| 1 | [[center: [- [[Characters/{{Hatchetfield}} Main Character Index]] | '''Main Hatchetfield Residents''' | Characters/HatchetfieldFamilies | [[Characters/HatchetfieldOtherResidents Other Hatchetfield Residents]] | Characters/HatchetfieldOutsiders | [[Characters/HatchetfieldTheBlackAndWhite The Black and White]] | [[Characters/HatchetfieldParanormalPhenomena Paranormal Phenomena]]-] ]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | The main characters of the Franchise/{{Hatchetfield}} saga. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | !Main Characters of ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' |
| 8 | |
| 9 | [[folder: Paul Matthews]] |
| 10 | !!Paul Matthews |
| 11 | !!!'''Played by:''' Jon Matteson |
| 12 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''''' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Forever & Always"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Time Bastard"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E1HoneyQueen "Honey Queen"]] | ''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie'' |
| 13 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E1TheHatchetfieldApeManAndWatcherWorld "Watcher World"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E3JanesACarAndTheWitchInTheWeb "Jane's a Car"]] |
| 14 | |
| 15 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paul_matthews.jpg]] |
| 16 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I don't like musicals. Watching people sing and dance makes me very uncomfortable."'']] |
| 17 | |
| 18 | ->'''The Hive:''' ''In the tiny town of Hatchetfield''\ |
| 19 | ''There lived an awful grinch named Paul''\ |
| 20 | ''He spends his days surfing the web''\ |
| 21 | ''And not singing and dancing with us all''\ |
| 22 | ''Should we kill him? Should we kill him?'' |
| 23 | |
| 24 | A normal guy whose main defining characteristic is his dislike of musicals. |
| 25 | ---- |
| 26 | * 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. |
| 27 | * 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. |
| 28 | * 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. For what it's worth, Jon Matteson has endorsed the headcanon, so it might be considered WordOfSaintPaul. |
| 29 | * ArchEnemy: The HiveMind ends up designating Paul as its archnemesis, whether he likes it or not. |
| 30 | * BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:He blows up the meteor at point-blank range, but his assimilated self manages to put him back together. Infectees of the Hive can seemingly not actually die.]] |
| 31 | * BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: "Let It Out" ends up being a song about Paul trying to throw off the HiveMind's influence in an argument with himself. |
| 32 | * 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".]] |
| 33 | * 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. |
| 34 | * 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. |
| 35 | * 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. |
| 36 | * 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. |
| 37 | * 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. |
| 38 | * CantHoldHisLiquor: Apparently it's generally known in "Forever and Always" that ''half a beer'' is too much alcohol for Paul to handle, and might lead to him having to turn in for the night lest he start seeing PinkElephants. |
| 39 | * 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. |
| 40 | * 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''. |
| 41 | * 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]]...]] |
| 42 | * 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. |
| 43 | * 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. |
| 44 | * EndearinglyDorky: |
| 45 | ** His awkwardness and polite nature is part of what attracts Emma, as he's a nice change from the usual assholes she has to deal with at work. |
| 46 | ** [[spoiler: Lampshaded in Real Emma's horror at Paul excusing himself to go to the "little boys' room" at a bar -- "I married a geek!"]] |
| 47 | * 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]]. |
| 48 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: Every one of Paul's appearances after ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' plays him straight as a dorky NonActionGuy, whose latent heroic qualities are completely unknown by the people around him, which makes for a lot of DramaticIrony to the audience. |
| 49 | * 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]].]] |
| 50 | * 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.]] |
| 51 | * HonoraryUncle: In "Jane's a Car", Tim refers to him as Uncle Paul, suggesting that, even if this isn't a timeline in which Paul is married to Emma and therefore literally Tim's uncle, Tim has grown close to Paul and Emma. |
| 52 | * KilledOffscreen: [[spoiler: In ''Nightmare Time'' Episode Two, it turns out he was killed months ago by his clone Paul 23.]] |
| 53 | * 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. |
| 54 | * 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. |
| 55 | * MeaningfulName: Paul's surname, Matthews, is a reference to the protagonist of ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers1978'', who was named Matthew Bennell. |
| 56 | ** 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. |
| 57 | * MeatVersusVeggies: Paul is reluctantly willing to go along with Emma's idea of going vegan, but eventually puts his foot down that he's willing to go ''vegetarian'' but can't give up eating cheese. [[spoiler: Or, rather, Paul 23 does this, but is mimicking what the real Paul's reaction probably would've been.]] |
| 58 | * 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. |
| 59 | * NiceMeanAndInbetween: The In-Between to Bill's Nice and Ted's mean. Paul is, at heart, a good person (and certainly no JerkAss, like Ted is), but he can be extremely blunt and pretty inconsiderate of other people's feelings. |
| 60 | -->'''Paul, after realizing he forgot the drink he promised Bill:''' …Eh, fuck Bill. |
| 61 | * 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"). |
| 62 | * OfficialCouple: Paul and Emma from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' are unequivocally this for the Hatchetfield universe -- not only are they the main canon ship of the show they're in, they've been strongly favored by fans as ''the'' OTP since the show came out, with the {{Official Couple}}s from ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (Tom/Becky and Lex/Ethan) vying for second place. The fact that TGWDLM puts them through some major OfficialCoupleOrdealSyndrome (their one chance at a first kiss is [[AlmostKiss interrupted]] before the show comes to an end) only intensifies this, which is why ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' announcing "Forever & Always" would be a story [[WeddingEpisode about their wedding]] was subject to much hype. |
| 63 | * OneTrueLove: "Forever & Always" confirms what ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' implied -- Emma is the only person Paul's ever really loved -- and, more than that, being with her is the only time in his life he's genuinely felt passion about anything. [[spoiler: Paul 23 is, of course, guessing that this is how the real Paul felt when he wrote his wedding vows, but considering he came to feel the same way shortly after meeting Emma, he's probably right.]] |
| 64 | * 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. |
| 65 | * PerformanceAnxiety: "Forever & Always" reveals that his dislike of musical theatre extends to a distaste for participating in ''any'' kind of acting or performing, even in private. [[spoiler: At least, this is how his clone Paul 23 feels, and we can assume since Paul 23 shares Paul's GeneticMemory he feels the same.]] |
| 66 | * RidiculouslyAverageGuy: A major plot point since Paul is so content with his boring life and job that the HiveMind is unable to convert him. As [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]] is fond of pointing out, he doesn't even have enough passion in his soul to be "the guy who ''hates'' musicals", he just doesn't like them. |
| 67 | * {{Salaryman}}: Paul is set up as this trope -- he's perfectly happy in what most people would consider a SoulCrushingDeskJob, because he doesn't seem to have many interests other than having a comfortable, secure life in which he gradually accumulates enough money to become a FamilyMan. |
| 68 | * SingleTargetSexuality: Emma is the only person Paul is or has been attracted too, regardless of the timeline. |
| 69 | * 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. |
| 70 | * 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.]] |
| 71 | * TeamDad: As part of his OnlySaneMan gig, he becomes the leader of the gang and looks out for everyone else. |
| 72 | * TeenyWeenie: [[spoiler: Robot Emma is very devoted to her husband and doesn't generally seem to have any complaints about their sex life, but can't resist some [[DeadpanSnarker snark]] about how, as a sexually experienced woman of the world, there ''is'' room for improvement in that department. (This is an ActorAllusion to a character Jon Matteson played in ''Royalties'' on Quibi who was [[BiggerIsBetterInBed hilariously and obsessively insecure about his dick size]].)]] |
| 73 | -->[[spoiler: '''Robot Emma''': You've taken my favorite bar, Emma Perkins, but I'm ''not'' letting you have my husband. Paul's not big enough for the both of us. ''({{beat}})'' He's barely big enough for ''one'' of us.]] |
| 74 | * 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.]] |
| 75 | * UnusualEuphemism: In every timeline, Paul seems to refer to sex as "being intimate" with someone whenever he's around Tim (the real meaning of which Tim quickly figures out). |
| 76 | * UptightLovesWild: The main appeal of Paul and Emma's OppositesAttract relationship, from Paul's POV. He's a very boring, steady guy whose life was devoid of excitement or surprises until he met Emma; asking her out is the first really spontaneous thing he can ever remember doing, and to him her wild mood swings and random bursts of enthusiasm and anger are what make his life interesting. |
| 77 | * YouHaveToBelieveMe: Isn't very good at trying not to sound crazy when he initially tries to get Emma to "consider the implications" about the world turning into a musical. |
| 78 | [[/folder]] |
| 79 | |
| 80 | [[folder: Emma Perkins]] |
| 81 | !!Emma Perkins |
| 82 | !!!'''Played by:''' Creator/LaurenLopez | [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]][[note]]impromptu understudy in one performance of ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals''[[/note]] |
| 83 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''''' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Forever & Always"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Time Bastard"]] | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E2PerkysBudsAndAbstinenceCamp "Perky's Buds"]]''' | ''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie'' |
| 84 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E1HoneyQueen "Honey Queen"]] |
| 85 | |
| 86 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/emma_perkins.jpg]] |
| 87 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"Yes! I thought I was gonna fucking die... in Hatchetfield! But we're not, Paul! We got out of there, and we're never going back! FUCK YOU, HATCHETFIELD!"'']] |
| 88 | |
| 89 | ->'''Ezekiel & Ziggy:''' ''Emma’s the name in cannabis''\ |
| 90 | ''You need a bud? The herb’s her biz''\ |
| 91 | ''Just bring a light for all the hits''\ |
| 92 | ''The Hidgens Hash just can’t be missed'' |
| 93 | |
| 94 | 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, namely starting a marijuana farm. |
| 95 | ---- |
| 96 | * ActuallyPrettyFunny: Despite herself and after a little "what?", she looks like she's on the verge of snickering when Paul refers to her as "the latte hottie" to convince Ted that she needs to stay with their motley group of survivors. |
| 97 | * AMFMCharacterization: "Forever & Always" reveals that Emma is very much a creature of TheNineties and she's very into stereotypical [[TheStoner stoner]] bands like Music/ThreeEleven. (This is also an ActorAllusion to Creator/LaurenLopez's guilty pleasure tastes in music, although Lauren is very UsefulNotes/StraightEdge in RealLife.) |
| 98 | * 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). |
| 99 | * 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. |
| 100 | * 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. |
| 101 | * BrainyBrunette: The only character to figure out [[spoiler: that the meteor was the source of the blue shit.]] |
| 102 | * BrilliantButLazy: |
| 103 | ** 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. |
| 104 | ** 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. |
| 105 | * BurgerFool: Very much has this attitude toward her job, to the point of eventually admitting she habitually spit in the coffee. |
| 106 | * 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. |
| 107 | * 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. |
| 108 | * 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. |
| 109 | * CommitmentIssues: With relationships, with jobs, with communities. [[spoiler: Emma 2's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech in "Forever & Always" tells her as much -- "You weren't living your life, you were running away from it!"]] |
| 110 | * 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''. |
| 111 | * 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". |
| 112 | * CoughingUpBlood: A hilarious SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome 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. |
| 113 | * 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. |
| 114 | * DeconfirmedBachelor: Swore her whole life she would never, ever get married, and in fact "Forever & Always" reveals she abandoned a serious boyfriend in Guatemala because things were getting too serious with him. It was a surprise to everyone on her side of the aisle when she and Paul ended up tying the knot after six months of dating. [[spoiler: It turns out that wasn't actually her but her RobotMe from the future, and when the real Emma shows up she's ''horrified'' at the idea of being married to Paul -- but Emma 2, having all of Emma's personality and memories, says she felt the exact same way when she first met him and predicts the real Emma would've fallen for him soon enough.]] |
| 115 | * {{Delinquent}}: Was this as a child, leading to her becoming a rootless drifter as an adult. |
| 116 | * 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. |
| 117 | * ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Emma in ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' has brown-blonde hair done up in a braid that she has pinned to her hair. It remains there even as the show goes off the rails. To show in ''Black Friday'' that she is happier, her hair is pure brown and she wears it down under a hat for the winter. |
| 118 | * FinalGirl: [[spoiler: Emma ends up being this in TGWDLM.]] |
| 119 | * 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. |
| 120 | -->'''Paul:''' ''You're'' the reason I don't like musicals! |
| 121 | -->'''Emma:''' ''(flattered)'' Oh, I'm your origin story? |
| 122 | * FutureMeScaresMe: [[spoiler: Robot Emma isn't literally her future self, but she's a copy of her from the future, and she scares the ''hell'' out of Real Emma -- to the point that Emma fiercely denies the other Emma is her in any sense.]] |
| 123 | * HatedHometown: She was afflicted with SmallTownBoredom pretty hard as a teenager and spent the next ten years trying to get as far away from Hatchetfield as she could. |
| 124 | -->'''Emma''': ''(boarding the rescue chopper shouting over the rotor noise)'' ...Oh... YES! I thought I was gonna fucking DIE, in HATCHETFIELD! BUT WE'RE NOT, PAUL! WE GOT OUT OF THERE! And we're... NEVER GOING BACK! ''([[FlippingTheBird flips the bird]])'' FUCK YOU, HATCHETFIELD! |
| 125 | * 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.]] |
| 126 | ** [[spoiler: The irony comes back in "Forever & Always" -- Emma 2 ''tried'' to give her what she wanted by setting her up to die in the jungles of Guatemala, but Real Emma survives and comes back to die in Hatchetfield anyway.]] |
| 127 | * 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. |
| 128 | * 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. |
| 129 | * ManicPixieDreamGirl: Subverted. Paul very much sees her as this trope, and feels endlessly blessed by the joy she's brought into his life. But she's ''not'' an innocent, carefree character who exists just to motivate Paul to change up his life and be happy -- she soon reveals she has a ''lot'' of her own baggage. [[spoiler: "Forever & Always" is a hilarious cascade of that baggage piling higher and higher.]] |
| 130 | * MsFanservice: The required uniform at Beanie's has Creator/LaurenLopez in short shorts for the whole show. |
| 131 | * NeverGotToSayGoodbye: A major source of pain for her is that she always turned down her sister's invitations to come home, saying she'd catch the next one... until eventually, the "next one" was an invite to her funeral. She knows she only has herself to blame for this, and it's part of what made her take stock of her life and decide to get her act together. |
| 132 | * 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]]). |
| 133 | * NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: The real Emma Perkins is said at the beginning of "Forever & Always" to have been KilledOffscreen in a literal BusCrash. Turns out she was more of an ActionSurvivor than Emma 2 thought.]] |
| 134 | * 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. |
| 135 | * OfficialCouple: Paul and Emma from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' are unequivocally this for the Hatchetfield universe -- not only are they the main canon ship of the show they're in, they've been strongly favored by fans as ''the'' OTP since the show came out, with the {{Official Couple}}s from ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' (Tom/Becky and Lex/Ethan) vying for second place. The fact that TGWDLM puts them through some major OfficialCoupleOrdealSyndrome (their one chance at a first kiss is [[AlmostKiss interrupted]] before the show comes to an end) only intensifies this, which is why ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' announcing "Forever & Always" would be a story [[WeddingEpisode about their wedding]] was subject to much hype. |
| 136 | * 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. |
| 137 | * OnlySaneMan: She is often the person reacting the way most normal people would to Hatchetfield's weirdness, which makes her and Paul fine bedfellows. |
| 138 | * PetTheDog: |
| 139 | ** Hidgens likes her because she picked up his groceries for him at least once. |
| 140 | ** She tries to comfort Charlotte, who she just met, when she starts freaking out over the apotheosis. She also is genuinely concerned for her when she realizes [[spoiler:she's been infected, and is upset that Hidgens had to kill her]]. |
| 141 | ** [[spoiler:During Charlotte and Sam's attack on the group, she pleads with them to leave Bill alone because he has a daughter.]] |
| 142 | * 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.) |
| 143 | ** [[spoiler: She also acquits herself pretty well fighting against her RobotMe duplicate in "Forever & Always", despite the latter apparently being engineered with SuperStrength and elite combat skills -- she manages to fight Emma 2 to a standstill, even after Emma 2's CurbStompBattle against a whole roomful of angry bikers twice her size.]] |
| 144 | * PitbullDatesPuppy: Emma's view of her OppositesAttract relationship with Paul; she's aware how other people see her as an unstable, moody jerk and deep down hates herself for it, and finds herself surprised by how much she appreciates Paul's steadfast reliability and how it awakens her own desire to be responsible and care about the future. |
| 145 | * 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 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". |
| 146 | * SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Before the events of the Hive apocalypse start, she's noticeably attracted to how Paul tells her she doesn't have to sing for his tip -- which he says is all for her and she doesn't have to split it-- and agrees with her that it's not really a tip if she has to do extra work for it. Paul's first reaction when the Hive poisons everyone in the coffee shop is to tell her they need to run and leads her through an escape path to relative safety. Emma tries to communicate to Paul that she's attracted to his chivalry and knows that he didn't visit Beanies to stick it to Starbucks. |
| 147 | * TheStoner: "Forever & Always" reveals that Emma's idea to start a cannabis farm as a business venture in ''TGWDLM'' was, in fact, because she's a frequent smoker herself, and that her standard line when asking a guy to sleep with her is to propose that they "get high and see what happens". |
| 148 | * 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. (Weirdly fitting, since Emma is also supposed to have only learned the dance the night before.) |
