Watching these new performances (all of which are ASTOUNDING btw, Mariah especially destroyed me) in the new proshot gave me a bit of a new understanding of Pokey and infection.
This time I feel like we see more visceral emotions that feel genuine and heartbreaking instead of uncanny and manipulative from the possessed characters, and overall it gave me the impression that instead of straight up replacing the original person’s consciousness with its own, Pokey’s infection takes control of their “want”, causing a *death of self* so to speak, an existence where they can only somewhat remember what they truly want/care about when Pokey deems it necessary for *the show*, and they snap back to thinking they want what Pokey wants the next moment. (Ultra controlling theater kid vibes, which I personally think are fitting for Pokey.)
For example, this time in the brilliant new choreography and Mariah’s very different and TRULY heart wrenching performance, I think we see Pokey allowing Alice to remember herself a little in the first verse (but only her rage) and a little more in the second (the deeper feelings she masks with anger - her depression of feeling abandoned by Bill) where she loses all aggression and doesn’t even try to infect Bill when held by him, before Pokey takes away that bit of lucidity towards the end and Alice snaps back to being ruthless and robotic.
Jeff also plays that moment of Sam recognizing Charlotte and calling her name differently - the real Sam is confused and freaked out by his hand forcing the sunglasses back onto his face and reaching for the gun, for a moment.
And of course, Jon’s extremely fascinating choice of having *the real Paul* sing “I’ve never been happy… wouldn’t that be nice? Is this the secret - singing and dancing through life?” Instead of having him constantly fight a “false musical Paul”, the infection this time as slowly takes control of him by manipulating him into questioning if what he wants actually *aligns* with what the infection (aka Pokey) wants. Personally I think on top of Jon’s amazing vocal growth, *Let It Out* hits SO much harder this time because of how it’s played.
(As a side note, this also draws a stronger parallel between Pokey and Hidgens. Hidgens doesn’t want obedient, hollow suck-ups to play his shows - he wants actors who *get* the brilliance of what he’s trying to convey, who will bring genuine emotions but will also never go off script to improvise. So that instead of hollowness, he hears his emotions embodied and echoed back to him, including his regrets and grief, validating him. I believe Pokey may have a similar mindset, which is why Pokey seems to pay special attention to Hidgens.)
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