Everyone is in EMERALD CITY for the Festival of the Beast

Season 1, Episode 5 “Everybody Lies”
Written by David Schulner
Directed by Tarsem Singh

[Header image courtesy of David Lukacs/NBC]

Last week’s episode of Emerald City introduced us to Tin Man. Though Jack (Gerran Howell) is not a new character, his transformation into the role of Tin Man took place after his fall from the balcony during a situation with Tip (Jordan Loughran). Tip gets sold to a girls’ orphanage where West (Ana Ularu) and Glinda (Joely Richardson) fight over who should get him. Lucas (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Dorothy (Adria Arjona) find a little girl who adopts the name of Sylvie (Rebeka Rea) and can turn people to stone. Eamonn (Mido Hamada) ends up recognizing Lucas and calls him Roan. He later finds Lucas in the woods with Sylvie, and Ojo (Olafur Darri Olafsson) knocks Dorothy out as she escapes. For my full recap and review of last week’s episode, you can go here. This week’s episode is below!

We start off this week with Dorothy riding a horse with a bag over her head. It turns out Ojo’s taken her to Emerald City to see West, since she has a bit of a bone to pick with her over East’s (Florence Kasumba) death. We get the line that we’ve seen in most of the trailers with West leaning over Dorothy asking if she’s a good witch or a bad witch finally! This episode had a lot of Ularu in it, which I absolutely loved since she’s my favorite character and actress in the show! Her costume was more subdued for the first half of show, with the dress being mostly a full, semi-ruffled skirt with a sequined dark top to it, but it was still just as lovely as all of the rest.

Lady Ev (Stefanie Martini), whose masks are as extravagant as her dresses, arrives in Emerald City with her father, August, King Ev (David Calder) and Jack, who has undergone a slight makeover. His hair is shiny in a slicked-back coif and his clothes are upgraded and clean. The humor in the scene was pretty cliche, which is unusual for the show, as Jack’s hand flies off when they hit a bump and Lady Ev tells him to keep his hands to himself. King Ev seems so sweet, but you can already tell his age might be affecting him.

Eamonn arrives to his house and is greeted by his daughter. When Lucas comes in, she also recognizes him as Roan. Eamonn even calls him a friend. Their relationship did a complete 180 in this episode, as I previously thought Eamonn was after Lucas to kill him for some sort of betrayal. Because of the shift, Eamonn really started growing on me in this episode, and I’m interested to learn more about him and his relationship with Lucas.

We do find out a little about what happened to Lucas before he was found by Dorothy, though, and what might’ve happened to his memory. Eamonn tells him there was an insurgency involving magic, and that a lot of men died. Lucas is afraid he is responsible, but Eamonn trusts it wasn’t him. Apparently they were close friends before his memory was wiped, which may have been caused by the magic they were fighting in Nimbo.

When we get back over to West’s place, we learn that Ojo actually made a deal with her to free his wife from the Prison of the Abject in exchange for Dorothy. While we viewers could already guess that was a lie, since it has directly been discussed as virtually impossible in previous episodes, Ojo doesn’t know this information. I feel bad for him in this episode.

We also find out in this episode that Tip decided to join West in Emerald City. His current role is to prepare and deliver tea, but I’m sure that will change in the future. It seems his goal in going with West is to use her magic to turn back into a boy. Seeing as how this episode is all about lying, and we know West already lied to Ojo, it makes me curious if she made promises to Tip she can’t actually keep.

Dorothy denies involvement in East’s death, and she tries to trick West into killing herself, too. Unfortunately for Dorothy, it doesn’t go as planned. At the end of the last episode, while Dorothy and Lucas were in the woods talking about magic, we see Dorothy unloading the clip from her gun. I noticed at the time she didn’t eject the bullet that would’ve been in the chamber, but I let it go; however, it does come into play in this scene. West pulls the trigger, and nothing happens. Dorothy looks over to her bag and sees the clip on the ground, but because they never showed her ejecting that last bullet, there still should’ve been one in the gun itself, thus basically ending the show. It’s a minor error, but it’s something I noticed.

