ok but can we talk about how the fact that ricky's imaginary alien people are cat people is most likely at least partially influenced by the fact that his family has 14 cats
@@regzlots Doubt it. He frequently had two ladies on his arms in his fantasies. What else does he always have on each arm? His crutches. Probably his cats just curled up on his arms and shoulders and it gave him the idea to imagine his crutches were beautiful cat-women instead of crutches. It was the way he found to cope.
I have the old bootleg from 2016, what Mischa says is "Dude, I speak Ukrainian, Russian, English, and some Dutch. Not even the Dutch speak Dutch. I know what a cliche is." So he is canonically a polyglot!
the most interesting theory to me so far is that karnak’s original intention was for the 5 choir members to come to terms with their inevitable deaths, but penny was never supposed to die and karnak’s whole game was an excuse to bring her back (he made the choir think it was their choice so they would be ok with it). karnak read the other five’s fortunes, he knew they all had to die that night so he tells them to ride the cyclone (maybe he thought itd be the quickest and least painful way for them to go). karnak states that he never read penny’s fortune and did not know her. maybe he realized that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and her death was purely bad luck (karnak also says in the penny intro that her zodiac is the sign of luck). maybe he needed to correct that mistake to free the others from the timeloop and put them to rest.
One of the most devastating things about RTC for me is that I looked up Uranium City, and it has a population of 73. If 6 teens die that's approximately 1/12 of the population. If 25% of the population is under the age of 18, that means like ~20 people are kids. Imagine going back to highschool when the majority of your class are dead, people you've known your entire life. :(
since the show is implied to take play in 2009, i checked the census data for uranium city in 2011 (it's the closest census to the show) and the population is listed as 105. So I guess ive gotta shift my numbers lol
A thought about Savannah: If you hc Ricky as transmasc, you could theoretically say that he saved Savannah (his dead name) for a future child. Not everyone has to absolutely hate their dead name, so it might be that Ricky has decided that he liked his dead name as a name, so saved it
@gec(gay emo cousin) yeah, I've seen the other comments :) I just wanted to give a different view, especially since you'd assume that Ricky would be a bit upset at being a male presenting ghost if they were truly transfem
Here's something I find interesting: Ricky, at least in the 2016 version, appears very appreciative of Jane with his facial expressions. He doesn't usually seem as unsettled by her as the others and is willing to have personal talks with her. The only connection I can think of that could explain this is that if you watch the opening closely, you'll notice that, in the newspaper photos and video clips, Ricky was positioned next to "Jane" when performing and when on the coaster. In all the pictures and videos, both he and her were always positioned out of the way in the back, so far in the back she was almost always obscured. They might not have exchanged names because of Ricky's inability to talk and "Jane's" last-minute join-up, but I think he was the only person to really take the time to notice that there had been a sixth member of the choir right before the accident, because he'd been next to her all day. I just thought that was a really interesting detail.
it could also just be his actor not knowing what to do, but during fall fair suite in the 2016 version when we hear jane singing while the other students are in a circle around ricky he seems to be the only one semi aware that she's there- he's looking up.
there’s definitely a connection between ricky and jane. janes true identity is penny lamb, a character from another play by jacob richmond, in which she states in her closing monologue that “love is the closest you come to another person, because it’s the closest you come to being another person” ricky also says this in one version of space age bachelor man
You're the first person on any video ive seen on rtc mention that penny was in the choir competition sequence - to an extent. If you squint during the sequence in the background there's an obscured figure away from the audience that can quite literally only be penny
I genuinely don't think Karnak is evil, but rather morally gray. Karnak is ultimately a sad being due to the fact he was programmed to never really be able to interfere. But now he has found a way to interfere, and maybe teach a few lessons along the way, and ultimately lay some children to rest. Edit:spelling
i think Ocean’s character works SOOOO much better as a bitchy uptight entitled person. it makes her so much more compelling as a character. oh my god the “i’m gonna say what everyone’s thinking, what are we talking about two maybe three years?” ITS SO GOOD. not. all. characters. need. to. be. likable. and i think she gets there in the end while still being bitchy. i love it. i wish they didn’t cut as much as they did
I'm not going to lie, Ocean seems like she was entirely accidentally a bitch given her backstory. She was raised by hippies who moved out to a rural town to reduce their carbon footprint to zero, she likely had a very relaxed upbringing and that's why she is the way she is. She craves order as her form of rebellion against her parents, and her views of superiority were because she pushed herself to being the best possible student that she could be and that being her only metric for success. She wanted to make herself academically appealing because the Catholic School and the extra curriculum was the only place where she got a sense of order and discipline from and therefore the only place where she knew she was doing well. As the ending song states, Life isn't a game, you can't win or lose. Ocean really seems like a good kid who just simply didn't have time to grow up and realize that the world wasn't all about being a good student and rigorous structure and order. She didn't realize she was a bitch because nobody confronted her about her bad behavior and she lacked the self awareness of a more mature person. With this, she maintains being bitchy and uptight, but it's not malicious in intent, she just was young and didn't have time to grow up and Karnak is simply giving her enough time to process the trauma, realize how terrible she was in life, and go through the process of trying to better herself with the final test being sacrifice of opportunity, something that in life, she had plenty of, to give it to someone who needs it. It shows her process of unlearning the bad behaviors and trying to make amends, even if she is still accidentally a bitch about it because she genuinely doesn't know how to give a good compliment.
personally i don't think they cut down oceans bitchiness in an attempt to make her more likable but rather an attempt to make the SHOW more likable and therefore sellable. she had some REALLY ignorant and rude lines and i think they just trimmed them down to make it more corporate friendly and more producible for a larger audience that would turn up their nose at some of the things she originally said.
For the last bit about headcannons. The idea of Mischa’s mother being alive and hearing that her child died must’ve been heart wrenching. Imagine this, you’re slowly, and painfully dying. One day, you get news that your (probably) one and only child has died in a freak accident. How absolutely heartbreaking that is. Your child died and you can’t even visit their grave because you yourself is dying. Timestamp: 1:12:51 (around then)
49:01 - For the “Noel is Catfishing Mischa theory”, I think that the reason Noel tells Mischa is not because he’s catfishing him. I think Noel realizes that Mischa is deeply in love with the *concept* of Talia and he’s scared that Mischa will end up even more heartbroken than he is currently. For him, Talia is his only connection to Ukraine and shows how he deeply values his culture/country. The song is based on Trad Ukrainian music and they even wear traditionally inspired outfits. If Mischa learned that Talia was fake, he’d probably be in a very very bad mental state and lose the one thing he had to look forward to in the future. Noel is a romantic and a dreamer, so it makes sense for him to be the one to tell Mischa to stop. He probably had his fair share of harsh reality checks when he realized that he could never find love (or his idea of love) in Uranium City or even live his life the way he wanted to. Additionally, I think he was scared that Talia would be fake. Not sure if this is cut but after What the World Needs, Ocean says “Mischa, I love you! I even believed in your imaginary girlfriend!” which shows that the possibility of the choir thinking she’s a catfish is plausible.
I love the duality about Noel, he is my favorite character and I’ve always seen him as a very grounded but romantic person. He boldly stated that he is a sex provocateur and a novelist while simultaneously admitting the fact that he never did any of the things a sp and a novelist would. He is a self proclaimed Nihilist, but you could visually see him still wish for a meaning to his life, like him pursuing a part time job at Taco Bell just save up and go to France. That’s why it always hurts me to hear this theory, probably one of the worse-est theory ever. It makes him look like an opportunist and defeats the purpose of his character in the story, which is to ultimately foil Ocean in some way, he is someone who sees no value in his life but wants best for everyone else, while Ocean sees only the value of her life but not everyone else, and that scene just shows THAT.
I don't think it's a time loop, but you pointed out interesting details. I think they die in the crash and then the show takes place with deciding who to save. Once they pick Jane Doe, they can't just bring her back to life (cause she doesn't have a head) meaning they would have to reset the crash and live it again to ensure that she survives. So although not a total time loop, I do think have to go through the crash twice, meaning Jane's song at the start represents the crash, which is why it's at the end again.
@@mikan1597 But Karnak says they would brought back to "survive beyond" the Cyclone disaster, which I always thought implied her death would just be retconned so she was the sole survivor. I guess it could go either way, the lines aren't very clear.
@@AlashiaTuol I agree, I believe there lives start from the beginning and this time Jane ether survives or never gets on the ride, then the rest of the choir are put to rest
@K the production had two options for every run: show her life before like they did everyone else or show her life after the disaster. Remember it shows EVERYONE'S lives before in their reel, so technically they just went back and showed us the information they couldn't qhen Penny was still Jane
Spoilers, since it reveals the end, but: I like to think Penny might've gone on to name one of her children seen in the overview of her life "Savannah."
I think the reason that Jane doesn’t share Penny’s memories is because she doesn’t have her name/identity. Once they vote to revive her, her memories come back and they start calling her Penny. Because she was called Jane Doe, the memories didn’t show up for her because not even the fortune teller knew who she was
@@The-Busy-Beeeee I think it makes more sense that everyone got brought back for a final moment to chance the accident This being penny not going on the coster But everyone else is on the coster for a final ride knowing. That they’ll die
@@The-Busy-Beeeeei'm in a production right now, and my director said he interprets the ending as whoever gets brought back is brought back to just before the accident. maybe they get the sudden overwhelming urge to pee while in line, maybe they decide not to ride, the reason doesn't matter. penny was brought back to just before the accident, and for some reason, she didn't get on. and therefore she survived
@@regzlots and my head canon is the reason why we don’t know her first is because Karnak haven’t read her fortune yet right? The next time around when she was revived, Karnak knew about her because that time around when she was revived, instead of going to the ride she goes to Karnak’s stall for a fortune reading and that’s why her fate changed and Karnak knew her the moment she crossed the light.
For me, Ocean is a character that I really like from a written standpoint, but I would immediately deck in the face as an actual person. I'm an Ocean kin in a "hate to love" way. And I also appreciate the more bitchy version than the more "family-friendly mode" Ocean in the new shows.
see i relate way too much to ocean that im v much in the "ocean has done nothing wrong. i know this and i love her" camp lmao but im glad we agree that her more bitchy version is superior 😌
I went to a show just the other night where the director wrote her to gradually improve in her interactions throughout the show! Didn't leave out the boob punch scene though lmao, but while the show was amping up to sugar cloud she waited in the back with the recorder/mic and held the mic for her instead of jane doe and gave her a hug at the end, absolutely loved how she was written
About Penny Lamb- I have a bit of an odd theory. I think its like a paradox- she both died and survived at the same time. Penny dies in the crash. Penny is smeared from the timeline due to the future paradox and becomes Jane Doe. Jane Doe is chosen to live. Jane Doe returns to the same timeline post-smear as a paradox-corrected Penny who was either not on the ride or not in the choir at the time of the accident. Pre-smear Penny/Jane's head is deleted by the timeline in order to clean up after the paradox, but her body is still there because she still needed to die in order for the story to happen. The other kids do not know who she is because the timeline has already been corrected and she wasn't there. Karnak knows her in the end because Post-Smear Penny was at the fair and did get her fortune told. It being a paradox also works fantastically with the whole theme and repeating and loops and going round and round and round and round
OK SO I ALSO HAVE SOME THEORIES 1) What if it's Karnak's death that resets the timeline back to the start of the incident? That's why he can't see beyond his death, bc there's nothing more TO see? It just resets back to the start again. And going off of that: 2)I've only seen 2016 so I didn't realise the time of the accident has changed and ITS GETTING LATER?? What if every time Karnak resets the timeline he pushes the cyclone accident later and later to eventually stop them from getting on it altogether, thus preventing their deaths? Not in a "I want to save these kids" way, but in a self preservation way? He gets shut in a warehouse with Virgil chewing through his power cable because (like you said) the carnival got sued so they had to pack everything up. If he saves the six saints then he would never get stored away and he would therefore avoid his OWN death. Maybe it's his own sheer force of will to keep living that resets the timeline? (This is also basically the plot of the anime Higurashi lmao) 3) I HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAY ABOUT CONSTANCE'S FAVOURITE RIDE BEING THE CYCLONE: a) Either its her favourite ride posthumously because it made her realise how much she loved her life (Sugar Cloud) OR b) It was her idea for them all to ride the cyclone since at the start of the musical it shows all of them taking turns to go on each other's favourite rides (the bumper cars, the shooting gallery, etc), and that's why her catchphrase is "sorry"? She's apologising for being responsible for their deaths. 4) The carnie in charge of the cyclone was checking the safety of the rollercoaster carts 3 hours before the choir got on, when he was distracted by Constance flirting with him. He skipped his job that day to sleep with her in the carnival port-a-potty, and because of that, he failed to realise that one of the cart's front axels was coming loose. (I think this because the carnie Constance described was wearing the same Iron Maiden t-shirt Karnak offered as a prize at the start). This could also explain why her catchphrase is "sorry". WHEW OK SORRY THIS WAS AN ESSAY I just think abt this musical a LOT
Instead of a repetitive loop, it could be that each loop retcons the death of one of the cast, meaning every iteration of the accident has one less dead kid in the cart needing ressurection at the end of that loop. Undo Jane's death and you have five kids crashing in the accident. Have them choose among each other, undo one of their deaths, and then four kids crash and two are spared. Undo one of the four kids and then three kids crash and three are spared. Eventually you'd resurrect all of them.
This would add to why Karnak says each of the kids' Zodiac signs--Aries, Penny's sign, is the first sign of the Zodiac. Then Gemini (Ricky), Leo (Mischa), Scorpio (Constance), Capricorn (Ocean), and finally Pisces (Noel). Resurrection order?
i'm pretty sure the reason for the time change to 6:17 instead of 8:17 was because 6:00 pm is the time of sunset, which would recontextualize the line from Karnak's Dream of Life "sun is rising while descending" since the sun was setting while they died but since they were upside-down in the loop-de-loop it appeared to them as rising.
i find it very interesting that, after jane gets brought back, the video of her life makes it very evident that her eyes are green, just like savannah with the greenest eyes. could it be that in life, penny’s eyes are canonically green and it’s just a memory she doesn’t know she has, like the lioness thing? or considering the theory that jane doesn’t revive, but rather gets reincarnated into penny lamb, maybe karnak took note of what she asked ricky for savannah to look like? though if that’s the case, i wonder why she was allowed to keep the eye color but not the name.
i never really thought about mischa's line about his mother's death indirectly killing him in an emotional way, i always took it literally in that if she hadn't died he would never have been in uranium, never been in the choir and never gotten on the cyclone in the first place
I like to think that when they go back to roller coaster positions at the end of the show that is the choir going back to moments before the rollercoaster crashed but this time Jane Doe survives to of course live on. But it doesn't make much sense because of them watching Penny's (Jane's) life before the end so I kind of just think that in the warehouse time doesn't exist.
