NBC’s riveting fantasy series Emerald City begins episode nine titled ‘The Villain That’s Become’ with the guards of Ev ordering the Wizard (Vincent D’Onofrio) and his men to leave the city. Season one’s penultimate episode finds the Wizard in a stand-off against guards who are armed with weapons he asked the Queen to create. The Wizard’s angry they aren’t turning over the guns, offering a chest full of gold in payment if they give him his weapons.
The gold’s taken to the Queen and it’s double the asked for payment. Langwidere (Stefanie Martini) wants to keep the weapons and the gold, and doesn’t care if they make enemies of the Wizard and his army.
Princess Ozma (Jordan Loughran) begs West (Ana Ularu) not to die following her suicide attempt, telling the nearly dead witch her sister would want her to stay alive. Ozma reveals to West she had a vision of her parents’ murder and needs her guidance. West heals and they hug.
Back at Ev, the Wizard’s guards have infiltrated the castle and demand the location of the Queen. She’s held at gunpoint as the Wizard enters the castle.
Dorothy (Adria Arjona) rides through the woods with Toto close behind the horse’s heels. They arrive back at the isolated cottage where she and Lucas stayed on their trip to Glinda’s, and Toto stays outside to guard the house. Dorothy enters and just as she sits down to rest, Lucas (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) grabs her from behind in a stranglehold. She cries out his name and tells him she doesn’t want to die without even getting to look him in the eye.
Unfortunately, West and Princess Ozma have to walk through the woods instead of fly so that they’ll remain off Glinda’s radar. West knows Glinda would want Ozma for her own, but Ozma doesn’t feel any magic coursing through her. Ozma’s frustrated she can’t cast a spell and West explains magic comes from inside. West tells Ozma to close her eyes and describe how she feels, and Ozma confesses to feeling angry. West tells her to use that but to go even deeper. Ozma does and the magic flows through her, transforming her back into a boy. She smiles, happy to be back in her old form. She tells West, “This is what the magic found. This is me!”
Lucas lets Dorothy go and she cowers against the wall, sobbing. He stands over her, looking confused. She asks why he’s doing this and he tells her she should never have been there. He’d send her home but it’s not possible, but she can’t be part of him anymore. She yells at him to go ahead and kill her, and it’s obvious Lucas is completely torn up inside. He leans in, telling her to close her eyes. Just as he raises his knife, Toto breaks through the window and attacks him. There’s a fierce battle going on inside the cottage as Dorothy escapes, however, Lucas is able to trap Toto inside the house and chases after Dorothy. He pins her to the ground and begins strangling her again. She won’t stop him, even though he begs her to. She’s not fighting back and he’s demanding she stop him when she replies, “I can’t. I don’t want you dead.” Lucas doesn’t let up and Dorothy stealthily grabs his knife from its sheath and stabs him in the side.
Lucas lets up on Dorothy’s neck as she sobs and says, “No.” He collapses onto her, suffering from the stab wound. She ties him to the cross which had previously belonged to the scarecrow. He’s severely injured and bloody as he looks down on Dorothy, listening as she says, “You got your wish. I never happened to you,” leaving him in the same condition she found him just days prior. She and Toto ride off, leaving Lucas alone and probably dying.
The Wizard arrives in the Queen’s chambers and she believes they’re now in a stand-off. Her men will kill his if the Wizard attacks Ev. The Wizard slaps her hard across the face, shattering her mask which falls in pieces to the floor. She covers her face, crying and quivering as the Wizard tells her she needs to make herself presentable for her soldiers. “Choose a new mask – it might be your last,” says the Wizard as he leaves her room.
Jack (Gerran Howell) races to Jane’s office and tells her the Wizard will execute Langwidere if her men don’t turn over the guns.
Ozma’s happy to be a boy again, declaring she’s never felt better or more free. She wants to tear the Wizard to pieces, but West says first they need to recruit supporters. However, that means Ozma has to return to being a girl. No one will follow a boy, and they argue about transforming back to a female form. Ozma is dead set against it, but West wisely knows no one will believe a boy is the princess.
Dorothy and Toto race to the settlement where she was taken after she arrived in Oz. She asks to speak with Ojo and after flashing her gauntlets, she’s allowed to meet with him. Ojo (Olafur Darri Olafsson) explains he took her to the witches because West promised to free his wife. She didn’t, and now Dorothy also wants his wife free to use the stone warriors to stop Glinda permanently.
Ozma/Tip stares at her family’s dagger and West finally agrees to trying to raise an army with Tip as a boy.
Jane (Gina McKee) hurries to the castle and meets with Frank/The Wizard. The two have history and Frank’s never liked her because she wasn’t kind to him. Jane says she’s the only one left who knows he’s a fraud and that she’s only alive because her work has value to him. She promises to make him whatever he needs, and Frank knows she’s only doing this to save Langwidere. He screams that he’s the Wizard of Oz and demands she never call him anything else ever again.
Jane returns to her workshop with bad news for Jack. She knows the Wizard can’t be stopped and Jack suggests, “Then make me the gun!”
