[Courtney] Hello everyone and welcome back!

My name is Courtney, I am here with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple.

And today we are going to talk about what is, in my opinion, a fabulous Broadway musical that is, to me, more than a little bit ace.

And some people are gonna get really mad at me and they’re just going to have to live with that.

But I will justify my feelings not only in this episode but in a near future episode where we talk about another piece of robot media.

That’s right, anytime asexuality and the concept of robots come anywhere near each other, it’s controversial.

I am well aware of that.

I think most of you listeners are well aware of that, so we’re all going to have to just put a pin in it and hear me out.

[Courtney] I need this.

I am such a live theater, Broadway musical play person.

Let me have it.

Let me just– let me have it.

So as we talked about recently, the Broadway play, nay, the Tony Award winner for best Broadway play in 2025, very important detail, was Purpose.

We did an entire episode about it.

Definitely check it out if you haven’t already, because if you’re looking for very explicit asexual representation where nothing is unsaid, it is an adult human person claiming this identity and showing and telling about their experience living with this identity, Purpose is the play that gives you that.

Today we’re talking about the Tony Award winner for Best Musical 2025: Maybe Happy Ending.

And you won’t quite get that with this musical, but I just think we should all all declare that 2025 is the year Asexuals ran Broadway.

I think we deserve this.

I think we can have it.

I don’t even care that they are robots.

And I’ll explain why.

[Courtney] So first and foremost, Maybe Happy Ending is just very, very cute.

I love it so much.

It’s a very good story.

It’s got a good soundtrack.

The staging is very interesting.

And I just love it.

But about maybe halfway through the show, I was like, “Oh, is this a little bit aro?

Is this a little bit aromantic?” And no, that was a psych, they did not let this be aromantic for me.

It turned out to be incredibly romantic.

So if you’re looking for anything that could be approaching aroace representation, again, Purpose definitely got us closer in that direction.

But if you look at Maybe Happy Ending for what it is, knowing that yes, it is very romantic, and yes, it is romantic robots, there’s just a vibe of asexuality that I can’t set aside.

I just feel it so innately when I’m watching this silly musical.

[Courtney] So before we go any further, obviously spoilers if any of you want to watch this show without hearing about the plot and whatnot.

But right off the bat, it’s very much grappling with mortality, it’s very much dealing with loneliness, aging, disability to a certain extent even.

There are a lot of parallels that can be drawn to real life human experiences through these robot characters.

And we start by meeting Oliver, who is a helper-bot, they call them, very much just like in the future you have a humanoid robot who can do chores for you and such.

But he has, like, very clearly been abandoned by his owner, but he doesn’t know it yet.

So it is just tragic.

This poor little robot guy is just like waiting for his owner whom he loves to come back and reclaim him so that they can be together again.

And it’s very much like sad puppy.

[Royce] And this has been going on for a while, right?

[Courtney] Yeah, they show that it’s going on for some period of time based on just, like, props and a time jump.

It shows him collecting his mail and he gets a subscription to Jazz Monthly.

And so you start by him just being like, “Oh, any mail from my owner?” And, “Oh no, but I got this Jazz Monthly,” and then all of a sudden you go through that a few times and now he has stacks and stacks and stacks of these magazines.

[Royce] Right, and the show doesn’t open with him leaving his owner.

He’s already at this other place, so time has passed.

[Courtney] He’s basically living in, like, a retirement home for robots.

But he’s like, “All these other robots who live here are retired, but I’m not retired.

My owner’s coming back to get me.” And it’s really sad.

Really, really sad.

He’s also very isolated.

He doesn’t talk to the other robots in the community.

He only talks to his plant, whose name is HwaBoon.

And everything kind of changes for him when the robot who lives across the hall, Claire, knocks on his door frantically asking to use his charger because hers is not working anymore.

And we see from both of them at various points that they are getting older, they’re trying to order, like, replacement parts so they can repair themselves, but over time they’re coming out with new models of robots and they’re discontinuing old models.

And all of a sudden you can’t find these replacement parts anymore.

[Courtney] So that’s really where you can start to get parallels to aging to the point of your body starting to deteriorate or disability of any age where you can no longer do the things you used to be able to do.

Oliver, his Wi-Fi chip goes out at first, so he can’t just, like, search the internet in his head and come up with an answer right away like he normally would.

And that seems very much like a parallel to having, like, a mental or cognitive decline of some sort.

Which he seems very frustrated by at one point when he’s trying to search the internet to try to prove Claire right because they’ve got this little feud going on at first.

But Claire, like, physically is struggling to charge.

Her charger stopped working, she needs to borrow someone else’s.

Even when she does charge, her battery is no longer at full capacity.