| 149 | * ThouShaltNotKill: Emma comes off as a pretty amoral person, but in Forever & Always she balks at the idea of ever actually ''killing'' someone (and Emma in TGWDLM never violently attacked any of the zombies until it was made very clear they weren't human -- or even meaningfully sentient individuals -- anymore). [[spoiler: She insists to Paul that Emma 2 ''can't'' be her in any sense because she's a murderer, and even when locked in a battle to the death and Paul is stuck with a SadisticChoice, she's the one begging Paul to "Put down the knife!" while Emma 2 is yelling at him to "Stab this bitch in the throat!"]] |
| 150 | * {{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". |
| 151 | * 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. |
| 152 | * 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]].) |
| 153 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler: The whole plot of "Forever & Always" could've been avoided if Emma hadn't decided to let some shady startup sequence her DNA for $200 back when she was younger.]] |
| 154 | * WalkingTheEarth: Spent most of her life doing this, getting as far as Guatemala, before coming back to try to be responsible. |
| 155 | * 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.]] |
| 156 | [[/folder]] |
| 157 | |
| 158 | [[folder: Ted Spankoffski]] |
| 159 | !!Theodore "Ted" Spankoffski |
| 160 | !!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JoeyRichter |
| 161 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''''' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E1TheHatchetfieldApeManAndWatcherWorld "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Forever & Always"]] | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Time Bastard"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E2PerkysBudsAndAbstinenceCamp "Abstinence Camp"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E3DaddyAndKillerTrack "Daddy"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E3DaddyAndKillerTrack "Killer Track"]] | ''WebVideo/WorkinBoys'' |
| 162 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E1TheHatchetfieldApeManAndWatcherWorld "Watcher World"]] |
| 163 | |
| 164 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tgwdlm_ted.jpg]] |
| 165 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"Well if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna go out doing the thing I love -- screwing around with another man's wife."'']] |
| 166 | |
| 167 | ->'''Jenny:''' ''Time Bastard, you got someplace else to be''\ |
| 168 | ''Maybe some other time''\ |
| 169 | ''Maybe somewhere far from me''\ |
| 170 | ''I know it’s you I’m thinking of''\ |
| 171 | ''Only one bastard's got no time for love'' |
| 172 | |
| 173 | A self-described "sleazeball". Works with Paul, is screwing around with Charlotte behind her husband's back. |
| 174 | ---- |
| 175 | * ActuallyPrettyFunny: Despite the direness of his situation during "Showstopping Number" Ted can't help but get sucked into Hidgens' pitch for "Workin' Boys". |
| 176 | * TheAlcoholic: ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' shows him pushing Bill around for being UsefulNotes/StraightEdge, and in "Time Bastard", when his failure to pick up any women at the wedding triggers his loneliness and depression he ends up swiping a bottle of vodka from the bar and getting embarrassingly sloppy drunk in front of the whole reception. |
| 177 | * 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. |
| 178 | * AndIMustScream: [[spoiler: Ted's final fate once he closes the StableTimeLoop and dies, his soul drawn into the Bastard's Box.]] |
| 179 | * 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 fake Ape-Man in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"]], and he becomes the actual protagonist of "Time Bastard" and turns out to be a twisted version of TheChosenOne. |
| 180 | * 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 [=MacNamara=]. |
| 181 | * AtLeastIAdmitIt: No matter what else you can say about him, the guy isn't a liar; he's very up-front about what sort of (terrible) person he is, and what people should expect from him. While he's still an utter pain in the neck, he's at least somewhat easier to deal with than, say, [[WildCard Hidgens]]. |
| 182 | * BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:The assimilated Ted is blown up by the grenade in "Let It Out", but returns for the final number. Infectees of the Hive can seemingly not actually die.]] |
| 183 | * BecomingTheMask: [[spoiler: Ted's role in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" is one long, hilarious joke about doing this.]] |
| 184 | * BlessedWithSuck: When Tinky somehow anoints him as his ChosenOne -- the "Time Bastard", who has been "aborted from the flow of time and space" -- it seems like what this means in practical terms is he and he alone has the ability to TimeTravel through the portal in his office. Ted definitely thinks of it as a blessing, giving him the power to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong and exultantly embracing the title "Time Bastard"; if only he'd watched more episodes of ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone'' and understood how prone TimeTravel stories are to [[YouCantFightFate ironic endings]]. |
| 185 | * ButtMonkey: |
| 186 | ** In ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' Ted is subjected to a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown from Charlotte and Sam during "Join Us and Die." |
| 187 | ** Ted's ButtMonkey status gets worse in ''WebVideo/NightmareTime''. [[spoiler: First "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" puts him in a truly absurd situation that ends in his horrible death by HeroicSacrifice. Then "Time Bastard" puts him through a really harsh TraumaCongaLine whose ending is ''so'' cruel to Ted that even his most devoted haters can't find any humor or satisfaction in it. In "Daddy" he becomes one of a long line of men to be ensnared by the BlackWidow Sheila Young.]] |
| 188 | * TheCameo: He appears in the final number of ''Theatre/BlackFriday''. |
| 189 | * CannotSpitItOut: |
| 190 | ** He actually does have feelings for Charlotte, but refuses to actually say so. The closest he gets is suggesting she leave her "scumbag" husband for him... a sleazeball. |
| 191 | ** When he was a young man, he was deeply in love with his best friend Jenny, but was terrified of ruining their friendship, so he didn't say anything for years. |
| 192 | * CasanovaWannabe: Classic example of this trope. His self-confidence is so high he'll go to the lengths of [[RefugeInAudacity publicly hitting on the bride at her own wedding]], and he's developed a list of [[RuleNumberOne numbered "lessons"]] in the "arts of seduction" ("Lesson #46: Dress... to touch breasts") he rattles off to himself before his date with Jenny in "Time Bastard" (he’s pretty clearly a TakeThat at the "pickup artist" community). |
| 193 | * CatchPhrase: He has an obnoxious habit of trying to make these happen, like his BorrowedCatchphrase from ''Film/{{Borat}}'' "MAH WIFE!" and his telling his supposed best friend "You're fucking useless, Paul". |
| 194 | * CombatPragmatist: He's not a trained or talented fighter, but he survives as long as he does in the BadFuture of "Time Bastard" mainly because he's willing to do ''anything'' to save his hide and has an instinctive knack for finding an unexpected cheap shot to pull when he really believes he's in danger. |
| 195 | * 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.]] |
| 196 | * CosmicPlaything: For some unknown reason, the EldritchAbomination known as T'Noy Karaxis, the Weaver of Time and Space ("Tinky" for short) has taken a personal interest in him, and "aborted him from the fabric of the universe", giving him the power of TimeTravel. This ends up ''[[BlessedWithSuck not]]'' being the blessing from the cosmos he thinks it is. |
| 197 | * 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. |
| 198 | * 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. |
| 199 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 200 | ** 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. |
| 201 | ** [[spoiler: He was willing to go along with Hidgens' murderous scheme in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" at first, but it turns out to be a case of DidntThinkThisThrough and he balks as soon as Hidgens kills Jonathan. And when push comes to shove, he surprises everybody by actually TakingTheBullet for Lucy.]] |
| 202 | * ExtremeLibido: |
| 203 | ** Ted takes this to the point where in RealLife he'd pretty clearly have a sex addiction. It's not just that he can't stop hitting on every woman he sees -- including, bizarrely, hitting on Emma at ''her own wedding'', in front of everyone -- but that when he's by himself he compulsively masturbates -- including ''at work'' -- with no concern for how this might affect other people or his own employment. |
| 204 | ** [[spoiler: "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" reveals that he has an erection ''constantly'' around Lucy and has no shame about this, and Lucy brushes this off as just part of him being an ape-man.]] |
| 205 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: |
| 206 | ** Ted was already basically this, before the apocalypse revealed his worst traits. He's obnoxious and entitled, so people around the office avoid him. |
| 207 | ** "Time Bastard" reveals that despite thinking of Paul as his best friend (whereas Paul thinks of ''Bill'' as his best friend) he wasn't even invited to Paul and Emma's wedding, and ignored this fact and crashed the event anyway. |
| 208 | --->'''Paul''': You're making some people here uncomfortable. Including Emma. So could you... be a pal?\ |
| 209 | '''Ted''': Fine. I know when I'm not wanted.\ |
| 210 | '''Paul''': ''(off-handedly)'' Really? That's news to me. |
| 211 | * FutureMeScaresMe: [[spoiler:Seeing his future self and everybody else trapped in the Bastard Box drives him insane.]] |
| 212 | * TheGadfly: He doesn't put a lot of thought or intention behind it, but he can't seem to help but piss people off constantly; his reaction to the life-and-death situation in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' while they're trapped in Prof. Hidgens' bunker is to relentlessly [[TheBully bully]] Bill just because Bill's wholesomeness gets on his nerves. |
| 213 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler: Ted's trauma at the knowledge that he caused Jenny's death and that ''none of it can be changed'' because he's been in a StableTimeLoop all along -- symbolized and amplified by Tinky giving Ted a peek inside the Bastard's Box when this happens -- completely breaks his mind, leaving his memories shattered and his ability to follow a coherent train of thought destroyed. The new Ted looks and acts so different from who he used to be that his older self lives alongside his younger one in Hatchetfield for 15 years with no one making the connection.]] |
| 214 | * GoneToTheFuture: When Ted travels to the BadFuture of 2104, he discovers CCRP's historical records show he vanished off the face of the Earth and was presumed dead 85 years ago, leading to his office being boarded up. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, it turns out his particular TimeTravel story is a StableTimeLoop, which means that this was {{Foreshadowing}} he never successfully returns to his own time and his "death" in 2019 -- which is the same year his aged future self, the Homeless Man, actually does die -- is established canon.]] |
| 215 | * 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.]] |
| 216 | * HiddenDepths: |
| 217 | ** The pre-assimilated characters having this is a theme of ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. Supreme {{Jerkass}} Ted is somehow moved to tears by the story of "Workin' Boys". |
| 218 | ** ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' reveals a few more of these depths. [[spoiler: "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" reveals him as a surprisingly skilled actor, and one who's capable of genuine heroism after BecomingTheMask. And "Time Bastard" reveals he UsedToBeASweetKid before his life started falling apart when he lost his LostLenore.]] |
| 219 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Like many time travel stories, his attempt to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong in "Time Bastard" is what causes things to go wrong in the first place. He always thought he lost his chance with Jenny because he was weak and pathetic, but she ''liked'' the sweet, shy boy he once was -- and he had actually been plucking up the courage to confess his feelings to her, and would have been able to do so had his future self not interfered. Not only did Ted blow it with Jenny, he also sealed his own fate to eventually be trapped in the Bastard's Box.]] |
| 220 | * IDontWantToRuinOurFriendship: Of ''all'' people, college Ted had genuine concerns about destroying his friendship with Jenny, or making her feel uncomfortable, so he never told her he loved her. |
| 221 | * IHatePastMe: Anyone else would say that college-aged Ted in "Time Bastard" UsedToBeASweetKid, but present-day Ted has only contempt for how much of a weak, effeminate coward he is, which is why his plan is to knock him out and replace him. |
| 222 | * ItsAllAboutMe: Has a very, very difficult time thinking about anything other than his own interests for more than a few seconds at a time (and almost all of the time it's just his ''[[ExtremeLibido one]]'' interest). [[spoiler: Even when he's giving his EvenEvilHasStandards speech to Hidgens in “The Hatchetfield Ape-Man” expressing his reluctance to go along with killing Lucy, he describes his feelings entirely in terms of how hot Lucy is and how much money he expects to get when he marries her.]] "Time Bastard" teases "Tedgens" shippers by having Prof. Hidgens try to open up about his own past to Ted, including revealing that he's into men by starting to tell the story about himself and Chad, only for Ted to blow him off so he can continue talking and thinking about his own problems. |
| 223 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Despite the below entry, the Hatchetfield series ''does'' give us some moments where it seems like Ted has the power to change. He's one of the survivors during "What If Tomorrow Comes?" at the end of ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' -- meaning he made the right choice and was able to fight off Wiggly's influence before the mall burned down -- and can be seen holding embracing Charlotte and comforting her before the end of the show. [[spoiler: He also makes a surprising HeroicSacrifice at the end of "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", saying he'd rather [[BecomingTheMask die as the Ape-Man Lucy thought he was]] than live on as the human and sleazeball he really is.]] |
| 224 | * JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: |
| 225 | ** Later in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' 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. |
| 226 | ** Averted in [[spoiler: "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", where, surprisingly, coming to identify as "Konk" instead of "Ted" really does bring out his inner goodness and he sacrifices his life to save Lucy.]] Then PlayedStraight, sickeningly, in "Time Bastard", where getting a second chance to start his life over in 2004 just reveals how much the 15 years since then have made him a selfish piece of shit. |
| 227 | * JerkassHasAPoint: |
| 228 | ** 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. |
| 229 | ** 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. |
| 230 | * JustFriends: Young Ted and Jenny were this, with each one terrified of screwing up their relationship with the other by admitting their feelings. Unfortunately, Ted was unable to overcome this fear and take the first step with Jenny before Jenny ran off with another man. [[spoiler: At least, that's what he assumed happened...]] |
| 231 | * 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.]] |
| 232 | * LovableSexManiac: How "lovable" it is is debatable, but there's a lot of humor that comes from how Ted can't seem to stop talking about sex literally to save his life -- ''especially'' when there's attractive women around he can make uncomfortable by doing so. |
| 233 | * LoveRedeems: |
| 234 | ** 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".]] |
| 235 | ** Subverted in "Time Bastard". The HopeSpot at the beginning of the story makes it seem like getting a second chance at earning Jenny's love might be what it takes to bring back the innocent boy Ted once was and turn him away from the path he's on. It doesn't -- the present-day Ted can't shed the man he's become, and uses his TimeTravel powers to brutalize Andy and treat Jenny like a piece of meat. |
| 236 | * MeaningfulName: His surname is "Spankoffski", and he's both a [[{{Jerkass}} jerk-off]] and spends almost all his time jerking off. |
| 237 | * 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".]] |
| 238 | * MyGreatestSecondChance: Ted believes that his TimeTravel abilities will give him a previously-thought-impossible second chance to redeem what he thinks is [[MyGreatestFailure his greatest failure]], letting Jenny run off with another guy because he wasn't alpha enough to lay claim to her first. [[spoiler: It turns out his attempt to change history ''causes'' his greatest failure, and it's a much worse failure than he thought -- Jenny didn't abandon his younger self, [[AccidentalMurder his future self killed her]].]] |
| 239 | * NiceMeanAndInbetween: The Mean to Bill's Nice and Paul's In-Between. For whatever hints there are that he may be capable of improving himself someday, Ted's still a piece of shit. He's an abrasive hyper-sleaze who disparages his coworkers (especially poor Bill), [[spoiler:abandons someone he calls his best friend to die]] and employs absolutely no tact in [[spoiler:expressing his belief that saving Alice is a lost cause.]] |
| 240 | * NoNameGiven: Ted has no given last name in TGWDLM, and WordOfGod declined to give a statement about it on the grounds that it would be a spoiler. This was because the intent was for Peter Spankoffski's name to be revealed in ''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie'' and to reveal that Ted is Pete's brother at a later point. When NPMD was delayed by the pandemic, Ted's name was revealed in "Time Bastard" and Pete's in "Abstinence Camp", though true to the original plan, Ted is not mentioned in NPMD. |
| 241 | * 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]].]] |
| 242 | * OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: "Time Bastard" reveals that, like most people who go by "Ted", his first name is actually Theodore. |
| 243 | * PetTheDog: When a brainwashed Sam goes after Charlotte, Ted picks up a trashcan lid and uses it as an impromptu shield to protect himself from the zombies. He has a split-second to decide what to do as Sam points a gun at Charlotte; Ted charges forward and whacks Sam on the head. |
| 244 | * ThePigpen: |
| 245 | ** Not only does he regularly masturbate ''at work'', but he's sloppy enough about it that the characteristic smell of him doing so lingers in the room for the ''next eighty-five years''. Eww. |
| 246 | ** He also reveals during the shower scene in "Time Bastard" that when he's getting ready for a special occasion on which he intends to seduce a woman, he makes a special point to "Wash the butt ''and'' balls". |
| 247 | * PornStache: His defining physical trait. "Time Bastard" shows us he refers to it as a "bush-brush", and considers it the "most sensual part of a man." [[spoiler: He gets mad at Hidgens for making him grow out a full beard instead in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" and says it's a major damper on his "sexual charisma".]] |
| 248 | * RedBaron: After Executive Kilgore kinda-sorta explains the meaning of the title "Time Bastard" to him, Ted enthusiastically embraces it and resolves to use his newfound TimeTravel powers to the fullest. [[spoiler: This turns out badly for him -- ''especially'' the part where him using the title "Time Bastard" with Andy and revealing he's from the future [[CreateYourOwnVillain sets Andy up to become Executive Kilgore in the first place.]]]] |
| 249 | * 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. [[spoiler: Wrecks another home by inadvertently coming between Lucy Stockworth and her fiancé Jonathan Brisby in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man."]] |
| 250 | * SignificantDoubleCasting: |
| 251 | ** [[spoiler: The fact that ''TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' is a stage show with a limited ensemble cast means that it didn't seem like a big deal at all that Creator/JoeyRichter portrayed both Ted and the Homeless Man. Pretty much everyone was blindsided by "Time Bastard" revealing they really were meant to be [[TwoAliasesOneCharacter one and the same the whole time]].]] |
| 252 | ** Notably, that's the ''second'' time this has happened to Ted, as, for similar reasons, it also comes as a shock that [[spoiler:Konk, the Hatchetfield Ape-Man, is actually Ted pulling a con.]] |
| 253 | * SlapSlapKiss: He and Charlotte literally do this in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''. |
