OUAT-Wonderland Review: Episode 8 "Home"

By Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, and Zack Estrin

**SPOILERS!**

If you have not watched this episode, please do so before continuing!

After the dismal failure of the last episode, I was ready for things to start hopping. After all, with a title like "Home", you have to figure that some sort of world-hopping is going to happen, right? And with the fight that just happened, it won't be Alice's home... But we know that the Knave makes his home in Storybrooke... And viewers were all but promised a crossover at some point... So what about now?

The episode starts nicely enough. Alice and Cyrus are sitting under a night sky full of stars, which should start falling at any moment. They do, like soft, glittering snow. The effect is very magical, and the two lovers kiss under the stars.

In the course of the conversation, Alice discovers a small compass in Cyrus' possession. He calls it a "Lost-and-Found", and says that it was given to him by his mother, and it would always point to her whenever they got lost. Unfortunately, a few years ago, it stopped pointing and now just spins aimlessly.

I have to hand it to the writers; if nothing else, they have a knack for introducing key plot devices at just the right moment. The whole schtick about his mother and the Lost-and-Found and the magic thing... You know it's going to be important eventually; the only question is when.


As with most romantic, feel-good, warm-fuzzy moments in a show where the writers like adding an element of horror and thriller, their happy time of relaxing is interrupted briefly by bandits who think they can just up and steal a genie and get the wishes--fools, haven't they heard of the Laws of Magic? Or the constant reminder Jafar provides for us, that the genie-master must make all the wishes first before another person can become master?

The heroic couple beat back the intruders to a soundtrack that could have ripped right off of Pirates, but not before one of them scores a hit on Alice. To save her life, Cyrus brings her to the only friend they can trust: the White Rabbit.

His wife is a healer--and also black-colored and voiced by Whoopi Goldberg. (I couldn't believe this and I refuse to accept that this was some sort of convenient coincidence... Just another attempt at "studding" the cast with famous actors, regardless of whether they actually fit the character or the story at all!) She is every bit as contrived and cardboard-ish as her husband. While Alice is recovering, the Rabbit (whose name, we at last discover, is Percy...) tries to convince Cyrus that the only way to keep Alice safe is to disappear from her life. Because we know how well that works every time it is tried...

In the present day, Alice and Will are hot on the trail of Jafar's guards, who are still searching for Cyrus. Cyrus, for his part, managed to fall into one of the Red Queen's grapevine traps, which a Tweedle hears about in the palace gardens (turning the phrase "heard it through the grapevine" into a literal occurrence in true Carroll-ian fashion). He also happens to espy his twin doing a "very bad thing", working in league with Jafar. He immediately reports both sightings to the Queen. Her Majesty checks the box in which she had hidden Cyrus' bottle--and it is gone.


MEANWHILE... Alice and Will decide to head for the place Alice knows he will go to meet her: their hiding place in the Outlands. Will is a bit put out to have to go "so far." ("Couldn't you have picked a place bloody closer, such as 'anywhere else'?") First, though, they need to stop by the Rabbit's house to make arrangements for leaving Wonderland as soon as she reconnects with Cyrus.

And.... cue my rising excitement at those magical words! I was so very certain the crossover would happen directly!

But first things first. Jafar is down in his lair, and preparing to place the third bottle with the others. He does, and notices a problem: the third bottle seems the wrong weight, and somewhat cheaper. He tests it and finds that it is in fact a ceramic fake. Ten points for the Red Queen!

Alice and Will find the White Rabbit, who is excessively penitent for the way he'd just betrayed them. Turns out the Queen took his family to ensure his cooperation, and he doesn't know if they're even still alive or not. Faced with the choice of just leaving right away and hoping for the best or staying and rescuing Percy's family first, Alice of course decides the most heroic route. Then, too, Will knows where she might have put Rabbit's family. In his own words, "I may not know where the Red Queen hides the things that are most important to her, but I know where Anastasia might."

Sure enough, Anastasia stops by the old wagon she and Will lived in during their early days in Wonderland, and sees her old dress hanging there, a testament to bygone days. This is where she has the family of rabbits, and also Cyrus' bottle. She retrieves Cyrus from the grapevine, and wants to use those two to get to Alice before Jafar finds out that she holds all the pieces.



MEANWHILE... Jafar arrives at the castle, furious at being outwitted by his arch-rival, but of course the Queen isn't there... but she's left a present behind: the head of the traitorous Tweedle.

She's got him, and he knows it, so Jafar does what any power-monger sorcerer would do when they're not the all-stars they like to think they are: he sets about gathering items to make a curse to locate and kill the Red Queen. He flies back to his lair and leaves the castle in ruins.

In a flashback, Cyrus visits Underland and trades his precious Lost-and-Found to the Caterpillar for the chance to "disappear", he says.