[Royce] And there are other robots in this area whose battery capacity is so– has deteriorated so much that they have to constantly be plugged into a wall.

[Courtney] Yes.

And we don’t meet or see those robots, but through, like, trying to call them or talking about them, you get this picture of all of these retired robots in this sad little retirement home are just slowly falling apart.

And so you get this very much impending mortality underlying this entire show.

But there is a very comedic element to it as well, because at first, when Claire knocks on Oliver’s door, he doesn’t want to talk to her.

He wants to pretend like he is not home, but, you know, his guilt gets the better of him and he does end up helping her out.

But then they have this little love-hate thing going on, where he’s a Model 3 but she’s a Model 5 and they’re a little feisty about that.

He kind of starts it.

He’s like, “Oh, that’s probably why your charger isn’t working because you’re a Model 5.

Everyone knows that Model 3s have the best battery life of all of the models.” [Courtney] And she’s able to get him back a little bit later when they talk about driving.

He’s like, “We’re robots.

We can’t drive.” And then Claire’s like, “Well, 3s can’t.” So you have this little feud going on with these very funny, cute moments.

But in the midst of this arrangement that they make so that she can borrow his charger intermittently, you see them start to interact a little bit more.

They start to learn a little bit more about each other.

And she finally catches him outside collecting bottles.

And he’s very, very cagey about it.

He’s like, “No, that’s not me.” But she catches him.

He’s collecting these bottles basically to turn in for recycling to get coins.

He’s got like a little jar of coins that he’s filling up.

And we learn tiny little legal elements of this world through dialogue where like robots can’t legally have money.

[Courtney] They must also not be able to just be totally shut and powered down since they all come to live at this retirement home.

That isn’t explicitly explained.

But in addition to not being allowed to have money, they’re not really allowed to travel on their own.

But once Claire catches him, Oliver does let slip that he’s trying to save up enough money so that he can get a ticket to go see his owner.

And Claire kind of knows right away, she’s like, “Oh, buddy, you’re retired.” But she knows that her life is extremely limited.

She doesn’t have a lot of time left, and the place in question he’s trying to travel to is Jeju Island.

And in this futuristic world, that is known as the only place where fireflies still live.

So she’s able to first explain to him what fireflies are because he doesn’t have his Wi-Fi chip, so he’s trying to figure out what it is, and since he can’t, she needs to sort of share this information with him.

[Courtney] And I do really like the sort of special interest nature of this show, too, because Claire knows all these things about fireflies and loves them so dearly, but Oliver really loves jazz, and that’s a thing that he picked up from his former owner.

But he knows all of the albums, he’s got a record player, he’s got the subscription to Jazz Monthly, and so he’s then able to in turn tell her a little more about jazz and the music he likes.

But she definitely gets it in her head that if she is limited on time, as inevitably all robots and people are, she wants to go out with a bang.

She wants to see the fireflies one more time.

So she says, “Well, I actually have a car.

My former owner gave it to me because she felt guilty.

So I will drive you to Jeju Island and we will go there.” They get very nervous, or Oliver at least does.

He likes plans and he likes things to go exactly according to plan.

Which, do you remember, Royce?

Because there was a moment we were watching it and I don’t know what the first moment was, but you leaned over to me and you were like, “This is already very autistic coded.” [Royce] Well, you had already told me about the show and I thought that at some point in time you had mentioned that hitting you as well.

And I think I mentioned that immediately after the show started.

[Courtney] It was pretty early because Oliver’s like, “I do not want to be surprised.

If you are going to come get my charger, it has to be at exactly this time every day, and at exactly this time you’re going to return it to me.” And as soon as she’s like, “You know, screw it, let’s go to Jeju Island right now.” He’s like, “This was not in the plan.

I have not finished saving up money.

I thought it wasn’t going to be until next year that I would have enough, so I’m not ready.” And she finally convinces him.

She’s like, “No, let’s go.

We don’t have all that much time.

Wouldn’t you rather see him sooner anyway?

I will drive you.

Let’s go.” And it was kind of during this drive after they finally pack their things and go, that the first time I was watching it, I was like, “Oh, is this going to be a little aro?” Because she makes him promise that he will never fall in love with her.

Like, that is explicitly requested.

Like, “You have to promise me that if we go on this journey together, you will not fall in love with me.” [Courtney] And I was like, “Girl knows what she wants.

Good for her!” But no.

No, we can’t have everything now, can we?

We’ll put a pin in that.

But they do have a very funny, still kind of argumentative conversation/song as they’re driving because it’s illegal for them to be out on their own as two robots.

And so they’re like, “What if we get caught?

