HSM:TM:TS’ Final Season Includes Unfortunate Update About Troy and Gabriella, 15 Years Later

Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens may not have made cameos in the final season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, but the Disney+ mockumentary still gave us an update about their characters’ relationship status — whether we wanted to hear it or not.

Here’s the extremely meta plot of the show’s final season, for context: Several members of the original High School Musical cast — Corbin Bleu (aka Chad), Monique Coleman (Taylor), Kaycee Stroh (Martha), Alyson Reed (Miss Darbus), Bart Johnson (Coach Bolton) and Lucas Grabeel (Ryan) — come to East High to film High School Musical 4, reuniting fans with their favorite Wildcats after 15 years.

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And what would a high school reunion be without some juicy updates about the whole crew? As Bleu reveals in the premiere, Chad is now married to Taylor, the new principal of East High; Martha is a “world-class” choreographer; Ryan is happily married (to a man played by Pentatonix’s Scott Hoenig) with twins on the way; and Miss Darbus is ready to hang up her shawls and retire.

Bleu doesn’t provide an update on Ashley Tisdale’s character, last seen chasing her Broadway dreams in the 2011 direct-to-DVD masterpiece Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure, but he does reveal that “Troy and Gabriella are in couples’ therapy.”

It feels like there are two ways to process this news: We can either celebrate that, at the very least, the high school sweethearts are still together and willing to work on their relationship, or we can totally roll our eyes at any notion that Troy and Gabriella wouldn’t be living blissfully ever after.

“We were super open to anyone who wanted to come back,” showrunner Tim Federle told TVLine in an interview conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike. “I wanted to focus on these amazing OGs who really wanted to be there and wanted to record a song and rehearse a dance and really show up for us.nIt was like a huge celebration, and I have to say when [everyone] came back into the East High Gym for the first time in 15 years, they lost it.”

(Let’s be real — if Efron and Hudgens had agreed to return, things might have worked out very differently for Troy and Gabriella.)

Are you disappointed that Troy and Gabriella are apparently in couples’ counseling, or do you appreciate Disney treating one of its most iconic pairings like actual humans with problems? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.

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