#though kind of sucked to not see the original cast and two understudies

[superpotterdiaries]

I saw The Outsiders musical yesterday and it was awesome!

[multimetaverse]

HSMTMTS 1x10 Review

Act 2 was a great finale that capped off a great season though somewhat marred by Disney censorship. Let’s dig in!

Finally Ricky and Nini have found their way back to each other. Sweet callback to Ricky lighting Nini up with his phone as Nini does the same. Breaking Free was great though I had to keep pausing during the EJ to Ricky transition because it was so cringey. Ricky and Nini really do have the best chemistry on the show and it shines through this ep. Joshua did a great job improvising Ricky’’s confession to Nini as did Olivia reacting to it. Tim mentioned in an interview that originally Ricky was supposed to tell Nini that he thinks he kinda you knows in a callback to the premiere but on set he realized that it was too cheesy and decided to let Joshua come up with a confession based on memories of his and Olivia’s real life friendship. That was certainly the steamiest kiss we’ve yet seen on Disney + but it was well earned

 It speaks well of Tim that he recognized that his own writing wasn’t good enough and that he trusted his actors to take charge. It also goes to show how much of a difference it makes having the showrunner actually on set in Salt Lake, whether that was Tim or Disney’s decision. It’s a sharp contrast with Andi Mack where Terri the showrunner was based in LA and only rarely visited set while Michelle Manning was the producer in charge in Salt Lake, a split which I think hurt the show in some ways

That rainbow heart sign from the Mathew-Smith family was lovely. It’s great to see Seb’s family of Utah farmers being so supportive. This also confirms that Seb is out to his family, and since Miss Jenn seemed to greet Carlos’ father near the beginning of the ep it’s likely that Carlos is also out to his family

A historic first for Disney with a Seblos cheek kiss. Though of course while it’s progress it still isn’t equality. It’s not so much the Rini kisses that really drives home the inequality since they’re the main couple and were always going to kiss in the finale but rather it’s the Redlyn kiss. It’s not like Redlyn has gotten any real development nor did their story line really need a kiss so early. They got to kiss simply because they’re straight. That being said, it does once more show that the limits are looser on Disney +, we never would have gotten even a Tyrus cheek kiss on Disney Channel

Unfortunately Disney for the second ep this season released promotional photos of Seblos scenes that were cut from the episode itself. It’s not queerbaiting in the traditional sense but it is baiting the audience as they know that a lot of people are very invested in Seblos and seeing that rep on screen and Disney is willing to use that to draw in viewers while cutting the actual on screen rep down. What’s worse is that if it wasn’t for Disney itself letting us know that these scenes existed we’d never know that Seblos scenes were being cut. And of course, it’s a waste of time and money for the show to film these scenes only for them to be cut. A big complaint with Seblos this season has been their lack of development but that seems to be less on the writers who are in fact giving them more scenes then on Disney which is cutting them down to the bare minimum

It’s all shameless triangulation on Disney’s part, trying to be progressive but not so progressive as to alienate conservatives. It’s not like any homophobes are still watching the show after Seblos got together. So far it seems like the Disney censorship on HSMTMTS is coming mainly in post production like it was in Andi Mack S2 with the cut bash mitzvah scene and the edited look back which is awful but is still better than the much heavier censorship we saw in Andi Mack S3 that was coming in pre-production when things like Cyrus being able to talk about his feelings for TJ and vice versa were just never being written. Hopefully Seb being a main character in S2 means that the censorship lessens at least a bit or at the very least stays in the post production stage

In an interview done early on in the season, Tim talked about sometimes taking giant leaps and some times taking small steps in terms of the representation on the show and know we have a much better sense of what that means in practice. There was the giant leap of Seblos getting together at Homecoming and the small step of them kissing on the cheek. Afaik Tim hasn’t addressed the Seblos cheek kiss which is probably for the best and if he does I hope he has the good grace to not lie to the audience about his ability to have gotten an actual Seblos kiss approved. I do think we’ll eventually see a Seblos kiss though I think the earliest that could happen would be the S2 finale