Ricky’s story is most likely supposed to represent how he never had an outlet to express his puberty so he combined his nerdy interests with that because as you see in a bunch of weird 80’s sci-fi stories it’s plays out like a fan fiction combined with sexual tension and nerdy interests. It’s also an ego thing like oh people need me and I’m super handsome.
Agreed, people tend to infantilize people with disabilities (you can see Ocean doing this in bootlegs), especially as severe as Ricky’s. He (at least in some of the earlier shows) that he was always like that, but he couldn’t actually speak those thoughts out loud. I personally never got the trans hc, as nothing in the show implies it in the slightest. Savannah being an important name to him is not indicative of him being trans whether it be a deadname or a desired name. I also get the impression that Uranium is a bit backwards (people speculate that it takes place sometime after 2015) as Noel’s mother told him to “blend in” in regards to his homosexuality, so I don’t necessarily think that being transmasc would be a widely acceptable thing either, but that’s just my 2 cents.
Just wanted to add in about Ricky not knowing sign language: because he's in such a small town, it's quite possible there was no one to teach him or his family (as sign language is pretty hard to learn without a fluent - or preferably native - speaker) so they made up their own signs. Also, I saw a recording of the old version (specifically the 2016 run) you were talking about and I'm so sad about how much they cut in newer versions! I had no idea!
ohhh that makes a lot of sense i never thought about that! and yeah I'm sure they did it with good reasons but I also strongly disagree with the choice to cut _anything_ from this show lol
I like to interpret the cyclical ending as revealing that they hadn't actually died at that point and the whole sequence at the beginning wasn't the rollercoaster breaking but Karnack removing them from time, a la him saying they would give time the middle finger. This would make more sense than them already being dead because at the end of the play they would still be submitting to time. Evidence they aren't dead during the rest of the play: - they still exhibit bodily functions like drinking, eating and urinating - I know the actors can't really help breathing but they are all very visibly breathing - during "It's not a game/ It's just a ride" none of them seem worried at all. At least in the 2016 version, they are laughing, with their hands in the air. They have gone back to before the accident happened. If they weren't dead during the game, then maybe they weren't really deciding who didn't die but deciding who never joined the choir, therefore none of them remember Jane/Penny because her winning would mean none of them would know her from the choir! Penny doesn't seem too traumatised during the home footage and you'd think they would touch on the survivor's guilt of being the only survivor of a rollercoaster crash as a child. idk if this makes any sense but it's what I think happened.
I don't rlly have evidence but my hc is that sugar cloud is the only piece in the show where Karnak hasn't choreographed their performance like he did to ocean. (Apart from it's not a game/ it's just a ride cuz he's dead)
yes! their dances feel more like random teenage dances. same with the new birthday song, the dance in that piece is their own free will, which makes it more beautiful i think
29:35 So I think that Penny *did* join the choir, possibly last minute, maybe she was just quiet and didn’t interact with others or was deemed strange so they didn’t really talk to her. Moving on, I think originally she HAD joined the choir, died on the cyclone, but when she went back the whole time loop thing happened and it caused her not to join them on the ride or even join the choir at all.
The biggest mystery about Constance is which fandom she’s writing spicy fanfic for. Cuz she’s definitely writing spicy fanfic lol. Also which tribe her family belongs to because she’s heavily coded as First Nation.
Also I think Constance prefers plain pepperoni pizza, but Ocean lowkey bullies her into also getting a vegetable so they can share the pizza. So they cycle between Pepperoni and Olive and Pepperoni and Mushroom
Just discovered this musical two days ago and already obsessed. I was devastated when I found out how small the fan base for such an incredible show was. This video is a godsend
thank you! i have done nothing but talk to myself about this musical for the past 4 years so i get what you mean lol i wish more people knew about how great this show is (which is why i refuse to shut up about it) but i also enjoy our small and mighty fanbase!
46:49 AAAAAND THERE IT IS you hit the nail on the head. ocean would be SUCH a fav if she was a boy, no one would think twice about loving her. they'd be like omg stinky mean baby boy! i love my mean king!
49:01 this theory always felt oof to me as someone who always thought of Noel as my kinnie and someone I relate too. I love the duality about Noel, he is my favorite character and I’ve always seen him as a very grounded but romantic person. He boldly stated that he is a sex provocateur and a novelist while simultaneously admitting the fact that he never did any of the things a sp and a novelist would. He is a self proclaimed Nihilist, but you could visually see him still wish for a meaning to his life, like him pursuing a part time job at Taco Bell just to save up and go to France. That’s why it always hurts me to hear this theory, probably one of the worse-est theory ever. It makes him look like an opportunist and defeats the purpose of his character in the story, which is to ultimately foil Ocean in some way, he is someone who sees no value in his life but wants best for everyone else, while Ocean sees only the value of her life but not everyone else, and that scene just shows THAT.
I saw this one idea that the cyclone crashed bc jane doe was thrown on the tracks and by choosing her to live again the crash never happened so they all get to live.
Great video! I definitely agree on some theories. Others not so much. One I want to bring up is the Noel catfishing Mischa theory. Noel was not catfishing as Talia. Firstly, I firmly believe that Noel couldn’t possibly have learned Ukrainian. He is stated to have been obsessed with french movies from a very early age, but despite this speaks very bad French. This is not only evident in the fact that he says two French words in the entire musical (even though he sang a whole song about being French), but also by his terrible French accent. I don’t think he is very gifted language-wise. Second, Noel physically couldn’t be catfishing as Talia. We see that Mischa, multiple times during the musical, uses his phone while Noel is in the room to text Talia. Even in the very beginning of Fall Fair Suite we see Mischa attempt to text Talia, while Noel is singing in the choir next to him. Noel can’t be Noel, while texting as Talia at the same time. Other people in the choir would begin to notice, Mischa included. Third, I simply don’t believe that Noel catfishing aligns with what Noel recounts about his life before singing his lament. He claims to have never experienced a love that makes him feel in the extreme way that Monique has. I think that if Noel would have catfished Mischa, due to having a crush on him, he would’ve absolutely felt that extreme and toxic love that Monique felt. So, him saying that he longed for a love he never got to experience, would discount him being in love with Mischa and catfishing him. He could be in love with Mischa, but I doubt he’d claim to have experienced love with Mischa, unless he was catfishing him. So, as he doesn’t claim to have experienced this love, I think it discounts him catfishing as Talia. Lastly (as I can’t make this comment too long), I believe that Mischa played the role he played in Noel’s lament because he was the one person Noel was the closest to. Whether that was due to their friendship, or Noel having a crush, is up for debate. But we can see that people appear in Noel’s lament based on how much he likes them. For example, Ocean (his arch nemesis), stands in one spot, practically immovable throughout the song. Constance and Jane are in the song a little, but not too much, because he’s indifferent to them. The real stars of the song, besides Noel, are Ricky and Mischa, because he likes them the most. I also want to reiterate, Noel could definitely have had a crush on Mischa, but not catfished as Talia. Does this mean that Talia is a real woman? I don’t think so. I think Talia is still a catfish, but by some other person outside of the musical. Noel knows that it’s a catfish, as does Ocean, because they both immediately stop him from ever finding out who she really is. In fact, in the musical, Ocean is the first person to claim that Talia is fake in the very beginning (“I even pretend to believe in your fake girlfriend”, paraphrased). Noel only stops Mischa first because he’s closer to Mischa, and cares more for him than I think Ocean does. I think Talia is misunderstood. Talia is not just about a girl who Mischa is in love with, Talia is about a home. Talia represents a safehaven with people who love Mischa, where he can feel at home. Mischa hasn’t experienced that since his mother died, hence why he craves it so badly. Adding onto this, Talia is from Ukraine. Mischa, in my opinion, has some very idealised views of Ukraine, which probably adds to his love for Talia. Plus, I think claiming that Noel is catfishing as Talia promotes some bad stereotypes about gay men. Although, I know that that was not your intention! Excuse the rant, but I too love this show and would like to put my two cents in. Also, excuse the language (English is not my mother tongue).
I agree with everything you said! I really liked your take on Talia as a concept too, I def think that Mischa mainly stayed with Talia because she was his main connection back to his home country.
Going off your idea that Mischa only moved to Canada in junior year, since he wouldn't have known that he was going to have to move to an English speaking country, he probably wouldn't have known a lot of English beforehand. So, I think that's another thing for Ricky and Mischa to bond over; the inability to communicate properly.
After watching this I realize Mischa is the best character (which I’ve felt all along) and he is everyone’s best friend and no one can convince me otherwise
To add to the Polyglot Mischa point, in the version I watched he also includes Dutch to his list and has a funny bit with “I speak some Dutch and not even the Dutch speak Dutch” which I loved
19:23 ok but Ricky was played by a transmasc actor in the recent McCarter theatre production and I absolutely live for it. Ricky being any kind of trans is canon to me, personally I hc him as transmasc but i also love the transfem idea (I thought the same thing when I heard the Savannah thing) 26:15 YESYESYES 100% yes Dimension 20 fan Ricky so canon 51:46 NO CUZ IVE BEEN SAYINGGGGG IVE BEEN SAYING THIS EXACTLY
I hate the change from fall fair suite to uranium suite, fall fair suite (specifically the version we here in the 2016 version of the show) is a much more satisfying sounding song that uranium suite is smh Also, i think all of the songs consist of putting each character to rest, oceans song is the only one that does not do this, but all the others do. Ricky and Noels songs allow them to live out their greatest fantasies, Mishas song give him the time to live out his greatest plan (“talia” literally begins with him stating what are presumably his VOWS!), Constance’s song is about her admitting she loves her home. Of course janes song is about her inability to be put to rest because she is not to die. Oceans song is about her perceived superior value, so her going first is necessary for her realization to get put to rest.
i think the change of the time of death from 8.19 to 6.19 makes sense along with some lines about the sun that they mention, like in karnak's dream of life or constance's jawbreaker monologue. 6.19 pm is a proper time for sunset on september and when you're upside-down, the sun 'rises while descending' y'know?
i feeeeeel like you didn’t listen to constance’s monologue well enough because her self loathing and depression becomes a lot more obvious, in said monologue she states about her sexual assault “actually i just wanted to lose it, in the most horrible possible way, constance the lifer lost it to a carnie in a crap box in a crappy town, why of course she did” which is by far the most tragic line in the show to me, and as for her friendship with ocean because of her previous statement about her SA i feel she thought she didn’t deserve any better friends, even the tightness and ill-fitting look of her shirt points to the fact constance felt trapped in her own skin
Wait I didn’t realize that the version I watched had a lot cut from it and it makes me so mad. The Mischa and Noel scene is AMAZING. And Ocean talking too much is iconic 😂 they need to bring back that version. Every single thing you mentioned is perfect for this show. I’m gonna fight them what the heck.
haha thank you! yeah im sure they had good reasons to cut what they did but i am also strongly against cutting _anything_ from this show like its short enough already let us have what we have!
If I remember correctly the resurrection thing is the chosen kid starting a whole new life again from birth so my theory is penny is Jane's reincarnation after the choir chose her to live again My theory about her death and identity is heavily influenced by Emily Rohm's own headcanons about it and the line "time eats all his children in the end" in Jane Doe's Ballad. I feel like she was either killed by her abusive father and her body was put in with the crash victims but in the recording of the play currently circulating there is footage of Jane on the rollercoaster, we just can't see her face
Personally I think that the name Savanna was a name he was saving for one of the imaginary characters he was planning on making. Maybe a character he was planning on making the girl he actually settles down with.
alright i really like this video and i honestly very much like ocean as a character. not as a person, because she absolutely would’ve passive aggressively bullied me in high school, but as a character i really like how she’s written and her role in the story. it’s good and fitting. BUT. on the point of her not liking to perpetuate mental illness stereotypes by using words like “crazy”, that facet of her seems very performative to me. like she cares more about how the words look than the actual meaning behind not using them. because sure she lightly snapped at constance for it, but then she also outright said that ricky deserves to die more than her because he’s disabled, in fact she implied that she thinks he’s mentally disabled because she thinks he can’t read. and also said that noel deserves to die more than her because he’s gay and “never gonna breed.” so regardless of her insistence on language, thinks that she, as a healthy straight girl, deserves life more than the others. whether she understands that she thinks that or not. it just feels to me like those parents of asd children who will interrupt a serious conversation to correct your terminology and use that as a way to ignore the point of the conversation rather than paying attention to what the person is saying, even if the person talking IS AUTISTIC. i’m not making this comment all about autism, that’s just an example of people who care more performatively about disabilities than genuinely.
Oh my god the small detail about Constance liking Halloween and they all died in September probably excited for Halloween next month makes me really sad Also, the Noel catfish theory I have no problem with but I personally don't believe it. Ocean mouths off how Talia is basically imaginary so I imagine Noel is the same and reacts very strongly because of his friendship and crush on Misha. They both are aware that Talia is probably some Ukranian person trying to catfish or scam Misha with pics of a random girl.
About the Fourth Wall theory, during The Ballad of Jane Doe when everyone pulls out the umbrellas, you can see her after her high note looking into the audience and started doing the shaky breaths meaning she must see everyone in the audience, I don’t know but I thought this is something I should add
i believe that Constance has the cyclone as her favourite ride because it was in the cyclone that she had that change of heart she talks in Jawbreaker. "'Cause on a certain level, it was so rad! Sailing through the air upside down, you could see all the other rides, and it was like- something unlocked in me. My heart just welled out with all this love for everything! Images and all this feeling flooded into me like... [...] There's no shame in loving my small town. The only good things that happened to me happened in Uranium. It took a horrible accident for me to realize how goddamn wonderful everything is"
Is that like your job?? That’s so cool, I’m probably never gonna get to do theater again after I graduate :( im not good enough to get into professional stuff sadly, but I love watching them :) I love the ballad of jane doe and I’d love to perform it(once I figure out how to hit the high notes, lol) it must be so cool for u!
i’m hyperfixated so hard on rtc at the moment so imagine my actual DELIGHT at seeing an hour long video talking about it i ???!?!?! love this so much. SO MUCH.
