The writers of Emerald City gave us a few answers tonight, and definitely a few surprises.
We finally learned that the high and mighty wizard was a simple IT employee at a nuclear power plant. Simple isn’t the right word. He was downright malicious. He created a malfunction in the computers so that the scientists could not shut down the tornado. I have no idea if he knew it would take them to Oz, but maybe we will learn that as the season continues.
Frank, the wizard, has a lot of problems, and I was disappointed with D’Onofrio’s performance in the flashbacks. We see the origin of his hate for magic, too, and that was a nice touch.
We also learn that Dorothy is the daughter of a scientist Frank knew. I am surprised that the Wizard is not her father. It was too easy, but now there isn’t much pull between the Wizard and Dorothy and I don’t see why she wouldn’t betray him.
In a hilarious turn of events, West shows up to fix Lucas’ mind, and who does she find? That girl who just escaped her prison! The scene becomes serious and West uses Dorothy to get into the truth of what Lucas cannot remember. Again, we learn a lot. Lucas was responsible for the scary little girls like Sylvie, but they all escape the Wizard’s guards. West identifies the spell as Galinda’s, and suddenly we have a new villain.
West tells the Wizard everything, and he learns that his council has only provided Galinda with information about him. She plans to overthrow him, and he should have seen it coming.
Later, the Wizard asks Dorothy to kill Galinda with the gun. What a nice switch from the original story. I wonder if she will melt. Dorothy refuses, and leaves the gun with the Wizard.
All throughout the episode Lady Ev, her father, Jack and Tip have been wandering around. The Wizard wants to form an alliance with her. It all seems to fall apart when Sylvia accidentally kills Lady Ev’s father. The Wizard makes one final proposition to Lady Ev, and I gasped when it happened. To show her the power of a gun, he turns and shoots Anna right in the heart! Wow! I did not see that coming at all.
Emerald City continues to push the boundaries of cable television. Just when I think I might lose interest, it pulls another punch and draws me back in.
(Photo by: David Lukacs/NBC)
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