*Spoiler alert for the plot of Wicked and Wicked: For Good*
I thought I’d seen the bottom of 2025 cinema when I watched One Fetish After Another back in September. I called it too early. Wicked: For Good is the worst movie of the year. I’m not (just) talking about the plot holes and inconsistencies; the awful pacing; the hideodeous (as they say in Oz) backlighting; the washed out colors; the ridiculous naming conceit of Part One followed by For Good; the underwhelming songs that are further undercut by the characters’ contradictory actions during the song performances; or that ridiculous sex sweater. I’m talking about the story. With a script this bad, Wicked: For Good was doomed from the start.
Yes, it’s a faithful adaptation of the second act of the Broadway musical Wicked, and that’s almost entirely the problem because it didn’t have to be. The second act is infamously thin with the most potential for improvement for a screen adaptation that’s going to double the runtime of the entire Broadway production anyway. While screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox and director Jon M. Chu have taken some liberties with their source material in both 2024’s Wicked: Part One and its new sequel Wicked: For Good, they have ultimately chosen to sacrifice character development, story—and, most importantly, in a time of rising fascism—political integrity, in favor of keeping masses of neoliberal theater nerds happy.
And the risk-averse path has paid off. In just this opening weekend, Wicked: For Good has made $226 million worldwide, recouping its $165 million production budget. But at what cost?
A Radical Start
I’m not a Wicked hater, in general. Though I was new to the 20-year-old Broadway musical and the (extremely different, X-rated! Be forewarned!!) 1995 novel it’s based on when I watched Wicked: Part One last year, I immediately crowned it the “most radical film of 2024.”
In that daring adaptation of act one, Chu suggested a willingness to subvert the stodgy conservativeness of the Broadway musical by casting a Black woman, Cynthia Erivo, in the iconic role of Elphaba. Since her origin, the green-skinned witch has been played by scores of white women, and the text suggests she is one, but with a skin condition for which she is oppressed and ostracized. Though technically this is a story of ableism rather than racism, since Elphaba isn’t a member of a race of green people that’s systematically oppressed, Wicked isn’t exactly a story championing disability rights, as Elphaba’s physically disabled sister NessaRose winds up being the ultimate villain: a fascist enslaver, just like the Wizard, by act two.
With all the references to Elphaba’s skin color, it’s clear they’re attempting to racialize Elphaba in some sort of metaphor for anti-Blackness, and I was never going to be interested in watching a white woman’s reverse-racism-coded oppression story.
But with the casting of a Black woman in the role, the story seemed to finally have a deeper meaning. Her desire to belong in the place she was born yet rejected from because of her skin hit a thousand times harder. Erivo’s choice to wear microbraids so you know this Elphaba is meant to be BLACK, opened up the space to have a real conversation on a large, pop culture scale about our experiences as Black women with white women ops/neoliberals like her roomate-turned-frenemy Galinda/Glinda. (I’ll harp about Hollywood’s refusal to let Black British actors be British on screen—forcing Erivo to use an American accent where her white co-star Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero gets to remain British—in another piece.)
Sure, Chu and team drop the ball plenty of times in Part One after this casting choice. I will never get over the backlighting of Fiyero’s excellent “Dancing Through Life,” number, which is literally unwatchable through the blinding backlight. Casting Michelle Yeoh as the devious Madame Morrible when you know she cannot sing and barely wants to act in these movies is another. And of course, changing Elphaba’s childhood nanny into a CGI talking bear in Part One to explain Elphaba’s solidarity with the Animals who were being genocided by the Wizard of Oz is yet another. Elphaba is Black. She gets oppression. She’s a decent person. She wants it to end. No need to manufacture a “reason” for her to care, Chu, there’s Animals that are dying!
