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* KavorkaMan: He's definitely not as attractive as he seems to think he is, and indeed most women who meet him are disgusted by him, but he does still somehow seem to repeatedly end up with women way out of his league -- first Charlotte, [[spoiler: then Lucy Stockworth in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"'s timeline, although in that case Lucy's standards are wildly lowered by her thinking he's a half-human animal.]]
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* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Parodied, in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man". Prof. Hidgens has never shown any particularly racist/sexist/homophobic attitudes before, but this story reveals he ''does'' seem to have one particular prejudice he's stuck on -- a rabid, [[EagleLand patriotically American]] hatred of English people. [[spoiler: This may be why he has no interest in actually marrying or having sex with Lucy, [[AmbiguouslyGay issues of orientation]] aside.]]
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* SlasherSmile: Has a pretty devastating one when he goes full AxCrazy.
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
Bastard")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
Bastard")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (cameo) | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (cameo) | "The ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
Bastard")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (cameo) | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (cameo) | "Time Bastard"
''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Time Bastard")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "Watcher World" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "Watcher ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Watcher World" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
Bastard")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "The ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
Bastard")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | "Watcher World"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | "Watcher World"
''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Watcher World")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' (mentioned) | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "Forever & Always" (mentioned) | "Jane's a Car"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' (mentioned) | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "Forever ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Forever & Always" (mentioned) | "Jane's a Car"
Car")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's a Car" | "The Witch in the Web"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Jane's a Car" | "The Witch in the Web"
Web")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "The Witch in the Web"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "The ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("The Witch in the Web"
Web")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's a Car"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Jane's a Car"
Car")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard" | "Jane's a Car"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard" | "Jane's a Car"
Car")
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's a Car" (mentioned)
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' ("Jane's a Car" (mentioned)
(mentioned))
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** [[spoiler: Gets a CallBack with him screaming "Not my arms!" just before the RealAfterAll Ape-Man rips off his arms.]]
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** He plays a similar role in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", in this timeline becoming an expert on [[OurCryptidsAreDifferent Hatchetfield's local cryptids]] rather the alien virus invasion. [[spoiler: Except this time it's an act.]]
to:
** He plays a similar role in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", in this timeline becoming an expert on [[OurCryptidsAreDifferent [[OurCryptidsAreMoreMysterious Hatchetfield's local cryptids]] rather the alien virus invasion. [[spoiler: Except this time it's an act.]]
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* TakingTheBullet: [[spoiler: What he does to save Lucy from Hidgens in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man".]]
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* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
to:
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]die?
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** He plays a similar role in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", in this timeline becoming an expert on [[OurCryptidsAreDifferent Hatchetfield's local cryptids]] rather the alien virus invasion. [[spoiler: Except this time it's an act.]]
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* OldDarkHouse: Robert Manion's Zoom background in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" gives us the first actual glimpse of what Prof. Hidgens' "whole house like a panic room" looks like, and it turns out to be some kind of decaying Gothic mansion. [[FriendsRentControl Don't ask how he can possibly afford it]], [[spoiler: unless this isn't the first GetRichQuickScheme he's pulled]]
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* NoNameGiven: Ted's last name remained unrevealed until Episode 2, Pt. 2 of ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'', "Time Bastard", because it would've been a "spoiler" for ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die''. (Until, according to WordOfGod, many things had to be rearranged because of NPMD being indefinitely delayed by the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic.)
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** [[spoiler: Accentuated by how resolutely he's NotDistractedByTheSexy when it comes to Lucy in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man".]]
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* AssholeVictim: After an epiphany about being a better person he reveals himself to be a coward and flees at the sight of danger, leaving Paul to be dragged away. This scene precedes his death at the hands of General [=McNamara=].
to:
* AssholeVictim: After an epiphany about being a better person he reveals himself to be a coward and flees at the sight of danger, leaving Paul to be dragged away. This scene precedes his death at the hands of General [=McNamara=].[=MacNamara=].
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* MrFanservice: Has his shirt off in one of his first scenes.
to:
* MrFanservice: Has his shirt off in one of his first scenes. [[spoiler: Does it again when posing as the title character of "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man".]]
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: [[spoiler: Unsurprisingly, this is Ted's motivation at first for joining in Hidgens' plan in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", and unlike Hidgens he just wants the money to indulge his vices and not for any grand plan like mounting ''Workin' Boys'' on Broadway. Unlike Hidgens, though, he lets his priorities slowly change by [[ThePowerOfLove falling in love with Lucy for real]].]]
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: [[spoiler: Unsurprisingly, this is Ted's motivation at first for joining in Hidgens' plan in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", and unlike Hidgens he just wants the money to indulge his vices and not for any grand plan like mounting ''Workin' Boys'' on Broadway. Unlike Hidgens, though, he lets his priorities slowly change by [[ThePowerOfLove falling in love with Lucy for real]].]]
* AxCrazy: In ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' he ends up verging on this when fully in the throes of his rant about giving over humanity to the alien plague. [[spoiler: "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" reveals the craziness was always there just beneath the surface, and all it takes is having the funding for ''Workin' Boys'' seemingly within his reach only to be ripped away for him to go on a screaming murderous rampage.]]
* ConMan: [[spoiler: "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" has him adopt this as his new vocation, having run out of other options for finally getting ''Workin' Boys'' onstage.]]
* EvilAllAlong: His VillainousBreakdown in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' seems to indicate his posturing as humanity's savior was never really sincere. [[spoiler: His elaborate EvilPlan in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" makes this even clearer.]]
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* LargeHam: As only Robert Manion can.
to:
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: His years of study of the alien musical virus only lead to him succumbing to its temptations and being horribly killed and assimilated by it. [[spoiler: Hits even harder in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", where his years of study have only convinced him the Ape-Man doesn't exist, and decides to use the myth of the Ape-Man to seduce Lucy Stockworth and murder her for her fortune... a plot that ends up with him horribly killed by the Ape-Man, who was RealAfterAll.]]
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: [[spoiler: His devolution into evil in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" ends with him hooting and hollering in the nude like an animal, even as the "Ape-Man" has become gradually both more human and humane.]]
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: His dream of staging ''Workin' Boys'' seems to be his one point of weakness that, in every timeline, eventually turns him into a monster.
* LargeHam: As only Robert Manion can. There's a repeated pattern of him getting [[EvilIsHammy hammier and hammier]] as it's revealed he's been EvilAllAlong. [[spoiler: In "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" we get to see this ''explode'' into a full-on VillainousBreakdown.]]
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: [[spoiler: His devolution into evil in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" ends with him hooting and hollering in the nude like an animal, even as the "Ape-Man" has become gradually both more human and humane.]]
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: His dream of staging ''Workin' Boys'' seems to be his one point of weakness that, in every timeline, eventually turns him into a monster.
* LargeHam: As only Robert Manion can. There's a repeated pattern of him getting [[EvilIsHammy hammier and hammier]] as it's revealed he's been EvilAllAlong. [[spoiler: In "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" we get to see this ''explode'' into a full-on VillainousBreakdown.]]
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* MadArtist: Hidgens' whole character revolves around revealing that his MadScientist persona is actually a mask for being a Mad Dramatist -- his true "first love" is musical theatre and it turns out his desire to protect humanity from destruction loses out to his desire to produce his magnum opus, ''Workin' Boys: A New Musical''.
to:
* MadArtist: Hidgens' whole character revolves around revealing that his MadScientist persona is actually a mask for being a Mad Dramatist -- his true "first love" is musical theatre and it turns out his desire to protect humanity from destruction loses out to his desire to produce his magnum opus, ''Workin' Boys: A New Musical''. [[spoiler: His [[ComplexityAddiction absurdly complex]] plan to seize the Stockworth fortune in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" seems to have been influenced by his inability to do ''anything'' that doesn't somehow play on RuleOfDrama.]]
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* OnlyInItForTheMoney: [[spoiler: In "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", his only interest in Lucy Stockworth, unlike Ted, is in her fortune, which he plans to use to fund his staging of ''Workin' Boys''. His steadfast devotion to this goal is what drives his descent into evil.]]
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* SelfDeprecation: Hidgens' obsession with musical theatre making him an AxCrazy traitor to humanity who's sacrificed all decency and morality to his madness... as a character, of course, in a series of musical theatre productions.
* SeriousBusiness: The whole joke of ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' is his bizarre, psychotic obsession with musical theatre somehow turning out to actually be the cause of the impending global apocalypse. In his repeat appearances since then it's shown that this obsession doesn't go away even in timelines where this isn't true, and is in fact the main driver of him turning out to be AxCrazy and EvilAllAlong.
* SeriousBusiness: The whole joke of ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' is his bizarre, psychotic obsession with musical theatre somehow turning out to actually be the cause of the impending global apocalypse. In his repeat appearances since then it's shown that this obsession doesn't go away even in timelines where this isn't true, and is in fact the main driver of him turning out to be AxCrazy and EvilAllAlong.
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Offscreen Character is no longer a trope.
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* WeHardlyKnewYe: Except for one brief scene, Alice is a completely OffscreenCharacter in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' until we meet her in her assimilated form. Her return in "Watcher World" was partly FanService -- especially from fans who are around Alice's age and identify with her -- who wanted to get to know the real, non-infected Alice.
to:
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Except for one brief scene, Alice is barely plays a completely OffscreenCharacter part in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' until we meet her in her assimilated form. Her return in "Watcher World" was partly FanService -- especially from fans who are around Alice's age and identify with her -- who wanted to get to know the real, non-infected Alice.
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* UsefulNotes/StraightEdge: Bill might be less neurotic about the peer pressure he imagines Alice is surrounded by if he could see that Alice turns down a smoke from the "Smoke Club" at school and Deb backs her up on it.
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* UsefulNotes/StraightEdge: Bill might be less neurotic about the peer pressure he imagines Alice is surrounded by if he could see that Alice turns down a smoke from the "Smoke Club" at school and Deb backs her up on it.
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday''
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday''
''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's a Car" (mentioned)
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (cameo) | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (cameo) | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | "Watcher World" | | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "Watcher World" | | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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[[folder: Professor Hidgens]]
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[[folder: Professor Henry Hidgens]]
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (mentioned) | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever and Always" | "Time Bastard"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever and & Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | "Watcher World"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | "Watcher World"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' (mentioned) | ''Black Friday'' (mentioned) | "Forever & Always" (mentioned) | "Jane's a Car"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' (mentioned) | ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (mentioned) | "Forever & Always" (mentioned) | "Jane's a Car"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | "Jane's a Car" | "The Witch in the Web"
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's a Car" | "The Witch in the Web"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | "The Witch in the Web"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "The Witch in the Web"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | "Jane's a Car"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Jane's a Car"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard" | "Jane's a Car"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard" | "Jane's a Car"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday''
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday''
''Theatre/BlackFriday''
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever and Always" | "Time Bastard"
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!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (mentioned) | "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" | "Forever and Always" | "Time Bastard"
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* DarkAndTroubledPast: It's implied he has one that kind-of-sort-of corresponds to the backstory of the musical ''Workin' Boys'', although his [[CloudCuckooLander sanity is shaky enough]] that's hard to say how much if any of what he says about himself is accurate.
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* AmbiguouslyGay: [[spoiler: Has vaguely overdramatic mannerisms that gradually become increasingly CampGay until they burst into full flower with "Showstopping Number". Has apparently never loved any woman besides his Amazon Echo, but has constructed an elaborate fantasy musical world revolving around [[DoubleEntendre "tossing around the old pigskin"]] with "his boys".]]
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* BadassNormal: [[spoiler: Musical zombie version. His [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Showstopping Number"]] announcing his FaceHeelTurn happens ''before'' his assimilation, and contains the most impressive choreography in the show.]]
* CannotTellFictionFromReality: [[spoiler: It seems unlikely his musical "Workin' Boys" is autobiographical, if only because he's clearly spent most of his life alone in his bunker, but once he gets into performing it Hidgens seems to forget there's any difference between himself and his character "Henry".]]
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* BadassNormal: [[spoiler: Musical zombie version. His [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Showstopping Number"]] announcing his FaceHeelTurn happens ''before'' his assimilation, and contains the most impressive choreography in the show.]]
* CannotTellFictionFromReality: [[spoiler: It seems unlikely his musical "Workin' Boys" is autobiographical, if only because he's clearly spent most of his life alone in his bunker, but once he gets into performing it Hidgens seems to forget there's any difference between himself and his character "Henry".]]
to:
* AmbiguouslyGay: [[spoiler: Has vaguely overdramatic mannerisms that gradually become increasingly CampGay until they burst into full flower with "Showstopping Number". Has apparently never loved any woman besides his Amazon Echo, but has constructed an elaborate fantasy musical world revolving around [[DoubleEntendre "tossing around the old pigskin"]] with "his boys".]]
boys".
* BackFromTheDead:[[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
die?
* BadassNormal:[[spoiler: Musical zombie version. His [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Showstopping Number"]] announcing his FaceHeelTurn happens ''before'' his assimilation, and contains the most impressive choreography in the show.]]
show.
* CannotTellFictionFromReality:[[spoiler: It seems unlikely his musical "Workin' Boys" is autobiographical, if only because he's clearly spent most of his life alone in his bunker, but once he gets into performing it Hidgens seems to forget there's any difference between himself and his character "Henry".]]
* BackFromTheDead:
* BadassNormal:
* CannotTellFictionFromReality:
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** [[spoiler: The "crazy" part leads to the FaceHeelTurn -- he comes to realize the HiveMind is [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill the only possible way to prevent all the other apocalypses he's predicted]].]]
to:
** [[spoiler: The "crazy" part leads to the FaceHeelTurn -- he comes to realize the HiveMind is [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill the only possible way to prevent all the other apocalypses he's predicted]].]]
Changed line(s) 210,212 (click to see context) from:
** [[spoiler: And when he takes ''off'' the professorial blazer he becomes an unexpected expy of [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow Dr. Frank N. Furter]], if a PG-rated one. "Showstoppin' Number" plays out as a PG-rated version of the Floor Show from Rocky Horror, with [[GenderFlip Emma as Brad and Ted as Janet]] (since he's the one who ends up liking it).]]
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: He joins the aliens due to his distaste for human society, belief that humanity is doomed regardless, and love of musicals.]]
* HiddenDepths: [[spoiler: Despite being a mad scientist and survivalist, he has a passion for theatre and even wrote a musical in his spare time.]]
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: He joins the aliens due to his distaste for human society, belief that humanity is doomed regardless, and love of musicals.]]
* HiddenDepths: [[spoiler: Despite being a mad scientist and survivalist, he has a passion for theatre and even wrote a musical in his spare time.]]
to:
** [[spoiler: And when he takes ''off'' the professorial blazer he becomes an unexpected expy of [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow Dr. Frank N. Furter]], if a PG-rated one. "Showstoppin' Number" plays out as a PG-rated version of the Floor Show from Rocky Horror, with [[GenderFlip Emma as Brad and Ted as Janet]] (since he's the one who ends up liking it).]]
it).
** ''Workin' Boys'', his magnum opus, is also a pretty obvious NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of the notorious Broadway flop ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Days_%28musical%29 Glory Days]]''.
* FaceHeelTurn:[[spoiler: He joins the aliens due to his distaste for human society, belief that humanity is doomed regardless, and love of musicals.]]
musicals.
* HiddenDepths:[[spoiler: Despite being a mad scientist and survivalist, he has a passion for theatre and even wrote a musical in his spare time.]]
** ''Workin' Boys'', his magnum opus, is also a pretty obvious NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of the notorious Broadway flop ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Days_%28musical%29 Glory Days]]''.
* FaceHeelTurn:
* HiddenDepths:
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* MadScientist: Yes, Hidgens did predict to the ''exact detail'' that this particular zombie apocalypse would happen, despite Paul's skepticism. [[spoiler: The "mad" part gets worse after his FaceHeelTurn.]]
to:
* LateArrivalSpoiler: This trope entry was once mostly white text due to Hidgens' betrayal of humanity being such a significant plot twist in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', but now it's basically AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame when it comes to his character -- the song "Showstoppin' Number", where this is revealed, is the BreakawayPopHit of TGWDLM and his character the BreakoutVillain, with [[{{Defictionalization}} actually making]] [[AscendedMeme some version]] of ''Workin' Boys'' even becoming a Kickstarter backer reward for ''Theatre/BlackFriday''.
* MadArtist: Hidgens' whole character revolves around revealing that his MadScientist persona is actually a mask for being a Mad Dramatist -- his true "first love" is musical theatre and it turns out his desire to protect humanity from destruction loses out to his desire to produce his magnum opus, ''Workin' Boys: A New Musical''.
* MadScientist: Yes, Hidgens did predict to the ''exact detail'' that this particular zombie apocalypse would happen, despite Paul's skepticism.[[spoiler: The "mad" part gets worse after his FaceHeelTurn.]]
* MadArtist: Hidgens' whole character revolves around revealing that his MadScientist persona is actually a mask for being a Mad Dramatist -- his true "first love" is musical theatre and it turns out his desire to protect humanity from destruction loses out to his desire to produce his magnum opus, ''Workin' Boys: A New Musical''.
* MadScientist: Yes, Hidgens did predict to the ''exact detail'' that this particular zombie apocalypse would happen, despite Paul's skepticism.
Changed line(s) 219 (click to see context) from:
* TheQuisling: [[spoiler: Prof. Hidgens joins with the aliens due to rant against TheEvilsOfFreeWill and love of musical theatre.]]
to:
* TheQuisling: [[spoiler: Prof. Hidgens joins with the aliens due to rant against TheEvilsOfFreeWill and love of musical theatre.]]
Changed line(s) 221,223 (click to see context) from:
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: [[spoiler: For all his bluster about welcoming death and apotheosis, Prof. Hidgens is brought up short when he realizes how... ''viscerally'' painful the process is going to be.]]
-->'''Hidgens''': [[spoiler: Yes! Make me one of you! ''(as Greg and Stu reach for his tummy)'' No! Not my tummy! ''(shrieks as they tear out the contents of his tummy)'']]
* WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal of humanity is one of the biggest spoilers for Act 2, and, thanks to Robert Manion's performance in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Showstopping Number]]", it's all anyone wants to talk about regarding his character. The role he plays in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" isn't any less spoileriffic.]]
-->'''Hidgens''': [[spoiler: Yes! Make me one of you! ''(as Greg and Stu reach for his tummy)'' No! Not my tummy! ''(shrieks as they tear out the contents of his tummy)'']]
* WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal of humanity is one of the biggest spoilers for Act 2, and, thanks to Robert Manion's performance in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Showstopping Number]]", it's all anyone wants to talk about regarding his character. The role he plays in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" isn't any less spoileriffic.]]
to:
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: [[spoiler: For all his bluster about welcoming death and apotheosis, Prof. Hidgens is brought up short when he realizes how... ''viscerally'' painful the process is going to be.]]
be.
-->'''Hidgens''':[[spoiler: Yes! Make me one of you! ''(as Greg and Stu reach for his tummy)'' No! Not my tummy! ''(shrieks as they tear out the contents of his tummy)'']]
tummy)''
* WalkingSpoiler:[[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal of humanity is one of the biggest spoilers for Act 2, and, thanks to Robert Manion's performance in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Showstopping Number]]", it's all anyone wants to talk about regarding his character. The role he plays in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" isn't any less spoileriffic.]]
-->'''Hidgens''':
* WalkingSpoiler:
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Changed line(s) 10,11 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' "Forever & Always" | ''Time Bastard''
"Time Bastard"
Changed line(s) 57,58 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' "Forever & Always" | ''Time Bastard''
"Time Bastard"
Changed line(s) 103,104 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' | ''Time Bastard''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''The "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' Ape-Man" | ''Time Bastard''
"Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
Changed line(s) 135,136 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''Time Bastard''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''Time Bastard''
"Time Bastard"
Changed line(s) 161,162 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World'' | ''Time Bastard''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World'' "Watcher World" | ''Time Bastard''
| "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard"
Changed line(s) 197,198 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''The "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' Ape-Man" | ''Forever "Forever and Always'' Always" | ''Time Bastard''
"Time Bastard"
Changed line(s) 229,230 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World''
"Watcher World"
Changed line(s) 264,265 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' (mentioned) | ''Black Friday'' (mentioned) | ''Jane's a Car''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' (mentioned) | ''Black Friday'' (mentioned) | ''Jane's "Forever & Always" (mentioned) | "Jane's a Car''
Car"
Changed line(s) 286,287 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's a Car'' | ''The Witch in the Web''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's "Jane's a Car'' Car" | ''The "The Witch in the Web''
Web"
Changed line(s) 338,339 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''The Witch in the Web''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''The "The Witch in the Web''
Web"
Changed line(s) 375,376 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's a Car''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's "Jane's a Car''
Car"
Changed line(s) 433,434 (click to see context) from:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard'' | ''Jane's a Car''
to:
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' "Forever & Always" | ''Time Bastard'' "Time Bastard" | ''Jane's "Jane's a Car''
Car"
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Changed line(s) 223 (click to see context) from:
* WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal of humanity is one of the biggest spoilers for Act 2, and, thanks to Robert Manion's performance in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Showstopping Number]]", it's all anyone wants to talk about regarding his character.]]
to:
* WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal of humanity is one of the biggest spoilers for Act 2, and, thanks to Robert Manion's performance in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Showstopping Number]]", it's all anyone wants to talk about regarding his character. The role he plays in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" isn't any less spoileriffic.]]
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Changed line(s) 272 (click to see context) from:
* TheGhost: In ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', she's a PosthumousCharacter who sets up the backstory for lead characters Emma and Tom. While Jaime Lyn Beatty dresses as Jane during the reading of ''Jane's a Car'', she doesn't appear physically in that story either.
to:
* TheGhost: In ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', she's a PosthumousCharacter who sets up the backstory for lead characters Emma and Tom. [[spoiler: While Jaime Lyn Beatty dresses as Jane during the reading of ''Jane's a Car'', she doesn't appear physically in that story either.]]
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Changed line(s) 233,234 (click to see context) from:
* AdultFear: Alice specifically invokes this to her father's face. "You left me out of your sight for one second and look what happens, nightmare time. It's worse than you could imagine, not sex and not drugs, just [[spoiler: alien invading minds.]]"
* AscendedExtra: She had very little screentime in TGWDLM, but established herself as a core member of the Hatchetfield cast by co-starring with Bill in ''Watcher World''.
* AscendedExtra: She had very little screentime in TGWDLM, but established herself as a core member of the Hatchetfield cast by co-starring with Bill in ''Watcher World''.
to:
* AdultFear: Alice specifically invokes this to her father's face. "You left me out of your sight for one second and look what happens, nightmare time. It's worse than you could imagine, not sex and not drugs, just [[spoiler: alien aliens invading minds.]]"
"
* AscendedExtra: She had very little screentime in TGWDLM, but established herself as a core member of the Hatchetfield cast by co-starring with Bill in''Watcher World''."Watcher World".
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: She spends most of her stage time in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' as the evil zombie version of herself. [[spoiler: She also ends up a patricidal maniac in "Watcher World", which gives us a more detailed and [[FreudianExcuse sympathetic]] view of her transformation.]]
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: She came across mildly as this in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', and we get many more opportunities to see her bratty side in "Watcher World".
* [[{{Cuckold}} Cuckquean]]: "Watcher World" reveals that she is ''deeply'' insecure about Deb cheating on or abandoning her for someone cooler and more worldly.
* AscendedExtra: She had very little screentime in TGWDLM, but established herself as a core member of the Hatchetfield cast by co-starring with Bill in
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: She spends most of her stage time in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' as the evil zombie version of herself. [[spoiler: She also ends up a patricidal maniac in "Watcher World", which gives us a more detailed and [[FreudianExcuse sympathetic]] view of her transformation.]]
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: She came across mildly as this in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', and we get many more opportunities to see her bratty side in "Watcher World".
* [[{{Cuckold}} Cuckquean]]: "Watcher World" reveals that she is ''deeply'' insecure about Deb cheating on or abandoning her for someone cooler and more worldly.
Changed line(s) 236 (click to see context) from:
* DeathOfPersonality: [[spoiler: A chilling example -- after Bill dies, the assimilated Alice seems to drop the pretense that she actually is Alice and becomes nothing but a CreepyMonotone mouthpiece for the HiveMind.]]
to:
* DeathOfPersonality: [[spoiler: A chilling example -- after Bill dies, the assimilated Alice seems to drop the pretense that she actually is Alice and becomes nothing but a CreepyMonotone mouthpiece for the HiveMind.]]HiveMind.
* {{Delinquent}}: She's still very much a good girl compared to Deb and her stoner friends, but she's deeply insecure about this and worries it may be driving Deb away -- hence her snapping at Bill in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' that Grace Chastity, whom Bill wishes she'd be more like, is a "nerdy prude", and her extremely minor act of rebellion by deliberately littering in front of the security cameras in "Watcher World".
* {{Delinquent}}: She's still very much a good girl compared to Deb and her stoner friends, but she's deeply insecure about this and worries it may be driving Deb away -- hence her snapping at Bill in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' that Grace Chastity, whom Bill wishes she'd be more like, is a "nerdy prude", and her extremely minor act of rebellion by deliberately littering in front of the security cameras in "Watcher World".
* EmotionalRegression: A major TearJerker moment in "Watcher World" -- on top of the rollercoaster called the "[[MeaningfulName Tear-Jerker]]" -- is Alice regressing to an innocent, childlike way of speaking as Bill tries to help her out of her panic attack, dropping the snarky BrattyTeenageDaughter persona and letting us see what Bill sees when he looks at her and remembers her as a little kid.
Changed line(s) 239 (click to see context) from:
* FunTShirt: The second time we see Alice, her pink sweater is unbuttoned, revealing the shirt underneath has the slogan "Beautiful Monster", [[spoiler: revealing she's been assimilated]].
to:
* FreakOut: "Watcher World" reveals Alice is prone to panic attacks, and one of Bill's major PetTheDog moments is revealing he's one of the only people who can help her out of them.
* FunTShirt: The second time we see Alice, her pink sweater is unbuttoned, revealing the shirt underneath has the slogan "Beautiful Monster",[[spoiler: revealing she's been assimilated]].assimilated.
