'Wonderland' Takes a Turn for the creepy

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland got creepy this week, with a special guest appearance from the Japanese horror movie version of young Alice and some mega violence from Jafar against the White Rabbit. Those were just the standout moments, however. "Heart of Stone" gave us a chance to see Alice and the Red Queen/Anastasia interact more, and some fun flashbacks explaining Anastasia's backstory.

Creepy Little Alice

This week's episode picked up where last week's left off, with Alice caring for the now-stone Will. When the Red Queen approaches her about a deal, she's not in much of a position to say no. The Red Queen needs her to help retrieve a special powder and, in exchange, promises to help Alice find Cyrus. The whole thing is very reminiscent of Aladdin, but with the Red Queen playing Jafar and Alice as Al. The Queen needs someone pure of heart to retrieve the powder for her.

As it turns out, retrieving said powder involves walking off a cliff into thin air. Alice spends approximately half a second questioning the whole idea and toying with the possibility of the "leap" not being a literal one before stepping off the cliff. Luckily, she gets a few steps out, Wile E. Coyote-style, lifted by the magic of her pure heart. Unluckily, that doesn't last, and Alice plummets seemingly to her doom.

The magic must keep her alive (because the fall really should have killed her), because she lands in one piece in a creepy little cave thing, where an equally creepy singsong voice calls her name. Out from the shadows steps none other than the child version of herself, except it's not the cutie pie we've seen in flashbacks so far. This little Alice looks ready to take someone to the underworld with her. She stomps around to cause an earthquake, knocking the Queen down with them. She also survives the fall (her dress doesn't even tear), but Little Alice immediately starts urging Big Alice to kill her. When Alice doesn't (duh), Little Alice becomes cute and cuddly and then turns into the magic dust they've all been after. Alice passed the pure of heart test. Hurrah.

Jafar Proves His Evilness (…Again)

As if we needed any more harsh proof of just how evil Jafar is, this week he took things up a notch again, chopping off the White Rabbit's foot to extract information about who else Alice would care about enough to wish for. He reverses it with magic, but I'm pretty sure only because it would be too gruesome for him not to.

Anastasia Becomes the Red Queen

It seemed like Will and Anastasia had an epic romance, but it's turned out to be surprisingly short-lived. They escaped to Wonderland through the looking glass, but life wasn't as they (or, well, Anastasia at least) expected. They were living in the woods, basically starving, when they happened to hear about a ball at the palace and decided to crash. They were able to steal a gown and a suit in a matter of hours, but hadn't been able to find food or shelter for days, but such is the logic of the Once-verse. At the ball, Will focuses on some practical matters, like stealing food, while Anastasia walks around mimicking the ladies in waiting and bumps into the king, who takes an instant liking to her. After Will and Anastasia are discovered and thrown out of the ball, she hatches a scheme for them to break in and steal the crown jewels and leave Wonderland in riches. The heist doesn't go off exactly as planned, but Anastasia gets something even better than wealth out of it — she gets a marriage proposal and a crown.

Cyrus

Meanwhile in the storyline no one really cares about, Cyrus finished cutting a hole in the bottom of his cage and has started his escape. He might actually make it out… just as Alice comes to rescue him. These poor kids have bad timing.

Image: ABC