Ojo and Dorothy make the journey to the Prison of the Abject to see Nahara, with Ojo explaining his wife was sacrificed so their people could live. They enter the cave where she’s been left, and Dorothy says she’ll use her magic to free everyone trapped inside. She wanders through the tree roots, leaving Ojo behind as she looks for Nahara. The witches she expected to find are gone and a man trapped within a tree tells her he’ll explain what happened if she frees him. Dorothy does, and the man says only the dead and dying were left behind when the rest were taken.
West and Ozma look out over the freed witches, with West declaring them dressed and ready for war.
Ojo enters the cave and finds Nahara in horrible shape. She was left behind because she’s dying, but Ojo is happy to see her nonetheless. Dorothy asks her to raise the stone giants, but Nahara is reluctant. She remembers what the Wizard did with them before. But when Dorothy says it’s the only way to stop the war between Glinda and the Wizard, Nahara has hope that Glinda will best the Wizard in battle. Dorothy doesn’t want anyone on either side to be killed and Nahara says it’s important to stop the person who’s fighting magic since magic has always existed in Oz. Dorothy makes a deal: if Nahara helps her, she’ll take the Wizard with her when she returns to Kansas. Nahara agrees, happy about the prospect of freeing magic.
Ozma and West are surrounded by the freed witches, and West speaks to them about standing with Princess Ozma. She asks they follow the Princess to Emerald City to end the Wizard’s rule. The witches are furious West has brought a boy in a dress and is trying to pass him off as Ozma, and they say the dagger proves nothing. As West yells at them to fall in line, they call her a whore and a traitor. They use their magic to sew West’s mouth shut and raise her high in the air, suspending her, helpless.
Meanwhile in Ev, the Queen has dressed and decided against wearing a mask. Her face is perfect; there’s no reason to cover it. She addresses her men with the Wizard at her side. She assures them she chose to expose her face as the Wizard quietly prompts her to tell her men to put down their weapons. She suggests he address the men instead, and the Wizard tells Ev’s soldiers they should join his cause and fight the witches. He places a gun to the Queen’s head and tells them to put down their weapons. Her men ask for guidance and the Queen tells them to stand with her against the Wizard. “Never surrender your weapons!” she screams, while the Wizard continues to tell the soldiers he’ll kill their Queen if they don’t drop their weapons.
The Queen spots Jack not far away aiming his hand, which is now a gun, toward where she’s standing with the Wizard. She tells her men it’s okay to let her die as Jack fires. The Wizard spotted Jack right before he fired and moved the Queen into the bullet’s path. It enters her head right above her left eyebrow and she tumbles over the balcony to the ground below. A gun battle breaks out between the Wizard’s men and Ev’s army, with Jack racing through the fight to the Queen’s side. She’s dead and Jack screams in agony over what he’s done.
Ev’s soldiers get the upper hand and capture the Wizard.
Meanwhile, Ojo and Nahara share some private time together. She wants him to help the man who Dorothy freed from the tree but before he can do anything, the man hits him in the head.
Jack brings the Queen’s lifeless body to Jane. He asks her to fix Langwidere, to do what she did for him when he was injured.
West hangs high in the air as down below the witches put her on trial. Ozma tells them East locked them up and West freed them, but that doesn’t help. They blame West for selling the “soul” of their world for her own escape and demand she pay for the deaths of their sisters. Ozma has heard enough. She uses her powers to bring West down to earth while transforming herself back into a girl. Ozma demands they help West now that she’s on the ground. They don’t act immediately and Ozma again uses her powers to connect them all to her memories of her parents’ murders at the hands of the man with the lion mask who acted on the command of the Wizard.
The witches bow to Princess Ozma, and Ozma demands they help West to her feet. She asks them to fight with her for Emerald City and for the return of the rule of magic.
Langwidere’s body is laid out on the table as Jane tells Jack about all the masks she made to cover the young woman’s pretty face. Jane assures Jack Langwidere tried to love him as best she could, while Jack is devastated he killed his love. Then Jane tells Jack the truth about the royal family of Ev. The Beast Forever slaughtered the royal family (the Queen, her sons, and Langwidere) years ago, with only the king surviving. The Langwidere Jack knows is mechanical! Jane salvaged what she could and built the rest. The masks were to hide the fact Langwidere never aged. Jane can repair her and it’s Jack’s turn to freak out. He can’t believe Langwidere tricked him into believing she loved him, and now Jack’s determined to kill the Wizard himself since he’s made of metal and already dead anyway.
The soldiers of Ev place the Wizard in front of the firing squad. He begs them to stop and just as they’re about to shoot, a stone giant comes alive miles away in Emerald City. His footsteps create havoc as he approaches the outskirts of Ev where the Wizard’s army is gathered. He stands still as Dorothy and Toto walk in front of his feet.
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- Emerald City Season 1 Episode 5 “Everybody Lies” Recap
- Emerald City Season 1 Episode 6 “Beautiful Wickedness” Recap
- Emerald City Season 1 Episode 7 “They Came First” Recap
- Emerald City Season 1 Episode 8 “Lions in Winter” Recap
- Emerald City Season Finale “No Place Like Home” Recap
