Why the Wicked: For Good ending is getting called out for being extremely problematic

The Wicked: For Good ending is getting absolutely rinsed for its problematic ending – and it’s an issue I’ve thought for a while. Wicked: For Good is of course getting dragged for many, many things – and most of those things are indeed the fault of the film and Jon M Chu’s rather perplexing decisions. But one thing it can’t really do is stop the fact that act two of Wicked on stage is not that good either, and the ending – which sees the citizens of Oz never understand the truth about Elphaba and they go to their graves with her villainised and never repent for their persecution of the animals on order from the Wizard’s propaganda. Here’s why people are fuming about the problematic ending of Wicked For Good and why we need to talk about it.

This scathing review put it perfectly

It is very telling that after all the decades of Tumblr commentary on Wicked, I never really saw anyone make this salient point and certainly not this well. https://t.co/NtA6xNCkuw pic.twitter.com/X70Z5Xe1Ja

— LiterallyAnscombe (@LitAnscombe) November 23, 2025

The review paragraph highlighted above details a truly problematic issue with the Wicked: For Good message in 2025 – why do we  assume the people should just live in their delusion? Surely it would be more important to show us seeing the Ozians learn the error of their ways and how quickly they were led by the Wizard and Morrible’s propaganda to turn on the animals and Elphaba?

It’s dangerous to put that message into a world where political enemies are doing just that – and it’s sad and a bit unsettling that Elphaba never gets her public redemption.

Most Read

Jonathan Bailey reveals tragic reason Fiyero picks Elphaba in Wicked: For Good, that was cut

Exclusive: Love Is Blind’s Nick addresses his sexuality for first time after those comments

Erm, why is Katy Perry suing a dying 85-year-old veteran for an insane amount of money?

@rateandseemovies Dedicated to my nieces who said I wasn’t allowed to make fun of #wickedmovie #wickedforgood #movietok #tiktokbingeworthycontest ♬ original sound – Rate and See

This TikTok also details how stupid this is. It calls out how the people of Oz are just told that no longer the animals are what they thought to believe, and jokingly has the Ozians saying “Are you not going to do a big compelling speech that shows how we need to see the error of our ways?”

It also calls out how despite the animals getting to return to Oz the film does nothing to try and redeem Elphaba in the eyes of the Ozians. It’s just such an unearned ending and a really gaping hole in the film that leaves me with such a bad taste in my mouth and takes a lot of the shine out of any empowering message the entire Wicked franchise wants to go for.

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.