Descendants: Wicked Wonderland Team Answers Our Burning Questions: Deleted Scenes, Red's Dad, And More

"Descendants: Wicked Wonderland," the latest installment in Disney's villain-kid franchise, takes fans back down the rabbit hole in more ways than one. Now streaming on Disney+, the movie answers many of the questions that fans have been asking for years — but like any good sequel, it also raises a whole lot more.

For example: Which iconic, unseen Disney characters are part of the "Auradon Council" mentioned by Fairy Godmother? Were any pivotal scenes were cut from the final version of the movie? Will Red and Pink's father actually be revealed in a future movie? Is the pocket watch really gone for good? Does Pink understand that she only came to exist as a result of Red traveling through time? And what the heck is in the sisters' sparkly memory box?!

These are just a few of the questions TVLine posed to the movie's cast — including stars Kylie Cantrall and Malia Baker — as well as director Kimmy Gatewood and executive producer Suzanne Todd, all of whom were happy to oblige, giving some surprising answers in the process.

Read on for answers to some of TVLine's burning questions about "Descendants: Wicked Wonderland," then drop a comment with your own queries below.

As with all movies, certain scenes from "Descendants: Wicked Wonderland" did end up on the cutting room floor for one reason or another. For example, eagle-eyed fans noticed that one production still released by Disney — which finds Red (Kylie Cantrall), Chloe (Malia Baker), and Pink (Liamani Segura) standing next to the well with the pocket watch — is from a scene that never actually happens.

"It wasn't in the movie," director Kimmy Gatewood confirms to TVLine, explaining that Pink was originally supposed to be in the scene where Red drops the pocket watch into the well. It was going to be another bonding moment for Red and Pink, one that was ultimately deemed unnecessary.

"When the movie was coming together, we realized that the sisters already had their resolution in a real way with their song 'Who I Am,'" Gatewood explains. "I didn't want to step on that resolution by having another one with them. They already had their sisterly moment, and I cry every time I see them come together after that flashback. It just felt like that moment was so special, there was no reason to try to beat it."

It's one of the biggest mysteries in the entire "Descendants" franchise: with which popular Disney character did the Queen of Hearts conceive Red and Pink? Kylie Cantrall has confirmed that Disney told her the identity of her character's father in a private meeting, but she has yet to reveal his identity.

"Descendants" executive producer Suzanne Todd tells TVLine that, while she wasn't present for that fateful meeting, she already "had that knowledge prior to" Cantrall being informed. As for whether a future "Descendants" movie will finally reveal the mystery man's identity, it sounds like we're in luck.

"Not to say that we only give the fans things that they want, but we try to give the fans things that they want," Todd says. "I would put [Red and Pink's father] in that category, wouldn't you?"

Before Red and her motley crew of HKs and VKs journey down the rabbit hole to rescue the Queen of Hearts, the Fairy Godmother brings the kidnapping to the attention of "the Auradon council," promising that they will come up with a "carefully thought-out rescue plan." Naturally, Red and her team completely ignore this and take it upon themselves to save her.

But who exactly is on this "council," you ask? Our assumption was that the council is comprised of former "Descendants" characters like Ben and Mal, but according to executive producer Suzanne Todd, that's not quite the case.

"We don't say explicitly in the movie, but in our minds, if you think back to the opening of 'Rise of Red,' there's a map with like a magnifying glass where they're taking you around and showing you all the different kingdoms that exist in the Descendants world, of which Auradon is just one — the council is comprised of all the leaders of those kingdoms," Todd tells TVLine.

One of the biggest differences between "Wicked Wonderland" and the previous "Descendants" movie, "The Rise of Red," is the inclusion of a love interest for Red. Kylie Cantrall meets her romantic match in Luis Madrigal, the son of Luisa from Disney's "Encanto," played by Alexandro Byrd.

"With 'Rise of Red,' because it was the relaunch of what has always been this very popular franchise, we intentionally did not want to have a love interest because we wanted to make it be about a girl trying to find her way, trying to find her voice, and trying to find her path in the world," executive producer Suzanne Todd tells TVLine.

Todd says Red's journey in the fourth movie included "important messaging for young girls and young women," which made romance the next logical step for Red's character. 

"Having taken her on that journey through 'Rise of Red,' it felt like we had the space to allow yet another lane of things that are interesting to girls, which is having a little love in their lives," Todd explains.

Funny you should ask! In addition to the full scene with Pink that we mentioned above, TVLine has learned of another deleted moment — albeit a much shorter one — from "Descendants: Wicked Wonderland" that we would have loved to see unfold on screen.

According to director Kimmy Gatewood, the moment would have happened during "Heartless," while Chloe is singing about Red's betrayal as she strolls through Squeakwood Hollow.  

"I will tell you one thing that tragically had to be cut — when she sings 'you hit me when my guard was down,' she looks into a mouse house, and we originally cut to inside the house," Gatewood tells TVLine. "You see her big face in the window, and a mouse is just reading a newspaper like, 'What?' That was so sad."

One of the biggest repercussions of Red and Chloe's time-traveling adventures in "The Rise of Red" is the sudden existence of Red's younger sister Pink in "Wicked Wonderland." Chloe and Red are the only ones privy to this information at the beginning of the fifth movie, but as the story unfolds, we see Max and Chessy have also learned the truth. Despite being in the garden maze when the truth is revealed, we never actually see Pink learn about and process her accidental existence, and there's a good reason for that — she still doesn't know.

"Pink does not know about the time travel [by the end of the movie]," director Kimmy Gatewood confirms to TVLine. "Obviously Max found out about it, which was a super heartbreaking moment, so I'm curious to see where the next chapter of the story would go. It's such a hard secret to keep. They tried to bury the pocket watch once, and the secret still got out, so 'll be very curious to see what would happen. I mean, how would you feel if like you someone said, 'Actually, you didn't exist before this moment,' and then somebody has the ability to make you not exist anymore? That's crazy!"

"Descendants: Wicked Wonderland" ends with Red and Chloe dropping the pocket watch into a magical underground well, with a mysterious force promising to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. "Fates sealed, waters deep, secrets here are ours to keep," a disembodied voice says after the time machine is submerged.

But is that really the end of the pocket watch, or could it be removed from those waters in a future "Descendants" movie? Executive producer Suzanne Todd can't say definitively one way or the other, but if the writers deem the watch worthy of returning, you can bet we haven't seen the last of it.

"Well, of course, it's Disney, so all magic is possible, right?" Todd tells TVLine.

"Descendants" movies love to end with a little tease about the future of the franchise, and "Wicked Wonderland" gives fans a doozy of a tag at the end. "I hate happy endings," declares Chessy, the nefarious daughter of the Cheshire Cat. "Time to make some new mischief."

We then see Pink return to the party to retrieve something she forgot — her and Red's memory box, which they recently rediscovered during their journey through the garden maze. We don't get a clear look at what's inside, but we can tell that it's small, bright, and twinkly. 

"Obviously, you see that Pink finds a very magical object, and we love the world of magical objects and what those could be," executive producer Suzanne Todd tells TVLine. "But [what it is] remains to be told. "We had made some specific decisions, and we shot it a number of different ways. In the end, we decided to go with what you saw, but we did have some specific ideas about trajectories we might want to jump off of that are interesting."

The cast of "Wicked Wonderland" doesn't know what's in the box either, but star Kylie Cantrall knows what she doesn't want to find in there: "Hopefully not another pocket watch," Cantrall says. "We want to be done with her. If it reappears? Madness." Adds Malia Baker, "We'll have to bring an actual mallet to set [to destroy it]."