Hold onto your hats, because a real storm is blowing through East High this week! The Wildcats are back in the fourth episode ‘The Storm,’ appropriately titled considering how tense it is between everyone this week as a blizzard hits Salt Lake City. That being said, this was one of the funnier episodes this season with a little less cheesiness than normal.
Let’s kick it off with everyone’s favorite couple at school, Ricky (Joshua Bassett) and Nini (Olivia Rodrigo). Well, everyone but Gina (Sofia Wylie), but we’ll get there in a second. The pair is facetiming as always, when Nini mentions going back to her prestigious acting school, YAC. But before she goes, she decides to stop by drama practice in East High! Yay for everyone, until they find out there’s a huge storm coming and Nini might not make it back to school.
Miss Jenn (Kate Reinders) volunteers to take Nini to the bus station, but it’s clear the whole situation leaves Ricky thinking about how he feels. Though it’s been building up for a while, there has been some tension between him and Nini, mostly due to the distance between them and the inability to see each other often.
Once Miss Jenn heads out, the drama kids are left to their own devices. This means trouble, since co-choreographers Carlos (Frankie A. Rodriguez) and Gina are struggling to plan a cohesive choreography number for the beloved Beauty and the Beast classic, “Be Our Guest.” Both of them have pretty big personalities and often prefer to take charge, so it’s interesting to see where this goes. Understandably, there’s some arguing, but after the kids are trapped in school for the storm, they get a second to talk.
They both think the other doesn’t understand their current situations. Carlos says he’s afraid of performing on stage because he’s always behind the scenes, and Gina says she’s having trouble figuring out who she is. When she says Carlos wouldn’t get this, he argues and says there aren’t many people who are like him at the school. Honestly, the conversation about figuring out ones’ sexuality is something they could talk about more on HSMTMTS, but it’s great they’re bringing up how it makes Carlos feel and that this conversation helps Carlos and Gina realize that they can both understand the different ways one another feel. Gina also admits it’s not really about Carlos and the situation at hand, but it’s just a confusing time for her in general. Clearly, she’s talking about Ricky.
After the Valentine’s day text-gone-wrong, she and Ricky make the event somewhat of an inside joke and it’s pretty obvious Gina’s feelings for him have yet to disappear. She deals with this throughout the episode, and it even leads Ashlyn (Julia Lester) to question her about it multiple times. A few instances that rattle Gina are when Big Red (Larry Saperstein) asks her to give Ricky advice about Nini, and when Ricky rushes off to see Nini before she boards her bus at the end of the episode. Gina’s always staring after him, pining, but this storyline feels a bit tired because it’d be great to see Gina blossom without the idea of Ricky holding her back.
While the kids are trapped in the storm, they are some other fun moments, like Seb (Joe Serafini) and Kourtney’s (Dara Renee) interactions, or joking about Miss Jenn’s wild stories. Some of it is actually a laugh-out-loud type of funny. One sweet moment that holds promise for the upcoming episodes is when pizza delivery guy Howie (Roman Banks) comes to the school and gets them all pizza, along with bringing Kourtney’s flashcards so she can study for her test. There’s definitely a relationship budding between the two of them, and it seems like it’ll happen sooner rather than later. Ashlyn and Big Red also share some cringey moments that the other kids roll their eyes at, which is understandable considering they’re in high school and everything is cringey.
Also, EJ finally gets his own plotline as he gets rejected from Duke. This was hard for him to admit, since his whole family is a “Duke family” and he doesn’t know where to go from here. Knowing EJ, he’ll likely figure it out, but Mr. Mazzara (Mark St. Cyr) gives him some good advice anyway. We might see EJ joining the AV club that Mr. M runs very, very soon.
They’re not the only ones trapped, though. Nini and Miss Jenn are stuck in Miss Jenn’s car on the way to the bus station as snow piles up outside. Of course, Miss Jenn is upset about this because Nini might not make it back to YAC on time and this could hurt her career. But Nini shares what it’s really like at YAC – anything but exciting. She shares how the students are silent and how the teachers don’t want them to be their true selves. Miss Jenn reminds her that everyone just wants her to be happy. This moment is very necessary because it was getting frustrating seeing Nini struggle at YAC, even if we barely got to see it. No complaints there, however, since the times at YAC were extremely dreary and painful to watch. Obviously it’s dramatized, like YAC’s no-talking rule (like, really?) but the school is just terrible and it’s good to finally see these concerns voiced.
Still, Nini heads to the bus station and Ricky gets to see her off. She sits on the bus, looking all miserable after their goodbye, and, of course, bursts out into song. She’s worried she’s taking this opportunity for granted, but does YAC have what she really needs? As this is happening, it’s no surprise the audience just wants to shout “get off the bus already,” since Nini seems incredibly sad to let East High go and keeps looking at the bus’ exit longingly.
And it’s so rewarding when this anticipation pays off and Nini ends up walking back into East High, telling Miss Jenn that this is where she feels most at home and that she can’t go back to YAC. Then she calls Ricky, and all is well again. It’s nice to see them reunited because their relationship has felt stilted for part of the season, so hopefully it truly blossoms again soon.
Despite this moment of happiness, Nini’s return will undoubtedly stir the pot, especially with the semi-love triangle between the pair and Gina. There’s really no telling what might happen next with them, but the sneak peek at the next episode revealed that it is Carlos’ birthday next week and that Miss Jenn has something big planned that’ll blow everyone away, so no matter what happens, it’s sure to be full of surprises. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be HSMTMTS anyway.
