So! After I vaguely went to bat for Alice Part One, Alice Part Two aired last night, and now I feel like when a friend is visiting a city and you sort of vouch for an old college friend who lives there now as a friend introduction and they end up in a screaming food fight in a diner; totally embarrassed and sad I didn’t see it coming.

On the other hand, I called the ending in an email twelve hours before it aired, practically down to the dialogue, so clearly I saw SOMETHING coming.

Too bad it was this thing. Tor.com has the brunt of my despair, but I’m not done.

“Spoilerland.”

GOOD THINGS

- The White Knight. It was a really great performance! It’s almost a shame it’s in this miniseries, you know? (PS, he did not die! What a great fakeout.)

- Alice and Hatter got together. (Sometimes I am a sucker. I do not pretend anything else.)

- The Hatter was a beta male. Smart and funny with personality, but not one of those alpha males in action movies and romances who postures so much he ends up looking like a jackass (or, because the story requires him to be right, makes everyone else into a jackass). They had their own ideas, sometimes they had conflict, sometimes they had friendship, and then sometimes they made out! Well done, beta male!

- Alice. Really liked this performance. I hope she goes on to bigger and better things. It doesn’t often happen, but it happened for James McAvoy after Children of Dune and it might for you, too. I’ll be looking out for you, Caterina Scorsone.

- Kathy Bates. She’s so funny/creepy! Good job.

- Alice’s dresser. I like that color scheme a LOT. It never got old.

BAD THINGS

- Oh man, just EVERYTHING.

THINGS THEY NEVER EVEN PRETEND TO EXPLAIN OH MY GOD I HATE ALL OF YOU

- Alice spends a week in Wonderland and is gone for an hour in normal world? Okay, and her dad is gone for fifteen years. So has he been in Wonderland a hundred years? Because the Alice who came through in the Victorian era came through 150 years ago, so it’s all real-time except this Alice who swallowed up time and THIS WILL NEVER MAKE ANY SENSE OH MY GOD.

- Monarchy: just like the prom queen? (“Jack rules now, no takebacks!”)

- Dude, no more Tim Curry? What’s wrong with you?

- So the King of Hearts stayed in the casino because…?

- Everyone’s evolved enough for guns but still wears hats shaped like clubs?

- A hundred crack bodyguards, and none of them can deduce that the skeleton army might not actually be a huge tactical threat?

- The tattoos! We don’t really see Alice’s when she comes back because of long sleeves and weird lighting, so do the tattoos come off? If not, sucks for the people with FACE PAISLEY, doesn’t it?

- So, since human emotionade was the entire economy of Wonderland, what happens now?

- THE HUMAN EMOTIONADE. WHAT. WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS.

Bottom line: a plot has never made less sense. However, because of the strong characterization of the three leads, the awesome supporting cast who are all citizens of Ham Nation, and the vaguely satisfying conclusion that at least attempts to tie up some of the narrative threads, it passes. BARELY.

(Really, it would pass entirely because of the mom’s expression in the very last scene, as Hatter and Alice romantically make out, and she’s giving them the fisheye. That was amazing.)