REVIEW: ‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’ Season 4 Bows On A Slam Dunk

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series started out as something that seemed like a joke. As a Disney+ launch series, it could easily have been mistaken for a cash grab rather than the heartfelt and creative endeavor that it quickly became. How much more on the nose can it get than a series about fiction students at the real high school where High School Musical took place putting on a production of the musical on the TV show? All, of course, while going through some parallel and inverted experiences to the characters in the movie? Well, In HSMTMTS Season 4, the final season of the Disney+ Original series, we hit peak meta and once and for all of why this show has lasted longer than nearly anything on the platform.

It’s senior year for many in our East High crew, and not only are they putting on a production of High School Musical 3 as their fall musical, but High School Musical 4 is being filmed at their high school at the same time. No, the movie isn’t being made in real life, but many of its original actors come back to play themselves as characters in the series. Unlike last season, for better and worse, the movie itself feels like it takes a bit more of a backseat compared to the drama that the movie creates. You don’t feel like you’re immersed in the making specifically of High School Musical 4 as much as you felt like you were trapped in the making of a documentary last season. Probably because the original actors are scarcely in the show outside of some cameo moments this time around.

This isn’t to say the filming of a movie doesn’t feel present and exciting. The movie’s director, Quinn (Caitlin Reilly) is ever-present in the season with her self-serious tenacity driving the theater kids of East High up a wall or two. The theater kids are all cast as extras in the movie, so we get the inside track on the filming as well as its two teenage stars Mack (Matthew Sato) and Dani (Kylie Cantrall). I think the show plays the movie off extra goofy and unseriously with intention this season so as to contrast itself to last season’s documentary. You never find yourself asking “what if they’re really making a High School Musical 4″ because the premise of the movie is so ridiculous and constantly being made fun of. This approach mostly works, disarming you from the possibility of the actual reunion sequel we all wish was coming while remaining very funny and quite in the weird, meta world the show has crafted over the years.

The filming of a movie and concurrent fall musical are fun vehicles for the season, but where the series shines as ever is with its characters and their relationships. Last season saw a big turn for nearly everyone in the show and this season really demonstrates how desperately the rest of children’s media need to get behind the idea that it’s important to showcase characters changing and growing as time goes on. HSMTMTS Season 4 really completes most of the characters’ arcs with satisfaction while remaining true to the overly-dramatic nature of being high school theater kids. Which is to say, there’s so much melodrama and so many tears shed, but it’s all very pure, very sweet, and very much what being emotionally in-touch high schoolers is like.

The one character that got a good season overall but still missed out on closing a hugely important thread from Season 3 was Kourtney (Dara Reneé). The main theme of the season, reflecting that of High School Musical 3, is finding yourself and staying true to that self, despite the pressures of parents, college, teachers, and romance. While Kourtney’s struggle to find herself leads to some great places, the season fails to pick up and conclude the journey into therapy that she embarked on last season. It comes up, but it falls away and plays no real role in the conclusions she arrives at. It implies that perhaps therapy wasn’t the answer after all and that she could resolve her difficulties on her own, which isn’t the message the show likely meant to impart.

Otherwise, I love what this season has to say about relationships and communication. The show has always demonstrated how sometimes different kinds of relationships just aren’t right for the people involved, whether friendships, romantic, or family. The show, especially in Season 4, also demonstrates how it’s okay to forgive people and change the nature of your relationship into something healthier. Enemies become close friends. Romantic partners become close friends. Former teachers become close friends. Sure, it’s a bit optimistic, but in my own experience, it’s far from unreasonable. The way Miss Jenn (Kate Reinders) treats her students and gets treated by them in return this season feels like a step too far into uncomfortably personal territory, but I forgive it on behalf of the show being melodrama in the first place and not directly aspirational.

All of these healthy and increasingly positive relationships are built on the show addressing the essentiality of communication head-on. In direct conversation with how not only High School Musical 3 but basically every story featuring teenagers ever build their plots and relational tension around lies and omissions, the season attempts to ask why that has to be the way teenagers act. The first half of the season drags a little bit as the kids have to adjust back to school from camp and the show over-uses dramatic irony and repeated “12 hours earlier” stingers. But when it hits a new level of emotion halfway through, it’s because characters start having conversations with each other about how they actually feel, what worries them, what upsets them, what makes them happy, and how if they don’t start telling each other this now, it’ll be too late.

These are, though, still just conversations. The back half of HSMTMTS Season 4 gets bogged down in a repetitive game of characters meaning to tell each other how they feel until some kind of dramatic moment arises that prevents them. It’s an interesting way of trying to say communication is key while still creating tension, but I don’t think it works most of the time. It just leads to aggravating miscommunications that hold relationships of all kinds back instead of letting the show ever arise to something more interesting than will-they-won’t-they. Fortunately, the other side of the conversation, where everyone talks to everyone else about how they feel and how to share it is very well done. There are numerous conversations between characters, including a few nice surprises that I found quite heartfelt, moving, and well-constructed within the context of how goofy the series can be.

Ricky (Joshua Bassett) especially shows huge growth from the beginning of the series and lands in a really lovely place as a character and communicator by the end. So do Gina (Sofia Wylie), Carlos (Frankie Rodriguez), and Ashlyn (Julia Lester) in their own ways. Even Mr. Mazarra (Mark St. Cyr) and Ricky’s dad (Alex Quijano) get nice character arcs to themselves this season, and the return of Maddox (Saylor Bell), Jet (Adrian Lyles), and Emmy (Liamani Segura) were all very welcome this season, even if getting them in was a bit silly. It’s deeply satisfying seeing how everyone has grown by the end of the series.

HSMTMTS Season 4 ends the series on a high note. While the season has its repetitive moments and didn’t fully hit its stride until midway through, its highs are more than high enough to capture the magic of high school theater, romance, and senior year all at once. It’s a wonderful conversation with the themes of High School Musical 3 15 years later where we can be more true to the experiences of teens today.

The full HSMTMTS Season 4 is streaming August 8th on Disney+.