** Part of Alice's humiliation in "Watcher World" is her clothes getting soaked and forcing her to change into a Watcher World branded T-shirt with the lame AndAllIGotWasThisLousyTShirt joke on it.
* FunTShirt: The second time we see Alice, her pink sweater is unbuttoned, revealing the shirt underneath has the slogan "Beautiful Monster",
** Part of Alice's humiliation in "Watcher World" is her clothes getting soaked and forcing her to change into a Watcher World branded T-shirt with the lame AndAllIGotWasThisLousyTShirt joke on it.
Changed line(s) 241,244 (click to see context) from:
* MinorCharacterMajorSong: Almost all of her stage time is taken up by "Not Your Seed".
* MurderIntoMalevolence: [[spoiler: The assimilated Alice presents herself as this, seeking only to hurt Bill and drive him to suicide to get back at him for his failure to save her from the HiveMind. Of course, it soon transpires that this was just the HiveMind being a {{Sadist}} ForTheEvulz.]]
* {{Patricide}}: [[spoiler: She kills her father Bill.]]
* PeerPressureMakesYouEvil: Bill seems terrified that this is happening to Alice thanks to Deb and her delinquent friends. [[spoiler: It does happen in the sense that Deb and her friends were assimilated by the meteor and then killed Alice. The assimilated Alice seems happy to treat this as basically the same thing, for the sake of taunting Bill.]]
* MurderIntoMalevolence: [[spoiler: The assimilated Alice presents herself as this, seeking only to hurt Bill and drive him to suicide to get back at him for his failure to save her from the HiveMind. Of course, it soon transpires that this was just the HiveMind being a {{Sadist}} ForTheEvulz.]]
* {{Patricide}}: [[spoiler: She kills her father Bill.]]
* PeerPressureMakesYouEvil: Bill seems terrified that this is happening to Alice thanks to Deb and her delinquent friends. [[spoiler: It does happen in the sense that Deb and her friends were assimilated by the meteor and then killed Alice. The assimilated Alice seems happy to treat this as basically the same thing, for the sake of taunting Bill.]]
to:
* MinorCharacterMajorSong: Almost all of her stage time in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' is taken up by "Not Your Seed".
* MurderIntoMalevolence:[[spoiler: The assimilated Alice presents herself as this, seeking only to hurt Bill and drive him to suicide to get back at him for his failure to save her from the HiveMind. Of course, it soon transpires that this was just the HiveMind being a {{Sadist}} ForTheEvulz.]]
ForTheEvulz.
* NervousWreck: She acts like this in her brief scene in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and the first half of "Watcher World". At first it just seems like typical teenage social insecurity, but then in the rollercoaster scene it's revealed that [[CerebusSyndrome she actually does have a diagnosed anxiety disorder]] and is prone to [[FreakOut panic attacks]].
* {{Patricide}}:[[spoiler: She kills her father Bill.Bill in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. [[spoiler: "Watcher World" is about her becoming BrainwashedAndCrazy to get her to do this again, only this time ThePowerOfLove saves her from it.]]
* PeerPressureMakesYouEvil: Bill seems terrified that this is happening to Alice thanks to Deb and her delinquent friends.[[spoiler: It does happen in the sense that Deb and her friends were assimilated by the meteor and then killed Alice. The assimilated Alice seems happy to treat this as basically the same thing, for the sake of taunting Bill.]]Bill.
* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler: The big payoff of "Watcher World", which many people who latched onto Alice in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' had been waiting for, is revealing that despite the cruel words of both infected!Alice in TGWDLM and brainwashed!Alice in "Watcher World", deep, deep down she truly loves her father and he remains one of the few people in the world she knows she can count on.]]
* StarvingArtist: "Watcher World" reveals Alice's current life plan is to follow Deb in becoming one of these, pursuing her dreams of a career in theatre rather than getting a practical job as a doctor or a lawyer -- one of the many choices Bill doesn't understand and doesn't approve of.
* MurderIntoMalevolence:
* NervousWreck: She acts like this in her brief scene in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and the first half of "Watcher World". At first it just seems like typical teenage social insecurity, but then in the rollercoaster scene it's revealed that [[CerebusSyndrome she actually does have a diagnosed anxiety disorder]] and is prone to [[FreakOut panic attacks]].
* {{Patricide}}:
* PeerPressureMakesYouEvil: Bill seems terrified that this is happening to Alice thanks to Deb and her delinquent friends.
* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler: The big payoff of "Watcher World", which many people who latched onto Alice in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' had been waiting for, is revealing that despite the cruel words of both infected!Alice in TGWDLM and brainwashed!Alice in "Watcher World", deep, deep down she truly loves her father and he remains one of the few people in the world she knows she can count on.]]
* StarvingArtist: "Watcher World" reveals Alice's current life plan is to follow Deb in becoming one of these, pursuing her dreams of a career in theatre rather than getting a practical job as a doctor or a lawyer -- one of the many choices Bill doesn't understand and doesn't approve of.
* UsefulNotes/StraightEdge: Bill might be less neurotic about the peer pressure he imagines Alice is surrounded by if he could see that Alice turns down a smoke from the "Smoke Club" at school and Deb backs her up on it.
Changed line(s) 247 (click to see context) from:
* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler: Except for one brief scene, Alice is a completely OffscreenCharacter until we meet her in her assimilated form.]]
to:
* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler: Except for one brief scene, Alice is a completely OffscreenCharacter in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' until we meet her in her assimilated form.]]form. Her return in "Watcher World" was partly FanService -- especially from fans who are around Alice's age and identify with her -- who wanted to get to know the real, non-infected Alice.
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* TheAllegedCar: "Watcher World" reveals one of the most embarrassing things about Bill is that he still drives an AMC Pacer (a classic TropeCodifier of TheAllegedCar from the 1970s).
Changed line(s) 166 (click to see context) from:
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: One would think that being shot in the head would do it, and, failing that, being blown up by a meteor, but neither works.]]
to:
* AscendedExtra: Becomes co-protagonists with Alice in "Watcher World", in an effort to give them the opportunity to EarnYourHappyEnding they were cruelly denied in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''.
* BackFromTheDead:[[spoiler: One would think that being shot in the head would do it, and, failing that, being blown up by a meteor, but neither works.]]
* BackFromTheDead:
Changed line(s) 168 (click to see context) from:
* ChekhovsGun: In the Website/YouTube version of the show you can hear the audience audibly gasp when Paul wrestles the shotgun out of Bill's hands and lets it fall to the floor, so desperate to talk Bill out of his despair he's [[spoiler: unmindful of Alice slowly reaching toward it]].
to:
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: We don't get to see very much of the evil zombie version of Bill in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', but this is more than made up for by Bill and Alice's FinalBattle in "Watcher World".
* ChekhovsGun: In the Website/YouTube version of the show you can hear the audience audibly gasp when Paul wrestles the shotgun out of Bill's hands and lets it fall to the floor, so desperate to talk Bill out of his despair he's[[spoiler: unmindful of Alice slowly reaching toward it]].it.
* ChekhovsGun: In the Website/YouTube version of the show you can hear the audience audibly gasp when Paul wrestles the shotgun out of Bill's hands and lets it fall to the floor, so desperate to talk Bill out of his despair he's
Changed line(s) 170,172 (click to see context) from:
* DrivenToSuicide: Almost happens after he finds out his daughter has been assimilated and it's partially his fault she didn't leave the town. Paul stops him [[spoiler: though he is killed anyways]].
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Paul. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely [[spoiler: hurt by Bill's death.]]
* IHaveAFamily: Infected!Charlotte is about to kill Bill but then turns aside after Emma shouts "He has a daughter!" [[spoiler: Unfortunately, that seems to be because the HiveMind thought his daughter being the one to kill him would better fit the RuleOfDrama.]]
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Paul. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely [[spoiler: hurt by Bill's death.]]
* IHaveAFamily: Infected!Charlotte is about to kill Bill but then turns aside after Emma shouts "He has a daughter!" [[spoiler: Unfortunately, that seems to be because the HiveMind thought his daughter being the one to kill him would better fit the RuleOfDrama.]]
to:
* DrivenToSuicide: Almost happens after he finds out his daughter has been assimilated and it's partially his fault she didn't leave the town. Paul stops him [[spoiler: him, though he is killed anyways]].
anyways.
* FantasyForbiddingFather: "Watcher World" reveals that Bill refuses to encourage Alice in her dreams of working in theatre and becoming a playwright, even though she's already won a scholarship for a script she wrote.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Paul. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely[[spoiler: hurt by Bill's death.]]
death.
* HopelessWithTech: Alice is a PhoneaholicTeenager and Bill barely even knows how social media works, which is just part of why they don't get along.
* IHaveAFamily: Infected!Charlotte is about to kill Bill but then turns aside after Emma shouts "He has a daughter!"[[spoiler: Unfortunately, that seems to be because the HiveMind thought his daughter being the one to kill him would better fit the RuleOfDrama.]]
* FantasyForbiddingFather: "Watcher World" reveals that Bill refuses to encourage Alice in her dreams of working in theatre and becoming a playwright, even though she's already won a scholarship for a script she wrote.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Paul. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely
* HopelessWithTech: Alice is a PhoneaholicTeenager and Bill barely even knows how social media works, which is just part of why they don't get along.
* IHaveAFamily: Infected!Charlotte is about to kill Bill but then turns aside after Emma shouts "He has a daughter!"
Changed line(s) 174 (click to see context) from:
* NonActionGuy: Ted relentlessly mocks Bill for being this to try to dissuade him from going to rescue his daughter. It doesn't work.
to:
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: He knows very little about Alice's life or her plans or her hopes and dreams, partly because she's intentionally keeping him in the dark and partly because he's just a terrible listener.
* LoserProtagonist: Becomes this in "Watcher World", with the Carnival Barker openly mocking him at the climax about how "He's a failure as a father! He was a failure as a husband! He's a failure at everything he's done in his entire life!"
* NonActionGuy: Ted relentlessly mocks Bill for being this to try to dissuade him from going to rescue his daughter. It doesn't work. This is played up even more in "Watcher World", with Bill's seething frustration at failing to win a TestYourStrengthGame -- with the jeering crowd making constant digs at his masculinity -- being his RageBreakingPoint.
* OffingTheOffspring: Bill is unable to bring himself to [[ShootTheDog shoot his own daughter]] even after she becomes a zombie, which directly leads to his own death in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. [[spoiler: "Watcher World" has him subjected to MindManipulation that brings out all his inner resentment of Alice and almost does make him kill her, but once again ThePowerOfLove at the last moment stays his hand.]]
* OverprotectiveDad: Most of his problems with Alice stem from his constant desire to meddle in her life for her own good without really knowing much about her.
* LoserProtagonist: Becomes this in "Watcher World", with the Carnival Barker openly mocking him at the climax about how "He's a failure as a father! He was a failure as a husband! He's a failure at everything he's done in his entire life!"
* NonActionGuy: Ted relentlessly mocks Bill for being this to try to dissuade him from going to rescue his daughter. It doesn't work. This is played up even more in "Watcher World", with Bill's seething frustration at failing to win a TestYourStrengthGame -- with the jeering crowd making constant digs at his masculinity -- being his RageBreakingPoint.
* OffingTheOffspring: Bill is unable to bring himself to [[ShootTheDog shoot his own daughter]] even after she becomes a zombie, which directly leads to his own death in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. [[spoiler: "Watcher World" has him subjected to MindManipulation that brings out all his inner resentment of Alice and almost does make him kill her, but once again ThePowerOfLove at the last moment stays his hand.]]
* OverprotectiveDad: Most of his problems with Alice stem from his constant desire to meddle in her life for her own good without really knowing much about her.
Changed line(s) 176 (click to see context) from:
* [[spoiler: SacrificialLamb: Bill's death at the top of Act II is our first clear sign this story isn't going to end happily.]]
to:
* ThePowerOfLove: Bill's saving grace in "Watcher World" is that, as flawed a father as he is, deep down he really, truly does want what's best for Alice [[spoiler: and refuses to be pushed across the line of actually harming her]].
* TheResenter: Bill's OverprotectiveDad tendencies have a not-so-hidden dark side of simmering resentment at the burden trying to be a good dad to Alice has been on his life, which comes spilling out dramatically in "Watcher World".
* RuleOfDrama: ''Twice'', in both ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and "Watcher World", Bill ends up the victim of a cosmic being who takes great pleasure in exploiting the [[ParentalIssues daddy issues]] between him and Alice to create a dramatic final confrontation.
* SacrificialLamb: Bill's death at the top of Act II of ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' is our first clear sign this story isn't going to end happily.]]
* TheResenter: Bill's OverprotectiveDad tendencies have a not-so-hidden dark side of simmering resentment at the burden trying to be a good dad to Alice has been on his life, which comes spilling out dramatically in "Watcher World".
* RuleOfDrama: ''Twice'', in both ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and "Watcher World", Bill ends up the victim of a cosmic being who takes great pleasure in exploiting the [[ParentalIssues daddy issues]] between him and Alice to create a dramatic final confrontation.
* SacrificialLamb: Bill's death at the top of Act II of ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' is our first clear sign this story isn't going to end happily.
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* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Unlike the version of Ted in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', the version of Ted in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" ''does'' make the necessary evolution into not just a better person than he was but a truly ''good'' person by TakingTheBullet for Lucy from an enraged Hidgens. Ironically, he "evolves" by... devolving from a man to an Ape-Man.]]
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* BecomingTheMask: [[spoiler: Ted's role in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man is one long, hilarious joke about doing this.]]
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* LoveRedeems: The one redeeming quality Ted seems to have in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' is the sincere feelings he has for Charlotte, and her death may be what sends him off the deep end into pure cynical nihilism. This is reinforced by a surprisingly tender AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther moment with Charlotte in his cameo in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', and [[spoiler: his HeroicSacrifice to save Lucy in the ending of "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man".]]
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* AscendedExtra: After appearing in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' as Paul's {{Foil}} and the stock AssholeVictim character in a ZombieApocalypse movie, Ted surprisingly becomes a major character ''multiple times'' in ''WebVideo/NightmareTime''. [[spoiler: He's the true identity of the titular character in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"]], and he becomes the actual protagonist of "Time Bastard" and turns out to be a twisted version of TheChosenOne.
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* ConMan: [[spoiler: A new, [[TookALevelInJerkass more proactively evil]] version of Ted appears as one of these in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", posing as the title character to swindle Lucy Stockworth out of her fortune.]]
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* HeroOfAnotherStory: Every one of Paul's appearances after ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' plays him straight as an {{Adorkable}} NonActionGuy, whose latent heroic qualities are completely unknown by the people around him, which makes for a lot of DramaticIrony to the audience.
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* YourCheatingHeart: Cheats on Sam with self-proclaimed "sleazeball" Ted.
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** KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler: In the character sheets of just about every character assimilated in TGWDLM, we've asked if anyone infected by the blue shit is capable of dying. Apparently yes, in this case -- Charlotte and Sam are never seen again after Hidgens puts them down with a point blank shotgun blast, in all likelihood because he went on to [[{{Squick}} dissect their bodies]].]]
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The main characters of the Franchise/{{Hatchetfield}} saga.
[[foldercontrol]]
!Debuted in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''
[[folder: Paul Matthews]]
!!Paul Matthews
!!!'''Played by:''' Jon Matteson
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
->''"I don't like musicals!"''
A normal guy whose main defining characteristic is his dislike of musicals. When he finds himself in one, he hates it.
----
* AccidentalHero: Paul is just a normal guy who suddenly has the fate of the world resting on his shoulders when it is up to him to destroy the meteor.
* AccidentalMisnaming: One of the ironic reversals from TGWDLM to ''Black Friday'' is how in the former, which revolved around Paul's circle of coworkers and acquaintances, nobody knew Emma or could remember her name. This time, with the plot centering on Emma's brother-in-law Tom and their high school circle, it's Paul whom nobody knows and whom Tom calls by the wrong name.
* {{Adorkable}}: Seems to be right in Jon Matteson's wheelhouse, especially the way he initially awkwardly hits on Emma.
* AmbiguousDisorder: Paul's social awkwardness gets bumped up a notch in ''Black Friday'', since this time he's not witnessing any supernatural events to excuse it. He can't get through a short conversation with Tim without repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth.
* AmbiguouslyBi: Paul shows no signs of being attracted to men (or anyone other than Emma) in the show, but fans have seized on [[AllThereInTheManual the soundtrack version]] of "What Do You Want, Paul?" having Paul stammer he wants "money, a partner, kids" rather than saying a ''wife'' and kids. May or may not be EpilepticTrees.
* ArchEnemy: The HiveMind ends up designating Paul as its archnemesis, whether he likes it or not.
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: "Let It Out" ends up being a song about Paul trying to throw off the HiveMind's influence in an argument with himself.
* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: [[spoiler: Goes from being the one non-singing actor in the show, what with hating musicals and all, to leading the final RepriseMedley as "the star of the show".]]
* BeneathTheMask: The point of "Let It Out" is the HiveMind trying to convince Paul that beneath his mask of a content, unambituous life, he really is deeply unhappy and needs the HiveMind to take away his pain. Whether it's right or it's {{Gaslighting}} him is a matter of interpretation.
* BerserkButton: Paul is a very mild person, but he makes no secret of the fact that he dislikes musical theatre, and when pushed on this becomes very angry about it.
* BookEnds: Emma and Paul don't participate at all in the main events of ''Black Friday'', appearing only in the first scene and the last.
* CastingGag: To a lesser degree than Emma, but Paul's role of being the first character in ''Black Friday'' to denounce Wiggly as creepy is ironic given that Matteson is also the voice of Wiggly.
* CallBack: Paul's appearance in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' is an excuse for numerous callbacks to ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', starting with his very first appearance where he says "I don't like that musical ''commercial''" and ending with him and Hannah recreating the "Wear a watch!" moment from TGWDLM.
* ClassicalAntihero: Is very open about the fact that he's not particularly ambitious or noble to start out with, including telling the Greenpeace Girl he feels no responsibility to "save the planet". This changes once the alien invasion begins.
* ContinuityCameo: Emma and Paul's appearance in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' is basically this, serving to immediately let us know that this is indeed Hatchetfield but not the same one we saw in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''.
* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler: Even with the HiveMind having almost complete control of his body, Paul manages to pull the pin on the grenade and scream "[[DyingDeclarationOfHate I DON'T LIKE MUSICALS]]" before blowing up the meteor. Unfortunately, those aren't quite [[CameBackWrong his last words]]...]]
* DemotedToExtra: Since he never goes down to the mall and misses all the action, the ''Black Friday'' timeline's version of Paul never gets to show the heroic qualities he did in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''and is reduced to just being Emma's awkward boyfriend who serves as TheWatson so she can deliver Tom's backstory.
* DrinkBasedCharacterization: He takes his coffee black. This seems to be less about RealMenTakeItBlack than that Paul is a generally boring person and doesn't want to make extra work for Emma.
* TheEveryman: Paul is set up as one of these, although he gets more development by the end of the show -- his only notable trait is that he [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin doesn't like musicals]], and serves as an AudienceSurrogate for how a normal RealLife person would react to inexplicably waking up inside [[MusicalWorldHypotheses the world of a musical theatre production]].
* HeroicSacrifice: Paul goes to blow up the meteor, knowing in all likelihood it's a suicide mission. [[spoiler: He succeeds, but the HiveMind survives, which means [[AndIMustScream so does he]].]]
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Bill. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely [[spoiler: hurt by Bill's death.]]
* LateArrivalSpoiler: For fans of TGWDLM, Emma and Paul's very presence in ''Black Friday'' spoils one of the biggest questions fans had, whether this show is a sequel, prequel or AlternateUniverse to the previous one (it's the latter). That said, this is revealed in the very first scene.
* LonersAreFreaks: Paul isn't a hardcore loner but he is pretty aggressively uninterested in most of the passions other people have, from the company softball league to saving the environment to, of course, musical theatre. This goes from being something others find mildly off-putting to something the HiveMind declares anathema that makes it become Paul's ArchEnemy.
* MeaningfulName: Paul's surname, Matthews, is a reference to the protagonist of ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers1978'', who was named Matthew Bennell.
** Paul's first name may be a reference to the Apostle Paul, notorious for being the most stubborn of unbelievers until a HeelFaithTurn is forced on him on the road to Damascus. Especially likely given the line "You've gotta believe in something, Paul" from the OpeningChorus.
* MrExposition: He's weirdly ''well-informed'' about the things he hates; in addition to knowing a lot about musicals despite being purely defined by his distaste for them, he also opens ''Black Friday'' by giving us a mini-lecture on various {{Flash in the Pan Fad}}s involving toys in the past, setting up the premise.
* NiceToTheWaiter: Paul distinguishes himself from all the other customers at Beanie's by being considerate to the baristas and ignoring the obnoxious "tip song" policy... although, as a HypocriticalHumor joke, it turns out this is just because he's sweet on Emma ("I don't give a shit about them").
* OnlySaneMan: As time goes on, he is [[spoiler: (along with Emma) truly the only sane man]], but is also this compared to his more eccentric coworkers, especially evident in the scene where Bill and Ted are arguing.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: A major plot point since Paul is so content with his boring life and job that the HiveMind is unable to convert him.
* SoapboxSadie: Paul remains a guy defined by his outspoken disapproval of things other people are into, objecting to musical theatre, and later, the Wiggly toy fad and Black Friday shopping. (Emma even namedrops this trope, telling him to "get off the soapbox" before they go in to meet Tom and Tim.) In the ''Black Friday'' timeline, though, he doesn't get to directly experience being TheCassandra.
* StepfordSmiler: During "Let It Out", he claims "I've never been happy" despite seeming perfectly content with his life up until the invasion. [[spoiler: Possibly invoked by the HiveMind who are trying to convert him, and lampshaded by Paul himself who sings "Is this me, or is this you?!?" beforehand.]]
* TeamDad: As part of his OnlySaneMan gig, he becomes the leader of the gang and looks out for everyone else.
* TenorBoy: It seems like Paul ''would'' be in this vocal range but it's hard to tell just from his speaking voice, since he after all does not sing because he hates musicals. [[spoiler: The ending devastatingly confirms Jon Matteson indeed has a beautifully piercing leading man tenor.]]
* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Isn't very good at trying not to sound crazy when he initially tries to get Emma to "consider the implications".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Emma Perkins]]
!!Emma Perkins
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/LaurenLopez | [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]] (understudy in one performance of TGWDLM)
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
A barista attempting to work her way through community college. Paul's crush. A globetrotter for much of her young adulthood, she stayed in Hatchetfield after the funeral of her sister Jane to try to make something of herself.
----
* BadBadActing: Just watch Emma halfheartedly muddle her way through the choreography in "Cup of Roasted Coffee" (which Lauren Lopez said was harder than just doing it for real).
* BookEnds: Emma and Paul don't participate at all in the main events of ''Black Friday'', appearing only in the first scene and the last.
* BorrowedCatchphrase: Emma steals Paul's "Okay... okay... okay..." in ''Black Friday'', this time turned from an expression of fear and confusion to one of frustrated anger at Tom.
* BrainyBrunette: The only character to figure out [[spoiler: that the meteor was the source of the blue shit.]]
* BrilliantButLazy:
** Musical version. Unlike Paul, Emma is a talented singer and dancer who even performed in a musical back in high school, but has no interest in theatre simply because she doesn't want to put in the effort. That bad attitude may be why she was the only employee of Beanie's to escape assimilation.
** Also applies to her scholarly intellect, in that she admits the reason she didn't go to college earlier was she didn't care, Prof. Hidgens considers her his best student, and she's the one who comes up with the idea that the HiveMind has a HiveQueen in the form of the meteor.
* BurgerFool: Very much has this attitude toward her job, to the point of eventually admitting she habitually spit in the coffee.
* CainAndAbel: Had a relationship like this with her sister. When "the good sister" died suddenly and tragically, it was her wakeup call to try to get her act together.
* CallToAgriculture: In a twist on the more wholesome version of this, Emma plans to move out West to start a ''cannabis'' farm, thinking it's a surefire business to get in on the ground floor of once nationwide legalization hits.
* CastingGag: Much to the surprise of fans, Emma and Linda Monroe both appear in ''Black Friday'', and have almost exactly opposite personalities and stations in life. That said, Emma and Linda ''are'' parallel in being strong-willed women with men playing HenpeckedHusband to them (including Linda's lawyer, who, like Paul, is played by Jon Matteson). And they're both {{Deadpan Snarker}}s with cruelly sharp tongues, and they both hate Becky Barnes.
* ContinuityCameo: Emma and Paul's appearance in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' is basically this, serving to immediately let us know that this is indeed Hatchetfield but not the same one we saw in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''.
* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: In ''Black Friday'' Emma reveals that her (and Jane's) parents died some time ago, making Tom and Tim the "only family she has left".
* CoughingUpBlood: A hilarious RealityEnsues where she tries to give Paul a LastKiss while dying from her injuries... only to kill the mood by spitting blood all over his face.
* DeadpanSnarker: Outdoes Creator/LaurenLopez's past roles in this department, and that's saying something. Making fun of other people's interests remains the main thing she and Paul bond over.
* {{Delinquent}}: Was this as a child, leading to her becoming a rootless drifter as an adult.
* DemotedToExtra: Emma is determined to stay out of trouble and take care of herself first... and in the ''Black Friday'' timeline, she mostly succeeds, until the very end of the show.
* FinalGirl: [[spoiler: Emma ends up being this in TGWDLM.]]
* ForgottenFirstMeeting: It turns out that as a teenager Paul saw Emma perform the lead in ''Theatre/{{Brigadoon}}''... And in a twist on this trope, he ''hated'' it.
-->'''Paul:''' ''You're'' the reason I don't like musicals!
-->'''Emma:''' ''(flattered)'' Oh, I'm your origin story?
