Fridge subpages are Spoilers Off pages. You Have Been Warned.
- Though never explicitly stated, several moments strongly imply that the Hive Mind-infected individuals don't really have a clue what they're singing about and are just mindlessly acting out musical (and other) clichés. Consider, for example, the well-known visual gag during What Do You Want, Paul? when Infected!Davidson makes way too many "curvy motions" than could possibly describe a real woman in order to suggest "someone who keeps you lustin'": the Hive Mind only knows that such motions are used in conjunction with discussion of attractive females, without actually knowing what is meant. Beyond sheer stupidity, this is also an excellent explanation of the way the Cops' orders don't make any sort of sense in the same song: they know policemen are supposed to shout things like "Get back into the vehicle" and "Slowly get out of the vehicle", but they don't actually know what these orders mean, so they just keep repeating them even though this makes zero sense. So, in other words…the Hive Mind is post-modernism personified.
- The title itself. The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is past tense. By the end of the show, Paul is assimilated, so he's no longer the guy who doesn't like musicals.
- Early in the show, Paul remarks to the Greenpeace Girl that she comes on too strong because it's not like he can save the world singlehandedly. By the end of the show, he's forced to confront the aliens at the meteor alone... and fails miserably.
- Zoey tells Emma that she doesn't want a ride because "she'd rather not crash and die." Near the end, Infected!Zoey crashes the helicopter Paul and Emma escape in.
- Word of God confirms that this was intentional foreshadowing of Zoey's ultimate fate — as was Bill's frustrated outburst of "Alice, you're killing me!"
- The Hive Mind figures out what the characters want and then use that to corrupt them. Charlotte wants Sam to love her, so Infected!Sam has to seduce her. Infected!Davidson asks Paul what he wants in "What Do You Want?" in order to do the same. Professor Hidgens wants to make “Workin’ Boys”, so the Hive Mind gives him an opportunity to do that. The more frustrated they get with the humans, the more brutal they become. That's why Infected!Alice and the infected at the meteor taunt Bill and Paul, respectively. This also means Paul's fate was sealed when the aliens overtook PEIP, since General McNamara knew about Paul's desire for a relationship with Emma.
- The reason the Hive Mind is so annoyed at Paul's resistance to join them is not just because he won't be infected, it's because they chose him to be their main character and leading man in the title song, so his refusal and dislike of musicals just makes it more difficult for the aliens.
- All of the show we're watching may be a Show Within a Show taking place After the End — hence the Opening Chorus saying the story of this musical is "the last remaining story to tell". After all, after the musical Hive Mind takes over the world and brings peace, it has nothing left to do but put on musicals. This adds some Fridge Horror over whether the characters we see are just acting out assimilation or whether the Hive Mind actually lets them believe they're living their old lives until they get assimilated during the show (hence Emma being one of the musical zombies in the Opening Chorus but not getting assimilated in the show until after the curtain call). This would explain the Breaking the Fourth Wall ending where Emma slowly becomes aware the "hospital corridor" is just the backstage area of the set and that the audience exists.
- With this interpretation, the show in which Nick Lang played Emma is set in the world in which they didn't succeed in assimilating her, so they cast her role with a random person and the final scene is their fantasy ending.
- Doubles as a crowning moment of funny — when Ted and Charlotte are in bed together in the scene before the meteor hits Ted yells at Charlotte "If you don't like what we're doing, there's the door!" The kicker is that the next morning Ted accidentally blurts out that he knows Sam never came home last night... because he spent the night at Sam and Charlotte's place... which means in that scene he was being such a supreme Jerkass he was trying to kick Charlotte out of her own house.
- The fact that the alien Hive Mind virus specifically turns people into characters from a musical seems like it's just part of the Black Comedy of it all. But what if it's actually because the meteor hit the Starlight Theater just before a production of Mamma Mia! was about to start, and the first minds it absorbed were the cast and crew — and it based its template for how "orderly human behavior" should be from the musical theater tropes that were in the front of their minds at the time?
