Dorothy and Lucas run into some obstacles on their way out of “Emerald City” to take Sylvie to Glinda. With the Wizard now aware that Glinda is still training young witches, he sets out on a witch hunt to see if anyone is hiding in his city.
A witch hunt in Emerald City
The Wizard makes the decision to have all of his guards round up the young women in Emerald City so he can have West determine if they’re witches. As West points out when she sees the terrified young women, if the Wizard had found a witch, he’d know. The point is proven not long after when a young girl sets an area of the city on fire as she is cornered by guards.
The Wizard, in an effort to get West to cooperate, played to her guilt at the having helped so many of her sister prepare for war against the Beast Forever and then watch them all die. West, who provided her sisters with poppies to take away their fear and pain as they went to war, holds herself responsible for their deaths, and as such, she agrees to help the Wizard under the condition that he helps her save the witches Glinda has been hiding.
Of course, nothing goes as she expects as the little girl in danger ends up in even more danger. The Wizard wants to put her in a cage. West tries to help, opening up, and then sealing, a hole in the ground. This only leads to the Wizard killing his council by forcing them into that hole in the ground with a little girl on fire.
The Wizard shows himself over and over as a dictator struggling to maintain his grip on power, and it’s all the more terrifying because his people don’t see it. How long will they be blind to him?
Dorothy has some magic in her
Dorothy might not be able to control the gauntlets fully, but in moments of extreme emotion, East’s gauntlets still appear to her.
In “they came first,” the gauntlets show up when she screams for Sylvie as wolves surround the little girl. It raises the question, yet again, as to whether or not Dorothy is actually a witch, or something else. I still love the idea that Dorothy is the embodiment of the Beast Forever, but that remains to be seen.
Dorothy and Lucas will have to choose sides
Lucas, who regains his memories courtesy of Glinda by the end of “They Came First,” feels a pull by the witches even before that. Dorothy feels a debt to the Wizard because he’ll find her a way home and he knew her parents. She also doesn’t want little girls caught in the middle of a war that they know nothing about.
While it seems that Lucas, or Roan, has chosen his side by the end, something tells me that’s not necessarily the case. There are still three episodes left where anything can happen as the characters learn more about each side of the fight.
Ozma
Tip has always lived as a little boy, the girl he was born as hidden by magic. While Tip has always felt like a boy, and identifies as one now, his birthright might be a little more complicated as he’s carrying a dagger from his childhood home, one that West recognizes as having belonged to a king and left to his princess of a daughter.
Could it be that Tip is really Ozma of the “Oz” novels? Ozma, hidden away as a boy by an enchantment, was the rightful ruler of Oz. This would be a fantastic turn of events, thought I hope that if Tip believes himself to be a boy, he isn’t forced to choose to be a girl for the sake of ruling the land by the end of the season.
The verdict and what’s next
With so much going on, this might just be the most jam-packed episode of the season yet. Definitely my favorite, “They Came First” revealed everyone’s true natures to the audience, except for Glinda, who is the biggest mystery of all.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
Next week, “Lions in Winter” sees Dorothy and Lucas finally make their way to Glinda’s, while the Wizard checks on his weapons development in the Kingdom of Ev, and West uses dangerous magic to help Tip.
