Down the Rabbit Hole

"Down the Rabbit Hole" is the 1st episode of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.

Summary
Alice returns home to her father telling her that everyone thought she was dead. Her imaginative stories about a talking White Rabbit and a mystical place called Wonderland end up getting her admitted into an asylum where Dr. Arthur Lydgate convinces her to have a procedure that will allow her to forget her pain. Right before the operation is set to take place she is rescued by the Knave of Hearts who takes her to the rabbit who informs her that her true love, Cyrus, is still alive. As the trio then jumps into the portal returning to Wonderland, Alice sets out on a quest to find him but the villainous Red Queen and Jafar have other plans for her.

Teaser
"Once Upon a Time..."

We are treated to the vision of a clearing in the woods. A small dining table, designed for children to use, is seen in said clearing, with several plush toys sitting in chairs around it. The party guests include a hare, a man in a hat and a mouse. The table looks abandoned, unkempt, with leaves and foliage scattered on top of it. The bigger chair, reserved for the very special guest, is empty. An explosive sound is heard as a wave of dirt comes flying from the earth, near the dining table. A young hand is seen grabbing onto the vegetation, and we then see a young girl, to whom the hand belongs, as she tries to hold on to the green ground and get herself out of the hole that just exploded around the area where she once lived. The young blonde, wearing a blue dress with a white apron and a blue tie over her head, smiles with glee as she stands on the area where she'd played before, and says, "Home." Exhilarated, the young girl starts running back to her house, crossing over a fallen tree log and dashing through a long field of green. The girl enters an estate and starts shouting for her father, repeatedly. She finally reaches her house, but is unable to open the locked door when she turns its knob. She bangs on the door a few times, with force, anxious to see her father again, and the latter opens the door suddenly and looks shocked to see her. The young girl starts to say that he will never believe where she's been - he merely says "Alice" as he looks at her with confusion and surprise in his eyes - and that it all began with a white rabbit who wanted to take her hand... The father interrupts her story, asking her if it's really her. "Who else would I be?" the girl asks, nonchallantly. The father claims that she was gone a very long time, and they thought she was... Alice asks him, "You thougt I was what?", to which he replies, "Dead." The camera pans away from them and into the hall of the house, as we start hearing baffled excerpts of a conversation shared in the future between Alice's father and a psych professional, Dr. Lydgate. As they discuss, behind closed doors, with Alice peeping on them through the keyhole and overhearing their conversation, the stories she'd shared with them, about hookah-smoking catterpillars and giant mushrooms, the father asks the doctor why Alice would lie, and is told that she is dellusional and making it up, and he can cure this. Alice, indignated, stands up and away from the doors and says to herself, "I'm not a liar. It was real. And I'm going to prove it." This said, she walks away.

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

Act I
Present Day

Storybrooke, Maine, nighttime. The clock on the tower over the Storybrooke Public Library tells us that the time is 8:15. A man is seen walking in the middle of the road as lightning strikes in the sky above him and the wind blows fallen leaves around. He walks, seemingly without a care, unaffected by anything around him, including the oncoming yellow buggy that is headed in his direction. The driver honks the horn and swerves to avoid hitting the careless and reckless pedestrian. Once it's gone around him, the buggy gets back on its lane. The man continues walking. A hand is seen locking up the front door to Granny's Diner, and the keychain is in the form of a pink tennis shoe. The employee in charge of locking up is the lovely Ashley Boyd, who tells her companion Leroy - the town drunk - that he's closing up the joint. As she heads down the steps, she looks up at the stormy sky as she comments that he's gunning for the "Customer of the Week" plaque. The careless pedestrian makes his way to the diner as Leroy starts to tell Ashley that the situation is win-win for them, she gets his mug on the wall and he finally gets... He is unable to finish his thought for the man walks past them but not without bumping into Ashley and catching her off-guard. Leroy tells the man that it's closing time, and Ashley adds that it looks like a storm is coming so he better find a place to keep dry. Leroy and Ashley start walking away, and the man turns back to them with a smirk and says, "I'll get right on that." This said, he reveals that he has taken the keychain from Ashley and swings it around his finger. He then uses it to open the front door to Granny's and gets in. Inside, he gets behind the counter and takes out a coffee cup, which he fills up. Then, he takes a dollar bill from his wallet and throws it on the counter. He then looks around and takes it back, storing it in his pocket again. He starts to sip his coffe, but is then surprised when the establishment starts to shake. A frame falls from a wall, the window shutters start to dance, and glasses fall from their shelf. A hole is pierced through the floor of the diner, with an exploding sound, much like the one young Alice once emerged from, and the diner's tables and chairs that were in its proximate area are sent flying. The man looks on as he witnesses someone familiar emerging from the newly-formed hole. The White Rabbit makes himself appear through the cloud of dust and shakes himself off, then turning to the man and saying, "There you are." "Bloody hell," the man says, then asking the Rabbit what he's doing there. The Rabbit says that he'll tell him on the way, they're late. The man places his hands on the counter and tells the Rabbit that he's not interested in his important dates, but the Rabbit claims that they're not late for something, they're late for someone. The man asks who, and the Rabbit answers, "Alice. She needs help. You're the Knave of Hearts. She needs you." The Knave doesn't look amused.

