Warning: This article contains spoilers for the ending of “Wicked: For Good.”
“Wicked: For Good” brings fans the long-awaited finale to the film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical. And a small change at the very, very end may signify a big change from the original story.
Like the musical, the story ends with Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) forced to separate after belting out Act II’s signature song, “For Good.” Glinda, watching shadows through a cracked door, sees Elphaba melt after Dorothy throws a pail of water at her. Glinda escapes on horseback, shrouded in a black cape. (Yes, Glinda was the mysterious figure we saw escaping a castle in the very first scene of the first “Wicked” movie.) She goes on to assume power in Oz as she mourns her best friend’s death.
Only Elphaba isn’t dead. She’s hiding in a trapdoor, waiting for her beloved Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) to meet her before they leave for the Land Beyond Oz together.
From there, viewers get a bit of a twist before the movie concludes. Here’s what happens.
How ‘Wicked: For Good’ ends
The stage version of “Wicked” ends with Elphaba and Fiyero leaving Oz, and Glinda stepping into a position of power.
But in “Wicked: For Good,” viewers see what happens to Glinda after she becomes Oz’s leader. First, she officially declares the land welcome to all animals again.
In the final scene, Glinda looks over the Emerald City as Elphaba and Fiyero trek through a desert to leave Oz. Elphaba looks back for a brief moment. Then Elphaba’s book of spells, the Grimmerie, flutters to life before Glinda’s eyes. Elphaba had given the book to Glinda before Elphaba’s encounter with Dorothy.
As established in the first film, the Grimmerie only opens for and can be read by a true witch, something that, as much as she tried — whether through begging Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) for sorcery lessons or twirling her practice wand — Glinda decidedly was not.
So what does the Grimmerie opening mean?
We asked the team behind “Wicked: For Good” for their takes on the final scene. See what director Jon M. Chu and stars Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum and Jonathan Bailey had to say.
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How ‘Wicked: For Good’ stars interpret the ending
Jon M. Chu
Chu declines to say “exactly what (the ending) is” by his intention.
But he points to all the different interpretations of what the Grimmerie, “a book of knowledge,” could be, relative to both Glinda and Elphaba.
“Whether (Glinda) finally gets to be who she’s meant to be, that she’s not reliant on this image in this mirror,” Chu says. “She didn’t say, ‘I’m going to be good.’ She says, ‘I’m going to try to be good.’
“Just the effort of trying to be who we’re supposed to be opens and unlocks our unlimited possibilities,” he adds.
The spontaneous opening of the Grimmerie could also relate to the film’s theme of pursuing the truth amid propaganda. By the end of the film, Elphaba’s reputation as the Wicked Witch of the West as told in “The Wizard of Oz” is upended by political lies told by the nonmagical Wizard of Oz and, as actor Michelle Yeoh says, the true wicked witch, Madame Morrible. But while viewers know the truth, in the world of the movie, Ozians do not, after Elphaba tells Glinda not to clear her name.
“It could also be, Cynthia could be Jesus giving us, the humans, this Bible and saying, you know the truth, now what are you going to do with it?” Chu says.
“I think it is a challenge to us as the audience, whereas maybe movie one was more of an answer. This is more a question and challenge for us to see how we’re going to tell our story to the next generation,” he adds.
Cynthia Erivo
Erivo says Elphaba leaving the Grimmerie behind represents her entrusting it to Glinda.
“I think Elphaba’s powers exist independent of the Grimmerie, and because she has certain powers, she’s able to read the Grimmerie. It’s like she and Grimmerie have an intrinsic relationship, and so the Grimmerie answers to her,” she explains.
“But her leaving it behind and trusting it to Glinda essentially tells the Grimmerie, ‘You’re in new hands, trust this person,’” she adds.
But that doesn’t mean Elphaba’s lost her connection with the book. She says she believes Elphaba in fact can see the Grimmerie opening for Glinda.
“She has visions, so I think she can see what happens, and she can feel it. And it opening means to her that, one, Glinda’s made the right decision, and two, the Grimmerie trusts Glinda now, so everything’s going to be fine,” she says.
But does Glinda know Elphaba is watching over her?
“I think she’s aware that Elphaba has something to do with it (opening), but I don’t think she’s aware that Elphaba’s alive,” Erivo says.
Jeff Goldblum
As for Goldblum, who stars as the Wizard of Oz, he is curious what leaving the Grimmerie behind means for Elphaba’s powers. He also wonders: Why couldn’t Elphaba trust Glinda with the knowledge that they survived?
“Why couldn’t she trust that, ‘Hey we’re going to be OK, don’t try to contact us … Don’t tell anybody that we faked it.’ I don’t know,” Goldblum says. “Or, is the loss that (Glinda) experiences the portal, the thing that triggers her power. Her ability to go through that loss of the greatest love that she’s ever had with Elphaba, does that trigger her ability to power?”
As for the opening of the Grimmerie, Goldblum says it’s possible for Elphaba to “telepathically” “commune” with Glinda across space.
“Does Glinda go, ‘I don’t think I did that. Are you out there somewhere. Are you OK?’” he adds. “Maybe it’s meant to be ambiguous.”
Jonathan Bailey has so much love for his leading ladies. While celebrating the digital release of “Jurassic World Rebirth” in Thailand with director Gareth Edwards, the star chatted with Access Hollywood’s guest correspondent Lauren Herbert about the magic behind his chemistry with Scarlett Johansson and his “Wicked” co-stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
Jonathan Bailey
Like Goldblum, Bailey believes there’s a chance the opening of the Grimmerie was Elphaba sending Glinda a message.
“I think that the answers always lie in the Grimmerie, and I do think it’s particularly thrilling to see the Grimmerie come alive for someone … (with) the absolute knowledge that she has no magic and that she has no power,” he says.
“To see the Grimmerie come alive feels to me like a transference and a conversation between the two women.”
He believes this, even if it’s not so literal of a conversation or message.
“As we know with grief as well, those people do always exist in a different form, don’t they? In a metaphysical sense, they are still living on together,” he adds.
Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox
Holzman, who wrote the book for “Wicked” and co-wrote the screenplays for both films with writer Dana Fox, says the goal for the ending was to create a “mystical moment.”
“With something mystical, it’s not like the whole point is you know the answer, it’s that it pulls something out of you, like a spiritual feeling,” she says.
One interpretation of the Grimmerie opening, Holzman says, has to do with the evolution of Glinda’s character.
“She was willing to let go … of all the need to be admired in this empty way. And she was willing to be humble, to be a student, to say, ‘I don’t know everything,’” Holzman says.
Fox adds that the moment Glinda “earns” the Grimmerie opening is when she admits her “deepest shame” to Elphaba: that she can’t read the Grimmerie and perform spells.
“She wanted so much to be that magical creature who could make magic happen, and she’s going to end up being that, but it’s going to take hard work,” Holzman says. “And to me, the Grimmerie opening is like the Grimmerie saying, ‘OK, you’re ready.’”
But the question remains: Does Elphaba know?
“I think the thing that really is up to interpretation that everyone should just talk about amongst themselves is, Does Elphaba know? Did she have anything to do with it? I think that is something that just everyone should decide for themselves,” Fox says.
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