* IronicDeath: [[spoiler: She declares that all she ever wanted was to die outside of Harchetfield. She gets her wish, in the sense that she makes it as far as the neighboring town of Clivesdale.]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She's very grumpy and foul-mouthed. Justified in that she starts of the show stuck working a shitty job, with a shitty boss and customers, in a town she absolutely hates. Her interactions with Paul show off her softer side.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: For fans of TGWDLM, Emma and Paul's very presence in ''Black Friday'' spoils one of the biggest questions fans had, whether this show is a sequel, prequel or AlternateUniverse to the previous one (it's the latter). That said, this is revealed in the very first scene.
* MsFanservice: The required uniform at Beanie's has Creator/LaurenLopez in [[WhoWearsShortShorts short shorts]] for the whole show.
* NotDistractedByTheSexy: She's repeatedly shouting "No!" while Prof. Hidgens strips out of his jacket, in sharp contrast to most of the audience ([[AmbiguouslyBi and Ted]]).
* NotWhatISignedUpFor: Part of the reason why she resents Nora forcing her to sing and dance so much. She signed up to serve coffee and shitty pastries, and nothing else.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: When Paul gets grabbed by "Greg" after [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal]] Ted takes the opportunity to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere steal his gun and run for it]]. Emma, despite being unarmed and a tiny woman half Greg's size, somehow saves Paul offstage anyway.
* OnlySaneMan: By the end...
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Emma manages to physically fight off the zombies ''twice'' despite being a "cute little barista" with no combat training, first saving Paul from "Greg" offstage (despite Greg being twice her size and, theoretically, a football player), then somehow wrestling herself free of the assimilated Ted and grabbing his gun. (Although it is true the HiveMind earlier explicitly said it was going to deny Paul a quick and easy death and may be toying with them.)
* ScreamingWoman: Emma averts this for most of the show, reacting appropriately to the danger around her once she [[RunningGag thinks about the implications]] but generally being more levelheaded than the people around her, including Paul. [[spoiler: She succumbs fully to this at the sheer horror of the DownerEnding the HiveMind has engineered for her. Her abject howl of despair as the assembled zombies happily reprise "Showstoppin' Number" is [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments a peak moment in horror comedy]].]] In what may be a parody of the trope or a [[spoiler: hint at her impending assimilation]], the end of the show is Emma "screaming" out a piercing high note to end the song "Inevitable".
* TheShowMustGoOn: For one legendary performance Nick Lang had to come in and play Emma at the last minute because Lauren got sick. There's no recordings of that performance, but [[https://youtu.be/OZKEh-AiXx8 there is one]] of him having to learn the choreography to "Cup of Roasted Coffee" the afternoon before the show. (EnforcedMethodActing, since Emma is also supposed to have only learned the dance the night before.)
* {{Tsundere}}: A mild but notable example of this trope. Foul-mouthed, abrasive and opinionated to most people she meets, especially in comparison to Paul. Notably, when Paul talks to Ted about the "hot barista from Beanie's" it turns out Ted meant ''Zoey'' and is shocked anyone could have a crush on "the crabby one".
* UnkemptBeauty: Emma gets progressively more disheveled as time passes in this play (as a result of [[RealLifeWritesThePlot having to rush through a quick change at the beginning of Act 2]]) but it doesn't make her any less desirable to Paul.
* UnknownRival: The combination Starkid Homecoming/Black Friday [[https://youtu.be/na5h54x9lEo announcement video]] establishes that both Paul and Emma know Becky, and Emma for some reason hates her. Later livestream fundraisers established that Emma was a few years behind Becky in high school (while Paul, who went to a different high school, presumably met Becky as an adult). Nick Lang revealed there is a specific reason for Emma's grievance, although it may not be a very reasonable one (since Emma isn't always a reasonable person). Now that the show is released, it seems fairly clear that, aside from their personalities clashing, Emma probably resents Becky for being her dead sister's ''romantic'' rival whom the [[ShipperOnDeck whole town seems to ship]] with her brother-in-law. (Although she doesn't react visibly to Tom and Becky being together at the end, having [[WorldWarIII bigger things to worry about]].)
* WalkingTheEarth: Spent most of her life doing this, getting as far as Guatemala, before coming back to try to be responsible.
* WitnessProtection: [[spoiler: As the sole survivor of Hatchetfield, PEIP gives Emma a new identity, "Kelly", and the deed to the farm out West she's always wanted. Seems awfully decent of them considering their past policy of [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade killing all witnesses]]. Turns out it was, in fact, too good to be true.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ted Spankoffski]]
!!Ted Spankoffski
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JoeyRichter
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' | ''Time Bastard''
A self-described "sleazeball". Works with Paul, is screwing around with Charlotte behind her husband's back.
----
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Despite the direness of his situation during "Showstopping Number" Ted can't help but get sucked into Hidgens' pitch for "Workin' Boys".
* AmbiguouslyBi: Ted mostly seems to be a straight guy, and a particularly misogynistic and predatory one at that, but during Prof. Hidgens' "Showstopping Number" he's the one EatingTheEyeCandy while Emma is resolutely NotDistractedByTheSexy.
* AssholeVictim: After an epiphany about being a better person he reveals himself to be a coward and flees at the sight of danger, leaving Paul to be dragged away. This scene precedes his death at the hands of General [=McNamara=].
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* ButtMonkey: Ted is subjected to a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown from Charlotte and Sam during "Join Us and Die." After everything he's said and done it's hard not to find this satisfying.
* TheCameo: He appears in the final number of ''Theatre/BlackFriday''.
* DeathOfPersonality: When Ted is killed and converted by [[spoiler: the assimilated PEIP soldiers]] they've refined the process so it's almost instantaneous. Awful as Ted is, it's deeply chilling to see the light in his eyes go out.
* DirtyCoward: He runs away when Paul is attacked without thinking. When he meets the military group he claims to be the only survivor in order to move out faster.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He proudly proclaims that while Sam is a "scumbag", he himself is merely a "sleazeball". He has a point -- he may be cheating ''with'' Charlotte but never cheats ''on'' anyone, and never tries to deceive anyone about what kind of person he is.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Ted was already basically this, before the apocalypse revealed his worst traits.
* HiddenDepths: The pre-assimilated characters having this is a theme of this show. Supreme {{Jerkass}} Ted is somehow moved to tears by the story of "Workin' Boys".
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Later in the play he vows to be a better person and declares Paul to be his best friend. When he abandons Paul seconds later he claims that while he's a better person he's still not a good person.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** He rather insensitively tells Bill that in these times there are people who are alive and those who are dead, and Bill's daughter is good as dead and so will he if he risks going out to rescue her. He ends up being correct as Alice has already been assimilated by the time Bill reaches her, which leads to Bill's death.
** His speech to Charlotte about her 'refusing to be happy' and choosing Sam over him might be incredibly mean spirited and fueled by Charlotte not wanting to sleep with him at the time, but from what little we saw of her phone call at the beginning implies that she was miserable in her marriage with Sam.
* MrFanservice: Has his shirt off in one of his first scenes.
* SerialHomewrecker: Ted sleeping with the married Charlotte, and implies this is a pattern for him. However, it's also shown that he has sincere romantic feelings for her, making it hard to tell whether he genuinely is this trope, or if he's just claiming to be so he can cover up his emotions, since she still wants to stay with her husband.
* TemptingFate: He seems ''so'' happy and smug about doing the smart thing and betraying the others when he finally makes it to the extraction point that his fate is almost a foregone conclusion.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Charlotte]]
!!Charlotte
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JaimeLynBeatty
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''Time Bastard''
One of Paul's coworkers, who is unhappily married to Sam and cheating on him with Ted. Quiet most of the time.
----
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Seems to be the reason she ended up with Sam in the first place, and then sought solace for her terrible relationship with Sam (a "scumbag") with Ted (a "sleazeball").
* {{Angrish}}: The resurrected Charlotte is ''so filled with violent rage'' her lyrics seem to be riddled with {{Malaprop|er}}isms ("Sorry to interrupt/But we've got bones to pluck") and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant]] phrases ("We're gonna kick your ass/And then we're gonna... [[PrecisionFStrike FUCKING]] kick your ass!") [[FridgeBrilliance Makes sense]], since the song is about the HiveMind losing its patience with trying to seduce people through music, instead CuttingTheKnot by just killing them.
* BewareTheQuietOnes: She reveals when praying for Sam's life that she's been bottling up a ton of anger toward him, which is why she feels so much guilt that he seems to have actually died. All that repression may explain why once she turns she sings a paean to violence and murder ("Join Us and Die").
* BodyHorror: Charlotte reappears immediately after her death and resurrection, meaning she still has her entrails -- now bright blue -- dangling out of her ribcage.
* TheCameo: After the death of Sherman in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', Jaime Lyn instead fills crowd scenes of the cult of Wiggly by playing Charlotte. Charlotte never calls attention to herself, but steals Hannah's magic hat, harmonizes with Linda in "Wiggle", and is the only cultist we see who decides not to die with the burning Wiggly doll, instead finding solace in Ted's arms during the final number.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Even during her violent rampage during "Join Us and Die", she hesitates before attacking Bill, and then she and Sam start attacking Ted instead. Whether this is because she was moved by Emma's appeal to her that [[IHaveAFamily "He has a daughter!"]] or because of the original Charlotte and Sam's [[ItsPersonal history with Ted]] is unknown.... or maybe the HiveMind didn't want to kill Bill until ''after'' [[ForTheEvulz revealing to him that said daughter was assimilated]].
* EvilIsSexy: Charlotte undergoes one of the most dramatic transformations of any of the assimilated, coming back as an incredibly charismatic (and violent) rock star.
* HiddenDepths: She seems like such a classically innocent doormat of an abused wife that it's a surprise when we see how passionate her revenge affair with Ted seems to be.
* IncrediblyLongNote: Assimilated Charlotte returns with a line that reminds us that under the pastel sweater and timid mannerisms, she's still Jaime Lyn Beatty.
-->'''Charlotte''': It is time... to DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!
** KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler: In the character sheets of just about every character assimilated in TGWDLM, we've asked if anyone infected by the blue shit is capable of dying. Apparently yes, in this case -- Charlotte and Sam are never seen again after Hidgens puts them down with a point blank shotgun blast, in all likelihood because he went on to [[{{Squick}} dissect their bodies]].]]
* NervousWreck: Most likely caused by her destructive relationship with her husband, her guilt over cheating on him, or just her general nature, Charlotte's hands shake after conversations and she has cigarettes, a lighter, and a flask at work.
* ShrinkingViolet: Charlotte is very much this, one reason she's a bad match for Sam. Her call sheet describes her as a caricature of a middle aged office lady who dresses exclusively in [[TastesLikeDiabetes pastel sweaters with pictures of cats]].
* ShoutOut: Charlotte's CreepyCute line "All you gotta do is" in "Join Us and Die" is a CallBack to Jaime Lyn Beatty as Neato Mosquito in ''Theatre/{{Starship}}''.
* SlapSlapKiss: Literally does this with Ted.
* SympatheticAdulterer: Compared to her husband [[{{Jerkass}} Sam]] who thinks nothing of canceling their 'cuddle night' just to go out with Zoey, it's clear her affair with Ted is out of a desperate need for passion and love.
* WetBlanketWife: What her cop husband sees her as, in a textbook version of this trope.
* YourCheatingHeart: Cheats on Sam with self-proclaimed "sleazeball" Ted.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Bill Woodward]]
!!Bill Woodward
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/CoreyDorris
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World'' | ''Time Bastard''
Paul's best friend, a divorced man who spends most of his time trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter Alice.
----
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Alice clearly considers Bill this.
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: One would think that being shot in the head would do it, and, failing that, being blown up by a meteor, but neither works.]]
* BlackAndNerdy: He is played by the only black member of the cast, and he's in the show because he's Paul's best friend, but he very much averts the TokenBlackFriend trope (a black guy who's the protagonist's best friend to be stereotypically "cool" and make him cooler by association). He's significantly ''less'' cool than Paul or anyone else in the show -- which, [[TheGenericGuy knowing Paul]], is saying something.
* ChekhovsGun: In the Website/YouTube version of the show you can hear the audience audibly gasp when Paul wrestles the shotgun out of Bill's hands and lets it fall to the floor, so desperate to talk Bill out of his despair he's [[spoiler: unmindful of Alice slowly reaching toward it]].
* DisneylandDad: He and his ex-wife seem to be locked in the traditional bidding war for their daughter's affection. Except that in a reversal of this trope, his wife, who as usual is the custodial parent, also has more money than him -- he tries and ''spectacularly'' fails to one-up the trip to New York where they saw ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'' with a touring production of ''Theatre/MammaMia'' and a trip to Red Lobster.
* DrivenToSuicide: Almost happens after he finds out his daughter has been assimilated and it's partially his fault she didn't leave the town. Paul stops him [[spoiler: though he is killed anyways]].
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Paul. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely [[spoiler: hurt by Bill's death.]]
* IHaveAFamily: Infected!Charlotte is about to kill Bill but then turns aside after Emma shouts "He has a daughter!" [[spoiler: Unfortunately, that seems to be because the HiveMind thought his daughter being the one to kill him would better fit the RuleOfDrama.]]
* ItsAllMyFault: Bill is relentlessly haunted by his fears that he's failed to be a supportive enough parent to Alice, and that this failure may have indirectly led to her death. [[spoiler: The assimilated Alice gleefully confirms each and every one of them.]]
* NonActionGuy: Ted relentlessly mocks Bill for being this to try to dissuade him from going to rescue his daughter. It doesn't work.
* PapaWolf: A more laid-back version, but certainly feels that his daughter can do better than ''Deb''.
* [[spoiler: SacrificialLamb: Bill's death at the top of Act II is our first clear sign this story isn't going to end happily.]]
* UsefulNotes/StraightEdge: Bill isn't TheTeetotaler, but given the chance to raid Hidgens' bar he prefers a Shirley Temple to an alcoholic drink because he thinks they "might need a designated driver", only to get [[RealMenHateSugar mocked badly enough by Ted]] he caves and gets drunk anyway. Unfortunately, [[{{Foreshadowing}} he was right about needing to drive]].
** He also has a kneejerk prejudice against stoners.
* TheWoobie: Is very open about the fact that after his divorce he has nothing in his life he cares about anymore but Alice.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Professor Hidgens]]
!!Professor Henry Hidgens
!!!'''Played by:''' Robert Manion
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
Emma's eccentric Doomsday Survivalist biology professor, who predicted the apotheosis thirty years ago. His closest companion is Alexa, and his first love is [[spoiler: musical theatre.]]
----
* TheAlcoholic: Hidgens freely admits there isn't much to do while holed up in his bunker but drink.
* AmbiguouslyGay: [[spoiler: Has vaguely overdramatic mannerisms that gradually become increasingly CampGay until they burst into full flower with "Showstopping Number". Has apparently never loved any woman besides his Amazon Echo, but has constructed an elaborate fantasy musical world revolving around [[DoubleEntendre "tossing around the old pigskin"]] with "his boys".]]
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* BadassNormal: [[spoiler: Musical zombie version. His [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Showstopping Number"]] announcing his FaceHeelTurn happens ''before'' his assimilation, and contains the most impressive choreography in the show.]]
* CannotTellFictionFromReality: [[spoiler: It seems unlikely his musical "Workin' Boys" is autobiographical, if only because he's clearly spent most of his life alone in his bunker, but once he gets into performing it Hidgens seems to forget there's any difference between himself and his character "Henry".]]
* CargoShip: Says he loves his BenevolentAI assistant Alexa as much as he could any human woman... even though "she" is clearly just an off-the-shelf Amazon Echo.
* CrazySurvivalist: Has been preparing for the apocalypse for decades and has a bunker.
** [[spoiler: The "crazy" part leads to the FaceHeelTurn -- he comes to realize the HiveMind is [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill the only possible way to prevent all the other apocalypses he's predicted]].]]
* {{Expy}}: Prof. Hidgens' appearance and demeanor is a mash-up of Leonard Nimoy's role as Dr. Kibner in ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers1978'' and Carl Sagan in ''Series/{{Cosmos}}''.
** [[spoiler: And when he takes ''off'' the professorial blazer he becomes an unexpected expy of [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow Dr. Frank N. Furter]], if a PG-rated one. "Showstoppin' Number" plays out as a PG-rated version of the Floor Show from Rocky Horror, with [[GenderFlip Emma as Brad and Ted as Janet]] (since he's the one who ends up liking it).]]
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: He joins the aliens due to his distaste for human society, belief that humanity is doomed regardless, and love of musicals.]]
* HiddenDepths: [[spoiler: Despite being a mad scientist and survivalist, he has a passion for theatre and even wrote a musical in his spare time.]]
* LargeHam: As only Robert Manion can.
* MadScientist: Yes, Hidgens did predict to the ''exact detail'' that this particular zombie apocalypse would happen, despite Paul's skepticism. [[spoiler: The "mad" part gets worse after his FaceHeelTurn.]]
* MeaningfulName: [[WordOfGod Nick Lang]] says giving him the name "Henry Hidgens" was a purely accidental similarity to ''Film/MyFairLady'', but [[WordOfSaintPaul Jeff Blim]] was among the people who made the connection to Robert Manion's Rex-Harrison-esque performance.
* MercyKill: Makes the bizarre decision to order Alexa to self destruct to spare her the horrors to come (even though she can't because "she" is just an ordinary home appliance).
* MrExposition: Prof. Hidgens is the obligatory MadScientist with an unlikely level of familiarity with the alien phenomenon who shows up midway through a classic science fiction monster movie for the benefit of the main characters (and the audience).
* NoNameGiven: Technically, his first name is not given in TGWDLM, and it's left [[AmbiguousSituation ambiguous]] if the main character of ''Workin' Boys'', Henry, is named after himself. As of the announcement of the standalone ''Workin' Boys'' short film it's been confirmed that Henry is in fact his real first name, and he's addressed as such several times in ''Nightmare Time''.
* TheQuisling: [[spoiler: Prof. Hidgens joins with the aliens due to rant against TheEvilsOfFreeWill and love of musical theatre.]]
* SmokingIsCool: Hidgens is smoking a cigarette when he comes in with a shotgun to save everyone from the assimilated Charlotte and Sam.
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: [[spoiler: For all his bluster about welcoming death and apotheosis, Prof. Hidgens is brought up short when he realizes how... ''viscerally'' painful the process is going to be.]]
-->'''Hidgens''': [[spoiler: Yes! Make me one of you! ''(as Greg and Stu reach for his tummy)'' No! Not my tummy! ''(shrieks as they tear out the contents of his tummy)'']]
* WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal of humanity is one of the biggest spoilers for Act 2, and, thanks to Robert Manion's performance in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Showstopping Number]]", it's all anyone wants to talk about regarding his character.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Alice Woodward]]
!!Alice Woodward
!!!'''Played by:''' Mariah Rose Faith
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World''
Bill's daughter, who lives with her mother most of the time and is dating Deb.
----
* AdultFear: Alice specifically invokes this to her father's face. "You left me out of your sight for one second and look what happens, nightmare time. It's worse than you could imagine, not sex and not drugs, just [[spoiler: alien invading minds.]]"
* AscendedExtra: She had very little screentime in TGWDLM, but established herself as a core member of the Hatchetfield cast by co-starring with Bill in ''Watcher World''.
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Bill ''doesn't'' like Deb. Not because she's a girl; he simply thinks Alice can do better. Like Grace Chastity.
* DeathOfPersonality: [[spoiler: A chilling example -- after Bill dies, the assimilated Alice seems to drop the pretense that she actually is Alice and becomes nothing but a CreepyMonotone mouthpiece for the HiveMind.]]
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: "Not Your Seed" sounds like a typical EmoTeen anthem about a kid growing up into somebody their parents don't understand anymore, [[spoiler: even though it's actually about Alice dying and turning into a zombie]].
* EvilGloating: "Not Your Seed" is a weird version of this, being a song about Alice's anger and grief at her death, sung by Alice's body, but actually coming from the HiveMind that killed Alice in the first place.
* FunTShirt: The second time we see Alice, her pink sweater is unbuttoned, revealing the shirt underneath has the slogan "Beautiful Monster", [[spoiler: revealing she's been assimilated]].
* LipstickLesbian: Alice is this to her girlfriend Deb's ButchLesbian.
* MinorCharacterMajorSong: Almost all of her stage time is taken up by "Not Your Seed".
* MurderIntoMalevolence: [[spoiler: The assimilated Alice presents herself as this, seeking only to hurt Bill and drive him to suicide to get back at him for his failure to save her from the HiveMind. Of course, it soon transpires that this was just the HiveMind being a {{Sadist}} ForTheEvulz.]]
* {{Patricide}}: [[spoiler: She kills her father Bill.]]
* PeerPressureMakesYouEvil: Bill seems terrified that this is happening to Alice thanks to Deb and her delinquent friends. [[spoiler: It does happen in the sense that Deb and her friends were assimilated by the meteor and then killed Alice. The assimilated Alice seems happy to treat this as basically the same thing, for the sake of taunting Bill.]]
* TakingTheKids: Bill's whole character is defined by him still reeling from losing custody of Alice.
* VisitByDivorcedDad: From Alice's perspective the plot of the show is one of these episodes, gone ridiculously wrong.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler: Except for one brief scene, Alice is a completely OffscreenCharacter until we meet her in her assimilated form.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Jane Perkins]]
!!Jane Perkins
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JaimeLynBeatty
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' (mentioned) | ''Black Friday'' (mentioned) | ''Jane's a Car''
Older sister of Emma Perkins, wife of Tom Houston, and mother of Tim Houston. Jane died in a car accident about a year earlier, and her death weighs heavily upon Emma, Tom, and Tim in TGWTLM and ''Black Friday''.
----
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Mildly. Tom isn't ''bad'', exactly, but he's certainly very different from the high-achieving college girl Jane was, and "If I Failed You" tells us that she seems to have been fascinated by his history as a war veteran and the emotional damage it left him with.
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: We knew she was this to Emma when they were kids from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. What's heartbreaking is she was ''also'' this to her own husband Tom, who finds that his inferiority complex next to her has spun out of control after she died and his life fell apart.
* CainAndAbel: Emma had a bit of this relationship with her, which is why when she turned 18 she became TheRunaway so she wouldn't have to live in her shadow.
* CoolBigSis: Apparently this to Emma, who never let her resentment of her change the fact that she deeply admired Jane as a person.
* TheGhost: In ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', she's a PosthumousCharacter who sets up the backstory for lead characters Emma and Tom. While Jaime Lyn Beatty dresses as Jane during the reading of ''Jane's a Car'', she doesn't appear physically in that story either.
* HiddenDepths: Despite Emma's perception of her (years out of date, since she left home at 18) as a goody-two-shoes Purity Sue, Tom tells us that she [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl loved going out to bars]] and getting wasted, and hints that it might have been because the alcohol was the only way she could get past his emotional walls.
* LostLenore: Is this for Tom, for whom the wound of her loss is extremely fresh.
* TheMaidenNameDebate: She never took Tom's surname and remained "Jane Perkins" after her marriage, as did Becky Barnes.
* TheReliableOne: Was this in her marriage to Tom -- we know from Emma that this has been true since childhood, when she [[AdorablyPrecociousChild wrote out a detailed life plan]] and has apparently followed it to the letter. Unlike the typical sitcom BumblingDad this is PlayedForDrama, and Tom's constant sense that he can't do anything right without her help is a major source of angst.
* SecondLove: Unlike the typical "dead wife" trope, she was Tom's ''second'' love, and it's her death that sends him reconnecting with his actual FirstLove, Becky. (And unlike most OldFlame plots, there was nothing wrong with his marriage to her and she really was the love of his life.)
* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: Emma wasn't around for any of Jane and Tom's marriage, but looking at his life now this seems to be her opinion.
[[/folder]]
!Debuted in ''Theatre/BlackFriday''
[[folder: Lex Foster]]
!!Alexandra "Lex" Foster
!!!'''Played by:''' Angela Giarratana
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's a Car'' | ''The Witch in the Web''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lex_foster.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"If I don't support my drinking habit, who will?"'']]
->''And when the sun shines down upon me,''\\
''I'll know I'm righteous, babe,''\\
''in this time of crisis, babe.''\\
''And when the sun shines down over Cali,''\\
''the future's priceless, babe.''\\
''The past's a virus, babe.''
A high school dropout who recently turned 18. Works at Toy Zone, the big toy store in Hatchetfield, and has a plan to use her position to get her hands on a Wiggly doll and sell it to finance running away to California.
----
* EleventhHourSuperpower: Everything is going according to plan for Linda Monroe (and therefore Uncle Wiley and Wiggly), until Lex changes the whole equation, [[spoiler: by using her connection to the Black and White to summon [=MacNamara=]'s gun and becoming the only person in the mall [[NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight armed with something more than a boxcutter]]]].
* AbusiveParents: At the very least, her mom is TheAlcoholic and a drug addict, and Lex thinks it's absolutely necessary to get Hannah away from her as soon as possible.
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Despite her feelings about Toy Zone and Frank, his song "Our Doors Are Open" is such a tour de force she can't help but get into it and briefly get excited about Black Friday herself. It helps that she's in a good mood because her plan to steal the Wiggly looks like it's going to work -- and that the snatch of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" he sings to Lex earlier indicates Frank is [[MusicalWorldHypotheses diegetically]] a great singer.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Her song "[=CaliforMIA=]" starts with the line "My mom's a bitch," which says it all. Though it turns out she has good reason to dislike her mother so much.
* BigBrotherInstinct: Her plan to run away seems to prioritize getting her sister Hannah away from her mom. Once the Black Friday riots begin her whole motivation switches to desperately trying to keep her sister safe.
* TheCaper: Her arc revolves around a plan to steal a Wiggly from her place of employment and sell it online.
* ChildrenRaiseYou: A sibling variant. In the titular song, she reflects on how much she loves her sister and how much her birth changed her, and realizes she needed Hannah just as much as Hannah needed her.
* CigaretteOfAnxiety: This seems to be the reason for Lex's smoking habit. There's some HypocriticalHumor when she's aghast at Hannah doing the "Smoke Club" dance and immediately follows it with "I need a cigarette".
* CoolBigSis: To Hannah.
* {{Delinquent}}: Plans to rob her workplace in order to, legally speaking, kidnap her sister from her mom. But she means well.