MEANWHILE... In the present, Anastasia and Cyrus see the smoke from the castle, and Anastasia knows they have very little time left. Cyrus directs her to the Outlands, where he knows Alice will be waiting for him. He has also figured out (through his special genie perceptivity that allows him to "Know what people will wish for before they even know themselves") that there is something deeper than just self-preservation that Anastasia wants, but she's refusing to admit it.

ELSEWHERE... Alice and Will arrive at the old wagon, and Will goes in to search for Rabbit's family. He's in there for a grand total of fifteen seconds, which is plenty of time for the insecure worry-wart Percy to be convinced that everyone is dead--just before they come out to greet him. Just once I'd like to see the absolute worst happen to the Rabbit... it would serve him right! What an annoying character...

To round out the flashback story arc, Cyrus and Alice are in the Outlands, and Cyrus starts into a speech that is basically him trying to push her away and convince her to leave him. Alice, of course, is having none of it, and points out that she and her three unused wishes might be what is keeping him safe; together, the two of them are safer than if they were ever to part. He knows how much having a home with the person who loves her means to her, so this is his arrangement with the Caterpillar: he's gotten them a tent that is invisible from the outside, and furnished with all necessary cozy comforts inside, so that wherever they go, they will always have a home to come back to.

Here is where I began to realize that perhaps the crossover wouldn't happen in this episode after all... the "home" reference had officially been made... but there was still a chance...

MEANWHILE... Will and Alice arrive in the Outlands, and Alice shows him the invisible tent, but Cyrus isn't there like she thought he'd be... Alice starts pulling a "Percy" and assuming the worst has happened to her love... when she happens to hear his voice call her name, and she turns and squeals happily as Cyrus runs to her and sweeps her into his arms while a swelling romantic theme plays and they kiss in the glare of the setting sun for a full 10 seconds... And all of the watching fangirls immediately faint with the cuteness of it all... reviving just in time to see...

Alice finally notices that the queen is there, and she immediately goes on the defensive. Will doesn't trust her either, not with the way she's lied to him and used him very poorly. Cyrus has grown to believe that she is now sincere, but there is no time for working out differences...

Jafar's storm is coming. The sky darkens and the thunder crashes. Anastasia orders Percy to dig, he starts hemming and hawing over the destination (I think I might have an issue with characters who don't handle pressure very well...), giving Alice time to ask why the Queen would suddenly be bent on escaping the person who can give her all the power she's ever wanted. Anastasia finally confesses that it wasn't power she wanted--it was Will. She wanted to change the past and get Will back and erase the mistakes she herself made to separate them. (Because just apologizing hasn't worked... so what else can she do to get what she wants?)

Unfortunately, in the absence of his heart, Will doesn't feel anything for her; he has only the memories of his resentment toward her. No matter how much Anastasia swears to give up everything for him, Will is unmoved.

Jafar's storm nears, and he will be at that spot at any moment, the desperation heightens--

Then a stray bolt of lightning strikes the bottle in Anastasia's hands and hits Will in the chest. He goes down... and the effect of Alice's first wish comes into play: Will is dying, so Alice collapses too. Cyrus is mourning the loss of his love so soon after he rejoined her, but Will reminds him that Alice had promised him her third wish. Cyrus gives Will the wish, and Will wishes, "To end Alice's suffering!"

The storm disappears and Alice revives, and Cyrus notices that the bonds signifying him as a genie are gone. He is free, and he and Alice can be together for as long as they both live. Cyrus turns to thank Will for his ingenious wish...


But Will is gone. He disappeared the moment he made the wish. The group realizes the cost of Will's wish: Cyrus is free, but the bottle needed a genie.

The episode closes with Will reviving inside the bottle, with the cuffs on his wrists... as the bottle bobs down a river toward a towering waterfall...

Didn't see that one coming...

FINAL SCORE: Yes, I'll admit it, I wanted so badly to give this episode a perfect score. To be honest, the only things this episode had in any way "wrong" about it were: the White Rabbit and his family, the whole business with the bandits and Alice getting wounded which gave Cyrus the dreaded "Boyfriend-With-Superpowers Complex" (You know the one... "You're not safe around me, so to keep you safe even though we love each other, I have to push you away" Oh man, I hate that so much!) and lastly... the fact that it didn't quite end the way I hoped it would.

Other than that, though, this episode was fantastic: the banter traded was marvelous ("Where were you?" "Sorry, nature called." "What did it say?" [beat] "Nothing you want to hear, trust me!") and I was glad to see the Red Queen finally get one over on Jafar--serves him right! The tension built and pushed toward the ending and had me bouncing in my seat.

If only it would have crossed over into Storybrooke at this point... but I don't have any wishes, and I can't change the past, so all in all, I'll just give this episode a 9/10 and have done with it!

Heroes: 5/5
Villains: 4/5
Graphics/VFX: 5/5
Banter: 5/5
Conflict/Resolution: 4/5
TOTAL: 9/10

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