We need a cover story.” “Okay, the cover story is we are humans.

And we are a couple, yes.” And he says, “Your name will be Jenny,” and he’s like, “That’s based off of a jazz song I really like.

So your name’s Jenny and I’ll be Nat King Cole.” Flawless cover story.

So we have Jenny and Nat King Cole and they sing this whole song making up details about how they met but they’re arguing about it.

One wants to have met in New York, one wants to have met in Paris.

And so she’s getting a little irritated at him for not listening to her.

[Courtney] But as they’re driving, my favorite, in my opinion, most ace part of the whole show happens upon us because her battery alert starts going off and it’s a lot earlier than they anticipated and she can’t charge in this car, so they need to stop somewhere.

So they’re like, “Okay, where can we stop?” Looks like there’s a motel over there.

Oliver gets a little panicked because they’re going off plan.

But the motel they end up stopping at is a sex motel.

Very obviously.

I’m pretty sure there was even a sign that said sex motel.

So they show up as these not suspicious at all humanoid robots being like, “Hello, my wife and I need a room for the night.” And they keep playing up this, “Yes, my husband.” “Yes, my wife.

Yes, we need a room.” And the guy checking them in is like, “Oh, and will you be using the pool tonight?” And they both just panic and scream, “No!” Which is so funny.

[Courtney] Oliver seems to be a little more oblivious to the sex motel thing than Claire is, because she at least makes one comment of like– Because oh, he’s like, “This place is kind of shady.

Do humans actually sleep in places like this?” And she says something like, “I don’t think sleeping’s the goal.” Or something.

But it seems to go right over his head.

He seems to have no idea.

Which, you know, honestly, some people, whether it’s explicit rep or just vibes, some people do not like the oblivious ace trope.

But quite frankly, I think if it’s done right, I don’t mind it.

Because I think there is a wealth of humor that can be found from playing with that obliviousness towards sex and sexuality or advances or flirting.

I think that there are definitely ways it can be done correctly.

But if that’s something that bothers you personally out of ace representation, I know I’ve seen some people say, “Oh, you know, aces aren’t oblivious.” Some of us are.

Some of us are, or some of us have been at some point.

And some of us were for a lot longer than all of our peers were.

[Courtney] So that’s just kind of my two cents on that.

I’ll sometimes hear that criticism as, “Oh, it’s infantilizing aces to portray us as so oblivious towards all things sex and sexuality.” But my challenge to that critique is that you’re kind of inherently saying that being tuned in to conversations and themes of sex and sexuality is inherently mature.

If by saying you’re oblivious to these things is infantilizing them, that’s sort of the entire overarching societal problem when people do in real life try to infantilize ace people.

So I think a lot of times, for a lot of us, those critiques come more from we, in our own lives, have been so heavily infantilized that we’re afraid of showing things in media representation that might give, you know, nefarious allos more ammo to use against us.

So with that in mind, I think this entire section that follows here in the sex motel is really good.

I like the obliviousness.

[Courtney] I like that it’s going right over his head.

There is nothing sexual in this robot’s head at all.

I am 99% sure at least that these robots probably don’t even have the appropriate parts, you know?

And the joke that had me just absolutely rolling was after the guy gets them checked in, they have their little panic about the pool.

The guy at the front desk straight up says, like, “Hey, cool it with the husband/wife thing.

Nobody cares.

Just take your key and go and bang each other’s brains out.” He’s like, “We know what kind of place this is.

No one cares.” But these robots are just so, like, “We can’t be seen as robots, and we decided our cover story is that we are a couple.” So they stick to that script, despite it being in a situation where that script is not needed and might be even more suspicious than if they didn’t have it.

[Courtney] But as they’re going up to their room, like in the elevator, this slayed me.

A guy looks at the two of them as they’re going up and turns to Oliver and says something to the effect of like, “Oh wow, buddy, you really begged yourself a 10 there.” And he goes, “Actually, she’s a 5.” It’s so good.

All innuendo goes right over the head.

He’s not thinking about looks or desirability or sex or sexuality, but he is going to be correct about exactly what model she is.

He even fully breaks the cover just because he has to be correct and he has to correct the perceived misinformation.

It’s just getting to him so much.

And the way it was delivered, it was hilarious.

It killed me.

I was like, this is great.

Very clever joke that can really only be made with something that has, like, model numbers like that.

Like, that joke couldn’t possibly be done if you were doing humans.

I can’t think of a way you could modify it.

So, brilliant humor.

[Courtney] And of course, when they get back up, this is not anywhere near the first piece of media to joke about this trope, but there is the mirror on the ceiling kind of trope here in this sex motel.

I know that like even Golden Girls back in the day did it.