* DeadpanSnarker: In a resentful snark-off between her and Emma from TGWDLM she'd win handily.
* DearJohnLetter: Leaves a ''blisteringly'' harsh parent/child version of one to her mom at the end of "[=CaliforMIA=]".
* DespairEventHorizon: The song "Black Friday", which adds another meaning to the DoubleMeaningTitle of the show -- for Lex, Black Friday was when she thought all her problems were going to be solved and instead it's when she's watched all her dreams fall apart, ending in an ignoble and senseless death.
* DisappearedDad: Lex's mom seems to be a single parent, with her dad nowhere in sight. It appears to be the opinion of the town that she ReallyGetsAround, and it's uncertain whether Lex and Hannah even have the same father.
* GenreSavvy: Defiantly says "It's not a trope!", about her plan to run away to LA to become an actress, probably because she knows those stories don't tend to end well in movies.
* HardcorePunk: "[=CaliforMIA=]" is a song in this style, reflecting both Lex's personality and her West Coast dreams.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Her insensitivity usually ''isn't'' innocence, but her attempt to throw a [[RousingSpeech pep talk]] into her BreakingSpeech to Tom to snap him out of Wiggly's spell doesn't go so well.
-->'''Lex''': That's why it works on adults. Because you guys have more holes, you need more things and you need it harder! You gotta worry about your loveless marriage, or your kids that are gonna hate you! Or your endless mortgage! I mean, you're like forty![[note]]This is MistakenAge -- WordOfGod is Tom is only a few years older than Emma, who is thirty. But Tom certainly isn't looking his best at the moment.[[/note]] You probably think your life is over! [[DerailedTrainOfThought I mean, I don't, I'm gonna be an actress.]] Do you get what I'm saying?
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: For all the tropes on this page painting her as a delinquent and (possible) thief, her main motivation is trying to get away to provide a better life for her younger sister.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Out of all the factions competing for a Wiggly, she and Ethan are the only one who don't care at all about having one for its own sake, instead planning to auction it to the highest bidder who couldn't make it to a physical store on Black Friday (since legitimate online orders sold out weeks ago) to fund their trip to LA.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Her given name, Alexandra, is only used once, when Frank is chewing her out.
* ThePromisedLand: As is traditional in stories like this, she sees Los Angeles as one.
* PromotionToParent: Her mother is an abusive alcoholic, so she's the one who takes care of her sister Hannah, with her boyfriend Ethan filling a sort of "jokey stepdad" role.
* PsychicPowers: It turns out she has a similar psychic gift to Hannah's -- while her sister can ''see'' into the Black and White, she can physically ''reach'' into it and manifest objects from it into the real world. (This is known as "apportation" in RealLife paranormal studies.)
* TheResenter: She's this ''hardcore'' to all the adults in her life she feels have let her down. It seems like she has a point when it comes to her mom -- although WordOfGod hints her mom may have a FreudianExcuse -- but it becomes really harsh when she blames Tom for ruining her life by quitting teaching when his wife died, as though [[ItsAllAboutMe it wasn't a much worse experience for him]].
* TheRunaway: Plans to become one, along with Ethan Green and her sister Hannah.
* SirSwearsALot: There is a ''lot'' of cursing in this show in general, but Lex especially is prone to it, particuarly when she's upset or excited.
* SoulSuckingRetailJob: Working at Toy Zone is implied to be this at the best of times -- and Black Friday is the ''very worst'' of times.
* StrugglingSingleMother: Lex's family is quite poor and lives in a trailer park, although Lex (fairly or not) doesn't sympathize much with her mom's struggles.
* SummonMagic: Lex is able to use her powers at a critical moment to save her life by summoning [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=]'s gun]].
* TomboyishName: "Lex", short for Alexandra.
* TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening: Lex has no clue she has any kind of special powers until she's about to lose consciousness from being strangled by Sherman, which awakens her connection to the Black and White and lets her see [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=]'s ghost.]]
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=] sings "Monsters and Men (Reprise)" to tell Lex this when she's about to give into despair and let Sherman kill her.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Hannah Foster]]
!!Hannah Foster
!!!'''Played by:''' Kendall Nicole Yakshe
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''The Witch in the Web''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hannah_foster.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Bad blood. Cross. Black and white..."'']]
->''What if tomorrow comes''\\
''to break the dawn''\\
''and take the night away?''
Lex's 13-year-old sister, whose welfare motivates most of her actions. She's noted to be quirky and quiet, though Lex insists she's simply "creative."
----
* {{Adorkable}}: Hannah's wacky improvised dance moves during "[=CaliforMIA=]" pretty much made the whole audience instantly fall in love with her character.
* AffectionateNickname: Lex calls her "Banana", and Ethan's CatchPhrase is greeting her with "What's shakin', Banana?" (This may be a reference to the dish [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas_Foster Bananas Foster]].) Becomes a very dark moment when the voice of Wiggly appropriates this nickname and starts threatening Hannah, "I'm going to peel you... I'm going to split you in two!"
* AmbiguousDisorder: She speaks in very short sentences and seems to have problems expressing herself, with Lex having to ask if she's having a "good or bad day", hinting at her being on the autism spectrum. Frank also makes a mean-spirited comment to Lex about their mother dropping her on her head. It turns out that a major contributing factor to for Hannah's disability is her [[DisabilitySuperpower psychic connection to the Black and White]].
* BlindingBangs: She conspicuously has to shove her bangs out of her eyes multiple times during her dancing in [="CaliforMIA"=]. Seems to be the version of this trope that connotes shyness and introversion, as well as not being that great at grooming herself.
* TheCassandra: Although most of Hannah's prophecies don't make any obvious sense and even if Lex and Ethan understood them wouldn't be anything they could act on, she's still in many ways a Cassandra. Lex interpreted her refusal to come to the mall and put on Lex's backpack as just a meltdown, but Hannah was ''right'' that the mall represents danger, and wearing the backpack (which Lex intends to hide the Wiggly doll in) will bring trouble their way. The worst moment of all is when she tries to warn Ethan [[spoiler: of his impending death]] but he's ComicallyMissingThePoint.
-->'''Ethan''': Do you believe that, no matter how bad it looks right now, things will get better?\\
'''Hannah''': Not better. Badder. ''Much'' badder.\\
'''Ethan''': Hey, what's with that grammar, huh? Even I know it's "more bad".
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Lex plans to run away to protect Hannah from her mother's abuse, and despite how much of a burnout {{Delinquent}} she's become, seems intent on sparing Hannah from a similar fate. She becomes incensed when she thinks Hannah may have gotten the idea to take up smoking even though [[HypocriticalHumor she herself smokes like a chimney]]. Hannah spends the whole show as an innocent victim menaced by monstrous adults, with Wiggly completely unable to possess her himself and resorting to threatening her with violence. [[spoiler: It turns out that being immune to Wiggly's corruption is a trait shared by all children.]]
* EasilyForgiven: Hannah seems to forgive Tom and Becky and go with them pretty readily at the end of the show, despite her last interaction with them being their Wiggly-mad selves trying to brutalize and kidnap her. She does trust Lex, and she did see Tom and Becky go up against Linda, the real architect of her misery, but there'd still probably be more of a realistic adjustment process [[CosmicDeadline if the show weren't about to end at this point.]] (Of course, she knows [[spoiler: from Evil Ethan, if nothing else]] how powerful a manipulator Wiggly is and even tried to warn them "He'll trick you!" at the time, so this may just be her being WiseBeyondTheirYears.)
* FromTheMouthsOfBabes: [[spoiler: One of the biggest laugh lines of the show is when Hannah, channeling [=MacNamara=] -- possibly literally -- says her only completely lucid dialogue in the show and responds to Paul whining about how he doesn't know what time it is without his smartphone with, "Wear a watch."]]
* HarmfulToMinors: [[spoiler: She doesn't actually see Ethan die, but watching him be set upon by crazed screaming adults was bad enough, and her PsychicPowers let her sense his death from a distance. That's enough to give any kid PTSD, even before she's accosted by a malicious, cackling EvilDoppelganger of Ethan later on.]]
* HeroicBSOD: She suffers a ''massive'' one when [[spoiler: Ethan's Bad Double appears to her, followed by the voice of Wiggly himself berating her and demanding she surrender]]. Even though she's GenreSavvy enough not to actually listen to their demands that she give herself up, Wiggly's plan works anyway by making her FreakOut enough she abandons her hiding place, just in time for a BrainwashedAndCrazy Becky and Tom to find her.
* ImaginaryFriend: She has one named "Webby", a "giant spider from outer space", who frequently gives her advice (much to Lex's frustration, since the advice is telling her not to go along with Lex's plan). Given what we learn about her powers and the Black and White -- especially Wiggly's voice snarling "Webby is a stupid bitch!" -- it seems likely Webby is RealAfterAll, a benign entity from the Black and White in opposition to Wiggly [[spoiler: like the one [=MacNamara=] becomes]]. (The fact that Webby is a spider may be a ShoutOut to {{Literature/IT}}'s true form.)
* MadOracle: Hannah is only able to speak in disjointed phrases, which have no direct relevance to the situation and only end up making sense to the audience in hindsight. She doesn't seem to fully understand what she's saying herself, only slowly realizing how her prophecies relate to events as the audience does.
* MagicFeather: Ethan gives her his baseball cap and tells her it's imbued with "[[Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse the power of Grayskull]]" to protect her from all harm. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane It may be he was unwittingly telling the truth.]]
* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: If Frank and Ethan's comments are anything to go off of, Hannah is considered to be a weird, creepy, possibly crazy child, and she doesn't appear to have any friends, or anyone who cares about her besides Lex and Ethan. However, she's really a sweet kid.
* PsychicPowers: She's born with a natural connection to the VoidBetweenTheWorlds known as the Black and White. [[spoiler: It turns out to run in the family.]]
* TomboyishBaseballCap: Complete with the tomboyish [[GirlishPigtails braided pigtails]], although she doesn't start out with it -- it's a gift from Ethan.
* WaifProphet: She fits this profile pretty much exactly.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: As all too often happens, her psychic gifts don't seem to do her any good, since no one including her understands her precognitive flashes and they've otherwise rendered her unable to function.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Becky Barnes]]
!!Becky Barnes
!!!'''Played by:''' Kim Whalen
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's a Car''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/becky_barnes_2.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"That's called a bribe, sir, and it's illegal. Or it should be."'']]
->''Take me back in time to love you.''\\
''Hold me closer than before.''\\
''Heal my heart and mend what's broken,''\\
''to feel you once more...''
A nurse who works in the pediatric wing of St. Damien's Hospital downtown. In her early 30s and divorced. Wants a Wiggly for unselfish reasons, giving up her day off to stand in line for a Wiggly doll to donate to the hospital playroom as a treat for the kids. Runs into her old flame Tom Houston by chance at the store.
----
* TheAlcoholic: Linda mocks her cruelly for becoming one after Stanley left her, although Linda is not a reliable source of information. She does admit that she was a drinker and partier before she got married.
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: The town seems to mock her for how such a [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]] ended up with a vile, abusive drunk like Stanley (who, according to "What Do You Say?", even ended up in prison at some point). This show, however, does not [[PlayedForLaughs play this for laughs]], making it clear how Stanley groomed and manipulated her and by the time she realized what was going on she was too frightened of him to leave.
* AlliterativeName: Which seems to play into how people refer to her on a FullNameBasis.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: ''Oh, hell yes''. Becky is a sweet, caring woman who just wants to get some toys to the children in the hospital, who also happens to have [[spoiler:stabbed her abusive husband, possibly killing him, and later shoots Linda in the head.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler: Becky's sudden burst of HeroicWillpower where she throws off the influence of both the sedative and Wiggly's possession at once, so she can grab [[ChekhovsGun the gun Tom dropped]], kill Linda and foil Wiggly's plans once and for all.]]
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: In contrast to Tom, Becky's aura of IncorruptiblePurePureness makes it seem like she'll stay AboveTheInfluence... and yet she ''did'' come to the mall for a Wiggly doll, which we learn from Lex is always a fundamentally selfish desire. [[spoiler: The LittlestCancerPatient at the hospital didn't really want one either!]] Which means she can be and eventually is also fully possessed by Wiggly.
* CannotSpitItOut: Becky and Tom's initial reunion is filled with extremely tense silences. "What Do You Say?" indeed.
* TheCheerleader: Was one in her high school days.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Played deadly serious. Becky tells us she realized she had no chance to leave her husband when she saw him [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat a kid almost to death]] just for the crime of her flirting with him. [[spoiler: It's his refusal to even let her go to Jane's funeral because he knows Tom is her FirstLove that makes [[TheDogBitesBack her finally snap]].]]
* CrowdChant: She seems to think she can turn the people of Hatchetfield against Linda by starting one, imploring the guy Linda bribed to let her into the Toy Zone line to "Tear that check! Tear that check!" Unfortunately, RealityEnsues -- the only reason anyone else objects to him taking the bribe is they'd rather they were the ones being bribed.
* DivorceRequiresDeath: [[spoiler:Her DarkSecret is that Stanley didn't disappear because he ran out on her, he disappeared after she stabbed him in the woods and left him for dead. It's implied he wouldn't have let her go any other way.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:After suffering at the hands of her husband for years, the last straw is when he refused to let her go to Tom's wife's funeral, even saying he'd rather see her ''dead'' than let her do that. For the first time ever, she fought back against his abuse, and wound up stabbing him and leaving him to die. She bites back ''again'', even harder, when she shoots Linda in the head at the end of the show.]]
* DomesticAbuse: Her husband Stanley was controlling and emotionally abusive, and all but stated to have beaten her, before abandoning her for another woman. [[spoiler:Except he didn't do that last part, because [[TheDogBitesBack she finally killed the son of a bitch or, at the very least, she left him for dead after stabbing him. Regardless, Becky never saw Stanley again after that]].]]
* ExtremeDoormat: As many people do with {{Wide Eyed Idealist}}s, Linda thinks Becky's ideals amount to this and that her sermons amount to exhorting other people to be as weak as she is. [[spoiler: For Linda, this is a [[BoomHeadshot tragic error in judgment]].]]
* FaceHeelTurn: Hers is somewhat more abrupt than Tom's and took a lot of audience members off guard, with the sweet girl we've known up to this point suddenly morphing into a FemmeFatale WickedWitch who's fully willing to drug and rob Hannah.
* FieryRedhead: She's got a lot of competition in this show when it comes to being fiery and passionate, but when we first meet her she's in SoapboxSadie mode who can't hold back how much Linda's bullshit upsets her and tries to rile up TorchesAndPitchforks against her.
* FirstGirlWins: The road they took to get there was littered with tragedy, but she finally gets to be with her FirstLove by the end of the play.
* FirstLove: Tom Houston, and it turns out her unconscious hope of seeing him again was what kept her going through her marriage.
* FlorenceNightingaleEffect: Dragging Tom to safety and dressing his wound is definitely this for Becky, although he was already her OldFlame.
* {{Foil}}: And ArchNemesis, for Linda Monroe. Apparently they've known each other since high school, and Linda has taken a great deal of pleasure in watching her downfall and taunting her over it, while Becky sees Linda as everything wrong with Hatchetfield. [[spoiler: Becky finally gets her revenge in as [[BoomHeadshot bloody and direct]] a way as possible at the end of the show.]]
* FreudianSlip: When she sees Tom Houston she inadvertently introduces herself as "Becky Houston".
* FriendToAllChildren: Does not have kids herself, and sees her patients at the hospital as her family.
* GloryDays: The GreekChorus in "What Do You Say?" reference this trope by name to describe the days when she and Tom were the perfect couple in high school, compared to their emotionally damaged, much less glamorous current selves.
* HeroesWantRedheads: Tom's more of a ClassicalAntihero but he definitely wants her.
* HighSchoolSweethearts: Becky and Tom were this, although their story didn't work out as neatly as the storybook version of this trope.
* HospitalHottie: Shows up to wait in line wearing her hospital scrubs, and despite Linda's put-downs she's clearly still an object of lust for most of Hatchetfield's men.
* IncorruptiblePurePureness: This is how Linda sees Becky's public image, anyway, and why she takes such vicious glee in undermining it and pointing out her flaws. It turns out Becky is pretty open about her HiddenDepths and that she was a somewhat shallow party girl before she met Stanley. [[spoiler: And the fact that she got out of that marriage by [[DivorceByDeath murder]] means she really isn't as inclined to judge people as Linda seems to think. She judges ''Linda'' only because Linda really is that awful.]]
* TheIngenue: Played with. This is Kim Whalen's usual character type, and Becky definitely fits the idealistic and wholesome traits of this archetype. (Even the bitchy GreekChorus of "What Do You Say?" get offended at imagining her having sex.) But she's definitely a fallen ingenue, older and more damaged than she once was. [[JerkassHasAPoint Linda is right]] that her AllLovingHero pose is meant to compensate for her own insecurities... [[spoiler: though she doesn't know part of that is her guilt over having murdered her husband.]]
* InformedFlaw: Linda sneers that "Becky's put on some weight" in "What Do You Say?", but there's really nowhere on Kim Whalen's body you could point to her packing extra pounds, and unlike Dylan Saunders as Tom she's not dressed to look as if she might be hiding it.
* {{Irony}}: The thing that makes Becky seem like such a goody-two-shoes, her nursing career, is something her husband forced on her to help him pay the bills. [[spoiler: And it's what gave her the anatomical knowledge necessary to kill him.]]
* IWillWaitForYou: Becky meant to do this when Tom shipped out to Iraq. She blames herself for being tempted away into starting a relationship with Stanley as [[MyGreatestFailure her own worst mistake]].
* LittlestCancerPatient: Becky's justification for hunting for a Wiggly is to give a Christmas present to the horribly suffering children in the pediatric wing of St. Damien's hospital.
* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:As a nurse, she knows the wound she dealt to Stanley was likely to be lethal... but she didn't stick around to check before fleeing, and now she's haunted by the thought either that his body will be discovered someday and she'll go to prison, or that he survived and will be coming back for revenge.]]
* NoodleIncident: She climbed a tree once. We don't know what's so special about this event, but the people of Hatchetfield talk about it a ''lot'', even in stories in which Becky doesn't appear. Heck, even the narrator gets in on making quips about it in ''Jane's a Car''. Hidgens describes it as a Hatchetfield in-joke, and to date, the audience has not been let in on what precisely happened the day Becky Barnes climbed a tree.
* OldFlame: Her relationship with Tom.
* OldMaid: The formerly married, now divorced version of this trope. The GreekChorus of women shoppers around her aren't shy about commenting on how pitiful they find her current situation.
* SuperCouple: In-universe, Becky and Tom were this to everyone in high school with them, as the star athlete and cheerleader, to the point that years later they have a gossipy GreekChorus obsessing over their reunion.
* TraumaButton: She's got her fair share of PTSD too -- she visibly flinches when Tom raises his voice and snaps at her. (Which, to his credit, he immediately realizes and apologizes for.)
* UnkemptBeauty: She's still attractive despite the extra years and the fact that she's up in the very early morning for Black Friday shopping. Noticeably, Kim Whalen is a ''lot'' less dressed down than Dylan Saunders -- her makeup and her hair certainly don't look like she's been up for hours without a chance to shower.
* WideEyedIdealist: Linda ''loves'' bullying and mocking Becky over this, thinking of it as a sign of her weakness and hypocrisy that let her be stuck with a crappy job at the hospital and an abusive husband who used her up and left her. [[spoiler: She's right about a lot of it, but dangerously wrong about exactly how [[DivorceRequiresDeath Becky's marriage ended.]]]]
* WomanScorned: The town gossips think Becky's devotion to her charges at the hospital, leading to her camping out for a Wiggly with the town parents, are her overcompensating for losing her husband and any chance of having her own kids.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Tom Houston]]
!!Tom Houston
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/DylanSaunders
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard'' | ''Jane's a Car''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tom_houston.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"He deserves to get one thing he wants this Christmas."'']]
->''What Tim wants, Tim will get.''\\
''Anything that he wants,''\\
''he can have it.''\\
''All I need is some time.''\\
''All I need is a break from the madness.''
Becky Barnes' old flame. Served two tours in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. Wants a Wiggly doll to give his son as a Christmas present. He is the brother-in-law of Emma from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. His wife, Jane, died about a year ago.
----
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: After expressing his disdain for the plot of ''Santa Claus is Goin' to High School'' he suddenly changes his opinion to "This is the best movie ever!", probably because the big love scene in the movie happens to coincide with him [[CoitusEnsues getting it on with Becky]] in real life.
* TheAtoner: He blames himself for his wife Jane's death, and he's been unemployed and barely functional for a year since then. He's become hyperfocused on his goal of getting his son Tim a Wiggly doll as a Christmas present, believing that this is the only way he can make up for taking Tim's mother away from him and somehow restore his family to what it once was.
* BeardOfSorrow: Classic example of this trope -- not that Dylan Saunders doesn't look great with a beard in RealLife, but his hair, clothes and general grooming make it clear Tom's beard is the result of just not shaving or showering for days at a time.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Wiggly is already preying on his existing mental instability at the beginning of the show, but you can see him deteriorate in real time until even he succumbs to becoming one of Wiggly's raving minions.
* BumblingDad: Downplayed. He's not a Homer Simpson stereotype like the Father in ''Theatre/TheTrailToOregon'', but it really does seem like Jane was TheReliableOne who kept the family going and was [[WomenAreWiser better than him]] at everything, including [[MotherhoodIsSuperior parenting Tim]], and now that she's gone everything is falling apart. (It's definitely at least partly the grief and self-loathing telling him he's useless, but Emma [[CallBack confirmed]] in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' that Jane's well-meaning competence was good at making other people feel like crap.)
* CannotSpitItOut: Becky and Tom's initial reunion is filled with extremely tense silences. "What Do You Say?" indeed.
** He's this way during his own songs too, cutting himself off before he can bring himself to talk to his wife's death with the refrain "Flash--bang--", mimicking the experience of a PTSD {{Trigger}}.
* CarpetOfVirility: Of both the "rugged" and the "unkempt" kind, since the only reason we can see his manly chest hair is that he's walking around with the top several buttons of his shirt open (as if to indicate he's [[WeightWoe gained some weight]] since he bought it).
* CoolTeacher: Tom ''used'' to be this for Lex -- his job was teaching shop class at Hatchetfield High, which was known as the "easy A" class. When the class was canceled thanks to him going on "indefinite leave" and never coming back, Lex's GPA went down badly enough she decided to just drop out, and blames him for sending her life into a tailspin.
* {{Determinator}}: Tom's reason for getting a Wiggly is the most typical one of the main cast and seemingly the least consequential, but just like in ''Film/JingleAllTheWay'', he's absolutely determined not to let his son down. It seems like an admirable trait at first, but as Wiggly deepens his grip on Tom's mind [[FaceHeelTurn it eventually leads to Tom snarling]] that he WouldHurtAChild just to secure the love of his own.
* DisneylandDad: Tom refuses to directly engage with Tim because of his guilt, which leads him to instead try to buy Tim's affection with gifts, which only pushes Tim away further. Their fight in Act 1 about how Tom wouldn't play any of the games Tim wanted to at Pizza Pete's because he was obsessed with winning a prize from the skee-ball game foreshadows his obsession with Wiggly [[spoiler: despite never even having asked Tim if he wanted one]].
* {{Expy}}: Tom's situation seems to mirror that of Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger's character in ''Film/JingleAllTheWay''.
* EpiphanyTherapy: He's not ''completely'' okay all of a sudden, but the moment we know HesBack is when he sings the line "Flash--" and the spotlight goes off but does ''not'' lead into the "Flash--bang--" refrain, which indicates the trigger still exists but he can now recognize it and stave it off.
* FaceHeelTurn: He's not exactly ''heroic'' up to that point, but he's a sympathetic character, one who stands up for Lex during the riot and expresses shock at Ethan's death... which is why it's so shocking when Wiggly's influence intensifies and he suddenly WouldHurtAChild when he sees Hannah clutching the one Wiggly doll left in the mall.
* FamilyThemeNaming: Mildly. Tom's son's name is Tim.
* FirstLove: Becky was his just as he was for her, but unlike Becky's situation, he really was head over heels for Jane to the point where he seemingly hasn't thought about her again until he sees her today.
* GloryDays: As with Becky, he seems to have peaked in high school. (HilariousInHindsight since the theme of older men pining for the football field was brutally mocked with ''Workin' Boys'' in Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals.)
* HairTriggerTemper: As is common for PTSD sufferers. Anytime something pokes at his open wound of guilt over his wife and son, he snaps at them in as {{Jerkass}} a way as he can.
* HeroicBSOD: Coming back from the war only for his wife to die was this for him. He's quit his job and totally withdrawn into himself. [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=] describes [[VaguenessIsComing either him or Becky]] as a "warrior of light who is asleep".]]
* HeroicWillpower: He's the ''only character'' able to successfully fight off Wiggly's possession while ''physically holding one'', which, as weak as he may curse himself for being, definitely counts for something.
* HesBack: When he finally comes to his epiphany at the end of "If I Fail You".
* HighSchoolSweethearts: Becky and Tom were this, although their story didn't work out as neatly as the storybook version of this trope.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: His ongoing and crippling PTSD over the sense that Tim considers Jane's death his fault. [[spoiler: It turns out it's worse than that -- it ''actually is'' his fault, at least from his perspective.]]
* IWantSong: "What Tim Wants". [[{{Irony}} Ironically]], it's very clearly ''his own'' "I want" song, not his son Tim's -- his delusional belief that if he can just buy a Wiggly doll he can somehow fix his relationship with his son and bring everything back to normal. Tellingly, he sings this song ''immediately after'' his son was ''telling him'' what he actually wants -- for him to spend time with him -- and blowing him off.
* JadedWashout: Whatever happened to him in Iraq, it wasn't good, but he seems to have been doing well enough until the death of his wife compounded his existing PTSD and turned him into a trainwreck.
** The lyrics of "If I Fail You" reveal that he was emotionally walled off long before Jane's death ("I was gone long before you"), and describes how one of the many chores Jane did in their marriage was getting him to open up ("She liked to loosen me up just to get at my heart/She'd poke at each of my wounds to see what I'd say").
