Tear Jerker / Heathers: The Musical

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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The Musical

• "Beautiful" is certainly catchy, and takes a turn for the uplifting at some points, but much of the early song with Veronica's desperate optimism juxtaposed against the cruelty of her classmates is just heartbreaking, especially for people who have experienced bullying themselves, whether back then or now. It's even worse when it shows that she, her tormentors, and even the teachers are not so different:
  Veronica: Dear diary: Why...?
  Hipster Dork: Why do they hate me?
  Young Republicanette: Why don't I fight back?
  Kurt: Why do I act like such a creep?
  Veronica: Why...?
  Martha: Why won't he date me?
  Ram: Why did I hit him?
  Students and Ms. Fleming: Why do I cry myself to sleep?
  Veronica: Why...?!
  Students: Somebody hug me! Somebody fix me! Somebody save me! Give me a sign, God! GIVE ME SOME HOPE HERE! SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR...!
• Happy tears can happen at the end of "Beautiful." The combination of the triumphant key change and Veronica's Adorkable joy at finally being accepted, with everyone cheering her name.
• The original "Fight For Me" can be pretty heartbreaking too, on a second listen. It's such a raw outpouring of emotion from Veronica, and we know that she is going to get everything she wants so desperately, only to have it turn out horribly...if only the person to hold her hand and fight for her hadn't decided to do so by killing anyone who makes her feel bad. Even "I would fight for you if you would fight for me" foreshadows her role in their relationship to come - seeing as she gives him a chance and tries to get him to come to his senses up until one last-straw proof of him being incapable of seeing anything wrong with his actions, and even after he goes off the deep end, she tries to appeal to him with sympathy to talk him down from blowing up the school, and tries to talk him down again from blowing himself up. She's in his corner and willing to fight to stay with him... up until he fails to return the favor and fight to stay with her the ways he actually needs to.
• A lot of the song "Freeze Your Brain" not so subtly implies that JD isn't okay.
  • He talks about how he constantly moves around and 7-Eleven is the only constant thing in his life because they're all over America.
    "I've been through ten high schools, they start to get blurry, no point planting roots 'cause you're gone in a hurry.
    My dad keeps two suitcases packed in the den so it's only a matter of when.
    I don't learn the names, don't bother with faces, all I can trust is this concrete oasis.
    Seems every time I'm about to despair, there's a 7-Eleven right there!
    Each store is the same from Las Vegas to Boston! Linoleum aisles that I love to get lost in!"
  • He also mentions that his mom is dead and that he's learned the truth about the world and had to grow up too fast.
    "When mom was alive, we lived halfway normal,
    now it's just me and my dad, we're less formal.
    I learned to cook pasta, I learned to pay rent,
    learned the world doesn't owe you a cent!"
  • Not to mention that he flat-out uses Slushees as a substitute for drugs and brain freezes as self-destructive behavior.
    "Happiness comes when everything numbs, who needs cocaine?"
    [...]
    Freeze your brain
    Shatter your skull
    Fight pain with more pain
    Forget who you are
    Unburden your load
    Forget in six weeks
    You'll be back on the road
    When the voice in your head
    Says you're better off dead
    Don't open a vein!
    Just freeze your brain
• The prank the Heathers had in mind for Martha is just cruel. Firstly they tricked her into attending the party by bullying Veronica into forging a love letter from Ram, whom Martha has been in love with since Kindergarten. Then Heather McNamara announces they're going to play hit the piñata and nominates Martha, blindfolding her. The crowd starts chanting Martha's name as Heather Duke brings out the Razorback mascot, a pig - which has been dressed up to look like Martha, complete with her name on it. Thank God Veronica jumped in to intervene when she did.
  • Following that is the complete lack of support from everyone at the party when Veronica takes her stand. Heather has declared her dead, and everyone who had just been celebrating alongside Veronica is silent. No one is willing to stand up to high school’s mythic bitch.
• The first verse of "Our Love is God," where J.D. attempts to comfort a crying Veronica after what Kurt and Ram did. It's one of the only times we see J.D. act like a normal, loving boyfriend, and it's touching... and heartbreaking if you've seen the movie and you know that J.D.'s idea of getting revenge on Kurt and Ram involves murder.
  • Kurt's immediate reaction to Ram being shot? "You killed my best friend!"
• In a milder sense, the scene at J.D.'s house when Veronica meets "Big Bud" Dean. Anyone with a parent like that (or a friend with a parent like that) can probably relate to Veronica's discomfort and J.D.'s embarrassment and knows what a crappy situation it is to be in.
• J.D.'s backstory.
  Veronica: J.D., how did your mother die?
  J.D.: You really wanna know?
  Veronica: Yeah.
  J.D. My dad said it was an accident, but... she knew what she was doing. She walked into that building two minutes before Dad blew it up. She waved at me out the window, and then... kaboom. She left me.
  (long, heavy pause)
  Veronica: ...I'm really sorry, I—
  J.D.: It's okay. The pain gives me clarity; you and I are special! We have a lot of work to do.
  Veronica: What work?
  J.D.: Making the world a decent place for people who are decent!
  Veronica: When does it end?
  J.D.: WHEN EVERY ASSHOLE IS DEAD!
