Emerald City S1E05 “Everybody Lies” (Recap, Spoilers)

“Everybody Lies” begins with Dorothy’s arrival in Emerald City, although since Ojo has a burlap bag over her head, she can only guess where the Munja’kin has led her. Her hands are bound, and Ojo leads her horse through streets crowded with the throes of a celebration.

Mistress West pulls off Dorothy’s hood, and asks “are you a good witch or a bad witch?” The festival is good for West’s business, as the brothel is bustling as well.

Jack rides in a four horse carriage with King August and Princess Langwidere of Ev. The King is surprised and a little happy to see the excitement in Emerald City at their arrival, to which Langwidere replies that “it’s because he wants something from you.”

“Cynical girl,” says her father good-naturedly.

“Cynicism is just an unpleasant way of telling the truth,” she retorts.

King August asks Jack who he is, to which a frustrated Jack answers that they’ve already met, and his tone implies that he has identified himself several times to the monarch.

“And how do you know my Langwidere?” continues August.

“He’s my property,” answers Langwidere. “He’s indentured to me for the cost of his metal.” When the carriage hits a bump, Jack’s prosthetic hand flies off to land in her lap, and she says, “you know, you really ought to keep your hands to yourself.”

Eamonn is welcomed home by his daughter, who also recognizes Lucas as Rowan. Lucas promises Sylvie that they will find Dorothy soon, then asks Eamonn, “why are you helping me?…I don’t know who Rowan is…all I know is I was found in Nimbo and left for dead…”

“It’s you. A soldier, my best soldier, the best I’ve ever known but you don’t remember that…There was an insurgency. A lot of my men were killed.”

“Could I be a traitor?” asks Lucas.

“You didn’t kill those men. You’re not that kind of man. You’re to stay here and not leave the house. If those men catch you, they’ll finish the job for sure,” Eamonn says, then falls to the floor. Lucas cries for help.

Back in Dorothy’s cell, Ojo says, “This is the woman who killed your sister. i trust you will be fair.”

West promises, “Fair with you, yes, not so much for her.”

Ojo continues, “You said you would free my wife Nahara from The Prison of the Abject.”

West responds, “my magic can do a great many things. Come back tomorrow, and your wife will be waiting.”

When Ojo leaves, West screams for “Tea!” Tip, carrying the tea service into the cell, recognizes Dorothy.

“Where were we?” asks West. “Good witch or bad witch. There’s no wrong answer. Unfortunately, there’s no right one either.” When Dorothy denies killing East, West goes into a rage, yelling that she “will suck the lies from you like marrow from a bone.”

Dorothy tells West to look in the backpack. West finds the gun, and when she asks what kind of magic it is, Dorothy says “strong enough to kil a witch.”

“So this is how you killed her. It was here, right here,” West says, tapping the barrel to Dorothy’s temple, “This may come as a surprise, but I’m not easily loved, and you murdered the only person who was able to.” But when West squeezes the trigger, the gun clicks, and doesn’t fire. Dorothy spots the cartridge lying on the floor.

“Lying to me was a very bad idea,” says West, then pistol whips Dorothy.

In The Wizard’s dining room, a table is laid for The Wizard, Anna, Elizabeth, King August, and Princess Langwidere. The Wizard rings his glass several times, and says:

I would like to propose a toast to my good friend August, the King of Ev. Welcome to The Festival of The Beast, where masks symbolize unknown terror, and we celebrate the day that I vanquished that terror fro our land. But when the two moons become one, The Beast will return, and it will be worse, obliterating everything in its wake. But if you build us weapons, with our expert knowledge, your technological prowess…

The Wizard is interrupted when Jack, who is trying to serve them, shatters a brandy decanter with his prosthetic fingers. Langwidere laughs, and The Wizard smiles, nods his head, and continues, “We will defeat it…”

Langwidere interrupts. “You say you have expert knowledge; tell me what expert knowledge would this be.”

Anna answers, “We know that this Beast will come from the sky, where not even the giants can reach. It will have a heart, and it will think and it will feel…because of that it can be killed.”

When Elizabeth looks away, and down at her lap, Langiwdere notices the councilor’s quiet dissent, and asks if Elizabeth disagrees.

Elizabeth remarks politely that they both read the signs differently, but Langwidere makes the obvious observation that only one of The Wizard’s councilors can be right. “Are you the dumb one then?” she asks, intent on provoking an argument at the table.

“I believe Anna has misread…” begin Elizabeth, but The Wizard cuts her off by hammering on the table and shouting “Elizabeth!”

