How It All Goes Down
- The Witch finally returns home and fills Nanny in on things.
- Elphaba starts using her returned mirror, the one Turtle Heart made:
She thought: the Witch with her mirror. Who do we ever see but ourselves, and that's the curse. (5.11.21) - She realizes that Dorothy reminds her of herself as a kid.
- She then has an extremely vivid flashback to her childhood in Quadling Country.
- She sees Frex going to Turtle Heart's family to apologize for his death and an old woman hits Frex. Frex asks the crowd if Elphaba isn't "punishment enough" for him (5.11.31).
- Elphaba the child witness never quite gets over that.
- Elphaba the adult also starts drinking from the Miracle Elixir bottle and starts having vivid dreams of the Other World.
- She sees the Wizard's life story: he's a poor Irish guy, looking for work and failing.
- She also sees his attempted suicide. He tries to drown himself in the ocean, which terrifies the water-phobic Elphaba.
- Nanny confirms that Melena had similarly weird dreams of the Other World.