NBC's Emerald City is a totally different version of The Wizard Of Oz than you might know. The new series premiered on Friday night and it featured totally different versions of beloved characters like Dorothy and The Scarecrow, along with new characters, like Tip, a young boy Dorothy encounters. So who is Tip in Emerald City and is he an NBC addition to the land of Oz? Believe it or not, Tip is a character from the L. Frank Baum Oz books, according to TVLine. During Tip's first moments in the series, Tip is identified as a young boy who is being held captive from the rest of the world in the woods by a woman who claims she is doing so as a form of protection. But Tip may have a much bigger role in Oz than you might expect.
Tip has bonded with Jack, who lives in the outside world, even though Tip can't leave home. When Dorothy and Lucas (aka The Scarecrow) come across Tip's home, Lucas is in search of a healer, meanwhile Dorothy notices that Tip is basically a prisoner in the house. By the end of the episode, Dorothy frees Tip, who runs off with Jack, and a spell seems to be visibly broken, because later viewers see that Tip is actually young woman with long hair, to the surprise of Tip and Jack.
In the original Oz books, Tip is actually Princess Ozma, according to the Washington Post, and she is a young woman who is fated to rule Oz. It remains to be seen if Tip is indeed Princess Ozma in Emerald City as well. TV Guide described the character as having a big role in the series and that Tip will "be a moving meditation on the complexities of gender identity and compassion for transgender individuals."
You can watch Tip's story unfold when Emerald City airs Fridays on NBC.