  • Even with Veronica, the only person he really cares for or trusts, JD doesn't seem able to talk about his mother's suicide without breaking down in his own emotionally-maladjusted way. Some performances seem to indicate that he's not even fully aware of his Suddenly Shouting.
  • JD's penchant for leaving suicide notes at his killing sometimes seems to go beyond a simple need to cover his tracks. In light of what happened to his mother, it seems more like he's lashing out at someone. His mother for leaving him? Society in general for being bad enough that people are driven to suicide? Either possibility is pretty horrible.
  • And then it's followed by "Seventeen." The first listen alone can make you cry from the sheer emotion behind the song, but any subsequent listens are worse when you know J.D.'s promises to Veronica don't stick - and when you realize that he may not have even intended to make them. As a comment made on this video points out, all J.D. really does is repeat Veronica's words back to her, making it seem like he's agreeing and seeing the error of his ways when in retrospect, the only thing he's making a real effort to do is to maintain Veronica's faith in him, fixate on the affirmations of love she's giving him while brushing off the reasons she wants him to take them to heart, and/or concur that it would be nice if things were normal. If.
• "Let us be seventeen, if we've still got the right!" The harmony will get you every time...
• "People hurt us..." "Or they vanish..." "And you're right, it really blows."
  • Especially when you remember what happened to J.D.'s mom.
• "Lifeboat." Really drives home the fact that Heather McNamara is a generally good person who's following a bad crowd...and she knows it. She can't say "no" to the popular kids because she knows they'll turn on her if she does, and she's terrified of being alone.
  Everyone's pushing!
  Everyone's fighting!
  Storms are approaching, there's nowhere to hide!
  If I say the wrong thing, or I wear the wrong outfit
  THEY'LL THROW ME RIGHT OVER THE SIDE!
  • Blink and you might miss it, but she never does say "full of my friends". It's always "full of people I know," and she only refers to Heather Duke as "The Captain"
  • Before her song, Heather McNamara comments on how "She had one friend who really seemed to have it all together, only now she's gone, too". While she is most likely referring to Heather Chandler, it applies to all of her friends: Chandler dies, Veronica slowly distances herself from the group to be with J.D., and Duke takes over as Alpha Bitch and starts treating her the same way she was treated. McNamara is all alone.
• Catchy as it is, the reprise of "Shine a Light" where Heather McNamara imagines the other students, led by Heather Duke, taunting and goading her to commit suicide hits extremely hard when one considers all the awful things they're saying, even if they may not be too out of character from Heather Duke for example, are really Heather berating herself. Made worse in the staging, where Heather is visibly crying as they mock her.
  Heather Duke: You don't deserve to live!
  Students: Why not kill yourself?
  Heather Duke: Here, have a sedative!
  Students: Whine, whine, whine!
  Heather Duke: Like there's no Santa Claus!
  Everyone: You're pathetic because you whine!
  Heather Duke: You whine all night!
• "Kindergarten Boyfriend" is enough to make you feel guilty for laughing at Martha in earlier scenes.
  • The live performances really make it worse. On those last few notes, she spreads her arms out and begins to fall backwards... and then the theater just blacks out, and you suddenly realize what just happened. She survives, but Veronica visiting her in the hospital and seeing her unconscious was still devastating, however brief it was.
    • Often during live performances, the Tearjerker nature of the song hits even earlier. It starts out fairly funny, but then Martha suddenly sings the line "Some boys are only meant for kindergarten, some girls are meant to be alone" and then the song just stops for a moment and the reality of how Martha thinks of her situation just suddenly sinks in until you feel bad for even finding the song funny until that point. It's not uncommon to hear audiences have some kind of an emotional reaction to that line.
    • Before this, Veronica finally tells Martha about her forging Ram's letter to her, and Martha lets out a shocked, heartbroken "What?" before sadly walking away.
• Creepy as J.D.'s mood-swinging during "Meant To Be Yours" is, the part where he believes Veronica killed herself is heart-breaking.
  Oh my God. No. Veronica...
  Please don't leave me alone.
  You were all I could trust.
  I can't do this alone...
  • The part when J.D asks Veronica to open the door, the switching from his anger to his almost broken voice asking if they can stop fighting. To some, it sounds like the voice of someone who's been crying.
  • The entire thing is one. Between Veronica hiding from someone she deeply cared for because he's dangerously psychotic and J.D. being absolutely genuine through the entire thing, not seeming to realize that he's completely gone insane and is scaring Veronica. It's a creepy and tragic spin on it.
• At least one regional production upped the creepiness and tragedy of "Meant to be Yours," by having J.D. briefly hold his gun to his head with a downright broken expression when he talks about Veronica leaving him. At this point, it becomes clear to the audience that there is no way this can turn out that allows both of them to live.
• "I wish your mom had been a little stronger. I wish she'd stayed around a little longer. I wish your dad were good! I wish grown-ups understood! I wish we'd met before they convinced you life is war! I wish you'd come with me..." "I wish I had more TNT!"