Anna says “No, my signs are clear.”

Langwidere then smiles through her golden mask, and says “My dear Wizard. II seems you have an abundance of expert counsel; the only problem is, they don’t seem to agree.”

West invokes Glinda’s face and voice from a fluttering sheet, so that they might communicate across the miles. When West informs Glinda of Dorothy’s captivity, Glinda orders West not to do anything with Dorothy until Glinda’s arrival. West says she’ll do as she pleases, then yells for tea.

“You don’t have to yell. My ears haven’t changed,” says Tip.

“Were you this insolent as a boy?”, asks West.

“Why don’t you turn me into one and find out?”

“Everybody wants to be something they’re not! Stop thinking you’re so special!” shouts West.

When Tip holds her tongue and makes West’s tea, West goes on, saying “What? Did I hurt your feelings?”

“Only the people you love can make you angry,” says Tip, “so angry you want to strangle them, throw them off a building. The ones you don’t hate, you don’t really love either.”

West is so affected by this, that she takes Tip’s hand, pulls it toward her, and smiles.

“Mistress,” says an arriving handmaiden.

“Miranda,” West orders, “go downstairs and see if the prisoner is awake, and take the chamberpot on your way out.”

At Tip’s concern, West tells her, “Now don’t mind her.”

“Who is she?”

“The old you.” Before Miranda leaves the room, we can see that she looks cold and uncomfortable at this change in her fortune from having lost West’s favor.

In the cell, Dorothy, whose hands are still bound, attempts to grab broken glass with her toes. As Miranda enters with a fresh chamber pot, Dorothy conceals the broken glass with her bare foot. Miranda opens a large trap door to empty the old chamber pot, and the sound of rushing water emerges.

“Is there a river down there?” asks Dorothy.

“Sewer,” says Miranda. “Were you thinking about a swim?” She locks the trap door, then steps on Dorothy’s foot, which pushes her arch and heel into the shard.

Sylvie kicks Lucas to wake him up. “Lucas,” she says, “Dorothy here!” At Lucas’s question as to how Sylvie knows this for sure, the little girl taps her heart.

West and Tip enter Dorothy’s cell. Are you comfortable,” asks West, “or do you need a good stretch?” The witch’s magical gesture yanks Dorothy to her feet, pulls her forward until she bends backwards a little, and then dangles her in the air. “Look at me,” she barks, and Dorothy’s head turns.

“Glinda will be coming tomorrow and expect information from you, but you’re going to give it to me first. When you killed my sister…she was on her way to see me. What was she coming to share? Were you acting as someone’s agent when you murdered her? On orders to keep her from telling me her secrets? Who is K Chapman?”

West is now holding the work uniform which Dorothy found in “Mistress–New Mistress.”

Dorothy says she doesn’t know, but when West turns the screws of her spell, Dorothy admits that “she was my mother.”

“She should have told you how to tell you the truth.”

“I’m not lying, I’m not lying. I don’t know her,” confesses Dorothy.

Your own mother? Even dogs know the bitch from whence they came. My mother, Mistress of the South, birthed over a thousand children before she died. She gave life to every witch in Oz, and even she found time to care for me, nurture me. But your mother couldn’t care less about one baby girl. How rotten do you have to be for that? She must have scented out something in you that’s broken and couldn’t ever be fixed.

Dorothy’s response is to tell West to go to hell, at which West gestures so that Dorothy falls to the stone floor. On impact, East’s gauntlets appear on Dorothy’s hands, and when West tries to remove them, the witch’s body is attacked by an orangish glow.

The Wizard, walking with the King of Ev, asks August if he will build the arsenal they need to fight The Beast. When The Wizard asks August to name his price, the old monarch says “I want my dog back. Randall died last year…I think it was last year. If you can bring Randall back to me, that would be splendid.”

The scene cuts to Langwidere, who is taking in the view from one of The Wizard’s towers when The Wizard approaches her and remarks, “Ijust had a revealing conversation with the king. How long have you been ruling in his stead.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replies Langwidere. “I’m just an insolent child. Isn’t that what you said?…I was too young to remember the last attacks, but I grew up in its wake, the rebuilding of our kingdom…When The Beast Forever came, you saved Emerald City and left my kingdom to drown, my people to drown, my mother. If you had thought to save us, she’d still be alive.”

When The Wizard remarks that “it was a great tragedy, that was a great loss,” Langwidere retorts “I may be the one wearing a mask, but I can see through yours just as clearly.”

The Wizard tells The Princess that she can have anything she wants, but she telle him that she only wants “to see Emerald City laid to waste, and I want to see you drown in its suffering. And when The Beast returns, I shall have my wish.”

While pacing her cell and fiddling with the sewer lock, Dorothy hears Tip coming, and calls through the door “Help me, please!” Tip opens the service window in the door to hand Dorothy her meal.

Tip responds to Dorothy’s repeated requests for help with “You don’t recognize me, do you? I was the boy you saved from Mombi…I don’t know who I am because of you…you helping me was the worst thing that ever happened, so now I’m going to do what I wish you’d done for me–walk away.” Miranda, hiding behind a corner, overhears the two, and now knows that Dorothy and Tip are acquainted.

Lucas and Sylvia, entering The Festival of the Beast, pass by street entertainers and a vendor of roasted chestnuts. At the siight of Wizards’ Guard, Lucas dons a long horned black mask that Sylvie finds very frightening. He reassures Sylvie that it is still him.

When Karen Chapman is tossed into Dorothy’s cell, Dorothy is so strung out from her captivity and shocked to see the woman that she believes is her biological mother, that she believes it. They embrace, and Karen apologizes for not being there when Dorothy needed her most. When she puts the squeeze on Dorothy, we know she’s not what she appears: “If you just tell this witch what she needs to know, then we can go home…hey you just have to think back to when you killed the witch.” And when Dorothy begins to recall East’s fate in “The Beast Forever”, Karen rants “Glinda, she was trying to tell me about Glinda,” then smacks Dorothy to the ground. When Dorothy lifts her head, she sees that she has been hugging West.

“Hurry up,” Langwidere tells Jack, “we’re going to miss the festival. I said hurry up.”

“Why should I do anything you say?” retorts Jack.

“Because I’m a princess.”

“You’re the worst human being that I’ve ever met,” he says, and as this not only visibly affects Langwidere, but silences her as well, Jack continues to dig:

“What am I even doing here? You obviously hate me, and now you want me to what, eat candied apples with you? Or am I supposed to trail behind you like some kind of pet? Or maybe I’m here to entertain you so you laugh at my clumsiness, my freakishness? Is that it? What do you want from me?”

“You’re my friend,” answers Langwidere. “Why are you laughing?”

“Do you even know what a friend is? Have you even had one before?” asks Jack.

“I’ve always wanted a friend. I just didn’t know where to get one.”

“No, you don’t get one, you earn one…by thinking of them before yourself, trying to be helpful, encouraging, or just doing things together.”

“Like going to a featival,” says Langwidere.

“I guess,” says Jack, and the Princess holds our her hand.

 

While a surgeon removes the bullet in Eamonn, The Wizard debriefs his Wizard’s Guard Captain. “I don’t know what kind of power she used,” answers Eamonn, “but one moment I was up and the next down.”

“It was this,” remarks the doctor, holding up the bullet. “Do you know what it is?” The Wizard’s look of recognition is so blatant that he doesn’t have to answer.

Tip enters Dorothy’s cell, saying “I’m already responsible for one death. I don’t want to be responsible for another.”

But before Tip can free Dorothy, Miranda steps in with a dagger. “Our mistress will be so pleased,” she says. “She won’t mind the mess one bit.”

Glinda arrives at West’s overbooked brothel with a disapproving look on her face, and West leads her to Dorothy’s cell. Along the way, West brags about how many secrets Dorothy spilled already, and how many more there could be, “the ones our sister died with.” While Glinda looks uncertain, she denies keeping secrets, especially from “West, you’re the only family I have left. Let time not be our enemy as well.”

West asks, “You hadn’t seen her in years?”

“Did the girl say differently?” responds Glinda. At this moment, they enter Dorothy’s cell, to find only Miranda, whose arms are trapped in the closed sewer door. Glinda leaves, enraged.

Miranda, sobbing, says, “I tried to stop them, but they overpowered me.”

“Who is they!” shouts West.

Miranda indicates Tip, who has just walked in with West’s tea.

“Where is the girl?” accuses West.

“Mum?”

“Tell her what you did!” screams Miranda.

“What I did?” says Tip.

“I walked in on her helping the prisoner. They…slammed this weight on me!”

“Is this true?” asks West.

“Mum, I’ve been preparing your tea all morning–just like you asked.”

Miranda shouts, “Liar! She’s lying!”, but West, with a gesture, flings the sewer gate open.

West says, “Did you help the girl out of spite? To hurt her mistress as much as she hurt you?”

“No mistress, I would never…look into her soul, and you’ll see!”

“If there’s one thing I cannot stand,” howls West, “It’s a liar,” and, with a blast of magic, hurls Miranda into the sewers.

The scene cuts to Dorothy, exiting the sewers just ahead of a wave of water that washes down the cliffs into the ocean, towing Miranda’s body in its wake.

Jack and Langwidere are taking in The Festival of the Beast when Jack apologizes for King August’s creeping dementia. Langwidere says, “he’s not sick, he’s simply leaving us…without leaving us.”

“So this is what it’s like to feel normal,” she continues.

“Can I ask you something,” asks Jack.

“Why do I wear a mask? I’ll tell you when we’re friends.”

Anna observes the festival from the tower parapet when The Wizard approaches to show her “…a bullet. More powerful than magic, something so powerful that it can kill the beast forever. Then we’ll really have something to celebrate”

On stage, puppeteers bring the illusion of a massive dragon to the festival. Dorothy steals a mask from a vendor on one side of the stage, while elsewhere in the festival, Lucas and Sylvie are trapped in an alley by Wizard’s Guard.

After Lucas defeats them pretty handily, Lucas asks a survivor why they’re pursuing him.

“Nimbo…there’s a wagon you drove. We pulled you over, and you drew your sword…we tried to see what was inside, but you wouldn’t allow it, and you came at us with sword drawn. Ten men you killed, cut them down like they were nothing…if you don’t believe me look at your left side. That’s where I stabbed you before you went down.”

Lucas lets the guard go, staggers, kneels, and puts his hands up. When Sylvie hugs him, he tells her that he has to answer for his crimes and that she must promise him not to use magic.

When Langwidere reaches out to Jack, he takes her hand. At that moment, they are accosted by four hoodlums.

“Excuse me, sweetheart, but that’s a pretty mask. I wonder whether there’s a pretty face behind it, or an ugly one,” says one. “I mean, how about we take a look.”

“Leave her alone,” says Jack

“I think we have a hero here, yeah,” laughs the hoodlum. “You really want to be a hero, well, you’re going to have to try a little harder than that.” He punches Jack in the face, and Jack falls.

“Leave him alone this instant!” calls out Langwidere. “Stop it, I command you.”

“Ooh she command me,” he chortles, and kicks Jack.

“Stop, please!” When the other hoods pick Jack up off the ground, however, he punches Jack in the stomach–and screams as he breaks his hand on Jack’s metal abdomen.

Jack then hits him back with his mechanical arm, and we hear a crunch as the man falls back. Realizing his own power, Jack begins to fight the attackers in earnest. While they land many blows on his metal torso, they are more damaging to themselves than to him, and he clubs them repeatedly with the mechanical power of his new body until they are all sprawled on the ground.

“Are you ok,” he asks, and Langwidere nods. “You’re scared of me,” he persists. “Then why are you looking at me like that?” The Princess then turns her head so that the long nose of her mask slides left along his cheek as she kisses him

“Friends don’t do that,” says Jack.

“Then let’s be something else.”

Elizabeth plays a recording from a flying monkey that shows Glinda arguing with East, who blasts back the other witch with a magical spell. “Are you certain this is the day my mistress died?” Elizabeth assures her that it was.

The Wizard’s Guard bring a manacled Lucas straight to the surgeon’s operating chamber, where Eamonn, sitting on a table, says “Rowan! Release him.”

“No,” says Lucas, “Your men were right about me. I killed them, all of them.”

Ojo demands that West produce Nahara from The Prison of The Abject. “Mistress, you said tomorrow. Tomorrow is here. Nahara is not.”

West admits that she lied. “Everybody lies.”

From here, Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” plays, although you should start the following video at 1:13 to hear the section of the track which this episode samples.

A masked Dorothy limps through Emerald City, then up and up steps, until she finds herself in a living room decorated with low tech relics such as a huge electrical chandelier, electric lamps, what might be a hookah, a grammophone, an iron fireplace, and an old Walkman, which is playing “Breathe.”

When Dorothy stops the cassette, The Wizard jumps up from his chair.

“Pink Floyd?” says Dorothy. While you can hear the question mark in Dorothy’s voice, it isn’t so much of a question as a judgment.

“How did you know that?” says The Wizard

“We both come from the same place, don’t we?”

“Are you here to kill me,” asks The Wizard.

“Do you know my mother? Karen Chapman?”

“Dorothy? Oh my god! Dorothy, you’ve come home!”

Credits roll.

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