HSMTMTS Seemed To Hide An Olivia Rodrigo Easter Egg In Its Final Season
Did you catch this?
Olivia Rodrigo may not have returned to East High for the farewell season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, but she seemed to get a subtle shoutout. At least, that’s how fans of the show are interpreting one suspicious line in the finale episode. Before it closed its curtains for good, HSMTMTS may have dropped a winking Olivia Rodrigo Easter egg in its final moments to commemorate the breakout pop star’s beginnings as Nini.
Spoiler alert: This post discusses details from the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series series finale. After four seasons of iconic cameos, romantic songs, and wild additions to the HSM canon, HSMTMTS came to an end like any high school musical should — with a big show and an ever bigger proclamation of love. On the brink of Gina’s move to New Zealand, Ricky finally worked up the nerve to confess his love for her. In song, of course. After bursting into her press conference and performing the original song “Love You Forever,” Gina revealed she had loved him all along as well, and worked out a way to remain in Salt Lake City so they could be together.
Surprisingly, even Gina’s disapproving mother respected Ricky for the bold move. She shared some uplifting words for her daughter’s boyfriend: “That took guts, what you did back there. Guts are good. Maybe you were worth the wait.”
It was a sweet moment, but also one that hardcore fans immediately latched onto due to Mrs. Porter’s specific choice of words. Some took the moment as a subtle nod to Olivia Rodrigo, whose sophomore album due out in September is titled Guts.
Rodrigo starred as Ricky’s love interest Nini for the first two season of the show, an onscreen romance that quickly exploded into a whole mess of behind-the-scenes rumors after the release of “Drivers License.” Rodrigo left the show in Season 3, with her character’s exit mirroring her own rise to fame as a pop superstar.
Though the final season of HSMTMTS saw the return of a ton of beloved characters, Nini was not one of them. Showrunner Tim Federle told Variety that Rodrigo was welcome to return if she had time, but he never seriously thought about writing anything for Nini. “The offer was extended to her insomuch as Olivia knowing from me that she can always come back,” Federle said. “But it was never really seriously discussed because there were new relationships we had to write for.”
