The upcoming musical Black Friday is also set in Hatchetfield, but since The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals ended with the societal destruction of Hatchetfield (and the implied imminent societal destruction of Earth), Black Friday is unlikely to be a sequel. If it's a prequel, then it's a Foregone Conclusion that the villain's apocalypse attempt won't succeed, and fan favorite characters Paul and Emma can't appear since they met for the first time in TGWDLM. A parallel universe allows for the same characters we already know to go through a new world-destroying catastrophe, possibly with new interpersonal relationships and dynamics.
- Confirmed — the first scene after the Opening Chorus establishes this right away by showing us Paul and Emma alive and as a couple. The scene at PEIP HQ goes on to firmly establish alternate timelines are a thing in this setting.
The relationship between Bill and his daughter Alice is the obvious one to further develop in this show, with Bill's determination to make up for having been an absent father being an obvious motive for him getting sucked into the Tickle-Me Wiggly obsession. TGWDLM establishes Paul was a major part of Alice's life in his capacity as Bill's best friend, which provides an opening for him getting involved in the plot.
- Jossed. Corey's role in the new show is as Frank Pricely, the owner of the toy store.
- But then semi-confirmed — Paul does mention Bill failed to get a Wiggly online, and then Corey as Bill appears as one of the mall survivors in the coda of the show, indicating he was one of the unseen shoppers this whole time.
- Though in the final filmed version, Corey is dressed, not as Bill, but a random passerby from TGWDLM.
Continuing the theme of The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You endings, each performance will end by throwing the Wiggly doll to a random audience member and singing a song about how the Hate Plague has extended into the real world. (Considering how sought after a defictionalized Wiggly toy is likely to become among the Starkid fandom this would be highly appropriate.)
- Joey Richter made a joke about doing exactly this as an example of one of the worst ideas they could possibly do, so probably Jossed.
- Jossed, yes, obviously, although they did defictionalize Wiggly to a surprising extent, including making it so it's almost impossible to get one of the very limited quantity available for sale unless you're the very first in line at the merch table.
When listing zodiac signs for the major characters Nick Lang added that Wiggly either has no sign because he was never born or is a Capricorn. People born on Christmas are Capricorns (hence the common joke "Jesus was a Capricorn
").The obvious implication is that Wiggly will be born into physical form on Christmas morning, when all the kids open their Tickle-Me Wiggly toys, and this will herald a religious apocalypse based on Wiggly's successful perversion of a sacred holiday, as one of the most over-the-top versions of a True Meaning of Christmas Aesop in history. Will probably be played ironically to some extent, especially with the news that Darren Criss will appear as Santa Claus.
- Confirmed, although the significance of his birthday being Christmas is downplayed.
His unseen wife and the mother of his son Tim is Emma's perfect sister (the baby shower Emma mentions skipping was for Tim's birth). Whether they're still married at the time of this show or she's already been killed in her car accident, Emma would have ample reason to resent Tom's romantic interest in Becky, seeing her as either a homewrecker or as a "replacement" for her sister. Either way, since Emma doesn't come back to Hatchetfield until her sister's funeral, she likely won't show up here except in an epilogue.
- Confirmed, although Emma does show up at the beginning of the show thanks to this being an AU, set after her sister's funeral and Emma's feelings about Becky never come up.
She may or may not be Tom's wife, see above. She will die at some point in this show, either in an actual car accident or in a supernatural attack that PEIP covers up as a car accident.
- Jossed. The primary character Jaime plays is Sherman Young. Jane is dead before the story begins.
- though she does play Jane in the 3rd Episode of Nightmare Time.
It seems impossible that Hatchetfield could go through two apocalypses in relatively quick succession with no impact on the town, but we see TGWDLM from the perspective of Paul, a guy who it's established starts out with no curiosity about in anything outside his own life. There will be some sort of sequence showing PEIP using Laser-Guided Amnesia to suppress all awareness of the Black Friday Incident and not having to bother using it on Paul, who never noticed anything odd in the first place because he spends the day after Thanksgiving sleeping in.
- Partially confirmed. This is an AU where TGWDLM apparently didn't happen, but Paul and Emma are indeed isolated from the crisis since neither of them want a Wiggly.
Cynthia won't appear, because she'd be too similar to Lauren Lopez's current character of Linda Monroe, but there will be some reference to how Tom's wife works in the government once the President appears.
Alternatively, since Spies Are Forever takes place in the past, Tom is Cynthia's son and his military service is a cover for his past career as a spy, a la the relationship between Sterling and Mallory Archer.
