Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship is put to the test as the people of Oz scream for Elphaba’s death. This film adaptation of the Broadway musical’s second act features darker magic than what we’ve seen before. The intensity of violence and sensual scenes are turned up, as well. And while we’re told about the importance of loving friendships, Wicked: For Good may not be for the good of all.
Glinda the Good (formerly “Galinda”), reportedly, “couldn’t be happier.” She’s engaged to the man of her dreams, Fiyero. She’s living at the palace in Emerald City. She has the favor of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She travels by bubble. And everyone in Oz loves her.
Oh yes, Glinda couldn’t be happier … though she does admit that having all her dreams come true isn’t quite what she anticipated.
Elphaba, Glinda’s best friend, is on the run from the Wizard. All of Oz wants Elphie dead. And why? Because Elphaba allegedly stole the Grimmerie, Oz’s magical spellbook. She supposedly laid a curse on the monkeys who guarded the palace in Emerald City. And she apparently has been attacking the construction crews building yellow-brick roads throughout Oz.
Of course, while all of that is technically true, it’s not because Elphaba is wicked—as the Wizard would have Ozians believe. Glinda knows that. But she’s unsure how to convince the people of Oz that Elphie isn’t so wicked without tarnishing her own reputation.
Each woman must ask herself how far she’s willing to go to protect a friend—and what she’s willing to do for good.
[Spoilers may be contained in the following sections.]
Friendship is the crux of this story. Elphaba and Glinda, as we know from the events in Wicked, weren’t always the best of friends. In fact, they spent much of their first year at Shiz University loathing each other. But once they found some common ground and started celebrating their differences rather than criticizing them, they realized they could accomplish so much more by working together.
Circumstances have driven these besties apart, but it’s clear they still care about each other. Glinda and Fiyero secretly try to figure out where Elphie is hiding before anyone else does. The people of Oz are calling for Elphaba’s blood, but Glinda and Fiyero don’t want to see her harmed. They figure if they can find her first, they might be able to get her to change her mind about exposing the Wizard’s own alleged “wickedness,” to apologize to the Wizard and make amends.
The problem is that Elphie’s mission is altruistic. Every “wicked” thing she’s done has been in defense of Oz’s most marginalized citizens: the animals. These creatures (sentient in this magical land) have been forbidden from speaking or traveling without permits. Most have been arrested or enslaved. And the rest are fleeing the Wizard’s tyranny.
Glinda knows that Elphie’s heart is in the right place, but she insists that her friend is going about things the wrong way. Elphaba feels the same about Glinda. And it’s those principled differences that have put such a strain on their relationship.
However, as Glinda watches the people around her tear down her friend, she begins to see the truth: The Wizard is lying; Oz’s self-aware animal citizens are suffering; and as much as she’d like to believe that Elphaba is in the wrong, she’s starting to realize that her friend is the only person trying to do the right thing.
In the end, it’s Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship that saves Oz. Glinda puts aside selfish motives and goes to rescue Elphaba from a blood-thirsty mob. Seeing Glinda’s good deed, Elphaba returns this sacrificial act with one of her own. And their joint actions put Oz in a place where it can heal from the wounds of its past, where all citizens will be treated equally, including the animals.
As a sort of B-plot message, a young couple—who don’t adhere to traditional beauty standards—rises above superficial appearances to fall in love, calling each other “beautiful” because they have learned to look at things in a different way.
Obviously, magic is a huge component of this film. And that’s nothing to sweep aside. Even when magic is used for good, there’s a certain darkness to it—a wickedness, if you will. Indeed, all the magic we see in For Good is considerably darker and, for many Christian families, even more distressing than what we witness in the first film. Though the film’s magic users seem to be born with their abilities, they also use magical words and incantations to cast spells. (For more information about how to navigate magical content in films, and especially magical content in Wicked, check out “Wicked Part 1: Navigating Magic and Witchcraft in Movies” written by Adam Holz for Focus on the Family.)
Thanks to a spell cast in the first film, Elphaba can fly—and she zips around Oz on a broomstick. She sometimes has visions of events happening in other locations. And we learn that she cast a spell that gave all of Oz’s monkey wings to fly, a change that the monkeys are none too pleased with.
Elphaba is determined to use magic for good, not evil, but she doesn’t really understand the magical Grimmerie. In fact, she admits she has no idea what the words printed on its pages even mean—though that doesn’t stop her from chanting them.
