Homecoming is often the highlight of many high school students and we get to see all the drama that comes with it in this weeks episode of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series”.

If you need a quick recap, check out our reviews on Episode 1, “The Audition” , Episode 2, “The Read-Thru”, Episode 3, “The Wonderstudies”, Episode 4, “Blocking”, then get’cha head in the game for episode 5, “Homecoming”.

This weeks episode opens up with us getting a look at a dance practice, where Carlos and Seb are working on the choreography for “Bop to the Top”. It’s here that Seb announces that he’s not as comfortable dancing with others like he is with Carlos, which inspires Carlos to invite him to the homecoming dance that evening. Meanwhile, Nini is in the bathroom, trying to flush her dress down the toilet now that she’s no longer going with EJ. It’s Kourtney’s idea then to have a girl’s night, in order for Nini to get over her breakup. Miss Jenn overhears and decides to take the girls out for the evening instead of going to the dance.

Ricky comes home to find his father asleep on the couch and trying to cope with the recent divorce. Ricky encourages him to get himself together and try to put himself back on the market, and the two make a pact that they’ll try to move on from breakups. His father, Mike, says that he’ll go out tonight if his son tries as well at the dance. Ricky ends up taking Big Red to his first high school dance and see that EJ is now taking Gina, since his plans of taking Nini fell through. This is all part of Gina’s plan that Nini would have been at the dance to see the two together and decide to quit the show. However, Nini wasn’t there, and was instead at the bowling alley, where she found out via a post on Instagram.

At the bowling alley, Miss Jenn tries to encourage the girls to partake in karaoke while she goes to get them snacks. At the snack bar, Miss Jenn runs into Mike and the two start flirting. Meanwhile, Nini decides she can’t sing once it’s announced that Kourtney has put her up to doing a song on stage. Her stage fright and lack of confidence returns from finding out that the only reason she has gotten the past few leads was because of EJ’s help. Kourtney tells her that ever since Nini had boyfriends, that she began to see herself through their eyes and had lost the spark that she used to have.

Meanwhile at the homecoming dance, Carlos believes that he’s been stood up by Seb since he’s three hours late. After confiding with Mr. Mazzara at the punch bowl, Carlos realizes that he doesn’t need a partner to dance alone so he takes center stage. At the same time, Nini and Kourtney are dancing to the same song “Born to be Brave” out in the alleyway of the bowling alley. At the end of the number, Seb finally arrives and tells Carlos that the reason he’s late was because one of his cows died on the family farm and that he had no signal to text.

Although everyone’s night seems to be getting better, Gina and EJ end up in a fight and Ricky offers to drive Gina home from the dance. The two realize that they have a bit more in common then they believed and before Gina gets out of the car, she gives Ricky a kiss. Kourtney and Nini are heading back out to Miss Jenn’s car after their girl’s night out when Miss Jenn notices she has many missed text messages and a few voicemails from the principal, asking to see her in his office come Monday morning.

This episode truly felt like a coming of age teen movie rather than being a half hour long episode. I loved the fact that we got to focus more on Seb, as we’ve only seen him a bit in passing in other episodes. The themes of female empowerment, friendship and family were super important in this episode and I think that’s really good for younger viewers to see. Going along those lines, I’m glad that Disney didn’t shy away from LGBTQ+ themes and showed that a gay couple can slow dance in the middle of homecoming proudly. Overall, this episode was a hit for me and almost felt reminiscent of “High School Musical: Senior Year” with a dance, an outdoor duo number, and the every day struggles of high schoolers.

Still with us Wildcats? Check back with us next week for Episode 6, “What Team?”