- Tom was married to Emma's "perfect" sister Jane, before she died. But since Spies Are Forever is set in the sixties-ish, there's no reason he couldn't be Cynthia's son or grandson. And he *does* have post-traumatic stress related to guns, causing him to "remember bad things vividly" (just don't call it "having flashbacks"), which is said to have been from serving in the military, but possibly might have been a cover for a secret agent, or simply the only part of his service he can legally discuss. But what I want to know is, was Emma also a spy?
Tom will lose his wife and child as a result of the events of Black Friday and become the bereaved military veteran who takes up woodworking and discovers the baby squirrel mentioned in The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals.
- Jossed. Peanuts and his father do appear in this show — it's Curt Mega's character in the hoodie in the finale, you can see Peanuts in his pocket as a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
We'll think Emma is making a cameo at the end but it'll be a bait and switch.
- Jossed. The big surprise is Lauren DOES appear as Emma.
Leaving aside the use of Bland Name Products to distinguish the Hatchetfield universe from the real world, Black Friday has a political landscape very different from the real 2019 — the President is a white man who has a background similar to Barack Obama's ("Harvard Law School, community organizer") but seems to lack any of Obama's charismatic star power, and who apparently has an Expy of Obama (named "Morris") on his staff as though to lampshade the difference. Moreover, he calls himself a "status quo Democrat" when Obama very much was elected on a "hope and change" platform — there hasn't been a "status quo" Democratic President elected (i.e. a Democrat succeeding a Democrat, promising to maintain the same policies) since LBJ aucceeded JFK.
Not knowing Nick and Matt Lang's politics but knowing that Jaime Lyn Beatty recorded a song supporting Bernie Sanders in 2016 and seeing that this show has a pretty harsh anti-capitalist message, it seems like Howard Goodman is a cautionary tale about what would've happened if Al Gore had won in 2000, or Hillary Clinton in 2016 — the radical message that centrist governments that maintain an increasingly unsustainable status quo under late capitalism can be just as bad as the more obvious dangers of the reactionary right.
"America is Great Again" from TGWDLM was about what actually happened in 2016, with fascism and open hatred of minorities coming back into vogue, but "Made In America" from Black Friday is a song about what makes fascism attractive — that in a brutal world where no one seems to care about each other or take care of each other, even the worst social movements seem attractive if they give you something to belong to.
- This is possible, but the message could work the same with the deviation just being A) Howard Goodman existing and B) him managing to triumph in the 2016 election over Trump/an Expy thereof. It's also worth noting that while Obama campaigned as an advocate of 'Hope and Change,' to many on the left Obama was in fact more of the same (for instance by pursuing healthcare legislation modeled after a 1990's-era conservative proposal instead of single-payer). Another possibility...
Wiggly’s entire plan was about being born into their world. His way was called the birthing canal. His prophet called the mother. Tom and Becky were still sort of under the influence when they had sex in the movie theater, and afterwards went right back to being fully under Wiggly's influence.
It’s never really stated what/who the sleeping warrior was. And even if Linda is called the Prophet, there’s no confirmation that the prophet is dead after she's killed. Because Linda would only be the false prophet, and Becky would be the real one.
If Wiggly wants into their world so badly, who's to say that he wouldn't have more than one plan?
Is the apotheosis meteor, and the Wiggly cultists will "battle" the singing zombies. Added theory, Nerdy Prudes must Die could be the survivors' perspective of this.
- How? TGWDLM can't be a prequel to Black Friday - Emma and Paul barely know each other at the beginning of TGWDLM but are "intimate" as of Black Friday.
- It's an alternate timeline, not a prequel, but that doesn't mean the hivemind of the alien musical zombie asteroid isn't due to crash into the Earth around Hatchetfield.
- Throughout the musical, Hannah starts out by being resigned to the visions that she sees, including Ethan's death and the security guard getting caught by the brainwashing. When evil Ethan and the Wiggly doll talk to her, however, Hannah comes to a "Eureka!" Moment: if the future is set in stone, why is the Wiggly god trying to encourage her to give in and becomes angry when she refuses to despair? Hannah realizes that she has the power to change things, both metaphorically and literally, and Grew a Spine by refusing to give the Wiggly doll to the adults or betray its location when Linda threatens to torture her. General McNamara says that Lex and Hannah can stop the Wiggly if they control their powers, and he knows the multiverse exists. Hannah at the end sees a possibility of tomorrow and tries to focus on it while the survivors huddle, waiting for midnight.