I’ve seen lots of pieces of media that the joke is sort of someone who is very sexual has a mirror on their ceiling, and the joke is always is someone else using that mirror for, like, a more normal or innocent purpose.

Like, oh, I need to fix my hair.

Wait, I’m in such and so’s room.

Let me just look up real quick.

Like that is a joke.

I think it’s funny.

I don’t think it’s gone out of fashion yet personally.

I love a good mirror on the ceiling joke at the expense of the very sexual person who put it there in the first place.

So when these robots get into this room, he’s just all like, “Wow, new place.” He’s getting on the bed.

He’s like, “Wow, there’s a mirror on the ceiling.” And he’s just, like, waving in the mirror.

And he’s like, “Claire, look up.

I’m waving at you.” It’s so innocent, and I love it so much.

She obviously, at this point, needs to plug in.

She needs to charge.

He gets on the bed, I think they’re watching Terminator at some point, like they put on a movie.

[Royce] The second one, yeah.

[Courtney] Oh, the second one.

[Royce] They’re commenting on the depiction of robots.

[Courtney] Ah, yes.

I have not seen Terminator.

How many of those are there?

[Royce] I don’t know.

[Courtney] Hmm.

[Royce] Oh, a lot more than I thought there were.

[Courtney] Oh, really?

[Royce] I guess there is a big break after the first two, but there are apparently six in the main series, a television series, an animated series, web series.

[Courtney] Oh.

[Royce] It became a whole thing.

[Courtney] Is that the, “I’ll be back!” one?

Is that what that’s from?

[Royce] Yeah, that’s from the first Terminator.

[Courtney] So they were right, they were back.

Did they keep saying that every time?

And that’s why it became a whole thing?

But yeah, and to just like show how far away any sexual interest is for these robots, like, when it’s time to power down for the night, he just straight up, like, powers down sitting upright on the edge of the bed.

Like they don’t even lay down in the bed that is there because they’re robots.

They don’t need to do that.

They don’t even really sleep.

And this is where viewing any sort of robot media with an asexual lens is always going to be controversial because there will absolutely be a good percentage of people who say, you know, an inanimate object– Well, I guess– I guess it is an animate object.

An inhuman machine, there we go.

An inhuman machine cannot be asexual because asexuality is a human sexuality.

And therefore– And, you know, people will get into this when we talk about: is Barbie asexual?

They’ll be like, not asexual, but literally doesn’t have genitals, but that’s not the same as being asexual.

[Courtney] But to me, one of the biggest societal hurdles that we have as an Ace Community is people perceiving that we are emotionless, soulless.

If we do choose to have romantic relationships, we’re always made to believe that they are lesser than a sexual relationship would be.

There are people who– We, as a married couple of over 11 years, we’ve gotten random hate mail from conservative Christians online saying we’re an insult to humanity and nature.

Like, there are people who get really upset at the very possibility that there could be a very deep, meaningful relationship that is devoid of sexuality.

And if a piece of robot media is attempting and succeeding to tell a very human story, but just using the robots as characters, I don’t see that as a problem, if anything.

[Courtney] Because I imagine with just how sweet and fluffy and romantic and tragic and devastating this show is, every allosexual member of the audience is gonna be rooting for this couple.

Everybody is going to think that they are a sweet couple, that they should be together, they deserve to be together.

They are going to love them as a romantic pairing.

And it shouldn’t have to be that we need pieces of media where sometimes the non-sexual relationship are among non-humans for people to start understanding that those relationships can still be very important.

It shouldn’t have to be that way, but that is how society tends to build up empathy toward other people who are not like them over time: through media, through books, TV, movies, plays.

So for me, two things need to happen for me to be okay with analyzing robot media through an ace lens.

[Courtney] There needs to be a lack of sexuality.

The robots cannot have sex, nor do they want to have sex.

Because some media does do that.

Some will be like, “Oh, this robot can’t have sex, but they want to so bad.” Can’t.

No.

No sexuality, no desire to have sex.

If the robot is just existing in a non-sexual state, but they’re telling a very human story and it is very emotionally relatable by other measures, in this case, in this particular show, romance is one of those avenues, mortality is one of those avenues, abandonment is one of those avenues.

Even, like I said, aging, disability, a lot of these things could be empathized with depending on who you are as an audience member and what is most meaningful to you.

But all of these themes are very, very human themes that they’re grappling with all at once.

[Courtney] And so if they are humanizing these robots in the media, if they’re humanizing them without requiring them to become sexual, then to me, I think that is good enough.

Good enough by an ace rep standpoint.

It’s not fully above criticism because, in this case, one of the very humanizing emotions is romance, and we have the same hurdles with aromantic representation.