  • The live version makes it worse. On the soundtrack, Veronica sounds angry, but live, she sounds sympathetic for J.D.
  • Similarly, J.D.'s response, "I wish I had more TNT!" is an angry growl on the soundtrack, but live, his voice breaks, as if he's about to cry.
  • From the beginning, this scene is tragic; Veronica confronts J.D. and orders him to step away from the bomb. You'd think he would be happy to see her alive, or at least comment on it. Instead, he just taunts her about how there are worse bombs upstairs before the two fight for the fate of the students. This is the guy who earlier cried at her "corpse" and asked Ms. Flemming for a tribute before attempting mass murder. The J.D. Veronica loved is too far gone, and her futile attempts to get him back are all the more depressing.
  • Recent versions of the show have made it slightly worse, with Veronica's lines through this sections being interspersed with JD angrily telling Veronica to shut up about his mother, either because A) he doesn't want to hear anything that would cause his petty morals to keep him from his "purpose", B) because he knows Veronica is right, with the undertone of his awareness that his mother would probably be ashamed of him, or C) because he's finally forced to come to terms with the fact that Veronica is not on his side and that she's willing to say anything she believes will get him to stop.
  • In this animatic, as Veronica sings to him, J.D. stops looking like a raging madman for a second and has a heartbroken, almost vulnerable expression, looking like he's actually considering what she's saying...before rejecting it.
• "...Say hi to God."
  • To clarify: the movie tried to play JD's death off as just a badass moment for Veronica. In the musical, it's much more emotional. JD still cares enough about Veronica to trade his life for hers. Veronica still cares enough about JD to beg him not to do it ("Not this way!"), and give him those last parting words.
  • There are a couple of ways to interpret those words. "I hope there's someplace you can find that will finally let you be at peace." Or "I'm sorry someone made the world so screwed up that it's come to this." Or even "Too bad it couldn't have worked out for us here."
  • One of the things JD says before his death...
    JD: You were right about me. I destroy things, just like my dad. I don't want you to turn out like my mom.
• "Are there any happy endings?" Especially jarring since Martha was The Pollyanna at the beginning of the show.
• J.Ds repetition of "Our love is God" and "I worship you" before he kills himself. Knowing that now, he's not trying to manipulate Veronica, it's simply him loving her before he dies.
• The Cut Song, "Fight For Me (Reprise)".
  If you go on like this, you'll lose your soul...
• "I Say No" from the West End production, though also an Awesome Moment for Veronica, is also a sadly realistic portrayal of someone choosing to leave an abusive relationship. Some highlights include...
  • Veronica's summary of her and JD's relationship:
    You are a drug
    You are a poison pill
    I've got to kick this habit now or else I never will
    I love the rush
    When you would hold me close
    But you will not be satisfied until I overdose!
  • "You need help I can't provide..." a line that acts as a painful reminder that sometimes, you can't always help your loved ones with their issues.
  • Veronica's My God, What Have I Done? moment right before the song starts.
    Veronica: Martha was right about you… Martha was right, and I broke her heart!
• At Kurt's and Ram's funeral, Veronica acknowledges the tragedy of the deaths around her - these were two (three including Heather Chandler) teenagers, only seventeen. They had time to change, but, because of Veronica and JD's actions, their lives were cut short before they had the opportunity to make that choice.
  • And, in seeing the brief glimpse of Kurt and Ram's dads interacting with them, like with JD and Big Bud Dean, you can so easily see the reason they are the way they are, with their fathers bullying the both of them, so they just pay it forward. For all that they don't take "no" for an answer when alone with Veronica, that bit gives them both a level of pity and sympathy when you consider that they had no particular alternative BUT to be this way since no one ever showed them things could or should be different (and that's before you get into the realm of Alternate Character Interpretation and actor portrayals that suggest that they really WERE gay for each other, but, particularly because this is still 1989, couldn't dare acknowledge that the quarterback and the linebacker felt that way for each other).

Non-Canon

• Ghost-Pie's "Shine a Light Reprise" animatic. Heather McNamara has hallucinations of Heather Duke and the other students, taunting and goading her into committing suicide. She actually swallows the whole bottle of pills and collapses, but then Veronica kicks down the bathroom door and revives her with CPR as the figments of Heather Duke and the others point and laugh. Heather McNamara thankfully wakes up, and the animatic ends with her sobbing in Veronica's arms. Someone give this poor girl a hug!
  • Their take on "Kindergarten Boyfriend" features a gut punch at the very end—Ram's ghost appearing next to Martha's hospital bed. He looks remorseful.
    • There's also the shot of Martha on the roof, and as she rolls up her sleeves, we see numerous self-harm scars on her arms.
• Morci's "Candy Store" animatic has a brief moment where we can see Ram looking sadly in Martha's direction and Kurt reading a brochure for law universities hidden in a dirty magazine. A sad reminder that for all their faults, Kurt and Ram were still young and they could have changed for the better if their lives hadn't been cut short.

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