Warning: This article contains spoilers for Wicked: For Good.
The creators of Wicked made a wise decision to remove a scene from the sequel, and it was for the best. Dana Fox, the screenwriter of Wicked: For Good, revealed that a passionate kiss scene between Ariana Grande's Glinda and Jonathan Bailey's Fiyero was cut to ensure audiences had a more positive opinion of their characters.
Originally, the scene was meant to be more intimate, with the two actors' characters set to wed until Fiyero's true love, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), returned from her hiding. "It was romantic and beautiful, but a little too passionate," Dana told Deadline in an interview published on November 21st. "Seeing that made it too hard to watch him make the choice he makes to be with Elphaba and made it too hard to make it OK that Elphaba ran off with him. It was too real that he and Glinda were actually feeling something together."
Fiyero and Glinda's relationship is barely touched upon in the film, with Glinda announcing her engagement to Fiyero, unbeknownst to him, while giving a public speech to the citizens of Oz. Dana felt that insinuating there were true feelings between the pair made it seem cruel for Fiyero to run off with Elphaba. "It was like a feeling that he really did love her—which he does care about Glinda a lot, don't get me wrong," Dana continued. "But he likes her in a different way."
By keeping Glinda and Fiyero's relationship from seeming like something deeper, Dana hoped to prevent viewers from blaming any one character in the love triangle. "This scene was too romantic, so it was like, 'Oh, we can’t know that because then our brains will explode when he doesn’t choose her in the end,'" Dana explained. "And then we’ll hate Elphaba, Glinda, and Fiyero."
Ultimately, she was happy with the decision to leave it out of the film. As she put it, "Everything we cut, I felt we cut for exactly the right reasons."