| 254 | * TakeThat: Ted started out as one for pretty much every habit the creators could possibly find annoying in a coworker (most notably giving a highly negative ShoutOut to the played-out meme "MY WIFE!" from ''Film/{{Borat}}''). "Time Bastard" makes it clear that Ted is specifically a parody of the worst behaviors and attitudes that come out of the [[Literature/TheGame2005 pickup artist]] community, especially the whole concept of being JustFriends. |
| 255 | * TakingTheBullet: [[spoiler: What he does to save Lucy from Hidgens in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man".]] |
| 256 | * 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. |
| 257 | * TheyKilledKennyAgain: As perhaps a natural extension of being the most recurring Hatchetfield character, he's also the one who gets killed most often, having met a brutal end in every timeline he's appeared in thus far outside of ''Theatre/BlackFriday'''s ambiguous ending. |
| 258 | * ThrowTheDogABone: He told Charlotte in ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' that if the world is going to end, he wants to spend it doing what he loves: "fucking another man's wife". ''Black Friday'' ends with him and Charlotte reunited and huddled together, waiting for midnight. He at least isn't pushing her away as he did before. |
| 259 | * TimeTravel: The plot of "Time Bastard" revolves around ''Ted'', of all people, getting this as his special power, after he discovers that a [[TimeMachine Time Portal]] has somehow opened up in his office. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, he didn't [[RunningGag think through the implications]] and assumed his powers were much more flexible than a little logic would indicate they should be.]] |
| 260 | * TogetherInDeath: Ted gets a major AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther with Charlotte when the two of them silently clasp hands as they wait to see what happens at midnight in the ending of ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', which [[AmbiguousEnding ambiguously]] ends with them vaporized by a nuke. |
| 261 | * TrappedInThePast: [[spoiler:Ends up stuck in 2004 because he'd travelled back to before his office was a time machine. This, and the insanity caused by Tinky giving him a glimpse at the Bastard's Box, turns him into the Homeless Man.]] |
| 262 | * UltimateJobSecurity: Lampshaded in "Time Bastard", where Sylvia -- who works on the "top floor" and outranks most of the rest of the CCRP cast -- wonders out loud why the hell he hasn't been fired yet. In fact, despite his unprofessional demeanor and work habits, Ted is a substantially higher-ranking employee than Paul, Charlotte or Bill, with a detached office and a door that closes (for more convenient jerking-off-at-work purposes) rather than a cubicle like they have. |
| 263 | * UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist: Of "Time Bastard". Although the TraumaCongaLine he goes through likely will make you sympathize with him by the end. |
| 264 | * UsedToBeASweetKid: Surprisingly, we find that back in his college days Ted was a sweet, withdrawn, and extremely decent guy who cared a ''lot'' about respecting women's boundaries and was ''terrified'' of ruining his friendship with Jenny by pushing for something more. Unfortunately, losing Jenny taught him all the wrong lessons and made him determined to become a "pushy asshole" like he assumes the guy Jenny left him for was, so he could [[NeverBeHurtAgain never be hurt like that again]]. |
| 265 | * WhamLine: [[spoiler:"Whoo! I'd say that was a fuckin' close one, Hidge." These words, spoken by Konk the Hatchetfield Ape-Man, reveal that the beast is actually Ted.]] |
| 266 | * WhamShot: [[spoiler: Ted puts on a heavy coat and beanie hat he finds in the alley behind what will someday become the CCRP building, and we suddenly recognize him as the Homeless Man from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and ''Theatre/BlackFriday''.]] |
| 267 | * WrongTimeTravelSavvy: Spends ''Time Bastard'' trying to fix his past but it ends up being a StableTimeLoop. |
| 268 | * YouCantFightFate: [[spoiler: It turns out Ted's story in "Time Bastard" is the kind of classic sci-fi tragedy where the time traveler ''thinks'' he's destined to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong only to discover, too late, that he ''caused'' all the things in his life that went wrong by time traveling and he's always been trapped in a StableTimeLoop.]] |
| 269 | [[/folder]] |
| 270 | |
| 271 | [[folder: Charlotte Sweetly]] |
| 272 | !!Charlotte Sweetly |
| 273 | !!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JaimeLynBeatty |
| 274 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''''' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Time Bastard"]] |
| 275 | |
| 276 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tgwdlm_charlotte.jpg]] |
| 277 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"Counseling's working out reeeaaaal swell."'']] |
| 278 | |
| 279 | ->'''Sam:''' ''God, we were young once''\ |
| 280 | ''Innocent and fun once''\ |
| 281 | ''And free''\ |
| 282 | ''Let go of this grip on me'' |
| 283 | |
| 284 | One of Paul's coworkers, who is unhappily married to Sam and cheating on him with Ted. Quiet most of the time. |
| 285 | ---- |
| 286 | * 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"). |
| 287 | * {{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!") 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. |
| 288 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: When Ted saves Charlotte from a brainwashed Sam, she picks up his gun and points it at the zombies, screaming at them to go away. This ends up saving the remaining survivors, for the next couple of hours at least. |
| 289 | * 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"). |
| 290 | ** That hidden rage comes out again when she ends up one of Linda Monroe's sadistic cultists in ''Theatre/BlackFriday''. |
| 291 | * BodyHorror: Charlotte reappears immediately after her death and resurrection, meaning she still has her entrails -- now bright blue -- dangling out of her ribcage. |
| 292 | * 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. |
| 293 | * 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]]. |
| 294 | * 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. It's also made clear she is well aware of what a piece of shit Sam is, which makes it more tragic that she won't leave him and find happiness elsewhere. |
| 295 | * IncrediblyLongNote: Assimilated Charlotte returns with a line that reminds us that under the pastel sweater and timid mannerisms, she's still Jaime Lyn Beatty. |
| 296 | -->'''Charlotte''': It is time... to DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE! |
| 297 | * IntrovertedCatPerson: Her IconicOutfit includes a pastel sweater with a picture of a cat on it, instantly letting us know she's a bit of a social recluse whose aesthetic sense tends toward the [[{{Iyashikei}} comforting and reassuring]]. Creator/JaimeLynBeatty, though, has said that she doesn't actually have a cat because [[IronicAllergy she's allergic]], which just makes her more pitiable. |
| 298 | * KickTheDog: Charlotte grabbing Hannah's "magic hat" off her head and putting it on herself when she mentions it protecting her seems calculated just to be cruel. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane It may also be the reason she's the only member of the Wiggly cult we see survive the burning of the mall]]. |
| 299 | * KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler:Potentially, she and Sam are the only infectees of the Hive who actually ''do'' stay dead, as Professor Hidgens tied them down and dissected their bodies. Given the level of injury other infectees can recover from, it's equally likely that they reassembled but couldn't break free of their bindings -- either way, they are never seen again.]] |
| 300 | * 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. |
| 301 | * NoNameGiven: ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' Season 1 revealed the last names of Ted and Bill, but not Charlotte, as she remained OutOfFocus. Her surname is revealed in "Honey Queen", but only indirectly, by revealing Sam's. The unproduced script "Hey, Melissa!" confirms that, unlike Becky Barnes and Jane Perkins, she does indeed share her husband's name. |
| 302 | * ObliviousToLove: She doesn't seem to get that Ted really does have feelings for her -- though, to be fair, he's not exactly doing much to make it easy for her. |
| 303 | * OutOfFocus: All of the other main characters from TGWDLM get quite a bit of focus in the first season of ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'', but Charlotte's only appearance in the season is a brief scene in "Time Bastard". |
| 304 | * RedemptionEarnsLife: Charlotte is one of Linda's cultists who takes Lex up on her last-minute challenge to abandon Wiggly's service rather than burn to death in the mall trying to save the last doll. This [[AmbiguousEnding may or may not]] have only bought her another half hour or so of life before WorldWarIII kills the whole human race -- but at least she gets to spend her last moments [[TogetherInDeath among people she loves]], [[DyingAsYourself free of Wiggly's control]]. |
| 305 | * 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 pastel sweaters with pictures of cats. |
| 306 | * ShoutOut: Charlotte's line "All you gotta do is" in "Join Us and Die" is a CallBack to Jaime Lyn Beatty as Neato Mosquito in ''Theatre/{{Starship}}''. She even uses the same voice she did in that show! |
| 307 | * SlapSlapKiss: Literally does this with Ted. |
| 308 | * SoleSurvivor: The only character we see as a full-fledged member of the Wiggly cult who survives to the end of ''Black Friday'', although the creators say everyone who escaped the mall other than Lex and Hannah (including Becky and Tom) was touched by Wiggly's corruption to some degree. |
| 309 | * 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. |
| 310 | * TogetherInDeath: Ted gets a major AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther with Charlotte when the two of them silently clasp hands as they wait to see what happens at midnight in the ending of ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', which [[AmbiguousEnding ambiguously]] ends with them vaporized by a nuke. |
| 311 | * WetBlanketWife: What her cop husband sees her as, in a textbook version of this trope. |
| 312 | [[/folder]] |
| 313 | |
| 314 | [[folder: Bill Woodward]] |
| 315 | !!Bill Woodward |
| 316 | !!!'''Played by:''' Creator/CoreyDorris |
| 317 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''''' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E1TheHatchetfieldApeManAndWatcherWorld "Watcher World"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Forever & Always"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Time Bastard"]] | ''WebVideo/WorkinBoys'' |
| 318 | |
| 319 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bill_woodward.jpg]] |
| 320 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I'm trying to reconnect with my teenage kid and you're just gonna leave me hanging?"'']] |
| 321 | |
| 322 | ->'''Alice:''' ''Did you know that I wanted to live with you?''\ |
| 323 | ''But when you needed to fight, you gave her that too'' |
| 324 | |
| 325 | Paul's best friend, a divorced man who spends most of his time trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter Alice. |
| 326 | ---- |
| 327 | * 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). |
| 328 | * AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Alice clearly considers Bill this. |
| 329 | * 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''. |
| 330 | * BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Those infected by the Hive seem incapable of dying; Alice shoots him point-blank in the head with a shotgun only for him to come back as one of the assimilated, which is then subsequently blown up by a grenade but still manages to make it to the final number.]] |
| 331 | * BlackAndNerdy: He is played by the only black member of the cast of ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', 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. |
| 332 | * 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". |
| 333 | * BumblingDad: "Watcher World" confirms the hints from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' that he was one of these -- mostly his obliviousness to how much Alice hates being at Watcher World and how his elaborate scheme to try to brute-force his way into a relationship with her by spending "quality time" at a CrappyCarnival filled with IncrediblyLameFun is just going to make her hate him more. |
| 334 | * TheCameo: Though not as easily spotted as Ted and Charlotte, Bill also appears in the closing number of ''Black Friday'', sometimes overlooked as he's not wearing the usual Bill costume, but one which was worn only briefly in TGWDLM when Bill was driving home from work, and is easily mistaken for a random passerby from TGWDLM who also wears a newsboy cap. |
| 335 | * ChekhovsGun: In the Website/YouTube version of TGWDLM 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 unmindful of Alice slowly reaching toward it. |
| 336 | * CommitmentIssues: Despite his romantic life looking up all of a sudden in "Forever & Always" with his new squeeze Sylvia in the picture, a tense phone call with his ex has Bill start ranting to Paul again about how marriage is a scam and committing that hard to another person is just a way for their secrets to sneak up and betray you. No word yet if he's going to stay a ConfirmedBachelor or Sylvia will change his mind on the matter down the line. |
| 337 | * {{Cuckold}}: She had the decency to come clean she was in love with her OldFlame Allan and divorce him rather than cheat on him behind his back, but Bill clearly finds his ex-wife throwing away years of marriage with him because he was never her OneTrueLove deeply painful and humiliating. |
| 338 | * 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. |
| 339 | ** This trope comes back in an even more literal sense in "Watcher World", where the whole half-episode is Bill literally dragging Alice to a "shitty Disneyland knock-off" to try to fix their relationship before college. |
| 340 | ** "Forever & Always" finally gives us a little more clarity on this situation that makes Bill a lot more sympathetic than he had been -- unlike most instances of the DisneylandDad trope, Bill's ex directly left him ''for another man'', so of course her household is a lot more financially stable than his. The fact that she initiated the divorce for selfish reasons also lends credence to Assimilated!Alice's argument in "Not Your Seed" that he could've fought for primary custody and won if he'd really wanted to, and to his own argument to Alice in "Watcher World" that the divorce is his ex's fault. |
| 341 | * 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, though he is killed anyways. |
| 342 | * ExcellentJudgeOfCharacter: Alice would never admit it, but Bill's assessment of her choice of girlfriend is absolutely correct. He says that Deb is not worth Alice's time and that she could do better. He's fine with her being queer, but he wants her to date someone who will treat her well. Considering that Alice stayed in Hatchetfield rather than go to Clivesdale to spend an extra day with Deb, that [[spoiler:gets her killed]], she might have listened to her father. [[spoiler:The ''Nightmare Time'' timeline has Alice worrying that Deb will hook up with someone else behind her back, and is [[GutPunch heartbroken to see that her worries were true]] after checking Instagram]]. |
| 343 | * 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. |
| 344 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: He's name-dropped in an early scene of ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', when Paul mentions he's been trying to get his hands on a Wiggly doll. Since we know that Bill's only child is seventeen years old, this is rather potent foreshadowing of the later reveal that only ''adults'' are interested in Wiggly; the spell is clearly over Bill and not Alice, as Lex, who is Alice's age, is immune. |
| 345 | * FromBadToWorse: Most of ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' has him trying to mend his relationship with Alice. It's not as easy as it sounds when his ex-wife is the parent who can spoil her rotten, and Bill doesn't like Alice's girlfriend Deb because he believes his daughter can do better. When the Hive apocalypse starts, his consolation is that he put her on the bus to Clivesdale, so he knows that she's away from the singing zombies. Then he gets a phone call from Alice, and repeats, "[[WhamLine You got off the bus]]?!" Apparently, she stayed in Hatchetfield to spend a day with Deb, who started singing, and is trapped in the school. All Bill can do is promise her to stay put in the school and he's coming for her. [[spoiler:A brainwashed Alice reveals the Hive broke down the door in the choir room]]. |
| 346 | * TheGhost: Bill's ex-wife has as yet never actually been seen onstage, nor has [[TheNameless her name even been mentioned]] (unlike, say, Tom's dead wife Jane, Becky's ex-husband Stanley or Linda's husband Gerald). |
| 347 | * HelicopterParents: 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. Mind that he's more than fine with her being out of the closet; he just thinks that Deb is not a good influence and that she can do better. |
| 348 | * 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 hurt by Bill's death. |
| 349 | * 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. |
| 350 | * IHaveAFamily: Infected!Charlotte is about to kill Bill but then turns aside after Emma shouts "He has a daughter!" Unfortunately, that seems to be because the HiveMind thought his daughter being the one to kill him would better fit the RuleOfDrama. |
| 351 | * 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.]] |
| 352 | * 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. |
| 353 | * 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!" |
| 354 | * NiceMeanAndInbetween: The Nice to Ted's Mean and Paul's In-Between. Bill is very sweet and mild-mannered, finds it difficult to threaten someone or stand up for himself and loves his daughter more than anything in the world. [[spoiler:"Watcher World" complicates things a little: for all his affection, he doesn't really listen to what Alice has to say, doesn't seem to respect the decisions she wants to make in her life (like being a playwright or dating Deb— not because Bill doesn’t approve of same-sex relationships, but because he thinks she deserves better) and holds a lot of resentment in his heart for his ex-wife (and to some extent, Alice herself). However, he still triumphs using ThePowerOfLove in the end, and he and Alice make a commitment to being a better father and daughter to each other, making the Woodwards one of the few Hatchetfield protagonists to actually get a fully [[EarnYourHappyEnding happy ending]].]] |
| 355 | * 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. |
| 356 | * 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.]] |
| 357 | * OpenMindedParent: Alice has been out of the closet for a while, as pansexual, bisexual, or lesbian, and Bill more than supports her pursuing a romantic relationship with another girl. He merely wants her to have the perfect girlfriend that is a good influence on her. |
| 358 | * ParentalObliviousness: Alice accuses him of never paying attention to her in "Not Your Seed" in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', and he repeatedly proves himself to be clueless about basic facts about her life. |
| 359 | * PapaWolf: A more laid-back version, but certainly feels that his daughter can do better than ''Deb''. You also have to admire that he's willing to leave Hidgens's safe house to rescue her despite the fact that Ted accurately points out that Alice is surrounded by singing zombies and is good as dead. Paul admires this bravery so much that he says he's going with Bill to help. |
| 360 | * PassiveAggressiveKombat: Bill and his ex are trying very hard to pretend to be AmicableExes, and it's not fooling anyone -- every time one of them contacts or mentions the other it's to find some way to put the other one down. |
| 361 | * 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]]. |
| 362 | * TheResenter: Bill's overprotective 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". |
| 363 | * RomanticFalseLead: Bill turns out in "Forever & Always" to have always been this for his wife, and to be in the position of the poor bastard left behind in a stereotypical FirstGuyWins plot from a RomanticComedy. |
| 364 | * 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. |
| 365 | * 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. |
| 366 | * UsefulNotes/StraightEdge: |
| 367 | ** 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]]. |
| 368 | ** He also has a kneejerk prejudice against stoners. |
| 369 | * SurprisinglyHappyEnding: Bill not only gets one in "Watcher World", where he and Alice not only survive but manage to repair their relationship. The "Forever & Always"/"Time Bastard" timeline -- which [[AmbiguousSituation may or may not be the same one as "Watcher World"]] -- proves that he's able to make it stick, with Alice seeming to have chosen him over her mom, ''and'' he's got a new girlfriend Sylvia. |
