Wildcats, welcome to this week’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series review! Last week we watched as Nini wrote a hit single called “The Rose Song,” and this week we will see how that affects her and Ricky. Remember, if you want a more in-depth look at this episode follow Boss Rush Entertainment on Spotify; additionally, we are working on a big watch-along event for the month of August (formal announcement will come in a few weeks). This week we are going to focus on three different storylines that went down in this week’s episode:

Miss. Jenn & Zach

This week is all about rivalries, and this first one started when Miss Jenn and Zach were in high school together. The East High drama club becomes suspicious when their “beast” mask goes missing at the same that North High reveals their crazy over-the-top costumes. In an attempt to settle the beef between North and East High Miss Jenn attempts to talk to Zach (who is the director for North High), but they end up in a seriously cool dance number! 

Zach attempts to make Miss Jenn believe that he likes her again and tries to rekindle their romance; but before she can be fully seduced, Miss Jenn discovers that Zach stole their “beast” mask.

Kortney & Howie 

Last week Kortney finally asked out our favorite pizza delivery boy Howie, and this week love is in the air. Throughout rehearsals, Kortney is giggling to herself as Howie’s personalized ringtone goes off constantly (of course Carlos is annoyed), distracting her from the group and their quest to find the missing “beast” mask. East High sneaks over to North High to go find their mask but is quickly discovered by Lily who then challenges East High to a dance-off. 

At the end of the episode, we see Kortney discover that the “beast” for North High is Howie.

Nini & Ricky

This season, we keep waiting for Ricky and Nini to inevitably break up; the writing may finally be on the wall after this week. Nini has become a campus sensation with her hit single “The Rose Song” (a song written by Olivia Rodrigo), and Ricky is jealous that Nini is seeing huge success from a song that was supposed to be a duet. Throughout this episode, we see Lily try to push Ricky into making things worse than they already are, and it reaches a point at the end of the episode where Ricky finally confesses that he hates “The Rose Song,” and Nini storms off as the episode ends.

Breakdown:

This is not my favorite episode of the season because I feel like it’s cliché theater drama. I enjoyed Miss Jenn and Zach dance number and song; I think Disney absolutely nailed the casting of Zach by putting Derek Hough in the role. I think the struggle of this episode is Nini and Ricky; we know they are going to break up, and it feels like each week it just keeps getting strung out longer and longer. I hope Disney picks up the pace as we only have five episodes left in this season! 

What did you think of this week’s episode of HSMTMTS? Comment below, and we might feature it in next week’s article.