At the Wizard’s dinner party with Lady and King Ev, Jack, and his councilwomen, the setting seemed cozy yet extravagant. I really loved how the camera came into the party, and the round table gave a very King Arthur feel. Jack still hasn’t fully gotten used to his metal as he breaks a glass while refilling it, and Lady Ev really lays down the snark while talking about Anna, Elizabeth, and the Wizard’s weapons agreement. I think I like Lady Ev, but I’m just really not sure what her intentions are or who her character really is yet, so I can’t decide!

Over in West’s domicile, she performs a little trick to talk to Glinda through a silk scarf. It reminded me of the face in the mirror in some versions of Snow White, but the effects of the face-forming scarf weren’t the best I’ve seen from the show. When she gets done talking to Glinda, West seems upset as she storms out yelling for tea from Tip. After their conversation, she really seems to be taking a liking to Tip, and Miranda (Amber Rose Revah) does not seem happy about it.

Dorothy is still down in the dungeon trying to escape by sliding a large piece of glass over from the drink West smashed earlier when Miranda arrives. We find out the large tomb looking stone is actually covering a sewer river, and it’s immediately clear that Dorothy will plan to use that as her escape. This scene, though, made me heave, as not only do I hate glass injuries due to personal experience, I also despise foot injuries. Luckily for me, the show combined both when Miranda steps on Dorothy’s foot, crushing the glass underneath.

Sylvie scares Lucas awake and then actually speaks for the first time in the show. She says, “Lucas,” then suggests she can actually feel where Dorothy is. I’m very curious what the extent of her powers is! We’ve seen she can turn people to stone, we know her hearing is so great she blocks it out with shells, and now she can locate people. I wonder what else she can do.

My favorite effect in this episode is when West pulls Dorothy up from the ground. She yanks Dorothy through the air and stops her in a fun way that looks like bungee cords were used. She uses her mean, hurtful side to emotionally torture Dorothy by making fun of her for not knowing her mother. We see her take that a step further later in the episode, as well. After her torture, when she slams Dorothy to the ground, East’s gauntlets appear on Dorothy’s hands. When West grabs them, though, she has a very intense reaction and lights up like she’s on fire!

The Wizard continues his negotiation for weapons with August in private, but we quickly find out the extent of his ineffectiveness when he asks for the Wizard to bring his deceased dog back. It made my heart just break for the old guy who simply wants his friend back. The Wizard also realizes King Ev is no longer in charge, but when he approaches Lady Ev about it, we find out she actually hates the Wizard because he protected Emerald City and nowhere else during the last Beast attack, which lead to the death of her mother. Needless to say, she refuses to help him, and she actually hopes for the annihilation of Emerald City and the Wizard.

Tip finally admits to Dorothy that he was the boy she’d saved, but then turns his hate towards her for freeing him and causing him to turn into a girl. Because of this, he refuses to help her escape. A little later, Tip throws another woman in the cell with Dorothy, and it turns out to be Karen (Gina Bellman), Dorothy’s mother. I don’t understand why Dorothy drags her leg like she can’t use it at all since the only injury it appears she has is from the glass on the bottom of her foot, but maybe she was injured when slammed to the ground. When Karen starts telling Dorothy to just give West what she wants, it’s pretty obvious she’s West in disguise, especially since this isn’t the first time we’ve seen West turn into someone else to get the outcome she wants. She also jumps into Dorothy’s memories and realizes East was going to tell her about some secrets Glinda has.

Lady Ev makes a seemingly large change to her personality while talking to Jack. When she suggests she bought him partially to have a friend, he tells her you can’t buy friends, you have to make them. You do this by putting them above yourself and doing things together. She turns that around and suggests going to the Festival together instead of ordering him to go. I really can’t tell if she’s playing a trick on him or if she really is an out-of-touch princess trying to be strong and rule her city because of her father’s ailing health.

