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"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.[2]
Recap
Anastasia, the soon-to-be Red Queen of Wonderland is introduced to her servants Tweedledee and Tweedledum at the castle. During a conversation with them, the Queen of Hearts, Cora, who is shocked to have been invited to the Red King's wedding, pays them an unexpected visit to meet the new Queen. Cora offers to teach Anastasia magic to make life as a royal easier at the castle, but Anastasia declines the offer as the Red King frowns on the usage of magic which separates the royals and their servants. While not pleased with Anastasia's answer, Cora leaves her offer open. As the wedding day approaches, Will Scarlet secretly visits Anastasia, hoping that Anastasia is duping the King into marrying her just to steal his jewels. As Anastasia retaliates, Cora eavesdrops on their conversation and alerts the guards to the room, not before Will leaves. Cora pays Will a visit and listen to his concern regarding not being able to fully move on from Anastasia. Will asks Cora to remove his heart so that he can never feel any form of emotion. Upon doing so, Cora keeps his heart and later shows Anastasia that Will has decided to move on and no longer loves her. Cora then proceeds to teach a now-heartbroken Anastasia magic.
Alice and Cyrus is alerted by Tweedledum to escape Wonderland under Anastasia's orders upon the Jabberwocky's freedom. However, as they wouldn't want to give up on Will, they head into the castle via a tunnel to save both Will and Anastasia. Meanwhile, Jafar, unable to change the laws of magic due to Will's genie bottle, uses the Jabberwocky on Anastasia to find out the problem. As the Jabberwocky uses her magic to creep into Anastasia's memories, she accidentally reads Alice's mind, who is in the dungeon with Cyrus. Knowing what was the problem, she escapes the dungeon with Cyrus and seeks the White Rabbit's help to locate Will's heart. Using the portal, they head to Storybrooke. Once retrieving Will's heart, the trio returns to Wonderland and is ambushed by Jafar who steals it, but before losing his staff to them. Alice and Cyrus realize that the staff is Cyrus' mother. Jafar returns Will's heart and in order to make sure the heart was functioning properly, he kills Anastasia in-front of Will, who is in a fit upon Anastasia's death.
Via the portal, Alice, Cyrus, and the White Rabbit arrives in the main street and heads to Will's home to find his heart. Once inside, they find a drawing of Anastasia and realize the heart is hidden in the wall behind the drawing. Using some darts, they uncover a box with Will's heart and returns to Wonderland.
Cast[2]
Starring
Guest Starring
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Co-Starring
Uncredited
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Trivia
Title
- The title card features the serpent staff.[3]
- ABC's press release for this episode misnames it as "Heart of the Day."[4]
Production Notes
- HIDDEN DETAILS: 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. I join you. Give me power!"[5] [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!"[6] However, that does not work either.
- REUSED ACTOR: 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."
Event Chronology
- The Wonderland flashbacks occur after "We Are Both" and "Heart of Stone" and before "Queen of Hearts."
- The Storybrooke flashbacks take place at an unspecified time, sometime after "Lady of the Lake." (For more details, see the Land Without Magic timeline)
- In "We Are Both"[7] and "Lady of the Lake,"[8] 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).[9] By the time of "The Doctor," the hole has been repaired,[10] meaning that this episode takes place either between "Lady of the Lake" and "The Doctor," or after "The Doctor": 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.
- The present-day Wonderland events occur after "Dirty Little Secrets" and before "To Catch a Thief." (For more details, see the Wonderland timeline)
Episode Connections
- Will's aversion towards water is also touched upon in "Trust Me" and "To Catch a Thief," and the Once Upon a Time episode "Heart of Gold."
Disney
- The design of the Queen of Heart's dress is similar to her Disney counterpart in the animated film Alice in Wonderland.
- This episode contains a number of other references to Disney works. See the list of Disney references for more.
Fairy Tales and Folklore
- This episode is a rendition of Through the Looking-Glass, focusing on the Red Queen's rise to power.
- Also included are the Jabberwocky, Tweedledee, and Tweedledum from the same story.
