#carmen cusack

please forgive me these gifs will not even remotely capture it but my words alone would not do this justice

first of all the REUNION HUG they just CANNOT BEAR TO END so they KEEP FINDING NEW WAYS TO TOUCH

but all good things must end, and when Elphaba and Fiyero leave Glinda is FURIOUS with them and SO HEARTBROKEN

but not as furious as she is with HERSELF. I have never seen an "I'm Not That Girl (Reprise)" that is so dripping with self-hatred and like you stupid bitch of course they left you, you should have known better energy

like PLEASE look at this UNHINGED SHIT katie is doing with her head and neck about "don't wish":

and then after that our big reward is one of the straight-up horniest ALAYM renditions i have EVER seen

and then the catfight

THIS CATFIGHT

gifs cannot capture Carmen's delivery of "wretched little farmgirl" but know it was so perfect I was screaming and clapping

and like. ok. throughout this performance Katie does this Obvious Regret thing where like, Glinda says things aloud and then visibly immediately hears how stupid it sounds and wishes to take it back and there's nothing she can do about it (changing her name to Glinda being the biggest example, but the delivery of "FINE GO, YOU DESERVE EACH OTHER" above is ALSO a great example)

and this fight escalates so quickly because she CANNOT stop making it WORSE

and she KNOWS

but can't QUIT IT

and then Carmen literally STOMPS THE GROUND on "by bubble"

and then delivers "someone like him could actually choose someone like me" in the platonic ideal way that acknowledges thropple, the indictment of Fiyero coming with her when Glinda didn't

and then

Katie ACTUALLY SLAPS HER

SO HARD HER HAT FALLS OFF

AND THEN PLEASE LOOK AT THE SLAP BACK

Katie's "lemme go I almost had her" is FERAL

and afterwards she is still SO MAD that she KICKS THE BROOM

EVEN HER "DO IT" IS MAD, she TURNS HER BACK ON HER

but then

then it's For Good and it starts to dawn on you that it's Carmen's second to last show because she LITERALLY cannot BEAR to look at Katie (who is crying) for most of the song because she knows she'll mcfreaking lose it if she does

but that's fine because when she actually DOES look at her she KISSES HER HAND

I AM DEAD

this boot has ended me. ENDED ME. @theseerasures and I finished watching it and IMMEDIATELY had to go back and watch the highlights again

like I didn't even have TIME to get into this Popular

anyway uh if you're looking for a bootleg that'll really fuckin hit the spot