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Emma describes him as an asshole, and he's certainly prickly, but he's a good man who loves his son and is protective of Lex and Becky.
* KickTheDog: He and Becky become pretty damn scary and unsympathetic once Wiggly's evil spell takes hold of them, but it's ''extra'' harsh when he abandons Becky and leaves her unconscious in a mall filled with violent cultists, because getting out of the mall by himself with the Wiggly doll is now the only thing that matters -- after he promised "I'll never let you go" in their big duet.
* LovableJock: Or, at least, was beloved by the members of the GreekChorus he went to high school with.
* MeaningfulName: Tom's last name being a place name and his status as a washed-up jock who went into a more dangerous line of work after the end of his sports career seems reminiscent of Johnny Utah in ''Film/PointBreak'', who was himself named for Joe Montana.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: According to "What Tim Wants", his reaction right after the car accident.
* OldSoldier: He might look bedraggled and washed-up, but he's still a damn US Marine, and even when the RetailRiot is in full swing he's badass enough to easily fight off or scare off anyone who threatens him or Becky... until the Man in a Hurry [[KnifeNut pulls a knife]].
* OnlyAFleshWound: Becky tells us the stab wound missed Tom's vital organs (and, giving the lack of HighPressureBlood, any major arteries) so he "should be fine". That said, it's probably still not a great idea for him to engage in vigorous activity afterwards -- [[CoitusEnsues either]] [[ICanStillFight kind]].
* PapaWolf: Like a lot of men, he has trouble expressing affection except through anger directed at others, whether it be fighting his way through all the other parents to get Tim the Wiggly doll or standing up briefly for his quasi-surrogate daughter Lex when the riot breaks out.
* ParentsAsPeople: He loves his son dearly and only wants to get him the toy he wants for Christmas so he can see him smile again. But, as hard as he tries, he's not perfect--he's clearly avoiding dealing with his wife's death in a healthy manner, [[spoiler:and is so emotionally disconnected from Tim, he didn't even realize that Tim didn't actually ''want'' the toy.]]
* ParentalObliviousness: He's dead set on how buying a Wiggly for Tim will fix everything even though, in the first scene, Tim is right there telling everyone how he already ruined their Thanksgiving at Pizza Pete's with his obsession with winning tickets to get him a prize instead of actually having fun. [[spoiler: It isn't until Lex brings it up that he realizes he never directly asked Tim if he wanted a Wiggly doll at all.]]
* PetTheDog: Even though he seems to be as Wiggly-obsessed as everyone else in the line, in the lead-up to "Feast or Famine" when the Man in a Hurry roughly shoves Lex out of his way he cares enough to shout "Get your hands off her!"
* TheQuarterback: Tom used to be one, in the kind of town where it automatically made him the BigManOnCampus.
* ScrapHeapHero: Tom, much like the character he's probably an {{Expy}} of -- Jim Hopper from ''Series/StrangerThings'' -- is one long and painful exploration of this trope.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Tim tells us he has a PTSD diagnosis from the war and isn't supposed to hold a gun, even to play a LightGunGame, but it turns out that's not the end of it -- his PTSD became ''way'' worse after his wife died in a car accident. Played with in the lyrics of "What Tim Wants", where his {{trigger}} is represented by the lyrics "Flash--bang--", which sounds like a reference to a [[BlindedByTheLight flashbang grenade]] but is in fact about being blinded by the headlights of the other car.
* SuperCouple: In-universe, Becky and Tom were this to everyone in high school with them, as the star athlete and cheerleader, to the point that years later they have a gossipy GreekChorus obsessing over their reunion. The women in the crowd seem happy to go after Tom if Becky doesn't, damaged goods and all.
* TraumaButton: The song "What Tim Wants" and "If I Fail You" reveal that anything that reminds him of the car accident is this for him. He bristles at the tropey, media-sensationalized idea of "PTSD flashbacks", though, as do many sufferers in RealLife.
-->'''Tom''': I do ''not'' get flashbacks. [[InsistentTerminology I remember bad things vividly.]]
* ThousandYardStare: Dylan Saunders does a very haunting one, which Tom wears whenever he's not pissed off at someone, which is why he spends so much time getting pissed off.
* UnkemptBeauty: In "Take Me Back", Becky tells us that Tom was "way more put together" back in high school, but despite how badly he's been put through the wringer since then, he's still a ruggedly handsome Dylan Saunders.
* WeightWoe: The other shoppers are quick to snipe at him for having gained a few pounds since high school.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Lex is trying her best to do this when she holds him at gunpoint to try to break Wiggly's spell, but her InnocentlyInsensitive approach isn't what does it; the inspiring thing about "If I Fail You" is that he successfully gives one to ''himself''. He talks himself into the realization that, even after everything that's happened, what Tim ''really'' wants more than anything else is a ''relationship with his father''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Linda Monroe]]
!!Linda Monroe
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/LaurenLopez
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linda_monroe.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I hope you don't get a Wiggly. I hope you fucking die."'']]
->''I demand your love,''\\
''and worship, too.''\\
''If I don't get it,''\\
''I will end you.''\\
'''Cause I will be adored...''
A well-known local millionaire and president of the Hatchetfield Boating Society. Wants ''four'' Wiggly dolls for her family, one for each of her children.
----
* AbusiveParents: As much as she seems to spoil her sons, she's also pretty emotionally neglectful of them (which is a constant theme with parents obsessed with the Wiggly dolls). She casually tells Gerald that if their son River needs to go to the bathroom he can "hold it like a man".
* AllTakeAndNoGive: Once Uncle Wiley fully inducts her into the ReligionOfEvil, she's completely open about this being her ideal for all her relationships.
* AlphaBitch: She's well out of high school by the time this show starts but hasn't let go of any of those schoolyard bully habits.
* AmbiguouslyJewish: She uses the Yiddish word ''mensch'' to describe herself in "Adore Me" (and Creator/LaurenLopez is Jewish in RealLife).
* ArbitrarySkepticism: Her reaction to Hannah's "[[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane magic hat]]":
-->'''Hannah''': ''(eyes clenched shut)'' Magic hat! Nothing can hurt me!\\
'''Linda''': ''(laughs)'' You little fool. You think this is going to protect you? A magic hat? That's ridiculous! Only dolls are magic!
* BastardGirlfriend: The "Abusively Sexy Lady" variant. Was this to Gerald (and is now his Bastard Wife), and apparently continued to be this to at least two other men, and is now this for a whole (mostly male) ApocalypseCult of fanatical worshipers who literally kiss her feet. Creator/LaurenLopez pulls it off really well. (Note that her "harem" of male cultists makes her cult a mortal GenderFlip of Uncle Wiley and his bevy of female Sniggles in the Black and White.)
* TheBeautifulElite: Fully believes herself to be this. Subverted when it turns out that ''Sherman Young'', of all people, is just as "elite" as she is.
* BitchAlert: See EstablishingCharacterMoment below.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Oddly averted -- though Uncle Wiley certainly [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything does something to her]] when he "opens her heart" to Wiggly, unlike all the other insane cultists she seems to be mostly the same person afterwards. It may well be that it's because she's so much of a sociopathic narcissist already that she can be converted to Wiggly's side with her sanity intact, which is why Wiggly made her TheChosenOne.
* CardCarryingVillain: She's smart enough that she doesn't really try to pretend her actions are somehow morally justified -- she just [[TheCynic rejects the idea of morality entirely]], believing that [[HumansAreBastards everyone around her is as much of a bastard as she is]] and would do the things she does if they could get away with it. (This is why [[WideEyedIdealist Becky Barnes]] upsets her so much and why she works so hard to tear her down.) Once Black Friday is in full swing, she ends up taking this trait UpToEleven under Uncle Wiley's influence, going from TheCynic to full-on StrawNihilist and accepting his offer to see the world horrifically destroyed if it means she gets to feel special.
* TheChosenOne: Chosen by Wiggly to end the world, anyway. Interestingly, she seems to be chosen because being the Chosen One was always part of her worldview.
* CurseCutShort: Hilariously, given her shameless propensity for both the PrecisionFStrike and ClusterFBomb, in her line from "Adore Me" she seems to censor herself -- the second repetition of the line "I demand your love and worship too/If I don't get it I will ''end'' you" has her just pause and give a [[DoubleEntendre pelvic thrust]] on where the word "end" should go, as though she couldn't decide between the words "fuck", "kill", or [[NothingIsScarier something worse]] she can't think of at the moment.
* DarkMessiah: In the aftermath of the Black Friday riots she becomes Wiggly's "Mother" and "Prophet" and the leader of a fanatical cult. ([[InsistentTerminology Or, rather, "exciting new religion that I started"]].) Hilariously, she becomes the leader of an ApocalypseCult ''without'' giving up any of her petty AlphaBitch habits. She does things like interrupt giving a sermon to chatter on the phone.
* DarkIsEvil: Her sweater is white, and her hair is blonde, but once she becomes the evil cult leader in Act 2, her most salient feature is that she's "the woman in the black cape".
* DealWithTheDevil: Eagerly accepts Uncle Wiley's offer to become Wiggly's "Mother" and be the most special person in the whole world at the cost of damning the whole world to destruction.
* DesperationAttack: It seems Lex and Tom have Linda dead to rights at the end of the show, with Tom having her restrained and at gunpoint, and Lex about to burn the last Wiggly and ruin all her plans... and then in the course of one ''desperate, piercing scream'' she seems to get an adrenaline-fueled burst of strength to ''wrestle herself out of Tom's grip and twist his arm hard enough to make him cry out in pain and drop his gun'' ([[PintSizedPowerhouse keeping in mind she's five feet tall and a third Tom's size and Tom is a combat veteran]]) and then barrel her way across the stage and seize the Wiggly from Lex's hand before she can react. This may be the supernatural power Wiley promised to her, or she may just be ''[[{{Determinator}} dead set]]'' on getting her way. (Note that this is a CallBack to Emma, also played by Creator/LaurenLopez, unexpectedly wrestling herself free from a zombified Ted in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''.)
* TheDragon: She's this to Wiggly in the grand scheme of things, making her Co-Dragons with Uncle Wiley, although in terms of the Lakeside Mall plot she's the BigBad and Sherman Young is her Dragon.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Her first scene in the show is her scolding her husband over the phone for not wanting to stay in the car, telling him to tell their son to 'hold it like a man' instead of coming inside to use the bathroom, bribing her way to the front of the line while bragging about her rich husband's job, and insulting Becky for her past abusive relationship. All within the span of only a few minutes.
* EvilGenius: In contrast to Lauren's role as Draco Malfoy, who in the Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical-verse was an UpperClassTwit who wasn't even [[DesignatedVillain very evil]], Linda is both ''very'' intelligent and very deliberately cruel.
* EvilGloating: One of her favorite hobbies, crossing over with BreakingSpeech.
* EvilMatriarch: Is very much the tyrannical ruler of her HenpeckedHusband and her four {{Spoiled Brat}}s. Uncle Wiley's offer is to become this for ''all of creation'' by becoming God's (Wiggly's) "mother" by bringing him into the world. Sure enough, in the ReligionOfEvil she founds her official title is "[[FamilyOfChoice Mother]]".
* {{Expy}}: Despite the differences pointed out in EvilGenius above, Linda's hair, accent and mannerisms are highly reminiscent of Draco's UpperClassTwit mannerisms.
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: Her blonde hair, petite size and angelic, innocent voice give way very quickly to the reality that she's a shameless ruthless AlphaBitch, but she still seems to have no trouble getting people to buy into her crap, including when it reaches the point of demanding they actually worship her as a demigod. She specifically very much reflects the BlondesAreEvil version of this trope (and the occasions where Creator/LaurenLopez has worn a blonde wig or dyed her hair in the past to play [[Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical Draco Malfoy]] and [[WebVideo/LittleWhiteLie Tanya Freemont]].) She even gloats at one point about her four "[[AddedAlliterativeAppeal beautiful blond boys]]" in a way that sounds at least a little [[ThoseWackyNazis Aryan supremacist]].
* FurAndLoathing: In contrast to the other very dressed-down shoppers' practical winter gear, she's prominently sporting an expensive fur hat and fur-lined cape.
* GoldDigger: It's strongly implied she's a TrophyWife for her HenpeckedHusband Gerald, who's apparently a quite well-known and highly-paid plastic surgeon.
* HateSink: Intended to very much be the villain you LoveToHate in this show -- she's explicitly the Umbridge ([[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix book version]], not [[Theatre/AVeryPotterSequel parody musical version]]) to Wiggly's Voldemort.
* HenpeckedHusband: Her husband Gerald, who apparently finances her whole lifestyle but still gets kicked around as though he's a feckless BumblingDad. Indeed, it's a punchline in itself when we find out, after hearing her bark orders to him on the phone for a while, that he's ''her husband'' and not her chauffeur or butler. Apparently she's having him sit in the car idling the engine to keep it warm ''all day'' (even though she ends up trapped in the mall for eighteen hours, founding a cult along the way).
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Linda tries to argue this in her defense to Uncle Wiley for why she acts the way he does, but he scoffs -- ''love'' is an inherently reciprocal relationship, and Linda is [[{{Narcissist}} incapable of loving others]]. What Linda wants is the entirely selfish desire to be ''[[InsistentTerminology adored]]''.
* IdleRich: She apparently thinks of "President of the Hatchetfield Boating Society" as her job.
* ItIsPronouncedTropay: There's several signs that Linda's snobby trans-Atlantic aristocratic accent is an affectation (considering she grew up in Hatchetfield and went to Hatchetfield High with Becky and Tom). She consistently pronounces "Cinnabon" like it's a French word, "SEEN-a-bonn", she overenunciates an "h" sound before any word that starts with a "w" sound, like [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/FamilyGuyStewieGriffin Stewie Griffin]], and she rolls the "r" in the word "rhinoplasty" (''and'' pronounces the "h") as though it's Italian ("hhRRRREENO-plasty").
* ItsAllAboutMe: Is refreshingly honest about this. Especially fun with the InsaneTrollLogic where, after successfully arguing that it's ridiculously unfair to sell all 850 Wiggly dolls to Sherman Young, she then turns around and argues that a one-per-customer limit is ''equally'' unfair, when the obvious correct policy is for the limit to be four (because she personally has four kids).
* {{Jerkass}}: She's rude, entitled, and selfish, and those are probably the three nicest things you can say about her.
* KeystoneArmy: Wiggly gives Linda the gift of having her insane narcissism validated -- the Black Friday riots are wreaking havoc ''all over the country'', but the core of Wiggly's plan is the cult centered on the Lakeside Mall in Hatchetfield, Michigan, and for unclear metaphysical reasons ''has to be'' completed with Linda as his appointed prophet, or it will fail. [[spoiler: The ghost of [=MacNamara=] directly tells Lex that all they have to do is kill Linda Monroe, a single five-foot-tall RichBitch, to save the world. Pity no one told that to the big kahunas in Washington DC before they went and tried fighting on his own turf, with [[DownerEnding disastrous results]].]]
* KickTheDog: She's nasty to everyone, but she really seems to have it out for poor Becky in particular. It takes a special kind of horrid to not only mock a woman's [[DomesticAbuse past abusive relationship]] to her face, but gleefully rub in the fact that everyone knew what was going on, [[BystanderSyndrome but didn't help her]].
* {{Mundanger}}: While Wiggly himself is the GreaterScopeVillain causing the disaster that drives the story, Linda is an ordinary human who poses the most direct threat to the other characters (and seems to have been a bad person long before Wiggly appeared).
* {{Narcissist}}:
-->'''Uncle Wiley''': And this town, ooh, Hatchetfield. Sure is a special place, you understand? And you, little lady, you are the most special person in it.\\
'''Linda''': ''I know that!''
* NewhartPhonecall: She seems to feel the need to keep up a meandering, aimless phone conversation with her unseen husband Gerald ''throughout the whole show'', even though there's no real practical reason to keep him updated, apparently because she's used to having him be her sounding board for her constant gossiping and complaining. [[spoiler: This turns out to be one long setup for the payoff of having her [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head]] and having Gary immediately pick up the phone and tell Gerald, "We need to talk about the will."]]
* NoblewomansLaugh: One of her signature traits.
* OmnicidalManiac:
-->'''Linda''': I will destroy everything\\
[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment And then I will destroy everything]]\\
I guarantee I'll destroy everything in my path\\
Unless I get what I--[[MusicalisInterruptus shit, it's Gerald.]] ''(picks up phone)''
* PhoneaholicTeenager: Her teenage years are well behind her, but her (top-of-the-line, caseless) [=iPhone=] is glued to her hand, even while she's posing as a DarkMessiah.
* PsychicPowers: It's not clear if Uncle Wiley actually kept his promise to give her power when she accepted his deal, but it seems like by becoming Wiggly's "prophet" she does now have some psychic connection to the Black and White -- she can ''sense'' there's only one Wiggly doll left in the mall after the riots, and says she can "smell" that Lex has been in contact with it. We're told that if she should physically possess a Wiggly doll, her connection to him will be strong enough that she'll know what to do to bring him into the world ([[VaguenessIsComing which we're never given the details of]]).
* ReligionOfEvil: Starts an ApocalypseCult that ''explicitly says'' she thinks she's superior to all human beings and that she will destroy the entire world in order to set herself up as an absolute ruler, and treats all her minions as disposable to that end. Thanks to Wiggly's influence, [[BeliefMakesYouStupid they all eat it up]].
* RichBitch: The basis of her character.
* ScreamingWoman: She refrains from unseemly public displays of emotion most of the time, but when Lex is about to burn the last Wiggly doll she lets out a ''piercing shriek'' that starts out terrifying and goes on long enough to be [[OverlyLongGag hilarious]].
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: She arrives minutes before Toy Zone opens and just walks into the #2 spot in line by writing a check to a guy to let her cut in front of him. Unfortunately, she has no way of cutting in front of the ''#1'' spot in line, Sherman Young (who apparently has just as much money as she does and is so fanatically devoted to collecting children's toys he got in line ''a week ago'').
* SirSwearsALot: It's a Starkid show, so no one is shy about dropping regular [[PrecisionFStrike F-bombs]], but it's a striking contrast between Linda's snobbish exterior and her willingness to launch into [[ClusterFBomb profane rants]] whenever she's upset.
* SkewedPriorities: She continues to banter with her husband while delivering an apocalyptic rant to her cultists, and the fact that she still wants to finish her original goal of collecting four Wigglies for her sons if possible (even though only one Wiggly is all she needs to open the portal and destroy the world) indicates she hasn't quite internalized what this "apocalypse" thing means in practice. Her initial description of what happened to Gerald after the riots start says it all:
->'''Linda''': What? No, I'm not frightened, I'm -- I'm annoyed. Because some asshole took my doll, and... and... ''(bursts into tears)'' ''I HAD A HAIR APPOINTMENT TODAY!''
* TheSociopath: As broad a caricature as she is, Linda is a pretty good portrait of one of these -- not just the lack of empathy or conscience but especially the constant need for stimulation and reinforcement to make her [[IJustWantTobeSpecial feel special]].
* SurprisePregnancy: As proud as she is of being a mother, she's also pretty quick to cop to the fact that none of her children were actually wanted or planned and she doesn't actually seem to love them very much except as status symbols. (And it turns out that two of them were ''especially'' unplanned because they're [[BastardAngst not Gerald's]].)
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Averted. As Uncle Wiley points out in his speech, Linda ''does'' have a therapist, probably a highly paid one, but as is all too common with {{Narcissist}}s it doesn't do her any good because she's bullshitting the therapist about how she actually feels and what she actually wants -- not to be loved, but [[AllTakeAndNoGive adored]].
* TooImportantToWalk: She revels in this during "Adore Me" and "Wiggle", making her male followers turn themselves into a human sedan chair and parade her around in various poses, in a way that makes her petite stature come off as ''even more regal'' than if she were taller.
* UnfortunateName: She named one of her sons "River". At best it's a weird hippie name, and for a certain subset of the population it's instead an [[Creator/RiverPhoenix insensitive and ill-omened one]].
* WickedCultured: Of all the characters in the show Linda is the only one who indulges in Lovecraftian PurpleProse, describing the future portal as a "cyclopean gateway", and making Biblical references like "He will rise up with joyful noise/And turn dust to ash and dust".
* YouWouldntShootMe: Linda to Becky, at the end of the show. [[spoiler: If Linda actually knew the full story of why Becky's husband disappeared, she might not have [[BoomHeadshot died the way she did]].]]
[[/folder]]
[[foldercontrol]]
!Debuted in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''
[[folder: Paul Matthews]]
!!Paul Matthews
!!!'''Played by:''' Jon Matteson
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
->''"I don't like musicals!"''
A normal guy whose main defining characteristic is his dislike of musicals. When he finds himself in one, he hates it.
----
* AccidentalHero: Paul is just a normal guy who suddenly has the fate of the world resting on his shoulders when it is up to him to destroy the meteor.
* AccidentalMisnaming: One of the ironic reversals from TGWDLM to ''Black Friday'' is how in the former, which revolved around Paul's circle of coworkers and acquaintances, nobody knew Emma or could remember her name. This time, with the plot centering on Emma's brother-in-law Tom and their high school circle, it's Paul whom nobody knows and whom Tom calls by the wrong name.
* {{Adorkable}}: Seems to be right in Jon Matteson's wheelhouse, especially the way he initially awkwardly hits on Emma.
* AmbiguousDisorder: Paul's social awkwardness gets bumped up a notch in ''Black Friday'', since this time he's not witnessing any supernatural events to excuse it. He can't get through a short conversation with Tim without repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth.
* AmbiguouslyBi: Paul shows no signs of being attracted to men (or anyone other than Emma) in the show, but fans have seized on [[AllThereInTheManual the soundtrack version]] of "What Do You Want, Paul?" having Paul stammer he wants "money, a partner, kids" rather than saying a ''wife'' and kids. May or may not be EpilepticTrees.
* ArchEnemy: The HiveMind ends up designating Paul as its archnemesis, whether he likes it or not.
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: "Let It Out" ends up being a song about Paul trying to throw off the HiveMind's influence in an argument with himself.
* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: [[spoiler: Goes from being the one non-singing actor in the show, what with hating musicals and all, to leading the final RepriseMedley as "the star of the show".]]
* BeneathTheMask: The point of "Let It Out" is the HiveMind trying to convince Paul that beneath his mask of a content, unambituous life, he really is deeply unhappy and needs the HiveMind to take away his pain. Whether it's right or it's {{Gaslighting}} him is a matter of interpretation.
* BerserkButton: Paul is a very mild person, but he makes no secret of the fact that he dislikes musical theatre, and when pushed on this becomes very angry about it.
* BookEnds: Emma and Paul don't participate at all in the main events of ''Black Friday'', appearing only in the first scene and the last.
* CastingGag: To a lesser degree than Emma, but Paul's role of being the first character in ''Black Friday'' to denounce Wiggly as creepy is ironic given that Matteson is also the voice of Wiggly.
* CallBack: Paul's appearance in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' is an excuse for numerous callbacks to ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', starting with his very first appearance where he says "I don't like that musical ''commercial''" and ending with him and Hannah recreating the "Wear a watch!" moment from TGWDLM.
* ClassicalAntihero: Is very open about the fact that he's not particularly ambitious or noble to start out with, including telling the Greenpeace Girl he feels no responsibility to "save the planet". This changes once the alien invasion begins.
* ContinuityCameo: Emma and Paul's appearance in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' is basically this, serving to immediately let us know that this is indeed Hatchetfield but not the same one we saw in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''.
* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler: Even with the HiveMind having almost complete control of his body, Paul manages to pull the pin on the grenade and scream "[[DyingDeclarationOfHate I DON'T LIKE MUSICALS]]" before blowing up the meteor. Unfortunately, those aren't quite [[CameBackWrong his last words]]...]]
* DemotedToExtra: Since he never goes down to the mall and misses all the action, the ''Black Friday'' timeline's version of Paul never gets to show the heroic qualities he did in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''and is reduced to just being Emma's awkward boyfriend who serves as TheWatson so she can deliver Tom's backstory.
* DrinkBasedCharacterization: He takes his coffee black. This seems to be less about RealMenTakeItBlack than that Paul is a generally boring person and doesn't want to make extra work for Emma.
* TheEveryman: Paul is set up as one of these, although he gets more development by the end of the show -- his only notable trait is that he [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin doesn't like musicals]], and serves as an AudienceSurrogate for how a normal RealLife person would react to inexplicably waking up inside [[MusicalWorldHypotheses the world of a musical theatre production]].
* HeroicSacrifice: Paul goes to blow up the meteor, knowing in all likelihood it's a suicide mission. [[spoiler: He succeeds, but the HiveMind survives, which means [[AndIMustScream so does he]].]]
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Bill. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely [[spoiler: hurt by Bill's death.]]
* LateArrivalSpoiler: For fans of TGWDLM, Emma and Paul's very presence in ''Black Friday'' spoils one of the biggest questions fans had, whether this show is a sequel, prequel or AlternateUniverse to the previous one (it's the latter). That said, this is revealed in the very first scene.
* LonersAreFreaks: Paul isn't a hardcore loner but he is pretty aggressively uninterested in most of the passions other people have, from the company softball league to saving the environment to, of course, musical theatre. This goes from being something others find mildly off-putting to something the HiveMind declares anathema that makes it become Paul's ArchEnemy.
* MeaningfulName: Paul's surname, Matthews, is a reference to the protagonist of ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers1978'', who was named Matthew Bennell.
** Paul's first name may be a reference to the Apostle Paul, notorious for being the most stubborn of unbelievers until a HeelFaithTurn is forced on him on the road to Damascus. Especially likely given the line "You've gotta believe in something, Paul" from the OpeningChorus.
* MrExposition: He's weirdly ''well-informed'' about the things he hates; in addition to knowing a lot about musicals despite being purely defined by his distaste for them, he also opens ''Black Friday'' by giving us a mini-lecture on various {{Flash in the Pan Fad}}s involving toys in the past, setting up the premise.