Nessa, Elphaba’s sister, attempts to use a spell from the Grimmerie in a moment of desperation. However, because she understands the Grimmerie even less than Elphie does, she pronounces the words incorrectly, corrupting the spell and nearly killing her intended target. Elphaba notes that once a spell from the book has been cast, it can never be undone—but she still tries to mitigate the effects of Nessa’s mistake.
When Elphaba is in need, the Grimmerie’s pages magically turn to the spell she needs: One lifts someone into the air; two others save lives but forever transform the receivers into something else entirely—something not entirely human.
Madame Morrible, Elphaba’s former teacher and the Wizard’s cohort, has some magical ability of her own: She can control the weather. She manipulates the clouds and creates a twister.
Glinda and the Wizard, though both purportedly magical beings, have absolutely zero magical talent. They propagate the illusion of magic through clever inventions, a sort of smoke-and-mirrors gag. As a child, Glinda once claimed credit for a rainbow.
Fiyero learns that he is engaged to Glinda when it’s announced to the masses. Glinda tells him that she and the Wizard agreed it would be best for her image to marry Oz’s prince. And since they’re in love, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Fiyero’s too nice of a guy to let Glinda down, so he reluctantly agrees. But it’s clear he’s actually in love with Elphaba. Moreover, Elphie loves Fiyero, too.
The truth comes out after Glinda and Fiyero’s wedding is interrupted by a stampede of recently freed animals. Fiyero tells Glinda he’s going with Elphaba (breaking the engagement thrust upon him), and Glinda is heartbroken, believing the two have been playing her for a fool.
Fiyero and Elphaba go to Elphaba’s hideout. They kiss, caresses are exchanged, and they begin to undress. (Fiyero removes his jacket. Elphaba removes her dress, revealing a tank top/shorts combo, but then immediately pulls on a robe.) The characters sing a passionate song about making the most of the night, since it might be the only one they get. They’re kneeling on Elphaba’s bed when the camera cuts away. The next morning, they’re laying together under a blanket, Elphie still in her modest undergarments and Fiyero shirtless.
Another man breaks another woman’s heart by telling her he’s in love with someone else. A flashback shows us that the Wizard was the mysterious man who had an affair with Elphaba’s mother in the first film (and that he’s her father). Glinda and Fiyero kiss a couple of times before they break up. Glinda and Elphaba clasp hands several times in friendship.
The Wizard and Madame Morrible have done such a good job of inciting the people’s anger against Elphaba that most Ozians are calling for her blood. They want her dead, and mobs are formed to defeat her.
The flying monkeys are aggressive, chasing Elphie whenever she shows up on broomstick. During one such chase, Elphaba manages to make a few monkeys crash into trees through clever flying tricks.
Emerald City’s guards are also quite aggressive. They try to kill Elphaba on more than one occasion. They’re cruel to the animals that the Wizard and Morrible have enslaved, using whips against them and shoving them around. And when a law forbids Munchkins from traveling without a permit, they bodily remove those people from a train.
Fiyero, captain of Emerald City’s guards, holds a few people at gunpoint, including Glinda and Elphaba (though no weapon is ever fired). He’s captured by those same guards after helping Elphaba. They hit him over the head with one of their own guns and drag him into a field to “string him up.” Elphaba sees this through a vision, watching in horror as the guards continue to beat him, clearly intending to kill the prince.
A man nearly dies after a spell is miscast by Nessa. He bends over in pain, and Elphaba uses a different spell to save his life (though he’s never the same again). Elsewhere, Elphaba uses magic to save someone else’s life—but again, that person is never the same.
Glinda and Elphaba slap each other across the face. They then get into a scuffle, with Glinda using her wand as a staff while Elphie defends with her broomstick. Realizing they’re evenly matched, Glinda puts down her makeshift weapon and tackles Elphaba. The two grapple and smack each other in anger but don’t cause any real damage.
Morrible uses a twister to drop a house on a woman, killing her. (We see the house swirling in the cyclone, but we don’t see the death occur.) Morrible later denies that she did this horrific deed on purpose.
Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz makes a brief appearance, sent by the Wizard to kill Elphaba. Elphaba has the flying monkeys kidnap Dorothy, then she locks the girl in a cellar. But Dorothy is eventually freed. She and her companions throw water on Elphie (due to a rumor that Elphaba’s soul is so unclean that pure water will melt her). The scene is shown in silhouette from the perspective of Glinda. And Glinda sobs as she watches her friend die a seemingly painful death. (We later learn that Elphie was unharmed, simply faking her death.)