| 370 | [[/folder]] |
| 371 | |
| 372 | [[folder: Professor Henry Hidgens]] |
| 373 | !!Professor Henry Hidgens |
| 374 | !!!'''Played by:''' Robert Manion (2018-2020) | [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]] (2021) | Creator/JeffBlim (2023-) |
| 375 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals''''' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E1TheHatchetfieldApeManAndWatcherWorld "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Forever & Always"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Time Bastard"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E1HoneyQueen "Honey Queen"]] | '''''WebVideo/WorkinBoys''''' |
| 376 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' |
| 377 | |
| 378 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blim_prof_hidgens.png]] |
| 379 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"You don't think I'm ready for you? I've been waiting in the wings. The stage is set! It's showtime!"'']] |
| 380 | [[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see Professor Hidgens as played by Nick Lang]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nmt_hidgens_nick.png[[/labelnote]]]] |
| 381 | [[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see Professor Hidgens as played by Robert Manion]] https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/prof_hidgens.jpg[[/labelnote]]]] |
| 382 | |
| 383 | ->''It'll unify humanity in a thundering chorus''\ |
| 384 | ''No exits from this Broadway venue''\ |
| 385 | ''So splash those shiny cymbals''\ |
| 386 | ''Got a show stoppin' hymnal for you'' |
| 387 | |
| 388 | Emma's eccentric biology professor. A doomsday survivalist, he's prepared for a variety of apocalypses, including one involving singing and dancing zombies, which he saw coming thirty years in advance. A lonely man, his closest companion is his Amazon Echo. He is also passionate about musical theatre and hopes to produce his own stage show, ''Workin' Boys''. |
| 389 | |
| 390 | ---- |
| 391 | * TheAlcoholic: |
| 392 | ** In ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' Hidgens freely admits there isn't much to do while holed up in his bunker but drink. |
| 393 | ** "Time Bastard" reveals that despite having been the officiant at the wedding he doesn't feel much need to keep up decorum afterwards, openly DrowningHisSorrows at the bar and commiserating with Ted about how lonely watching someone else's wedding makes him feel. |
| 394 | * AllForNothing: [[spoiler: His plan in ''The Hatchetfield Ape-Man'' to steal the Stockworth family fortune to fund ''Workin' Boys'' was doomed from the beginning as Lucy had already exhausted the money. He takes this about as well as you'd expect.]] |
| 395 | * AmbiguouslyGay: 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". |
| 396 | ** [[spoiler: Accentuated by how resolutely he's NotDistractedByTheSexy when it comes to Lucy in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man".]] |
| 397 | ** "Time Bastard" makes this a ''lot less'' ambiguous, with him about to launch into his story of how "Chad" from ''Workin' Boys'' is apparently a real person and TheOneThatGotAway, before Ted cuts him off. |
| 398 | * ArbitrarySkepticism: Doesn’t believe in the Hatchetfield Ape-Man but considers a musical alien zombie apocalypse not only a totally valid possibility, but one of the most likely. |
| 399 | * 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.]] |
| 400 | * BackFromTheDead: Like most of the HiveMind infectees from around the middle of TGWDLM, he is brutally eviscerated before returning to life as one of them. [[spoiler:He is also at point-blank range of Paul's grenade blast, but manages to come back for the final number.]] |
| 401 | * BadassNormal: Musical zombie version. His [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Showstopping Number"]] announcing his FaceHeelTurn happens ''before'' his assimilation, and contains the most impressive choreography in the show. |
| 402 | * BigBad: |
| 403 | ** [[spoiler:Of "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man". While he and Ted were in cahoots to scam Lucy out of her money, Hidgens is clearly the brains behind the plan while Ted has doubts and eventually abandons it. He finally snaps, kills Jonathan and Ted, and finally tries to extort then kill Lucy.]] |
| 404 | ** [[spoiler:Of WebVideo/WorkinBoys as the VillainProtagonist.]] |
| 405 | * BreakoutCharacter: Was this to a ''massive'' degree for ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', to a degree perhaps unseen for a Starkid show since Creator/LaurenLopez as Draco in ''Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical'' -- so much so that Creator/TeamStarkid was pretty much forced to add a Kickstarter stretch goal for their next show to actually make some version of his magnum opus ''[[ShowWithinAShow Workin' Boys]]'' in the form of a WebVideo where he was the protagonist. The delay of ''Workin' Boys'' due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic in turn pretty much forced them to heavily advertise him as one of the main characters of the first ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' story, "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man". |
| 406 | * CannotTellFictionFromReality: 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 self-insert protagonist (also named Henry Hidgens). |
| 407 | * CoolOldGuy: Is a pretty scary combatant in a gunfight ''and'' a pretty enthusiastic and skilled musical theatre performer, for a white-haired guy who seems to be in his 50s or 60s. [[spoiler:In "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", he's able to run, climb and fight like a mad ape-man himself despite being an elderly human.]] |
| 408 | * 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.]] |
| 409 | * CrazySurvivalist: Has been preparing for the apocalypse for decades and has a bunker. |
| 410 | ** 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]]. |
| 411 | * DarkAndTroubledPast: |
| 412 | ** 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. [[spoiler: In WebVideo/WorkinBoys, he states that the musical was loosely inspired by him and his group of friends in college. However they were struck by lightning during a rainy football session and he was the lone survivor. How true the story is unknown]]. |
| 413 | ** [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]] has dropped hints that his past is even darker and more troubled than we're made aware of in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', including a scrapped flashback from the original script about how his madness started with a HeroicBSOD after he was ForcedToWatch [[MyGreatestFailure all his colleagues on an expedition die from a plague]]. His most recent reference to Hidgens' past on Twitter was an offhanded comment that Hidgens' long self-imposed isolation was somehow the result of him being "[[LightningCanDoAnything struck by lightning]]". |
| 414 | * EccentricMentor: Plays this role to Emma in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' and Lucy in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man". [[spoiler: In both cases, pulls a FaceHeelTurn to become an EvilMentor.]] |
| 415 | * 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.]] |
| 416 | * FaceHeelTurn: He joins the aliens due to his distaste for human society, belief that humanity is doomed regardless, and love of musicals. |
| 417 | * FreudianExcuse: As mentioned in DarkAndTroubledPast, it was deleted from the play itself, but watching his college friends die of plague. It explains both his rabid survivalist tendancies and obsession with making his musical and "hanging out with [his] boys" again. |
| 418 | * HeadTiltinglyKinky: Hidgens, thankfully, gets cut off in his conversation with Ted in "Time Bastard" before he can tell us exactly how he ''physically has sex with'' his AI "girlfriends". |
| 419 | -->'''Hidgens''': With a little imagination and some elbow grease, you can have sex with anything. [[{{Metaphorgotten}} It doesn’t even have to be elbow grease. Any lube will do.]] [[Film/JurassicPark Life finds a way, my friend. Life finds a way.]] |
| 420 | * HiddenDepths: Despite being a mad scientist and survivalist, he has a passion for theatre and even wrote a musical in his spare time. |
| 421 | ** "Forever & Always" gives us yet ''another'' one of his hidden depths, a surprisingly wholesome one this time -- at some point he got licensed as an officiant, allowing him to conduct Paul and Emma's non-denominational wedding ceremony. It's ambiguous whether he's a civil celebrant or he actually got ordained as clergy in a religion of some kind. |
| 422 | * 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.]] |
| 423 | * 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.]] |
| 424 | * 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. |
| 425 | * 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.]] |
| 426 | * 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 the first thing people hear when it comes to his character -- the song "Showstoppin' Number", where this is revealed, is the most famous part of TGWDLM and his character the BreakoutVillain, with actually making [[AscendedMeme some version]] of ''Workin' Boys'' even becoming a Kickstarter backer reward for ''Theatre/BlackFriday''. |
| 427 | * LonersAreFreaks: He has been living alone in his decaying mansion for the past several decades with only his "AI", the Alexa virtual assistant in an Amazon Echo, to keep him company for the past few years, and it hasn't done wonders for his mental health. |
| 428 | * 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.]] |
| 429 | * MadScientist: Yes, Hidgens did predict to the ''exact detail'' that this particular zombie apocalypse would happen, despite Paul's skepticism. The "mad" part gets worse after his FaceHeelTurn. |
| 430 | * MeaningfulName: Nick Lang says giving him the name "Henry Hidgens" was a purely accidental similarity to ''Film/MyFairLady'', but Jeff Blim was among the people who made the connection to Robert Manion's Rex-Harrison-esque performance. Appropriately enough, "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" finds him singing "London Bridge", hammily emphasizing the "my fair lady" lyric. |
| 431 | * 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). |
| 432 | * MoneyDumb: [[spoiler: It's a subtle joke how insanely high the amount of money he demands from Lucy to fund ''Workin' Boys'' is -- $30 million would make it the ''third most expensive show in Broadway history'', and one that's supposed to be just about a bunch of guys hanging out on a football field with no apparent need for elaborate costumes, sets, props or stuntwork. Of course, this makes him a {{Hypocrite}} for screaming at Lucy about what an "IDIOT!" she is for wasting her fortune searching for the Ape-Man; hilariously, it ''also'' implies that, given that he lives in a mansion with stables, horses, electric fences, etc. that he could've easily funded the musical himself a long time ago if he were better at budgeting. See WhereDoesHeGetAllThoseWonderfulToys]] |
| 433 | * 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). |
| 434 | ** He plays a similar role in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", in this timeline becoming an expert on [[OurCryptidsAreMoreMysterious Hatchetfield's local cryptids]] rather the alien virus invasion. [[spoiler: Except this time it's an act.]] |
| 435 | * 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 ''WebVideo/WorkinBoys'' 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''. The short film, incidentally, reveals that the main character of his musical shares his last name as well. |
| 436 | * 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.]] |
| 437 | * TheOneThatGotAway: "Time Bastard" has him start to reveal that one of the "workin' boys" from his musical, at least, apparently actually existed and was more than just an "old college chum". |
| 438 | * 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.]] |
| 439 | * PetTheDog: In "Forever & Always," he attends and officiates Paul and Emma's wedding. |
| 440 | * 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.]] |
| 441 | * PrimaDonnaDirector: As a theatre director in ''Workin' Boys'', he refuses to accept any feedback, verbally eviscerates everyone's performances, and after a month of rehearsal, his speech to his actors on opening night is a scathing declaration that he will never forgive them for butchering his material. |
| 442 | * TheProfessor: As his title implies. A bit of a subversion, in that he plays this role in the plot even though he's only a ''community college'' professor, although it's implied his relatively lowly position is because of his [[TheyCalledMeMad unconventional ideas]]. |
| 443 | * TheQuisling: Prof. Hidgens joins with the aliens due to rant against TheEvilsOfFreeWill and love of musical theatre. |
| 444 | * {{Robosexual}}: In "Time Bastard" he launches into a TooMuchInformation convo with Ted about the fact that he is one (and if a conversation repulses ''Ted'' of all people you know you're crossing the lines of common decency). PlayedForLaughs in that he's not talking about actual sapient robots he created but off-the-shelf virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri. [[spoiler: DramaticIrony in that he's totally unaware there's a ''real'' hot RobotGirl in the room with him at the time.]] |
| 445 | * RoboticSpouse: Parodied. Hidgens 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. |
| 446 | * 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. |
| 447 | * 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. |
| 448 | * SituationalSexuality: Despite being gay, he treats his "AI" as female and acts like they are in a romantic relationship. |
| 449 | * SlasherSmile: Has a pretty devastating one when he goes full AxCrazy. |
| 450 | * SmokingIsCool: Hidgens is smoking a cigarette when he comes in with a shotgun to save everyone from the assimilated Charlotte and Sam. |
| 451 | * TheyCalledMeMad: [[spoiler: Said word-for-word by Hidgens when he undergoes his VillainousBreakdown in "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" and violently turns on Lucy. It turns out that this isn't about his scientific theories this time -- he does, in fact, fully agree that the Ape-Man doesn't exist -- but his bizarre obsession with producing his crappy musical.]] |
| 452 | * ThisIsGonnaSuck: 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. |
| 453 | -->'''Hidgens''': 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)'' |
| 454 | ** [[spoiler: Gets a CallBack with him screaming "Not my arms!" just before the RealAfterAll Ape-Man rips off his arms.]] |
| 455 | * TopWife: "Time Bastard" reveals that Prof. Hidgens practices {{Polyamory}} with his "[=AIs=]"; Alexa, inside the Amazon Echo that runs his house, is his TopWife (much as the TopWife in an old-school harem would be the one running the household) while Siri in his [=iPhone=] is his mistress. |
| 456 | * VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler: Spends the entire second half of "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" in a rapidly accelerating descent of this. First, he kills Jonathan after he figures out the scam. Then he loses it further when Ted abandons the con. He finally is reduced to a psychotic rage when he learns Lucy lost the fortune he'd been desperately seeking.]] |
| 457 | * VillainsOutShopping: In "Forever & Always" and "Time Bastard," he takes a break from preparing for Armageddon and working on his musical to attend a wedding. |
| 458 | * Villain Protagonist: [[spoiler:Of WebVideo/WorkinBoys]]. |
| 459 | * WalkingSpoiler: 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. |
| 460 | * WhereDoesHeGetAllThoseWonderfulToys: Not much effort is made to explain just how Prof. Hidgens can have a fully-equipped apocalyptic redoubt -- complete with a secret lab for doing {{Alien Autops|y}}ies and vivisections -- on the salary of a community college professor. It's not ''too'' unrealistic in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' if he's been preparing for decades and spending his money on little else, but ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'''s "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" leans all the way into the absurdity, revealing that his house is an enormous [[FriendsRentControl Gothic mansion]] with horses and stables out back, containing an enormous vivarium that serves as a natural habitat for the Ape-Man, as well as God knows what else. |
| 461 | [[/folder]] |
| 462 | |
| 463 | !Main Characters of ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' |
| 464 | |
| 465 | [[folder: Lex Foster]] |
| 466 | !!Alexandra "Lex" Foster |
| 467 | !!!'''Played by:''' Angela Giarratana |
| 468 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/BlackFriday''''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E3JanesACarAndTheWitchInTheWeb "Jane's a Car"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E3JanesACarAndTheWitchInTheWeb "The Witch in the Web"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E3DaddyAndKillerTrack "Daddy"]] | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E4YellowJacket "Yellow Jacket"]]''' |
| 469 | |
| 470 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lex_foster_2.jpg]] |
| 471 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"If I don't support my drinking habit, who will?"'']] |
| 472 | |
| 473 | ->''And when the sun shines down upon me''\ |
| 474 | ''I'll know I'm righteous, babe''\ |
| 475 | ''In this time of crisis, babe''\ |
| 476 | ''And when the sun shines down over Cali''\ |
| 477 | ''Our future’s priceless, babe''\ |
| 478 | ''The past's a virus, babe'' |
| 479 | |
| 480 | A high school dropout who recently turned 18. Works at Toy Zone, the big toy store in Hatchetfield, and is a notorious delinquent, in and out of juvenile detention in part due to taking the fall for her mother's misdemeanors. |
| 481 | ---- |
| 482 | * 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]]]]. |
| 483 | ** Happens again in "Yellow Jacket" [[spoiler:when Webby helps her remember her power, using it to summon the remote control for Otho's ExplosiveLeash into her hand in order to kill him.]] |
| 484 | * 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. |
| 485 | * 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. |
| 486 | * AmbiguousCriminalHistory: Frank says she has "a record"; it's not specified for what in the story, but side materials say it's from her supplementing her income by dealing weed on the side. In "The Witch in the Web" the fact that she has a previous conviction for drug offenses is why she gets double Ethan's sentence for selling her mom's pills. |
| 487 | * 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. |
| 488 | * 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. |
| 489 | * TheCaper: Her arc revolves around a plan to steal a Wiggly from her place of employment and sell it online. |
| 490 | * ChildrenRaiseYou: A sibling variant. In the TitleTrack of ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', 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. |
| 491 | * 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". |
| 492 | * ConformingOOCMoment: Despite her immunity to Wiggly's manipulations being a major plot point, she participates in the choreography of "Feast or Famine"; most notably during the bridge where she's part of the mob circling Frank in an attempt to steal a Tickle-Me-Wiggly. |
| 493 | * CoolBigSis: To Hannah. |
| 494 | * {{Delinquent}}: Plans to rob her workplace in order to, legally speaking, kidnap her sister from her mom. But she means well. |
| 495 | * DeadpanSnarker: In a resentful snark-off between her and Emma from TGWDLM she'd win handily. |
| 496 | * DearJohnLetter: |
| 497 | ** Leaves a ''blisteringly'' harsh parent/child version of one to her mom at the end of "[=CaliforMIA=]". |
| 498 | ** [[spoiler:Leaves a more straightforward, heartbreaking one to Ethan at the end of "Yellow Jacket".]] |
| 499 | * 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. |
| 500 | * 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. |
| 501 | * FreakOut: She has a pretty big one in "Jane's a Car" when she accidentally almost ''kills'' her boyfriend Ethan by making an incredibly irresponsible mistake and shifting the car they were working on into gear right before he wanted her to test the engine by gunning it. [[spoiler: She ''didn't'' -- this was Jane's ghost in the car setting her up as a {{scapegoat}}, the first of Jane's many callous cruelties.]] |
| 502 | * 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. |
| 503 | * HardcorePunk: "[=CaliforMIA=]" is a song in this style, reflecting both Lex's personality and her West Coast dreams. |
| 504 | * 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. |
| 505 | -->'''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 -- 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? |
| 506 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: For all the tropes on this page painting her as a delinquent and thief, her main motivation is trying to get away to provide a better life for her younger sister. |