- Alternatively, the Hive Mind Asteroid crashed into the Starlight Theater specifically because of the singing, as The Professor hypothesizes the Hive Mind is drawn to music— being already heading towards Hatchfield thanks to it being an Doom Magnet Eldritch Location.
- What if Infected!Alice based all of her taunts directed at Bill not on Alice's memories, but on Charlotte's. All of the assimilated share a single Hive Mind, so it's already a given that Infected!Alice has Charlotte's memories. As noted under Alternative Character Interpretation, Infected!Alice's song claims Bill is neglectful but from what we see of Bill, his every waking moment is devoted to Alice. And Charlotte is present for most of that. No doubt, Charlotte has a lot of memories of Bill fretting over what Alice thinks of him, giving the Hive Mind plenty of ammunition to hurl at him, which is all the more psychologically effective because a non-assimilated Alice would have no knowledge of it.
- Emma and Paul zigzag the Asshole Victim. In a typical horror story or a Twilight Zone episode, they'd be unlikable and that's why no one would mourn their eventual failure along with the apocalypse. Yet we see them try to rise to the occasion when the Hive Mind kills their friends, coworkers, and acquaintances. Emma even opens up to Paul to explain why she's being so hostile to everyone. They have to toe the line between being jerks and being heroes because if they're truly sympathetic then the audience wouldn't find it cool that they ultimately fail in the end and actually would be horrified. As it is, because Emma is still abrasive at the end and demands that she needed a cooler death, the audience doesn't feel too sorry for her when learning that the Hive Mind won and assimilated Paul.
- This musical shows that Emma and Paul failed, while Hannah and Lex may have succeeded in stopping the apocalypse in Black Friday given the Ambiguous Ending and Hannah saying she can see the hints of a tomorrow. Why? Because Lex for all the problems in her life didn't spend time kvetching about them; she was focused on creating a better future for her sister. She worked at Toy Zone long enough to get to know all the kids and frequent customers, while befriending her Mean Boss Frank. Hannah also refused to give into despair when talking to the Wiggly doll, saying that Ethan told her to never give up. General McNamara implied that Lex and Hannah being an optimistic Determinator duo could save the multiverse. In the grand scheme of things, Paul and Emma were too cynical to hope for a better future, so they couldn't create one.
- As noted in this post
, every song in the show (with the exception of "Show-stoppin' number" and "The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals", which is sung by a non-infected and as a framing device respectively) is the Hive Mind trying a new approach for infecting survivors:- "La Dee Dah Dah Day" is all about how people are so happy being part of the hive mind, you should come and be happy with us!
- "What Do You Want Paul?" is a direct appeal to the infected-to-be's desires. Whatever you want, we can offer it.
- "Cup of Roasted Coffee" shows that almost everyone is infected and it's spreading quickly. Why not join the masses?
- "Show me your hands". Not only is someone you know infected, but it's an authority figure you can trust.
- "You Tied Up My Heart". I love you, and if you join the hive, we can be together.
- "Join us and die" drops the pretenses and just goes for the jugular. You'll join wether you want it or not.
- "Not your seed" is aimed at breaking the survivor's willpower so they'll give up.
- "America is great again" has a powerful authority figure tell you to join for the sake of loyalty to the motherland.
- "Let it out" completely drops any attempts at subtlety and just goes for Mind Rape. The song itself is just mocking Paul.
- "Inevitable" shows the last survivor that the battle is already lost and there is no hope for survival.
- Emma displays dawning horror throughout "Inevitable". However, she only starts screaming bloody murder during the callback to "Show-Stopping Number"...which was a song Emma was present for, but Paul wasn't. The fact that he knows the song almost perfectly means that he really is infected by the Hive, and all hope is truly lost.
- On that note, "Inevitable" and its Reprise Medley are seemingly designed mostly for the Hive to give itself closure rather than to terrify Emma; the medley includes "What Do You Want, Paul?", "Tied Up My Heart", and "Not Your Seed", all songs that she didn't hear, thus the overall sense of doom that the medley should bring to the last survivor of Hatchetfield is lost on her. It may have been more thematic to sing songs she did hear: "Cup of Roasted Coffee" (which they merely allude to), "Join Us and Die", and "America is Great Again" — but those last two certainly don't convey the cheerful mood of a Reprise Medley. As such, the Hive picked out the medley for itself, leaving only "Show Me Your Hands" and "Show-Stopping Number" to be the parts of the song that actually provide psychological torture. Saving "Show-Stopping Number" for last is just because it is indeed a show-stopper, with it finally breaking Emma for the reasons stated above just being a bonus.