And so it’s still going to be a bit alienating towards either allosexual aromantic people or aromantic asexual people.

Where, oh yes, these robots are very heavily humanized, but one of the most recognizable ways they’re humanizing them is through romance and love.

Which is why I was really excited at first when I thought it was going to be a little aro when she was like, “Promise me you won’t fall in love.

I don’t want to fall in love.

It can’t happen.” [Courtney] They even had a conversation.

They’re like, “Robots aren’t programmed to love.

We can’t do that.” And I was like, “Great, love it.” But they do end up falling in love.

And I do to some extent have some mixed feelings about that.

On this trip, Oliver does in fact learn that he was retired, he was abandoned.

His former owner is no longer living.

He learns this from the son of his former owner.

And so he comes away from this very devastated.

And the dialogue is very, very effective.

Because this scene is not very long at all, but we get a lot of insight into this father-son relationship with very few words, which I really like.

But this son seems almost jealous of the robot, like, “Oh, my dad’s perfect fake son is here.” So we get a feeling like this son is resentful that his father was closer to this robot than he was to him.

[Courtney] And so being turned away, completely devastated, Oliver and Claire go to sit and wait to watch the fireflies.

And the way they did this was absolutely beautiful.

They actually brought up, like, the small chamber Orchestra onto the stage on, like, a little platform and the conductor had like a firefly on the edge of his baton.

And so he’s like directing them with the firefly and then he is able to move his baton to help them, like, get a firefly in the jar.

And they sing a sweet song about the fireflies.

And they talk about how the fireflies are such a short life but a very beautiful one.

So that also parallels the impending mortality aspect of this show.

Which I do think that alone, impending mortality, fostering a relationship even if it is just more of a friendship than a romantic partnership, or if they don’t even put a label on it, if they’re like, “You know, robots don’t love, but I feel something for you and I want you in my life.” [Courtney] I think there are other ways they could have done it without making it as romantic as it was and still profoundly humanized them with these other themes.

So that is my one critique, if we open up the examination to also an aromantic standpoint.

But it’s cute.

They call the fireflies– Like one of the things Claire really loves about them is that they light up all on their own without even needing to be plugged in.

And they’re like, “Oh, little forest robots!” And it’s like, oh, I can’t.

It’s very cute.

Sickly cute.

I love this show.

So they make the journey back to this robot retirement home.

She ends up explaining to him what happened to her and her former owners.

And turns out it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to fall in love or she didn’t want him to fall in love with her.

Turns out her previous owner’s, like, husband kind of fell in love with her and made a move on her.

And she’s like, “I am a robot.

I do not have an opinion on you being in love with me.” [Courtney] And whatever ended up happening, like, they ended up getting rid of the robot, presumably because this guy fell in love with the robot, and that was the one way that they were gonna try to negotiate and keep the relationship together.

Or maybe they broke up and she was just too, you know, sad to see the robot around.

But whatever the case, her former owner retired her, felt really guilty, so, like, gave her a car, gave her a bunch of designer clothes, got her out of the house.

So she kind of has this overall impression, a trauma, if you will, of, like, “Bad things happen when people fall in love with me.” And you lose people you care about.

And so that initial promise, “You won’t fall in love with me,” ends up being sort of paved over as, well, it wasn’t because that’s what she wanted.

It’s because she was, you know, afraid to love.

[Courtney] And I’ve said this before when we’ve analyzed other things, like Wednesday season one, where, like, Wednesday says right off the bat she has absolutely no interest in anything romantic, but then you turn around and give her a love triangle.

What are you doing?

Like, just now and then give us someone who’s adamantly opposed to romance and just, like, stays that way?

Please?

For as much as I really, really do adore this show, those are probably my two gripes about it are probably that, that her insistence on not falling in love was more out of past trauma and fear than an internal desire.

And also, when they finally do get back home, and they’re kind of starting to go off to their respective rooms, Oliver kind of stops and comes back and just kind of confesses, “I wasn’t able to keep my promise.” And she says, “Me neither.” And they do a weird robot kiss that I don’t think was strictly necessary.

[Courtney] Well, they kind of do two.

The first one, they like, kiss, put their lips against each other, and they do this very weird, inhuman, awkward, like both of their limbs just like shoot out straight, and like fingers all splayed, almost as if there’s some sort of like shock of electricity or something, and it looks very unnatural.

And I almost would have been okay with that if that was the only one they did, because then it would just be like, okay, they saw humans doing it, so they tried it, and didn’t get anything out of it and it was weird and awkward.

But they do have a more, quote, ‘human kiss’ after it that’s more, you know, the soft, romantic, like, I don’t like watching people kiss in most circumstances anyway.

