Once Upon A Time in Wonderland returns with episode 10, “Dirty Little Secrets”, and our favorite team of heroes and villains decides to split up in order to cover more ground.

If we can always count on something when it comes to Once Upon A Time is that pretty much everyone is related to each other, and characters that pop up out of nowhere and with no ties to anyone don’t exist. In this episode the family tree grew a little bit more: we met Cyrus’ two brothers (which wasn’t much of a surprise since he had mentioned them last episode) and also their mother, Amara, who was spotted on episode 4 as Jafar’s partner and in every other episode of the show as Jafar’s serpent staff.

Fate is a very tricky business. It may not always be fair, we may not always agree with it, but in this show’s universe, fate usually prevails. This episode wasn’t one of those cases, though. The water from the Well of Wonders can only save people whose fate wasn’t yet written, but Amara’s fate was apparently to die on that day. Her sons didn’t agree and went to save her anyway, making a choice that changed the entire history of multiple worlds. When we think about it, if she had died, then there would be no Once Upon A Time in Wonderland, because Jafar wouldn’t be a threat that wanted to change the laws of magic, hurting everyone that stood in his way.

Meanwhile, in present day, two plans come up, and so the team goes down separate paths. Cyrus and Alice go to the Well of Wonders to beg the Nyx, the Guardian of the Well, to break the genie’s curse (which was a bit of a foolish idea), while Anastasia and Will go try to raise an army to break into the palace and steal the genies Jafar already has.

It doesn’t take long for the Jabberwocky to find the genie and the genie’s new master. Anastasia tries to fight her, but without luck, and so they are both kidnaped and taken to the palace, where we see the scene which, in my opinion, is the best of the episode: the Jabberwocky breaking Anastasia and forcing her to make the three wishes, while Will can do nothing but watch. This scene was really intense and full of amazing acting, dialogue, direction… It was also great to see that the Jabberwocky was smart enough to force Ana to wish for small things (crown, joules), making sure that no one (especially she and Jafar) don’t pay the price for these wishes. With Will back in his bottle, Jafar has now everything he needs to complete the spell (or almost everything).

At the same time, Alice and Cyrus find their way to the Well of Wonders. While they walk, Alice makes a lot of questions about Cyrus and his past, and he manages to dodge them all. Cyrus doesn’t want to tell Alice the truth because he feels like that whole thing is his fault, and maybe that Alice will think so too, if she was to find out the truth. Sure he could have acted better, he could have not cheated in the poker game, but even he if hadn’t cheated and had won anyway, those men would probably still think that he cheated somehow, and nothing would have changed. But it is safe to say that Cyrus didn’t really know the strength of their love, because if he had he would have known that Alice doesn’t care about a mistake he made a century ago.

The trip to the Well of Wonders was more profitable than I thought it would be. I, of course, never expected the Nyx to lift the spell out of the kindness in her heart, but at least she told Cyrus a way to do so: return the water. The Nyx also even told them that Amara is alive, and so a search party will have to be organized.

This was a great and intense episode. That scene I mentioned totally made it much better and so I am giving it an 8.4/10.

With only 3 more episodes to go, things in Wonderland promise to get even more intense, but next episode, “Heart of Matter” promises a visit from an old acquaintance and a trip to the best town in the whole state of Maine (not to say in the entire world).