- During several moments when the hivemind has to simulate deep emotions or motives that actually seem to go outside the boundaries of its characters the given individuals seem to come back to themselves somewhat.Somewhat similarly in some other moments the hivemind has to literally harmonize to synchronize with each other. On multiple levels each person needs to resonate with each other to speak as one. Well considering the full title of the hive of course you would need multiple vibrations to speak as one voice. People that's views don't fit into song are literally like disharmonious vibrations preventing full speech even if they are still immutable tied to the same vocal system. As such they can temporarily break out but quickly come back into harmony when outside of those discordant tones.
As such Paul's actions at the start of the show may make sense. He doesn't like feeling small as part of a musical so when he is forced to simulate those parts he temporarily breaks away from the hive. General Mac Namera may have been right about the power of love and the human spirit after all.
- "The Charlotte you knew and loved was dead the moment a note came out of her mouth." Paul was dead the moment he belted "never."
- Since the assimilated seem to be unable to die and able to regenerate after a certain period of time (such as Hidgens who has his guts torn out but shows up at the end of the show looking completely normal), that brings up the horrifying possibility that Infected!Sam and Infected!Charlotte are still stuck tied down in Hidgens’ lab after he dissects them.
- More Fridge Sadness than Fridge Horror but at the beginning when Emma offers Zoey a ride from work while it's raining, Zoey states that she would "Rather not crash and die" at which point Emma shoots her a hurt look before storming off. Later on, we find out that Emma's sister Jane died in a car crash. Whether she knew it or not, it's still a Kick the Dog moment for Zoey.
- If the Hive weren't so singlemindedly focused on making Paul their main character, Zoey could have quietly flown the helicopter all the way to the mainland. Sure, Paul and Emma would escape Hatchetfield, but the infection could have spread to the rest of the world two weeks earlier than its implied to have.
- The way that Paul sings "I'm sorry, Emma, you lost," sounds genuinely regretful. Maybe a part of him is still in there screaming because the woman he loved is now trapped forever, along with him, and there's nothing he can do about it.
- An assimilated Paul doesn't bother restraining Emma; he gives her several opportunities to make a getaway. She's mainly frozen in denial then horror, and Deer in the Headlights. Then we find the rest of the ensemble returns for the finale, who grab Emma a few times as part of their number. Even with that, Paul implies the whole world fell victim to the Hive Mind, so Emma doesn't have anywhere to go. She's dead no matter what she does.
- Emma may not have died. In fact, there is no reason for the assimilated PEIP to have healed Emma's leg and pretend she got her dream deed in Colorado apart from For the Evulz. They could have let her bleed out before assimilating her. It could be that the Hive Mind thought that she was amusing. After all, how could an aspiring cannabis farmer seriously find a way to stop an invasion that was months in the making? So they're keeping her alive, as punishment for trying. Alternatively, it's Disproportionate Retribution to break her spirit because they hate how cynical and arrogant she is.
- Or, if we really want to Kick the Dog, Emma might actually be alive and uninfected, but forced to play along with the hivemind's whims. If the infection-by-singing theory Hidgens mentions is to be believed, Emma should have been infected when she sang "Cup of Roasted Coffee" with Zoey and Nora, but she wasn't. She might be the only human left in the world at the end of the show.
- General McNamara is aware of the multiverse in Black Friday. Therefore, he knows that his parallel self died fighting the Hive Mind. Then he pulls a Heroic Sacrifice in Black Friday to make sure his death isn't in vain this time. Perhaps his promoting Lex wasn't just a Rousing Speech to get her to save Hannah as well as herself, but an acknowledgment that he's a Failure Hero and can't handle the job.
