High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Recap: “New Year’s Eve”
“When I hear my favorite song. I know that we belong.”
(I’m trying out something new here on Saoirse Ronan Deserves an Oscar. The Monthly Re-Up columns aren’t achieving, creatively, what I hoped they would for me, so I’m shelving them for now. Instead, I’m going to try my hand at weekly recaps for a show I feel like has become a strong niche around this part of Medium: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The series airs weekly on Fridays on Disney Plooos. “New Year’s Eve” was directed by Kimberly McCullough and written by Tim Federle.)
Last December, Disney Plooos released High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special as an interlude between seasons one and two of the similarly, convolutedly titled High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The December release date for the special was likely situated at the same time the second arc for the show was slated to begin its weekly run — before the COVID-19 pandemic delayed filming on it and every other television show in existence.
During that special (ingeniously conceived by series creator Tim Federle as being distinctly Zoom-less), I hoped for a surprise release date announcement for season two. I certainly didn’t anticipate the show not returning until May 14 (a full year and a third after the first season had wrapped). I savored the holiday special that much more, as it was the only chance to revisit the musical theater group of East High for another season and a half. It’s May now, though, and yesterday’s season two premiere, “New Year’s Eve,” showed us all that it was not only worth the wait; it was exactly the same show we’d all fallen in love with in November of 2019. (Those in the know also know it quickly usurped The Mandalorian as the most hotly anticipated week-to-week drop during the nascent programming of the Plooos. I wrote quite a bit about that phenomenon during The Television Project: 100 Favorite Shows.)
The episode began with a performance of “Something in the Air,” a euphoric, holiday-themed tracking shot number akin to those lip dubs every school feels the need to do. (Not every school is as insanely talented as East High, which has some of the best dancers and singers in the country, high school or otherwise.) Coupling that with the song Ricky (Joshua Bassett) wrote as a gift for Nini (Olivia Rodrigo), “The Perfect Gift,” and the season got off to a rollicking, Christmassy vibe. When you’re someone like me, you love Christmas-set storytelling whenever you can get it. When you’re a show like High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (which previously deployed its cast to Disney’s Christmas Day parade to promote season one), you’re right at home in the festivities. Not only was I already nostalgic for season one, but I was nostalgic for that holiday special from nearly half a year ago. This show never lets up that enchantment.
Most of the episode is spent on a different holiday, though: the titular New Year’s Eve. (New Year’s Eve is also the celebration that began the entire HSM franchise when Troy and Gabriella first met.) It seems like the homage-laden trajectory of the series is initially slated to continue, as Miss Jenn (Kate Reinders) flashes a DVD of High School Musical 2 and Ricky performs a workshop rendition of “Bet On It” for Big Red (with apt choreography — I should know — right down to Troy’s (and Zac Efron’s) fascination with his own hand). But if you’re a devoted enough fan of the series to read this recap, then you also knew it was a foregone conclusion that season two would actually revolve around a production of Alan Menken’s Beauty and the Beast.
This pivot was actually woven into the story quite naturally and with much respect paid towards Menken himself whom, with Howard Ashman, is responsible for rescuing Disney with 1989’s The Little Mermaid. Yet, the under the sea musical has already been called dibs upon by Zack (Derek Hough, new for season two), the former boyfriend of Miss Jenn-turned-Broadway star-turned-visiting drama teacher of North High. He runs into Miss Jenn and Carlos (Frankie Rodriguez), who are continuing to eschew all social boundaries between teacher and student, at a costume shop. There, he reveals North’s plans for a Mermaid revival, complete with a thousand-gallon aquarium.
By producing a Menken musical, Zack ensures that his show will be eligible for a set of awards given to productions that celebrate the prolific songwriter. Miss Jenn’s midnight, furtive pivot to Beauty and the Beast over HSM2 is a decision borne partially out of a desire to make her students eligible for awards, but also to prove herself to ex. After all, he said the one thing you should never say to a teacher: that her career was a back-up plan.
Hough is definitely embedded in the current Disney hierarchy of celebrities, but he did not monopolize the screen when he turned up on it. The show still belongs to East High and while some antagonism from a pre-established star will sneak in, this first episode was a promising indication that he’s not about to tear down everything we loved about season one.