Very telling that Ashlyn assumes EJ is behind Ricky’s exit and not a good look on EJ’s part to not tell Miss Jenn at least that Ricky left. . Good for him though for playing to lose and giving up the role of Troy to help Nini and Ricky. Confirmation that he paid for Gina’s ticket and we got our first Hell Yeah on the show. I don’t like it but it does seem like that scene was set up for Portwell in S2; at the very least it seems like Gina may have started to feel something for EJ

Pour one out for those poor audience members having to sit through that trainwreck of a second act. You know you’re really in trouble when you have to send your choreographer out there as an understudy

I loved Big Red’s little xylophone during the intermission 

Nice to see Nini and Gina end on a friendly, supportive note. Hopefully that continues next season

Kudos to Olivia and Matt for really selling the high school theatre actors barely keeping it together on stage aspect of the performance. Nini and EJ have so little chemistry that it’s almost hard to remember that they were dating for several months

Mr Darbus’ office set looked great. Nice touch to have Miss Jenn mouthing the lyrics to Wondering off stage

Lynne really sucks. Can’t say I’d miss her if we don’t see her in S2

Will be interesting to see how Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara save their jobs

Realistically I don’t think Nini’s performance was strong enough to earn a spot at YAC; someone like Gina or Seb would have been a much more credible choice imo. Nice touch to have the Dean leave through one door and Ricky the other

Now that the season is done it’s hard to see any traces of whatever more mature direction former showrunner Oliver Goldstick wanted to go in. The whole season seems very coherent and consistent in terms of tone. We did learn from Tim and Olivia that her song All I Want was a re-shoot so maybe it was a replacement for a song or scene that was pushing the envelope more than Tim and Disney wanted

One thing that may or may not be connected is that EJ’s panic attacks from the original character breakdown made no appearance this season and who knows if we’ll ever seen EJ having panic attacks or suffering from anxiety. Disney seemingly had no trouble showing Jonah’s panic attacks on Andi Mack which is doubtless where HSMTMTS took the idea from but it’s also true that Jonah’s anxiety story line was abandoned halfway through S3 and though it’s likely just the result of bad writing it can’t be ruled out that Disney got cold feet over focusing on mental health in both Andi Mack and HSMTMTS

Looking Ahead:

One benefit of this review being so late is that we now know the spring muscial! Beauty and the Beast which seems to suggest that all future musicals will be Disney owned properties

Tim also confirmed that they will still be incorporating songs from HSM 2 and 3 into the show which will certainly help pad out the 16 extra songs they’ll be doing in S2. Having 12 eps will be a big help to the show; 10 eps just wasn’t enough to properly deal with all the characters and plots

HSMTMTS really turned out to be a delight and while I think S2 will be as well there are definitely potential issues ahead that will need to be deftly dealt with. Nini either going away to YAC and then coming back to SLC or just not going to YAC is probably going to be wrapped up in an unsatisfying manner. In all honesty this kind of plot would have worked much better if it had been saved for Nini’s senior year

Whatever plan Ashlyn is cooking up to keep Gina in SLC is also probably going to be poorly done as there’s no reason Gina’s mother would willingly leave her daughter in another state

EJ is either leaving the show after he graduates or they’re going to have to contrive some way to keep him around East High in future seasons

Seb now being a main will be interesting, if nothing else to see what Disney’s limits are. Tim has hinted at their being drama for Seblos in S2 and I hope that it serves to develop them and is not just a means to keep them apart so there can be two gay mains but no gay relationship. As an aside Tim revealed that Joe originally auditioned for EJ which is wild; it’s funny that both Joshua Rush and Joe Serafini auditioned for EJ when neither of them had any realistic chance of being cast

I have no strong feelings on the cast list for Beauty and the Beast though I do think it’s likely that either Kourtney or Gina end up playing Belle as I think having a black girl play Belle is just the type of subversion that would appeal to Tim. Miss Jenn did say that she wanted Kourtney to come speak to her over break and while Gina is a bigger character I’m not sure if Sofia’s singing is quite good enough to carry the lead in the musical while I think Dara’s definitely is 

I’d say it’s very likely EJ ends up either as the beast or as Gaston since he’s in what should be his last semester. And if Gina also gets a big role it would make it easier to play with Portwell in S2. If EJ is the beast I could see Seb getting Gaston in another subversion of expectations. Regardless I think with Seb now being a main and with Joe having one of the strongest voices in the cast that he’ll play an important role

Until next season Wildcats