High School Musical: The Musical: The Series season 4 review: A final bow

At the beginning of the film High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the East High Wildcats are down 21 points at halftime during New Mexico’s 5A Basketball State Championship. Coach Bolton (Bart Johnson) delivers a rousing speech to rally the team, launching into the opening number, “Now Or Never,” and then Captain Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) sings, “This is the last chance to get it right … this is the last chance to make our mark … so make it count.” A similar pressure exists for the fourth and final season of Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which premieres August 9.

The musical mockumentary had a strong first quarter—er, season—when it premiered back in 2019. It exceeded expectations by delicately balancing fan service (for those of us who were invested in the aughts film trilogy) and introductions to a fresh-faced squad of new characters (who were just being born when the first movie came out). And it did it all while peppering in niche musical-theater references for hardcore theater kids who can name all of the Jellicle cats in their sleep.

After season three sent the crew off to summer theater camp, season four shifts the show’s focus back to the home base of East High, kicking off with an epic, long-awaited reunion of some OG Wildcats. As excited as we were to see Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Lucas Grabeel, and KayCee Stroh reunited on a stage (Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, and Ashley Tisdale were notably missing), the first scene became so meta that it felt a bit disorienting.

You see, we thought we were watching Bleu, Coleman, Grabeel, and Stroh singing and dancing in the opening scene, since they had all (save Coleman) already made appearances as themselves in the HSMTMTS universe. But when the director called “Cut,” and the camera pulled out to reveal a film crew, we realized we were watching actor Corbin Bleu as HSMTMTS character Corbin Bleu as HSM character Chad Danforth. And it may have just overloaded our brain’s meta-reference limit.

Those character layers exist here because season four’s premise centers on the fictional High School Musical 4: The Reunion being filmed at East High School, with the current drama students being recruited to be featured extras. Soon, the filming of HSM4 interferes with their rehearsal schedule for their drama club production of High School Musical 3—and, yes, conflicts arise. Still with us?

What’s more, three new characters have been added to the mix this season: There’s Dani (Kylie Cantrall), a TikToker-turned-actor; Mack (Matthew Sato), a former sitcom child star; and Director Quinn (Caitlin Reilley), a self-serious millennial who is clearly one of those kids who was too cool for High School Musical when it originally aired. Although they’re a part of the main conflict, their presence feels superfluous, because all we really need in the show’s last season is to spend time with the core group who has been around since the beginning.

HSMTMTS works best when it’s the main crew tackling a problem with a “We’re all in this together” mentality, which unfortunately doesn’t take shape until late in the season. It’s not for lack of interaction. They’re all, mind you, involved in HSM4 as featured extras together. But individual storylines seem to hog the spotlight this season, with some students preparing for graduation and others navigating life as juniors. Likewise, a few character arcs are more fleshed out than others, like Ricky’s (Joshua Bassett) self-reflection with two familiar faces, Kourtney’s (Dara Renée) investigation into college options beyond the Ivies, and Ashlyn’s (Julia Lester) hilariously and heartwarmingly accurate exploration of her newly discovered queer identity (complete with a tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt).

Meanwhile, Gina (Sofia Wylie) has the strongest storyline, as she is plucked from featured-extra obscurity and thrust into the limelight as one of HSM4’s leads. (This feels like a parallel to real life, when Wylie got more screen time in HSMTMTS once Olivia Rodrigo exited the show to pursue music.)

However, Carlos (Frankie A. Rodriguez), who has blossomed throughout the previous seasons, was given a bland plotline that solely revolves around him searching for his M.I.A. boyfriend, Seb (Joe Serafini). The oversaturated dialogue about the situation felt like the writers attempting to try and justify what may have been Serafini’s unavailability for a portion of the season’s filming, which made for a far less compelling tale for our resident theater fan.

And then there’s Kate Reinders’ Miss Jenn, who has the best moments this season, acting as the anchor that tethers the show to its original ethos. She not only gives earnest, tender advice to her students, but provides some hilarious, self-aware moments, like when she acknowledges that she is scabbing by performing as Ms. Darbus in their stage production or calls HSM3 a “complicated 2008 period piece.”

In the first six episodes screened for reviewers, there are only two songs that showcase what HSMTMTS does best: present original HSM numbers in a new context. So let’s hope we get a few more in the final two episodes, giving the emotional and spirited farewell these characters deserve.

As with all final seasons, the series has the hard task of honoring its past while preparing to send the characters off to their futures. And we’re certainly keeping our fingers crossed for surprise appearances from the missing Wildcats played by Efron, Hudgens, and Tisdale. (Both Efron and Hudgens posted photos outside East High School, so … there’s that.) But by the end of episode six, it feels like we’re a few points down in the fourth quarter. Maybe those last installments can help HSMTMTS pull off a win.

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series season four premieres August 9 on Disney+