Emerald City Review: Mistress-New-Mistress (Season 1 Episode 3)

It’s always great to see a story heavily revolve around interesting female characters.

Given that Emerald City is supposed to be a fresh take on The Wizard of Oz, one would think that the most interesting characters would be Dorothy, West, and Glinda, but, no.

Emerald City Season 1 Episode 3, “Mistress–New–Mistress” belongs to Tip and Anna.

Tip’s storyline is the front-runner for strongest plotline at this point in the series.

Perhaps it is because the source material is not as ubiquitous as The Wizard of Oz, or maybe it is because the transgender allegory seems so current, but the teen’s struggle with her sudden gender transformation is far more interesting than anything our heroine from Kansas is doing.

The success of Tip’s story shines a light on one of the failures of this interpretation of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is supposed to be a child – an innocent – lost and alone, trying to make her way through a bizarre land with the help of strangers.

Instead, we have a grown woman making eyes at a handsome stranger while besting bad guys. Viewers have seen that story before – and they’ve seen it done with more humor, better chemistry, and higher stakes.

In Tip, however, we get an innocent with the odds stacked against her.

She was recently orphaned – even if her guardian was more of captor than a parent.

She’s struggling to come to terms with her new identity and the loss of hope she experiences after discovering she was born female.

The only person she has to rely on, Jack, has gone from her best friend to a hormonal teenager who can’t stop staring at her breasts.

When Jack kisses her, causing her to shove him away in anger and to his accidental death, it is heartbreaking. Now she is not only alone and confused, but she has the weight of the death of her best friend on her shoulders. More of that story, please!

In Emerald City, Anna is stepping up and becoming the wisest council in Oz.

She may be the daughter of a prostitute, but as The Wizard points out to her, it’s not your past that matters. What matters is who you wish to be and how hard you’re willing to fight for it.

Anna clearly wishes to be The Wizard’s closest advisor (and possibly more). She proves to be the smartest of Glinda’s girls by quickly solving the mystery of West’s suicidal prostitutes and correctly predicts the form The Beast will take when it comes again in eight days.

She’s also the only one smart enough to realize that The Wizard doesn’t have control of his giants. She’s even brave enough to confront him, even though it lands her in a jail cell.

Meanwhile, Dorothy and Lucas visit the castle of the Mistress of the East. Dorothy pretends to be the acolyte of the recently deceased witch by attempting to “settle the weather.” Although she fails, she discovers that her mother had previously been in Oz as an interloper brought by The Wizard.

Now Dorothy and her mommy issues are off to see The Wizard, even though he wants her dead.

What did you think of this episode of Emerald City? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Emerald City airs Fridays at 9/8c on NBC.

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