I just never get anything out of it.

[Courtney] But I didn’t understand blocking and staging and storytelling wise why they had one weird gesture-kiss, and then they do a second one that just absolutely looks like two humans kissing.

I can’t think of any storytelling reason why they would do that.

None that are good or make sense.

So to me, they could have cut it off at that first awkward kiss or just not had them kiss at all.

Because again, to me, this is effective and good for our community if these are humanized characters that do not need to be sexualized to become humanized.

If romance was the only way in which they were humanizing them, I’d be critiquing it a lot harder because that would be the same issue, right?

Like we’re humanizing them because they can love.

That’s what makes them humanized in our eyes.

If that was the only one, this critique would be harsher.

[Courtney] I could have done without that side of it, but the mind breaking down, the body breaking down, the impending mortality, the fear of loneliness, abandonment, I think there are a lot of other things at play that paint just like a really full, whole picture of a range of human emotions.

But we do get what I also think in my silly little brain is very ace-coded, because after they establish, “Okay, so we’re in Love.

Great.

Now what do we do?” There’s like an entire montage of them very clearly just doing what they think people in relationships do.

Doing what they think humans do when they’re in love.

And it starts like a little bit normal where they’re like, “Oh, well, I heard when you’re in love with someone you need to dance with them.” So they, like, grab each other and start dancing.

[Courtney] And then you have like, “Oh, I heard when you’re in love with someone, you can just sit there in silence with them.” And so it has them on a couch and their legs are all flopped over on top of each other.

And then we find out they’ve been there for, what, eight or ten hours or something?

And they’re like, “We can’t keep doing this.

We have been here all day.” And they’re like, “Well, we gotta take advantage of the fact that our limbs don’t go numb.

Like, our legs don’t fall asleep.” And then they start, like, pretending to have fights.

Like, the really bad fights that we make fun of, like, cis hetero allosexual people for.

Like, screaming at each other and, like, throwing pillows across the room.

But then they kind of break and giggle and they’re like, “Ha ha ha, yes, that’s what couples do.

They fight.

So we’re staging this fight for no reason.” And there’s just something about that that I just find very funny.

[Royce] Didn’t they also say something about, like, “I didn’t get anything from that.

Let’s not do it again.” [Courtney] They did, yes!

Which is hilarious, very good.

Would have been even better if they also did that after the kiss.

Imagine if they were like, “Did that do anything for you?” “No.” “All right, then let’s not.

On to the next thing.

Let’s dance.” Love it.

Because theoretically, we didn’t get everything about these robots explained to us, but I bet they don’t have human sensations on whatever their skin is made out of.

Probably.

So what is the benefit of a robot of kissing each other?

I don’t know.

So most of that montage though, very good, very cute, very funny.

And does in some ways– Because you and I have often looked at other couples and just been like, “That’s how you live?

You actually do that?” And so seeing two in love characters on a stage, also just sort of observing other relationships and wondering why they are that way, there is something about that that is very relatable to me.

[Courtney] But then, you know, the impending mortality or the shelf life is creeping closer and closer.

And so another thing they’re really grappling with is, you know, “I love this other robot, but I don’t want to be hurt, or I don’t want them to be hurt.” Claire sort of knows that her, you know, shelf life is coming up sooner than his, and she wants to try to protect him.

She thinks, “Well, the one thing we have that humans don’t is we can wipe our own memories.

So when the time comes, you can forget all about this.” And they kind of make a pact that they’re gonna enjoy their little relationship for a little bit, but then after a certain period of time, they both resolve to wipe their memories.

[Courtney] However Oliver changes his mind when he gets a surprise visit from the son of his former owner, who he shows up and kind of explains that he doesn’t have as many memories of his dad as he wanted to.

He sort of implies that, you know, his parents had been divorced, so he didn’t get to see his dad very much.

And a lot of his memories were from when he was younger, so they were hazier.

And he basically asks, “Hey, Oliver, can I copy your saved memories of my dad so that I can take them home with me, so that I can watch them?” And of course, Oliver lets him do that.

And this son kind of says, “I’m kind of jealous that you, as a robot, can remember everything.

Because as a human, my memories fade, my memories start to slip.” And that must really, really resonate with him, because memories is also a very big theme.

[Courtney] We were introduced to this theme of memories earlier when we sort of see a flashback of when Oliver was first getting abandoned, where his owner, seemingly very guilty, was looking at him and saying, like, “Hey, Oliver, do your memories of me make you happy?” And he was like, “Yes, I love the memories of you.” And he’s like, “So you’d want to keep them, right?