And my biggest gripe with Part One is that Chu deletes a pivotal scene where, after Elphaba knocks her college classmates unconscious with telekinesis and frees a caged lion cub with the help of Fiyero, Galinda comes to Elphaba hurt and disappointed. “I would’ve helped you,” Galinda tells Elphaba about the daring plan to buck authority and free an Animal that’s being persecuted by the state. “If you needed someone, you could’ve picked me,” she says.
Used to babying brats like her entitled sister NessaRose, Elphaba apologizes for choosing Fiyero and promises to never leave Galinda behind again. Chu deleted this scene because it makes Galinda’s betrayal of Elphaba just a few scenes later even worse, and we’re supposed to like her. While in the Emerald City at the request of the Wizard, Elphaba and her hanger-on Galinda find out that the Wizard has no real power. A once-hopeful Elphaba confronts the Wizard of Oz when she finds out that he and her mentor Madame Morrible are behind the genocide of the Animals, pushing them out of Oz, imprisoning them, stopping them from being able to speak.
The Wizard and Morrible want to exploit Elphaba’s magical powers for their own purposes to keep their facade going and to make their fascism harder to defy. Elphaba chooses to defy them instead, releasing the desire to belong and be accepted by a society as sick and twisted as Oz. She asks Galinda to fight with her, and Galinda refuses, but we’re not supposed to see this as a betrayal because she sings and cries while she does it. Galinda sides with Elphaba’s enemies as Elphaba leans into her power and flies away at the end of Part One, determined to expose the Wizard, end the genocide and free the Animals.
It was such a powerful film in the context of 2024. We were in the midst of a (still-ongoing!!!) U.S.-Israeli genocide of Palestinians that so many of us were protesting, demanding the Biden-Harris administration put an end to the genocide and theft of Palestinian land. So many of us were demanding that Kamala Harris commit to an arms embargo on Israel in exchange for our votes in that November’s Presidential election. She refused to do anything but commit to having “the most lethal” military on the planet, and to give Israel everything they wanted, just like Biden had. When directly asked if she was willing to lose the election over her support of the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, she said a whole bunch of words that mean, “yes.” So, when she unsurprisingly lost to Trump a few weeks later, her supporters had no interest in self-reflection or accountability over who they were willing to throw overboard for their own sense of comfort. They simply lambasted her detractors, blaming 3rd-party voters and conscientious objectors for Trump’s win.
“I hope you’re happy! I hope you’re happy now! I hope you’re proud how you have hurt your cause forever! I hope you think you’re clever!” They yelled Galinda’s lyrics to Elphaba at Palestine protestors sans irony. In their fantasy, The “92%” of Black women voters for Harris were the Elphabas, standing up for justice and goodness and “the lesser of two evils” against fake white women allies like Galinda who voted for Trump behind closed doors. Never mind that Elphaba very specifically risked it all to stand on the principle that genocide is wicked and she would not be a part of it, no matter the cost to her. Never mind that “the lesser of two evils” is still evil.
Wicked: Part One became a comfort film mirroring the decisions of so many brave people in real life who put their lives on the line to stand against genocide and found renewed power in it. This was anti-fascism in a blockbuster film with incredible songs that children were watching and being inspired by! I could overlook some poor backlighting.
But, I knew it couldn’t last. This is Hollywood, after all.
For Good picks up “12 tide turns,” or, one year after the events of Part One. Morrible announces in random expository voiceover that Elphaba has not been seen by the people of Oz that entire year. In the opening scenes, Chu leans into his superficial understanding of Black Americanness by having Animals whipped and chained up in slavery as agents of the Wizard force them to build the yellow brick road. Elphaba flies in on her broomstick and breaks the chains of the enslaved Animals. She whips one of the overseers with their own whip, gets her Superhero Shot off, and then surfs away on her broom. (Ridiculous!) People in my audience clapped, but I knew it was downhill from there.
