Wicked ‘door scene’ is the moment Gelphie fans have been waiting 20 years for

Beware: Spoilers for the ending of Wicked: For Good

If you had told me before I went to see Wicked: For Good that Elphaba and Glinda’s “For Good” duet was not the most heart-breaking moment of the film, I would have assumed you: a) actually don’t understand the story b) have the empathy skills of a slice of raw potato c) hate women or d) all of the above.

But no, it’s not. The so-called door scene takes that award, and I don’t think I will ever recover from it.

Wicked: For Good, the second part of Jon M Chu’s two-part adaption of Broadway and West End hit musical Wicked, itself adapted from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 dark fantasy version of the original Wizard of Oz story by Frank L Baum, opened in cinemas on Friday (21 November).

It grossed $226 million (£173 million) worldwide on its opening weekend, setting a record for a film adaptation of a Broadway musical, and leaving even the first instalment in its wake.

The first part, which opened this time last year, won rave reviews, and songs from the film climbed mainstream music charts and gained a whole new legion of fans.

The sequel picks up a few years later and finds Elphaba – now in hiding and branded the Wicked Witch – still trying to convince the citizens of Oz of the wizard’s villainy, while working to liberate the increasingly oppressed animal population.

Glinda, on the other hand, given the title of “the Good”, is serving as the pure and beautiful spokesperson for the wizard, and is engaged to a disillusioned Fiyero. A series of complicated decisions, combined with the unexpected arrival of Dorothy from Kansas, sets in motion a chain of events that change the course of Oz forever.

The second act of the Wicked story – darker and more emotional – has long been anticipated by Gelphie fans.

Gelphie, a portmanteau of Elphie and Glinda, is the popular ship between the pair, with fans – going back as far as Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth’s performances on-stage in 2003 – believing that the relationship between the two witches has huge amounts of sapphic subtext and is not just a platonic friendship.

Beyond Gelphie, Wicked has attracted a passionate LGBTQ+ audience because of its themes of otherness, prejudice and equality, as well as the wider connection The Wizard of Oz has to queer history.  

While in the musical they are firmly established as friends, in Maguire’s book, Elphaba and Glinda share a kiss.

The scene reads: “She put her face against Glinda’s and kissed her. ‘Hold out, if you can,’ she murmured, and kissed her again. ‘Hold out, my sweet’. It was astounding how quickly she became camouflaged in the ragamuffin variety of street life on the Emerald City. Or maybe it was foolish tears blurring Glinda’s vision. Elphaba hadn’t cried, of course. Her head had turned quickly as she stepped down, not to hide her tears but to soften the fact of their absence. But the sting, to Glinda, was real.”

Maguire revealed, after Wicked hit cinemas in 2024, that Elphaba and Glinda’s sapphic tension in the novel was written on purpose.

“That was intentional, and it was modest and restrained and refined in such a way that one could imagine one of those two young women had felt more than the other and had not wanted to say it,” the author told Them. He went on to suggest that more could have happened between them but “I did not want to make a declarative statement about [it]”.

Over the years, and well before Maguire’s confirmation of their sapphic tension, Gelphie attracted thousands of fan fictions and pieces of fan art, with Grande, who once declared that Glinda was “a little bit queer”, admitting she had not realised how “graphic” some fan content can be and wished she could “unsee some things” when it came to “the Gelphie stuff”.

Fans have also picked up some details from the original Oz novels, first written by Baum in 1900, as evidence of Glinda’s lesbianism. In her later years, she lived in a palace “surrounded by her maids of honour, a hundred of the most beautiful girls of the fairyland of Oz”. A ladies-only, Ozian version of Hugh Hefner’s mansion sounds pretty gay to us, ngl.

The enemies-to-friends storyline, their opposites attract, those longing touches, looks and hugs documented in cast performances around the world, and conveyed in countless different languages, the lyrics in their duets that, if between a man and a woman, could undoubtedly be read as romantic: Gelphie has it all.

Their chemistry, intimacy and yearning in bucket loads, alongside the delicious angst, driven by the fact both women are victims of their own circumstances, has made it one of the most compelling, tragic and popular ships in musical theatre, if not the most popular WLW ship across all fandoms.

The ‘door scene’

Ok, let’s get into it: the “door scene”.

As the end of the story approaches, and an angry mob led by Dorothy and co, set out to kill Elphaba, Glinda urgently – but secretly – leaves the Emerald City on horseback to reach her friend.

At the castle where she is hiding, Elphaba gives Glinda the Grimmerie and urges her to make positive changes to Oz.

Realising this is the last time they will ever see each other, the pair bid their deeply emotional farewells and sing “For Good”, a duet about how they have changed each other’s lives for the better and so will always be connected.

Following this, Elphaba grabs Glinda’s hand and drags her over to a closet, insisting she stays hidden while she faces Dorothy. The two women admit they love each other before Elphaba closes the closet door and, through a split-screen, we see both of them, either side of the door, sobbing, leaning their heads against the wood and pressing a kiss to the physical barrier between them.

the most gut wrenching frame in cinematic history if you think about it pic.twitter.com/1wzXOfj1Pk

— GELPHIE REQUITED I LOVE YOUS?&?&?&?&? 🫥 (@dykeslayage) November 21, 2025

dorothy: i’m trapped in a basement and i just want to go home

toto: woof woof

glinda and elphaba: pic.twitter.com/vOipaFi4jH

— gelphie conquers all (@aIicentinchains) November 24, 2025

There is much to be said about the scene – entirely improvised by Erivo and Grande during the rehearsal process – that I am sure Gelphie fans will be analysing every second for years to come with the focus of a NASA technician launching a rocket into space.

Firstly, we finally got an “I love you” between Elphaba and Glinda in canon. Friendship or more, it is there, spoken between the two of them for our viewing pleasure. It will no doubt set sail a thousand fan edits.

Second, let’s talk about the fact that Elphaba put Glinda in a closet. It’s an old castle, I am sure there are a whole bunch of secret corridors or crumbled holes in the wall that she could have shoved Glinda into, but no, she pushes her into a literal closet. Could the symbolism be any more obvious?

Finally, it is entirely symbolic that it is a door separating them. A door, which either one of them could easily push open and change their fates. But instead they are trapped by their own circumstances, so the door remains closed.

It’s intense, tender and aching with longing, and the chemistry is so palpable that it makes you hold your breath. The sting of the loss is so apparent that it makes you feel as if you’ve been stabbed in the chest.

It is completely, entirely, utterly devastating. It’s absolutely Gelphie, through and through. In many ways, it feels like a love letter to the fans.

Alexa: play “Silver Springs”, by Fleetwood Mac.

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