“The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” was made by Starkid Productions and has one of the most shocking endings I have ever seen. When a meteor hits Hatchetfield, infecting people to make them sing and dance, Paul Matthews, his love interest Emma and some of his work friends hide away and try to find a way out of Hatchetfield. After some help from a biology professor, named Henry Hidgens, and a bumbling friend, they realize that they need to take out the meteor to stop the apocalypse. Paul goes to blow it up, but he gets infected in the song ‘Let it Out.’ This kills the human part of him and he finds Emma and infects her, which spreads the disease to the rest of the world in the final song called, ‘Inevitable.’ 

Some fans speculate that Paul isn’t really dead and was simply faking it to blend in and survive, but I don’t think that’s true.

First off, he was very close to the meteor, close enough to throw a grenade at it. As he gets closer he belts out his first note also counting as the first time we hear him sing, he’s told it’s because of his proximity to the meteor. 

When the audience first meets Professor Hidgens, who is a biology professor, for help with his infected friends, Sam and Charlotte, he tells us that, “Charlotte was gone the moment a note left her mouth.” Therefore, the second he started singing ‘Let It Out,’ he was already gone and infected. 

In the final song of the show called ‘Inevitable’ he infects Emma and says, “What if I told you I made it and this is the life that I chose.” This made people believe that he was trying to tell Emma that he was okay, but almost immediately after this he says, “I’m still the man you trust” and gestures to her to follow him. He also says, “What if the only choice is you have to sing to survive.” This leads me to believe that he’s trying to convince her he isn’t infected to trap her. 

One of the most convincing pieces of evidence is when he and everyone else sings the finale song, “Inevitable.’  The song is a mashup of all the songs before it. The most notable song he sings is called ‘Show Stopping Number.’ This song is sung by Hidgens when he kidnaps Emma and one of her acquaintances, only known as Ted. However, Paul wasn’t there for that song. It is the only song that he wasn’t present for in the whole show besides ‘You Tied Up My Heart.’ which was sung earlier in the show.

Paul was out with a General planning his and Emma’s escape. So how would he know the song, dance and lyrics to ‘Show Stopping Number’ if he wasn’t there? There was no time between ‘Show Stopping Number’ and ‘Inevitable’ where Emma could have told Paul about what happened. The only answer is that Paul is truly infected and is now part of the Hivemind. The Hivemind is the term used when describing those who had been infected, first used by Paul himself in the final song. It has since been used by the fans of the show to describe the infected.

When asked what she thought, sophomore Cheyenne Hencley said, “I want to say yes [He lived] but definitely not.” I asked her if she thought he was faking during his final song and she replied, “No, he’s gone, a hundred percent. If he didn’t die from the infection, the grenade he used would’ve killed him.” 

So with all the evidence, there is absolutely no way that he made it and that he wasn’t infected. But then again, the Hatchet Field universe is an odd one. Maybe he did survive in a different timeline.