by as the Sultan is trying to prove the prince's prowess in foreign affairs... but young Mirzah is dull-witted and unable to provide the answer. Jafar of course not only speaks out of turn--which is a heinous offense for a servant--but when the Sultan reprimands him he nearly calls him "Father"!
This is what annoys me: I'm sure if Jafar had at least tried being the best servant he could be, there might have been merit in his efforts to get his father to accept him, and we can feel more sorry for him. But it's stupid writing that has to shorten the timeline on things like this that make the whole thing more Jafar's own fault than I'm sure the writers were originally intending.
As matters stood, I wasn't at all surprised when the Sultan confronts Jafar privately and tells him something he will remember into adulthood: "True power comes from fear"--before dunking him in the washbasin and holding him under the water to drown him. He tells the servants to throw young Jafar out with the trash--from whence we know he will revive (because of latent healing powers from his mother?), be accepted by a brutal blacksmith who will victimize him so much that he will seek out the sorceress who will teach him magic to be able to exact his revenge.
MEANWHILE... The real Edwin is imprisoned in another cage in Jafar's dungeon. We see him praying over a bowl of soup (to the old man's amusement), and in the conversation, the old man expresses regret for not doing the right thing for his son when he had the chance.
MEANWHILE... "Edwin" (Jafar) joins Alice and Will for a bit of supper since they're staying on the beach overnight. Alice gets suspicious when "Edwin" fails to display the one personality quirk Jafar never reckoned on: he does not say grace before he eats. This gets her guard up, and she leaves with Will immediately. Jafar dispenses with all pretenses and pursues them.
The next day, Alice and Will have found a cliff level with Jafar's palace. Just when they're discussing what to do next, Jafar appears on the magic carpet with Edwin. Alice has no idea that Jafar had been the one impersonating her father, so she thinks this man is still the fake one. Jafar threatens his life, and just when Alice is going to call her bluff, Edwin confesses how exactly he hurt her so badly, and tells her he doesn't deserve her forgiveness because of the pain he's caused. Alice realizes he's her real father, but it's too late, and Jafar drops him from that height. Desperately, Alice uses her second wish: she wishes her father back home.
He appears on the couch where he left, and dismisses the whole thing as a dream.
Alice, meanwhile, is sure she can find Cyrus before she has to make her third wish.
Back in Jafar's past, he is now a powerful sorcerer with his staff-that-was-the-sorceress. He charges into the palace and demands that the Sultan accept him. Now that enough time has past, we see that the Sultan is in fact the "old man" from his dungeon. He staunchly refuses Jafar's demand, even when Jafar holds a knife to his throat and kills the prince. But Jafar will get what he wants, so he has his father imprisoned till he consents to claim Jafar.In the prison, having lost his leverage against Alice and put her even more on her guard, Jafar rages against his father in the dungeon. He points out to Jafar that he, himself, has learned an important lesson that is very different from the belief he communicated all those years ago: "What good is love and respect if it has to be stolen?" Yeah, that would have been a good life lesson to teach Jafar all those years ago instead of the one he learned...
Father and son have a little bit of a showdown, where the Sultan decides that enough is enough, and he ought to stand up to his son and take away the thing he wants most. He backs up and drops over the edge of the platform to his death--but Jafar had anticipated that, and catches him on the flying carpet. He puts the Sultan back in his cage, reminding him who's in charge.
ONE MORE THING BEFORE THIS ENDS....
Speaking of Cyrus, the very last scene in the episode is his first and only in the episode. (Irony, anyone?) Basically, he survived jumping into the lake, he wakes up and says "Alice!" The End.
FINAL SCORE: Once again, Will Scarlet saves the day. Everything else was so haphazard and melodramatic hodge-podge that this episode wouldn't be the same without him. Evident, too, is the effect on Alice. I felt she was much stronger in scenes with Will than the scenes with Cyrus. She is still overly romantic, but at least she has some sense talked into her, and she noticed something was off with her father in time for her and Will to do something about it.
Whereas this episode was probably intended to offer more strength to the villain--as with all the "villain back-story episodes" so far, it falls deplorably flat. I'm actually agreeing with the way the Sultan treats young Jafar, and more so when he stands up to Jafar and defies him at the end. But it wasn't intended that way--so, fail?
The visual effects were, luckily enough, not too noticeable to be recognized as artificially generated. I'm actually surprised, looking through photos on Google, just how much of this show is done in front of blue or green screens. Even the dragon was suitably fierce.
The banter in this show was laden with "leading lines" that are obviously forced into the script because the characters must get from point A to point B, meant to evoke a specific response--and then the writers feel justified in writing that specific response because it "fits," right? Um, no. (and unfortunately, there weren't enough Knave-quips to save it this time...)
I will say that this episode had a healthy amount of Conflict/Resolution. The Edwin who found Alice and Will on the beach might not have been the real one, but Alice was able to work through her feelings about him, in time to receive an apology from the real Edwin. It wasn't very intense.. but it was a lot better than the conflict in most "back-story" episodes.
Altogether, I give this episode a 7/10.
Heroes: 5/5
Villains: 2/5
VFX/Graphics: 4/5
Banter: 3/5
Conflict/Resolution: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment