Monday, July 23, 2018

Lost in Oz, Chapter 26: We Speak Mirror

Dorothy and her friends have no trouble crossing the no-longer-deadly not-even-a-desert anymore. They even pick fruits off a lunchbox tree on their way back to Emerald City. The transdesert tunnel leads them into the city, where they hide out in Reigh's place to figure out a plan to get the Magic Belt away from Guph. Realizing that the only person Guph trusts is himself, they decide to use his own reflection to influence him. Since the magic workers don't have the powers to do that, it's up to Reigh and Dorothy to come up with a technological solution, and they eventually create a floor-length mirror with Reigh acting as Guph's reflection. His ego stoked by the new anonymous gift, Guph gets rid of his old compact and the reflection in it that he consulted with before. It takes some doing and some false starts, and they eventually have to turn Guph against his majordomo, Shaledon (yes, they went there with the rock puns), but they finally convince Guph to get rid of the Magic Belt so that it can't be stolen and used against him. It takes more skulduggery and Reigh's camouflage tech to find it, and then West has to create a portal through a fall in the Stick River (which is a pretty impressive effect) for Toto to retrieve the belt, but they succeed in the end. Once Guph sees the whole gang in his mirror with the belt, he tries to ornamentize them—which is a very foolish thing to do with a mirror, and Guph turns himself into an ornament instead. Glinda gives Roquat the Belt and starts to make arrangements to transport everyone, Nomes and Ozites, back to their respective homes, when Dorothy has an idea: What about reopening the transdesert tunnel for good, and allow the Nomes to reunify with Oz again? Sure enough, one of the last shots we see is peaple of all types—Munchkins, pastries, utensils, and even Nomes—living their lives in the Emerald City. So, Dorothy decides it's finally time to go back to Kansas. But Evelyn points out that she's also made so many friends in Oz, and grown up so much. They can therefore go back to Kansas, or make a new home in Oz. Just as she's about to answer—the closing theme starts!

About the only new additions are the lunchbox tree, and the Phanfasms get a mention (I don't think they've come up before), alongside the Growleywogs as a potential enemy of Guph. But this episode wrapped the show up very nicely. If we get no more Lost in Oz, it's a very satisfying conclusion, but I really hope we get more. I'd love to see Dorothy, Evelyn, and Toto stay in Oz, and the next season could be made up of one-off adventures or a series of shorter story arcs. I really like this version of Oz, and it would be a lot of fun to explore it without the country being in peril the whole time. It's also possible that they set up a second season with the story of how the Tin Woodman went missing. The lack of Nick Chopper was, in my opinion, the most glaring omission, so an arc involving a search for him would be a good way to continue the series and introduce the character at last. We also have no mention at all of Ozma yet, and a new Lost in Oz Wizard would also make for a good addition. There are also lots of characters from the books that haven't beet reintroduced yet, so the potential is there for this show to go on for some time.

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