laceblade | Denouement

WTF, ARE YOU SHITTING ME? IS THAT REALLY THE END?

Remember how we all thought that Penny was going to be Bad Horse?!

I thought her sweet act was a fake-out, because it's Joss Whedon, and women aren't just waifs for men to fight over with disgustingly sugary personalities. BUT THEN SHE DIED, AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN LOVE DR. HORRIBLE.

I LOVE DR. HORRIBLE, THIS WAS SO SAD. HE IS SO CUTE.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY.

JOSS WHEDON, YOU ARE A MEAN, MEAN MAN.

That last shot of Dr. Horrible? Looking adorable in his hoodie? Talk about a punch in the gut. I am still processing this! I don't know what to say! This was horrible from the stance of how Penny was treated, but as a character study for Dr. Horrible the man, the story as a whole is fascinating! Penny was just figuring out how dickish Captain Hammer really was. And she had two frozen yogurts, waiting for "Billy Buddy." But then she's bleeding and dead and telling Billy not to worry because Captain Hammer will save them.

That last shot of sad!Billy is going to be with me for days, I think.

And listening to I Cannot Believe My Eyes is pretty shocking as well. Because it's Billy, and most people listen to it and think, "Cheer up, Billy Buddy!" (unless you're me and you're like, shit, he's totally right). But by the end of the musical, everything he says is proven true.

Anyone with half a brain
can spend their whole life howling in pain
'cause the dark is everywhere
and Penny doesn't seem to care
that the dark in me is all that will remain

Okay. So the more I think about the ending, the more I like it. The only character I like in this entire thing is Dr. Horrible/Billy himself. I wish I could have liked Penny more, but all she was was a ray of hope for Billy that ended up turning him evil completely.

ETA: OMF! Other people have good theories! I'm not sure which I like better: it all having been in Billy's head, or it all having happened, with Billy just being a locked-away part of Dr. Horrible's personality.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was really disappointed with this last installment. It just... wasn't nearly as good or clever as the first two. Act II was definitely the strongest part.

I agree that Act II was probably the strongest.

I'm still fascinated by this ending, though; I wouldn't say I'm disappointed. But I love depressing characters, angst, and acceptance that life sucks in my art, so that might have something to do with it.

Creighton here:
The moment I saw Penny the only thing I could think was "Is shrapnel through torsos some kind of weird fetish for Joss?", followed quickly by "Joss Whedon: randomly stabbing characters through the chest since 2005."
Seriously, I worry about that guy.

LOL, yeah. I do like a creator who's not afraid to kill characters, and I kind of admire him. It's too early for me to think of a non-gendered way to say this, but the man has big balls.

Also! Earlier than that! There's a character in Buffy and one in Angel who both die from chest wounds, although neither are shrapnel, so those are pre-2005.

C-Ninny: I'm fine with characters dying...but this obsession with chest wounds is seriously weirding me out.

LOL.

Well, he was going to use a brain aneurism, but it wasn't dramatic enough.

It was pretty traumatic in Buffy!

It's going to be a good time before I can come up with a response other than WHAT.

SERIOUSLY. WHAT.

I KNOW.

I wish this was going to be up for more than two days, because I'd like to be able to fully process it, and then watch it a couple more times after that.

Well, you can buy all 3 episodes for 4 dollars on iTunes, or just bitTorrent them for free...

I will not bitTorrent them! The whole point of creating Dr Horrible was to prove that . Plus, in the Master Plan, Joss himself hoped that we wouldn't "get all piratey."

I might do the iTunes thing, if I can figure out how to install that on my computer again. I remember installing it before, but for some reason, I was unable to purchase things through the iTunes store, :/

I had to bitTorrent the first two episodes, due to high traffic causing the website to pause every five seconds. However, I plan to purchase the DVD when it comes out. I'm of the mind where I will bitTorrent something if I can't otherwise legally yet see it.

Okay okay okay. I've kind of processed this.

1. Would we want Dr. Horrible to win? Had he done anything to win Penny's love? I mean, yeah, skeevy, skeevy killing off of the female lead, bad Joss, but on the other hand, if they had ridden off into the romantic sunset, what would've happened then? "Stalking Gets Results"?

I do like the Penny=Bad Horse idea, but so far as obvious answers go, this is better than the happy ending.

2. I really expected Joss Whedon to give me a happy ending with fluffy relationship schmoop. I AM A FOOL.

3. In Act II, when Billy says that sometimes people have a third layer, which is just like the outer layer? He's also talking about himself! It can work if you think he's layered Dr. Horrible - Billy - Dr. Horrible (he's a villain! but he's a nice guy! except for the part where he's a stalker and kind of manipulative!) or Billy - Dr. Horrible - Billy (like the end shot seems to imply).

I think that was the only way it *could* have ended. I was hoping for a last-second redemption, but I don't know how realistic that would've been.

The Death Rays of Charm that NPH sends out almost blind one to the fact that, on the other side of the sweet lonely boy, is the bitter and entitled guy. And he is doomed to be destroyed by that if he can't escape from it. Being a supervillain isn't just a cute plot conceit, it involves actually being a supervillain.

And even though it was pretty bad that Penny was just a plot token, I find it really interesting - and kinda sorta feminist - how it takes apart the idea of the Nice Guy, the guy who thinks the world owes him something - and girls owe him something, in particular - just because he's a Nice Guy.

I like your analysis! Especially the last paragraph. Deconstructing this musical is going to be awesome!

Here, have more analysis (http://takumashii.livejournal.com/303857.html)!

I really enjoyed it, though the end was a bit bizarre. Seeing that final shot of Billy I can't decide if we're supposed to think it was all just in his head, or if it's just a way of showing that while he's super accomplished evil guy, in real life he's miserable because of Penny. I prefer the latter.

And yeah, I saw the two yogurts at the laundromat right away and said "That's so sad..."

It sucks that Penny dies, but the lives of all three characters are completely destroyed.

Actually, I think of Penny as the actual hero in the show. *She* is what stands in the way of Billy becoming evil. (And also, she does far more good than Hammer, whether or not she has super powers). Billy sings that the time for heroes is over with, and that there are no happy endings, but while he thinks that the hero in question is Hammer, it's actually Penny.

So anyway, what I got out of the show was that normal people are heroes in a way that super heroes/ villains can't really compare to.

Also, got from it that the problem with destroying the world and remaking it is...well, you have to destroy the world.

I'm pretty tired of women existing in stories just so that their death can serve as a turning point for a man. So... I didn't like this.

Dr Horrible made evil so sexy, I have to say. I wasn't really impressed with Penny and I HATED Captain Hammer (the character, the actor did a great job). I admit it didn't end the way I'd have liked, but then I was liking it all so much I was sad to see it end at all.

Denouement

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