10:12 im pretty sure the line is “Our dead-end dive” because Uranium is a *dead-end* for them and they will never get out and the dive part is because they fall off the roller-coaster and *dive* to their deaths
Also a “dive” is a low-class and/or trashy establishment, like a bar or diner, or maybe even a soon-to-be ghost town that was built practically overnight for the sole purpose of mining one thing (a la No Name City in Paint Your Wagon)
For Noel, I do think he would be able to learn Ukraine and especially not through google because it is shit at languages like Ukraine. Especially when Mesha says that he knows several languages as well as say that him and Talia talk for hours in the language about things happening in the Ukraine and the traditions and culture they like and share and basically start planing a wedding. You can't learn all of that off of google you need to experience that. And for him not wanting Mesha to know what happens with Talia is because I think he does maybe like him a little, but he does not want him to be hurt with knowing it was a catfish or something worse like a girl there just wanting money from him (Because that does happen.). And with Mesha coming from a home where he and his mother did not have a lot, it is not unbelievable that he went to Canada with very little and no previous time on the internet to have his own accounts and interact online. And for Noel blushing when he grabs him, from being a queer person myself, we get embarrass when we interact with someone in a way that might make them unconfy because of us being gay and them thinking we are hitting on them. And for Noel type in a men in my opinion would make him less like to catfish someone as catfishing someone puts you in power over the person you are catfishing, and with us knowing that Talia was the one person Mesha was venerable with would full make Noel the abuse one in power and not the victim like he wants. And I don't see him as doing a long con to just revel it in hope that Mesha will snap and beat him up or something. I just can't see this.
I agree with everything you said about Ocean. My take on her is that she is genuinely a nice person but the accident traumatized her and therefore brought out a but of the worst in her. She’s deeply upset that she dedicated so much time and effort and work into her life only for it all to be taken away by the accident. Therefore when she sees this opportunity to be brought back, as expected, she’s determined to prove she’s the one that should, as determination is her thing. But however goes a bit about the wrong way of doing it, as the way she does it comes off as bitchy.
As a writer I think the change from 8 17 to 6 17 probably has to do with the projector b roll. Like it's late summer so the sun is up longer but at 8pm you'd still expect it to be setting while the footage shows bright late afternoon. As to why 6 and not seven six and eight are sylabaically the same as opposed to seven that's two.
I would switch the car thing from Mischa to Noel since Mischa's "parents" just... don't talk to him. I would heavily doubt that he would be even a car in this piss poor town since his adoptive parents resent him to begin
I just went off of his song since he says "riding in my civi' with the pumped up bass" lol ik the songs (mostly) hyperbole but i took that part literally
A few things i have, 1) The line "Uranium our dead-end dive, we'll never leave this town alive" a dead-end dive meaning a dead-end town. Uranium Suite and Fall Fair Suite make me mad because it's two different openings with two different vibes, lyrics, and emotions depicted. I wish that they just made a Fall Fair Uranium Suite and combined the two because it would work so much better. 2) Someone mentioned it before but each character matches a stage of grief and Jane Doe/Penny Lamb is Death and the cause of said grief which fits into the time loop theory of Jane Doe saying "I know this dream of life is never ending. It goes around and round and round again" 3) Ocean should have known Penny Lamb. Her parents are commune-ists. They were pro hippie life style and it could even be brought far enough that their weed that they bought, we see Ocean's mom smoking a bong in her story segment, could have been bought directly from Penny's parents. 4) I think the 5 kids did know Penny but because they maybe just met her and died with her, and Father Markus died shortly after and was supposedly the only other person who knew her, the kid's memories of Penny would have been blurred out by Karnak so they don't remember her in the "dead space" 5) I think your theory for Noel is plausible, but i also think it's a possibility that Noel isn't catfishing Mischa, but Noel knows it's a possibility that Mischa's being catfished and wants to preserve Mischa's sense of love for this person known as Talia. 6) I agree with your theories on Constance! And that's all lol, i'm so sorry for the essay XD Great video!!
I was listening to Emily Rohm’s album ‘Traveling Show’ (this is actually a very long theory so i will try to TLDR this) and I kind of developed a theory about Karnak and his *Traveling Show* the first song ‘Traveling Show’ is about a member of a Traveling Show who is sick of going round towns and meeting people and getting to know and love them and having to move on. In the album cover of both the single and the album (btw the album was released on the same day as the cast album and includes Emily’s covers of both the cut songs) Emily is dressed as a fortune teller (LIKE KARNAK) and the background of the album, there is literally a fairground. So, my theory is that Karnak’s soul, the reason he is sentient, he has powers, he can ACTUALLY predict the future and stuff is that the machine is possessed by the soul of the singer in ‘Traveling Show’ (who possibly committed suicide after getting sick of this round and round lifestyle and never having a home, *which contrasts with the motifs of the choir*). There’s also another carnival type song called ‘the magician’s assistant’ about the magician’s assitant having hidden powers or something so maybe (this is a stretch) after the fortune teller’s soul was put into karnak, the magician’s assistant was the one gave it the power to bring someone back to life. The fortune teller is Karnak theory also makes sense because the fortune teller’s struggle contrasts that of the choir and the reason Karnak brought them together and the whole events in RTC ensued was to show them despite their fantasies and wanting to run away, its the life they did live and they experiences they had and the community (in uranium) they had which mattered (most prevalent in Constance). Another thing is that since the fortune teller was part of a traveling show, their death probably wasnt made a big thing and they probably didnt have much of a funeral, possibly why Jane is so important because that happened to her. Also, I feel like another repeated motif: « Take a look around » kind of unites both the fortune teller and the choir’s stories because the fortune teller found joy in taking a look around but died due to the negativity inside them overtaking whereas the choir’s final moments and their afterlife (« take a look around » is repeated in « its just a ride ») was the only time they finally stopped to take a look around.
And a possible reason that , from the Cyclone accident to the time where Karnak is telling us the story, the traveling show didn’t start up again at all (because loads of fatal rollercoaster accidents happen) was that suspicious stuff had happened with this traveling show before, possible reports of ghostly behavoiur etc.. from the spirit of the fortune teller and the fact that they had never been seen again after ‘dissapearing’ one day
So this video is incredible!!! I watched it in like one sitting and then had to go back and process it. I have so many theories and ideas and little pieces of writing (I’ve made a timeline that includes their birthdays, major life events, etc.) about this show and world that I’ve been collecting it was amazing to finally hear somebody else’s!! It was funny that in even the smallest things I’m apparently not alone (I’ve heartily believed that Ocean bikes everywhere and on several occasions Noel has played the Miss Glutch theme from the Wizard of Oz when she approaches) but I also was so excited for the new ideas (I completely support the multiverse, carpooling, and pizza night, which will make Jawbreaker make me cry even more than it already does.) Anyway, I’m babbling on, but awesome video, and thank you for making it!!
thank you so much!! im glad other people theorise about this show as intensely as i do haha. ocean biking everywhere makes so much sense and i wholeheartedly believe it now 😄 if you ever compile your thoughts / theories on the show let me know bc i would love to hear them all!
Do you know where someone could read Legoland? I've recently gotten into Ride the Cyclone and I'd love to get more into the lore(and honestly this is probably the best musical I've seen in ages)
I think that when i they changed the time of the accident they were thinking about how traveling fares typically close around eight or 9 o'clock and it would be weird to have the accent right at the end of the day Right before the park was going to close. So they made it a little earlier
YES!! I AGREE mischa is definitely very smart, he would love writing poetry with noel and also english is definitely his strong suite and his favorite class in school
as someone who can quote entire shows and talk about them for hours on end, i appreciate this video MASSIVELY. i love all your theories and your ability to memorize the whole damn thing. its super impressive lol
Now see, I think, (I could be TOTALLY wrong, this may be even factually untrue in the show,) that Jane wasn't Penny before her death. Jane was no one specific, we don't truly know who she was before, only who she became after Karnak. Karnak sent her back and essentially created a child for her to be. Idk, that might not make any sense, but it makes sense to me. Also, i would like to add on to your Ricky is Trans Femme theory. I'm gonna make it sad tho. Because he lost his speech so young, he had no way of telling anyone that he was trans femme and preferred Savannah. Yea, just thought I'd add that. THEY CUT THE LOVE CONQUERS ALL SCENE???? RRRRRRAHHHHHHHHHHH *AND* THE OCEAN NOT TALKING THING?? WHYYYYYYYY???????? AND OCEANS REALIZING SHE DIDNT KNOW ANYONE?? WHAT VERSION DID I WATCH??? I- IM GOING TO NEED TO SEE THE NEW ONE BUT WHY DID THEH CHANGE SO MANY THINGS??? I don't like the Noel catfishing thing (just bc I love both Noel and Misha) but I DO think that Noel had a HUGE crush on Misha (and I kinda want Misha to like him back) (minor ship) (minor) (maybe major ok) They cut Misha speaking so many languages??? 😭😭 I'm gonna cry I love that scene I think Misha moved in freshman year. I don't have much proof, just that we know he didn't meet Talia till he was in Canada, and I feel like he wouldn't rush into an engagement, they have to have at least 3 or 4 years before they get engaged. Noel and Misha carpooling? MWAH. CHEFS KISS. LOVE IT. (also it's totally where Noel's crush started) Misha and Ricky being friends? AGAIN. YES. LOVE ITTTT. now I'm imagining Misha like sitting next to Ricky at lunch CONSTANTLY and Ricky is SO CONFUSED before after a little while Misha just starts chatting and they become friends I just- 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Misha being friends with pretty much everyone but Ocean? Sobbing yes this is wonderful (not saying Ocean doesn't deserve to be friends with Misha, I just love this)
i have a theory that ricky is saving the name for a potential new cat they were going to adopt or a new kitten, I mean they already had 14 cats, whats one more?
Note: I have only seen the bootleg 2016 version that’s been circling on RUclips. So all my interpretations are based on that version. I agree with the multiverse theory. My interpretation is that they went through the crash twice: once where they all died at the start; then again at the end where the Penny lives. Karnak says “your name IS Penny Lamb” not “was”. (So I believe he lied when he said he “never read her fortune”. We know he can lie- as he says it will be decided by a unanimous vote when it will actually be decided by Ocean.) So it’s a kinda time loop situation- but at the end they don’t end up at the exact place they started. So I guess it’s like a roller coaster loop- you end up adjacent to where you started. Honestly I like your homeostasis theory. His life in exchange for Penny’s. But I don’t agree with Penny being identified ( but that info not being released publicly) and that Karnak gets information from reading the thoughts of the people he reads the fortune of. That’s because I thinks it’s unreasonable believe any normal park activities continued after the crash. Some would have called 911 but others would have run to the wreck to see if they could offer aid. They would very quickly realized…. Well we know the crash had the force to decapitate . The police would have certainly shut down the area. They were likely not equipped the disaster (small town and all) but keeping look-loos away out of respect for the kids is probably where they would have started. It would have taken at least several hours for the accident investigators to arrive. Plus Karnak created limbo dimension outside of time. And can see the future perfectly. And has the power to rewrite reality. Sure that last power comes at cost of his life but I don’t feel it’s too much to say he’s omnipresent. So that’s my reasoning that Karnak was not misinformed when he said Penny was unable to be identified. As for why Penny wasn’t identified: First need to point a timeline thing. We are told the choir gave their last concert an hour before their death at the carnival. And that Constance lost her virginity to a carney three hours before. (And I trust she would be able to accurately remember whether she lost her virginity before or after their last concert). So around 3 pm they where at the carnival. Then at 5pm they were at the bandshell before returning to the carnival by 6pm. School typically get out at 3 and I think it’s weird that Constance would have arrived at the carnival and immediately snuck off to have sex. I mean I feel like Ocean would have noticed. So my theory is that the St. Cassian student body had spent that Monday at Wonderville- it wasn’t just the choir that was there. I believe at the time of RTC, Penny had already graduated (but still had her uniform). She had planed to sneak in with the rest of the school to hang out with Ezra. But shenanigans happened so she ended up spending the day with the choir. (Hence the rumors of a girl that joined at the last minute. And why there is a 3rd girl visible for brief moments in the intro reel. But she wasn’t actually a member. Or a student. They couldn’t link the body to the one missing student because she wasn’t supposed to be there). Either Ezra didn’t know she was there- or no one believed him when he insisted to see the headless body because it was Penny. (They assumed he just wanted an excuse to see the bodies) Also I would like to point out that Jane knew what happened to her body (she was able to quote the coroner. Noel had to be told what happened at his funeral. If she had been identified in private, the coroner would have said that and Jane would then know that.) And thematically I prefer her truly being identified. She represents all the individuals who were never identified after accidents. At the start of the play Karnak says he wishes to give a voice back to the victims of a tragedy. (Maybe being unplugged causes his power to express in evil / disastrous ways? Because, personality wise, he’s comes across as chaotic good.) She might be able to give a voice to Penny, but she can to all those victims that remain unidentified I just stumbled across this musical yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it
I wasn’t keen on the idea of a time loop until you mentioned that Karnak is targeting and messing with Ocean for her personal betterment. The quote “the one who wants to win the most shall redeem the loser and complete the whole.” What if the children’s souls are connected and cannot move on to the next stage until their souls are at peace? As mentioned Ocean has good reason to not accept her death and what if the trial for choosing who comes to life is to help the kids find acceptance with their death. Jane doe and ocean are the two who are restless spirits. And what if ocean doesn’t accept her death and leaves the group incomplete as Jane also can’t accept her death as she doesn’t know who she is. What if Ocean failed the test time and time again and Karnak has to restart the loop to ensure he makes amends for his felt failure of the children by ensuring their restless spirits pass to the next stage. Hence why their souls are still summoned 20 or so years after the fact. When ocean chooses Jane and accepts her death she finally completes the whole of acceptance of death and the five souls can finally move on.
I kinda disagree on the things you said about Ocean's parents being good people. While yes, her parents intentions to move there to live in an environmentally healthy lifestyle, I do not personally think they were good parents. If you watch the scene where it describes her home life, I noticed two things. Ocean struggled to gain the attention of her parents, hence her jumping up and down around them to get their attention, and when she did get their attention, her parents tried to hand her a bong (I think that's what it was, correct me if I'm wrong.) So basically, they were encouraging her to pick up their nasty habits as well. Since most of the characters home lives were up to interpretation, so I also kinda read it as her parents being *those* hippies (ie: the ones who don't believe in modern medicine, even if it puts them in danger) but thats just me.
