Today at NGN we’re celebrating the return of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland with the return of the lovely Leah and her OUaTiW posts! 

I want to offer you all an apology for abandoning my Once Upon a Time in Wonderland recaps over the past few months. Some things in my life made it so that I was behind on watching the episodes, and then I got so behind I wasn’t able to catch up. I’m back now, though, and plan to be around for recaps through the end of this season.

To prepare for the show’s return, I thought I’d pick three plot points that I feel will have the biggest impact on the second half of Season One and discuss them!

1. The Red Queen Is Anastasia
Possibly the biggest surprise of this season thus far has been the reveal that the Anastasia who broke Will’s heart is also the Red Queen who has been working against Alice all along. It was revealed that Anastasia and Will were once happily in love, dreaming of making a life together even if they had to steal to survive. Their lives were changed when Will and Anastasia snuck into a royal ball, where Anastasia became enamored by the glamorous world of the royalty and nobles. They were both thrown out of the ball when discovered, but not before Anastasia spotted the crown jewels and had an encounter with the king, who was very curious about her. She decided to steal the jewels but was caught in the act by the king, who had a proposal for her: become his queen. She accepted, and when she was presented to the kingdom as the new queen, Will was in the crowd, betrayed and heartbroken.

As we learned at the end of the midseason finale (“Home”), Anastasia’s love for Will has been the motivation for everything she’s done during the season. She has been trying to capture Cyrus and his wishes so that she can use his power to break the laws of magic and somehow get Will back.

However, as we saw in “Home,” the damage has been done, and Will refused to believe Anastasia was telling the truth about her love for him. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this relationship develops through the rest of this season, and their scenes together will likely be some of my favorites. There is potential for some great scenes between them, as we have seen how their shared history brings out some strong, raw emotions from both characters. Anastasia will have to do something to earn back Will’s trust, but considering where we left off in the last episode, she will have to find him first.

2. Jafar’s Ultimate Goal Is Love
While Jafar is my least favorite character of the bunch, I do think what we’ve learned about him so far will be very relevant to future events. Jafar’s backstory—involving his Sultan father who first refused to call him a son and then tried to kill him, as well as the sorceress who he eventually turned into his serpent scepter—is mostly a tale of people being horrible to each other. With the realization that the sultan is one of Jafar’s prisoners in the present, we were shown that what Jafar ultimately wants is for his father to acknowledge that Jafar is his son. What Jafar has been missing for so long in his life has been love, and ever since he was a young boy the thing he has strived most for is his father’s approval. That is the main reason he has been attempting to get Cyrus’s powers— to make his father love him.

If Alice, Will, and the Red Queen are to defeat Jafar, I think that this desire could be used to bring about his downfall. We know that the sultan is still trapped by Jafar in his palace, so perhaps if our trio can make their way into the palace and talk to the Sultan, they can come up with a plan with to keep Jafar from interfering in their lives in the future. Whatever happens, I feel that the sultan still has a part to play before this season’s end.

3. Cyrus Is Free and Will Is the Genie
The events of the midseason finale had a huge impact on all of the characters. Will’s extremely vague wish (after he’d just been told to wish carefully!) that Alice’s suffering would end had an unintended result when he and Cyrus switched places, making Will the genie. While this does help Cyrus and Alice by giving them a more peaceful life, it certainly doesn’t help Will.

My main question concerning this twist is: Who is going to find Will first? Will it be Jafar, thus creating a huge obstacle for our heroes? Will it be a random person in Wonderland, who will throw a wrench into everyone’s plans with their wishes? Or will it be one of our heroes, perhaps the Red Queen, who could potentially figure out a way to free Will? Could there be a way to switch Will and Jafar’s places, helping to get rid of Jafar for good by trapping him in the bottle he has so desperately been seeking all his life?

Whatever happens, we’ll soon find out what’s next for all of these characters. Once Upon A Time in Wonderland returns today, March 6, at 8 p.m. EST on ABC.