Oh, boy. You might want to sit down for this one because so many romances were shaken up this week on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series Episode 6, ‘Yes, and…’ Beyond that, thanks to North High, the characters are more concerned than ever about their production of Beauty and the Beast. Be aware that there are spoilers ahead!
We first get a glimpse at North High’s antics, specifically a new social media post starring resident scary transfer student Lily (Olivia Rose Keegan) and a new French exchange student who will be playing Lumiere in their play. This itself is enough to throw off the Wildcats since Ashlyn (Julia Lester) worries about living up to Lily in the role of Belle.
Miss Jenn (Kate Reinders) realizes everyone’s on edge and that they need to prepare more if they want to beat North High at the “Menkies” and take home the win for their production of Beauty and the Beast. So what’s Miss Jenn’s big plan? Well, it starts with a weekend acting workshop full of improv and character training, and also consists of including Nini (Olivia Rodrigo) in the play to really blow the competition out of the water.
Honestly, hearing that Nini is going to be added to the play is unsurprising. What is surprising is the role she’s given as “the Rose,” as in the rose the Beast uses to count down his final days in the castle. This is…a strange choice, to say the least. There’s no doubt it’ll give them a unique edge over North High, but is it really the right unique edge? Because let’s be real, what is this “Rose” role? Why not introduce a new character to spice up the plot or give Nini literally anything else. It seems like “the Rose” is only being personified and made into a role so that Ricky (Joshua Bassett) and Nini can have a little romantic duet without her being Belle.
This is exactly what Nini struggles with the whole episode as she is told to write an original song between the Rose and the Beast, one she can’t seem to put onto paper. She’s spending the weekend away from the workshop and instead in Big Red’s (Larry Saperstein) family pizza shop, trying to get her thoughts out and also encouraging Kourtney (Dara Renee) to pursue her crush on Howie (Roman Banks).
Kourtney and Howie are really cute together, and it’s good to see Kourtney getting a chance to explore her own romance. The whole time Nini sits in the pizza shop, she seems to admire how the pair is together. And when Kourtney finally confesses, she says that she doesn’t want to change or limit herself for a guy. Howie says he likes her too, and all is right in the world until it’s not. Because Kourtney’s speech basically echoed something Nini has been facing: the way she feels with Ricky, who is constantly telling her to hurry up on the song so they can hang out, and do the play because he wants to see her, and blah blah blah. It’s understandable he wants to spend time with Nini, but truthfully he needs to stop holding her back from her own passions and goals and understand that she doesn’t live to spend time with him.
Back at the workshop, Ricky’s also struggling. He can’t seem to really express how he feels as the Beast in the exercises, and he’s worried because Miss Jenn and his dad (Alex Quijano) are finally going on their date. Well, eventually they go, it’s all very sweet, and both of them confess to being really happy with one another. And then Ricky blows up in practice when Miss Jenn critiques him and says “okay, mom,” to her in a rude tone which is incredibly awkward, to say the least. Later, Miss Jenn says she and his father decided not to see each other again, which is a bummer because they had good chemistry. Ricky seems fine with that, but it’s sad because if he gave them a chance to be happy together it could mean something special. Ricky is actually an interesting character, but in this episode, he feels really off.
But Ricky’s far from the only person struggling. Ashlyn, still dealing with worries over her role as Belle and if she can pull it off, snaps at Gina (Sofia Wylie) more than once. And, as we all know, Gina is moving again, which she eventually tells Ashlyn because she can’t seem to take it anymore. Ashlyn admits she’s only snappy because she’s so worried over her role, and inquires about why Gina would leave again. This is where we get to see what went down at the end of the last school play before Gina left. She hugged Ricky and said she wouldn’t give up on them if she wasn’t leaving, but that came right after Ricky and Nini made up and kicked off their relationship with a kiss. Gina says she regrets doing that since she never actually moved away, and she was forced to deal with the fallout from that moment.
Ashlyn sings her a song to lift her spirits and they make up, even if Gina still can’t really face Ricky. It’s hard not to feel bad for Gina because this must have hurt, but it’s time the writers allow Gina to sort things out with Ricky and move on for good (whether that means being single or exploring a romance with EJ). Or for the time being, if they hope to revisit Gina and Ricky’s relationship in the future.
This is seeming more and more like a possibility, as Nini finally finishes her original song for the Rose and the Beast. She says she wrote it from her POV instead of the Beast’s and that really helped her. When she plays the song, it honestly makes little sense for a literal rose to sing, but it’s very, very relevant as it refers to how Nini may feel in her relationship with Ricky. She sings about being trapped and not being perfect like how “the Beast” (really, Ricky) sees her and how she just wants to do her own thing. It’s all about how she’s more than him. It’s still hard to understand why The Rose would be saying these things to the Beast, but it’s satisfying to see Nini come to the conclusion that Ricky is suffocating her right now and maybe it’s time she branches out. And it does make sense that they use the Rose and the Beast as a metaphor for Nini and Ricky so that the two of them can finally understand what feels off between them.
Though Nini says she’s not going to tell Ricky about the song yet, at the very end, it’s revealed that Carlos (Frankie A. Rodriguez) was listening in to her solo performance of the song and recorded it, perhaps to post online and show North High what East High can do. As pretty as the song is, they might change it to make it more suited for the play, but that doesn’t mean it won’t do anything for them. In fact, it seems this song is Nini’s breaking point in realizing how her relationship with Ricky is no longer really what she needs right now. Ricky himself doesn’t seem too sure of their relationship anymore.
Clearly, this is gonna stir up a lot of trouble for them next week since they’re already so tense with each other. And who knows where the show will go with the other relationships after this mess? Hopefully, everything that happened in this episode means giving Gina a new storyline that isn’t all about Ricky and giving Nini a new storyline that also isn’t all about Ricky. Wouldn’t that be nice?
