Heart of the Matter

"My heart's caused me enough suffering. Nobody needs to die because of it. Not even you."

- Knave to the Red Queen

"Heart of the Matter" is the eleventh episode of ABC's Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It was written by Jenny Kao and Katie Wech and directed by David Boyd. It premiered on March 20, 2014.

Synopsis
Alice and Cyrus discover alarming information involving prisoners Jafar has under his control and changes their priorities. Meanwhile, the Red Queen is in critical danger and no one can help her except the Knave by surrendering information to Jafar that he's been desperately seeking. In flashback, Anastasia is about to marry the King and strikes up a friendship with Cora that directly impacts Will. Cora also confronts Will resulting with him asking her for a shocking demand.

Starring

 * Sophie Lowe as Alice
 * Michael Socha as Knave of Hearts
 * Peter Gadiot as Cyrus
 * Emma Rigby as the Red Queen
 * Naveen Andrews as Jafar
 * John Lithgow as the White Rabbit (Voice)

Guest Starring

 * Brian George as Old Prisoner
 * Barbara Hershey as Cora
 * Iggy Pop as the Caterpillar (Voice)
 * Peta Sergeant as Jabberwocky

Co-Starring

 * Ben Cotton as Tweedle #2
 * Matty Finochio as Tweedle #1
 * Michael Jonsson as King's Guard
 * Trevor Lerner as Burly Guy
 * Chad Riley as Jafar's Guard

Uncredited

 * Unknown as Ruby

Trivia
Production Notes=

Production Notes

 * The title card features the serpent staff.
 * ABC's press release for this episode misnames it as "Heart of the Day".
 * Jafar uses two incantations to try to take control over the Genie Lamps:
 * "Incipio. Tres genies in utres. Ego te coniungere. Da mihi virtutem!" which is Latin for "Begin. Three genies in bottles. Give me power!" [Note: that there is no word for "genie" in Latin, so this word is plain English.]
 * When it does not work, he tries "Magicae res tres. Vult totam!" which means "Three magic things. He wants all!" However, it does not work either.
 * Co-star Chad Riley, who plays Jafar's guard, also plays Black Knight #2 in the Once Upon a Time episode "Child of the Moon".


 * -|Episode Connections=

Event Chronology

 * The past Wonderland events occur after "We Are Both" and "Heart of Stone" and before "Queen of Hearts".
 * The present day Wonderland events occur after "Dirty Little Secrets" and before "To Catch a Thief".
 * The Land Without Magic events take place at an unspecified time, sometime after "The Doctor".
 * In "We Are Both" and "Lady of the Lake", there's a hole in the road between Granny's Diner and Standard Clocks, from the Wraith's attack (not the same hole as the rabbit hole that the White Rabbit makes in front of the entrance to the clock tower). By the time of "The Doctor", the hole has been repaired. In "Heart of the Matter, the area in front of Granny's can be glimpsed in the background when Alice and her friends visit Storybrooke, and the hole is gone.


 * -|Cultural References=

Fairytales and Folklore

 * This episode features Alice, the Caterpillar, Knave of Hearts, the Queen of Hearts, and the White Rabbit from the Alice in Wonderland story, the Red Queen, the Jabberwocky, Tweedledee, and Tweedledum from the story's sequel as well as the genie, the evil sorcerer and the Sultan from the Aladdin story.


 * -|Set Notes=

Props Notes
Incipio Tres genies in utres Ego te coniungere Da mihi virtutem Magicae res tres Vult totam Ego [illegible] [illegible]
 * Jafar's book of spells contains:
 * A long Latin excerpt from Ars grammatica by Aelius Donatus, a fourth century Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. The excerpt is from his first Ars grammatica, known as Ars Minor, which is a brief overview of the eight parts of speech. The text in the spell book, is from the section about de praepositione, preposition.
 * A picture of a vegvísir, a Icelandic magical stave intended to help the bearer find their way through rough weather.
 * Around the vegvisir, there are characters from the reconstruction of the mysterious Emerald Tablet, which is one of the pillars of Western alchemy. It has been translated by many people over the centuries, and is said to be inscribed with the secrets of the universe. One interpretation suggests that the text describes seven stages of alchemical transformation—calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation and coagulation.
 * The opposite page contains an illustration by the sixteenth century Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi book History of Monsters (Monstrorum historia cum Paralipomenis historiae omnium animalium), published posthumously in 1642. The illustration, known as Monstrum cornutum, and alatum aliudmale, shows a winged monster without arms, with animal ears and face.
 * As Jafar turns the pages, he stops at an incantation:


 * Which is Latin for:

Begin Three genies* in bottles Give me power Three magic things He wants all I[illegible]
 * *Note that the word "genie" is plain English


 * This is the same incantation that Jafar uses to take control of the Genie Bottles, However, he does not say the last stanza.
 * On the opposite page, characters from the Emerald Tablet can be seen on the right side of the page. Note that many of them are upside-down and/or mirror-inverted.
 * Another page shows the Tree of Life from Kabbalah. This symbol represents, as a series of divine emanations, God's creation, the nature of revealed divinity, the human soul, and the spiritual path of ascent by man.
 * The characters on the page are symbols for alchemical processes, inclduing Abstraction, Putrefication, Digestion 1, Purification 1 and Reverberation 2. The symbol for Fixation is printed on the opposite page.


 * When Jafar tries to take control of the genie bottles, after he tries the second incantation, you can see a fourth genie bottle on the table, next to the other three.

Costume Notes

 * The dress Cora wears is the same dress that she wears in Henry's Estate in the Enchanted Forest years earlier, in her last two flashback scenes in the Once Upon a Time episode "Sisters".