The day before yesterday (unfortunately on April Fool's Day) EW, Buddy TV, among others posted articles stating that actor Michael Socha (who plays Will Scarlet/The Knave of Hearts on Once Upon A Time in Wonderland) was in talks to be a series regular on Once Upon A Time.
Granted there are surely reasons to see how this could be an April Fools Joke. A couple being that actor Sean Maquire (Robin Hood) has yet to be announced as a series regular and that even OUAT hasn't announced an official fourth season, but lets say there is still some truth to this one way or another, where could Will Scarlet fit into the picture? (and will Emma Rigby come to reoccur as well?)
So with this potential news I thought I would take some time to explore and share some ideas and possibilities with you just for the fun of it!
Heart of The Matter
For me Wonderland's only down side has been that characters like Will, Anastasia, and Cora I think really didn't get fleshed out as well as they could of been. There's lots of missing pieces that we only either heard of in passing or were alluded to through how events played out. We really didn't get to see things that might have made their Wonderland story even more compelling.
For Will we only saw him in his Knave of Hearts title role once and we don't see when Cora first summons him to do her bidding. Similarly we don't know what happened to Anastasia's husband and really what Cora's end game was in manipulating both characters, let alone if Ana ever crossed paths with Will again before he found his way to the Enchanted Forest, assuming he became part of Regina's curse, which is hinted at by both his existence in Storybrooke at the beginning of the series and his reference to 1880's cartoons on American television. (And for Once fans that have not yet seen OUATiW it's story takes place along side the beginning of Once's second season)
With Will we also know that he spend some time with Lizard and The Hookah Smoking Caterpillar's "The Collecters", but again we do not see when he meets Lizard or see any of their adventures.
To me those two characters also seem ripe for an extension because like most of our Once Upon A Time gang, they derive from the Enchanted Forest! With Anastasia we may have a connection to Ashley/Cinderella. With Will Scarlet there's a connection to Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men. I think Wonderland's story was meant to provide a main story with closure for Alice and Cyrus, even though I do hope they also appear again...
So looking at what we know, here are some ideas:
Once Upon A Time's second season ended with an introduction to Neverland story via allusions, flashbacks, and certain characters (Hook, Bae, Michael, John, Tamara, Greg) providing links and extensions to the beginning of season 3's in-Neverland journey. We could assume that OUAT's season 3 may follow suit and therefor we have an introduction to Oz with Zelena and her flying Monkeys, but her story could just be a prelude for characters going to Oz at the begging of season 4...
Off With Your Head & A Heart of Stone
Obviously because of Cora, Wonderland and Oz seem like they are in some way bridged, especially since like how the novels are very similar, Once's Wonderland has allusions to Oz too. In my last review for "To Catch a Thief", I theorized that maybe Will could also become The Tin Man/Tin Woodsma, given he's a male character who at times doesn't have a heart. But let's say for a moment that Wonderland doesn't end too happy for Will and he has to give Ana up! There then is a reason for Will to not have a heart again and/or a reason for Will to want to keep looking for a way to save her some other way. When I went to write some of those allusions/parallels to OZ out in the review, one allusion I didn't think of which could relate ans support this is Disney's 1985's film Return to Oz where another Witch/Princess Mombi (who can alternate heads--which is similar to what the minion Zelena sends after Rapunzel and Charming in "The Tower") can turn people into Emerald Jewels (Zelena wears an Emerald Broach) and all of the previous film's main characters have been tuned to stone (So maybe this is where Anastasia could also fit in?) and where another character who doesn't have a heart is classically the Tin Woodsman.Note: There's also Jefferson too consider. In the episode "The Doctor" we know he and Victor Frankenstein/Dr. Whale had traveled many worlds together and Oz was referenced there too by both Rumple looking for the slippers and by Jefferson referring to Frankenstein as A Wizard. It's not that I'm expecting Jefferson to reappear, as Sebastian Stan's schedule seems full and we may be seeing less and less of David Anders due to be cast in a CW series for next fall, but again it just ties Wonderland to all things Regina, which itself could extend to both Zelena and Robin and not just Cora and Rumple.