- This episode features Alice, the Caterpillar, Knave of Hearts, the Queen of Hearts, and the White Rabbit from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as well as the genie, the magician and the sultan from the "Aladdin" story.
- Tweedledum asks if they should prepare tea for the Queen of Hearts' arrival, a reference to the Hatter's tea party from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
- HIDDEN DETAILS: In addition, a tea kettle is sitting on the stove in Will's home.[11]
- HIDDEN DETAILS: When the Red Queen meets the Queen of Hearts, vases of red roses are decorating the great hall in the palace,[12] and Cora teleports one of them from one table to another. Another bunch of roses is sitting in the Red Queen's room in the scene where Cora talks her out of leaving.[13] This is a reference to the scene where the Queen of Hearts' gardeners are painting the white roses red in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
- Seeing Storybrooke for the first time, Alice remarks, "Curiouser and curiouser," which is what the character says the first time she grows big in the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland novel.
- The White Rabbit spots a Storybrooke establishment called The Rabbit Hole,[14] a reference to the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland story.
Props Notes
- MYSTERIOUS WRITINGS: Jafar's book contains a long Latin text[15] consisting of excerpts from Ars grammatica by Aelius Donatus, a fourth century Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. The excerpts are 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 De praepositione,[16] "about preposition." The following is a comparison of the original excerpt and the adapted version. Some sentences have been moved around for the show (these are highlighted), while others are used twice (these are set in bold):
Praepositio quid est? Pars orationis quae |
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| Quot? Duo. Qui? Accusativus et ablativus. Da praepositiones casus accusativi. Ad apud |
Quot? Duo. Qui? Accusativus et ablativus. Da praepositiones casus accusativi. Ad apud | |
| forum, circum vicinos, circa templum, contra hostem sine absque tenus. Quo | ||
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- MYSTERIOUS SYMBOLS: The book also contains an upside-down version of an illustration[18] from Key of Solomon, an old grimoire (textbook of magic) incorrectly attributed to King Solomon. This particular illustration is from one of the earliest manuscript of the grimoire, entitled The Clavicle of Solomon, revealed by Ptolomy the Grecian, written in English and Latin and dated 1572. The text "Jesus Salvator" (Jesus the Savior) connects the eight-pointed cross with Jesus Christ.
- MYSTERIOUS SYMBOLS: Around the illustration,[18] there are characters from the reconstruction of the mysterious Emerald Tablet,[19] 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.[20]
- ARTWORKS: The opposite page contains an illustration[21] 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.
- MYSTERIOUS WRITINGS: As Jafar turns the pages, he stops at an incantation:[22]
Tres genies in utres
Ego te coniungere
Da mihi virtutem
Magicae res tres
Vult totam
[illegible]
Three genies* in bottles
Give me power
Three magic things
He wants all
- *Note that the word "genie" is plain English
- HIDDEN DETAILS: This is the same incantation that Jafar uses to take control of the Genie Bottles, However, he does not say the last stanza.
- MYSTERIOUS SYMBOLS: On the opposite page,[22] 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.
- MYSTERIOUS SYMBOLS: Another page[23] 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.
- MYSTERIOUS SYMBOLS: The characters on the page[23] are symbols for alchemical processes, including Abstraction, Putrefication, Digestion 1, Purification 1 and Reverberation 2. The symbol for Fixation is printed on the opposite page.[24]
- REUSED ILLUSTRATION: The same illustration appears in Cora's spell book in the Once Upon a Time episodes "Going Home"[25] and "The Jolly Roger."[26]
- HIDDEN DETAILS: When Jafar tries to take control of the genie bottles, after he tries the second incantation, you can see a fourth genie lamp on the table, next to the other three.[27]
Costume Notes
International Titles
| International Titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Language | Title | Translation |
| French | "Le Cœur du Sujet" | "The Heart of the Subject" |
| German | "Das Herz Aller Dinge" | "The Heart of All Things" |
| Italian | "Il nocciolo della questione" | "Heart of the Matter" |
Videos
References
External Links
Heart of the Matter on Internet Movie Database- Heart of the Matter on Wikipedia