Bethlem Asylum

Elsewhere, in a realm that resembles the olden Victorian London, we see the darkened inside halls of a mental asylum, where a static young girl is seen being rolled around in a wheelchair by someone, as she holds a doll with a spider in its web latched onto it over the armrest. Then, the focus switches to that of a young woman being escorted into a room by several orderlies, her hands behind her back, walking slowly as other patients look on from the inside of their cells.

Act IV
Panoramic view of the Red Queen's castle, which is decorated in a chessboard theme. Every tower of the royal habitation is shaped after pieces of the game, with the figure of the queen piece taking the place of the central building. Inside one of the rooms, the Red Queen is sitting by a lunch table decorated with several fine pastries. She asks her companion, the White Rabbit, who is sitting across from her, whether he told Alice what he heard. The Rabbit confirms this, having told Alice that Cyrus is alive. He then asks the Queen whether the genie is indeed alive, and taps his fingers on the table, nervously. The Queen coldly tells him she'll be the one asking questions. The Rabbit poses no objections, and tells her that they're square now, reminding her that he did what she asked, bringing Alice back to Wonderland, but the Queen, bemused, interrupts him, recounting that they agreed to settle up when the game was complete, but they are still setting up the board. She goes on to say that, regarding Alice, she needs the Rabbit to report to her everything she does, where she goes, who she talks to, what she is thinking. "I need more than my eyes, I need your ears," she says, and the Rabbit is saddened. "And you will either help me, darling..." she adds, "Or decorate this room. Understood?" The Rabbit, clearly intimidated, confirms this, and she orders him to leave. The Rabbit gets up and obliges, all the while showing fright. He slightly looks back as he walks away, but is unable to fully do so.

Meanwhile, Alice and the Knave have made it to the entrance of Tulgey Woods, a forest with large mushrooms - the kind that can alter one's size - and fog on the ground. Alice comments that the Hatter's place is on the other side, and the focus shifts to a plaque indicating the zone that also reads, "Generously secured for passage and residence by her majesty, The Red Queen". Will asks her if she isn't worried that this is all a trap, and Alice, hopeful, tells him that if there is a chance that Cyrus is alive, they have to take it. Noises are heard coming from the woods. Alice picks up a thick branch and urges the Knave to follow after her. He does so, whilst asking her why the Red Queen would throw Cyrus into the Boiling Sea. Alice claims not to know, and that she'd love to ask the Queen, and to see the look on her face when she finds out Alice is not the forgiving sort, particularly when said face meets the branch she is now holding... repeatedly. Will comments that Alice doesn't sound like herself, and the blonde replies, as they make their way through the trees, that the doctors said she was a danger to herself and to others. Will tells her she can't believe everything she reads, and Alice answers that she doesn't, but adds that, when she thought Cyrus was dead, she stopped believing much of anything. They continue walking.