A Defanged ‘Hero’
The Wizard’s flying monkeys are after her, so she flies away without ever communicating with the Animals that she just “liberated,” or making sure they were safe or had anywhere to go. People can be mad at the lion cub she and Fiyero “liberated” in Part One for growing up to become the Cowardly Lion in For Good who hates Elphaba for taking him out of his cage. But literally, she and Fiyero did the same thing to Lion that Elphaba does in this “heroic” opening scene: dropping Animals off somewhere with no regard for their actual safety or liberation. This is at the heart of Elphaba’s frustrating character for me, and the screenwriters’ lazy politics in crafting this story.
In one year’s time, Elphaba has been doing nothing to organize or fight with the Animals, that we know of. Madame Morrible tells Ozians that “rebel Animals” are hiding her away in the forest, which sounds like typical Morrible propaganda about the scary witch and the scary Animals. Why would Elphaba need to be in hiding? Isn’t she more powerful than Morrible and the Wizard, now that she has the Grimmerie spell book? Didn’t she just say at the end of Part One, “If you care to find me, look to the western sky?” Why is she suddenly in hiding from her ops for an entire year instead of bringing them the thunder? And why does she suddenly emerge just to blow up one little section of the yellow brick road that is apparently quickly repaired and has little-to-no impact on the Wizard’s imperialist plans of having “all roads lead to the Emerald City”?
This is why, when she does finally speak with some Animals when she sees them trying to escape Oz through a tunnel they dug under a patch of the yellow brick road, (we get it, Chu, the Animals are Black people and Elphaba is your limited understanding of Harriet Tubman!) it feels completely disingenuous. Elphaba tries to stop the Animals from leaving Oz and sings the boring new song “There’s No Place Like Home,” encouraging them to stay and fight. Fight how? Fight when? Fight where? In one year’s time, Elphaba only has vibes, and what looks like a conspiracy theorist’s collection of fliers and string on her treehouse mirror that says “save the animals” written in blood? red ink, but with no actual plan to achieve that goal. Seriously, Elphaba, did you spend one year just building that tree house and assembling a bulletin board of Morrible’s wicked witch propaganda fliers? It truly feels like my ADHD plans for writing a review; step one: clean my whole house.
Cowardly Lion interrupts Elphie’s big speech to the Animals by telling everyone she victimized him as a cub and turned him into a coward and they shouldn’t listen to her. They side with him easily because they don’t know Elphaba like that because she is not actually in community with any Animals! Sure, she runs into her old nanny Dulciebear on the Underground Brickroad, but it’s clear she hasn’t seen that bear since childhood.
The next thing Elphaba does is crash Glinda and Fiyero’s surprise engagement party / yellow brick road grand opening where her bright idea is to write “The Wizard Lies” in the sky. Morrible is on hand to scramble Elphaba’s message into a threat to all Ozians, reading “Oz Dies,” instead. That tiny effort is enough to make Elphaba fly away in defeat. Her next bright idea is to enlist the help of her “father,” the governor of Munchkinland and her #1 op who has hated her since her green birth and who blamed her for her mother’s death and for her sister NessaRose’s disability—both of which he actually caused by forcing his wife to drink opium while pregnant so that NessaRose wouldn’t come out green. Turns out, the governor died of shame when Elphaba flew off with Oz’s sacred Grimmerie in Part One, so now NessaRose is governor. It’s only been a year but somehow she’s transformed from bratty school girl to Cinderella’s Step Mother. It’s the bouffant with a gray streak in the front that really cinches her wicked turn (though it’s always been up for Nessa, in my opinion, since she consistently took the side of Elphaba’s ops over her. She’s holding their classmate Boq captive as her butler and treating all Munchkins like her enslaved property who need her written permission in order to leave.