Dude the way I’ve watched this specific video like 6 times, as well as all your other RTC content only to see you don’t have like thousands of subscribers baffles me I love your vids keep it uP
Ricky clearly for me is an anime boy, cat woman and all that crazy ideas are very common in anime world, I don't see him as an comic book guy that much.
I disagree with the perspective that Ocean was right and did nothing wrong but I do prefer bitchy Ocean. The message of the musical is that all lives have value, nobody's keeping score of how hard you work at the end of the day, and there are no winners and losers in death - the value of life comes from the experience. In fact I'm pretty sure some of that is said outright at the end. Life is about experience. Ocean had regrets - she regretted working so hard instead of enjoying life, and comes to a crisis when she realizes her hard work meant nothing, when that hard work was the basis of her worldview of "heroes" and "zeroes." Ocean was wrong because she only viewed people by what she imagined was their utilitarian function, when that goes against the basic, core message of the story. Ocean devalued others' lives, especially her best friend's, who felt bad about herself specifically because nobody saw worth in the things she valued. Life is about the beauty of experience, and so life was returned to the one among them who didn't get to keep their experiences with them in death. Ocean is literally a social darwinist, and "did wrong" by devaluing and even dehumanizing (in Jane's case) those around her. I wouldn't say she's a terrible person--ultimately she's the one who champions Jane's ressurection after all--but I seriously doubt a social darwinist is truly more valuable to the world than a budding musician, a wannabe poet lariat, an imaginative terminally ill boy, an average small-town woman, or a girl with an unknown identity. But it's Ocean's "bitchiness," I think, that helps emphasize the story's message. I can't imagine the ending of the musical being as powerful as it was without her character growth, so I am disappointed they've apparently toned her behavior down.
This! 100% this. You can work hard like Ocean and *not* look down on others. Ocean is a stereotypical mean good girl - she's so good at everything because yes, she works hard, but she resents the people who don't work as hard as her. She centers value of a life in their contributions according to her ideals. Noel has no value because he won't have biological children. Constance has no value because she is fat (while not all of her actresses have been, she alludes to this and the original play she was yes?), she works at a family mom and pop and had town pride until people like *Ocean* made her feel bad for loving her life. Ocean does a lot of Virtue signaling. Look how nice and wonderful I am! While simultaneously talking over and not listening to her "best friend" who she seems to keep as a pet project/accessory for her self aggrandising. Think early Galinda before the character growth. The only way you can say she did *nothing* wrong is by sharing her beliefs. "Well they weren't contributing to society or working as hard!" Noel was a primary breadwinner for his family and was trying to scrape up enough money to move out of country for more opportunity to live how he wanted to live. Mischa was the victim of his mom's roulette to save him and give him a better life, and abusive adoptive parents. He was actively trying to go back "home" to reunite with his culture and the woman he believed he loved. Constance *was* happy with her life and supporting her small town and her family business - until people like Ocean tore her down for loving those things. It's okay to love your life and be content with where you are. There *have to be* people running the eateries and pumping the gas and making your taco bell burrito. What, is Ocean going to do all those things for herself? Why are these jobs treated as lesser than? She's cruel, has her head so far up her own pretentious ass she can't see anything but her own shit right up until the end. Even thr "kind" gesture for Jane was just Ocean doing good for the sake of praise and recognition for her good deeds. Good deeds exclusively as social currency lose their luster. She's a great character, but she's not one I would be proud to identify with.
I simply do not give a fricky fuck about them all dying besides Penny, they went to the same area she did with the same lights, The winner will choose the loser to complete the whole, they are all alive and i take ZERO criticism!!!!!
Ricky’s degenerative disease reminds me a lot of ALS (also rare and super brutal on the body) and with it looking grim in his teens could show that it’s working fast and he’s already resigned to dying young
I believe jane was penny before but doesnt have the memory of her life because she was decapitated. The other kids dont remember her bc she was an outcast and kept to herself bc of the bullying she faced from the other kids at school. Ezra wasnt there bc he wasnt involved in the choir. I hope the third play or musical fills in Ezra's timeline.
I really like the time loop theory! I think the writers definitely made it that way on purpose - Samuel Becket's Endgame ends with the same stage imagery as when it starts - and we know the writers are very much aware of Becket's work due to the Waiting for Godot reference dialogue in the Nativity play - definitely seems like a Becket reference to me. I interpret Endgame as a time loop too ☺️
NO no way noel is talia, thats bullshit I don’t believe that, its gross and it paints Noel as a villain, which makes no sense for the show, perhaps Noel knew he was being catfished and didn’t wanna tell him, theres quite a few leaps in logic to get there, Also Noel is my favorite and I don’t want him to be a “villain”. Also I don’t like the idea that the only queer character in the show (canonically atleast) would be taking advantage of the stereotypical straight boy of the group by manipulating his desire to embrace his culture.
Waittt I’ve been waiting for this!!! Ok, I’m going to watch this after school - I’m so excited! I’ve cultivated quite a few of my own RTC theories in the past couple of months and can’t wait to hear others!!
So my opinion on the "Talia is Noel catfishing Mischa" right I really hate this theory- so much. Specifically referencing the 2016 version: I genuinely don't believe that Noel is desperate enough to catfish Mischa. To believe that Noel is catfishing Mischa feels like such a homophobic and harmful stereotype. Alot of Noel and Mischa's interaction more feel like besties rather than lovers. I say this because especially when Mischa was going to run to Karnak, everyone, including Noel, seemed really concerned. My theory is that everyone in choir knew that Talia is a catfish (i.e. Ocean constantly calling Talia his "imaginary girlfriend) and that Noel just seemed to be the one to stop him. I really don't think that Noel and Mischa are lovers. I truly believe that they are besties who hang out often. Nothing more.
Personally, I ship them, but I totally agree with your argument. I genuinely don't get why so many people think Noel would stoop so low as to catfish Mischa.
To add on, his whole thing is a desire for tragedy, and unrequited love would be just emotionally devastating, especially if you know they are into and planning a future with someone else.
I always assumed saint cassian was a k-12 school which is why ocean says "ive known most of these folks since pre-k" + their town is super tiny so splitting up people into different grades / schools might not be feasible
I think a better question is why doesn’t Mischa stay with his cousin? His Aunt or Uncle must live close or maybe the cousin was adopted into Canada as well by some lucky chance?
@@DJ-qu8wd i always thought it was his adopted cousin like his adopted parents have a nephew and mischa calls him his cousin just out of simplicity lol
It is! This is the sequel to Jacob Richmond's Legoland and he is currently writing the final part of the trilogy (but there is no concrete release date / timeline as of yet)
48:57 /Nm The whole Noel catfish thing is really bad in a lot of ways.. 1) if noel really loved mischa(which js heavily implied) he wouldn't do that to him. 2) noel is the only cannon gay character in the ENTIRE musical, and if hes catfishing his supposed crush.. that kinda puts a bad spotlight on gay people as a whole because he is the only representation of that. It kinda makes noel seem like a predator one, and also makes him seem like a villan. Which the creators definitely wouldn't want, as they quite obviously crafted the characters to be lovable and or relatable, and making one of thr nore tragic, relatable characters the book definition of a "predator" seems eh.. 3 Noel is the "romantic dreamer" if the group, and obviously takes a liking to mischa, youd think if he never got romance (or his "fantasy romance") he would want mischa to have it. So the whole "no you dont wanna see that"/"yes love conquers all" thing is him protecting mischa from anything that doesnt fit his ideal romance. 4) kholby wardrell (the dude that played Noel for 12 YEARS. "Kholby has played him for years, hes been carefully hand crafting this character for a while"- brook (one of the creators of the musical) and basically saying most of noel came from kholby. And kholby himself saud he hates the catfish theory and that it puts his character in a bad light. Kholby also often hashtags 'nishca' on his videos, so he supports nischa, but doenst want it done in that way)) 5) somone who played someone... (Mischa i believe) Said talia is real, from evidence given by directors/ conversations. So overall the theory is really problematic and is most definitely noel bieng a good friend. Not trying to be rude, but i only saw like one other comment about this, and the theory is really icky
thank you for this I really appreciate it! I obvi didn't mean for it to come across that way but I'm gonna make a whole video addressing this soon so I can explain it well and it doesn't get lost in the comments :)
Okay I love this show, and the songs and characters are amazing. I just wish it had more. Like I wish there was more stuff of the characters interacting. Like the duo scenes between Constance and Ocean, and Jane Doe and Ricky.
you and me both bestie TT the show used to be a full 2 hour show with an intermission and everything and every night i wish for jacob and brooke to leak that version bc i need to read it
it's only the tip of the iceberg?????????? i am so hyperfixated right now on this show i know it's literally been a year since this video came out but i am BEGGING you to make another one like if it's entirely rambling i do not care. i love you
i read the plot to Ride The Cyclone and Legoland like every day and i still have no idea what is happening in either of them. theory's are my fav thing about plays and fandomes. idk why but you made it more like understandable. i just watched the show and it gives me the creeps at the end.
late to this but i have a Theory falling into the "time loop" thing explaining why Jane Doe never got identified: when Jane Doe is brought back to life, they need to replay the Cyclone disaster, in a timeline where Penny never got on the roller coaster. But, to avoid a paradox, there still need to be 6 dead bodies, because that is how the scenario played out, and what witnesses remember. So when the accident happens, no one can identify the headless body, because Penny is alive. The body isn't actually connected to any of the kids that died, it's simply there to stop a paradox from the timeline changing to only have 5 people die. It would have been Penny, but she wasn't on the roller coaster. But when they're summoned by Karnak, there's the 5 kids, and Jane Doe, who technically "died" in the accident but has no identity, and thus, no one can remember her, nor does she know anything about herself (also explains why you never see her in the "rollercoaster formation" choreography). She eventually gets "brought back to life" as Penny, but then the cycle continues again, because in order to correct continuity issues from the timeline being altered with, there is always an unidentifiable body that "dies." "This dream of life is never-ending, it goes around and round and round..." Jane Doe's wish to have an identity and a life ends up causing the time loop to endlessly repeat, because allowing her to be brought back messes with the timeline such that she always ends up existing again, as an unidentified dead body. tldr; Jane Doe doesn't actually exist as a person, she's a stand-in for the dead body of Penny, since Penny was meant to die in the accident and then didn't, but there still needs to be 6 dead bodies to avoid a paradox in the timeline, causing a timeloop where Jane Doe keeps getting "brought back to life."
Maybe it’s just my wanting to believe that they peacefully move onto the afterlife, but one point against the time loop theory is found in the music: on “round and round again”, the chord structure is different each time. At the beginning, it goes onto the the next little part of the song and ends on a major chord out of nowhere-denial is the first stage of grief. The reprise, though, ends on that first phrase, resolving on the tonic minor chord, which feels more natural and could symbolize acceptance-the final stage of grief.
ok but can we talk about how the fact that ricky's imaginary alien people are cat people is most likely at least partially influenced by the fact that his family has 14 cats
Oh no
right like why does no one talk about that link???? was he sexually attracted to his family's 14 cars???🥲
@@regzlots Doubt it. He frequently had two ladies on his arms in his fantasies. What else does he always have on each arm? His crutches. Probably his cats just curled up on his arms and shoulders and it gave him the idea to imagine his crutches were beautiful cat-women instead of crutches. It was the way he found to cope.
...Well that's not at all scary
Wait did he fantasize about... With his pets... 😧
I have the old bootleg from 2016, what Mischa says is "Dude, I speak Ukrainian, Russian, English, and some Dutch. Not even the Dutch speak Dutch. I know what a cliche is." So he is canonically a polyglot!
yesss i will literally not stand for "mischa is not smart" slander he is simply a language arts kid and ocean can stfu about it lmao
I for the life of me can't find any slime tutorials mind sharing yours or at least where to find it
@@ellxsandranoratora they were taken down recently from yt (because two weeks ago they existed) so i think that they will resurface in near future:)
There is one up right now :)
Halp I desperately need a slime tutorial for this any recommendations?
the most interesting theory to me so far is that karnak’s original intention was for the 5 choir members to come to terms with their inevitable deaths, but penny was never supposed to die and karnak’s whole game was an excuse to bring her back (he made the choir think it was their choice so they would be ok with it). karnak read the other five’s fortunes, he knew they all had to die that night so he tells them to ride the cyclone (maybe he thought itd be the quickest and least painful way for them to go). karnak states that he never read penny’s fortune and did not know her. maybe he realized that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and her death was purely bad luck (karnak also says in the penny intro that her zodiac is the sign of luck). maybe he needed to correct that mistake to free the others from the timeloop and put them to rest.
One of the most devastating things about RTC for me is that I looked up Uranium City, and it has a population of 73. If 6 teens die that's approximately 1/12 of the population. If 25% of the population is under the age of 18, that means like ~20 people are kids. Imagine going back to highschool when the majority of your class are dead, people you've known your entire life. :(
oh my god I knew it was a small town but that’s so so so small. That hurts to imagine sm :[[[
actually, it has a population of 91 if we look at 2021 statistics (its still a very small number)
since the show is implied to take play in 2009, i checked the census data for uranium city in 2011 (it's the closest census to the show) and the population is listed as 105. So I guess ive gotta shift my numbers lol
AND STILL NO ONE KNEW JANE DOE??? OH MY GOD I AM NOW SO HEARTBROCKEN
agreeing with the most recent reply here.
so youre telling me despite this fact, no one knows jane?? in a SMALL city???
thats sad wtf????
A thought about Savannah:
If you hc Ricky as transmasc, you could theoretically say that he saved Savannah (his dead name) for a future child. Not everyone has to absolutely hate their dead name, so it might be that Ricky has decided that he liked his dead name as a name, so saved it
I actually love that
this is really cool! :D
@@chetarisin3035 me too, it's a very cute thought and fits very well with Ricky as mtf while still making Savannah a thing
@@choklitskittlez27 thank you :3
@gec(gay emo cousin) yeah, I've seen the other comments :) I just wanted to give a different view, especially since you'd assume that Ricky would be a bit upset at being a male presenting ghost if they were truly transfem
Here's something I find interesting: Ricky, at least in the 2016 version, appears very appreciative of Jane with his facial expressions. He doesn't usually seem as unsettled by her as the others and is willing to have personal talks with her. The only connection I can think of that could explain this is that if you watch the opening closely, you'll notice that, in the newspaper photos and video clips, Ricky was positioned next to "Jane" when performing and when on the coaster. In all the pictures and videos, both he and her were always positioned out of the way in the back, so far in the back she was almost always obscured. They might not have exchanged names because of Ricky's inability to talk and "Jane's" last-minute join-up, but I think he was the only person to really take the time to notice that there had been a sixth member of the choir right before the accident, because he'd been next to her all day.
