Magnificent ending to a wonderful series. There are many high points, but the most obvious ones are:
A divide-and-conquer story, with good guy against good guy, and bad guy against bad guy. End very much in sight now, and all the characters are converging. And with two of our main four characters dead, the stakes are suitably high… 8/10
Easily the darkest episode so far. Not just because the bad guy wins, but because of the way get inside the Red Queen’s psyche. Some of the scenes, especially her two confrontations with The Jabberwocky, were scary.
Love the reveal of who Cyrus’ mother is. Delightfully clever. 10/10
Whoopi Goldberg. Strong script skillfully brings most of the major ongoing story arcs to a satisfying conclusion. Emma Rigby is really terrific in this, and gets some great scenes to play at the end. As do all of the main cast. The ending is unexpected and very exciting. Can’t wait to see where the story goes next. 9/10
Shaun Smyth. A clever script (with ingenious and effective parallels in both narratives) and astonishingly good performances from everybody.
The big reveal at the very end is nothing we couldn’t guess at (weeks ago) but the backstory gives a whole new power to Jafar’s relationship with his mysterious prisoner. 10/10
Shaun Smyth. Disjointed. Several storylines, with lots happening in all of them. Some of it was very good, but it didn’t hang together very well and - at times - it felt like we were switching between different shows on different channels. The ‘Alice In Peril’ story was very creepy, but ended weakly. The ‘Alice In Flashback' bits were great, and heartfelt, but could have fleshed out to a full episode on their own and felt much more satisfying.
The Red Queen scenes and Jafar scenes were perfunctory and could have been shunted back to a different week. Giving the writer a chance to strengthen the thematic connection between the Alice storylines: her been asked to forget her past in one, and actually forgetting her past in the other. Something that should have had more power. But didn’t. 8/10
Garwin Sanford. Once more we get a lot of Red Queen backstory, and Emma Rigby is terrific. As the show gets more serialized it gets much more enjoyable. it seems as if Alice is about to rescue Cyrus. And where is Jafar headed? England? 9/10
Zuleikha Robinson. This episode does a great job of giving a backstory to the villain, and a major dilemma to the heroine. This is also the first real cliffhanger, breaking the show out of it’s cosy adventure-of-the-week routine. 9/10
Roger Daltrey. Much as I’m loving Alice, this episode just about makes The Knave the most interesting character! He’s certainly (thanks to a wonderful twist/revelation) the one with the most interesting journey. Love it!! 10/10
Great performances from the five leads, cementing this as one of the best new shows. They’ve managed to successfully establish Alice as a kick-ass heroine, who is also very much ‘a girl in love’. That’s not easy to do. Sophie Lowe IS the show. In the hands of a less capable actress this would fall flat. But it doesn’t. The romance angle really works. I’m completely smitten with these lovers and their story. 9/10
Introduces a great new heroine, and there’s a very romantic story arc. It’s certainly ambitious, and some of the visuals are iffy, but the cast is excellent. 8/10