No matter what you want to keep them.” And he said, “Of course I do.” And so he didn’t really present him the alternative, but it was very much implied, like, if you will be happier not remembering me, not knowing I existed, I can wipe your memory and you can have a clean slate in this robot retirement home.

[Courtney] So again, we then have a second time where Oliver decides, “I want to keep these memories even if they become painful, even if the person I loved and cared for is no longer here with me.

I want a memory of them.” So in that sense, there’s an underlying element of grief to all of this.

And so there’s a very beautiful sequence, just visually beautiful what they did with the staging was very, very cool, where they do use some screens and very– I don’t even know how to describe it.

What would you describe, like, the quintessential, like, robot point of view that we see in a lot of types of media, where they’re, like, seeing the things move around them, but there’s also, like, numbers and there’s, like, digital shit in the margins.

Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

[Courtney] I’ve seen it in more than one piece of robot media, but seeing it on a stage with, like, a big screen projected, like, above and around the moving robots to sort of tap into what their memories look like and how they were seeing things was very, very cool.

So Claire ends up presumably going through with it.

They sort of make the pact, “Hey, we’re gonna wipe our memories now.” And she does.

They say it’s gonna be, like, a couple weeks before they met was where they were gonna remove their memory data.

And so he moves his apartment back to where it was before he met her, which they had rearranged the furniture, he had moved his house plant because she told him that it was getting too much direct sun.

And so you get to see as their relationship evolves, his little room changes.

[Courtney] So he reverts everything back to the way it was before.

And after she wipes her memory, she comes frantically knocking on the door looking for a charger.

And he answers it very willingly this time, and he looks over at his plant and he’s like, “Don’t tell her, HwaBoon.” Like, don’t– Like, “We’ve got a secret, don’t let her know.” And he kind of does his same little abrasive thing where he’s pretending to not want to talk to her, like the first time they met, like he’s holding a magazine above his face.

But he also adds in a couple of sweet little things, like he does the whole, like, “Oh, well, you know, you’re a 5, so your charger isn’t as good as us 3s.” But then he changes the dialogue just a little bit and he’s like, “But 5s have many other wonderful capabilities that us 3s don’t have,” in a very, like, admiring tone.

[Courtney] And it’s just so sad and devastating and sweet and gives me so many mixed emotions because it is Maybe Happy Ending.

Like presumably, he wanted to keep his memories and he did.

Presumably, she did not want to keep her memories so she didn’t.

And now they’re kind of starting this whole relationship over again.

So it’s also like a little bit Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

It’s like a little bit 50 First Dates.

But like better than any of those things actually are.

And like teaching a robot how to love and, you know, sad puppy who’s just waiting for his owner to come back.

It’s all of these very emotional types of media repackaged in a way that just feels extremely refreshing to me.

[Royce] So that is the end of the show, and I’m curious about something because there have been multiple runs of the show, obviously.

The one that I saw, I had the opposite feeling off of the ending.

I thought that Claire kept her memories and Oliver erased his.

[Courtney] No, what?

How?

How!?

[Royce] And I was looking at some notes here on the, just on the plot summary of the Wikipedia page, and it’s– there are some notes here that: “The musical’s ending leaves it ambiguous as to whether Claire kept her memories–” Oh, kept her memories like Oliver did.

In the Korean version, the actress playing Claire is allowed to decide for herself, with some changing their choice each night.

For the Broadway version, the director believes she erased her memories, and the actress has declined to say her opinion.

I thought the fact that she was coming to the door with a broken charger when it had already been established earlier in the play that she had fixed up a wall charger in her room was inconsistent.

And there were some aspects of the way that they interacted where I thought she still had her memories.

[Courtney] Well, I fully believe that she did not have her memories, but it was abundantly clear to me that Oliver still did.

[Royce] Okay.

[Courtney] So there is, I guess, a chance, depending on which version you see, that it is ambiguous, that maybe Claire kept her memories, maybe she didn’t.

It would be kind of hilarious if they’re both pretending that they didn’t know each other.

That’s also kind of hilarious and adorable.

I did not get that reading from the version I saw.

But there was no doubt the way it was played that Oliver did, because he, first of all, he leaned over to HwaBoon and he was like, “Don’t tell her.” He also just, like, handed her a charger.

And the first time around, she actually powered down at his door.

So it was while he was trying to figure out how to plug her in that he realized she was a 5.

And he did this whole, like, “Ugh, she’s a 5!” He didn’t do that this time, and she still had some power.

So he just handed her the charger, and he was like, “Oh, but 5s are good too.” So he didn’t even investigate her to see what model she was that time.

So that was all knowledge he had ahead of time.

[Royce] Yeah, that makes sense.