I just thought that was a really interesting detail.
it could also just be his actor not knowing what to do, but during fall fair suite in the 2016 version when we hear jane singing while the other students are in a circle around ricky he seems to be the only one semi aware that she's there- he's looking up.
there’s definitely a connection between ricky and jane. janes true identity is penny lamb, a character from another play by jacob richmond, in which she states in her closing monologue that “love is the closest you come to another person, because it’s the closest you come to being another person” ricky also says this in one version of space age bachelor man
You're the first person on any video ive seen on rtc mention that penny was in the choir competition sequence - to an extent.
If you squint during the sequence in the background there's an obscured figure away from the audience that can quite literally only be penny
I genuinely don't think Karnak is evil, but rather morally gray. Karnak is ultimately a sad being due to the fact he was programmed to never really be able to interfere. But now he has found a way to interfere, and maybe teach a few lessons along the way, and ultimately lay some children to rest.
Edit:spelling
YES THANK YOU??? I HATE HOW SO MANY PEOPE PORTRAY KARNAK AS JUST EVIL!!!
i think Ocean’s character works SOOOO much better as a bitchy uptight entitled person. it makes her so much more compelling as a character. oh my god the “i’m gonna say what everyone’s thinking, what are we talking about two maybe three years?” ITS SO GOOD. not. all. characters. need. to. be. likable. and i think she gets there in the end while still being bitchy. i love it. i wish they didn’t cut as much as they did
I'm not going to lie, Ocean seems like she was entirely accidentally a bitch given her backstory. She was raised by hippies who moved out to a rural town to reduce their carbon footprint to zero, she likely had a very relaxed upbringing and that's why she is the way she is. She craves order as her form of rebellion against her parents, and her views of superiority were because she pushed herself to being the best possible student that she could be and that being her only metric for success. She wanted to make herself academically appealing because the Catholic School and the extra curriculum was the only place where she got a sense of order and discipline from and therefore the only place where she knew she was doing well. As the ending song states, Life isn't a game, you can't win or lose.
Ocean really seems like a good kid who just simply didn't have time to grow up and realize that the world wasn't all about being a good student and rigorous structure and order. She didn't realize she was a bitch because nobody confronted her about her bad behavior and she lacked the self awareness of a more mature person. With this, she maintains being bitchy and uptight, but it's not malicious in intent, she just was young and didn't have time to grow up and Karnak is simply giving her enough time to process the trauma, realize how terrible she was in life, and go through the process of trying to better herself with the final test being sacrifice of opportunity, something that in life, she had plenty of, to give it to someone who needs it. It shows her process of unlearning the bad behaviors and trying to make amends, even if she is still accidentally a bitch about it because she genuinely doesn't know how to give a good compliment.
Agreed every story needs an asshole
It's funny cuz I she's still my second favourite character
personally i don't think they cut down oceans bitchiness in an attempt to make her more likable but rather an attempt to make the SHOW more likable and therefore sellable. she had some REALLY ignorant and rude lines and i think they just trimmed them down to make it more corporate friendly and more producible for a larger audience that would turn up their nose at some of the things she originally said.
thats so true ive never thought of it like that@@regzlots
For the last bit about headcannons. The idea of Mischa’s mother being alive and hearing that her child died must’ve been heart wrenching. Imagine this, you’re slowly, and painfully dying. One day, you get news that your (probably) one and only child has died in a freak accident. How absolutely heartbreaking that is. Your child died and you can’t even visit their grave because you yourself is dying.
Timestamp: 1:12:51 (around then)
49:01 - For the “Noel is Catfishing Mischa theory”, I think that the reason Noel tells Mischa is not because he’s catfishing him. I think Noel realizes that Mischa is deeply in love with the *concept* of Talia and he’s scared that Mischa will end up even more heartbroken than he is currently. For him, Talia is his only connection to Ukraine and shows how he deeply values his culture/country. The song is based on Trad Ukrainian music and they even wear traditionally inspired outfits. If Mischa learned that Talia was fake, he’d probably be in a very very bad mental state and lose the one thing he had to look forward to in the future.
Noel is a romantic and a dreamer, so it makes sense for him to be the one to tell Mischa to stop. He probably had his fair share of harsh reality checks when he realized that he could never find love (or his idea of love) in Uranium City or even live his life the way he wanted to.
Additionally, I think he was scared that Talia would be fake. Not sure if this is cut but after What the World Needs, Ocean says “Mischa, I love you! I even believed in your imaginary girlfriend!” which shows that the possibility of the choir thinking she’s a catfish is plausible.
Fun fact:I'm pretty sure a cast member confirmed Talia is real
I agree totally!!
I love the duality about Noel, he is my favorite character and I’ve always seen him as a very grounded but romantic person. He boldly stated that he is a sex provocateur and a novelist while simultaneously admitting the fact that he never did any of the things a sp and a novelist would. He is a self proclaimed Nihilist, but you could visually see him still wish for a meaning to his life, like him pursuing a part time job at Taco Bell just save up and go to France. That’s why it always hurts me to hear this theory, probably one of the worse-est theory ever. It makes him look like an opportunist and defeats the purpose of his character in the story, which is to ultimately foil Ocean in some way, he is someone who sees no value in his life but wants best for everyone else, while Ocean sees only the value of her life but not everyone else, and that scene just shows THAT.
@@AreesDaOGYeah, Kholby did, the og (and most well known) actor of Noel.
I don't think it's a time loop, but you pointed out interesting details. I think they die in the crash and then the show takes place with deciding who to save. Once they pick Jane Doe, they can't just bring her back to life (cause she doesn't have a head) meaning they would have to reset the crash and live it again to ensure that she survives. So although not a total time loop, I do think have to go through the crash twice, meaning Jane's song at the start represents the crash, which is why it's at the end again.
I wasn’t made completely clear in the rules, but they were brought back to life. Not back to their old life. Jane was reborn as a baby.
@@mikan1597 But Karnak says they would brought back to "survive beyond" the Cyclone disaster, which I always thought implied her death would just be retconned so she was the sole survivor. I guess it could go either way, the lines aren't very clear.
@@AlashiaTuol I agree, I believe there lives start from the beginning and this time Jane ether survives or never gets on the ride, then the rest of the choir are put to rest
@@AlashiaTuol yeah, knowing how karnak is known for being unreliable, i doubt that he would find a way to recon that tbh
@K the production had two options for every run: show her life before like they did everyone else or show her life after the disaster. Remember it shows EVERYONE'S lives before in their reel, so technically they just went back and showed us the information they couldn't qhen Penny was still Jane
I thought Ricky was saving Savanna for one of his imaginary characters. Like maybe he named all the cat women and he was wanting to name one Savanna.
YEAH ME TOO
I was wondering if that was maybe just the writer in me but I’m glad it wasn’t just me lol
That’s my name!! It was never in a musical before, and now it is!!
There’s also a Savannah breed of cat.👀
@@marcialynnukulele not only that, it’s also where lions live, sort of cementing a connection between her and Ricky in an interesting way
Spoilers, since it reveals the end, but:
I like to think Penny might've gone on to name one of her children seen in the overview of her life "Savannah."
I think the reason that Jane doesn’t share Penny’s memories is because she doesn’t have her name/identity. Once they vote to revive her, her memories come back and they start calling her Penny. Because she was called Jane Doe, the memories didn’t show up for her because not even the fortune teller knew who she was
Or she could’ve been reincarnated as penny as it wouldn’t make sense for her to go back to a body that doesn’t have a literal head
@@The-Busy-Beeeee I think it makes more sense that everyone got brought back for a final moment to chance the accident
This being penny not going on the coster
But everyone else is on the coster for a final ride knowing. That they’ll die
@Razmin Fox yea that does make sense too
@@The-Busy-Beeeeei'm in a production right now, and my director said he interprets the ending as whoever gets brought back is brought back to just before the accident. maybe they get the sudden overwhelming urge to pee while in line, maybe they decide not to ride, the reason doesn't matter. penny was brought back to just before the accident, and for some reason, she didn't get on. and therefore she survived
@@regzlots and my head canon is the reason why we don’t know her first is because Karnak haven’t read her fortune yet right? The next time around when she was revived, Karnak knew about her because that time around when she was revived, instead of going to the ride she goes to Karnak’s stall for a fortune reading and that’s why her fate changed and Karnak knew her the moment she crossed the light.
For me, Ocean is a character that I really like from a written standpoint, but I would immediately deck in the face as an actual person. I'm an Ocean kin in a "hate to love" way. And I also appreciate the more bitchy version than the more "family-friendly mode" Ocean in the new shows.
see i relate way too much to ocean that im v much in the "ocean has done nothing wrong. i know this and i love her" camp lmao but im glad we agree that her more bitchy version is superior 😌
I went to a show just the other night where the director wrote her to gradually improve in her interactions throughout the show! Didn't leave out the boob punch scene though lmao, but while the show was amping up to sugar cloud she waited in the back with the recorder/mic and held the mic for her instead of jane doe and gave her a hug at the end, absolutely loved how she was written
Agree on that. The ableism is hard to get past 4 me lol
About Penny Lamb- I have a bit of an odd theory. I think its like a paradox- she both died and survived at the same time.
Penny dies in the crash. Penny is smeared from the timeline due to the future paradox and becomes Jane Doe. Jane Doe is chosen to live. Jane Doe returns to the same timeline post-smear as a paradox-corrected Penny who was either not on the ride or not in the choir at the time of the accident. Pre-smear Penny/Jane's head is deleted by the timeline in order to clean up after the paradox, but her body is still there because she still needed to die in order for the story to happen. The other kids do not know who she is because the timeline has already been corrected and she wasn't there. Karnak knows her in the end because Post-Smear Penny was at the fair and did get her fortune told.
It being a paradox also works fantastically with the whole theme and repeating and loops and going round and round and round and round
Omg, that's the best theory I've heard and am now head-cannoning it!
dang that makes sense i always just went with the reincarnation theory
I feel like this also explains why no parents came for Penny
@@PancakeFlowers exactly, no parents came because their daughter didnt die
This is the best one I’ve heard!
OK SO I ALSO HAVE SOME THEORIES
1) What if it's Karnak's death that resets the timeline back to the start of the incident? That's why he can't see beyond his death, bc there's nothing more TO see? It just resets back to the start again. And going off of that:
2)I've only seen 2016 so I didn't realise the time of the accident has changed and ITS GETTING LATER?? What if every time Karnak resets the timeline he pushes the cyclone accident later and later to eventually stop them from getting on it altogether, thus preventing their deaths? Not in a "I want to save these kids" way, but in a self preservation way? He gets shut in a warehouse with Virgil chewing through his power cable because (like you said) the carnival got sued so they had to pack everything up. If he saves the six saints then he would never get stored away and he would therefore avoid his OWN death. Maybe it's his own sheer force of will to keep living that resets the timeline? (This is also basically the plot of the anime Higurashi lmao)
3) I HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAY ABOUT CONSTANCE'S FAVOURITE RIDE BEING THE CYCLONE:
a) Either its her favourite ride posthumously because it made her realise how much she loved her life (Sugar Cloud)
OR
b) It was her idea for them all to ride the cyclone since at the start of the musical it shows all of them taking turns to go on each other's favourite rides (the bumper cars, the shooting gallery, etc), and that's why her catchphrase is "sorry"? She's apologising for being responsible for their deaths.
4) The carnie in charge of the cyclone was checking the safety of the rollercoaster carts 3 hours before the choir got on, when he was distracted by Constance flirting with him. He skipped his job that day to sleep with her in the carnival port-a-potty, and because of that, he failed to realise that one of the cart's front axels was coming loose. (I think this because the carnie Constance described was wearing the same Iron Maiden t-shirt Karnak offered as a prize at the start). This could also explain why her catchphrase is "sorry".
WHEW OK SORRY THIS WAS AN ESSAY I just think abt this musical a LOT
YOU. BEAUTIFULLY BRAINED PERSON.
I DIDNT EVEN KNOW IT GETS LATER AND LATER OMG
444th like
I never would’ve thought of some of these but wow that adds up
OMG I LOVE HIGURASHI
Instead of a repetitive loop, it could be that each loop retcons the death of one of the cast, meaning every iteration of the accident has one less dead kid in the cart needing ressurection at the end of that loop. Undo Jane's death and you have five kids crashing in the accident. Have them choose among each other, undo one of their deaths, and then four kids crash and two are spared. Undo one of the four kids and then three kids crash and three are spared. Eventually you'd resurrect all of them.
Ah, that's so cool!
This would add to why Karnak says each of the kids' Zodiac signs--Aries, Penny's sign, is the first sign of the Zodiac. Then Gemini (Ricky), Leo (Mischa), Scorpio (Constance), Capricorn (Ocean), and finally Pisces (Noel). Resurrection order?
That seems like a reasonable order in my opinion. But how would a vote happen in Noel's case?@@GuineaPig361
Thanks for making me feel better about the ending 🥲
i dont care if thwts not cannon its cannon in my heart
i'm pretty sure the reason for the time change to 6:17 instead of 8:17 was because 6:00 pm is the time of sunset, which would recontextualize the line from Karnak's Dream of Life "sun is rising while descending" since the sun was setting while they died but since they were upside-down in the loop-de-loop it appeared to them as rising.
OOOOOOOOO
i find it very interesting that, after jane gets brought back, the video of her life makes it very evident that her eyes are green, just like savannah with the greenest eyes. could it be that in life, penny’s eyes are canonically green and it’s just a memory she doesn’t know she has, like the lioness thing? or considering the theory that jane doesn’t revive, but rather gets reincarnated into penny lamb, maybe karnak took note of what she asked ricky for savannah to look like? though if that’s the case, i wonder why she was allowed to keep the eye color but not the name.
i never really thought about mischa's line about his mother's death indirectly killing him in an emotional way, i always took it literally in that if she hadn't died he would never have been in uranium, never been in the choir and never gotten on the cyclone in the first place
I like to think that when they go back to roller coaster positions at the end of the show that is the choir going back to moments before the rollercoaster crashed but this time Jane Doe survives to of course live on. But it doesn't make much sense because of them watching Penny's (Jane's) life before the end so I kind of just think that in the warehouse time doesn't exist.