Does Elphaba—first of her name, queen of Antifa, mother of Animals, breaker of chains, protector of the realm—care in the slightest? No. When Boq tells her what NessaRose is doing to the Munchkins, Elphaba does absolutely nothing. She literally stands by and watches as NessaRose steals her Grimmerie and tries to cast a spell to make Boq love her “again” (lol). “Oh no…stop…don’t…you’re saying the words all wrong…” Elphaba says nonchalantly as Boq’s heart starts shrinking in his chest from Nessa’s spell. It’s not explained at all—thin source material, thin script strikes again!—but I’ll guess that because Elphaba cast a spell on NessaRose’s shoes to give her her heart’s desire, it allows her to read the Grimmerie (the thing whose whole personality is not being able to be read by anyone in years, except Elphaba, but whatever!). She’s able to cast a spell to hurt Boq like he’s hurt her by trying to, *checks notes*, free himself from her enslavement. Elphaba can’t reverse Nessa’s spell, but she can make it so that Boq doesn’t need a heart anymore to live, by making him the most frightening Tin Man we’ve ever seen. Nightmare fuel, truly.
In an anti-climactic scene, Elphaba finally tells NessaRose that she’s an ungrateful brat and just—leaves. The Munchkins are still enslaved, being pulled off of trains by armed guards. The Animals in Munchkinland are still in danger. And Elphaba shrugs and heads back to the Emerald City.
Her final big plan is to confront the Wizard himself at Glinda and Fiyero’s wedding and…make him tell everyone he’s a bad, bad man. That’s literally the whole plan. It’s immediately clear: Elphaba is not leading an anti-fascist revolution, she’s just doing random shenanigans with no actual plan. The Wizard declines (obviously), saying something along the lines of “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
He and Glinda then lead Elphaba around by the nose for an infuriating amount of time, during the number, “Wonderful” (which Glinda has been added to because she is and has always been the star and narrator of these movies, making the submission of Ariana Grande in the Supporting Actress category an absolute fraud). Elphaba nonsensically reconsiders everything that she had already rejected in a similar scene in Part One. Maybe she could be with the Wizard, what she’s worked and waited for! She could have all she ever wanted! Why are we here again, singing “Defying Gravity,” this time with Glinda making Elphaba get on the broom? Not only are you reminding me that all the good songs are in Part One, you’re also just wasting our time.
When Fiyero puts his body on the line twice to save Elphaba from the Wizard’s guards—again, someone explain to me why a bunch of guards are a threat to the flying magical witch?!—Elphaba leaves him behind and starts a spell to save Fiyero from death which ultimately turns him into the Scarecrow we know from The Wizard of Oz. And while “No Good Deed” is the best song and performance in For Good, (please watch it in Dolby Surround Sound to understand!) it’s a silly song. I’ve tried to do good deeds but they all end up badly so I’ll just be as wicked as they say I am!! is the gist of the song. But literally, what did she “try” to do? Be an individual superhero instead of raising a community against fascism? So, your few solo attempts to fight the Wizard and a powerful system that has indoctrinated all of Oz didn’t work and now you’re giving up? Please. And if so, make her really go insane, as she does in the book. Have some fun wicked time!
But, no, that’s not in the cards. The writers need Elphaba to be this poorly organized pseudo revolutionary; they need to undercut her principled position in order for the real star to shine: Glinda.
They want us to believe that beautiful, blonde, wealthy Glinda is as compelling a main character—and character arc—as the uglified green witch who was abused by her father, betrayed by her sister and ostracized by the entire world and still chose empathy and anti-genocide over personal comfort and acceptance. They flash us back to Glinda’s childhood where, at her big, fancy birthday party with all the kids from school, she’s gifted a magic wand and is expected to do magic, but she can’t. A rainbow appears and the kids think she did it and she doesn’t disabuse them of the notion. She tries to tell the truth to her mom, who’s basically, like, Girl, you’re rich and popular and beautiful. Who cares if you can do magic? WHO CARES, INDEED?!