Our Mutual Friend(s)
Additionally in "To Catch A Thief' it was mentioned how Will lost his sister Penelope who fell through a frozen lake as a child. As mentioned on my review of the episode, I'm pretty sure this is an allusion to both Fringe with Peter Bishop and Lost with Desmond David Hume. One reason I felt strongly at the beginning of Fringe's third season that the season may end with Peter time traveling in some way, was because I could see parallels between his love story with Olivia compared with Desmond's and Penny's. Both stories ended up partially being epic love stories that were playing out through time and space and through multiple timelines and/or universes. My suspicions about this I think are also justified in that Henry Ian Cusick appeared in a back door to season 5 episode, "Letters of Transit" as a character who was presented in Peter-esque role by being the love interest of Olivia's and Peter's daughter Henrietta.
So it's with that along with the fact that Penelope herself could be bridge with both series in terms of the Grecian myths, that also could provide us with a story about Will setting out to find his sister. (It might be Nyxe,who like with Cyrus, informs him Penelope is not dead)
Return to Oz also provides other parallels with Once Upon A Time in Wonderland. The begining of the film has a similar plot with Wonderland in that Dorothy like Alice has become institutionalized because her own family doesn't believe that she went to Oz and thinks she has a mental condition. Ozma then comes to help Dorothy escape, much like the White Rabbit and Knave help Alice. Some fans are already theorizing that Snow's and Charming's baby could be the future Dorothy, especially when one might consider allusions to Auntie Em and Uncle Henry with Emma and Henry, but interestingly looking at Alice's step sister Millie, is there yet another allusion in aesthetics to Return to Oz's version of Dorothy?! (Anastasia too has been seen wearing white and pink dress like Millie)
Note: Princess Ozma also is trapped in some reality from inside the mirrors in Return of Oz.
I also speculate that Jafar's story is also not over and we may see a The Return of Jafar, where Jafar becomes a genie. I could easily imagine Jafar trying to save his father much like Cyrus tried to save Amara with water from the Well of Wonders in which he may come to the same bottle-bound fate. It could also be that Jafar's bottle is whisked away to Storybrooke or another land, and/or one of our thieving characters take it with them on their next journey, but in either case, Aladdin's story may also come with this and much like Agrabah turned out to jive well with Wonderland, could maybe another Agrabah tale jive with Oz??? And after all it isn't like Sydney Glass wasn't once a Genie and also responsible for killing Snow White's father King Leopold!Some other things to wonder about might be the magical book that breaks the laws of magic, the knowledge of the Well of Wonders, and what will happen in tonight's Finale to the Jabberwocky?!!!
And that's all I've got! What do you guys think? Any other ideas out there? Do like the idea of Will and maybe some of the other characters having a life next season on OUAT? Let us know in the comments below!!!
UPDATE APRIL 5TH:
Ok! Now that Finale has aired and we have confirmation from the writers that Michael Socha is going to be apart of Once Upon A Time next season, and having time to sort my own questions out through debates with other people, I've decided to look again with what we have with what we don't.
So Jafar did turn into a Genie and is whisked away somewhere, but it appears his father remains dead. I still think that a Jafar/Aladdin story could jive well with an Oz story, even if it's on a much smaller scale than Wonderland's. So it's one thing I hope resurfaces in relation to Will's upcoming role...
One of my lingering questions was how exactly Will ended up apart of Regina's curse, which again is alluded through the Knave being in Storybrooke and his knowledge of things like The Care Bears. Obviously one possibility is that he went back to the Enchanted Forest. Another is that Regina's curse can reach through time and and space to snag most Enchanted Forest residents and/or Regina enemies/associates. If it's the second case, then why wasn't Anastasia also taken?
I realized that I also made an assumption that Ana derived from the Enchanted Forest, but when I started to think about her name (a real life, but also fabled Russian Princess), and thinking that she could be Ashley/Cinderella's "step" sister, could maybe Anastasia be a stolen child from another realm/universe? If so this also goes along with what I was also theorizing about Will's sister Penelope via Fringe and Lost references. There could be an interconnected story and/or an interesting parallel here.