Ricky’s story is most likely supposed to represent how he never had an outlet to express his puberty so he combined his nerdy interests with that because as you see in a bunch of weird 80’s sci-fi stories it’s plays out like a fan fiction combined with sexual tension and nerdy interests. It’s also an ego thing like oh people need me and I’m super handsome.
Agreed, people tend to infantilize people with disabilities (you can see Ocean doing this in bootlegs), especially as severe as Ricky’s. He (at least in some of the earlier shows) that he was always like that, but he couldn’t actually speak those thoughts out loud.
I personally never got the trans hc, as nothing in the show implies it in the slightest. Savannah being an important name to him is not indicative of him being trans whether it be a deadname or a desired name. I also get the impression that Uranium is a bit backwards (people speculate that it takes place sometime after 2015) as Noel’s mother told him to “blend in” in regards to his homosexuality, so I don’t necessarily think that being transmasc would be a widely acceptable thing either, but that’s just my 2 cents.
Just wanted to add in about Ricky not knowing sign language: because he's in such a small town, it's quite possible there was no one to teach him or his family (as sign language is pretty hard to learn without a fluent - or preferably native - speaker) so they made up their own signs.
Also, I saw a recording of the old version (specifically the 2016 run) you were talking about and I'm so sad about how much they cut in newer versions! I had no idea!
ohhh that makes a lot of sense i never thought about that!
and yeah I'm sure they did it with good reasons but I also strongly disagree with the choice to cut _anything_ from this show lol
My theory was he couldn’t move his body well enough to use sign language
Love your pfp and name!
@@beatricefox937 Thanks so much! Yours too! Glad to see there's some fandom overlap!
Fun fact! The actor who played Ricky, Alex Wyse, was in deaf west spring awakening as georg so he does actually know sign language!
I like to interpret the cyclical ending as revealing that they hadn't actually died at that point and the whole sequence at the beginning wasn't the rollercoaster breaking but Karnack removing them from time, a la him saying they would give time the middle finger. This would make more sense than them already being dead because at the end of the play they would still be submitting to time.
Evidence they aren't dead during the rest of the play:
- they still exhibit bodily functions like drinking, eating and urinating
- I know the actors can't really help breathing but they are all very visibly breathing
- during "It's not a game/ It's just a ride" none of them seem worried at all. At least in the 2016 version, they are laughing, with their hands in the air. They have gone back to before the accident happened.
If they weren't dead during the game, then maybe they weren't really deciding who didn't die but deciding who never joined the choir, therefore none of them remember Jane/Penny because her winning would mean none of them would know her from the choir! Penny doesn't seem too traumatised during the home footage and you'd think they would touch on the survivor's guilt of being the only survivor of a rollercoaster crash as a child.
idk if this makes any sense but it's what I think happened.
OK THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE OMG
I don't rlly have evidence but my hc is that sugar cloud is the only piece in the show where Karnak hasn't choreographed their performance like he did to ocean. (Apart from it's not a game/ it's just a ride cuz he's dead)
yes! their dances feel more like random teenage dances. same with the new birthday song, the dance in that piece is their own free will, which makes it more beautiful i think
I also feel this with the new birthday song. Atleast not the words, kinda letting them do whatever lyrically speaking
29:35
So I think that Penny *did* join the choir, possibly last minute, maybe she was just quiet and didn’t interact with others or was deemed strange so they didn’t really talk to her.
Moving on, I think originally she HAD joined the choir, died on the cyclone, but when she went back the whole time loop thing happened and it caused her not to join them on the ride or even join the choir at all.
The biggest mystery about Constance is which fandom she’s writing spicy fanfic for. Cuz she’s definitely writing spicy fanfic lol. Also which tribe her family belongs to because she’s heavily coded as First Nation.
Also I think Constance prefers plain pepperoni pizza, but Ocean lowkey bullies her into also getting a vegetable so they can share the pizza. So they cycle between Pepperoni and Olive and Pepperoni and Mushroom
Just discovered this musical two days ago and already obsessed. I was devastated when I found out how small the fan base for such an incredible show was. This video is a godsend
thank you! i have done nothing but talk to myself about this musical for the past 4 years so i get what you mean lol i wish more people knew about how great this show is (which is why i refuse to shut up about it) but i also enjoy our small and mighty fanbase!
@@themostbritishamerican omg please make another video i could watch hours of you talking about it
46:49 AAAAAND THERE IT IS you hit the nail on the head. ocean would be SUCH a fav if she was a boy, no one would think twice about loving her. they'd be like omg stinky mean baby boy! i love my mean king!
49:01 this theory always felt oof to me as someone who always thought of Noel as my kinnie and someone I relate too. I love the duality about Noel, he is my favorite character and I’ve always seen him as a very grounded but romantic person. He boldly stated that he is a sex provocateur and a novelist while simultaneously admitting the fact that he never did any of the things a sp and a novelist would. He is a self proclaimed Nihilist, but you could visually see him still wish for a meaning to his life, like him pursuing a part time job at Taco Bell just to save up and go to France. That’s why it always hurts me to hear this theory, probably one of the worse-est theory ever. It makes him look like an opportunist and defeats the purpose of his character in the story, which is to ultimately foil Ocean in some way, he is someone who sees no value in his life but wants best for everyone else, while Ocean sees only the value of her life but not everyone else, and that scene just shows THAT.
I saw this one idea that the cyclone crashed bc jane doe was thrown on the tracks and by choosing her to live again the crash never happened so they all get to live.
I love this concept!
Great video! I definitely agree on some theories. Others not so much. One I want to bring up is the Noel catfishing Mischa theory. Noel was not catfishing as Talia. Firstly, I firmly believe that Noel couldn’t possibly have learned Ukrainian. He is stated to have been obsessed with french movies from a very early age, but despite this speaks very bad French. This is not only evident in the fact that he says two French words in the entire musical (even though he sang a whole song about being French), but also by his terrible French accent. I don’t think he is very gifted language-wise.
Second, Noel physically couldn’t be catfishing as Talia. We see that Mischa, multiple times during the musical, uses his phone while Noel is in the room to text Talia. Even in the very beginning of Fall Fair Suite we see Mischa attempt to text Talia, while Noel is singing in the choir next to him. Noel can’t be Noel, while texting as Talia at the same time. Other people in the choir would begin to notice, Mischa included.
Third, I simply don’t believe that Noel catfishing aligns with what Noel recounts about his life before singing his lament. He claims to have never experienced a love that makes him feel in the extreme way that Monique has. I think that if Noel would have catfished Mischa, due to having a crush on him, he would’ve absolutely felt that extreme and toxic love that Monique felt. So, him saying that he longed for a love he never got to experience, would discount him being in love with Mischa and catfishing him. He could be in love with Mischa, but I doubt he’d claim to have experienced love with Mischa, unless he was catfishing him. So, as he doesn’t claim to have experienced this love, I think it discounts him catfishing as Talia.
Lastly (as I can’t make this comment too long), I believe that Mischa played the role he played in Noel’s lament because he was the one person Noel was the closest to. Whether that was due to their friendship, or Noel having a crush, is up for debate. But we can see that people appear in Noel’s lament based on how much he likes them. For example, Ocean (his arch nemesis), stands in one spot, practically immovable throughout the song. Constance and Jane are in the song a little, but not too much, because he’s indifferent to them. The real stars of the song, besides Noel, are Ricky and Mischa, because he likes them the most. I also want to reiterate, Noel could definitely have had a crush on Mischa, but not catfished as Talia.
Does this mean that Talia is a real woman? I don’t think so. I think Talia is still a catfish, but by some other person outside of the musical. Noel knows that it’s a catfish, as does Ocean, because they both immediately stop him from ever finding out who she really is. In fact, in the musical, Ocean is the first person to claim that Talia is fake in the very beginning (“I even pretend to believe in your fake girlfriend”, paraphrased). Noel only stops Mischa first because he’s closer to Mischa, and cares more for him than I think Ocean does.
I think Talia is misunderstood. Talia is not just about a girl who Mischa is in love with, Talia is about a home. Talia represents a safehaven with people who love Mischa, where he can feel at home. Mischa hasn’t experienced that since his mother died, hence why he craves it so badly. Adding onto this, Talia is from Ukraine. Mischa, in my opinion, has some very idealised views of Ukraine, which probably adds to his love for Talia.
Plus, I think claiming that Noel is catfishing as Talia promotes some bad stereotypes about gay men. Although, I know that that was not your intention!
Excuse the rant, but I too love this show and would like to put my two cents in. Also, excuse the language (English is not my mother tongue).
I agree with everything you said! I really liked your take on Talia as a concept too, I def think that Mischa mainly stayed with Talia because she was his main connection back to his home country.
Going off your idea that Mischa only moved to Canada in junior year, since he wouldn't have known that he was going to have to move to an English speaking country, he probably wouldn't have known a lot of English beforehand. So, I think that's another thing for Ricky and Mischa to bond over; the inability to communicate properly.
omg incredible bit of insight thank you gonna go cry over this lol
After watching this I realize Mischa is the best character (which I’ve felt all along) and he is everyone’s best friend and no one can convince me otherwise
To add to the Polyglot Mischa point, in the version I watched he also includes Dutch to his list and has a funny bit with “I speak some Dutch and not even the Dutch speak Dutch” which I loved
tHIS IS PERFECT CAUSE I HAVE NO ONE TO TALK ABOUT THIS SHOW WITH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I NEED THIS
19:23 ok but Ricky was played by a transmasc actor in the recent McCarter theatre production and I absolutely live for it. Ricky being any kind of trans is canon to me, personally I hc him as transmasc but i also love the transfem idea (I thought the same thing when I heard the Savannah thing)
26:15 YESYESYES 100% yes Dimension 20 fan Ricky so canon
51:46 NO CUZ IVE BEEN SAYINGGGGG IVE BEEN SAYING THIS EXACTLY
omg i didnt know that thats so cool! him being trans just makes so much sense to me so im glad other people see it :)
I hate the change from fall fair suite to uranium suite, fall fair suite (specifically the version we here in the 2016 version of the show) is a much more satisfying sounding song that uranium suite is smh
Also, i think all of the songs consist of putting each character to rest, oceans song is the only one that does not do this, but all the others do. Ricky and Noels songs allow them to live out their greatest fantasies, Mishas song give him the time to live out his greatest plan (“talia” literally begins with him stating what are presumably his VOWS!), Constance’s song is about her admitting she loves her home. Of course janes song is about her inability to be put to rest because she is not to die. Oceans song is about her perceived superior value, so her going first is necessary for her realization to get put to rest.
i think the change of the time of death from 8.19 to 6.19 makes sense along with some lines about the sun that they mention, like in karnak's dream of life or constance's jawbreaker monologue. 6.19 pm is a proper time for sunset on september and when you're upside-down, the sun 'rises while descending' y'know?
The Sun rising while descending is also true because as it is descending in one part of the world it is "rising" in another.
i feeeeeel like you didn’t listen to constance’s monologue well enough because her self loathing and depression becomes a lot more obvious, in said monologue she states about her sexual assault “actually i just wanted to lose it, in the most horrible possible way, constance the lifer lost it to a carnie in a crap box in a crappy town, why of course she did” which is by far the most tragic line in the show to me, and as for her friendship with ocean because of her previous statement about her SA i feel she thought she didn’t deserve any better friends, even the tightness and ill-fitting look of her shirt points to the fact constance felt trapped in her own skin
??? i don't disagree with any of your points but what did I say that makes you think I didn't listen to it "well enough"?
Wait I didn’t realize that the version I watched had a lot cut from it and it makes me so mad. The Mischa and Noel scene is AMAZING. And Ocean talking too much is iconic 😂 they need to bring back that version. Every single thing you mentioned is perfect for this show. I’m gonna fight them what the heck.
haha thank you! yeah im sure they had good reasons to cut what they did but i am also strongly against cutting _anything_ from this show like its short enough already let us have what we have!
If I remember correctly the resurrection thing is the chosen kid starting a whole new life again from birth so my theory is penny is Jane's reincarnation after the choir chose her to live again
My theory about her death and identity is heavily influenced by Emily Rohm's own headcanons about it and the line "time eats all his children in the end" in Jane Doe's Ballad. I feel like she was either killed by her abusive father and her body was put in with the crash victims but in the recording of the play currently circulating there is footage of Jane on the rollercoaster, we just can't see her face
Personally I think that the name Savanna was a name he was saving for one of the imaginary characters he was planning on making. Maybe a character he was planning on making the girl he actually settles down with.
alright i really like this video and i honestly very much like ocean as a character. not as a person, because she absolutely would’ve passive aggressively bullied me in high school, but as a character i really like how she’s written and her role in the story. it’s good and fitting. BUT.
on the point of her not liking to perpetuate mental illness stereotypes by using words like “crazy”, that facet of her seems very performative to me. like she cares more about how the words look than the actual meaning behind not using them.
because sure she lightly snapped at constance for it, but then she also outright said that ricky deserves to die more than her because he’s disabled, in fact she implied that she thinks he’s mentally disabled because she thinks he can’t read. and also said that noel deserves to die more than her because he’s gay and “never gonna breed.”
so regardless of her insistence on language, thinks that she, as a healthy straight girl, deserves life more than the others. whether she understands that she thinks that or not.
it just feels to me like those parents of asd children who will interrupt a serious conversation to correct your terminology and use that as a way to ignore the point of the conversation rather than paying attention to what the person is saying, even if the person talking IS AUTISTIC.
i’m not making this comment all about autism, that’s just an example of people who care more performatively about disabilities than genuinely.
6:18 counter point: Mischa has a MOTORCYCLE
Oh my god the small detail about Constance liking Halloween and they all died in September probably excited for Halloween next month makes me really sad
Also, the Noel catfish theory I have no problem with but I personally don't believe it. Ocean mouths off how Talia is basically imaginary so I imagine Noel is the same and reacts very strongly because of his friendship and crush on Misha. They both are aware that Talia is probably some Ukranian person trying to catfish or scam Misha with pics of a random girl.
About the Fourth Wall theory, during The Ballad of Jane Doe when everyone pulls out the umbrellas, you can see her after her high note looking into the audience and started doing the shaky breaths meaning she must see everyone in the audience, I don’t know but I thought this is something I should add
i believe that Constance has the cyclone as her favourite ride because it was in the cyclone that she had that change of heart she talks in Jawbreaker.