But this is her arc, realizing that being propped up by genocidal maniacs and whitewashing their crimes with her fake goodness is actually bad. That—could’ve actually been a good arc. The problem is SHE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING WITH THIS INFORMATION. “It’s time for my bubble to pop!” she sings in another boring new song as she examines her shining condo in the palace tower. But that would require revealing the ugly truth, that she has been a willing participant in the Wizard’s façade as he genocides the Animals. That she has been weapon number one to keep Ozians ignorant and docile as Morrible and the Wizard scapegoat and eliminate fellow citizens. That she has been actively lying to them because, as Elphaba stated, they need Elphaba to be wicked so that Glinda can be good. That she actually participated in NessaRose’s demise because she was mad that Fiyero left her at the altar for Elphaba. That would be her actually popping the bubble and facing the consequences of her actions. And, surprising no one, she never does that.
Like Fiyero told her in the beginning of the film, “You can’t resist this!” And she admits it. This façade of being “good,” of the handsome, perfect husband and the perfect life, means more to her than anything. Which is why we’re supposed to care when Fiyero dumps her at the altar. What do you mean you’re not going to continue to be in this power couple as an arm of fascist propaganda, villainizing our “best friend” from school together anymore? We’re supposed to be crushed for her and this “betrayal,” because, again, she’s the actual main character. We’re supposed to care that she’s “lost” her best friend forever, when that was her choice, over and over again.
We’re supposed to cry when Glinda leaves her tower and goes to Elphaba’s side—not to join her cause and save the Animals, but to convince Elphaba to let the little girl Dorothy that she’s kidnapped go. (Another gripe: Chu is banking on everyone knowing the story of The Wizard of Oz so doesn’t even show Dorothy’s face or tell any of the story from her perspective, while also making changes in the film that are inconsistent with what we know about The Wizard of Oz. Pick a struggle!) But Elphaba doesn’t need Glinda to tell her to release Dorothy; she makes that decision when the flying monkey Chistery gives her a letter from Fiyero telling her he is alive (as a scarecrow) and that they should leave Oz together.
The Lesser Evil
This is because Fiyero is who folks pretend Glinda is. Unlike Glinda, Fiyero doesn’t wait for Elphaba to ask him to leave with her. He’s already ‘bout that life. He helped her rescue the cub. He holds the Wizard at gunpoint so he and Elphaba can escape. He easily gives up his title as head of the guard to leave with Elphaba. I will forgive Jonathan Bailey for scream-singing in Cynthia’s face during “As Long As Your Mine”—he’s so good at yearning. We love a yearner. But I cannot ignore that the lyrics of the song say “kiss me! hold me! lie beside me!” and yet the choreography is Elphaba on one side of the tree house and Fiyero on the other side! I would hate to see them do the Wobble, the directions are right there in the song, do the thing that the lyrics say you’re doing!! And I will never forgive that sex sweater. WHY IS SHE WEARING A FLOOR-LENGTH SWEATER FOR SEX?! It’s fine. I’m moving on. The point is, no one in all of Oz has ever been a friend to Elphaba except for Fiyero.
After gifting Elphaba a hat Glinda thought would humiliate her, (and does, in fact, humiliate her!) Glinda gives Elphaba a real “makeover” this time, which hits on Elphaba’s core wound, that there’s something wrong with the way she looks and if only she could change it or minimize it, she could belong. Fiyero, on the other hand, liked her immediately and told her that she doesn’t need “Galindyfing.” When Elphaba is rejecting the Wizard and Morrible’s original proposition to be their propaganda puppet, it’s Glinda who tells her she’s “having delusions of grandeur” and “isn’t as powerful” as she thinks she is. The confidence and voice that Elphaba finds in Part One is because of Fiyero’s encouragement and despite Glinda’s betrayals.
In For Good, when the Munchkins believe Morrible’s claims that water can melt Elphaba because she’s so dirty and bad, Fiyero finds that abhorrent and obviously false. Glinda has no problem believing it’s true. When Glinda sees spilt water and Elphaba’s hat on the ground and Dorothy walking away with Elphaba’s broom in triumph, she is easily convinced that Elphaba is dead. Because she doesn’t really know Elphaba. And she was never her friend.