On top of that, the episode still managed to pay proper homage to the original 2007 HSM follow-up with a mashup of “Fabulous” (allowing for Seb (Joe Serafini, now a series regular) to briefly return to the Sharpay character), “All For One” (providing everyone in the group with a lyric), and “You Are the Music in Me” (which initially flips the singers by letting Ashlyn (Julia Lester) and Gina (Sofia Wylie) duet before turning it back to Ricky and Nini, who have their own Moulin Rouge!-esque, fantastical, “in the zone” moment akin to Nini’s series premiere cover of “Start of Something New”). I missed some of the “I Don’t Dance” energy, but HSM: TM: TS deals in much fewer metaphors and baseball bats.
This magical moment between Ricky and Nini demonstrates that there are still some parallels to the story structure of season one. (Natalie Bagley (Alexis Nelis) even sends the episode off with one of those classic “Buckle up” type talking heads.) However, “New Year’s Eve” was more interested in continuity, as opposed to repetition. Ricky continues to have a lot going on at the moment (Nini blurts out that she’s moving to Denver for performing arts school to cap the episode; Ricky’s father, Mike (Alex Quijano), reveals they’re going to move out of their home and into a “smaller apartment”) and Gina is content to glance longingly at him.
But this time around, it’s not so much petty teen drama as it is people growing and changing and reaching points in their lives when it’s time to make big decisions. (Perhaps it’s an unintentional mirroring of real life, too, as Olivia Rodrigo continues her rocket to stardom. Hell, she’s not even on a rocket. She’s on Pathfinder.) By now, HSM has earned a wholesome (while occasionally, bitingly meta) identity through a cast that is friendly instead of cutthroat, so the entire vibe is one of rooting for everyone and against no one, which differs from season one’s initial positioning of E.J. (Matt Cornett) and Gina as de facto villains. But the show is clever enough to continue to move the characters forward, rather than play the hits (another ding against “I Don’t Dance”). It’s funnier and more endearing to watch E.J. struggle to fit in with his newfound friend group, whether that’s in cheating at a trivia game or pretending to be enrolled in Duke.
The subtle references to E.J.’s expectation of becoming a Blue Devil (as a legacy student) also possess a potential tether to Seb’s concerns over Carlos unexpectedly coming from money. (For Christmas, Seb drew a selfie of the two of them at about the same level as Michael Scott’s portrait of Jim and Pam for their wedding. Carlos got Seb cashmere.) There are plenty of threads set up for how the story will progress in season two, beyond just Nini and Ricky, but one of them might just dabble in some class commentary. (Ricky mentions money has been tight for him, too.)
Elsewhere, Ashlyn and Big Red (Larry Saperstein) remain the most delightfully cringe couple on television. Big Red’s tepid slinking away from greeting Ashlyn at her own party maintained the discomfort established when they kind of, sort of high-fived before they put the show on last season. (I audibly croaked, “Jesus Christ,” while clutching my palms to my eyes.) Yet, it’s Big Red’s concern over how much Throb cologne he’s wearing (he needs to “un-Throb” himself, he tells Ricky. Sure) that grounds the moment in an all-too-relatable logic. It’s why we cringe.
Also at the party, Seb gets the best joke of the episode (and one of my favorites of the entire series) when he misinterprets a New Year’s resolution game as a thankfulness exercise. Nini states her resolution as following her dreams, no matter how far away they take her. Seb states his resolution as “my cows.” Delightful.
Obviously, though, the big revelation of the party is Nini’s aforementioned declaration that she’s moving to Denver and is not likely to be Belle in the spring musical. This has big implications for how her and Ricky will move forward as a couple. But it also has big implications for the casting of Miss Jenn’s show. Who will be Belle now? (Keep in mind that I avoid the previews.) Gina seems like a natural fit, but there’s a world in which Ashlyn and Big Red’s epilogue moment in season one could set them up as a tap dancing take on Belle and the Beast. Kourtney’s (Dara Reneé) trying to get involved more in the show, too, so the role of Belle is as wide open as the golf course Zac Efron poured his feelings onto. And if Nini’s not Belle, Ricky might not be a shoe-in for the Beast. E.J. seems like an ideal Gaston, but can’t you just envision Ricky as Gaston with Big Red in tow as LeFou? By working earnestly to establish these characters and their dynamics, Federle, director Kimberly McCullough, and the entire creative team have set themselves up for limitless possibilities in season two. We’re all just so happy to have this show back in our lives.
