Emerald City Season 1 Episode 5 Review: Everybody Lies

With “Everybody Lies,” we are now halfway through Season 1 of Emerald City.What do we have to show for it? Another inconsistent episode that managed to inspire some intrigue for its two most boring characters with a cliffhanger twist of an ending. Here’s everything that went down in “Everybody Lies”…

Jack and Lady Ev become something other than friends.

Jack’s “Tin Man” storyline continues to be one of the more compelling elements of Emerald City, though it took a it of a tonal turn in “Everybody Lies,” shifting away from the body horror of last week’s episode and turning into an unexpected relationship drama.

When Lady Ev and her king of a father travel to Emerald City to meet with the Wizard, Ev brings Jack along. It seems like your classic servant move — especially when Ev explains to her father than she owns Jack — but, as we eventually learn, she wants to be Jack’s friend. (Maybe you should stop dictating his movements and making him serve you, then? Just a suggestion, Ev.)

Things go better once Jack explains friendship to Lady Ev and the two attend the Celebration of the Beast together. When Jack saves Ev (who apparently doesn’t have royal bodyguards or her own self-defense moves), Ev rewards him with a kiss, that Jack seems to go for. Why is he romantically interested in the woman who bought him? Unclear, but, despite the unhealthy terms of their relationship, Jack and Lady Ev are one of the more organic relationships on a show that tends to go through the motions with many of its other bonds of friendship, romance, and camaraderie.

Tip helps Dorothy escape from West.

When Dorothy is delivered into West’s hands, things are not looking good for our non-reactive heroine. As West explains it to Dorothy, she is responsible for the death of the only person who loved West, and West is determined to find out what happened to her sister.

West uses her disguise trick to convince Dorothy that she is Karen Chapman, her mother, and reads Dorothy’s memories, learning that East was coming to tell West something about Glinda. (You don’t have to torture anyone to find out theat Glinda is hiding something. I just met her and I could have told you that.)

Before Glinda can arrive to question Dorothy herself, Tip helps Dorothy escape into the sewer, blaming it on West’s other servant, whom West than kills. So much for not having more blood on your hands, Tip.

Ultimately, the West Tortures Dorothy subplot was a bit of a snoozer. Though West continues to be one of the more compelling characters on the show, Dorothy continues to be one of the least, and it’s hard to get invested in either a) Dorothy’s well-being or b) what East was up to (given we never really knew her and she seemed like the worst). I do want West and Tip to join forces and take over Oz, though.

Lucas turns himself over to the Wizard’s guard.

In this week’s Lucas Escapades, Lucas ditches Eammon to look for Dorothy, then willingly gives himself up to Eammon again to face the crimes he apparently commited when he was Roan, member of the guard. So, basically, he spent the episode going in a circle.

According to the random guard Lucas bullies into telling the story, Lucas killed 10 of his fellow guards when they tried to look inside of the wagon he was driving. Um, OK? I smell magic. Was Lucas forced into doing something sinister by East? Why does no one else in this scenario suspect magic? And is there any point in prosecuting someone for a crime they don’t and might nevere remember? Discuss.

When Lucas turns himself into the Wizard guard, he also effectively leaves Sylvie to fend for herself in a strange city. Talk about missing the point. By trying to do “the right thing,” Lucas has abandoned a scared little girl with dangerous magical powers in the middle of a city run by a murderer who has banned magic. Priorities, Lucas.

The Wizard recognizes Dorothy.

Speaking of the homicidal creep running the city, Dorothy finally caught up with him, interrupting his Pink Floyd listening sesh to point a gun at him. (Because this is one of Dorothy’s few established character traits at this point: she likes to shoot people and/or make them shoot themselves.)

When Dorothy asks the Wizard if he knows her mother, Karen Chapman, the Wizard calls Dorothy by name and tells her she has come home. This makes for a pretty effective twist ending. Is the Wizard Dorothy’s father? (We’ve already basically established that he is a sexual predator.) If not, how does the Wizard know Dorothy? (Maybe they’re second cousins, twice removed.) Will Dorothy shoot the Wizard, escalating the situation for no apparent reason? (Probably.)

We’ll have to wait for next week to discover the answer to these questios and more. In the mean time, why not go let loose a paper lantern into the night sky. Seems like the thing to do.