A man with an axe breaks down a door and raises it against a woman, though he doesn’t take a swing. Later, he takes out his bloodlust on Elphaba, attempting to kill her.
A stampede of animals knocks over many wedding guests, though nobody seems seriously injured.
There are singular uses of “Oh my Lord” and “Oh my gosh.” Glinda exclaims “Shiz” (the name of her school) in distress.
The Wizard takes a few swigs from a green bottle, claiming it “dulls the pain.”
The animals of Oz who haven’t been arrested yet decide to flee to the “land beyond Oz.” The place is a barren wasteland, but they would rather take their chances there than be subjugated and likely killed in Oz. Elphaba tries to rally them, but her efforts are waylaid by the arrival of a cowardly lion. The beast explains to his fellow creatures that when he was a cub, Elphaba kidnapped him from the only home he had ever known. Elphaba explains she was trying to free him from captivity (we see this occur in the first film), but the feline insists that because of her actions, he never learned to fight his own battles and became a coward. The animals don’t trust Elphie, so they decide to leave.
The Wizard is a liar. He insists that there’s no point in coming clean about this fact, since the people of Oz will never believe it. (They want to be duped, he says.) But really, he likes his position of power and is unwilling to relinquish it.
Madame Morrible and the Wizard spread lies that Elphaba is a “Wicked Witch” and that “Glinda the Good” will save them. They convince the people that the witch is the cause of all their problems and that her death is the only thing that will make Oz whole again.
Though Glinda doesn’t believe the hype about Elphie, she’s more than willing to accept the nice things said about herself. As it turns out, all Glinda ever wanted is to be able to wield magic—but she wasn’t born with the ability. Her mother told her that magical ability isn’t important as long as people love you, a lesson Glinda has carried into adulthood. Her desire makes her vulnerable to the manipulations of Morrible and the Wizard, who orchestrate events to make it appear that Glinda can do magic—thus furthering their narrative that Glinda will save Oz.
Glinda betrays a friend, and it gets somebody killed. She learns the hard way that compromising her values to make her dreams come true won’t result in happiness.
Sometime between the events of the first film and For Good, Elphaba and Nessa’s father died, making Nessa the new governor of Munchkinland. Nessa is furious with her sister for causing trouble in Oz. She insists that their father died of shame. And she blames Elphie for everything bad happening in Oz.
Because of this, Nessa has blindly signed every law pushed across her desk—laws that are discriminatory and cruel toward animal citizens—so that nobody will think she sympathizes with her sister. And when a Munchkin man breaks her heart, Nessa starts enacting these unfair laws against her own people too, hoping to trap the man in Munchkinland with her.
Last November, audiences worldwide were enchanted by Wicked, the film adaptation of the first act of the Tony- and Grammy-winning Broadway musical. Now, after a year-long intermission, the story continues with For Good.
Wicked: For Good is just as magical and musical as last year’s Best Picture nominee. Fans of Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba) and Ariana Grande (Glinda) will be delighted by the actresses’ performances. And the endearing story of enduring friendship is sure to jerk some tears.
Will everyone be a fan? Absolutely not. As evidenced by my own conversation with Bob Hoose (who reviewed Wicked: Part 1 last year)—which you can watch on Plugged In’s YouTube channel next week—some folks will be displeased by sudden jump into Act 2 of the musical. Others will hate the extended runtime: The entire Broadway production is just two hours and 40 minutes; the combined runtime of both movies is about five hours.
Still, others will be concerned with this film’s content.
I was a bit shocked when I realized that For Good was rated PG. There’s some really dark content here: Pure, unadulterated hatred leads to more than one blood-thirsty mob. We witness brief but intense violence. And I was also grossed out by an unnecessarily long, sensual, romantic scene. (Nothing explicit, as the camera cuts away, but still acting as a prelude to premarital sex.)
And, of course, we must navigate the magic here—magic that can feel very dark and come with some very serious, unintended, unforeseen consequences.
Those elements very much feel like PG-13 territory. But then, I don’t get paid to assign ratings to movies; I get paid to tell you how those ratings hold up.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying For Good doesn’t have some good, even great, moments. The heart of this film is about friendship—a friendship that is loving, kind and, at times, sacrificial. It seems to echo the words of John 15: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
But again, will everyone be a fan? No. Absolutely not. Because even with such nice messages, those content concerns are still there.
However—for older teens, if their parents are willing to do a bit of hand-holding through the story’s magical misdeeds and unnecessary sensuality—For Good may just change some friendships for good.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