"'Cause on a certain level, it was so rad! Sailing through the air upside down, you could see all the other rides, and it was like- something unlocked in me. My heart just welled out with all this love for everything! Images and all this feeling flooded into me like... [...] There's no shame in loving my small town. The only good things that happened to me happened in Uranium. It took a horrible accident for me to realize how goddamn wonderful everything is"
I loved this!! I’m currently playing Jane Doe in a production in Columbus and I’ve now told my entire cast about this video lol
I'm so glad you like it! and jane doe is a seriously hard role so hats off and break a leg!
Woah. When is the performance. I’m from Ohio and have been looking for this show being performed somewhere close
Oh my gosh I saw your production! I was so happy to see Ride The Cyclone on my birthday. You were amazing!
Is that like your job?? That’s so cool, I’m probably never gonna get to do theater again after I graduate :( im not good enough to get into professional stuff sadly, but I love watching them :) I love the ballad of jane doe and I’d love to perform it(once I figure out how to hit the high notes, lol) it must be so cool for u!
Here in 2024. CANNOT stop with this show. It's on RUclips right now via slime tutorial. Watched so much stuff and this is still stuck in my head lolz
i’m hyperfixated so hard on rtc at the moment so imagine my actual DELIGHT at seeing an hour long video talking about it i ???!?!?! love this so much. SO MUCH.
10:12 im pretty sure the line is “Our dead-end dive” because Uranium is a *dead-end* for them and they will never get out and the dive part is because they fall off the roller-coaster and *dive* to their deaths
Also a “dive” is a low-class and/or trashy establishment, like a bar or diner, or maybe even a soon-to-be ghost town that was built practically overnight for the sole purpose of mining one thing (a la No Name City in Paint Your Wagon)
For Noel, I do think he would be able to learn Ukraine and especially not through google because it is shit at languages like Ukraine. Especially when Mesha says that he knows several languages as well as say that him and Talia talk for hours in the language about things happening in the Ukraine and the traditions and culture they like and share and basically start planing a wedding. You can't learn all of that off of google you need to experience that. And for him not wanting Mesha to know what happens with Talia is because I think he does maybe like him a little, but he does not want him to be hurt with knowing it was a catfish or something worse like a girl there just wanting money from him (Because that does happen.). And with Mesha coming from a home where he and his mother did not have a lot, it is not unbelievable that he went to Canada with very little and no previous time on the internet to have his own accounts and interact online. And for Noel blushing when he grabs him, from being a queer person myself, we get embarrass when we interact with someone in a way that might make them unconfy because of us being gay and them thinking we are hitting on them. And for Noel type in a men in my opinion would make him less like to catfish someone as catfishing someone puts you in power over the person you are catfishing, and with us knowing that Talia was the one person Mesha was venerable with would full make Noel the abuse one in power and not the victim like he wants. And I don't see him as doing a long con to just revel it in hope that Mesha will snap and beat him up or something. I just can't see this.
I agree with everything you said about Ocean. My take on her is that she is genuinely a nice person but the accident traumatized her and therefore brought out a but of the worst in her. She’s deeply upset that she dedicated so much time and effort and work into her life only for it all to be taken away by the accident. Therefore when she sees this opportunity to be brought back, as expected, she’s determined to prove she’s the one that should, as determination is her thing. But however goes a bit about the wrong way of doing it, as the way she does it comes off as bitchy.
As a writer I think the change from 8 17 to 6 17 probably has to do with the projector b roll. Like it's late summer so the sun is up longer but at 8pm you'd still expect it to be setting while the footage shows bright late afternoon. As to why 6 and not seven six and eight are sylabaically the same as opposed to seven that's two.
I would switch the car thing from Mischa to Noel since Mischa's "parents" just... don't talk to him. I would heavily doubt that he would be even a car in this piss poor town since his adoptive parents resent him to begin
I just went off of his song since he says "riding in my civi' with the pumped up bass" lol ik the songs (mostly) hyperbole but i took that part literally
A few things i have,
1) The line "Uranium our dead-end dive, we'll never leave this town alive" a dead-end dive meaning a dead-end town. Uranium Suite and Fall Fair Suite make me mad because it's two different openings with two different vibes, lyrics, and emotions depicted. I wish that they just made a Fall Fair Uranium Suite and combined the two because it would work so much better.
2) Someone mentioned it before but each character matches a stage of grief and Jane Doe/Penny Lamb is Death and the cause of said grief which fits into the time loop theory of Jane Doe saying "I know this dream of life is never ending. It goes around and round and round again"
3) Ocean should have known Penny Lamb. Her parents are commune-ists. They were pro hippie life style and it could even be brought far enough that their weed that they bought, we see Ocean's mom smoking a bong in her story segment, could have been bought directly from Penny's parents.
4) I think the 5 kids did know Penny but because they maybe just met her and died with her, and Father Markus died shortly after and was supposedly the only other person who knew her, the kid's memories of Penny would have been blurred out by Karnak so they don't remember her in the "dead space"
5) I think your theory for Noel is plausible, but i also think it's a possibility that Noel isn't catfishing Mischa, but Noel knows it's a possibility that Mischa's being catfished and wants to preserve Mischa's sense of love for this person known as Talia.
6) I agree with your theories on Constance!
And that's all lol, i'm so sorry for the essay XD Great video!!
My personal headcanon for Savannah is that it would be Ricky's OC/Furry's name lolll
the version I saw had the "I’m just disappointed" and "love concerns all" lines in it
and the majority of the other cut lines
I was listening to Emily Rohm’s album ‘Traveling Show’ (this is actually a very long theory so i will try to TLDR this) and I kind of developed a theory about Karnak and his *Traveling Show* the first song ‘Traveling Show’ is about a member of a Traveling Show who is sick of going round towns and meeting people and getting to know and love them and having to move on. In the album cover of both the single and the album (btw the album was released on the same day as the cast album and includes Emily’s covers of both the cut songs) Emily is dressed as a fortune teller (LIKE KARNAK) and the background of the album, there is literally a fairground. So, my theory is that Karnak’s soul, the reason he is sentient, he has powers, he can ACTUALLY predict the future and stuff is that the machine is possessed by the soul of the singer in ‘Traveling Show’ (who possibly committed suicide after getting sick of this round and round lifestyle and never having a home, *which contrasts with the motifs of the choir*).
There’s also another carnival type song called ‘the magician’s assistant’ about the magician’s assitant having hidden powers or something so maybe (this is a stretch) after the fortune teller’s soul was put into karnak, the magician’s assistant was the one gave it the power to bring someone back to life.
The fortune teller is Karnak theory also makes sense because the fortune teller’s struggle contrasts that of the choir and the reason Karnak brought them together and the whole events in RTC ensued was to show them despite their fantasies and wanting to run away, its the life they did live and they experiences they had and the community (in uranium) they had which mattered (most prevalent in Constance). Another thing is that since the fortune teller was part of a traveling show, their death probably wasnt made a big thing and they probably didnt have much of a funeral, possibly why Jane is so important because that happened to her.
Also, I feel like another repeated motif: « Take a look around » kind of unites both the fortune teller and the choir’s stories because the fortune teller found joy in taking a look around but died due to the negativity inside them overtaking whereas the choir’s final moments and their afterlife (« take a look around » is repeated in « its just a ride ») was the only time they finally stopped to take a look around.
And a possible reason that , from the Cyclone accident to the time where Karnak is telling us the story, the traveling show didn’t start up again at all (because loads of fatal rollercoaster accidents happen) was that suspicious stuff had happened with this traveling show before, possible reports of ghostly behavoiur etc.. from the spirit of the fortune teller and the fact that they had never been seen again after ‘dissapearing’ one day
i seriously need a compilation of all the scary, creepy, metaphysical, etc... moments in the show
I like to think that Jane doesn’t have any of Pennys memories because she kinda got decapitated- it just helps me make more sense of everything
"This is all from memory I haven't seen this in 3 years" I just watched it minutes ago and you are quoting EXACTLY
lmao after youve seen it 20+ times the lines really stick with you
this girl is FUELING my RTC obsession full force. thank you for doing gods work
So this video is incredible!!! I watched it in like one sitting and then had to go back and process it. I have so many theories and ideas and little pieces of writing (I’ve made a timeline that includes their birthdays, major life events, etc.) about this show and world that I’ve been collecting it was amazing to finally hear somebody else’s!! It was funny that in even the smallest things I’m apparently not alone (I’ve heartily believed that Ocean bikes everywhere and on several occasions Noel has played the Miss Glutch theme from the Wizard of Oz when she approaches) but I also was so excited for the new ideas (I completely support the multiverse, carpooling, and pizza night, which will make Jawbreaker make me cry even more than it already does.) Anyway, I’m babbling on, but awesome video, and thank you for making it!!
thank you so much!! im glad other people theorise about this show as intensely as i do haha. ocean biking everywhere makes so much sense and i wholeheartedly believe it now 😄 if you ever compile your thoughts / theories on the show let me know bc i would love to hear them all!
Ocean is definitely a better environmental activist than her parents thats so accurate!
Do you know where someone could read Legoland? I've recently gotten into Ride the Cyclone and I'd love to get more into the lore(and honestly this is probably the best musical I've seen in ages)
I bought my own copy of it as there are a couple at online discount book stores for
drive.google.com/file/d/1QhCcMWpNOZ1abZ70Cl5Yz_Ou4GuDw0jp/view
I think that when i they changed the time of the accident they were thinking about how traveling fares typically close around eight or 9 o'clock and it would be weird to have the accent right at the end of the day Right before the park was going to close. So they made it a little earlier
YES!! I AGREE mischa is definitely very smart, he would love writing poetry with noel and also english is definitely his strong suite and his favorite class in school
as someone who can quote entire shows and talk about them for hours on end, i appreciate this video MASSIVELY. i love all your theories and your ability to memorize the whole damn thing. its super impressive lol
I always read Savannah as perhaps being a comic book heroine in a story he always wanted to write.
Now see, I think, (I could be TOTALLY wrong, this may be even factually untrue in the show,) that Jane wasn't Penny before her death. Jane was no one specific, we don't truly know who she was before, only who she became after Karnak. Karnak sent her back and essentially created a child for her to be. Idk, that might not make any sense, but it makes sense to me.
Also, i would like to add on to your Ricky is Trans Femme theory. I'm gonna make it sad tho. Because he lost his speech so young, he had no way of telling anyone that he was trans femme and preferred Savannah. Yea, just thought I'd add that.
THEY CUT THE LOVE CONQUERS ALL SCENE???? RRRRRRAHHHHHHHHHHH
*AND* THE OCEAN NOT TALKING THING?? WHYYYYYYYY????????
AND OCEANS REALIZING SHE DIDNT KNOW ANYONE?? WHAT VERSION DID I WATCH??? I- IM GOING TO NEED TO SEE THE NEW ONE BUT WHY DID THEH CHANGE SO MANY THINGS???
I don't like the Noel catfishing thing (just bc I love both Noel and Misha) but I DO think that Noel had a HUGE crush on Misha (and I kinda want Misha to like him back) (minor ship) (minor) (maybe major ok)
They cut Misha speaking so many languages??? 😭😭 I'm gonna cry I love that scene
I think Misha moved in freshman year. I don't have much proof, just that we know he didn't meet Talia till he was in Canada, and I feel like he wouldn't rush into an engagement, they have to have at least 3 or 4 years before they get engaged.
Noel and Misha carpooling? MWAH. CHEFS KISS. LOVE IT. (also it's totally where Noel's crush started)
Misha and Ricky being friends? AGAIN. YES. LOVE ITTTT. now I'm imagining Misha like sitting next to Ricky at lunch CONSTANTLY and Ricky is SO CONFUSED before after a little while Misha just starts chatting and they become friends I just- 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Misha being friends with pretty much everyone but Ocean? Sobbing yes this is wonderful (not saying Ocean doesn't deserve to be friends with Misha, I just love this)
I have a theory about Jane coming back and telling them to not go on the roller
Coaster due to her having a bad feeling
this video expresses so many of the weird unrelated headcannons I’ve had about RTC…like…Pizza Night headcannon has been stewing in my head for DAYS
i have a theory that ricky is saving the name for a potential new cat they were going to adopt or a new kitten, I mean they already had 14 cats, whats one more?
Note: I have only seen the bootleg 2016 version that’s been circling on RUclips. So all my interpretations are based on that version.
I agree with the multiverse theory.
My interpretation is that they went through the crash twice: once where they all died at the start; then again at the end where the Penny lives. Karnak says “your name IS Penny Lamb” not “was”. (So I believe he lied when he said he “never read her fortune”. We know he can lie- as he says it will be decided by a unanimous vote when it will actually be decided by Ocean.)
So it’s a kinda time loop situation- but at the end they don’t end up at the exact place they started. So I guess it’s like a roller coaster loop- you end up adjacent to where you started.
Honestly I like your homeostasis theory. His life in exchange for Penny’s.
But I don’t agree with Penny being identified ( but that info not being released publicly) and that Karnak gets information from reading the thoughts of the people he reads the fortune of.
That’s because I thinks it’s unreasonable believe any normal park activities continued after the crash. Some would have called 911 but others would have run to the wreck to see if they could offer aid. They would very quickly realized…. Well we know the crash had the force to decapitate . The police would have certainly shut down the area. They were likely not equipped the disaster (small town and all) but keeping look-loos away out of respect for the kids is probably where they would have started. It would have taken at least several hours for the accident investigators to arrive. Plus Karnak created limbo dimension outside of time. And can see the future perfectly. And has the power to rewrite reality. Sure that last power comes at cost of his life but I don’t feel it’s too much to say he’s omnipresent.
So that’s my reasoning that Karnak was not misinformed when he said Penny was unable to be identified.
As for why Penny wasn’t identified:
First need to point a timeline thing. We are told the choir gave their last concert an hour before their death at the carnival. And that Constance lost her virginity to a carney three hours before. (And I trust she would be able to accurately remember whether she lost her virginity before or after their last concert).
So around 3 pm they where at the carnival. Then at 5pm they were at the bandshell before returning to the carnival by 6pm.
School typically get out at 3 and I think it’s weird that Constance would have arrived at the carnival and immediately snuck off to have sex. I mean I feel like Ocean would have noticed.
So my theory is that the St. Cassian student body had spent that Monday at Wonderville- it wasn’t just the choir that was there.
