Jon M. Chu always knew that the second Wicked film wouldn’t fully resemble the first. The director’s adaptation of the blockbuster musical brought theatergoers back to Oz last year, capturing the fizzy glamour found in the stage show’s first act. The movie was a smash hit, winning two Oscars and entering the words holding space into the cultural lexicon. Yet its sequel, Wicked: For Good, has to translate the musical’s notoriously knotty second act, which weaves the story of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, often messily, into the premise. Plus, there’s no “Popular” or “Defying Gravity”—no sparkly or soaring numbers to make the audience feel elated. Even the song that lends the sequel its title, “For Good,” is a tearjerker, a ballad about saying goodbye.

Wicked was a frothy coming-of-age

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