Is anyone surprised that “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble,” the two new Stephen Schwartz songs in Wicked: For Good, aren’t all that memorable? While it’s not impossible, there are very few movie musicals that pull off adding a new song.
Wicked: For Good was fighting an uphill battle. The new songs aren’t actively bad, and there are a lot of bad songs added to movie musicals for one reason or another. “Suddenly” from Les Miserables? Terrible. “Learn to be Lonely” in Phantom of the Opera? Just in the credits, thankfully, but still boring. “Beautiful Ghosts” in Cats? Hard pass. “Evermore,” in the live-action Beauty and the Beast? With so much love and respect to Dan Stevens, no thank you. I don’t even like Dear Evan Hansen, but even I know that “The Anonymous Ones” was unnecessary. The two Wicked songs just aren’t as good as their Act 2 companions, and don’t necessarily pull the threads they needed to pull in order to expand this story.
