Wicked: For Good Delivers The Heartfelt Finale Of An Uneven Fantasy Epic
It can’t quite match Part One, but there’s still plenty of magic to go around.
Last year, Wicked did the impossible. Adapting one of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time — the first half of said musical, at least — would be enough to drive any director mad. But Jon M. Chu shouldered the struggle and delivered on a promise over 20 years in the making. More than that, he renewed Wicked’s status as a phenomenon, with brilliant, inclusive casting choices that turned this revisionist fairy tale into a shockingly modern coming-of-age story.
That Wicked reintroduces the Witch of the West as a misunderstood Black woman (yes, she’s green, but she is also Black) who heals her inner child, incidentally, helped me heal mine. I found myself among the many entirely taken with Wicked: Part One, but I still worried if Part Two could reconcile Elphaba’s new origin story with the events of The Wizard of Oz. The prequel diverges so radically from its source material that it might as well be telling a different story entirely. Wicked: For Good would have to do more than simply bring these characters in line with their Wizard counterparts; it also has to reconcile what is ostensibly their “true” origins with the characters we meet further down the Yellow Brick Road.
Admittedly, Wicked: For Good does struggle in its role as a prequel. It’s duty-bound to bridge the gap between Wicked: Part One and The Wizard of Oz, and that responsibility is the false note in an otherwise flawless vocal riff (you know the one). Where Part One took its time, For Good speedruns through its finale. It can’t completely shake the flaws of the original musical, even with Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holtzman reuniting to beef up Wicked’s slimmer second act. That said, it does find its opportunities to soar, thanks to the magic between its two leads.
Erivo and Grande once again provide the beating heart to a messier second half.
For Good picks up “twelve tide turns” after Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) learned that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) was not so wonderful after all. She’s become an outlaw and enemy of the state, the “Wicked Witch” of Oz’s nightmares. And she’s not the only target of the nation’s witch hunt. Endless waves of propaganda, spurred on by the Wizard’s nice-nasty PR guru Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), have given Ozians plenty to fear. The animals who once lived with them in harmony are now forced to flee Oz, lest they face imprisonment and enslavement — a plot point that couldn’t be timelier if it tried. Even Munchkins face persecution, but that’s more due to a heartsick Nessarose (Melissa Bode), now the governor of Munchkinland, as she punishes Boq (Ethan Slater) for his undying crush on Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande).
Speaking of the Good Witch of the North, Glinda is now the face of the New Oz. Little more than a puppet to smooth over the cracks in the Wizard’s advancing regime, she does whatever Morrible tells her to do. The appointment is not without its perks, as Glinda has (almost) everything she’s ever wanted: a purpose, a glitzy home in the heart of the Emerald City, and the love of the people. She’s even engaged to the dashing Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey, still a major scene-stealer), as Morrible believes a royal wedding is just the thing to distract — err, uplift — the masses. But what she doesn’t have, what is forever out of reach, consumes Glinda by the day. Not only has she lost Elphaba, her first and only real friend (and not only can she see that Fiyero is actively pining for said friend), she’s also no closer to mastering any magic. The bubble she floats around in is a mechanism of the Wizard’s design, as much a prison as it is a testament to her own emptiness.
Where Part One served as an unorthodox hero’s journey for Erivo’s Elphaba, For Good belongs more to Grande and to Glinda’s crisis of conscience. Her entire existence is artifice, and while that never bothered her before, she’s since been changed by Elphaba, and her principles and passion for justice. While the Wicked Witch wonders if anyone will even appreciate her efforts to save Oz, Glinda finally grows wise to the cruelty behind complacence. What does it mean to truly be good? Is it too late to start again, to fight for the underdog instead of burying one’s head in the sand? How long can one fight for what they believe in before they decide they’re doomed by the narrative? For Good busies itself with all these questions and more, with internal, metaphysical battles manifesting in the wider world of Oz.
For Good turns the spotlight on Glinda, allowing Grande to flex her dramatic chops.
Part One was more or less confined to Shiz, but For Good runs wild with vast, tactile sets ripped straight out of storybooks. Elphaba and Glinda’s respective crises play out in crumbling castles and mirrored rooms that never seem to end, manifestations of their own fracturing identities. It adds the appropriate drama to the songs sprinkled throughout Act Two, which don’t always pack the same punch as the sequences in Act One.
When the music is firing on all cylinders, it makes the transition between Wicked and Wizard that much smoother. It’s easier to believe Elphaba’s turn into someone more wicked — or, at least, less concerned with collateral damage — with Erivo narrating every doubt and fear with anguished, pitch-perfect abandon. As this tale tangles its way into the lore of The Wizard of Oz, it’s clear this is not just an origin story for her or Glinda, but for characters like the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. The Cowardly Lion, introduced as a cub in Part One, also returns in For Good, fully-grown and voiced by Colman Domingo. Elphaba plays a role in the creation of each character — and each twist adds satisfying layers to her own crusade.
Less satisfying are the methods For Good takes to fit other characters into this puzzle of a prequel. Dorothy herself occupies a strange space in Wicked: she pops up here and there when the film intersects with the events of The Wizard of Oz, but Wicked goes out of its way to downplay her presence in this narrative. That results in stilted recreations of key scenes, gutted of all their impact. Whatever fantastical heights For Good reaches for, its duty to The Wizard of Oz keeps it from seizing it. What could be major moments are rendered with all the depth of a diorama, while the cast, once radical recreations, are similarly flattened.
For all its brilliance, For Good can’t quite escape prequel purgatory.
Frustrating as these flaws are, they’re easy to forgive, as most are inherited from the stage musical. Wicked’s central performances make it all the easier. For Good loses some magic taking its focus off Erivo, whose raw commitment made Part One feel achingly real. Part Two is more of an ensemble piece. Everyone gets a fairer portion, but Grande in particular makes a meal out of it, examining Glinda’s need to perform, as if gazing through a funhouse mirror. A new song crafted for the film, “The Girl in the Bubble,” allows her to flex her dramatic chops and Chu — alongside cinematographer Alice Brooks — to clap back at anyone who claimed that Wicked played things too safe.
The songs in For Good aren’t the barn burners fans came to expect after Part One, but this cast still knows how to pluck at our heartstrings otherwise. The love triangle between Elphaba, Fiyero, and Glinda is as feel-bad as they come, but there is another, much more important love story at play here: that between Wicked’s two witches. The main reason this finale works so well is because Erivo and Grande will it to. Their performances are two beating hearts finding each other’s rhythm; their voices in harmony undeniable and irrepressible. There’s not much higher to go once you’ve defied gravity, but Erivo, Grande, and Chu at least give the characters and this world a soft landing.
