I'm not entirely sure why it's considered Part 2 of Season 1 rather than simply Season 2. It does pick up right where the first batch of 13 episodes left off, and has its own brand new story arc that is completed in another 13 episodes.
This time around, Dorothy, Toto and the Scarecrow are stranded in Dorothy's house in the Deadly Desert. Thanks to a magic flying "carpet," they are able to leave the house and try to make their way back to Oz. However, they wind up in the Nome Kingdom, where they meet Roquat, the spoiled young king of the Nomes who has a penchant for turning whoever displeases him into an ornament.
Luckily, Dorothy is able to befriend Roquat and with him, they escape the Nome Kingdom. However, General Guph decides to move in and take over as King of the Nomes and makes plans to invade and take over Oz!
There's a lot going on in this batch of episodes, and I watched it all in a space of 36 hours. I don't want to spoil much as there's a number of twists and turns. I'll tell you that Dorothy's mother does play a big part in this season, and West gets to develop more. The ending is nicely set up to either conclude the show or continue on later.
The show doesn't talk down to kids, it's exciting, it's funny without being crass. It's not a perfect continuation of the Oz Baum wrote about, but when it's this good, I can let that slide. This is a show for kids, families, and adults. Highly recommended.
I suspect this is part 2 of season 1 because they initially ordered twenty-six episodes—or at least twenty-five additional episodes after the successful pilot. All the production delays that resulted in "Extended Adventure" (the initial compilation movie of the first three episodes), however, probably meant that they couldn't get all the episodes done in a timely manner, and Amazon wanted to drop something sooner rather than later. So they focused on getting the first thirteen done, then dropped them to give the crew time to finish the second batch. But this is just informed speculation, I have no idea if this is really the case.
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