I usually love the costumes of this show, but the dress Lady Ev wears during the Festival of the Beast was quite strange. It looked like she was wearing the body of a life size Barbie doll with a dress and necklace permanent attached to it. While the dress itself was lovely, the top kept grabbing my attention and distracting me.

Eamonn goes to the Wizard for help with his gunshot wound, and when the doctor pulls the bullet out, the Wizard seems to recognize what it is. At the same time, Tip brings Dorothy her bag and the key to the sewer river because he doesn’t want to be responsible for a second death. He doesn’t know Jack is actually alive and in Emerald City. I’m both excited and nervous to see their reunion in the future.

After Miranda walks in on the pair trying to escape, we see that Glinda has arrived to interrogate Dorothy. This is my absolute favorite costume of hers so far! It looks soft and sparkly, and the overcoat and detail are amazing! I also love West’s dress. Hers are always so beautiful! It’s here we find out Tip may be a really great liar, as she tells West she had nothing to do with Dorothy’s escape, and West believes her. While yelling that she hates liars, she throws Miranda down the sewer, which is ironic, because West lies all the time.

Dorothy steps out of the end of the sewer just as a rush of water carries Miranda’s body out. This part made me really curious though. When Miranda opened the sewer earlier, we could hear the water rushing below. Now, though, the river only spits a small amount of water out with the body then stops. Did Dorothy go out through an overflow tunnel? Is there a channel that catches large objects and sends them a different way? I’m confused!

The Wizard obviously still has feelings for Anna as he shows her the bullet they got from Eamonn. He tells her it’s more powerful than magic and can kill the Best. Their interactions are making me want to see their relationship develop even more, so I’m interested to see how it unfolds in the future.

Lucas runs into the Wizard’s Guard while trying to find Dorothy with Sylvie, and he ends up fighting and killing several of them before questioning one. We get some really interesting backstory on Lucas/Roan finally! The guard tells him they pulled him over but he refused to let the Guard search his cart. Then he attacked them and killed 10 men before being taken down. We find out the stab wound in his side from when we first met him is from this guard. Because of this information, he turns himself in for fear of hurting anyone else, especially Sylvie. Sadly, that leaves Sylvie all alone to fend for herself again.

Lady Ev and Jack also find themselves in trouble when they get surrounded by some drunk festival goers. I just wanted to yell at Jack to hit the guy with his metal arm, or at least defend himself with his metal body. He does eventually do just that. He’s probably still not used to the fact he’s half metal, and he probably has never fought in his life. After winning against the group, he gets surprised with a kiss from Lady Ev, and a new ‘ship was born.

Lucas comes clean with Eamonn about his part in Nimbo while Toto finds Sylvie crying in the city. Toto has been absent this entire episode, and this is the only glimpse we get of him, but it’s nice to know he’s safe. West also admits to Ojo that she lied about being able to free his wife, and my heart broke for him, too. That scene also shows the hypocrisy of West saying she hates liars, unless she was actually confessing she hates herself, as well, which wouldn’t be a stretch for her character.

Pink Floyd plays as Dorothy makes her way up to the Wizard’s castle, and the music combined with the scenery gave me serious Labyrinth vibes! The security seems surprising lax, though, as she gets all the way up to the Wizard’s chamber with no one even questioning her. Once there, she pulls her gun and asks if he knows her mother. When he calls Dorothy by name, I got chills! There are so many questions from that one interaction, but my biggest one is if the Wizard is Dorothy’s father. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

What answers are you looking forward to in the rest of this season? What relationship is your favorite to watch? Comment below with your answers!

 

Emerald City airs Fridays at 9/8c on NBC. You can watch all of the episodes on the NBC app or site. Don’t forget to come back each week for our recap and review!