| 507 | * MoneyDumb: There's some intentional BlackComedy in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' with Ethan and Lex celebrating the $7,000 from the sale of the Wiggly doll as though it were a huge amount of money. (It's a huge amount of money to pay for ''one doll'', yes, but for them to dance around screaming "We're set! We're set!" as though it's enough money to ''move to Los Angeles'' with no job prospects is... [[ThePollyanna very optimistic]].) A rejected script for ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' called "Ethan Doesn't Die" would've confirmed this, showing a timeline where they go on the run with Hannah and, thanks to their poor budgeting skills, start running out of money within the first week. |
| 508 | * 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. |
| 509 | * OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Her given name, Alexandra, is only used once, when Frank is chewing her out. |
| 510 | * ThePromisedLand: As is traditional in stories like this, she sees Los Angeles as one. |
| 511 | * 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. WordOfGod has revealed that this goes as far back as the day Hannah was born: five-year-old Lex was the one who ''delivered'' her due to Pamela's refusal to ever get medical care. |
| 512 | * 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.) |
| 513 | * PutOnABus: She and Ethan are mysteriously absent from "The Witch in the Web", leading many to worry that she'd abandoned Hannah to run off to California without her. It turns out she was put on a ''prison'' bus and is currently doing four years of hard time for dealing drugs -- a fall her mom set her up for. We're then meant to think TheBusCameBack and she was magically released from prison to come take care of Hannah from now on. [[spoiler: It's pretty obvious that no such thing has happened and this is the Witch wearing Lex's identity to try to gain Hannah's trust.]] |
| 514 | * 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 Nick Lang 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]]. Her CharacterDevelopment is later when she comes to him, as the Wiggly has brainwashed him, and apologizes for how his life went down the drain. Lex says that she needs his help and knows that he's a good man. |
| 515 | * TheRunaway: Plans to become one, along with Ethan Green and her sister Hannah. |
| 516 | * SirSwearsALot: There is a ''lot'' of cursing in the works of Starkid in general and Hatchetfield is no exception, but Lex especially is prone to it, particuarly when she's upset or excited. |
| 517 | * SoulSuckingRetailJob: Working at Toy Zone is implied to be this at the best of times -- and Black Friday is the ''very worst'' of times. |
| 518 | * 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. |
| 519 | * SummonMagic: Lex is able to use her powers at a critical moment to save her life by summoning [[spoiler: [=MacNamara=]'s gun in "Black Friday", and the remote control for Otho's ExplosiveLeash in "Yellow Jacket"]]. This appears to be the very specific manifestation of her "touch of the Gift". |
| 520 | * TakingTheHeat: In "The Witch in the Web" we learn that it was Lex's mom Pamela who put her and Ethan up to trying to sell her painkillers on the black market, and that she initially told the truth about this to Duke, only to resolutely deny everything when put on the witness stand. Apparently she was terrified of both her and Pamela ending up in prison and Hannah being left to go into the foster system, reasoning that as awful as being left alone with Pamela is it's the Devil Hannah knows. |
| 521 | * TomboyishName: "Lex", short for Alexandra. |
| 522 | * 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.]] |
| 523 | * TroubledTeen: Lex Foster is barely eighteen, and she's already developed a smoking habit, drinks, has dropped out of high school, and dislikes and distrusts all adults automatically. Given that her mother is an AlcoholicParent, her boss is a slimy creep, and the one teacher that seemed to believe in her quit his job recently, it's understandable. She does manage to hold down a SoulSuckingRetailJob, but it's solely so she can save money to run away to California with her boyfriend and her [[PromotionToParent little sister]] to become an actress. When the show begins, she's scheming to steal a hot-ticket item from the toy store she works at so she and her boyfriend can fund their trip by auctioning it off online for far more than it's worth. |
| 524 | * 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.]] |
| 525 | [[/folder]] |
| 526 | |
| 527 | [[folder: Hannah Foster]] |
| 528 | !!Hannah Foster |
| 529 | !!!'''Played by:''' Kendall Nicole (2019-2020) | Creator/LaurenLopez (2021) |
| 530 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/BlackFriday''''' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E3JanesACarAndTheWitchInTheWeb "The Witch in the Web"]]''' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E4YellowJacket "Yellow Jacket"]]''' |
| 531 | |
| 532 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hf_hannah_foster_new.png]] |
| 533 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"It's only black in my dreams. In Nightmare Time. Is this Nightmare Time too?"'']] |
| 534 | [[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see Hannah as played by Lauren Lopez]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nmt_lauren_as_hannah.png[[/labelnote]]]] |
| 535 | |
| 536 | ->''What if tomorrow comes''\ |
| 537 | ''To break the dawn''\ |
| 538 | ''And take the night''\ |
| 539 | ''Away?'' |
| 540 | |
| 541 | Lex's 13-year-old sister. Noted to be odd and disturbed, Lex insists she is simply "creative". In truth, Hannah is haunted by apocalyptic visions which hint at her potential for greater power. |
| 542 | ---- |
| 543 | * 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!" |
| 544 | * ApocalypseMaiden: Hannah turns out to be so powerful that if some evil entity were able to co-opt her power -- most notably, if Willabella Muckwab's spirit were able to possess and merge with her -- that would be enough to end the world right then and there. What this means, though, is that if she is able to learn to fully control her powers and use them for good... she could ''save'' the world, not just in one timeline but across all of them. |
| 545 | * BeYourself: The ending and {{aesop}} of "The Witch in the Web" -- she comes to realize that Willabella Muckwab is only a ghost, with hardly any actual power compared to a living person, and that ''she'' is sovereign in her own mind and her power belongs to her, and no one has the authority to make her believe she's anyone other than herself or to make her do anything she doesn't consent to. |
| 546 | * 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. |
| 547 | -->'''Ethan''': Do you believe that, no matter how bad it looks right now, things will get better?\ |
| 548 | '''Hannah''': Not better. Badder. ''Much'' badder.\ |
| 549 | '''Ethan''': Hey, what's with that grammar, huh? Even I know it's "more bad". |
| 550 | * ChildProdigy: Miss Holloway in "The Witch in the Web" is an immensely experienced and talented HotWitch who's probably much [[OlderThanTheyLook older than she looks]] -- and she directly tells Hannah that her power can't hold a candle to what Hannah can do. [[spoiler: Uncle Wiley's LivingMemory ghost is, true to his name, wily enough that Miss Holloway can barely fight him off even though it's ''her own mind'' where in theory her power is sovereign -- but when Hannah realizes Miss Holloway might actually die she manages to ''annihilate'' Wiley with a single blast of uncotrolled power.]] |
| 551 | * 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.]] |
| 552 | * TheChosenOne: "The Witch in the Web" reveals that Hannah is the "most powerful psychic mind to ever exist", and control over her mind and her powers is the key to determining the ultimate fate of the world -- across ''all'' timelines. It's a lot of weight for a 14-year-old girl to bear. |
| 553 | * DreamWeaver: Her powers may not seem that useful in the physical waking world, but "The Witch in the Web" reveals that in the DreamLand known alternately as "Drowsy Town" or "Nightmare Time", she's very close to being TheOmnipotent, able to create or destroy at will -- and it's only because [[PowerIncontinence she hasn't yet learned to control her power]] that she's vulnerable. |
| 554 | * 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.) |
| 555 | * EyesOutOfSight: She conspicuously has to shove her bangs out of her eyes multiple times during her dancing in [="CaliforMIA"=]. Her long bangs connote her shyness and introversion, as well as not being that great at grooming herself. By the time period of "The Witch in the Web", they're long enough that she can wear them swept to the side and they don't get in her eyes anymore, which seems symbolic of how this version of Hannah is [[CharacterDevelopment a great deal more lucid and in control of herself]] than she used to be. |
| 556 | * FamilialBodySnatcher: The ghost of Willabella Muckwab has been waiting for centuries for one of her descendants to be powerful enough to make a fitting host so she can reincarnate physically and resume her EvilPlan to destroy the world. Finally, in the year 2005, Hannah Foster emerged as her ChosenOne. |
| 557 | * FinalGirl: Miss Holloway and Duke aren't killed in "The Witch in the Web", but they are neutralized so Hannah has no choice but to face down the BigBad alone. The ending implies Hannah is being set up as one of sorts for the whole Hatchetfield multiverse. |
| 558 | * FlashSideways: [[spoiler: Uncle Wiley]] reveals in "The Witch in the Web" that Hannah, alone among living humans, is aware of the existence of {{Alternate Timeline}}s and able to see into them -- indeed, that her birth was somehow the ''cause'' of {{Alternate Timeline}}s existing in this setting. (Possibly due to some [[ArtisticLicensePhysics vague invocation of the observer effect in quantum physics]].) Of course, she's not ''aware'' that she's aware of this -- she doesn't know what he's talking about when he says it, she just knows that she gets constant flashes of DejaVu and the like that she can't explain. |
| 559 | * FromTheMouthsOfBabes: She provides some unexpected comic relief near the end of ''Black Friday'', when she channels [=MacNamara=] (probably not literally) and condescendingly tells Paul he would wear a watch. |
| 560 | * HarmfulToMinors: 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. |
| 561 | ** She goes through a lot worse in "The Witch in the Web", and it's intentional -- Willabella's whole strategy is to traumatize her so badly in her nightmares while she's still a child and can't handle it that she'll give up and withdraw into "Drowsy Town", letting Willabella take over her body and identity. |
| 562 | * 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. |
| 563 | * 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 a NotSoImaginaryFriend, a benign entity from the Black and White in opposition to Wiggly. The reality of Webby's existence is made plain in "The Witch in the Web". |
| 564 | * ImprobableWeaponUser: [[spoiler: When Hannah reclaims her power in "The Witch in the Web", she grabs her white ukulele and starts smashing everything around her with it. Since the ukulele is a symbol of her own power over her own mind and soul, and everything around her is a parasitic illusion made by Willabella hijacking her mind, the ukulele smashes through Willabella's dreamscape with the force of a sledgehammer without being [[MadeOfIndestructium even scratched by the impact]].]] |
| 565 | * KiddieKid: Hannah is 13 years old, but her mental issues make her come across as much younger. This was ''very'' pronounced in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', with Lex talking to Hannah slowly and carefully the way you would with a five-year-old; in "The Witch in the Web", where she's a year older and not in such an immediately traumatic situation, she's a good deal more lucid. In "Yellow Jacket", Hannah is a high school freshman and, having a relatively stable home life with Lex and Ethan at the start of the story, acts significantly closer to her actual age. |
| 566 | * KiddyCoveralls: She wears these in Black Friday, reflecting her childish demeanor. |
| 567 | * LittleMissSnarker: Her one moment of true lucidity in ''Black Friday'' has her retort to Paul that if he wants to know what time it is, [[CallBack he should wear a watch]]. "Yellow Jacket" displays that this wasn't a fluke, and when in a relatively calm and mundane situation in comparison to her first two appearances, she takes no bullshit. |
| 568 | * MadOracle: |
| 569 | ** In ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' 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. |
| 570 | ** She's gained a certain degree of lucidity a year later in "The Witch in the Web", and Miss Holloway reveals to us that because she [[ItMakesSenseInContext has some idea of what Hannah's talking about already]] she's able to hold a meaningful conversation with her much more easily than anyone else has. |
| 571 | * 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.]] |
| 572 | ** [[spoiler: The {{Reveal}} in "The Witch in the Web" goes both ways -- the baseball cap is more significant than Ethan just making up a story on the spot to placate Hannah, and it really is a token Miss Holloway gives the children she helps that really may have some kind of magic on it. That said, the plot of "The Witch in the Web" makes it very clear that Hannah's ''own'' power is far greater than anything Miss Holloway can do -- if Miss Holloway's magic hat were ''actually'' able to protect her from all harm she'd have been in no danger from Uncle Wiley or any of the other threats they faced -- and the hat's main purpose really is to remind Hannah of her own power, in classic MagicFeather fashion.]] |
| 573 | * MagicMusic: The technique Webby teaches her to hold Willabella Muckwab's nightmares at bay and maintain her connection to her is to play and sing songs on her ukulele. It's when her mom gets mad at being kept up at all hours by her playing and takes her ukulele away that Nightmare Time begins encroaching on her mind in earnest. [[spoiler: Reclaiming the ukulele in the SpiritWorld is how she's able to reassert control over her own mind and fight off Willabella's control once and for all.]] |
| 574 | * 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. |
| 575 | * PastLifeMemories: In "The Witch in the Web" Willabella Muckwab constantly attacks Hannah with her own memories, to try to browbeat Hannah into believing that she's Willabella's reincarnation and accept that Willabella is her true identity (allowing her ghost to finally possess her). The most intense of these memories, intended to finish the job, is making Hannah live through Willabella's memory of her own execution. |
| 576 | * PersonalDictionary: It turns out a lot of the childish or strange language the Hatchetfield series uses for its supernatural phenomena comes from Hannah's own idiosyncratic vocabulary she uses for them -- making it understandable that they'd be odd phrasings, since she was a little kid with no one else to talk to about it who'd believe her when she started coming in contact with them. Words that originate from her seem to include: |
| 577 | ** "Webby" as the name for the BigGood of the setting who manifests as a spider totem and who's bound Willabella Muckwab's ghost in a psychic web. |
| 578 | ** "Tree-People" for the spirits trapped in the Witchwood used to form this web; possibly "Hatchetmen", which she clarifies as [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment "men with hatchets"]], for the AncientConspiracy that put them there. |
| 579 | ** "[[TitleDrop Nightmare Time]]" for recurring, lucid nightmares caused by incursions of Willabella Muckwab's spirit into her personal DreamLand that open up her awareness to the larger SpiritWorld. Miss Holloway seems to be aware that "everyone has a Nightmare Time" and that one's worst fears and deepest traumas aren't mere memories in one's subconscious but actually exist in the SpiritWorld in a form that the Lords in Black can exploit. |
| 580 | * PlaguedByNightmares: "Nightmare Time" turns out to be ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin -- as Hannah progresses through puberty and she rapidly loses her external sources of emotional support, the ghost of Willabella Muckwab reaches out to try to seize control of her powers before she comes into adulthood. This takes the form of relentless psychic assaults in her sleep, ravaging her with terrible nightmares that try to merge her consciousness with Willabella's and convince her the two of them are one. |
| 581 | * PluckyGirl: All the more awesome since Hannah spends most of her screentime with a visibly terrified expression. She's trapped in a mall with Wiggly cultists and the last doll trying to convince her to give into despair. What does she do? Refuse to do so, because Ethan told her to always believe in a better future. What's more, she refuses to tell Linda that Tom stole the Wiggly doll, giving her a steely KubrickStare. |
| 582 | * PowerIncontinence: As of yet, she can't control her powers, and when she's experiencing strong emotions like fear they go out of control in a way that's directly dangerous to her (hence the Witch in the Web's whole strategy of using her own "Nightmare Time" against her). [[spoiler: Uncle Wiley brags about how just a tiny bit of leaked psychic energy -- "barely a toot" -- was enough to resurrect him inside Miss Holloway's mind, which was [[FromBadToWorse just about the worst thing]] that could've happened to Miss Holloway and Hannah at that point.]] |
| 583 | * 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.]] |
| 584 | * QuirkyUkulele: She plays MagicMusic to keep her nightmares at bay, and her instrument of choice is the ukulele, though her quirkiness is far more played for drama than most examples. |
| 585 | * RippleEffectProofMemory: "The Witch in the Web" reveals that the reason she's so stressed and incoherent all the time is that she remembers every AlternateTimeline in the Hatchetfield multiverse simultaneously; some tutoring from Webby, and later Miss Holloway, allow for at least ''that'' timeline's Hannah a degree of control over this so that she may better interact with her surroundings. |
| 586 | * ScreamingWoman: Kendall Nicole spends a ''lot'' of time screaming while playing Hannah in "The Witch in the Web" -- ''[[TitleDrop Nightmare Time]]'' really ends up living up to its name in this story. |
| 587 | * SignatureInstrument: Her white ukulele that Lex bought her as a present. It is notably ''not'' the same as the black ukulele that Willabella Muckwab replaces it with while she's in Nightmare Time, to deny her access to her power and Webby's songs. It's a deeply disturbing moment when [[OrWasItADream Willabella's influence reaches into the real world for the first time to turn Hannah's real ukulele black]]. [[spoiler: The big WhamLine moment when she reclaims her power in Nightmare Time is that Willabella took away Hannah's power in the real world by ''switching'' the two instruments, which means that when she reclaims her power over her own mind in Nightmare Time she finds the white ukuklele was [[ItWasWithYouAllAlong with her all along]].]] |
| 588 | * TomboyishBaseballCap: Complete with the tomboyish [[GirlishPigtails braided pigtails]], although she doesn't start out with it -- it's a gift from Ethan. [[spoiler: In the ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' timeline, she instead gets the baseball cap from Miss Holloway directly.]] |
| 589 | * VillainousLineage: Is descended matrilineally ("the daughter of my daughter's daughter's daughter...") from Willabella Muckwab, the first worshiper of Wiggog Y'Wrath and the Lords in Black, author of the Black Book, and greatest and most WickedWitch to ever have lived. Her powers seem to indicate that she's Willabella's reincarnation, or that it's her destiny to be RaisedAsAHost for Willabella's inevitable return. This is a lie Willabella's ghost is trying to get her to believe and that she eventually [[BeYourself heroically overcomes]]. |
| 590 | * WaifProphet: She fits this profile pretty much exactly. |
| 591 | * 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. |
| 592 | * YourMindMakesItReal: Miss Holloway tries to explain to Hannah in "The Witch in the Web" that, yes, it is very possible for her to die in "Nightmare Time" if she fully succumbs to her fears -- but this is ''her power'' making it possible, not Willabella Muckwab's, and all Willabella can actually do is manipulate her and turn her own mind against her. When she is in full control of her mind, ''nothing'' can harm her inside her own Nightmare Time, [[spoiler: symbolized by her reclaiming Webby's ukulele]]. |
| 593 | [[/folder]] |
| 594 | |
| 595 | [[folder: Becky Barnes]] |
| 596 | !!Rebecca "Becky" Barnes |
| 597 | !!!'''Played by:''' Kim Whalen |
| 598 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/BlackFriday''''' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E3JanesACarAndTheWitchInTheWeb "Jane's a Car"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E3DaddyAndKillerTrack "Daddy"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E4YellowJacket "Yellow Jacket"]] |
| 599 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E1TheHatchetfieldApeManAndWatcherWorld "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"]] |
