\u201cWicked\u201d has always been burdened with a softball second act. So much so, in fact, that it was a genuine surprise when it was announced that the film adaptation would span two movies, with the first boasting a runtime equivalent to the entire play. Still, director Jon M. Chu made good use of his time in \u201cWicked,\u201d bringing the more political elements of the book that were broadly absent in the play front and center while also giving more depth to Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba\u2019s (Cyntia Erivo) story.<\/p>\n
The success of the first film and the changes within it led to hope that Chu and screenwriters Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman would deliver a more impactful ending to the story. Unfortunately, \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d<\/a> hews far closer to the Broadway musical than Gregory Maguire\u2019s books on which it was based, and is all the worse for it.<\/p>\n The changes made to Act 1 in the first \u201cWicked\u201d movie elevated the material. But if it\u2019s widely known that Act 2 is the weakest aspect of the stage musical, why spend so much time ensuring that this act is so closely honored?<\/p>\n Gregory Maguire\u2019s book and Holzman and Schwartz\u2019s musical have very few similarities beyond their title characters and the land in which the Ozian spectacle takes place. Maguire\u2019s novel is gritty, political and raw, showcasing the hypocrisy and cruelty of the Wizard\u2019s totalitarian regime and a rebel witch eventually consumed by grief and rage. Holzman and Schwartz\u2019s play is a visual spectacle, packed wall-to-wall with remarkable songs and interesting character work alongside the fluffiest interpretation of Maguire\u2019s work imaginable. I hold space for both, but have always found the play\u2019s ending not just irredeemable but downright irresponsible.<\/p>\n Spoilers for \u201cWicked\u201d and \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d follow below.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n As expected, the novel and the play\u2019s endings are very different. \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d is almost an exact mirror to the musical, with Elphaba and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) skipping off into the proverbial sunset while Glinda stays behind to \u201cnurture\u201d the Oz that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) has vacated. Sure, Fiyero\u2019s a scarecrow now, but everyone gets their oh so happy endings.<\/p>\n The source material features no such joy and, while escapism is critical \u2014 especially in moments of history like the one we occupy now \u2014 that lack of a Hollywood ending is the point. One that, while not in the musical in any capacity, became more pertinent when the first film explored more of the story\u2019s political themes.<\/p>\n Maguire\u2019s book \u201cWicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West\u201d has been accused of being a cynical take on L. Frank Baum\u2019s \u201cThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz,\u201d but despite its heavier themes, there\u2019s little cynicism to be found in the novel.<\/p>\n Instead, the goal was to look at \u201cevil\u201d through the lens of nature vs. nurture (a theme that is hinted at in the play via the line \u201care people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?\u201d). Elphaba Thropp was not an evil woman. She was an outcast, loathed for the color of her skin and her \u201cuncleanliness\u201d \u2014 Elphaba is, indeed, deathly allergic to water and thus unable to traditionally bathe \u2014 who would eventually find herself radicalized by the Wizard and Oz\u2019s cruelty to the animals.<\/p>\n Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d (Credit: Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n Elphaba\u2019s cause is noble but, by the end, the witch is consumed by loss, grief and rage. Fiyero doesn\u2019t become a scarecrow; he\u2019s murdered. Similarly, Dr. Dillamond only loses his voice in the sense that there is no more air in his lungs to speak. Revenge is ripped away from Elphaba when she tries to confront Madame Morrible, only to find her dead. And then some putz in pigtails murders her sister and makes off with the shoes that were rightfully hers.<\/p>\n Dorothy is then sent by the Wizard to kill Elphie, but instead comes only to apologize for Nessa\u2019s death. Elphaba, consumed by anger, rants at the girl while waving her broom about and accidentally sets herself on fire. Dorothy tries to save her by throwing a bucket of water on her to douse the flames, and the Wicked Witch of the West is no more. The Wizard would flee Oz shortly after, managing to escape just before the coup meant to murder him would take place, leaving Oz in disarray.<\/p>\n All of the above isn\u2019t relevant because of some loyalty to the source material \u2014 though, obviously, I much prefer it to the story of the play \u2014 but because Chu\u2019s decision to spend more time on the mistreatment of the animals and the Wizard\u2019s deplorable behavior in the first \u201cWicked\u201d gave hope that he intended to say something more profound with \u201cWicked: For Good.\u201d Instead, a liar (the Wizard) was replaced by another liar (Glinda), and, unfortunately, the lie doesn\u2019t become an acceptable one just because the person doing the lying is nice.<\/p>\n Audiences never would have accepted the complicated grit of the novel\u2019s ending, but surely there was an answer somewhere in between. One that didn\u2019t leave the well-meaning but endlessly self-centered Glinda in charge of all of Oz, or the one who did all the work ostracized for choosing to fight for justice. The meager growth we see from Glinda simply isn\u2019t enough to justify any kind of \u201cfeel good\u201d response to the decision. After all, the Wizard insists that he started with good intentions too.<\/p>\n \u201cWicked\u201d set up a story that could have been the best of both worlds, making way for Glinda and Elphie\u2019s story to be both messy and fruitful for the Ozians they\u2019ve found themselves charged with. Sure, Elphaba \u201cstole\u201d Glinda\u2019s fianc\u00e9, but Glinda also told Morrible to go after Nessarose (Marissa Bode) and ultimately had a hand in the Wicked Witch of the East\u2019s death. There was room for meaningful growth between the characters while also making way for a better future for Oz that didn\u2019t continue to perpetuate the Wizard\u2019s lies.<\/p>\n Even if you remove Elphaba\u2019s fate as a hated outcast, it\u2019s an insult to the audience\u2019s intelligence to expect them to believe that the Ozians\u2019 hate for the animals will simply melt away because a nice witch said so.<\/p>\n The problem here isn\u2019t that Chu and team chose to honor one source over the other. It\u2019s that both films, the play, and the novel all find themselves beholden to \u201cThe Wizard of Oz,\u201d which, frankly, feels a bit nonsensical at this point. Mix it up. Make some changes, canon be damned.<\/p>\n Like the play that came before it, the deepest sin of \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d is its ending. It didn\u2019t have to be this way.<\/p>\n The post The \u2018Wicked: For Good\u2019 Ending Fails to Meet the Moment | Commentary<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWicked\u201d has always been burdened with a softball second act. So much so, in fact, that it was a genuine surprise when it was announced that the film adaptation would span two movies, with the first boasting a runtime equivalent to the entire play. Still, director Jon M. Chu made good use of his time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2175780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[24076,40246,417567,398035,368120,305572,344989,418716,357874,374132,408319,407341],"class_list":["post-2175779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-ariana-grande","tag-cynthia-erivo","tag-elphaba-and-fiyero","tag-elphaba-thropp","tag-glinda","tag-jonathan-bailey","tag-stephen-schwartz","tag-the-wizard","tag-wicked","tag-wicked-witch","tag-winnie-holzman","tag-wonderful-wizard-of-oz"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/The-\u2018Wicked-For-Good-Ending-Fails-to-Meet-the-Moment.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2175779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2175781,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175779\/revisions\/2175781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2175780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2175779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2175779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2175779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n