I believe at the time of RTC, Penny had already graduated (but still had her uniform). She had planed to sneak in with the rest of the school to hang out with Ezra. But shenanigans happened so she ended up spending the day with the choir. (Hence the rumors of a girl that joined at the last minute. And why there is a 3rd girl visible for brief moments in the intro reel. But she wasn’t actually a member. Or a student. They couldn’t link the body to the one missing student because she wasn’t supposed to be there).
Either Ezra didn’t know she was there- or no one believed him when he insisted to see the headless body because it was Penny. (They assumed he just wanted an excuse to see the bodies)
Also I would like to point out that Jane knew what happened to her body (she was able to quote the coroner. Noel had to be told what happened at his funeral. If she had been identified in private, the coroner would have said that and Jane would then know that.)
And thematically I prefer her truly being identified. She represents all the individuals who were never identified after accidents.
At the start of the play Karnak says he wishes to give a voice back to the victims of a tragedy. (Maybe being unplugged causes his power to express in evil / disastrous ways? Because, personality wise, he’s comes across as chaotic good.)
She might be able to give a voice to Penny, but she can to all those victims that remain unidentified
I just stumbled across this musical yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it
I wasn’t keen on the idea of a time loop until you mentioned that Karnak is targeting and messing with Ocean for her personal betterment.
The quote “the one who wants to win the most shall redeem the loser and complete the whole.” What if the children’s souls are connected and cannot move on to the next stage until their souls are at peace?
As mentioned Ocean has good reason to not accept her death and what if the trial for choosing who comes to life is to help the kids find acceptance with their death. Jane doe and ocean are the two who are restless spirits. And what if ocean doesn’t accept her death and leaves the group incomplete as Jane also can’t accept her death as she doesn’t know who she is. What if Ocean failed the test time and time again and Karnak has to restart the loop to ensure he makes amends for his felt failure of the children by ensuring their restless spirits pass to the next stage. Hence why their souls are still summoned 20 or so years after the fact. When ocean chooses Jane and accepts her death she finally completes the whole of acceptance of death and the five souls can finally move on.
I kinda disagree on the things you said about Ocean's parents being good people. While yes, her parents intentions to move there to live in an environmentally healthy lifestyle, I do not personally think they were good parents. If you watch the scene where it describes her home life, I noticed two things. Ocean struggled to gain the attention of her parents, hence her jumping up and down around them to get their attention, and when she did get their attention, her parents tried to hand her a bong (I think that's what it was, correct me if I'm wrong.) So basically, they were encouraging her to pick up their nasty habits as well. Since most of the characters home lives were up to interpretation, so I also kinda read it as her parents being *those* hippies (ie: the ones who don't believe in modern medicine, even if it puts them in danger) but thats just me.
Dude the way I’ve watched this specific video like 6 times, as well as all your other RTC content only to see you don’t have like thousands of subscribers baffles me
I love your vids keep it uP
thank youuu TT
Ricky clearly for me is an anime boy, cat woman and all that crazy ideas are very common in anime world, I don't see him as an comic book guy that much.
of course the lines loop from the end to the beginning. rollercoasters end where they start cause people get off and new riders get loaded on
I disagree with the perspective that Ocean was right and did nothing wrong but I do prefer bitchy Ocean. The message of the musical is that all lives have value, nobody's keeping score of how hard you work at the end of the day, and there are no winners and losers in death - the value of life comes from the experience. In fact I'm pretty sure some of that is said outright at the end. Life is about experience. Ocean had regrets - she regretted working so hard instead of enjoying life, and comes to a crisis when she realizes her hard work meant nothing, when that hard work was the basis of her worldview of "heroes" and "zeroes." Ocean was wrong because she only viewed people by what she imagined was their utilitarian function, when that goes against the basic, core message of the story. Ocean devalued others' lives, especially her best friend's, who felt bad about herself specifically because nobody saw worth in the things she valued. Life is about the beauty of experience, and so life was returned to the one among them who didn't get to keep their experiences with them in death. Ocean is literally a social darwinist, and "did wrong" by devaluing and even dehumanizing (in Jane's case) those around her. I wouldn't say she's a terrible person--ultimately she's the one who champions Jane's ressurection after all--but I seriously doubt a social darwinist is truly more valuable to the world than a budding musician, a wannabe poet lariat, an imaginative terminally ill boy, an average small-town woman, or a girl with an unknown identity.
But it's Ocean's "bitchiness," I think, that helps emphasize the story's message. I can't imagine the ending of the musical being as powerful as it was without her character growth, so I am disappointed they've apparently toned her behavior down.
This! 100% this.
You can work hard like Ocean and *not* look down on others. Ocean is a stereotypical mean good girl - she's so good at everything because yes, she works hard, but she resents the people who don't work as hard as her.
She centers value of a life in their contributions according to her ideals. Noel has no value because he won't have biological children. Constance has no value because she is fat (while not all of her actresses have been, she alludes to this and the original play she was yes?), she works at a family mom and pop and had town pride until people like *Ocean* made her feel bad for loving her life.
Ocean does a lot of Virtue signaling. Look how nice and wonderful I am! While simultaneously talking over and not listening to her "best friend" who she seems to keep as a pet project/accessory for her self aggrandising. Think early Galinda before the character growth.
The only way you can say she did *nothing* wrong is by sharing her beliefs. "Well they weren't contributing to society or working as hard!"
Noel was a primary breadwinner for his family and was trying to scrape up enough money to move out of country for more opportunity to live how he wanted to live.
Mischa was the victim of his mom's roulette to save him and give him a better life, and abusive adoptive parents. He was actively trying to go back "home" to reunite with his culture and the woman he believed he loved.
Constance *was* happy with her life and supporting her small town and her family business - until people like Ocean tore her down for loving those things. It's okay to love your life and be content with where you are.
There *have to be* people running the eateries and pumping the gas and making your taco bell burrito. What, is Ocean going to do all those things for herself? Why are these jobs treated as lesser than?
She's cruel, has her head so far up her own pretentious ass she can't see anything but her own shit right up until the end. Even thr "kind" gesture for Jane was just Ocean doing good for the sake of praise and recognition for her good deeds.
Good deeds exclusively as social currency lose their luster.
She's a great character, but she's not one I would be proud to identify with.
I simply do not give a fricky fuck about them all dying besides Penny, they went to the same area she did with the same lights, The winner will choose the loser to complete the whole, they are all alive and i take ZERO criticism!!!!!
10:20 I always thought that it was “Uranium our dead end drive, we’ll never leave this town alive”
Ricky’s degenerative disease reminds me a lot of ALS (also rare and super brutal on the body) and with it looking grim in his teens could show that it’s working fast and he’s already resigned to dying young
I believe jane was penny before but doesnt have the memory of her life because she was decapitated. The other kids dont remember her bc she was an outcast and kept to herself bc of the bullying she faced from the other kids at school. Ezra wasnt there bc he wasnt involved in the choir. I hope the third play or musical fills in Ezra's timeline.
I really like the time loop theory! I think the writers definitely made it that way on purpose - Samuel Becket's Endgame ends with the same stage imagery as when it starts - and we know the writers are very much aware of Becket's work due to the Waiting for Godot reference dialogue in the Nativity play - definitely seems like a Becket reference to me. I interpret Endgame as a time loop too ☺️
NO no way noel is talia, thats bullshit I don’t believe that, its gross and it paints Noel as a villain, which makes no sense for the show, perhaps Noel knew he was being catfished and didn’t wanna tell him, theres quite a few leaps in logic to get there, Also Noel is my favorite and I don’t want him to be a “villain”. Also I don’t like the idea that the only queer character in the show (canonically atleast) would be taking advantage of the stereotypical straight boy of the group by manipulating his desire to embrace his culture.
Waittt I’ve been waiting for this!!! Ok, I’m going to watch this after school - I’m so excited! I’ve cultivated quite a few of my own RTC theories in the past couple of months and can’t wait to hear others!!
So my opinion on the "Talia is Noel catfishing Mischa" right
I really hate this theory- so much. Specifically referencing the 2016 version: I genuinely don't believe that Noel is desperate enough to catfish Mischa. To believe that Noel is catfishing Mischa feels like such a homophobic and harmful stereotype. Alot of Noel and Mischa's interaction more feel like besties rather than lovers. I say this because especially when Mischa was going to run to Karnak, everyone, including Noel, seemed really concerned. My theory is that everyone in choir knew that Talia is a catfish (i.e. Ocean constantly calling Talia his "imaginary girlfriend) and that Noel just seemed to be the one to stop him. I really don't think that Noel and Mischa are lovers. I truly believe that they are besties who hang out often. Nothing more.
Personally, I ship them, but I totally agree with your argument. I genuinely don't get why so many people think Noel would stoop so low as to catfish Mischa.
To add on, his whole thing is a desire for tragedy, and unrequited love would be just emotionally devastating, especially if you know they are into and planning a future with someone else.
@@lucidfantasies2732same, like what??
One thing I haven’t heard anyone talk about is why Mischa’s cousin goes to the same school as him.
I always assumed saint cassian was a k-12 school which is why ocean says "ive known most of these folks since pre-k" + their town is super tiny so splitting up people into different grades / schools might not be feasible
I think a better question is why doesn’t Mischa stay with his cousin? His Aunt or Uncle must live close or maybe the cousin was adopted into Canada as well by some lucky chance?
@@DJ-qu8wd i always thought it was his adopted cousin like his adopted parents have a nephew and mischa calls him his cousin just out of simplicity lol
wait... ride the cyclone is a trilogy?!
It is! This is the sequel to Jacob Richmond's Legoland and he is currently writing the final part of the trilogy (but there is no concrete release date / timeline as of yet)
48:57
/Nm
The whole Noel catfish thing is really bad in a lot of ways..
1) if noel really loved mischa(which js heavily implied) he wouldn't do that to him.
2) noel is the only cannon gay character in the ENTIRE musical, and if hes catfishing his supposed crush.. that kinda puts a bad spotlight on gay people as a whole because he is the only representation of that. It kinda makes noel seem like a predator one, and also makes him seem like a villan. Which the creators definitely wouldn't want, as they quite obviously crafted the characters to be lovable and or relatable, and making one of thr nore tragic, relatable characters the book definition of a "predator" seems eh..
3 Noel is the "romantic dreamer" if the group, and obviously takes a liking to mischa, youd think if he never got romance (or his "fantasy romance") he would want mischa to have it. So the whole "no you dont wanna see that"/"yes love conquers all" thing is him protecting mischa from anything that doesnt fit his ideal romance.
4) kholby wardrell (the dude that played Noel for 12 YEARS. "Kholby has played him for years, hes been carefully hand crafting this character for a while"- brook (one of the creators of the musical) and basically saying most of noel came from kholby. And kholby himself saud he hates the catfish theory and that it puts his character in a bad light. Kholby also often hashtags 'nishca' on his videos, so he supports nischa, but doenst want it done in that way))
5) somone who played someone... (Mischa i believe) Said talia is real, from evidence given by directors/ conversations.
So overall the theory is really problematic and is most definitely noel bieng a good friend.
Not trying to be rude, but i only saw like one other comment about this, and the theory is really icky
thank you for this I really appreciate it! I obvi didn't mean for it to come across that way but I'm gonna make a whole video addressing this soon so I can explain it well and it doesn't get lost in the comments :)
Okay I love this show, and the songs and characters are amazing. I just wish it had more. Like I wish there was more stuff of the characters interacting. Like the duo scenes between Constance and Ocean, and Jane Doe and Ricky.
I also just wished it just had more dialogue period lol.
you and me both bestie TT the show used to be a full 2 hour show with an intermission and everything and every night i wish for jacob and brooke to leak that version bc i need to read it
@@themostbritishamerican IT WAS 2 HOURS WITH INTERMISSION???? DAMN WE GOT ROBBED
For the cut lines most of them are in the cyclone slime tutorial on RUclips.
do you know where to find the other version ?
it's only the tip of the iceberg?????????? i am so hyperfixated right now on this show i know it's literally been a year since this video came out but i am BEGGING you to make another one like if it's entirely rambling i do not care. i love you
I have a PhD and I want to take my degree and hand it over to you for this analysis. You deserve it.
as a college drop out thank you 😄and as karnak said no tradesies so you cant have it back lol
@@themostbritishamerican That's it then! Karnak makes the rules... Most British American, Ph.D.
i read the plot to Ride The Cyclone and Legoland like every day and i still have no idea what is happening in either of them. theory's are my fav thing about plays and fandomes. idk why but you made it more like understandable. i just watched the show and it gives me the creeps at the end.
Thank you!! I also picked up on ocean being a bit ‘tistic.
late to this but i have a Theory falling into the "time loop" thing explaining why Jane Doe never got identified:
when Jane Doe is brought back to life, they need to replay the Cyclone disaster, in a timeline where Penny never got on the roller coaster. But, to avoid a paradox, there still need to be 6 dead bodies, because that is how the scenario played out, and what witnesses remember. So when the accident happens, no one can identify the headless body, because Penny is alive. The body isn't actually connected to any of the kids that died, it's simply there to stop a paradox from the timeline changing to only have 5 people die. It would have been Penny, but she wasn't on the roller coaster.
But when they're summoned by Karnak, there's the 5 kids, and Jane Doe, who technically "died" in the accident but has no identity, and thus, no one can remember her, nor does she know anything about herself (also explains why you never see her in the "rollercoaster formation" choreography). She eventually gets "brought back to life" as Penny, but then the cycle continues again, because in order to correct continuity issues from the timeline being altered with, there is always an unidentifiable body that "dies."
"This dream of life is never-ending, it goes around and round and round..." Jane Doe's wish to have an identity and a life ends up causing the time loop to endlessly repeat, because allowing her to be brought back messes with the timeline such that she always ends up existing again, as an unidentified dead body.
tldr; Jane Doe doesn't actually exist as a person, she's a stand-in for the dead body of Penny, since Penny was meant to die in the accident and then didn't, but there still needs to be 6 dead bodies to avoid a paradox in the timeline, causing a timeloop where Jane Doe keeps getting "brought back to life."
Maybe it’s just my wanting to believe that they peacefully move onto the afterlife, but one point against the time loop theory is found in the music: on “round and round again”, the chord structure is different each time. At the beginning, it goes onto the the next little part of the song and ends on a major chord out of nowhere-denial is the first stage of grief. The reprise, though, ends on that first phrase, resolving on the tonic minor chord, which feels more natural and could symbolize acceptance-the final stage of grief.