* NiceToTheWaiter: Paul distinguishes himself from all the other customers at Beanie's by being considerate to the baristas and ignoring the obnoxious "tip song" policy... although, as a HypocriticalHumor joke, it turns out this is just because he's sweet on Emma ("I don't give a shit about them").
* OnlySaneMan: As time goes on, he is [[spoiler: (along with Emma) truly the only sane man]], but is also this compared to his more eccentric coworkers, especially evident in the scene where Bill and Ted are arguing.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: A major plot point since Paul is so content with his boring life and job that the HiveMind is unable to convert him.
* SoapboxSadie: Paul remains a guy defined by his outspoken disapproval of things other people are into, objecting to musical theatre, and later, the Wiggly toy fad and Black Friday shopping. (Emma even namedrops this trope, telling him to "get off the soapbox" before they go in to meet Tom and Tim.) In the ''Black Friday'' timeline, though, he doesn't get to directly experience being TheCassandra.
* StepfordSmiler: During "Let It Out", he claims "I've never been happy" despite seeming perfectly content with his life up until the invasion. [[spoiler: Possibly invoked by the HiveMind who are trying to convert him, and lampshaded by Paul himself who sings "Is this me, or is this you?!?" beforehand.]]
* TeamDad: As part of his OnlySaneMan gig, he becomes the leader of the gang and looks out for everyone else.
* TenorBoy: It seems like Paul ''would'' be in this vocal range but it's hard to tell just from his speaking voice, since he after all does not sing because he hates musicals. [[spoiler: The ending devastatingly confirms Jon Matteson indeed has a beautifully piercing leading man tenor.]]
* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Isn't very good at trying not to sound crazy when he initially tries to get Emma to "consider the implications".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Emma Perkins]]
!!Emma Perkins
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/LaurenLopez | [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]] (understudy in one performance of TGWDLM)
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
A barista attempting to work her way through community college. Paul's crush. A globetrotter for much of her young adulthood, she stayed in Hatchetfield after the funeral of her sister Jane to try to make something of herself.
----
* BadBadActing: Just watch Emma halfheartedly muddle her way through the choreography in "Cup of Roasted Coffee" (which Lauren Lopez said was harder than just doing it for real).
* BookEnds: Emma and Paul don't participate at all in the main events of ''Black Friday'', appearing only in the first scene and the last.
* BorrowedCatchphrase: Emma steals Paul's "Okay... okay... okay..." in ''Black Friday'', this time turned from an expression of fear and confusion to one of frustrated anger at Tom.
* BrainyBrunette: The only character to figure out [[spoiler: that the meteor was the source of the blue shit.]]
* BrilliantButLazy:
** Musical version. Unlike Paul, Emma is a talented singer and dancer who even performed in a musical back in high school, but has no interest in theatre simply because she doesn't want to put in the effort. That bad attitude may be why she was the only employee of Beanie's to escape assimilation.
** Also applies to her scholarly intellect, in that she admits the reason she didn't go to college earlier was she didn't care, Prof. Hidgens considers her his best student, and she's the one who comes up with the idea that the HiveMind has a HiveQueen in the form of the meteor.
* BurgerFool: Very much has this attitude toward her job, to the point of eventually admitting she habitually spit in the coffee.
* CainAndAbel: Had a relationship like this with her sister. When "the good sister" died suddenly and tragically, it was her wakeup call to try to get her act together.
* CallToAgriculture: In a twist on the more wholesome version of this, Emma plans to move out West to start a ''cannabis'' farm, thinking it's a surefire business to get in on the ground floor of once nationwide legalization hits.
* CastingGag: Much to the surprise of fans, Emma and Linda Monroe both appear in ''Black Friday'', and have almost exactly opposite personalities and stations in life. That said, Emma and Linda ''are'' parallel in being strong-willed women with men playing HenpeckedHusband to them (including Linda's lawyer, who, like Paul, is played by Jon Matteson). And they're both {{Deadpan Snarker}}s with cruelly sharp tongues, and they both hate Becky Barnes.
* ContinuityCameo: Emma and Paul's appearance in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' is basically this, serving to immediately let us know that this is indeed Hatchetfield but not the same one we saw in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''.
* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: In ''Black Friday'' Emma reveals that her (and Jane's) parents died some time ago, making Tom and Tim the "only family she has left".
* CoughingUpBlood: A hilarious RealityEnsues where she tries to give Paul a LastKiss while dying from her injuries... only to kill the mood by spitting blood all over his face.
* DeadpanSnarker: Outdoes Creator/LaurenLopez's past roles in this department, and that's saying something. Making fun of other people's interests remains the main thing she and Paul bond over.
* {{Delinquent}}: Was this as a child, leading to her becoming a rootless drifter as an adult.
* DemotedToExtra: Emma is determined to stay out of trouble and take care of herself first... and in the ''Black Friday'' timeline, she mostly succeeds, until the very end of the show.
* FinalGirl: [[spoiler: Emma ends up being this in TGWDLM.]]
* ForgottenFirstMeeting: It turns out that as a teenager Paul saw Emma perform the lead in ''Theatre/{{Brigadoon}}''... And in a twist on this trope, he ''hated'' it.
-->'''Paul:''' ''You're'' the reason I don't like musicals!
-->'''Emma:''' ''(flattered)'' Oh, I'm your origin story?
* IronicDeath: [[spoiler: She declares that all she ever wanted was to die outside of Harchetfield. She gets her wish, in the sense that she makes it as far as the neighboring town of Clivesdale.]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She's very grumpy and foul-mouthed. Justified in that she starts of the show stuck working a shitty job, with a shitty boss and customers, in a town she absolutely hates. Her interactions with Paul show off her softer side.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: For fans of TGWDLM, Emma and Paul's very presence in ''Black Friday'' spoils one of the biggest questions fans had, whether this show is a sequel, prequel or AlternateUniverse to the previous one (it's the latter). That said, this is revealed in the very first scene.
* MsFanservice: The required uniform at Beanie's has Creator/LaurenLopez in [[WhoWearsShortShorts short shorts]] for the whole show.
* NotDistractedByTheSexy: She's repeatedly shouting "No!" while Prof. Hidgens strips out of his jacket, in sharp contrast to most of the audience ([[AmbiguouslyBi and Ted]]).
* NotWhatISignedUpFor: Part of the reason why she resents Nora forcing her to sing and dance so much. She signed up to serve coffee and shitty pastries, and nothing else.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: When Paul gets grabbed by "Greg" after [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal]] Ted takes the opportunity to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere steal his gun and run for it]]. Emma, despite being unarmed and a tiny woman half Greg's size, somehow saves Paul offstage anyway.
* OnlySaneMan: By the end...
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Emma manages to physically fight off the zombies ''twice'' despite being a "cute little barista" with no combat training, first saving Paul from "Greg" offstage (despite Greg being twice her size and, theoretically, a football player), then somehow wrestling herself free of the assimilated Ted and grabbing his gun. (Although it is true the HiveMind earlier explicitly said it was going to deny Paul a quick and easy death and may be toying with them.)
* ScreamingWoman: Emma averts this for most of the show, reacting appropriately to the danger around her once she [[RunningGag thinks about the implications]] but generally being more levelheaded than the people around her, including Paul. [[spoiler: She succumbs fully to this at the sheer horror of the DownerEnding the HiveMind has engineered for her. Her abject howl of despair as the assembled zombies happily reprise "Showstoppin' Number" is [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments a peak moment in horror comedy]].]] In what may be a parody of the trope or a [[spoiler: hint at her impending assimilation]], the end of the show is Emma "screaming" out a piercing high note to end the song "Inevitable".
* TheShowMustGoOn: For one legendary performance Nick Lang had to come in and play Emma at the last minute because Lauren got sick. There's no recordings of that performance, but [[https://youtu.be/OZKEh-AiXx8 there is one]] of him having to learn the choreography to "Cup of Roasted Coffee" the afternoon before the show. (EnforcedMethodActing, since Emma is also supposed to have only learned the dance the night before.)
* {{Tsundere}}: A mild but notable example of this trope. Foul-mouthed, abrasive and opinionated to most people she meets, especially in comparison to Paul. Notably, when Paul talks to Ted about the "hot barista from Beanie's" it turns out Ted meant ''Zoey'' and is shocked anyone could have a crush on "the crabby one".
* UnkemptBeauty: Emma gets progressively more disheveled as time passes in this play (as a result of [[RealLifeWritesThePlot having to rush through a quick change at the beginning of Act 2]]) but it doesn't make her any less desirable to Paul.
* UnknownRival: The combination Starkid Homecoming/Black Friday [[https://youtu.be/na5h54x9lEo announcement video]] establishes that both Paul and Emma know Becky, and Emma for some reason hates her. Later livestream fundraisers established that Emma was a few years behind Becky in high school (while Paul, who went to a different high school, presumably met Becky as an adult). Nick Lang revealed there is a specific reason for Emma's grievance, although it may not be a very reasonable one (since Emma isn't always a reasonable person). Now that the show is released, it seems fairly clear that, aside from their personalities clashing, Emma probably resents Becky for being her dead sister's ''romantic'' rival whom the [[ShipperOnDeck whole town seems to ship]] with her brother-in-law. (Although she doesn't react visibly to Tom and Becky being together at the end, having [[WorldWarIII bigger things to worry about]].)
* WalkingTheEarth: Spent most of her life doing this, getting as far as Guatemala, before coming back to try to be responsible.
* WitnessProtection: [[spoiler: As the sole survivor of Hatchetfield, PEIP gives Emma a new identity, "Kelly", and the deed to the farm out West she's always wanted. Seems awfully decent of them considering their past policy of [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade killing all witnesses]]. Turns out it was, in fact, too good to be true.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ted Spankoffski]]
!!Ted Spankoffski
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JoeyRichter
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' | ''Time Bastard''
A self-described "sleazeball". Works with Paul, is screwing around with Charlotte behind her husband's back.
----
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Despite the direness of his situation during "Showstopping Number" Ted can't help but get sucked into Hidgens' pitch for "Workin' Boys".
* AmbiguouslyBi: Ted mostly seems to be a straight guy, and a particularly misogynistic and predatory one at that, but during Prof. Hidgens' "Showstopping Number" he's the one EatingTheEyeCandy while Emma is resolutely NotDistractedByTheSexy.
* AssholeVictim: After an epiphany about being a better person he reveals himself to be a coward and flees at the sight of danger, leaving Paul to be dragged away. This scene precedes his death at the hands of General [=McNamara=].
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* ButtMonkey: Ted is subjected to a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown from Charlotte and Sam during "Join Us and Die." After everything he's said and done it's hard not to find this satisfying.
* TheCameo: He appears in the final number of ''Theatre/BlackFriday''.
* DeathOfPersonality: When Ted is killed and converted by [[spoiler: the assimilated PEIP soldiers]] they've refined the process so it's almost instantaneous. Awful as Ted is, it's deeply chilling to see the light in his eyes go out.
* DirtyCoward: He runs away when Paul is attacked without thinking. When he meets the military group he claims to be the only survivor in order to move out faster.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He proudly proclaims that while Sam is a "scumbag", he himself is merely a "sleazeball". He has a point -- he may be cheating ''with'' Charlotte but never cheats ''on'' anyone, and never tries to deceive anyone about what kind of person he is.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Ted was already basically this, before the apocalypse revealed his worst traits.
* HiddenDepths: The pre-assimilated characters having this is a theme of this show. Supreme {{Jerkass}} Ted is somehow moved to tears by the story of "Workin' Boys".
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Later in the play he vows to be a better person and declares Paul to be his best friend. When he abandons Paul seconds later he claims that while he's a better person he's still not a good person.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** He rather insensitively tells Bill that in these times there are people who are alive and those who are dead, and Bill's daughter is good as dead and so will he if he risks going out to rescue her. He ends up being correct as Alice has already been assimilated by the time Bill reaches her, which leads to Bill's death.
** His speech to Charlotte about her 'refusing to be happy' and choosing Sam over him might be incredibly mean spirited and fueled by Charlotte not wanting to sleep with him at the time, but from what little we saw of her phone call at the beginning implies that she was miserable in her marriage with Sam.
* MrFanservice: Has his shirt off in one of his first scenes.
* SerialHomewrecker: Ted sleeping with the married Charlotte, and implies this is a pattern for him. However, it's also shown that he has sincere romantic feelings for her, making it hard to tell whether he genuinely is this trope, or if he's just claiming to be so he can cover up his emotions, since she still wants to stay with her husband.
* TemptingFate: He seems ''so'' happy and smug about doing the smart thing and betraying the others when he finally makes it to the extraction point that his fate is almost a foregone conclusion.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Charlotte]]
!!Charlotte
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JaimeLynBeatty
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Black Friday'' (cameo) | ''Time Bastard''
One of Paul's coworkers, who is unhappily married to Sam and cheating on him with Ted. Quiet most of the time.
----
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Seems to be the reason she ended up with Sam in the first place, and then sought solace for her terrible relationship with Sam (a "scumbag") with Ted (a "sleazeball").
* {{Angrish}}: The resurrected Charlotte is ''so filled with violent rage'' her lyrics seem to be riddled with {{Malaprop|er}}isms ("Sorry to interrupt/But we've got bones to pluck") and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant]] phrases ("We're gonna kick your ass/And then we're gonna... [[PrecisionFStrike FUCKING]] kick your ass!") [[FridgeBrilliance Makes sense]], since the song is about the HiveMind losing its patience with trying to seduce people through music, instead CuttingTheKnot by just killing them.
* BewareTheQuietOnes: She reveals when praying for Sam's life that she's been bottling up a ton of anger toward him, which is why she feels so much guilt that he seems to have actually died. All that repression may explain why once she turns she sings a paean to violence and murder ("Join Us and Die").
* BodyHorror: Charlotte reappears immediately after her death and resurrection, meaning she still has her entrails -- now bright blue -- dangling out of her ribcage.
* TheCameo: After the death of Sherman in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', Jaime Lyn instead fills crowd scenes of the cult of Wiggly by playing Charlotte. Charlotte never calls attention to herself, but steals Hannah's magic hat, harmonizes with Linda in "Wiggle", and is the only cultist we see who decides not to die with the burning Wiggly doll, instead finding solace in Ted's arms during the final number.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Even during her violent rampage during "Join Us and Die", she hesitates before attacking Bill, and then she and Sam start attacking Ted instead. Whether this is because she was moved by Emma's appeal to her that [[IHaveAFamily "He has a daughter!"]] or because of the original Charlotte and Sam's [[ItsPersonal history with Ted]] is unknown.... or maybe the HiveMind didn't want to kill Bill until ''after'' [[ForTheEvulz revealing to him that said daughter was assimilated]].
* EvilIsSexy: Charlotte undergoes one of the most dramatic transformations of any of the assimilated, coming back as an incredibly charismatic (and violent) rock star.
* HiddenDepths: She seems like such a classically innocent doormat of an abused wife that it's a surprise when we see how passionate her revenge affair with Ted seems to be.
* IncrediblyLongNote: Assimilated Charlotte returns with a line that reminds us that under the pastel sweater and timid mannerisms, she's still Jaime Lyn Beatty.
-->'''Charlotte''': It is time... to DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!
** KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler: In the character sheets of just about every character assimilated in TGWDLM, we've asked if anyone infected by the blue shit is capable of dying. Apparently yes, in this case -- Charlotte and Sam are never seen again after Hidgens puts them down with a point blank shotgun blast, in all likelihood because he went on to [[{{Squick}} dissect their bodies]].]]
* NervousWreck: Most likely caused by her destructive relationship with her husband, her guilt over cheating on him, or just her general nature, Charlotte's hands shake after conversations and she has cigarettes, a lighter, and a flask at work.
* ShrinkingViolet: Charlotte is very much this, one reason she's a bad match for Sam. Her call sheet describes her as a caricature of a middle aged office lady who dresses exclusively in [[TastesLikeDiabetes pastel sweaters with pictures of cats]].
* ShoutOut: Charlotte's CreepyCute line "All you gotta do is" in "Join Us and Die" is a CallBack to Jaime Lyn Beatty as Neato Mosquito in ''Theatre/{{Starship}}''.
* SlapSlapKiss: Literally does this with Ted.
* SympatheticAdulterer: Compared to her husband [[{{Jerkass}} Sam]] who thinks nothing of canceling their 'cuddle night' just to go out with Zoey, it's clear her affair with Ted is out of a desperate need for passion and love.
* WetBlanketWife: What her cop husband sees her as, in a textbook version of this trope.
* YourCheatingHeart: Cheats on Sam with self-proclaimed "sleazeball" Ted.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Bill Woodward]]
!!Bill Woodward
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/CoreyDorris
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World'' | ''Time Bastard''
Paul's best friend, a divorced man who spends most of his time trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter Alice.
----
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Alice clearly considers Bill this.
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: One would think that being shot in the head would do it, and, failing that, being blown up by a meteor, but neither works.]]
* BlackAndNerdy: He is played by the only black member of the cast, and he's in the show because he's Paul's best friend, but he very much averts the TokenBlackFriend trope (a black guy who's the protagonist's best friend to be stereotypically "cool" and make him cooler by association). He's significantly ''less'' cool than Paul or anyone else in the show -- which, [[TheGenericGuy knowing Paul]], is saying something.
* ChekhovsGun: In the Website/YouTube version of the show you can hear the audience audibly gasp when Paul wrestles the shotgun out of Bill's hands and lets it fall to the floor, so desperate to talk Bill out of his despair he's [[spoiler: unmindful of Alice slowly reaching toward it]].
* DisneylandDad: He and his ex-wife seem to be locked in the traditional bidding war for their daughter's affection. Except that in a reversal of this trope, his wife, who as usual is the custodial parent, also has more money than him -- he tries and ''spectacularly'' fails to one-up the trip to New York where they saw ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'' with a touring production of ''Theatre/MammaMia'' and a trip to Red Lobster.
* DrivenToSuicide: Almost happens after he finds out his daughter has been assimilated and it's partially his fault she didn't leave the town. Paul stops him [[spoiler: though he is killed anyways]].
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Paul. Bill mentions that Paul used to babysit his daughter Alice and take her to school, and the two still work together. They seem very close, and Paul is extremely [[spoiler: hurt by Bill's death.]]
* IHaveAFamily: Infected!Charlotte is about to kill Bill but then turns aside after Emma shouts "He has a daughter!" [[spoiler: Unfortunately, that seems to be because the HiveMind thought his daughter being the one to kill him would better fit the RuleOfDrama.]]
* ItsAllMyFault: Bill is relentlessly haunted by his fears that he's failed to be a supportive enough parent to Alice, and that this failure may have indirectly led to her death. [[spoiler: The assimilated Alice gleefully confirms each and every one of them.]]
* NonActionGuy: Ted relentlessly mocks Bill for being this to try to dissuade him from going to rescue his daughter. It doesn't work.
* PapaWolf: A more laid-back version, but certainly feels that his daughter can do better than ''Deb''.
* [[spoiler: SacrificialLamb: Bill's death at the top of Act II is our first clear sign this story isn't going to end happily.]]
* UsefulNotes/StraightEdge: Bill isn't TheTeetotaler, but given the chance to raid Hidgens' bar he prefers a Shirley Temple to an alcoholic drink because he thinks they "might need a designated driver", only to get [[RealMenHateSugar mocked badly enough by Ted]] he caves and gets drunk anyway. Unfortunately, [[{{Foreshadowing}} he was right about needing to drive]].
** He also has a kneejerk prejudice against stoners.
* TheWoobie: Is very open about the fact that after his divorce he has nothing in his life he cares about anymore but Alice.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Professor Hidgens]]
!!Professor Henry Hidgens
!!!'''Played by:''' Robert Manion
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard''
Emma's eccentric Doomsday Survivalist biology professor, who predicted the apotheosis thirty years ago. His closest companion is Alexa, and his first love is [[spoiler: musical theatre.]]
----
* TheAlcoholic: Hidgens freely admits there isn't much to do while holed up in his bunker but drink.
* AmbiguouslyGay: [[spoiler: Has vaguely overdramatic mannerisms that gradually become increasingly CampGay until they burst into full flower with "Showstopping Number". Has apparently never loved any woman besides his Amazon Echo, but has constructed an elaborate fantasy musical world revolving around [[DoubleEntendre "tossing around the old pigskin"]] with "his boys".]]
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Can anyone infected by the blue shit actually die?]]
* BadassNormal: [[spoiler: Musical zombie version. His [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Showstopping Number"]] announcing his FaceHeelTurn happens ''before'' his assimilation, and contains the most impressive choreography in the show.]]
* CannotTellFictionFromReality: [[spoiler: It seems unlikely his musical "Workin' Boys" is autobiographical, if only because he's clearly spent most of his life alone in his bunker, but once he gets into performing it Hidgens seems to forget there's any difference between himself and his character "Henry".]]
* CargoShip: Says he loves his BenevolentAI assistant Alexa as much as he could any human woman... even though "she" is clearly just an off-the-shelf Amazon Echo.
* CrazySurvivalist: Has been preparing for the apocalypse for decades and has a bunker.
** [[spoiler: The "crazy" part leads to the FaceHeelTurn -- he comes to realize the HiveMind is [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill the only possible way to prevent all the other apocalypses he's predicted]].]]
* {{Expy}}: Prof. Hidgens' appearance and demeanor is a mash-up of Leonard Nimoy's role as Dr. Kibner in ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers1978'' and Carl Sagan in ''Series/{{Cosmos}}''.
** [[spoiler: And when he takes ''off'' the professorial blazer he becomes an unexpected expy of [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow Dr. Frank N. Furter]], if a PG-rated one. "Showstoppin' Number" plays out as a PG-rated version of the Floor Show from Rocky Horror, with [[GenderFlip Emma as Brad and Ted as Janet]] (since he's the one who ends up liking it).]]
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: He joins the aliens due to his distaste for human society, belief that humanity is doomed regardless, and love of musicals.]]
* HiddenDepths: [[spoiler: Despite being a mad scientist and survivalist, he has a passion for theatre and even wrote a musical in his spare time.]]
* LargeHam: As only Robert Manion can.
* MadScientist: Yes, Hidgens did predict to the ''exact detail'' that this particular zombie apocalypse would happen, despite Paul's skepticism. [[spoiler: The "mad" part gets worse after his FaceHeelTurn.]]
* MeaningfulName: [[WordOfGod Nick Lang]] says giving him the name "Henry Hidgens" was a purely accidental similarity to ''Film/MyFairLady'', but [[WordOfSaintPaul Jeff Blim]] was among the people who made the connection to Robert Manion's Rex-Harrison-esque performance.
* MercyKill: Makes the bizarre decision to order Alexa to self destruct to spare her the horrors to come (even though she can't because "she" is just an ordinary home appliance).
* MrExposition: Prof. Hidgens is the obligatory MadScientist with an unlikely level of familiarity with the alien phenomenon who shows up midway through a classic science fiction monster movie for the benefit of the main characters (and the audience).
* NoNameGiven: Technically, his first name is not given in TGWDLM, and it's left [[AmbiguousSituation ambiguous]] if the main character of ''Workin' Boys'', Henry, is named after himself. As of the announcement of the standalone ''Workin' Boys'' short film it's been confirmed that Henry is in fact his real first name, and he's addressed as such several times in ''Nightmare Time''.
* TheQuisling: [[spoiler: Prof. Hidgens joins with the aliens due to rant against TheEvilsOfFreeWill and love of musical theatre.]]
* SmokingIsCool: Hidgens is smoking a cigarette when he comes in with a shotgun to save everyone from the assimilated Charlotte and Sam.
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: [[spoiler: For all his bluster about welcoming death and apotheosis, Prof. Hidgens is brought up short when he realizes how... ''viscerally'' painful the process is going to be.]]
-->'''Hidgens''': [[spoiler: Yes! Make me one of you! ''(as Greg and Stu reach for his tummy)'' No! Not my tummy! ''(shrieks as they tear out the contents of his tummy)'']]
* WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler: Hidgens' betrayal of humanity is one of the biggest spoilers for Act 2, and, thanks to Robert Manion's performance in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Showstopping Number]]", it's all anyone wants to talk about regarding his character.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Alice Woodward]]
!!Alice Woodward
!!!'''Played by:''' Mariah Rose Faith
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' | ''Watcher World''
Bill's daughter, who lives with her mother most of the time and is dating Deb.
----
* AdultFear: Alice specifically invokes this to her father's face. "You left me out of your sight for one second and look what happens, nightmare time. It's worse than you could imagine, not sex and not drugs, just [[spoiler: alien invading minds.]]"
* AscendedExtra: She had very little screentime in TGWDLM, but established herself as a core member of the Hatchetfield cast by co-starring with Bill in ''Watcher World''.
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Bill ''doesn't'' like Deb. Not because she's a girl; he simply thinks Alice can do better. Like Grace Chastity.
* DeathOfPersonality: [[spoiler: A chilling example -- after Bill dies, the assimilated Alice seems to drop the pretense that she actually is Alice and becomes nothing but a CreepyMonotone mouthpiece for the HiveMind.]]
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: "Not Your Seed" sounds like a typical EmoTeen anthem about a kid growing up into somebody their parents don't understand anymore, [[spoiler: even though it's actually about Alice dying and turning into a zombie]].
* EvilGloating: "Not Your Seed" is a weird version of this, being a song about Alice's anger and grief at her death, sung by Alice's body, but actually coming from the HiveMind that killed Alice in the first place.
* FunTShirt: The second time we see Alice, her pink sweater is unbuttoned, revealing the shirt underneath has the slogan "Beautiful Monster", [[spoiler: revealing she's been assimilated]].
* LipstickLesbian: Alice is this to her girlfriend Deb's ButchLesbian.
* MinorCharacterMajorSong: Almost all of her stage time is taken up by "Not Your Seed".
* MurderIntoMalevolence: [[spoiler: The assimilated Alice presents herself as this, seeking only to hurt Bill and drive him to suicide to get back at him for his failure to save her from the HiveMind. Of course, it soon transpires that this was just the HiveMind being a {{Sadist}} ForTheEvulz.]]
* {{Patricide}}: [[spoiler: She kills her father Bill.]]
