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The stage show
- "Abuela Claudia passed away at noon today." Cue gasps, groans, and sobs from the audience.
- "Alabanza."
- Especially Usnavi's speech at the start of the song. "They said a combination of the stress and the heat, why she never took her medicine, I'll never understand. I like to think she went out in peace, with pieces of bread crumbs in her hand."
- "When she was here, the path was clear/And she was just here/...She was just here..." Sob.
- And the song that follows — "Everything I Know".
- "Inutil". It's a bit harder to understand if one or both of your parents isn't like Kevin...from a different country...working their ass off...just so their kid can have a good future...
- In at least one showing of the musical, the actor's voice broke on "and he slapped my face."
- "I will not be the reason that my family can't succeed."
- Believe it or not, the end of "Carnaval de Barrio". It's a very happy, celebratory song...but it ends with the Piraguero and Daniela singing "Esa bonita bandera! Contiene mi alma entera!" ("This beautiful flag, it holds the whole of my soul"). It may not seem like much, but in a country that's currently having a lot of problems with immigration and racism, a stage full of characters taking pride in their heritage is moving.
- Plus Sonny's solo in the song shows that he's terrified of his neighborhood disappearing, despite his status as Plucky Comic Relief and sees everyone party and celebrating as them ignoring what's going on around them.
- The Mood Whiplash at the end. Everyone's dancing and having a good time... and then Nina runs on, Trying Not to Cry if she isn't already, grabs Usnavi, and whispers something in his ear. His face just becomes a look of absolute horror, and he runs straight to Claudia's apartment.
- "Paciencia y Fe."
- Pretty much the entirety of "Finale", especially:
- "Tell everyone we know. Sonny..." Sonny hugs him and Usnavi softens and hugs him back. "Alright, go."
- "Abuela, that ain't a stoop, it's your throne."
- "I found my island, I been on it this whole time."
- "Breathe." Everything about Nina in this song - being worried about what her parents will say, being vague when people ask about it, and trying to reconcile that failure with her reputation as The One Who Made It Out - is dead-on Truth in Television for overachieving students who flunk out of college or almost do so.
- Vanessa and Usnavi's First Kiss seems framed like a Now or Never Kiss, minus life-or-death stakes. Vanessa plants it after apparently failing to convince Usnavi not to leave New York, and laments afterwards that it seems "too late" for them to form a lasting romance.
- "Blackout" is overall an awesome song, but Usnavi and Vanessa lose track of each other so he can help Abuela Claudia and Sonny. Vanessa is left afraid and alone, and it puts a rift between her and Usnavi.
- "We are powerless... we are powerless!"
- It's downplayed because of the staging, but what would have it looked like in-universe? Picture a club, pitch-black except for the light of phone screens, a panicking, screaming, shoving crowd... It was bad enough in normal situations that Vanessa complained earlier, "You can't even go to a club without having somebody shove you,". In real life, people have been trampled to death in such situations.
- Graffiti Pete tries to persuade Sonny to get to safety, but Sonny refuses, since the bodega is already a sitting duck for robbers. Sonny's a teenage boy, and he wants to sit there with a baseball bat and guard the family business alone. And all Pete can do to help is throw some fireworks in the hopes of scaring the robbers off. And it doesn't work.
The movie
- Nina revealing that she dropped out of Stanford due to a racist incident where she was accused of stealing her roommate’s pearl necklace... which was later found in the girl’s bag, and Nina never received an apology. Even worse, Nina was the one who apologized even though she did nothing wrong, most likely out of fear of getting into actual trouble.
- In this version of the story, Abuela Claudia passes away the night the blackout starts instead of noon the next day- and the last thing she sees before she does is Usnavi and Sonny across the hall, enjoying the night with their friends despite the blackout. The following scene where Usnavi tries waking her up, not knowing that his beloved abuela's already gone, is absolutely heartwrenching, as are his tearful reassurances to Claudia that he’s with her and everything will be alright as he kisses her repeatedly on the forehead. When the paramedics finally came, Usnavi's devastated expression and the way he buries his face into the bed says everything. In the following cut to the beach, he has a Thousand-Yard Stare.
- Even worse, Anthony Ramos says this was just like how he found his own grandmother when she died.
- "Paciencia Y Fe", which was already a Tear Jerker of a number, has been rewritten here as Abuela's Death Song. As she lays dying in her bed, Claudia imagines herself walking through the subway tunnels of New York, surrounded by people in white who represent her past. She looks back on every aspect of her life, from her mother's love to their difficult time adjusting to life in America, and at the very end, she approaches a Stairway to Heaven in the form of a shining subway staircase. She takes one last look at the ensemble (who form a single file line as if they were lining up to go to heaven) and, in solemn silence, makes her way up the stairs to pass on in peace.
- In the show's version of the song, Abuela exclaims "Calor! Calor! Calor!"note at the beginning, in response to the brutal summer weather. In the film version, she sings the line in a softer, calmer tone; this indicates that she's weakening from the overwhelming heat, and is now on the brink of death.
- Most of the cast gathers in Claudia and Usnavi's apartment during the blackout, meaning they at least have the comfort of knowing their last moments with her were of them having fun, playing bingo, laughing, and lighting candles together. But Benny, Kevin, and Vanessa aren't there. Their last time seeing Claudia were during that dinner that ended in an awful argument. Even though Benny did the right thing by insisting on going to the dispatch to help people, it's gotta sting, knowing he missed his last chance to see her.
- Usnavi crumbling under the weight of his grief and bursting into Manly Tears during “Alabanza.”
- In this version, Sonny is actually a DREAMer as his parents brought him to the US with them while he was only a baby without any documentation. During a scene where he and Nina attend a rally to drum up support for DREAMers, the leader mentions how her own niece can't attend college because she can't get federal loans or work-study permits to help pay the tuition without the documentation. Sonny, who was unaware of this, promptly has a breakdown and flees the rally.Sonny: (to Nina) I knew I couldn't get a license, but no college?... I was gonna be like you.
- When Usnavi asks Sonny to come to DR with him, Sonny stalls by saying he'll have to ask his dad. A few scenes later, the normally chatty and snarky Usnavi is shown carefully and politely trying to convince Sonny's apathetic father to let him go, showing him brochures for a school that Sonny could go to there. The combination of the depth of his care for Sonny and his blatant concern for Sonny's wellbeing around his father is heartbreaking. It gets even worse when you know that Sonny cannot go with him.
- The cut song “Atención” playing as Background Music as Sonny accepts the fight for his documentation. In the stage show, it’s the song with the Wham Line “Abuela Claudia passed away at noon today.” In the movie, the last thing Abuela sees is Sonny and Usnavi, happy - and she left Usnavi the winning ticket that he'd use to help Sonny’s legal battle to gain citizenship. Even in death, she still takes care of her community.
