• July 27, 2017
• Leave a Comment on REVIEW: Once Upon A Time in Wonderland, Episode 103
• ABC, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Reviews, Television
• Forget Me Not, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, review, Television

REVIEW: Once Upon A Time in Wonderland, Episode 103

Once Upon A Time in Wonderland’s episode 103, “Forget Me Not”, continued two important and major messages from Once Upon A Time. In the flashbacks we meet (or merely see for OUAT fans) Robin Hood and we find out that Will Scarlet was once a member of the Merry Men. In these scenes we could see that Robin was already the thief that steals from the rich to give to the poor. Will convinces him to go to the Forbidden Fortress (Maleficent’s castle) to steal a chest of gold. It is a shame we didn’t get to see Kristin Bauer (The actress who plays Maleficent on the main show), but it is nice we got to hear her voice on the scene where the Merry Man were celebrating the theft. This scene makes Robin aware that Will stole something other than gold, he stole a magic mirror. And here is where he warns Will: “All magic comes with a price”, and unfortunately, Will will have to pay it later in the season.

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Aside from this, we see, also in flashbacks, that “Evil isn’t born, it’s made” (a message that will also be looming over for the next 2 episodes). We meet Anastasia and after the scene that Will talks to her but we don’t see her face, I felt like it wasn’t hard to guess who she was. I don’t think it was exactly obvious, but it wasn’t that difficult to figure it out. Anastasia, and Will’s lost love, is the Red Queen. We see that then she was nice and sweet. In the end of the episode they use the mirror Will stole and open a portal, ready to go to Wonderland. Before I continue, I would like to address this matter. Many people say that the writers made it, at first, super hard to travel between worlds and it became more and easy throughout the seasons. That may be true sometimes, but this isn’t the case, since this mirror (like some other portals we see throughout the show) was made to take people to one specific land (Wonderland in this case). Will and Anastasia could not have used that looking glass to go anywhere else.

Back to the present now, I found in this episode a lot easter eggs to other stories/movies. When the Red Queen is looking for monsters that are fearful enough to force Alice to make a wish, she mentions two that might have been a little overlooked and/or ignored, but not by me. First she mentions the Mome Rath which is taken from the original animated film of Alice in Wonderland, but only the name. She says that it is a very dangerous creature with teeth like needles that cut through almost anything, but in the movie they are harmless flower-like creatures (as you can see in the image below). The Queen also mentions the Sarlacc. This one was taken from Star Wars and in these films, this monster is very alike what Anastasia said: a creature able to digest someone through the course of a thousand years. But the creature that Jafar and the Red Queen pick is the Bandersnatch. This one was featured in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) and it is also alike the one we meet here, expect for the fact that in the films it looks more like a dog, while in this show it is more like a boar.

Still with other movies mythology, we meet Grendel which can be a reference to the movie Beowulf, although in this show this beast is made more human. Here, Grendel is an ogre-like man who is stuck in the past and can’t move on from his wife’s death. It is explained that he stole the “Forget Me Knot”, a knot that allows people to see into the past, from the Red Queen and she was the one who gave him that horrible appearance. Grendel helps Alice and Will when the Bandersnatch comes after them and together they manage to kill it, since Cyrus had tricked Jafar and the Queen to thinking it would force Alice to make a wish, when he knew she wouldn’t because he had taught her a lot about these creatures.

With the knot in their hands, Alice and Will finally find out that the Rabbit was the one who knew where Cyrus’ bottle was, and that he is working for the Red Queen.

Aside from Wonderland, we also are shown Underland, a place “ruled” by the Caterpillar and filled with thieves and hunters, that is to say, Will’s enemies. Jafar visits this place short after he kills Grendel, to find out more about Alice’s Knave.

This episode was cool and, as I said before, this show is getting better and better. I really don’t know why so many Oncers didn’t watch it, since it is very truthful to the main show. I will give it a 7.8/10.

Stay tuned for my next review of episode 104 “The Serpent”.