* PeerPressureMakesYouEvil: Bill seems terrified that this is happening to Alice thanks to Deb and her delinquent friends. [[spoiler: It does happen in the sense that Deb and her friends were assimilated by the meteor and then killed Alice. The assimilated Alice seems happy to treat this as basically the same thing, for the sake of taunting Bill.]]
* TakingTheKids: Bill's whole character is defined by him still reeling from losing custody of Alice.
* VisitByDivorcedDad: From Alice's perspective the plot of the show is one of these episodes, gone ridiculously wrong.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler: Except for one brief scene, Alice is a completely OffscreenCharacter until we meet her in her assimilated form.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Jane Perkins]]
!!Jane Perkins
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JaimeLynBeatty
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' (mentioned) | ''Black Friday'' (mentioned) | ''Jane's a Car''
Older sister of Emma Perkins, wife of Tom Houston, and mother of Tim Houston. Jane died in a car accident about a year earlier, and her death weighs heavily upon Emma, Tom, and Tim in TGWTLM and ''Black Friday''.
----
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Mildly. Tom isn't ''bad'', exactly, but he's certainly very different from the high-achieving college girl Jane was, and "If I Failed You" tells us that she seems to have been fascinated by his history as a war veteran and the emotional damage it left him with.
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: We knew she was this to Emma when they were kids from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. What's heartbreaking is she was ''also'' this to her own husband Tom, who finds that his inferiority complex next to her has spun out of control after she died and his life fell apart.
* CainAndAbel: Emma had a bit of this relationship with her, which is why when she turned 18 she became TheRunaway so she wouldn't have to live in her shadow.
* CoolBigSis: Apparently this to Emma, who never let her resentment of her change the fact that she deeply admired Jane as a person.
* TheGhost: In ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', she's a PosthumousCharacter who sets up the backstory for lead characters Emma and Tom. While Jaime Lyn Beatty dresses as Jane during the reading of ''Jane's a Car'', she doesn't appear physically in that story either.
* HiddenDepths: Despite Emma's perception of her (years out of date, since she left home at 18) as a goody-two-shoes Purity Sue, Tom tells us that she [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl loved going out to bars]] and getting wasted, and hints that it might have been because the alcohol was the only way she could get past his emotional walls.
* LostLenore: Is this for Tom, for whom the wound of her loss is extremely fresh.
* TheMaidenNameDebate: She never took Tom's surname and remained "Jane Perkins" after her marriage, as did Becky Barnes.
* TheReliableOne: Was this in her marriage to Tom -- we know from Emma that this has been true since childhood, when she [[AdorablyPrecociousChild wrote out a detailed life plan]] and has apparently followed it to the letter. Unlike the typical sitcom BumblingDad this is PlayedForDrama, and Tom's constant sense that he can't do anything right without her help is a major source of angst.
* SecondLove: Unlike the typical "dead wife" trope, she was Tom's ''second'' love, and it's her death that sends him reconnecting with his actual FirstLove, Becky. (And unlike most OldFlame plots, there was nothing wrong with his marriage to her and she really was the love of his life.)
* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: Emma wasn't around for any of Jane and Tom's marriage, but looking at his life now this seems to be her opinion.
[[/folder]]
!Debuted in ''Theatre/BlackFriday''
[[folder: Lex Foster]]
!!Alexandra "Lex" Foster
!!!'''Played by:''' Angela Giarratana
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's a Car'' | ''The Witch in the Web''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lex_foster.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"If I don't support my drinking habit, who will?"'']]
->''And when the sun shines down upon me,''\\
''I'll know I'm righteous, babe,''\\
''in this time of crisis, babe.''\\
''And when the sun shines down over Cali,''\\
''the future's priceless, babe.''\\
''The past's a virus, babe.''
A high school dropout who recently turned 18. Works at Toy Zone, the big toy store in Hatchetfield, and has a plan to use her position to get her hands on a Wiggly doll and sell it to finance running away to California.
----
* EleventhHourSuperpower: Everything is going according to plan for Linda Monroe (and therefore Uncle Wiley and Wiggly), until Lex changes the whole equation, [[spoiler: by using her connection to the Black and White to summon [=MacNamara=]'s gun and becoming the only person in the mall [[NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight armed with something more than a boxcutter]]]].
* AbusiveParents: At the very least, her mom is TheAlcoholic and a drug addict, and Lex thinks it's absolutely necessary to get Hannah away from her as soon as possible.
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Despite her feelings about Toy Zone and Frank, his song "Our Doors Are Open" is such a tour de force she can't help but get into it and briefly get excited about Black Friday herself. It helps that she's in a good mood because her plan to steal the Wiggly looks like it's going to work -- and that the snatch of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" he sings to Lex earlier indicates Frank is [[MusicalWorldHypotheses diegetically]] a great singer.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Her song "[=CaliforMIA=]" starts with the line "My mom's a bitch," which says it all. Though it turns out she has good reason to dislike her mother so much.
* BigBrotherInstinct: Her plan to run away seems to prioritize getting her sister Hannah away from her mom. Once the Black Friday riots begin her whole motivation switches to desperately trying to keep her sister safe.
* TheCaper: Her arc revolves around a plan to steal a Wiggly from her place of employment and sell it online.
* ChildrenRaiseYou: A sibling variant. In the titular song, she reflects on how much she loves her sister and how much her birth changed her, and realizes she needed Hannah just as much as Hannah needed her.
* CigaretteOfAnxiety: This seems to be the reason for Lex's smoking habit. There's some HypocriticalHumor when she's aghast at Hannah doing the "Smoke Club" dance and immediately follows it with "I need a cigarette".
* CoolBigSis: To Hannah.
* {{Delinquent}}: Plans to rob her workplace in order to, legally speaking, kidnap her sister from her mom. But she means well.
* DeadpanSnarker: In a resentful snark-off between her and Emma from TGWDLM she'd win handily.
* DearJohnLetter: Leaves a ''blisteringly'' harsh parent/child version of one to her mom at the end of "[=CaliforMIA=]".
* DespairEventHorizon: The song "Black Friday", which adds another meaning to the DoubleMeaningTitle of the show -- for Lex, Black Friday was when she thought all her problems were going to be solved and instead it's when she's watched all her dreams fall apart, ending in an ignoble and senseless death.
* DisappearedDad: Lex's mom seems to be a single parent, with her dad nowhere in sight. It appears to be the opinion of the town that she ReallyGetsAround, and it's uncertain whether Lex and Hannah even have the same father.
* GenreSavvy: Defiantly says "It's not a trope!", about her plan to run away to LA to become an actress, probably because she knows those stories don't tend to end well in movies.
* HardcorePunk: "[=CaliforMIA=]" is a song in this style, reflecting both Lex's personality and her West Coast dreams.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Her insensitivity usually ''isn't'' innocence, but her attempt to throw a [[RousingSpeech pep talk]] into her BreakingSpeech to Tom to snap him out of Wiggly's spell doesn't go so well.
-->'''Lex''': That's why it works on adults. Because you guys have more holes, you need more things and you need it harder! You gotta worry about your loveless marriage, or your kids that are gonna hate you! Or your endless mortgage! I mean, you're like forty![[note]]This is MistakenAge -- WordOfGod is Tom is only a few years older than Emma, who is thirty. But Tom certainly isn't looking his best at the moment.[[/note]] You probably think your life is over! [[DerailedTrainOfThought I mean, I don't, I'm gonna be an actress.]] Do you get what I'm saying?
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: For all the tropes on this page painting her as a delinquent and (possible) thief, her main motivation is trying to get away to provide a better life for her younger sister.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Out of all the factions competing for a Wiggly, she and Ethan are the only one who don't care at all about having one for its own sake, instead planning to auction it to the highest bidder who couldn't make it to a physical store on Black Friday (since legitimate online orders sold out weeks ago) to fund their trip to LA.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Her given name, Alexandra, is only used once, when Frank is chewing her out.
* ThePromisedLand: As is traditional in stories like this, she sees Los Angeles as one.
* PromotionToParent: Her mother is an abusive alcoholic, so she's the one who takes care of her sister Hannah, with her boyfriend Ethan filling a sort of "jokey stepdad" role.
* PsychicPowers: It turns out she has a similar psychic gift to Hannah's -- while her sister can ''see'' into the Black and White, she can physically ''reach'' into it and manifest objects from it into the real world. (This is known as "apportation" in RealLife paranormal studies.)
* TheResenter: She's this ''hardcore'' to all the adults in her life she feels have let her down. It seems like she has a point when it comes to her mom -- although WordOfGod hints her mom may have a FreudianExcuse -- but it becomes really harsh when she blames Tom for ruining her life by quitting teaching when his wife died, as though [[ItsAllAboutMe it wasn't a much worse experience for him]].
* TheRunaway: Plans to become one, along with Ethan Green and her sister Hannah.
* SirSwearsALot: There is a ''lot'' of cursing in this show in general, but Lex especially is prone to it, particuarly when she's upset or excited.
* SoulSuckingRetailJob: Working at Toy Zone is implied to be this at the best of times -- and Black Friday is the ''very worst'' of times.
* StrugglingSingleMother: Lex's family is quite poor and lives in a trailer park, although Lex (fairly or not) doesn't sympathize much with her mom's struggles.
* SummonMagic: Lex is able to use her powers at a critical moment to save her life by summoning [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=]'s gun]].
* TomboyishName: "Lex", short for Alexandra.
* TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening: Lex has no clue she has any kind of special powers until she's about to lose consciousness from being strangled by Sherman, which awakens her connection to the Black and White and lets her see [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=]'s ghost.]]
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=] sings "Monsters and Men (Reprise)" to tell Lex this when she's about to give into despair and let Sherman kill her.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Hannah Foster]]
!!Hannah Foster
!!!'''Played by:''' Kendall Nicole Yakshe
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''The Witch in the Web''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hannah_foster.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Bad blood. Cross. Black and white..."'']]
->''What if tomorrow comes''\\
''to break the dawn''\\
''and take the night away?''
Lex's 13-year-old sister, whose welfare motivates most of her actions. She's noted to be quirky and quiet, though Lex insists she's simply "creative."
----
* {{Adorkable}}: Hannah's wacky improvised dance moves during "[=CaliforMIA=]" pretty much made the whole audience instantly fall in love with her character.
* AffectionateNickname: Lex calls her "Banana", and Ethan's CatchPhrase is greeting her with "What's shakin', Banana?" (This may be a reference to the dish [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas_Foster Bananas Foster]].) Becomes a very dark moment when the voice of Wiggly appropriates this nickname and starts threatening Hannah, "I'm going to peel you... I'm going to split you in two!"
* AmbiguousDisorder: She speaks in very short sentences and seems to have problems expressing herself, with Lex having to ask if she's having a "good or bad day", hinting at her being on the autism spectrum. Frank also makes a mean-spirited comment to Lex about their mother dropping her on her head. It turns out that a major contributing factor to for Hannah's disability is her [[DisabilitySuperpower psychic connection to the Black and White]].
* BlindingBangs: She conspicuously has to shove her bangs out of her eyes multiple times during her dancing in [="CaliforMIA"=]. Seems to be the version of this trope that connotes shyness and introversion, as well as not being that great at grooming herself.
* TheCassandra: Although most of Hannah's prophecies don't make any obvious sense and even if Lex and Ethan understood them wouldn't be anything they could act on, she's still in many ways a Cassandra. Lex interpreted her refusal to come to the mall and put on Lex's backpack as just a meltdown, but Hannah was ''right'' that the mall represents danger, and wearing the backpack (which Lex intends to hide the Wiggly doll in) will bring trouble their way. The worst moment of all is when she tries to warn Ethan [[spoiler: of his impending death]] but he's ComicallyMissingThePoint.
-->'''Ethan''': Do you believe that, no matter how bad it looks right now, things will get better?\\
'''Hannah''': Not better. Badder. ''Much'' badder.\\
'''Ethan''': Hey, what's with that grammar, huh? Even I know it's "more bad".
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Lex plans to run away to protect Hannah from her mother's abuse, and despite how much of a burnout {{Delinquent}} she's become, seems intent on sparing Hannah from a similar fate. She becomes incensed when she thinks Hannah may have gotten the idea to take up smoking even though [[HypocriticalHumor she herself smokes like a chimney]]. Hannah spends the whole show as an innocent victim menaced by monstrous adults, with Wiggly completely unable to possess her himself and resorting to threatening her with violence. [[spoiler: It turns out that being immune to Wiggly's corruption is a trait shared by all children.]]
* EasilyForgiven: Hannah seems to forgive Tom and Becky and go with them pretty readily at the end of the show, despite her last interaction with them being their Wiggly-mad selves trying to brutalize and kidnap her. She does trust Lex, and she did see Tom and Becky go up against Linda, the real architect of her misery, but there'd still probably be more of a realistic adjustment process [[CosmicDeadline if the show weren't about to end at this point.]] (Of course, she knows [[spoiler: from Evil Ethan, if nothing else]] how powerful a manipulator Wiggly is and even tried to warn them "He'll trick you!" at the time, so this may just be her being WiseBeyondTheirYears.)
* FromTheMouthsOfBabes: [[spoiler: One of the biggest laugh lines of the show is when Hannah, channeling [=MacNamara=] -- possibly literally -- says her only completely lucid dialogue in the show and responds to Paul whining about how he doesn't know what time it is without his smartphone with, "Wear a watch."]]
* HarmfulToMinors: [[spoiler: She doesn't actually see Ethan die, but watching him be set upon by crazed screaming adults was bad enough, and her PsychicPowers let her sense his death from a distance. That's enough to give any kid PTSD, even before she's accosted by a malicious, cackling EvilDoppelganger of Ethan later on.]]
* HeroicBSOD: She suffers a ''massive'' one when [[spoiler: Ethan's Bad Double appears to her, followed by the voice of Wiggly himself berating her and demanding she surrender]]. Even though she's GenreSavvy enough not to actually listen to their demands that she give herself up, Wiggly's plan works anyway by making her FreakOut enough she abandons her hiding place, just in time for a BrainwashedAndCrazy Becky and Tom to find her.
* ImaginaryFriend: She has one named "Webby", a "giant spider from outer space", who frequently gives her advice (much to Lex's frustration, since the advice is telling her not to go along with Lex's plan). Given what we learn about her powers and the Black and White -- especially Wiggly's voice snarling "Webby is a stupid bitch!" -- it seems likely Webby is RealAfterAll, a benign entity from the Black and White in opposition to Wiggly [[spoiler: like the one [=MacNamara=] becomes]]. (The fact that Webby is a spider may be a ShoutOut to {{Literature/IT}}'s true form.)
* MadOracle: Hannah is only able to speak in disjointed phrases, which have no direct relevance to the situation and only end up making sense to the audience in hindsight. She doesn't seem to fully understand what she's saying herself, only slowly realizing how her prophecies relate to events as the audience does.
* MagicFeather: Ethan gives her his baseball cap and tells her it's imbued with "[[Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse the power of Grayskull]]" to protect her from all harm. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane It may be he was unwittingly telling the truth.]]
* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: If Frank and Ethan's comments are anything to go off of, Hannah is considered to be a weird, creepy, possibly crazy child, and she doesn't appear to have any friends, or anyone who cares about her besides Lex and Ethan. However, she's really a sweet kid.
* PsychicPowers: She's born with a natural connection to the VoidBetweenTheWorlds known as the Black and White. [[spoiler: It turns out to run in the family.]]
* TomboyishBaseballCap: Complete with the tomboyish [[GirlishPigtails braided pigtails]], although she doesn't start out with it -- it's a gift from Ethan.
* WaifProphet: She fits this profile pretty much exactly.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: As all too often happens, her psychic gifts don't seem to do her any good, since no one including her understands her precognitive flashes and they've otherwise rendered her unable to function.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Becky Barnes]]
!!Becky Barnes
!!!'''Played by:''' Kim Whalen
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Jane's a Car''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/becky_barnes_2.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"That's called a bribe, sir, and it's illegal. Or it should be."'']]
->''Take me back in time to love you.''\\
''Hold me closer than before.''\\
''Heal my heart and mend what's broken,''\\
''to feel you once more...''
A nurse who works in the pediatric wing of St. Damien's Hospital downtown. In her early 30s and divorced. Wants a Wiggly for unselfish reasons, giving up her day off to stand in line for a Wiggly doll to donate to the hospital playroom as a treat for the kids. Runs into her old flame Tom Houston by chance at the store.
----
* TheAlcoholic: Linda mocks her cruelly for becoming one after Stanley left her, although Linda is not a reliable source of information. She does admit that she was a drinker and partier before she got married.
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: The town seems to mock her for how such a [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]] ended up with a vile, abusive drunk like Stanley (who, according to "What Do You Say?", even ended up in prison at some point). This show, however, does not [[PlayedForLaughs play this for laughs]], making it clear how Stanley groomed and manipulated her and by the time she realized what was going on she was too frightened of him to leave.
* AlliterativeName: Which seems to play into how people refer to her on a FullNameBasis.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: ''Oh, hell yes''. Becky is a sweet, caring woman who just wants to get some toys to the children in the hospital, who also happens to have [[spoiler:stabbed her abusive husband, possibly killing him, and later shoots Linda in the head.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler: Becky's sudden burst of HeroicWillpower where she throws off the influence of both the sedative and Wiggly's possession at once, so she can grab [[ChekhovsGun the gun Tom dropped]], kill Linda and foil Wiggly's plans once and for all.]]
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: In contrast to Tom, Becky's aura of IncorruptiblePurePureness makes it seem like she'll stay AboveTheInfluence... and yet she ''did'' come to the mall for a Wiggly doll, which we learn from Lex is always a fundamentally selfish desire. [[spoiler: The LittlestCancerPatient at the hospital didn't really want one either!]] Which means she can be and eventually is also fully possessed by Wiggly.
* CannotSpitItOut: Becky and Tom's initial reunion is filled with extremely tense silences. "What Do You Say?" indeed.
* TheCheerleader: Was one in her high school days.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Played deadly serious. Becky tells us she realized she had no chance to leave her husband when she saw him [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat a kid almost to death]] just for the crime of her flirting with him. [[spoiler: It's his refusal to even let her go to Jane's funeral because he knows Tom is her FirstLove that makes [[TheDogBitesBack her finally snap]].]]
* CrowdChant: She seems to think she can turn the people of Hatchetfield against Linda by starting one, imploring the guy Linda bribed to let her into the Toy Zone line to "Tear that check! Tear that check!" Unfortunately, RealityEnsues -- the only reason anyone else objects to him taking the bribe is they'd rather they were the ones being bribed.
* DivorceRequiresDeath: [[spoiler:Her DarkSecret is that Stanley didn't disappear because he ran out on her, he disappeared after she stabbed him in the woods and left him for dead. It's implied he wouldn't have let her go any other way.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:After suffering at the hands of her husband for years, the last straw is when he refused to let her go to Tom's wife's funeral, even saying he'd rather see her ''dead'' than let her do that. For the first time ever, she fought back against his abuse, and wound up stabbing him and leaving him to die. She bites back ''again'', even harder, when she shoots Linda in the head at the end of the show.]]
* DomesticAbuse: Her husband Stanley was controlling and emotionally abusive, and all but stated to have beaten her, before abandoning her for another woman. [[spoiler:Except he didn't do that last part, because [[TheDogBitesBack she finally killed the son of a bitch or, at the very least, she left him for dead after stabbing him. Regardless, Becky never saw Stanley again after that]].]]
* ExtremeDoormat: As many people do with {{Wide Eyed Idealist}}s, Linda thinks Becky's ideals amount to this and that her sermons amount to exhorting other people to be as weak as she is. [[spoiler: For Linda, this is a [[BoomHeadshot tragic error in judgment]].]]
* FaceHeelTurn: Hers is somewhat more abrupt than Tom's and took a lot of audience members off guard, with the sweet girl we've known up to this point suddenly morphing into a FemmeFatale WickedWitch who's fully willing to drug and rob Hannah.
* FieryRedhead: She's got a lot of competition in this show when it comes to being fiery and passionate, but when we first meet her she's in SoapboxSadie mode who can't hold back how much Linda's bullshit upsets her and tries to rile up TorchesAndPitchforks against her.
* FirstGirlWins: The road they took to get there was littered with tragedy, but she finally gets to be with her FirstLove by the end of the play.
* FirstLove: Tom Houston, and it turns out her unconscious hope of seeing him again was what kept her going through her marriage.
* FlorenceNightingaleEffect: Dragging Tom to safety and dressing his wound is definitely this for Becky, although he was already her OldFlame.
* {{Foil}}: And ArchNemesis, for Linda Monroe. Apparently they've known each other since high school, and Linda has taken a great deal of pleasure in watching her downfall and taunting her over it, while Becky sees Linda as everything wrong with Hatchetfield. [[spoiler: Becky finally gets her revenge in as [[BoomHeadshot bloody and direct]] a way as possible at the end of the show.]]
* FreudianSlip: When she sees Tom Houston she inadvertently introduces herself as "Becky Houston".
* FriendToAllChildren: Does not have kids herself, and sees her patients at the hospital as her family.
* GloryDays: The GreekChorus in "What Do You Say?" reference this trope by name to describe the days when she and Tom were the perfect couple in high school, compared to their emotionally damaged, much less glamorous current selves.
* HeroesWantRedheads: Tom's more of a ClassicalAntihero but he definitely wants her.
* HighSchoolSweethearts: Becky and Tom were this, although their story didn't work out as neatly as the storybook version of this trope.
* HospitalHottie: Shows up to wait in line wearing her hospital scrubs, and despite Linda's put-downs she's clearly still an object of lust for most of Hatchetfield's men.
* IncorruptiblePurePureness: This is how Linda sees Becky's public image, anyway, and why she takes such vicious glee in undermining it and pointing out her flaws. It turns out Becky is pretty open about her HiddenDepths and that she was a somewhat shallow party girl before she met Stanley. [[spoiler: And the fact that she got out of that marriage by [[DivorceByDeath murder]] means she really isn't as inclined to judge people as Linda seems to think. She judges ''Linda'' only because Linda really is that awful.]]
* TheIngenue: Played with. This is Kim Whalen's usual character type, and Becky definitely fits the idealistic and wholesome traits of this archetype. (Even the bitchy GreekChorus of "What Do You Say?" get offended at imagining her having sex.) But she's definitely a fallen ingenue, older and more damaged than she once was. [[JerkassHasAPoint Linda is right]] that her AllLovingHero pose is meant to compensate for her own insecurities... [[spoiler: though she doesn't know part of that is her guilt over having murdered her husband.]]
* InformedFlaw: Linda sneers that "Becky's put on some weight" in "What Do You Say?", but there's really nowhere on Kim Whalen's body you could point to her packing extra pounds, and unlike Dylan Saunders as Tom she's not dressed to look as if she might be hiding it.
* {{Irony}}: The thing that makes Becky seem like such a goody-two-shoes, her nursing career, is something her husband forced on her to help him pay the bills. [[spoiler: And it's what gave her the anatomical knowledge necessary to kill him.]]
* IWillWaitForYou: Becky meant to do this when Tom shipped out to Iraq. She blames herself for being tempted away into starting a relationship with Stanley as [[MyGreatestFailure her own worst mistake]].
* LittlestCancerPatient: Becky's justification for hunting for a Wiggly is to give a Christmas present to the horribly suffering children in the pediatric wing of St. Damien's hospital.
* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:As a nurse, she knows the wound she dealt to Stanley was likely to be lethal... but she didn't stick around to check before fleeing, and now she's haunted by the thought either that his body will be discovered someday and she'll go to prison, or that he survived and will be coming back for revenge.]]
* NoodleIncident: She climbed a tree once. We don't know what's so special about this event, but the people of Hatchetfield talk about it a ''lot'', even in stories in which Becky doesn't appear. Heck, even the narrator gets in on making quips about it in ''Jane's a Car''. Hidgens describes it as a Hatchetfield in-joke, and to date, the audience has not been let in on what precisely happened the day Becky Barnes climbed a tree.
* OldFlame: Her relationship with Tom.
* OldMaid: The formerly married, now divorced version of this trope. The GreekChorus of women shoppers around her aren't shy about commenting on how pitiful they find her current situation.
* SuperCouple: In-universe, Becky and Tom were this to everyone in high school with them, as the star athlete and cheerleader, to the point that years later they have a gossipy GreekChorus obsessing over their reunion.
* TraumaButton: She's got her fair share of PTSD too -- she visibly flinches when Tom raises his voice and snaps at her. (Which, to his credit, he immediately realizes and apologizes for.)
* UnkemptBeauty: She's still attractive despite the extra years and the fact that she's up in the very early morning for Black Friday shopping. Noticeably, Kim Whalen is a ''lot'' less dressed down than Dylan Saunders -- her makeup and her hair certainly don't look like she's been up for hours without a chance to shower.
* WideEyedIdealist: Linda ''loves'' bullying and mocking Becky over this, thinking of it as a sign of her weakness and hypocrisy that let her be stuck with a crappy job at the hospital and an abusive husband who used her up and left her. [[spoiler: She's right about a lot of it, but dangerously wrong about exactly how [[DivorceRequiresDeath Becky's marriage ended.]]]]
* WomanScorned: The town gossips think Becky's devotion to her charges at the hospital, leading to her camping out for a Wiggly with the town parents, are her overcompensating for losing her husband and any chance of having her own kids.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Tom Houston]]
!!Tom Houston
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/DylanSaunders
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday'' | ''Forever and Always'' | ''Time Bastard'' | ''Jane's a Car''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tom_houston.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"He deserves to get one thing he wants this Christmas."'']]
->''What Tim wants, Tim will get.''\\
''Anything that he wants,''\\
''he can have it.''\\
''All I need is some time.''\\
''All I need is a break from the madness.''
Becky Barnes' old flame. Served two tours in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. Wants a Wiggly doll to give his son as a Christmas present. He is the brother-in-law of Emma from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. His wife, Jane, died about a year ago.
----
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: After expressing his disdain for the plot of ''Santa Claus is Goin' to High School'' he suddenly changes his opinion to "This is the best movie ever!", probably because the big love scene in the movie happens to coincide with him [[CoitusEnsues getting it on with Becky]] in real life.
