High School Musical: The Musical: The Series Season 3 Episode 3 “The Woman in the Woods” Review: The Third Episode Showcases What Makes the Series So Great

ReviewsTV

Aug 13

In case you missed it, check out my review of the first two episodes of season 3 here!

For those who have been watching High School Musical: The Musical: The Series since the first season, the third episode in each season is legendary.

In the first season, "The Wonderstudies" found our cast in flux. E.J. discovered Ricky's voicemail to Nini from the previous episode, Nini and Gina had a face-off for reasons, and Mr. Mazzara found out about Miss Jenn. In the following season, "Valentine's Day" found our favorite Wildcats under the spell of love, as the episode name would suggest. Nini and Ricky get their wires crossed (a theme in season 2), which leads to Gina confiding in Ricky. At the same time, Kourtney begins working at Slices, Big Red's family pizzeria, struggling to earn the respect of Howie, a long-time employee. At East High, Beauty and the Beast rehearsals begin, and Ashlyn becomes worried that she doesn't look as beautiful as Belle is supposed to look. Big Red spends the episode finding ways to comfort her and planning a surprise for her. Another couple spending Valentine's Day together is Carlos and Seb, who struggle with their insecurities about each other's personalities - good and bad. Meanwhile, Lily quits the production to help North High with their competing Beauty and the Beast production.

Suffice to say, my expectations for this episode are sky-high. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. I don't use slang often in my reviews, but this episode is a banger of an episode. Not only does the story deal with the mounting pressure from episode 2, but it builds on them and somehow even finds time to challenge the audience's assumptions about where the story is going, rather than sticking to the status quo (throw your tomatoes later). Of course, it also helps that this episode provides some great tracks I could listen to on repeat all day.

This episode finds our favorite Wildcats Ricky, Gina, E.J., Ashlyn, Kourtney, and Carlos, and fellow campers Maddox and Jet as they embark on a Camp Shallow Lake tradition: Newbie Initiation Night after the cast list is revealed.

Speaking of the cast list, let's talk about the performances in this episode. To sum it up in one word: wow. There's so much more nuance to the performances here than in any episode of the series so far.

I want to call out Sofia Wylie, Matt Cornett, Julia Lester, and Saylor Bell Curda specifically as the superstars of this episode. Without saying too much, these performers portray the microcosms of insecurity, stress, and overall lack of identity.

Now, these topics aren't uncommon grounds for exploring what is ostensibly a television show made for teenagers, but I feel each performer brought a twist to each scenario that wasn't as straightforward as it initially seemed.

Angela C. Tortu's direction of this episode is crucial to how these moments are depicted. Her direction feels very generous, as though she told the cast to wander the woods or take their time rooting themselves in a specific scene. She also seems to be having as much fun with the episode's format as the cast, as the structure feels more free-form than any other episode this season. Kudos.

Another major bit of props that is well-deserved is Natalia Castells-Esquivel's script for the episode. As a first-time writer, I don't have any context for her previous work, but I get a strong sense that she went into this doing a ton of research on the prior episodes of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. That, or talked to each performer to see what they thought their character would do in a situation and wrote them into situations where something new and unexpected happens.

I especially enjoyed the horror movie sendup in the back half of the episode, the numerous confrontations, and role reversals that occurred in the episode. I can't go into specifics, but you know what I'm talking about for those who've seen the episode already. As I mentioned in my review of the first episode of the season, it's a breath of fresh air.

If I have one pet peeve with the writing is that it reuses a character arc for Ashlyn that feels out of character (sorry, Ash!) for her to experience the feelings she's going through yet again. We're three seasons in. I feel like, at this point, Ashlyn would be over these insecurities, especially since we revisit them every season.