| 600 | |
| 601 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hf_becky_barnes_new.png]] |
| 602 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"That's called a bribe, sir, and it's illegal. Or it should be."'']] |
| 603 | |
| 604 | ->''Take me back in time to love you''\ |
| 605 | ''Hold me closer than before''\ |
| 606 | ''Heal my heart and mend what's broken''\ |
| 607 | ''To feel you once more'' |
| 608 | |
| 609 | A nurse who works in the pediatric wing of St. Damien's Hospital downtown. In her early 30s and divorced. Having chanced to encounter her recently widowed high school sweetheart Tom Houston, the two have rekindled their relationship. |
| 610 | ---- |
| 611 | * 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. |
| 612 | * 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. |
| 613 | * AllLovingHero: Her reputation in Hatchetfield, and why people like Linda find her a cloying hypocrite. It's poked fun at in "Jane's a Car", where she comments while playing a LightGunGame with Tim that she'd rather try to find a way to save the zombies from their condition than kill them. [[spoiler: Of course, people like Linda who assume this means she's an ActualPacifist with no stomach for violence are very dangerously wrong.]] |
| 614 | * AlliterativeName: Which seems to play into how people refer to her on a FullNameBasis. |
| 615 | * 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.]] |
| 616 | -->'''Becky''': It's funny. Stanley's the one that made me go to nursing school... [[spoiler:that's why I knew where his femoral artery was.]] |
| 617 | * 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.]] |
| 618 | * 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. |
| 619 | * CannotSpitItOut: Becky and Tom's initial reunion is filled with extremely tense silences. "What Do You Say?" indeed. |
| 620 | * 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]].]] |
| 621 | * 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, SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs -- the only reason anyone else objects to him taking the bribe is they'd rather they were the ones being bribed. |
| 622 | * 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.]] |
| 623 | * 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.]] |
| 624 | * 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]].]] |
| 625 | * EveryoneHasStandards: Tom and Becky are under Wiggly's spell like the rest of the customers in the toy store, but they're shocked at the violence displayed by the other shoppers during "Feast or Famine". [[spoiler: This, along with the fact that Becky and Tom never join the Lakeside Mall Cult are [[{{Foreshadowing}} indications]] that they're more resistant to Wiggly's influence than the rest of the shoppers (though not immune to it).]] |
| 626 | * 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]].]] |
| 627 | * 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. |
| 628 | * 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. |
| 629 | * FirstGirlWins: She and Tom end up back with each other, their FirstLove, in the aftermath of her disastrous marriage and his widowhood. |
| 630 | * FirstLove: Tom Houston, and it turns out her unconscious hope of seeing him again was what kept her going through her marriage. |
| 631 | * FlorenceNightingaleEffect: Dragging Tom to safety and dressing his wound is definitely this for Becky, although he was already her OldFlame. |
| 632 | * {{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.]] |
| 633 | * FreudianSlip: When she sees Tom Houston she inadvertently introduces herself as "Becky Houston". |
| 634 | * FriendToAllChildren: Does not have kids herself, and sees her patients at the hospital as her family. "Jane's a Car" reveals she's pretty good with Tim, too. |
| 635 | * FullNameBasis: Pretty much everyone calls her "Becky Barnes", probably because as an AlliterativeName it rolls off the tongue (like "ComicBook/BuckyBarnes"). Just for clarity's sake, Nick Lang confirmed for everyone that this isn't technically her full name because her legal first name is in fact "Rebecca", and she does in fact have an (unrevealed) middle name. |
| 636 | * 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. |
| 637 | * GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler: Jane's eventual EvilPlan in "Jane's a Car" is to do this to Becky. [[TheBadGuyWins Tragically, she succeeds]].]] |
| 638 | * HighSchoolSweethearts: Becky and Tom were this, although their story didn't work out as neatly as the storybook version of this trope. |
| 639 | * 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. |
| 640 | * 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.]] |
| 641 | * 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.]] |
| 642 | * 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. |
| 643 | * {{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.]] |
| 644 | * IronicDeath: [[spoiler: Her backstory had her kill her husband after he tried to prevent her from getting close to Tom again. "Jane's a Car" has her achieving her dream of finally reconnecting with Tom, her OneTrueLove... only for him to -- from her perspective -- attack and kill her in the same place she killed Stanley.]] |
| 645 | * 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]]. |
| 646 | * 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. |
| 647 | * TheMaidenNameDebate: Becky never changed her name after marrying Stanley. This is notable because when she meets her FirstLove Tom Houston again in "What Do You Say?", she makes the FreudianSlip of introducing herself as "Becky Houston". |
| 648 | * MythologyGag: The anecdote about Becky Barnes being stuck up a tree for two whole days seems to originate from the original [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUEAWM_AOXs fundraiser livestream]] for ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', where -- because no one knew anything about the character of Becky yet -- people were spitballing about her being the star of a clichéd cutesy slice-of-life story about a PluckyGirl growing up in {{Oireland}}. |
| 649 | * 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.]] |
| 650 | * NoodleIncident: She climbed a tree once when she was a little girl, and stayed there for two days. The audience has never been told why or how this happened, 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 "bit of Hatchetfield lore". The Langs have said this will be explained in a future story that focuses on Becky's past. |
| 651 | * NotSoAboveItAll: As kindly as Becky is, she has no patience for having to treat 41-year-old Sherman Young for having bitten into the cereal parts of a marshmallow cereal, and gets in on the act of reminding Sheila that he's a "grown-ass man". |
| 652 | * OldFlame: Her relationship with Tom. |
| 653 | * 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. |
| 654 | * 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. |
| 655 | * 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.) |
| 656 | * 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. |
| 657 | * 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.]]]] |
| 658 | * 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. |
| 659 | [[/folder]] |
| 660 | |
| 661 | [[folder: Tom Houston]] |
| 662 | !!Tom Houston |
| 663 | !!!'''Played by:''' Creator/DylanSaunders | Creator/JeffBlim[[note]]impromptu understudy in one performance of ''Black Friday''[[/note]] |
| 664 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/BlackFriday''''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Forever & Always"]] | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E2ForeverAndAlwaysAndTimeBastard "Time Bastard"]] | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E3JanesACarAndTheWitchInTheWeb "Jane's a Car"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E4YellowJacket "Yellow Jacket"]] |
| 665 | |
| 666 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tom_houston.png]] |
| 667 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I do not get flashbacks. I remember bad things vividly."'']] |
| 668 | |
| 669 | ->''What Tim wants, Tim will get''\ |
| 670 | ''Anything that he wants, he can have it''\ |
| 671 | ''All I need is some time''\ |
| 672 | ''All I need is a break from the madness'' |
| 673 | |
| 674 | Emma's brother-in-law, suffering PTSD from both his two tours in Iraq as a U.S. Marine and the more recent car crash that claimed the life of his wife Jane. With help from Emma and his old flame Becky Barnes, he is working to reconnect with his son Tim. |
| 675 | ---- |
| 676 | * 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 getting it on with Becky in real life. |
| 677 | * 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. |
| 678 | * 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. |
| 679 | * 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. |
| 680 | * 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 [[OnlySaneMan 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.) |
| 681 | * CannotSpitItOut: Becky and Tom's initial reunion is filled with extremely tense silences. "What Do You Say?" indeed. |
| 682 | ** 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 UsefulNotes/{{Trigger}}. |
| 683 | * 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). |
| 684 | * CoolTeacher: Tom ''used'' to be this for Lex -- his job was teaching ShopClass 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. In "Yellow Jacket" he's back in shop class and teaching Hannah. |
| 685 | * {{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. |
| 686 | * 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]]. |
| 687 | * DrivenToMadness: [[spoiler: "Jane's a Car" ends with a ''massive'' downer ending where Tom has finally gone completely insane, having to live with the knowledge that, with him unable to stop the car running over Becky and then totaling itself again against a tree, he's once more watched one or both of the women he loves horribly killed.]] |
| 688 | * 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. His "Jane's a Car" incarnation also goes through it, facing himself in the mirror and demanding himself to be better. Regrettably, [[spoiler:the ghost of the wife he's just decided to move past starts haunting him immediately after]]. |
| 689 | * EveryoneHasStandards: Tom and Becky are under Wiggly's spell like the rest of the customers in the toy store, but they're shocked at the violence displayed by the other shoppers during "Feast or Famine". [[spoiler: This, along with the fact that Becky and Tom never join the Lakeside Mall Cult are [[{{Foreshadowing}} indications]] that they're more resistant to Wiggly's influence than the rest of the shoppers (though not immune to it).]] |
| 690 | * 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. |
| 691 | * FamilyThemeNaming: Mildly. Tom's son's name is Tim. |
| 692 | * 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. |
| 693 | * ForcedIntoEvil: His slipping under Wiggly's influence until he WouldHurtAChild is one form of this trope. [[spoiler: "Jane's a Car" is a much worse version, where he's fully conscious that what he's doing is wrong but Jane's manipulation and browbeating backs him into a corner where he feels he ''has no choice'' but to eventually give in to her demands that he commit murder so she can pull a GrandTheftMe. The stress of this internal conflict rapidly [[DrivenToMadness destroying his once-recovering mental health]] is very hard to watch.]] |
| 694 | * GloryDays: As with Becky, he seems to have peaked in high school. |
| 695 | * 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. |
| 696 | * HandyMan: In better times, Tom was one of these -- he owns a wide selection of tools and brags "There's nothing I can't fix", and ended up getting a job teaching ShopClass because of it. |
| 697 | * HasAType: If Becky and Jane are anything to go off of, Tom likes his women smart, outgoing, emotionally intelligent, and possessing [[BewareTheNiceOnes more of an edge than one would initially guess]]. Incidentally, both women are also in the medical field; Becky's a nurse in the children's ward at St. Damien's, while Jane was a psychologist there. |
| 698 | * 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".]] |
| 699 | * 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. |
| 700 | * HesBack: When he finally comes to his epiphany at the end of "If I Fail You". |
| 701 | * HighSchoolSweethearts: Becky and Tom were this, although their story didn't work out as neatly as the storybook version of this trope. |
| 702 | * 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.]] |
| 703 | * 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. |
| 704 | * InVinoVeritas: "If I Fail You" tells us that Jane took Tom out to bars a lot during their relationship because he'd only really open up to her emotionally when he was drunk. |
| 705 | * 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. |
| 706 | ** 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"). |
| 707 | * 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. |
| 708 | * 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. |
| 709 | * LovableJock: Or, at least, was beloved by the members of the GreekChorus he went to high school with. |
| 710 | * 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/PointBreak1991'', who was himself named for Joe Montana. |
| 711 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: According to "What Tim Wants", his reaction right after the car accident. |
| 712 | * 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 pulls a knife. |
| 713 | * 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 -- either [[ICanStillFight kind]]. |
| 714 | * 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. |
| 715 | * 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.]] |
| 716 | * 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.]] |
| 717 | * 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!" |
| 718 | * TheQuarterback: Tom used to be one, in the kind of town where it automatically made him the BigManOnCampus. |
| 719 | * ReluctantPsycho: [[spoiler: He spends much of "Jane's a Car" [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane wrestling with whether he's becoming one]].]] |
| 720 | * SanitySlippage: [[spoiler: He gets it pretty bad in "Jane's a Car", until unfortunately when he finally decides to reach out to Becky and tell her what's going on with him he's in full YouHaveToBelieveMe mode.]] |
| 721 | * SecretKeeper: [[spoiler: "Jane's a Car" is a pretty harsh look at the SanitySlippage that comes from having to bear the burden of this role.]] |
| 722 | %% * ScrapHeapHero: Tom is one long and painful exploration of this trope. |
| 723 | * 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 UsefulNotes/{{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. |
| 724 | * TheShowMustGoOn: This happened to Creator/DylanSaunders for the second time in Starkid history, after the incident where [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]] had to go onstage for Creator/LaurenLopez noted in Emma Perkins' character sheet above. ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' was a bumpy production where the whole cast was beset by a mystery illness during the run of the show, and one night Dylan was feeling too unwell to go onstage at all, meaning Tom Houston had to be covered by another member of the cast. Notably, unlike the role of Emma in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', Tom has two solo songs and two duets with Becky, which meant the only person who knew the songs well enough to replace him was songwriter Creator/JeffBlim. While Nick playing Emma was the more memorable (and memeable) replacement due to the CrossCastRole aspect, Jeff playing Tom was arguably a much greater feat, especially since it required quickly rewriting all the scenes where Tom is onstage at the same time as the Man in a Hurry (including being stabbed by him) and Jeff having to also play the major role of Gen. [=MacNamara=], carrying ''six'' songs in one performance. (Thank goodness [=MacNamara=] and Tom never meet! We do have to wonder what those quickchanges were like...) |
| 725 | * SourOutsideSadInside: Tom can be an abrasive jerk sometimes, but it's mostly due to being deeply traumatized, both due to his experiences as a veteran, and the sudden death of his wife. When he's in a better place emotionally, he's actually a nice guy. |
| 726 | * 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. |
| 727 | * 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. |
| 728 | * TraumaButton: The songs "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. |
| 729 | -->'''Tom''': I do ''not'' get flashbacks. [[InsistentTerminology I remember bad things vividly.]] |
| 730 | ** [[spoiler: The ending of "Jane's a Car", with Jane running over Becky and then slamming into a tree while he desperately tries and fails to stop her, ''slams'' this TraumaButton hard enough to break the console. [[DrivenToMadness Possibly permanently.]]]] |
| 731 | * TraumaCongaLine: |
| 732 | ** A ''lot'' of bad things have happened to him in his life when we first meet him in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' -- sadly, none of them are particularly unusual bad things, but his PTSD from the war followed by his wife's tragic death were a pretty harsh one-two punch that left him barely standing. The events of Black Friday chew him up a lot more, until you can really feel it when he snaps at Lex "I've had a ''shitty'' day, and I'd like to go home." |
| 733 | ** [[spoiler: "Jane's a Car" gives us a HopeSpot of a timeline where ''Black Friday'' didn't happen and Tom is starting to put his life back together... only for Jane's return [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the car]] to immediately send it all crumbling and take things rapidly FromBadToWorse until poor Tom is completely DrivenToMadness.]] |
| 734 | * 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. |
| 735 | * WeightWoe: The other shoppers are quick to snipe at him for having gained a few pounds since high school. |
| 736 | * 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''. |
| 737 | [[/folder]] |
| 738 | |
| 739 | [[folder: Linda Monroe]] |
| 740 | !!Linda Monroe (née Murray) |
| 741 | !!!'''Played by:''' Creator/LaurenLopez |
| 742 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/BlackFriday''''' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E1HoneyQueen "Honey Queen"]]''' | ''WebVideo/WorkinBoys'' |
| 743 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E3JanesACarAndTheWitchInTheWeb "Jane's a Car"]] | ''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie'' |
| 744 | |
| 745 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linda_monroe_2.jpg]] |
| 746 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I hope you don't get a Wiggly. I hope you fucking die."'']] |
| 747 | |
| 748 | ->''I demand your love and worship too''\ |
| 749 | ''If I don't get it I will end you''\ |
| 750 | '''Cause I will be adored'' |
| 751 | |
| 752 | A well-known local millionaire and president of the Hatchetfield Boating Society. Most notable for her stint as the prophet of the Cult of Wiggly. |
| 753 | ---- |
| 754 | * 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". |
| 755 | * AllTakeAndNoGive: Once Uncle Wiley fully inducts her into the ReligionOfEvil, she's completely open about this being her ideal for all her relationships. |
| 756 | * 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. |
| 757 | * AmbiguouslyJewish: She uses the Yiddish word ''mensch'' to describe herself in "Adore Me" (and Creator/LaurenLopez is Jewish in RealLife). |
| 758 | * ArbitrarySkepticism: Her reaction to Hannah's "[[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane magic hat]]": |
| 759 | -->'''Hannah''': ''(eyes clenched shut)'' Magic hat! Nothing can hurt me!\ |
| 760 | '''Linda''': ''(laughs)'' You little fool. You think this is going to protect you? A magic hat? That's ridiculous! Only dolls are magic! |
| 761 | * 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. |
| 762 | * BitchAlert: See EstablishingCharacterMoment below. |
| 763 | * BlackAndGrayMorality: The gray to Zoey's black in "Honey Queen", allowing Linda, a loathsome villain in ''Black Friday'', to take the role of protagonist. While Linda swindles and blackmails her way to the top, she has affection for ''some'' of her family members and relatable insecurities; Zoey, meanwhile, is a self-aggrandizing sociopath who uses her family and friends as a means to an end. [[spoiler:When Linda {{blackmail}}s Zoey by threatening to reveal her promiscuous ways to her well-respected grandmother Mima, Zoey's response is to murder Mima for the inheritance money, having already betrayed her brother Zach out of his share.]] |
| 764 | * 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. |
| 765 | * 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 up to eleven 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. |
| 766 | * 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. |
| 767 | * 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. |
| 768 | * 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. |
| 769 | * 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". |