So when Glinda and Elphaba sing the title track “For Good,” I was a thousand times more annoyed than I was in “Defying Gravity.” They sing about how they’ve both made mistakes and hurt the other. Sure, Elphaba boned Fiyero on Glinda’s sham marriage wedding night, but Glinda built her entire state-sanctioned power on a system that villainized Elphaba, then got her sister killed and then stole Nessa’s magic shoes and gave them to Dorothy. But we should believe it’s all a wash? Okay.
Elphaba gifts Glinda the Grimmerie and basically says Glinda’s position of cowardice and slowly “changing things from the inside” was the right way all along and radical defiance of genocide and fascism was the wrong way. Elphaba blatantly says as much in the disappointing musical production, but it’s loudly insinuated here too.
When Elphaba sings “I do believe I have been changed for the better / because I knew you,” I would like some receipts. When Glinda sings it, I want to scream.
Because Elphaba’s digs at Glinda in “Defying Gravity” still ring true. “I hope you’re proud how you would grovel in submission to feed your own ambition!” Who she submits to may change, but as always, Glinda’s ambition is fed.
Glinda willingly gives up nothing she desires. Her threats to power simply take themselves out of the equation. Elphaba “melts” herself; the witch with some actual power, Madame Morrible, simply forgets she can do magic and allows herself to be taken away to prison by flying monkeys; and the Wizard flies away scot free in a hot air balloon to escape accountability for villainizing and killing his own daughter, along with all of his other crimes against nature. The last woman standing, Glinda puts her crown on like she’s Rihanna, like she earned the right to be anyone’s leader.
She burns an effigy of her “dead best friend” with Elphaba’s ops, and takes the truth about Morrible, the Wizard and Elphaba to her grave. But don’t worry, she has promised that she’s gonna really be “good,” moving forward. She doesn’t speak out against the genocide of the Animals or her role in that, she just says, “I only see friends here!” when they pop back out on the own accord. No truth, no justice, no reconciliation. Just revisionist history and Kumbaya.
Elphaba and Fiyero leave Oz and go into the Unpassable Desert as Glinda in her shining crown, stands atop the tower where they first sang “Defying Gravity” together. Back then, Elphaba sang the soprano and Glinda sang the alto to show that Elphaba was rising to new heights and Glinda was staying on the ground. Now, Glinda’s back on top, literally and figuratively, singing the soprano role as Elphaba at the lowest of the low in the desert sings the alto. And then it hits me: this is the future Kamala stans wanted.
And Elphaba, after doing nothing for a year and then trying a few things for a few weeks (a week? how much time passes in this movie?) that ultimately failed, has decided to give up and “rest” and let Glinda do the work for a change. My apologies to the 92%. She really is them.
As for Oz, one emperor with no clothes is traded for another. And they get to continue their hateful beliefs, unabated. But because Glinda vaguely promised to do “good” moving forward (who is left to hold her accountable to that?!), the Grimmerie opens for her and she’s literally handed by Elphaba (and the Universe, I guess) the ability to do magic, in the end. She gets literally everything she wanted, besides Fiyero. And she sacrifices her friendships and her integrity, and HOW MANY ANIMALS for it. Yet, the ending feels triumphant for her, not unbearably sad and pathetic.
If anyone should’ve had a triumphant ending, it should’ve been Elphaba, leading Animals out of Oz to form a new community in the land beyond it. Give her a Moses in the wilderness Exodus, surrounded by her Animal friends and her dear goat professor Dr. Dillamond who can speak again! Let Elphaba sing the top note in her end scene duet with Glinda to show that, despite their seeming positions, lowly in the desert, high in the tower, it’s Elphaba, standing in integrity, choosing to leave a hateful place, finding love and building new community, that actually makes one win in the end. That would’ve been a truly radical movie—one with an actual political framework.
Instead, Wicked: For Good merely gestures at anti-fascism and wildly swings back to its neoliberal status quo. The lesser evil wins, and is still evil. I hope you’re happy now.
Stay watching,
Brooke
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