[Courtney] And he definitely wasn’t behaving the way he was the first time, because the first time he was trying to not even answer the door.

He was like, “No one’s home.

Go away.” Until she powered down literally at his door, and then he’s like, “Shit, gotta do something about this, I guess.” But yeah, it was a beautiful show, I think.

Also, even if it’s imperfect and not explicit.

Like, tell me it’s not so cool that Purpose won Best Musical this year and Maybe Happy Ending no– wrong.

Purpose won Best Play and Maybe Happy Ending won Best Musical in the same year.

Two very different shows in every possible way, but both give me very happy asexual feelings.

I like it so much.

I think we deserve this.

I think you should let me have it.

[Courtney] And plus, with, you know, Purpose being an entirely Black cast, with Maybe Happy Ending being like three-fourths Asian cast.

It’s an extremely small cast.

There are only four people in this play.

It’s the two robots, it is a jazz singer who isn’t actually there, like a non-diegetic jazz singer.

And he’s like the only white guy in the show.

And then we’ve got the guy who plays former owner and his son and the guy at the hotel, both guys at the hotel.

So it’s like a cast of four.

Extremely small, predominantly Asian.

It is set in, I guess I don’t think I said this right at the top, it is set in Seoul, South Korea.

Also as they’re going to Jeju Island.

So it is set in Korea.

I know there’s been a big casting controversy recently because they at least temporarily casted a white man to play Oliver.

But it’s also the actress who plays Claire, like, her real life boyfriend.

So as upset as people are that this role that they would prefer go to an Asian man is now going to a white man, part of me is also like, how cool is that for them and for her?

[Courtney] Like, this was her Broadway debut, and she’s amazing, and I honestly think got snubbed at the Tonys.

I think she should have at least been nominated for best leading actress in a play.

Because my gosh, the two of them are the only ones who are on stage the entire time.

And Oliver’s actor got nominated and heck, I think even won Best Leading Man in a Musical.

But as of the time of recording this, the discourse about the latest casting is pretty new, and I haven’t looked into it too terribly much yet, so I’ll just float it out there that there is a big conversation about casting and inclusion and diversity on Broadway.

What roles are and should be designed exclusively for People of Color.

And it’s a very important conversation to have, so I don’t want to go through this entire episode not acknowledging it.

I just mostly wanted to talk about the plot of the show itself and how it made my ace little heart happy.

[Courtney] And it was the original cast that I saw at the time I experienced it.

But if casting conversations like that are of interest to you, please go seek out some of these Broadway communities, especially Broadway actors and actresses of Color who are having these dialogues.

And definitely listen to them.

Be tuned into that conversation as it unfolds.

But that is going to do it for our asexual representation on Broadway.

We tackled Purpose, now we got Maybe Happy Ending out of the way, and now– Now that we’ve talked about what I see as positive robot media, we’re going to have to talk about Bicentennial Man.

So that’s coming very soon.

That movie is so weirdly important to me, but I also hate a huge element of it so much.

So it’s gonna be complicated.

We’re gonna talk about it, and that will hopefully tie in really well with, like, good versus bad robot sexuality media.

Because that one: bad.

Don’t like it.

[Courtney] But to round us out for today, I am delighted to share with you our featured MarketplACE vendor: Purdy Creative Things.

Which you can custom order merch designed to express Ace Pride, spread awareness, and/or show your support.

The custom order form gives you plenty of room to explain exactly what it is that you’re looking for.

Or if you’d like to make something on your own, they also give classes and tutoring for how to make t-shirts, mugs, and other customized gifts if you’d like to learn a new skill.

Or if you just want something that is ready, downloadable for purchase right now, there are some really cool ready to buy digital items which you can technically download for free for your own personal use, but there is a tip jar here, so if you are able, please do support Purdy Creative Things.

There’s a creative prompt book.

There’s a whimsical junk journal kit with mental health sentiments.

[Courtney] Or for this time of year, this is actually perfect.

There is a fall/Halloween hybrid.

It says, Falloween digital paper crafting bundle.

So we’ve got pumpkins, we’ve got autumn leaves.

It’s a whole bundle of seven printable patterned papers, which again are completely free, or you can tip for pay what you want.

So as always, links to find our MarketplACE vendor are gonna be in the show notes on our website, as well as the description box on YouTube.

Thank you all as always so much for being here.

Please be kind and don’t flame me too hard for saying that these robots are asexual.

Because if you think robots being asexual is bad, just wait until we talk about Bicentennial Man when we talk about the robot who becomes more human when he starts having sex.

That’s the whole movie.

Spoiler alert.

I’m gonna be scathing about it.

Stay tuned!

Should be a very interesting rant.

Bye bye.