| 770 | * 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. |
| 771 | * 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''.) |
| 772 | * 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. |
| 773 | * 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. |
| 774 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: In ''Nightmare Time 2'', it becomes apparent that she truly loves her youngest son River and her husband Gerald, even leaving a heartfelt voicemail where she admits that though she hasn't said it recently, she really does love him, which is made heartbreaking because [[spoiler: she is not aware he has been killed]]. |
| 775 | * EvilGenius: Linda is both ''very'' intelligent and very deliberately cruel. |
| 776 | * EvilGloating: One of her favorite hobbies, crossing over with BreakingSpeech. |
| 777 | * 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]]". |
| 778 | * 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 blonde 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]]. |
| 779 | * FetishizedAbuser: An abusively sexy lady. Was this to Gerald (and is now his abusive 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.) |
| 780 | * 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. |
| 781 | * FreudianExcuse: ''Honey Queen'' reveals she has an emotionally abusive father who takes every opportunity to belittle her, which does a lot to explain her need for adoration. |
| 782 | * 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. |
| 783 | * HateSink: Intended to very much be the villain you love to hate. ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' makes it clear she was this for the town before anything that happens in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' went down. [[spoiler: When Tom is desperately trying to think of someone who "deserves it" he can have Jane KillAndReplace the first name that comes to mind is Linda; Jane objects on the grounds that Tom can't possibly be attracted to Linda, forcing Tom to admit she's right and continue searching for an innocent.]] |
| 784 | * 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). |
| 785 | * 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]]''. |
| 786 | * IdleRich: She apparently thinks of "President of the Hatchetfield Boating Society" as her job. |
| 787 | * 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). |
| 788 | * {{Jerkass}}: She's rude, entitled, and selfish, and those are probably the three nicest things you can say about her. |
| 789 | * 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]].]] |
| 790 | * KickTheDog: She's nasty to everyone, but [[JerkassToOne 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]]. |
| 791 | * {{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). |
| 792 | * {{Narcissist}}: |
| 793 | -->'''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.\ |
| 794 | '''Linda''': ''I know that!'' |
| 795 | * 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."]] |
| 796 | %% * NoblewomansLaugh: One of her signature traits. |
| 797 | * ObnoxiousEntitledHousewife: She's president of the local boating society and mother to several beautiful blonde boys, who believes her kids are entitled to a Tickle-Me Wiggly and uses her lawyer as a defense against anybody who thinks otherwise. She joins the Wiggly cult as a prophet both so she can bask in adoration and so she can get the Wiggly dolls for her kids. |
| 798 | * OmnicidalManiac: |
| 799 | -->'''Linda''': I will destroy everything\ |
| 800 | [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment And then I will destroy everything]]\ |
| 801 | I guarantee I'll destroy everything in my path\ |
| 802 | Unless I get what I--[[MusicalisInterruptus shit, it's Gerald.]] ''(picks up phone)'' |
| 803 | * OnlySaneByComparison: She's the most intelligent and lucid member of the Wiggly cult, but that's only because she was a {{narcissist}}ic [[TheSociopath sociopath]] to start with; therefore, Wiggly's influence didn't actually change anything except giving her a new outlet for her cruelty, and validate her sense of superiority by making her Divine Prophet. |
| 804 | * ParentalFavoritism: She fully admits River is her favorite among her children. Whether this is because he's the only one who isn't a BrattyHalfPint or if her other sons are brats ''because'' she pays them no attention is anybody's guess. [[spoiler:When Zoey kidnaps one of her sons in "Honey Queen," Linda flat-out asks ''which'' son she has before deciding whether or not to worry about it. When it's River, she springs into action and sends Gerald to rescue him.]] |
| 805 | * PretentiousPronunciation: 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"). |
| 806 | * 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]]). |
| 807 | * 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]]. |
| 808 | * RichBitch: The basis of her character. |
| 809 | * 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]]. |
| 810 | * 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''). |
| 811 | * 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. |
| 812 | * 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: |
| 813 | -->'''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!'' |
| 814 | * 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]]. |
| 815 | * 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]].) |
| 816 | * 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]]. |
| 817 | * 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. |
| 818 | * UnholyMatrimony: Though Black Friday gives the impression her husband Gerald is pathetic and servile, it turns out in Honey Queen that he is just as amoral as she is, fell for her after he witnessed her tampering with another girl's skiis during a skiing competition, and absolutely adores her. |
| 819 | -->'''Linda''': I can win honey queen. But I have to do it my way: destroy them all.\ |
| 820 | '''Gerald''': God, I fucking love you. |
| 821 | * 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". |
| 822 | * 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]].]] |
| 823 | [[/folder]] |
| 824 | |
| 825 | !Main Characters of ''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie'' |
| 826 | |
| 827 | [[folder: Stephanie Lauter]] |
| 828 | !!Stephanie "Steph" Lauter |
| 829 | !!!'''Played by:''' Mariah Rose Faith |
| 830 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E2PerkysBudsAndAbstinenceCamp "Abstinence Camp"]]''' | [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E4YellowJacket "Yellow Jacket"]] | '''''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie''''' |
| 831 | |
| 832 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npmd_steph.png]] |
| 833 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"My dad's the mayor. He says it'd shock you, the secrets in this town."'']] |
| 834 | |
| 835 | ->''If I loved you, you would know it''\ |
| 836 | ''If I loved you, I would show it''\ |
| 837 | ''If I loved you like you should be loved''\ |
| 838 | ''Loved you like I’m capable of''\ |
| 839 | ''If you were the one I’m thinking of''\ |
| 840 | ''Whoa oh''\ |
| 841 | ''Oh babe, I’d let you know'' |
| 842 | |
| 843 | A popular and rebellious girl at Hatchetfield High and the daughter of the mayor. |
| 844 | ---- |
| 845 | * BareMidriffsAreFeminine: Indeed, the [[TomboyWithAGirlyStreak one feminine aspect of her tomboyish, grungy attire]] is the fact that the undershirt doesn't quite cover her belly. |
| 846 | * BrainyBrunette: Subverted; Steph admires intellect but doesn't possess it in excess herself. She's certainly not ''stupid'', but she's a poor student and often too shallow for her own good. She initially approaches Peter for help studying because she herself is the smartest girl in the popular crowd, and his assistance gets her a C+, which she proudly proclaims as passing with flying colors. She also identifies herself as sapiosexual, which is why she's more attracted to Peter than anyone she's known before. Peter, as expressed in both performances of "Cool As I Think I Am", is of the opinion that Steph is smarter than she thinks. |
| 847 | * CoolKidAndLoserFriendship: In both ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'' and "Abstinence Camp", she befriends Peter despite him being a giant nerd, due to finding him rather charming underneath the bowtie and social awkwardness. In ''NPMD'', she also bonds with the clique of nerds over their shared grievances with Max, and then [[spoiler:the AccidentalMurder and subsequent cover-up]]. She's still loathe to say she's friends with Grace, though. |
| 848 | * DeadpanSnarker: Snarks the most out of the main characters. |
| 849 | * EarlyInstallmentCharacterDesignDifference: Her ''Nightmare Time 2'' costume prominently features a beanie, which is absent from her design as of ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die''. |
| 850 | * EveryoneHasStandards: She wasn't friendly with the nerds before the start of the show, and she isn't above asking Peter to help her cheat on a test, but unlike the rest of the popular crowd, she's never shown being mean to them, and seems not to have participated in the bullying that's so rampant at Hatchetfield High (even defending freshman Hannah Foster in "Yellow Jacket"). |
| 851 | * FinalGirl: PlayedWith, she's not virginal or pure like the traditional final girl, however she is shown to be resourceful and more than capable of defending herself in both of her major storylines. |
| 852 | * FriendshipDenial: Grace Chasity is ''not'' her friend. |
| 853 | * InnocentlyInsensitive: If she insults one of the nerds, it was probably unintentional on her part. Unless she just insulted Grace Chasity. Then it was definitely on purpose. |
| 854 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She's snarky, shallow, and hot-tempered, but has a big heart and will do the right thing when it really matters. |
| 855 | * OfficialCouple: With Pete. |
| 856 | * PhoneaholicTeenager: To the extreme. She breaks down hard when her dad confiscates her phone, and attempts to stop him from destroying it by protecting it from an incoming hammer with her bare hand. [[spoiler:When the Lords in Black tell her that the price of their help is the thing she cherishes most in the world, she triumphantly offers up her phone, to their irritation.]] |
| 857 | * PunnyName: S. Lauter, as in "slaughter." |
| 858 | * SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: She falls in love with the sweet, caring Peter after various traumatic experiences bond them. |
| 859 | * SkewedPriorities: To her father's astonishment/disgust, she shields her phone with her hand from a ''hammer'' that's about to swing down. Even she looks a little embarrassed when he calls her on this. |
| 860 | * WhatTheHellHero: To Grace after the police figure everything out. |
| 861 | -->'''Steph:''' You ruined our lives, Grace! |
| 862 | [[/folder]] |
| 863 | |
| 864 | [[folder: Grace Chasity]] |
| 865 | !!Grace Chasity |
| 866 | !!!'''Played by:''' Angela Giarratana |
| 867 | !!!'''Appears in:''' [[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E2PerkysBudsAndAbstinenceCamp "Perky's Buds"]] | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E2PerkysBudsAndAbstinenceCamp "Abstinence Camp"]]''' | '''''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie''''' | ''WebVideo/WorkinBoys'' |
| 868 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' |
| 869 | |
| 870 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npmd_grace.png]] |
| 871 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"All I wanted was to be a regular girl, with no sexual desire until she was safely married!"'']] |
| 872 | |
| 873 | ->''For shame! I am expecting you to be-behave''\ |
| 874 | ''You think your thirsty cravings are brave?''\ |
| 875 | ''Take a sip and soap your soiled mouth''\ |
| 876 | ''You want a tour of the house''\ |
| 877 | ''You better straighten out your crooked ways'' |
| 878 | |
| 879 | A devoutly Christian "nerdy prude" who babysits various children around Hatchetfield and is not very popular at Hatchetfield High. |
| 880 | ---- |
| 881 | * AllWomenArePrudes: She is one of the eponymous "nerdy prudes", and really the only one who ''actually'' fits the "prude" part. |
| 882 | * AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Seems to be this in the opposite direction for Alice as Ziggs -- Ziggs is the cooler, more exciting kid Deb would rather be dating, and Grace is the nicer, more respectable kid Bill would rather have as a daughter. |
| 883 | * AmbiguousInnocence: She gives off the impression of being a sincere religious girl who is uncomfortable with sex, swearing and breaking the rules. However, [[spoiler:the ending of "Abstinence Camp" sees her being put in charge of enforcing abstinence by Lumber Axe, and she is shown to have few qualms with implicitly threatening the other campers with her new axe.]] |
| 884 | ** In ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', she has the same core personality, but we see more cracks--she lusts after Max despite attempting to suppress that urge and when he ends up [[spoiler:[[AccidentalMurder accidentally killed due to the prank they pull on him]] she is the one who tells the others they should cover it up and is noticeably far less freaked out about it than the rest of the group. The ending takes this even further with whatever innocence she may have once had being fully cast aside as she [[FaceHeelTurn begins taking the souls of 'dirty dudes.']]]] For a non-spoilery example, she sings the recurring line "I'm so fucking dead" with the rest of the cast during ''High School Is Killing Me'', though she covers her mouth when she sings it. |
| 885 | * BatmanGambit: Pulls one on Max when she gives up what she values most: [[spoiler:her chastity.]] |
| 886 | * EatingTheEyeCandy: She (and the audience) does this when Max takes his shirt off. |
| 887 | * FinalGirl: She has the virginal innocence that tends to imply this trope in horror stories, the twist being that it comes from religious indoctrination and she enforces it on everyone else. When facing Lumber Axe, a slasher villain for whom SexSignalsDeath ''because'' he believes in abstinence, she endears herself to him [[spoiler:and ends up taking his place as the apparent slasher killer.]] In ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', her sexual repression is the cause of the story's main conflict, and she eventually saves the day [[spoiler:by giving in and having sex with the villain, her intent being a HeroicSacrifice of the chastity she holds so dear but expressing afterward that she ''really'' needed to get laid]]. Tropes ''about'' final girls aside, ultimately averted, as Peter and Steph have also survived both stories she headlines alongside them. |
| 888 | * TheGhost: Offscreen until ''Nightmare Time'' Season 2 Episode 2. |
| 889 | * GirlishPigtails: Her childlike morals and emotional state are reflected by this hairstyle. |
| 890 | * GoodWingsEvilWings: Her Homecoming dress has a blue ruff that creates the impression of angel wings when viewed from behind. It fits the [[TokenReligiousTeammate religiousness]] and [[PurityPersonified purity]] she projects perfectly. [[spoiler: At the end of “Dirty Dudes Must Die” one of the last moments of the play she turns away from the audience and her false wings highlight her [[HolierThanThou self righteousness]] and [[KnightTemplar zealotry]] as she prepares to kill anyone who fits her definition of a “Dirty Dude”.]] |
| 891 | * GoshDangItToHeck: She's uncomfortable with actual curse words, but peppers her speech liberally with minced oaths like "heck" and "fudge". If pressed, she'll curse silently with her mouth covered -- when she curses openly and aloud, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness you know she's fallen off the deep end]]. |
| 892 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: This unseen character, mentioned in passing as a "nerdy prude" in TGWDLM, was clearly meant for bigger things from the moment ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'' was announced. |
| 893 | * HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:She offers up a [[TakeAThirdOption third option]] to prevent Steph and Pete from having to sacrifice themselves to the Lords in Black by seducing Max, thus giving up what ''she'' values most, her chastity.]] |
| 894 | * LaughingMad: [[spoiler: In the play version of "Dirty Dudes Must Die", revealing the completion of her ProtagonistJourneyToVillain.]] |
| 895 | * MaliciousMisnaming: According to Mariah Rose Faith, fellow students are occasionally heard to derisively call her "Chastity" -- though of course it's rather hard to tell since it's incredibly close to her actual surname, to the point that most fans assumed her surname actually ''was'' Chastity until it was seen spelled in credits. |
| 896 | * MeaningfulName: A chaste and devout churchgoer with the first name Grace and a surname so close to the word "chastity" that most fans do a double-take upon realizing that her name isn't ''literally'' Chastity. |
| 897 | * MoralityPet: In both stories featuring her, Steph and Peter end up this for her, to a point where she's willing to overlook them violating her own morality to protect them. In "Abstinence Camp," she intervenes to save them from Lumber Axe despite them drawing his attention by breaking the camp's rules which she takes very seriously and in ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', she [[spoiler: sacrifices her chastity so neither of them have to kill the other to appease the Lords in Black]]. |
| 898 | * NonNudeBathing: Confirms in "Abstinence Camp" that she does this even when outside of Camp Idonwannabang, where it's strictly enforced. Her bath scene in ''Nerdy Prudes'' has her in pajamas, for reasons somewhere between protecting Angela's modesty onstage and the character actually being a never-nude. |
| 899 | * ParentPreferredSuitor: Bill would much rather Alice date Grace -- or someone ''like'' Grace -- rather than Deb. Him voicing this sentiment to Alice predictably leads to a massive argument. |
| 900 | -->'''Bill:''' Well, at least she's nice to me in church! |
| 901 | * PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Believes that Ruth will go to Hell for being bisexual (though she also expresses that sentiment regarding Max’s sexual advances), and acts disdainful towards Catholics. |
| 902 | * PrinciplesZealot: She is very, VERY religious and extremely committed to her beliefs. She stands out from other characters presented as some degree of TheFundamentalist in the Hatchetfield setting by actually maintaining full consistency between her beliefs and actions, best demonstrated by how in 'Abstinence Camp' she manages to defeat Lumber Axe because she is the one character to actually have followed all of the titular camp's expectations regarding sex. [[spoiler:Of course, her commitment to chastity ultimately makes her willing to align herself with demons and commit murders, ending both of her starring roles on a rather terrifying note.]] |
| 903 | * ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: [[spoiler:So far has happened in ''all'' stories featuring her as the protagonist. In "Abstinence Camp", she ends up taking over the camp, as Lumber Axe had deemed her worthy to enforce abstinence in his place, and running it with an iron fist and an implicit threat of violence. In ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', she ends up working to steal the souls of 'dirty dudes', with such a label being applied ''very'' broadly.]] |
| 904 | * PurityPersonified: How Alice accuses Bill of seeing Grace, and claiming that that's what Bill would rather have for a daughter. |
| 905 | * SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: Because of her strict religious upbringing, Grace believes just about any form of sexuality is evil. She is horrified when she realizes that she is sexually attracted to Max. Her beliefs about sex [[spoiler: prompt her to start murdering 'dirty dudes']]. |
| 906 | * SmokingHotSex: [[spoiler:Smokes a cigarette after she sleeps with Max.]] |
| 907 | * SpeakIllOfTheDead: Averted, as she doesn't hesitate to point out that Max was a terrible person, and him being dead [[AssholeVictim might not be so bad]]. The other main characters, while utterly freaked out at her cavalier attitude, eventually admit she has a point. [[spoiler:On the KickTheDog side of things, she also says Ruth is in Hell for being bisexual.]] |
| 908 | * StrawmanPolitical: A lot of jokes are made about her being a Republican in "Perky's Buds" Emma initially thinks Ziggy warning about 'a group of Republicans' showing up at her pot farm as being Grace being a nuisance again. In ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'' she suggests fleeing to Canada after running afoul of the police and goes on a rant about how this will mean they will of course have to sacrifice some of their freedoms. |
| 909 | * SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Psychologly: |
| 910 | ** In "Abstinence Camp", she [[spoiler: she ends up taking over the camp, as Lumber Axe had deemed her worthy to enforce abstinence in his place, but instead of learning a heartwarming lesson about how it's wrong to control other people's personal lives, she doubles down, and just takes his place as the violent enforcer of chastity.]] |