We know that Ana and Will go back to Wonderland to sort things out, which suggests more cleaning up of things we don't actually get to see in order to make Wonderland a better place. We don't know what exactly that entails, or if the depiction Alice has of Will and Ana as the King and Queen of Wonderland is accurate and/or "when" that occurs, since many years have past. But Will expresses that love itself is messy and it takes a lot of work. To me this seems like cleaning up and sorting out Wonderland post Jafar is a metaphor for a time period where Will and Ana have to work hard at repairing their own relationship and suggest that there could still be hardships ahead. Jafar too could potentially jive well with Russian stories.
The spell book and Knowledge about the Well of Wonders are also possible things to consider, despite that the producers insist that no Wonderland plot threads will continue, which seems odd when they are bringing the Knave on board, Jafar's lamp does mysteriously disappear, and when they also say that we could see familiar wonderland faces...
But some speculate that this indicates that Will may only be a part of flashbacks, which I'm not sure is a reward for either series fans, but looking at that possibility, what does that leave us?
1. We could see Will before he joins Robin Hoods men and he makes his own unique connections to characters from Once we didn't know he had...
2. He was with Robin's Merry Men longer than we thought, which would flesh out Robin Hood's tale.
3. The flashbacks could occur when Will was the Knave doing Cora's bidding. Cora happens to mention to Hook back in season two in the Enchanted Forest that she traveled many lands... Again we don't know when her traveling occurred. Was it before, during, and/or both the time of Wonderland? (But before seems more likely considering she was tasking Jefferson with making another hat) One idea could be that Will is to keep an eye on Rumple and/or Zelena, assuming that Rumple took and trained Zelena and we don't know if that occurs in Oz or not, but we do know Rumple was going through Jefferson and Victor to try and get the Ozian slippers...
UPDATE: April 17th:
So there's now news that Kristen Bell is in talks to reprise her FROZEN role on Once Upon A Time! Why does this matter? Well, because it could tie into theories I mentioned above in relation to both Will Scarlet and Anastasia.
As I stated above, I still think there is a lots of back story with those two characters that had not been explored and to me feels a little incomplete. One of those theories I had deal with the LOST and FRINGE double reference in that Will's sister Penelope may not have died when she fell through the FROZEN lake, but maybe traveled to another universe...
Anastasia's name also seems a likely a reference to the Russian princess turned myth about the survival of the orphaned princess and the family that seeks a rewards should their princess be found, but Once Upon A Time in Wonderland never explored that potential aspect of the character. Obviously given that Russia itself tends to have iconic Winter-ish weather, so does many of it's folk tales, myths, and love stories.
Additionally "The Tower" introduced Rapunzel, which Disney's version crosses over into their Frozen film. It's also in "The Tower" where major Once Upon A Time in Wonderland related themes and objects quite beautifully compliment Wonderland's final episodes including that Zelena's head-changing minion along with Wonderland's reference to the Grecian Nyxe both reference and share aspects with The Ring's Samara!
It's also curious because Kristen Bell was offered the Lost role of Charlotte Staples Lewis, which she turned down and was ultimately filled by Rebecca Mader! (who now plays Zelena)
Also Surprisingly, despite that Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis stated that no Wonderland plot threads would become apart of Once Upon A Time, the next Once episode after the Wonderland finale aired, "It's not easy being green", gave us one of Zelena's main agendas in that she wants to time travel back and change everything--something that Jafar might have been able to do with the spell book, if he would of had longer time in his supreme sorcerer role (although thinking of Disney's Return of Jafar, I think he ends up being a much more powerful genie than previous blue genie and that might still be true with our Jafar)
So what else am I thinking? It could be easy to see a story about either a frozen reality, or someone who physically freezes realities, Freezes people (similar concept to Fringe's "ambering" and/or winks at cryogenics) and/or freezes "time". (I think a polar bear and frozen donkey wheel of time and even a "SWAN" lake story might not be out of the question either!)
