Emerald City: Beautiful Wickedness Recap

Synopsis of 1×06: The Wizard’s past is revealed, including his connection to Dorothy. Plus, Lucas goes to great lengths to regain his memory, and Dorothy makes a risky deal to get herself home. 

This week on Emerald City was all about the past. Within every major storyline, we saw a glimpse of how it got to where it is, and the whole show took a big narrative step forward. 

Dorothy finally confronts The Wizard, who explains he was only hunting her down because he didn’t know it was her. When she asks how he knows who she is, we are shown – through flashbacks – that The Wizard was just a guy named Frank (a nod, no doubt to L. Frank Baum) who worked as an awkward, nerdy layman on the site of a grand research project to generate energy – or something. He worked with Karen Chapman – Dorothy’s mother – a scientist who was already pregnant when the machine malfunctioned and sucked the entire team into Oz, where Dorothy was eventually born. 

Dorothy’s father was another scientist on the same team, who was killed in the accident and didn’t make it to Oz with the rest. But it turns out that Frank, feeling overlooked and underestimated, programmed the machine to malfunction and take them all to Oz, because he wanted to prove that he could, and make the rest of them pay attention to him for once – although he never intended for anyone to be hurt, and hoped they would think it was super cool. They did not.

Like Dorothy, they were captured by the Munchkins, and confronted by East, who agreed to send them home, but Frank refused to go back, preferring to stay in this new world, where his knowledge of science has convinced the locals that he’s magic – something they are familiar with, but that is still rare and impressive. He tries repeatedly to dissuade them, insisting that it’s science, not magic, and becomes upset when he sees real magic, since it’s not something he can replicate. A first glimpse into the Emerald City we know, where magic is banned. 

Meanwhile, Lucas has allowed himself to be interrogated by The Wizard’s Guard and by West, in hopes that it will help him get his memories back. West discovers that his memories aren’t gone, just blocked by magic. Glinda’s magic. Using Dorothy as a conduit, they cast a spell to sever the block, and they all see the truth. Lucas was working for Glinda, who was secretly training girls as witches, against The Wizard’s rule. 

He was transporting a wagon full of little witches when he crossed paths with the Guard, who insisted on looking inside the wagon. Lucas tried to stop them and diffuse the situation, but they discovered the girls and would have killed them for being witches, so Lucas told the girls to run, and killed all the men so that the girls would not be exposed.

With the girls missing and the soldiers dead, word spread that Lucas was a traitor and a killer and the Guard strung him up, while Glinda hid his memories so he couldn’t be forced to reveal her plan to create more witches – threatening the rule of The Wizard, who is only pretending to be magic. 

It also turns out that Sylvie is one of these girls, which explains why she inexplicably clung to Lucas when they found her, and you know, why she can turn people to stone and hear their thoughts. The Wizard makes a deal with Dorothy, that if she gives him her gun and bullets so he can make more to defend against The Beast Forever, he will let Lucas go free, and let them take Sylvie back to Glinda. 

It’s actually a big deal, because the gun is the only thing that can kill magical beings, and has thus far been the only protection or leverage that Dorothy has. She killed East, successfully threatened West, and convinced plenty of locals that she was insanely powerful. 

We discover later though, that the other part of the deal was for Dorothy to kill Glinda. Eamonn asks how Dorothy is supposed to do that, if she gave up the gun, and The Wizard implies that she’s supposed to convince little Sylvie to do it. 

I’m also still not convinced of the need for the Ev storyline. The Wizard wanted Ev to build them a weapon against the Beast, even though Ev is ostensibly much worse off than Emerald City, having been decimated in the first attack while Emerald City was safe. Lady Ev refuses to help, so The Wizard gets his hands on a gun – but apparently still needs Ev to manufacture them, which doesn’t solve the problem. The Wizard shoots Anna to prove what a gun can do, which clearly freaks out Lady Ev, but it’s still unclear whether she will help, and if she’d be helping out of fear, or desire to have guns for her own kingdom.