| 911 | ** In Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie she [[spoiler: has sex with Max Jagerman, giving up what she treasures most (her virginity) in exchange for the Lords in Black dragging Max to hell. But simply getting laid (especially in a dubcon situation) doesn't fix her deep-rooted [[SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny psychosexual issues]]. She gets even worse and starts seducing boys and then killing them for being 'dirty dudes'.]] |
| 912 | * TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: [[spoiler: During the last song of ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', she looks directly at the audience and points at them during the line "Who will pray for you, when your body's gone?" This is especially apparent in the Youtube version, where she does this with the camera. She also yells "Run dudes, run!" at them.]] |
| 913 | * TokenReligiousTeammate: Of the main characters in ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die.'' |
| 914 | * TokenWholesome: She is ''the'' nerdy prude of ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die''; while one couldn't credit Pete, Ruth, or Richie with having a healthy relationship with their own sexuality, they at least don't suppress it completely as Grace does. |
| 915 | [[/folder]] |
| 916 | |
| 917 | [[folder: Peter Spankoffski]] |
| 918 | !!Peter "Pete" Spankoffski |
| 919 | !!!'''Played by:''' Robert Manion (2018-2019) | [[Creator/LangBrothers Nick Lang]] (2021) | Creator/JoeyRichter (2023-) |
| 920 | !!!'''Appears in:''' ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' | ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' | '''[[Recap/NightmareTimeS2E2PerkysBudsAndAbstinenceCamp "Abstinence Camp"]]''' | '''''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie''''' |
| 921 | !!!'''Mentioned in:''' [[Recap/NightmareTimeS1E1TheHatchetfieldApeManAndWatcherWorld "Watcher World"]] |
| 922 | |
| 923 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npmd_peter.png]] |
| 924 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"You're telling me I gotta be funny again?! I didn't do it on purpose the first time!"'']] |
| 925 | [[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see Peter as played by Nick Lang]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nmt_nick_as_pete.png[[/labelnote]]]] |
| 926 | [[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see Peter as played by Robert Manion]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hot_chocolate_boy.jpg[[/labelnote]]]] |
| 927 | |
| 928 | ->''If I can finally be cool''\ |
| 929 | ''I will know that I’m not a loser''\ |
| 930 | ''And if I finally break the rules''\ |
| 931 | ''I will know of my world, I’m the ruler'' |
| 932 | |
| 933 | Ted's much younger brother. Hopelessly nerdy and horny, he has low blood sugar and is noted for rocking a bow tie and suspenders. |
| 934 | ---- |
| 935 | * ActuallyPrettyFunny: Steph sure thinks so. |
| 936 | * BigBrotherWorship: He shows shades of it in "Abstinence Camp". It's revealed that the reason he wears such ludicrously nerdy attire at all times (or ''one'' reason- see StereotypicalNerd) is because Ted says it's important to have a signature look. Besides that, upon finding his brother's 20-year old porn magazine, Pete holds it to his chest and fondly says "He is with me always." |
| 937 | * TheCameo: Robert Manion appears in his costume in the closing number of ''Black Friday'', while his previous appearance in ''The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals'' was an EarlyBirdCameo. |
| 938 | * DyingDeclarationOfLove: 'Cool As I Think I Am Reprise.' |
| 939 | * EmbarrassingLastName: When he tells Steph his last name is Spankoffski, she's a bit taken aback. He retorts that it's Polish. |
| 940 | * EmbarrassingNickname: 'Micro-Peter.' |
| 941 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: It was implied, as far back as his cameo in TGWDLM, that he would be a main character in ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die''. |
| 942 | * IJustWantToBeNormal: He just wants to get through high school. |
| 943 | * IWantSong: 'Cool As I Think I Am.' |
| 944 | * IconicOutfit: A bow tie and suspenders adorning a white shirt, making him look exceedingly nerdy. "Abstinence Camp" and ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'' offer two conflicting explanations for why he dresses like that (see StereotypicalNerd below), and in the latter, his budding relationship with Steph makes him comfortable enough in his own skin to start dressing more casually in day-to-day life but still rock his signature bow tie to homecoming. |
| 945 | * InsecureLoveInterest: He cannot fathom why Stephanie Lauter is into him. |
| 946 | -->'''Peter:''' A cool, popular girl told me I was funny. Can't we just leave it on a high note? You're telling me I gotta be funny again? I didn't do it on purpose the first time! |
| 947 | * NiceGuy: He's a genuinely sweet and selfless kid. |
| 948 | * NoNameGiven: He's listed in the script for ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' as "Obnoxious Teen", leaving him with no official name after that name was also given to his SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute who debuts in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' - who was ''intended'' to be the same character, but after Robert Manion was cast as Ethan, Creator/JoeyRichter had to be become the ''new'' Obnoxious Teen so the two could interact (ironically, after Manion's departure, all three characters are now played by Joey). His identity is confirmed in "Abstinence Camp" as Peter Spankoffski. |
| 949 | * OfficialCouple: With Steph. |
| 950 | * PracticallyDifferentGenerations: He's about 20 years younger than his brother Ted. |
| 951 | * SignificantWardrobeShift: In ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', he drops his iconic suspenders-and-bowtie look for a more flattering (read: normal-looking) sweater-and-slacks combo to try and impress Stephanie once she takes an interest in him. |
| 952 | * StereotypicalNerd: This is how he comes across in his EarlyBirdCameo in TGWDLM; in addition to his ridiculously nerdy IconicOutfit, he is stiff, monotone, complains about his frail health, and shamelessly tattles on Emma for slacking off at work. CharacterizationMarchesOn presents him as less and less nerdy with each appearance: Nick Lang's portrayal in "Abstinence Camp" reveals him to be a far more well-adjusted person than he had previously appeared; he bonds instantly with popular girl Stephanie rather than getting along with the other "nerdy prudes" attending the camp. His complaints of low blood sugar prove to be a legitimate medical problem, and he explains to Steph that his nerdy outfit is just an attempt at mimicking his brother in having a distinctive look. In ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', he scarcely seems like a nerd at all, simply an overachieving student who's merely anxious and antisocial from a lifetime of bullying, with his outfit counterintuitively being an armor against teasing: the bowtie prevents him from looking like he comes from a low-income family, who get the worst of the bullying at Hatchetfield High, while the suspenders prevent pantsings; gaining the slightest bit of confidence leads him to a SignificantWardrobeShift quite early in the show. |
| 953 | * StrongFamilyResemblance: As of ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die'', he's played by the same actor as his brother; the resemblance becomes somewhat textual when Richie notes that when dressed in ghostly rags [[spoiler:he resembles the Homeless Man, who is a time-displaced version of Ted.]] |
| 954 | [[/folder]] |
| 955 | |
| 956 | [[folder: Ruth Fleming]] |
| 957 | !!Ruth Fleming |
| 958 | !!!'''Played by:''' Creator/LaurenLopez |
| 959 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie''''' | '''''WebVideo/WorkinBoys''''' |
| 960 | |
| 961 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npmd_ruth.png]] |
| 962 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I just need someone to touch me!"'']] |
| 963 | |
| 964 | ->''But just for once I’d be the center of attention''\ |
| 965 | ''Just for once remember what a life can be''\ |
| 966 | ''Just for once I’d feel the light inside the burning of a candle''\ |
| 967 | ''Living just for once'' |
| 968 | |
| 969 | One of Hatchetfield High's resident gaggle of nerds. She sports unfortunate dental headgear and longs for affection. |
| 970 | ---- |
| 971 | * AbhorrentAdmirer: Played with; her carnal desires don't have any ''particular target'', but she is ''desperately horny'' to the point of trying to flirt with telemarketers, and repulsive to the point that said telemarketers often ''hang up on her first.'' |
| 972 | * BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill: A promo released for the show reveals her to wear elaborate dental headgear. |
| 973 | * DesperatelyCravesAffection: She's an ''explosively'' horny bisexual teenager whose [[{{Gonk}} unflattering looks]] put a massive hamper on her desires. It later transpires that her desire also runs to a deeper, emotional place of generally wanting to be admired. |
| 974 | * DramaClub: Only comes up [[spoiler:right before her death]], but she works as the lighting tech for the school play, and longs to actually be onstage. |
| 975 | * EmbarassingNickname: "Phlem-wad", from her surname as noted in MeaningfulName. |
| 976 | * {{Gonk}}: She's got elaborate dental headgear, is described as smelling awful due to being severely allergic to deodorant (it makes her break out in pus-filled hives), and has a frazzled mop of greasy hair. |
| 977 | * MeaningfulName: It was implied that her name provides an easy pun on "phlegm", solidified by the reveal of her orthodontic headgear. |
| 978 | * PerformanceAnxiety: She works the lights for the drama club, and longs to be a performer but is held back by her anxiety. In ''WebVideo/WorkinBoys'' she gets her chance to perform, but the sight of the audience makes her freeze up and forget the single line she's been obsessively working on for four weeks. |
| 979 | [[/folder]] |
| 980 | |
| 981 | [[folder: Richie Lipschitz]] |
| 982 | !!Richard "Richie" Lipschitz |
| 983 | !!!'''Played by:''' Jon Matteson |
| 984 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie''''' | ''WebVideo/WorkinBoys'' |
| 985 | |
| 986 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npmd_richie.png]] |
| 987 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"We thought you were waifu material, but you're just a bully."'']] |
| 988 | |
| 989 | ->''I’m dead''\ |
| 990 | ''The blood is all but draining from my head''\ |
| 991 | ''The nightmare started there but now has spread''\ |
| 992 | ''My pulse is certainly dropping''\ |
| 993 | ''And my life is hanging on by a thread'' |
| 994 | |
| 995 | Another member of the clique of nerds, an overly-sweaty but otherwise charismatic anime enthusiast. |
| 996 | ---- |
| 997 | * AintTooProudToBeg: He spends his final moments of life begging for mercy, to devastating effect. |
| 998 | * ButtMonkey: Even for a nerdy prude, he has it particularly bad. It seems Max likes to single him out for torment even more than the others. |
| 999 | * EmbarrassingNickname: "Shit-lips", an all-too-easy pun on his name. |
| 1000 | * ForegoneConclusion: Nearly all promotional material gives away the first scene of the show, in which Richie is mysteriously murdered and found by the police. The rest of the first act goes back in time to show the events leading up to his death. |
| 1001 | * LoserTeamMascot: It doesn't come up until the second act [[spoiler:right before his death]], but he plays the football team's mascot. Incidentally, this makes him the only nerd who was "allowed" to attend football games [[spoiler:before Max died.]] |
| 1002 | * OccidentalOtaku: He has body pillows of [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Rei and Asuka]], insists that ''Anime/AttackOnTitan'' is superior to ''Franchise/StarWars'' (for no other reason than the fact that ''Star Wars'' was referenced), and exclaims "''Nani?''" in surprise. |
| 1003 | * SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Richie was originally written to be Creator/JoeyRichter's Obnoxious Teen as an AscendedExtra. When Joey was cast as Peter Spankoffski, Richie had to become a new character played by Jon Matteson, a circumstance amusingly similar to those that led to the existence of the Obnoxious Teen in the first place. |
| 1004 | * ThisCannotBe: [[spoiler:Rather understandably his reaction to seeing a dead Max up and about again.]] |
| 1005 | [[/folder]] |
| 1006 | |
| 1007 | [[folder: Max Jägerman]] |
| 1008 | !!Maxwell "Max" Jägerman |
| 1009 | !!!'''Played by:''' Will Branner |
| 1010 | !!!'''Appears in:''' '''''Theatre/NerdyPrudesMustDie''''' |
| 1011 | |
| 1012 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npmd_jagerman.png]] |
| 1013 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I bring order to Hatchetfield High. I'm your god."'']] |
| 1014 | |
| 1015 | ->''You won’t defeat my kind''\ |
| 1016 | ''Never look in the eye''\ |
| 1017 | ''A predator of my size''\ |
| 1018 | ''Cross your heart hope to die''\ |
| 1019 | ''You can watch as I rise''\ |
| 1020 | ''I will claim what is mine'' |
| 1021 | |
| 1022 | Star quarterback of the Hatchetfield High Nighthawks and tormentor of the nerdy prudes. |
| 1023 | |
| 1024 | [[spoiler:For Max after his death, see The Ghost under [[Characters/HatchetfieldParanormalPhenomena Paranormal Phenomena]].]] |
| 1025 | ---- |
| 1026 | * AbsurdPhobia: The nerds' plan to humiliate him by scaring him at an old haunted house turns out to be an extremely lucky choice, as the big, scary bully immediately demonstrates that he's utterly ''terrified'' of ghosts and skeletons. Unfortunately for them, he's also ''really brave'' and takes it as an opportunity to confront his fears. |
| 1027 | * AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: [[spoiler:He "vanishes" (read: is [[AccidentalMurder accidentally killed]] by the nerdy prudes), and literally no one is sad about it.]] |
| 1028 | * AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:To put it simply, Max ''sucked''. The generally good-natured Pete, Stephanie, Ruth, and Richie all admit they don't really feel guilty over his death or the cover-up because he was such an objectively terrible person. Deconstructed, as him coming back as a ghost and seeing [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing how much happier everyone is with him gone]] is part of what makes him ''so'' furious and brutal on his murder spree. Furthermore, while he was indeed every bit as bad in life as the other characters claim, and they're all justified in being glad to be rid of him, Max still had some HiddenDepths, reminding us that he was still human... albeit an awful one.]] |
| 1029 | * BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:After his AccidentalMurder by the Nerdy Prudes, he comes back as a ghostly version of himself.]] |
| 1030 | * BigBad: Of ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die.'' |
| 1031 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: As soon as "Cool As I Think I Am" ends, he enters while the audience is still applauding and yells at them to shut up. |
| 1032 | * CardCarryingVillain: In his VillainSong, he freely admits and relishes in the fact that he's a one-note bully who's peaking in high school. |
| 1033 | * TheDreaded: As shown in 'Literal Monster Part 1.' |
| 1034 | * DyingCurse: [[spoiler:His final words before dying are a vow of revenge against all nerdy prudes, leading him to come back as a murderous ghost.]] |
| 1035 | -->'''Max:''' [[spoiler:''Nerdy... prudes... must PAY! [[TitleDrop NERDY... PRUDES... MUST... DIIIE!]]'']] |
| 1036 | * FreudianExcuse: It's implied by a comment he makes to himself during the prank that his shitty behavior is at least partially due to [[WellDoneSonGuy a desire to impress his emotionally abusive father.]] |
| 1037 | -->'''Max:''' Maybe I should just run? ''Where, Max? Back home so dad can call you a little cuck?'' |
| 1038 | * AGodAmI: He has this attitude in spades, [[spoiler:even before his transformation into an evil ghost.]] |
| 1039 | -->''[while bullying Pete]'' You're not a nerd 'cause of your glasses and your pimple dick. You're a nerd 'cause I said so. I willed it into existence. I bring order to Hatchetfield High, light to darkness. I'm your ''god.'' Now on your knees, bitch! It's time to say your fuckin' prayers!\ |
| 1040 | ''[after scaring off Pete while he's dressed as a ghost]'' YES! I MAKE THE DEAD RUN IN FEAR! ''I AM JÄGERMAN! I AM GOD, GO NIGHTHAWKS!'' |
| 1041 | * HeelFaceDoorSlam: The prank the nerds play on him at the close of act one to try and humiliate him completely fails, but the fact that it helped him confront and overcome his [[AbsurdPhobia lifelong fear of ghosts and skeletons]] makes him sincerely thank them, considering it "the nicest thing anyone's ever done for [him]", to the point that he seems ready to apologize for all his bullying... [[spoiler:and then the haunted house's shoddy flooring caves in under him, causing him to fall three stories and be fatally impaled.]] |
| 1042 | * HeroicSacrifice: Lampshaded, when he doesn't let Pete die. [[spoiler:Subverted, as he did it so he could kill Pete himself.]] |
| 1043 | -->'''Max:''' Hey, I just took a bullet for you, bro! Give me a break! |
| 1044 | * HiddenDepths: Even a JerkJock who fully admits to being a "Literal Monster" isn't two-dimensional. |
| 1045 | ** One line indicates his father's abusive, which explains... a lot. |
| 1046 | ** In "Literal Monster," he displays a surprising amount of self-awareness that, in all likelihood, he's [[FutureLoser going to peak in high school]]. |
| 1047 | ** He's very scared of ghosts and the undead. But, as Richie notes, he's also surprisingly brave, and is willing to face his fears head-on to the point of being ''grateful'' for the opportunity. [[spoiler:Had he not died when he did, the prank-gone-wrong might've actually led to him letting up on the nerds, since he thought the prank was a kind gesture.]] |
| 1048 | * JerkJock: A colossal understatement. "Literal Monster" even lampshades it, calling him the "cliche" mean jock. |
| 1049 | * JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: He relishes in his status as a 'Literal Monster.' |
| 1050 | * KarmaHoudini: Because he's the star quarterback, none of the teachers or adults do anything about his rampant bullying even though he's likely racked up enough assaults to be expelled by now, hence why the nerds decide to all team up to humiliate him themselves. Unfortunately for him, KarmaHoudiniWarranty hits [[spoiler:when he dies.]] |
| 1051 | * MeaningfulName: Jäger is the German word for "hunter," and Max's hobby is hunting and bullying nerds. |
| 1052 | * MrFanservice: Takes his shirt off in Grace's fantasy for the pleasure of Grace and the audience. |
| 1053 | * SirSwearsALot: 90% percent of his lines include swear words, usually 'Bitch.' |
| 1054 | * SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Hatchetfield High already had a star quarterback appearing in "Yellow Jacket", Brad Callahan. Max is not only necessitated by the fact that Joey Richter, who played Brad, would inevitably end up playing one of the Nerdy Prudes, but also seems to be a much more serious and dangerous character than the buffoonish Brad. |
| 1055 | * SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: He's been to anti-bullying seminars. However, since in reality, standard therapy doesn't work on sociopath/narcissist -type disorders and only teaches them to use Therapy Speak to further abuse people, Max beats up people for walking in 'his' hallway, even if they didn't mean to bother him by doing it, telling them that "there's a difference between intent and impact." |
| 1056 | * ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: Ends almost all his sentences with 'bitch.' |
| 1057 | * ToxicFriendInfluence: To ''all of Hatchetfield High'', but especially his fellow football players. As he tells Peter, Max decides who or isn't cool at Hatchetfield High, meaning he also picks who gets tormented--but the flipside of that is that, if he's designated you as "cool," he can also take that status away ''any time he likes''. Therefore, it's not too surprising that the people who have his favor are willing to go along with his behavior to stay on his good side. As soon as Max disappears, Kyle and Jason become {{Lovable Jock}}s who are ''relieved'' to not be under Max's thumb anymore, and even befriend Richie. All the students also note that the school is a much more peaceful place in general without Max around. |
| 1058 | * VillainSong: |
| 1059 | ** "Literal Monster", which starts off as a TheVillainSucksSong before he enthusiastically joins in on it himself. |
| 1060 | ** The title number, "Nerdy Prudes Must Die". |
| 1061 | * VillainousValour: The "haunted house" prank might have been a brilliant idea, for Max secretly has a deep-seated fear of the undead. As it turns out, he's also "really fucking brave" and takes it as the opportunity to face his fears, and experiencing the thrill of making ghosts and skeletons flee from him in fear makes him consider the prank the nicest thing anyone's ever done for him. |
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