The pink witch you cheered for just stabbed her best friend in the back—and smiled while doing it. 💔

Behind every bubble wand and “Popular” pep talk was a calculated move to bury Elphaba alive under Emerald City lies. One Shiz-era secret—stolen, twisted, weaponized—proves Glinda engineered the entire witch hunt. Fans are gutted: The crown isn’t a reward… it’s a confession.

Expose the betrayal that flips Wicked upside down in Part 2. Tap the link before the truth melts away.

The Emerald City’s neon glow has never looked more sinister than in Wicked: For Good, Universal’s thunderous finale that stormed theaters November 21, 2025, and shattered the illusion of Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande) with surgical precision. Clocking in at 156 minutes of soaring vocals, cyclone carnage, and soul-crushing revelations, the film doesn’t just finish the story—it detonates it. The pink-clad sorceress fans crowned “iconic” in Part One stands revealed as the architect of Elphaba’s (Cynthia Erivo) downfall, her every giggle and wand-flip a brick in the wall that cages her former friend. Director Jon M. Chu, speaking to Entertainment Weekly hours after the premiere, didn’t mince words: “Glinda’s not misunderstood. She’s complicit. And complicity in Oz? That’s the deadliest spell of all.”

Part One left audiences mid-levitation: Elphaba, branded the Wicked Witch after exposing the Wizard’s (Jeff Goldblum) fraud, soars off on a broomstick while Glinda, tear-streaked but resolute, accepts Madame Morrible’s (Michelle Yeoh) offer to become Oz’s smiling face of order. It’s a fork-in-the-road moment ripe for redemption arcs. For Good yanks the rug: Glinda doesn’t drift into propaganda—she designs it. The smoking wand? A Shiz University betrayal restored from a Part One cutting-room casualty and weaponized into the film’s emotional core.

Rewind to Crage Hall, sophomore year. A tipsy Galinda—fresh off belting “Dear Old Shiz” at a mixer—stumbles on Elphaba’s private journal, a leather-bound manifesto of animal-rights fury and anti-Wizard sketches. Instead of returning it, she photographs pages with a covert crystal (Oz’s Victorian-era Polaroid) and slides them to Morrible with a syrupy note: “Help her shine, Madame.” The press secretary spins the leak into a smear campaign—Elphaba as “eco-terrorist,” her magic “unstable.” By dawn, campus whispers brand the green girl a threat. Grande’s Glinda, in a rain-drenched reprise of “I’m Not That Girl,” later confesses to a cracked mirror: “I dimmed her light so mine could blind them.” It’s not jealousy—it’s survival math in a world where only one girl gets to be “popular.”

The film doesn’t let her off with tears. For Good threads Glinda’s fingerprints through every tragedy. The Talking Animals’ silence? Morrible’s gag spells, funded by Glinda’s socialite donations. The cyclone that drags Dorothy Gale (voiced by a yet-uncredited prodigy) into Oz? Glinda green-lights the weather tech, knowing water is Elphaba’s rumored weakness. Even Nessarose’s (Marissa Bode) silver-shoed tyranny in Munchkinland traces back to Glinda gifting the enchanted footwear—“to keep her safe,” she claims, but really to neutralize a rival Thropp. When the farmhouse crushes Nessa, Elphaba’s grief-fueled “No Good Deed” lashes out at Glinda: “You armed the mob with my sister’s corpse!” Grande’s response—a frozen smile cracking into a sob—is Oscar bait that’s already trending on X with 3.1 million #GlindaGuilty posts.

Chu expands Broadway beats into cinematic gut-punches. The musical’s “Thank Goodness” becomes a fascist gala where Glinda, crowned in a 40-pound crystal gown, toasts the Witch hunt while ravens (Elphaba’s spies) circle overhead. A new Schwartz track, “Bubble’s Burst,” has Grande alone on a balcony, bubbles popping like gunfire as she sings: “I built this throne on stolen spells / And called it good.” Critics are eating it up—Variety dubs it “the anti-heroine anthem of the decade.” Reddit’s r/Wicked explodes with frame-by-frame breakdowns: Glinda pocketing a lock of Elphaba’s hair post-“Popular” makeover? Not a keepsake—a DNA trophy to track her via Morrible’s scrying pool.

The Wizard’s paternity bombshell—Goldblum drawling, “Green’s hereditary, sweetheart”—lands like a brick house, but Glinda’s known for years. She weaponized the secret to keep Elphaba off-balance, whispering doubts to Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) during their engagement waltz. Bailey’s Scarecrow transformation, triggered when Elphaba’s frantic spell saves him from Morrible’s guards, is the film’s visual peak: straw bursting from flesh as “As Long As You’re Mine” distorts into a horror lullaby. Fiyero’s amnesia-fueled trek with Dorothy, Boq (Ethan Slater) as a heart-shriveled Tin Man, and a guilt-ridden Shiz bully as the Cowardly Lion form a yellow-brick B-plot that orbits Glinda’s crumbling empire.

The climax is pure cyclone chaos. Glinda unleashes the twister, bucket of water primed, as a mob storms Elphaba’s castle. Erivo’s Witch, cornered, triggers the Grimmerie’s ultimate illusion: a melt that’s all smoke and mirrors. Fiyero spirits her to safety; Glinda inherits the spellbook, a poisoned chalice. In the “For Good” finale—shot in one unbroken take—Grande and Erivo face off across a chasm of shattered stained glass. “You changed me,” Glinda sings, voice breaking. Elphaba’s reply, whispered via raven: “For worse.” The screen fades to black on Glinda alone, clutching the journal, crown askew.

Box office? A record-shattering $900 million global opening, per Deadline, fueled by viral TikTok duets of “Bubble’s Burst” and X threads dissecting Glinda’s micro-expressions. Fan camps splinter: #TeamElphaba petitions a Part Three from Dorothy’s POV; #GlindaDeservesRedemption stans cite her final exile of Morrible and the Wizard (Yeoh frost-bitten in a tower, Goldblum ballooning to obscurity). Chu teases ambiguity in a post-credits sting: a raven drops a green ribbon at Glinda’s feet. Alive? Or a ghost? “The spell’s not broken,” he smirks to Collider. “It’s just hers now.”

Thematically, Glinda’s fall probes the rot beneath respectability politics. In Oz’s stratified sparkle, “good” is a brand—pink, marketable, merciless. Grande, reflecting to Vogue, owns it: “Glinda’s my cautionary tale. We all have that friend who’d sell your secrets for a crown.” Erivo counters: “Elphaba forgives. She doesn’t forget.” The film’s final image—Glinda staring into a bubble that reflects Elphaba’s silhouette—asks the question fans can’t escape: Was the Wicked Witch ever the villain, or just the only one honest enough to fly?