* TheAtoner: He blames himself for his wife Jane's death, and he's been unemployed and barely functional for a year since then. He's become hyperfocused on his goal of getting his son Tim a Wiggly doll as a Christmas present, believing that this is the only way he can make up for taking Tim's mother away from him and somehow restore his family to what it once was.
* BeardOfSorrow: Classic example of this trope -- not that Dylan Saunders doesn't look great with a beard in RealLife, but his hair, clothes and general grooming make it clear Tom's beard is the result of just not shaving or showering for days at a time.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Wiggly is already preying on his existing mental instability at the beginning of the show, but you can see him deteriorate in real time until even he succumbs to becoming one of Wiggly's raving minions.
* BumblingDad: Downplayed. He's not a Homer Simpson stereotype like the Father in ''Theatre/TheTrailToOregon'', but it really does seem like Jane was TheReliableOne who kept the family going and was [[WomenAreWiser better than him]] at everything, including [[MotherhoodIsSuperior parenting Tim]], and now that she's gone everything is falling apart. (It's definitely at least partly the grief and self-loathing telling him he's useless, but Emma [[CallBack confirmed]] in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' that Jane's well-meaning competence was good at making other people feel like crap.)
* CannotSpitItOut: Becky and Tom's initial reunion is filled with extremely tense silences. "What Do You Say?" indeed.
** He's this way during his own songs too, cutting himself off before he can bring himself to talk to his wife's death with the refrain "Flash--bang--", mimicking the experience of a PTSD {{Trigger}}.
* CarpetOfVirility: Of both the "rugged" and the "unkempt" kind, since the only reason we can see his manly chest hair is that he's walking around with the top several buttons of his shirt open (as if to indicate he's [[WeightWoe gained some weight]] since he bought it).
* CoolTeacher: Tom ''used'' to be this for Lex -- his job was teaching shop class at Hatchetfield High, which was known as the "easy A" class. When the class was canceled thanks to him going on "indefinite leave" and never coming back, Lex's GPA went down badly enough she decided to just drop out, and blames him for sending her life into a tailspin.
* {{Determinator}}: Tom's reason for getting a Wiggly is the most typical one of the main cast and seemingly the least consequential, but just like in ''Film/JingleAllTheWay'', he's absolutely determined not to let his son down. It seems like an admirable trait at first, but as Wiggly deepens his grip on Tom's mind [[FaceHeelTurn it eventually leads to Tom snarling]] that he WouldHurtAChild just to secure the love of his own.
* DisneylandDad: Tom refuses to directly engage with Tim because of his guilt, which leads him to instead try to buy Tim's affection with gifts, which only pushes Tim away further. Their fight in Act 1 about how Tom wouldn't play any of the games Tim wanted to at Pizza Pete's because he was obsessed with winning a prize from the skee-ball game foreshadows his obsession with Wiggly [[spoiler: despite never even having asked Tim if he wanted one]].
* {{Expy}}: Tom's situation seems to mirror that of Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger's character in ''Film/JingleAllTheWay''.
* EpiphanyTherapy: He's not ''completely'' okay all of a sudden, but the moment we know HesBack is when he sings the line "Flash--" and the spotlight goes off but does ''not'' lead into the "Flash--bang--" refrain, which indicates the trigger still exists but he can now recognize it and stave it off.
* FaceHeelTurn: He's not exactly ''heroic'' up to that point, but he's a sympathetic character, one who stands up for Lex during the riot and expresses shock at Ethan's death... which is why it's so shocking when Wiggly's influence intensifies and he suddenly WouldHurtAChild when he sees Hannah clutching the one Wiggly doll left in the mall.
* FamilyThemeNaming: Mildly. Tom's son's name is Tim.
* FirstLove: Becky was his just as he was for her, but unlike Becky's situation, he really was head over heels for Jane to the point where he seemingly hasn't thought about her again until he sees her today.
* GloryDays: As with Becky, he seems to have peaked in high school. (HilariousInHindsight since the theme of older men pining for the football field was brutally mocked with ''Workin' Boys'' in Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals.)
* HairTriggerTemper: As is common for PTSD sufferers. Anytime something pokes at his open wound of guilt over his wife and son, he snaps at them in as {{Jerkass}} a way as he can.
* HeroicBSOD: Coming back from the war only for his wife to die was this for him. He's quit his job and totally withdrawn into himself. [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=] describes [[VaguenessIsComing either him or Becky]] as a "warrior of light who is asleep".]]
* HeroicWillpower: He's the ''only character'' able to successfully fight off Wiggly's possession while ''physically holding one'', which, as weak as he may curse himself for being, definitely counts for something.
* HesBack: When he finally comes to his epiphany at the end of "If I Fail You".
* HighSchoolSweethearts: Becky and Tom were this, although their story didn't work out as neatly as the storybook version of this trope.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: His ongoing and crippling PTSD over the sense that Tim considers Jane's death his fault. [[spoiler: It turns out it's worse than that -- it ''actually is'' his fault, at least from his perspective.]]
* IWantSong: "What Tim Wants". [[{{Irony}} Ironically]], it's very clearly ''his own'' "I want" song, not his son Tim's -- his delusional belief that if he can just buy a Wiggly doll he can somehow fix his relationship with his son and bring everything back to normal. Tellingly, he sings this song ''immediately after'' his son was ''telling him'' what he actually wants -- for him to spend time with him -- and blowing him off.
* JadedWashout: Whatever happened to him in Iraq, it wasn't good, but he seems to have been doing well enough until the death of his wife compounded his existing PTSD and turned him into a trainwreck.
** The lyrics of "If I Fail You" reveal that he was emotionally walled off long before Jane's death ("I was gone long before you"), and describes how one of the many chores Jane did in their marriage was getting him to open up ("She liked to loosen me up just to get at my heart/She'd poke at each of my wounds to see what I'd say").
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Emma describes him as an asshole, and he's certainly prickly, but he's a good man who loves his son and is protective of Lex and Becky.
* KickTheDog: He and Becky become pretty damn scary and unsympathetic once Wiggly's evil spell takes hold of them, but it's ''extra'' harsh when he abandons Becky and leaves her unconscious in a mall filled with violent cultists, because getting out of the mall by himself with the Wiggly doll is now the only thing that matters -- after he promised "I'll never let you go" in their big duet.
* LovableJock: Or, at least, was beloved by the members of the GreekChorus he went to high school with.
* MeaningfulName: Tom's last name being a place name and his status as a washed-up jock who went into a more dangerous line of work after the end of his sports career seems reminiscent of Johnny Utah in ''Film/PointBreak'', who was himself named for Joe Montana.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: According to "What Tim Wants", his reaction right after the car accident.
* OldSoldier: He might look bedraggled and washed-up, but he's still a damn US Marine, and even when the RetailRiot is in full swing he's badass enough to easily fight off or scare off anyone who threatens him or Becky... until the Man in a Hurry [[KnifeNut pulls a knife]].
* OnlyAFleshWound: Becky tells us the stab wound missed Tom's vital organs (and, giving the lack of HighPressureBlood, any major arteries) so he "should be fine". That said, it's probably still not a great idea for him to engage in vigorous activity afterwards -- [[CoitusEnsues either]] [[ICanStillFight kind]].
* PapaWolf: Like a lot of men, he has trouble expressing affection except through anger directed at others, whether it be fighting his way through all the other parents to get Tim the Wiggly doll or standing up briefly for his quasi-surrogate daughter Lex when the riot breaks out.
* ParentsAsPeople: He loves his son dearly and only wants to get him the toy he wants for Christmas so he can see him smile again. But, as hard as he tries, he's not perfect--he's clearly avoiding dealing with his wife's death in a healthy manner, [[spoiler:and is so emotionally disconnected from Tim, he didn't even realize that Tim didn't actually ''want'' the toy.]]
* ParentalObliviousness: He's dead set on how buying a Wiggly for Tim will fix everything even though, in the first scene, Tim is right there telling everyone how he already ruined their Thanksgiving at Pizza Pete's with his obsession with winning tickets to get him a prize instead of actually having fun. [[spoiler: It isn't until Lex brings it up that he realizes he never directly asked Tim if he wanted a Wiggly doll at all.]]
* PetTheDog: Even though he seems to be as Wiggly-obsessed as everyone else in the line, in the lead-up to "Feast or Famine" when the Man in a Hurry roughly shoves Lex out of his way he cares enough to shout "Get your hands off her!"
* TheQuarterback: Tom used to be one, in the kind of town where it automatically made him the BigManOnCampus.
* ScrapHeapHero: Tom, much like the character he's probably an {{Expy}} of -- Jim Hopper from ''Series/StrangerThings'' -- is one long and painful exploration of this trope.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Tim tells us he has a PTSD diagnosis from the war and isn't supposed to hold a gun, even to play a LightGunGame, but it turns out that's not the end of it -- his PTSD became ''way'' worse after his wife died in a car accident. Played with in the lyrics of "What Tim Wants", where his {{trigger}} is represented by the lyrics "Flash--bang--", which sounds like a reference to a [[BlindedByTheLight flashbang grenade]] but is in fact about being blinded by the headlights of the other car.
* SuperCouple: In-universe, Becky and Tom were this to everyone in high school with them, as the star athlete and cheerleader, to the point that years later they have a gossipy GreekChorus obsessing over their reunion. The women in the crowd seem happy to go after Tom if Becky doesn't, damaged goods and all.
* TraumaButton: The song "What Tim Wants" and "If I Fail You" reveal that anything that reminds him of the car accident is this for him. He bristles at the tropey, media-sensationalized idea of "PTSD flashbacks", though, as do many sufferers in RealLife.
-->'''Tom''': I do ''not'' get flashbacks. [[InsistentTerminology I remember bad things vividly.]]
* ThousandYardStare: Dylan Saunders does a very haunting one, which Tom wears whenever he's not pissed off at someone, which is why he spends so much time getting pissed off.
* UnkemptBeauty: In "Take Me Back", Becky tells us that Tom was "way more put together" back in high school, but despite how badly he's been put through the wringer since then, he's still a ruggedly handsome Dylan Saunders.
* WeightWoe: The other shoppers are quick to snipe at him for having gained a few pounds since high school.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Lex is trying her best to do this when she holds him at gunpoint to try to break Wiggly's spell, but her InnocentlyInsensitive approach isn't what does it; the inspiring thing about "If I Fail You" is that he successfully gives one to ''himself''. He talks himself into the realization that, even after everything that's happened, what Tim ''really'' wants more than anything else is a ''relationship with his father''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Linda Monroe]]
!!Linda Monroe
!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/LaurenLopez
!!!'''Appears in:''' ''Black Friday''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linda_monroe.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I hope you don't get a Wiggly. I hope you fucking die."'']]
->''I demand your love,''\\
''and worship, too.''\\
''If I don't get it,''\\
''I will end you.''\\
'''Cause I will be adored...''
A well-known local millionaire and president of the Hatchetfield Boating Society. Wants ''four'' Wiggly dolls for her family, one for each of her children.
----
* AbusiveParents: As much as she seems to spoil her sons, she's also pretty emotionally neglectful of them (which is a constant theme with parents obsessed with the Wiggly dolls). She casually tells Gerald that if their son River needs to go to the bathroom he can "hold it like a man".
* AllTakeAndNoGive: Once Uncle Wiley fully inducts her into the ReligionOfEvil, she's completely open about this being her ideal for all her relationships.
* AlphaBitch: She's well out of high school by the time this show starts but hasn't let go of any of those schoolyard bully habits.
* AmbiguouslyJewish: She uses the Yiddish word ''mensch'' to describe herself in "Adore Me" (and Creator/LaurenLopez is Jewish in RealLife).
* ArbitrarySkepticism: Her reaction to Hannah's "[[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane magic hat]]":
-->'''Hannah''': ''(eyes clenched shut)'' Magic hat! Nothing can hurt me!\\
'''Linda''': ''(laughs)'' You little fool. You think this is going to protect you? A magic hat? That's ridiculous! Only dolls are magic!
* BastardGirlfriend: The "Abusively Sexy Lady" variant. Was this to Gerald (and is now his Bastard Wife), and apparently continued to be this to at least two other men, and is now this for a whole (mostly male) ApocalypseCult of fanatical worshipers who literally kiss her feet. Creator/LaurenLopez pulls it off really well. (Note that her "harem" of male cultists makes her cult a mortal GenderFlip of Uncle Wiley and his bevy of female Sniggles in the Black and White.)
* TheBeautifulElite: Fully believes herself to be this. Subverted when it turns out that ''Sherman Young'', of all people, is just as "elite" as she is.
* BitchAlert: See EstablishingCharacterMoment below.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Oddly averted -- though Uncle Wiley certainly [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything does something to her]] when he "opens her heart" to Wiggly, unlike all the other insane cultists she seems to be mostly the same person afterwards. It may well be that it's because she's so much of a sociopathic narcissist already that she can be converted to Wiggly's side with her sanity intact, which is why Wiggly made her TheChosenOne.
* CardCarryingVillain: She's smart enough that she doesn't really try to pretend her actions are somehow morally justified -- she just [[TheCynic rejects the idea of morality entirely]], believing that [[HumansAreBastards everyone around her is as much of a bastard as she is]] and would do the things she does if they could get away with it. (This is why [[WideEyedIdealist Becky Barnes]] upsets her so much and why she works so hard to tear her down.) Once Black Friday is in full swing, she ends up taking this trait UpToEleven under Uncle Wiley's influence, going from TheCynic to full-on StrawNihilist and accepting his offer to see the world horrifically destroyed if it means she gets to feel special.
* TheChosenOne: Chosen by Wiggly to end the world, anyway. Interestingly, she seems to be chosen because being the Chosen One was always part of her worldview.
* CurseCutShort: Hilariously, given her shameless propensity for both the PrecisionFStrike and ClusterFBomb, in her line from "Adore Me" she seems to censor herself -- the second repetition of the line "I demand your love and worship too/If I don't get it I will ''end'' you" has her just pause and give a [[DoubleEntendre pelvic thrust]] on where the word "end" should go, as though she couldn't decide between the words "fuck", "kill", or [[NothingIsScarier something worse]] she can't think of at the moment.
* DarkMessiah: In the aftermath of the Black Friday riots she becomes Wiggly's "Mother" and "Prophet" and the leader of a fanatical cult. ([[InsistentTerminology Or, rather, "exciting new religion that I started"]].) Hilariously, she becomes the leader of an ApocalypseCult ''without'' giving up any of her petty AlphaBitch habits. She does things like interrupt giving a sermon to chatter on the phone.
* DarkIsEvil: Her sweater is white, and her hair is blonde, but once she becomes the evil cult leader in Act 2, her most salient feature is that she's "the woman in the black cape".
* DealWithTheDevil: Eagerly accepts Uncle Wiley's offer to become Wiggly's "Mother" and be the most special person in the whole world at the cost of damning the whole world to destruction.
* DesperationAttack: It seems Lex and Tom have Linda dead to rights at the end of the show, with Tom having her restrained and at gunpoint, and Lex about to burn the last Wiggly and ruin all her plans... and then in the course of one ''desperate, piercing scream'' she seems to get an adrenaline-fueled burst of strength to ''wrestle herself out of Tom's grip and twist his arm hard enough to make him cry out in pain and drop his gun'' ([[PintSizedPowerhouse keeping in mind she's five feet tall and a third Tom's size and Tom is a combat veteran]]) and then barrel her way across the stage and seize the Wiggly from Lex's hand before she can react. This may be the supernatural power Wiley promised to her, or she may just be ''[[{{Determinator}} dead set]]'' on getting her way. (Note that this is a CallBack to Emma, also played by Creator/LaurenLopez, unexpectedly wrestling herself free from a zombified Ted in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''.)
* TheDragon: She's this to Wiggly in the grand scheme of things, making her Co-Dragons with Uncle Wiley, although in terms of the Lakeside Mall plot she's the BigBad and Sherman Young is her Dragon.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Her first scene in the show is her scolding her husband over the phone for not wanting to stay in the car, telling him to tell their son to 'hold it like a man' instead of coming inside to use the bathroom, bribing her way to the front of the line while bragging about her rich husband's job, and insulting Becky for her past abusive relationship. All within the span of only a few minutes.
* EvilGenius: In contrast to Lauren's role as Draco Malfoy, who in the Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical-verse was an UpperClassTwit who wasn't even [[DesignatedVillain very evil]], Linda is both ''very'' intelligent and very deliberately cruel.
* EvilGloating: One of her favorite hobbies, crossing over with BreakingSpeech.
* EvilMatriarch: Is very much the tyrannical ruler of her HenpeckedHusband and her four {{Spoiled Brat}}s. Uncle Wiley's offer is to become this for ''all of creation'' by becoming God's (Wiggly's) "mother" by bringing him into the world. Sure enough, in the ReligionOfEvil she founds her official title is "[[FamilyOfChoice Mother]]".
* {{Expy}}: Despite the differences pointed out in EvilGenius above, Linda's hair, accent and mannerisms are highly reminiscent of Draco's UpperClassTwit mannerisms.
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: Her blonde hair, petite size and angelic, innocent voice give way very quickly to the reality that she's a shameless ruthless AlphaBitch, but she still seems to have no trouble getting people to buy into her crap, including when it reaches the point of demanding they actually worship her as a demigod. She specifically very much reflects the BlondesAreEvil version of this trope (and the occasions where Creator/LaurenLopez has worn a blonde wig or dyed her hair in the past to play [[Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical Draco Malfoy]] and [[WebVideo/LittleWhiteLie Tanya Freemont]].) She even gloats at one point about her four "[[AddedAlliterativeAppeal beautiful blond boys]]" in a way that sounds at least a little [[ThoseWackyNazis Aryan supremacist]].
* FurAndLoathing: In contrast to the other very dressed-down shoppers' practical winter gear, she's prominently sporting an expensive fur hat and fur-lined cape.
* GoldDigger: It's strongly implied she's a TrophyWife for her HenpeckedHusband Gerald, who's apparently a quite well-known and highly-paid plastic surgeon.
* HateSink: Intended to very much be the villain you LoveToHate in this show -- she's explicitly the Umbridge ([[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix book version]], not [[Theatre/AVeryPotterSequel parody musical version]]) to Wiggly's Voldemort.
* HenpeckedHusband: Her husband Gerald, who apparently finances her whole lifestyle but still gets kicked around as though he's a feckless BumblingDad. Indeed, it's a punchline in itself when we find out, after hearing her bark orders to him on the phone for a while, that he's ''her husband'' and not her chauffeur or butler. Apparently she's having him sit in the car idling the engine to keep it warm ''all day'' (even though she ends up trapped in the mall for eighteen hours, founding a cult along the way).
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Linda tries to argue this in her defense to Uncle Wiley for why she acts the way he does, but he scoffs -- ''love'' is an inherently reciprocal relationship, and Linda is [[{{Narcissist}} incapable of loving others]]. What Linda wants is the entirely selfish desire to be ''[[InsistentTerminology adored]]''.
* IdleRich: She apparently thinks of "President of the Hatchetfield Boating Society" as her job.
* ItIsPronouncedTropay: There's several signs that Linda's snobby trans-Atlantic aristocratic accent is an affectation (considering she grew up in Hatchetfield and went to Hatchetfield High with Becky and Tom). She consistently pronounces "Cinnabon" like it's a French word, "SEEN-a-bonn", she overenunciates an "h" sound before any word that starts with a "w" sound, like [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/FamilyGuyStewieGriffin Stewie Griffin]], and she rolls the "r" in the word "rhinoplasty" (''and'' pronounces the "h") as though it's Italian ("hhRRRREENO-plasty").
* ItsAllAboutMe: Is refreshingly honest about this. Especially fun with the InsaneTrollLogic where, after successfully arguing that it's ridiculously unfair to sell all 850 Wiggly dolls to Sherman Young, she then turns around and argues that a one-per-customer limit is ''equally'' unfair, when the obvious correct policy is for the limit to be four (because she personally has four kids).
* {{Jerkass}}: She's rude, entitled, and selfish, and those are probably the three nicest things you can say about her.
* KeystoneArmy: Wiggly gives Linda the gift of having her insane narcissism validated -- the Black Friday riots are wreaking havoc ''all over the country'', but the core of Wiggly's plan is the cult centered on the Lakeside Mall in Hatchetfield, Michigan, and for unclear metaphysical reasons ''has to be'' completed with Linda as his appointed prophet, or it will fail. [[spoiler: The ghost of [=MacNamara=] directly tells Lex that all they have to do is kill Linda Monroe, a single five-foot-tall RichBitch, to save the world. Pity no one told that to the big kahunas in Washington DC before they went and tried fighting on his own turf, with [[DownerEnding disastrous results]].]]
* KickTheDog: She's nasty to everyone, but she really seems to have it out for poor Becky in particular. It takes a special kind of horrid to not only mock a woman's [[DomesticAbuse past abusive relationship]] to her face, but gleefully rub in the fact that everyone knew what was going on, [[BystanderSyndrome but didn't help her]].
* {{Mundanger}}: While Wiggly himself is the GreaterScopeVillain causing the disaster that drives the story, Linda is an ordinary human who poses the most direct threat to the other characters (and seems to have been a bad person long before Wiggly appeared).
* {{Narcissist}}:
-->'''Uncle Wiley''': And this town, ooh, Hatchetfield. Sure is a special place, you understand? And you, little lady, you are the most special person in it.\\
'''Linda''': ''I know that!''
* NewhartPhonecall: She seems to feel the need to keep up a meandering, aimless phone conversation with her unseen husband Gerald ''throughout the whole show'', even though there's no real practical reason to keep him updated, apparently because she's used to having him be her sounding board for her constant gossiping and complaining. [[spoiler: This turns out to be one long setup for the payoff of having her [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head]] and having Gary immediately pick up the phone and tell Gerald, "We need to talk about the will."]]
* NoblewomansLaugh: One of her signature traits.
* OmnicidalManiac:
-->'''Linda''': I will destroy everything\\
[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment And then I will destroy everything]]\\
I guarantee I'll destroy everything in my path\\
Unless I get what I--[[MusicalisInterruptus shit, it's Gerald.]] ''(picks up phone)''
* PhoneaholicTeenager: Her teenage years are well behind her, but her (top-of-the-line, caseless) [=iPhone=] is glued to her hand, even while she's posing as a DarkMessiah.
* PsychicPowers: It's not clear if Uncle Wiley actually kept his promise to give her power when she accepted his deal, but it seems like by becoming Wiggly's "prophet" she does now have some psychic connection to the Black and White -- she can ''sense'' there's only one Wiggly doll left in the mall after the riots, and says she can "smell" that Lex has been in contact with it. We're told that if she should physically possess a Wiggly doll, her connection to him will be strong enough that she'll know what to do to bring him into the world ([[VaguenessIsComing which we're never given the details of]]).
* ReligionOfEvil: Starts an ApocalypseCult that ''explicitly says'' she thinks she's superior to all human beings and that she will destroy the entire world in order to set herself up as an absolute ruler, and treats all her minions as disposable to that end. Thanks to Wiggly's influence, [[BeliefMakesYouStupid they all eat it up]].
* RichBitch: The basis of her character.
* ScreamingWoman: She refrains from unseemly public displays of emotion most of the time, but when Lex is about to burn the last Wiggly doll she lets out a ''piercing shriek'' that starts out terrifying and goes on long enough to be [[OverlyLongGag hilarious]].
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: She arrives minutes before Toy Zone opens and just walks into the #2 spot in line by writing a check to a guy to let her cut in front of him. Unfortunately, she has no way of cutting in front of the ''#1'' spot in line, Sherman Young (who apparently has just as much money as she does and is so fanatically devoted to collecting children's toys he got in line ''a week ago'').
* SirSwearsALot: It's a Starkid show, so no one is shy about dropping regular [[PrecisionFStrike F-bombs]], but it's a striking contrast between Linda's snobbish exterior and her willingness to launch into [[ClusterFBomb profane rants]] whenever she's upset.
* SkewedPriorities: She continues to banter with her husband while delivering an apocalyptic rant to her cultists, and the fact that she still wants to finish her original goal of collecting four Wigglies for her sons if possible (even though only one Wiggly is all she needs to open the portal and destroy the world) indicates she hasn't quite internalized what this "apocalypse" thing means in practice. Her initial description of what happened to Gerald after the riots start says it all:
->'''Linda''': What? No, I'm not frightened, I'm -- I'm annoyed. Because some asshole took my doll, and... and... ''(bursts into tears)'' ''I HAD A HAIR APPOINTMENT TODAY!''
* TheSociopath: As broad a caricature as she is, Linda is a pretty good portrait of one of these -- not just the lack of empathy or conscience but especially the constant need for stimulation and reinforcement to make her [[IJustWantTobeSpecial feel special]].
* SurprisePregnancy: As proud as she is of being a mother, she's also pretty quick to cop to the fact that none of her children were actually wanted or planned and she doesn't actually seem to love them very much except as status symbols. (And it turns out that two of them were ''especially'' unplanned because they're [[BastardAngst not Gerald's]].)
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Averted. As Uncle Wiley points out in his speech, Linda ''does'' have a therapist, probably a highly paid one, but as is all too common with {{Narcissist}}s it doesn't do her any good because she's bullshitting the therapist about how she actually feels and what she actually wants -- not to be loved, but [[AllTakeAndNoGive adored]].
* TooImportantToWalk: She revels in this during "Adore Me" and "Wiggle", making her male followers turn themselves into a human sedan chair and parade her around in various poses, in a way that makes her petite stature come off as ''even more regal'' than if she were taller.
* UnfortunateName: She named one of her sons "River". At best it's a weird hippie name, and for a certain subset of the population it's instead an [[Creator/RiverPhoenix insensitive and ill-omened one]].
* WickedCultured: Of all the characters in the show Linda is the only one who indulges in Lovecraftian PurpleProse, describing the future portal as a "cyclopean gateway", and making Biblical references like "He will rise up with joyful noise/And turn dust to ash and dust".
* YouWouldntShootMe: Linda to Becky, at the end of the show. [[spoiler: If Linda actually knew the full story of why Becky's husband disappeared, she might not have [[BoomHeadshot died the way she did]].]]
[[/folder]]
