This article contains spoilers for Wicked: For Good.

The Broadway fans tried to warn us. Ever since the news came down that the film adaptation of Wicked would break the megahit musical into two separate films, fans have warned that second act isn’t nearly as good as the first.

It’s not just that the story takes a darker turn, separating rivals-turned-friends Elphaba and Glinda (portrayed in the film by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande) for most of the story, as the latter joins the Wizard’s authoritarian regime and the former becomes the scapegoat whose vilifying allows him to shore up power. It’s also that the songs aren’t as good, lacking anything close to the favorite “Popular” or the literal showstopper “Defying Gravity.”

Turns out, the fans were right. Wicked: For Good tries to justify itself as its own discrete film by adding new scenes and songs, but none match the power of the first half. Worse, the bond between the two women gets diluted by the year-long gap between Wicked‘s release in November 2024 and For Good‘s debut this weekend.

But the biggest problem by far with the Wicked split is the way the new movie tries for a happier ending than either the original 1995 novel or the Broadway musical imagined. Instead of being a victory and redemption for both women, Wicked: For Good ends with a milquetoast apology, a defense of authoritarianism, and an insult to the viewers.

For Worse

Wicked began life not as a musical, but as a cynical revisionist novel by Gregory Maguire. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West used the world of Oz imagined by author Frank L. Baum as a platform to explore the nature of evil, reframing the Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba as a social outcast who gets pushed into evil-doing and Glinda the Good Witch as a fake social climber who betrays the bond they formed in school.

The musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman finds self-afirmation in Elphaba’s story and leans into the friendship between the two women. It relegates most of the nastiness and political critique of Maguire’s novel to the second act, and even then it continues to underscore the connection between Elphaba and Glinda, as demonstrated by the reconciling number For Good. In the musical, Elphaba fakes her death and escapes Oz with Fiyero, leaving Glinda to rule as the Good Witch.

All of those elements from the musical make their way into Wicked: For Good, but the need to expand one act into a full movie means that they get even more attention. We spend more time with Elphaba as a beleaguered freedom fighter, as in the film’s superhero-inspired opening, and more time with Glinda as she seeks power and riches for herself. In one particularly jarring moment, the scene of Boq (Ethan Slater), now transformed into the Tin Man through a bit of body horror magic, leads a lynch mob to find and kill Elphaba is followed by a new song “Girl in a Bubble,” in which Glinda has a little pity party for the gilded cage she created by betraying her friend to the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).

A similar problem occurs with the staging of the song “Wonderful,” performed by the Wizard in hopes of getting Elphaba to join him with Glinda. In the musical, the Wizard sings about how he’s a victim of people’s expectations, that he’s just a carnival barker from Kansas who was thrust into his position at the behest of Oz’s citizens. But director Jon M. Chu and the screenplay by Holzman and Dana Fox adds a preamble in which the Wizard muses upon epistemology. He rebuffs Elphaba’s insistence upon telling the truth by arguing that truth is just what people agree to believe.

By spending more time with the nihilistic and self-serving parts of the story, and separating those elements from the uplifting friendship in the first film, Wicked: For Good builds to a contemptible close.

The Wonderful Ruler of Oz

The ending of Wicked: For Good doesn’t recall so much The Wizard of Oz as it does The Dark Knight, the second of Christopher Nolan‘s Batman movies. Before she fakes her death and makes her escape with her beloved Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), now transformed into a particularly upsetting version of the Scarecrow, Elphaba shares one last moment with Glinda. Instead of allowing Glinda to join her in telling the truth about the her and the Wizard, Elphaba insists that she must be wicked, so that Glinda can be good.

In other words, she must embrace her role as public scapegoat so that Glinda can gain the credit for defeating her, and thus use the popularity she wins to gain power over the Wizard and become a good leader. The film presents the moment as tragic for both Elphaba and Glinda. Not only are they not able to live together, but they can’t tell anyone about it. In the most romantic of terms, their friendship becomes a secret only shared by one another.

But within the context of Wicked: For Good‘s political allegory, the ending feels cynical. Throughout the film, the people of Oz mostly exist as a chorus who reacts to what the major characters say. When the Wizard makes a declaration or when Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) makes broadcast, Chu cuts to the hoi polloi screaming in affirmation. As the Wizard explained before “Wonderful,” people take as truth what their leader tells them.

Thanks to Elphaba’s sacrifice, Glinda can dispose the Wizard and Morrible. But when she takes power, she operates the same way that they did. She perpetuates the story about phow the Wicked Witch was bad and how she helped Dorothy Gale kill the witch, which legitimatizes her claim to rule Oz. Sure, she immediately orders the citizens of Oz to share the land with the animals that the Wizard tried to silence, but the fact that the citizens cheer with as much energy as they called for the animals’ capture suggests reveals the movie’s political viewpoint.

Regular people are idiots, the movie seems to be saying. They’re little piggies who deserve nothing.

New Witch, Same as the Old Witch

Obviously, that portrayal of moronic masses embracing autocrats could have real resonance right now, when much of the Western world is being run by demagogues with legions of unquestioning followers. Were the film trying to be as cynical as Maguire’s book, that point would be effective.

But for all of its changes, For Good wants to follow the lead of the musical. Moreover, it’s a big holiday release by Universal Pictures, a movie designed to get families to come to the cinema and then shop at Target. So the film ends by framing the rise of Glinda as a good thing, a setting to right what the Wizard did wrong. Or, put another way, the film asks audience to be happy that a good autocrat has taken the place of the bad autocrat. And as a good autocrat, Glinda puts forward the official record of the Witch’s downfall at the hands of Dorothy… which we viewers know as the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.

So that’s how Wicked: For Good ends, by installing a benevolent dictator and comparing the audience who loves the 1939 to the mindless rabble who cheers at any lie their leaders tell them.

With its ending, Wicked: For Good doesn’t just fail to cover the problems of the musical’s second act. Instead, it heightens those problems, changing the story for the much, much worse.

Wicked: For Good is now playing in theaters worldwide.

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