Back on the Red Queen's castle, the blonde beauty is seen alone in a room at the center of her Queen tower, and a strange dark presence is felt, as the candle near her goes out. She makes her way to the balcony and a lowly voice simply says, "Well?" A shadowy figure is seen standing on the CUNT!!! and the Queen, smiling, tells him, "She's back," referring to Alice. The figure, a shady man, asks the Queen what the girl is doing now, to which Her Majesty replies, "Looking for her genie, of course. Isn't that what we wanted, Jafar?" This said, Jafar, the evil wizard, steps down from the CUNT!!!, holding his serpent staff, and walks towards the Queen. As he does so, and his face is made visible from out of the shadows that concealed it, the eyes on his serpent staff light up, becoming a bright red. He tells the Queen that what they want can't be accomplished until they have the genie's bottle and the girl's made all her wishes. He goes on to say that perhaps the Queen shouldn't be so pleased with herself, and the royal, aggravated, demands that he not talk down to her, for she is the Queen. Jafar tells her the thing about power is it can be so fleeting. The Queen chuckles, asking him if that's a thread. Jafar denies this, claiming that threats are for people who aren't prepared to act. He hits the bottom tip of his ceptre on the floor of the balcony and its eyes light up again. "Wait..." the Queen says, lowly. He looks ready for action. The Queen, relatively intimidated, tells him he needs her. He replies, "Not anymore." She starts walking backwards as he does the opposite, walking in her direction, as she reminds him that she did what he could not, she brought Alice back to Wonderland. Jafar points out that this means her work, and her usefulness to him, is done. He says he'll take it from here, and then he holds his hand up, in front of her neck, without ever touching her, and the Queen is choked through magic. Her neck muscles tighten as the wizard works his dark magic on her, and she tries her best to spit out that he doesn't know where Alice is. Jafar gives this some thought, and lowers his hand, putting an end his choking trick. The Queen gasps for air, and then looks amused, further rubbing it in that Jafar doesn't know Alice's whereabouts. She then reminds him, trying to maintain her own albeit with tears in her eyes, that he is not in Agrabah anymore - this is her world, which means only she knows where Alice is and only she knows where Alice is going, and if Jafar still wants her help, then their deal remains. She tells him she will get him those wishes. Jafar asks, "In return for what, exactly?", and she tells him, "All in due time." She then suggests to him, provokingly so, that he get back on that raggedy carpet of his and fly away, and let her take care of Alice. This said, she starts walking back inside, but is forced to turn back to him when he tells her that, for her sake, he hopes she does. The Queen gives him a look. He then leaps back onto the CUNT!!!, they exchange parting looks, and he steps backwards, and his feet are caught by the Magic Carpet. He holds up his staff and starts flying away.

Back in Tulgey Woods, Alice and Will continue to trek through the forest, and she comments that they have been walking forever, when they should have been by the Hatter's house already. Will then notices a poster pinned to a tree, with a drawing of his face, reading that the Knave of Hearts is wanted with or without his head. He goes up to give it a closer look, and behind the drawing it says, "Contact the Catterpillar immediately if you have any information concerning his whereabouts. Failing to report will result in imprisonment." Alice, curious, asks him what he did exactly after she left, and Will tells her not to ask, as he takes out the poster, slowly, letting it drop to the ground. He then turns back to her and asks her which way they go now, and she tells him, "Up. I'm tired of running around. We need a different point of view." He asks her what she means as she makes her way to the tree where the poster was, and says that if she can get high enough, she can see that Hatter's house. She takes off her boots and starts climbing up the tree. Will looks on as she climbs her way up, and then looks down at the poster on the ground... and the pair of boots next to it. He picks them up and leaves. Alice walks on a thick branch of the tree, trying to maintain her balance, and spots the Hatter's house. She says out loud that she can see it and that it is not that far, but gets no response. She looks down and around, calling out for her friend, but then notices that he is gone, and so are her boots. She is disappointed, but can't be distracted by that for long, for soon enough she starts hearing a strange and frightening purring noise. She looks up to witness a large yellow smile and a pair of big red eyes appearing before her out of the thin air. The enormous Cheshire Cat then makes himself appear fully, and he waves his large tail.

Production

 * The title of this episode was revealed by executive producer/co-creator Adam Horowitz, via his Twitter account, on August 8, 2013, along with a photograph of the script's cover.

Gallery
Gallery of photographic stills released to promote the episode.