Surprise, surprise, Alexander- Eliza’s pregnant with your first baby. What’s improbable here is, Philippa Soo is wearing a Colonial Era costume where she’s actually showing her pregnant belly a little. That’s a little sudden, actually, because she says in the song that she’s known she was pregnant for a month. I assumed, maybe overshot this, that back in those days, a woman knew she was pregnant from the morning sickness and other pregnancy symptoms, especially having them verified by a doctor at least about two months into her first term. Today, it takes about a week before your already missed period because pregnancy tests are everywhere.

But this scene absolutely floored me, nevertheless. It was a truly moving scene, and I wasn’t sure if Lin was really crying in that moment either. He sounded like he was choked up, and I couldn’t tell if it was real. Especially what I couldn’t imagine what would happen next, which was on the B-side of the 46-song set list double album soundtrack. When their firstborn son, Philip Hamilton, died by gun violence, which is typical for people living on the streets today. And yes, I’ve seen and heard my fair share of gun violence happening in my home- Baltimore City is 20 minutes away from my home, and Officer Amy Caprio was shot and killed five minutes away from me outside of BJ’s Wholesale on my street, Belair Road, about a year ago. And months after that was the Capitol Gazzette shooting, which happened in Annapolis, close enough to where I live- I live in Maryland. #1 for gun violence and teen pregnancy. You guessed it.

The song “It’s Quiet Uptown” almost moved me to tears. Especially when I saw Lin’s performance in it. It was amazing how Philippa Soo as Eliza could hold it together so well. He couldn’t hold a straight face. Ever. 

(Video removed from YouTu

At almost four minutes in, at 3:57, Lin actually breaks character for a split fraction of a moment. His stoic face immediately melts into total agony and depression.

Oh, baby, somebody should hug you. C’mere. ðŸ˜¦

Here you go, Lin, this is for you. This was a tweet given to me by a fan who writes haiku in #WritingCommunity. Here’s a Baymax, I’m giving him to you, sweetheart.

Come on, guys. I’m still a human and a lady. I’m not heartless. And don’t you dare use the phrase “the feels” because that slang word doesn’t compare to how I feel when I see that scene. I call it “emotional mixed with trepidation” because I know how to use a thistlesaurus- I mean thesaurus. That guy seriously needed a hug in that scene. Either it was the stage lights and the camera, or his whole face was wet because he couldn’t stop crying hysterically. Poor sweetie. Hugs welcome, honey, c’mere, it’s all right, I know, shhhh.

But here’s the rub to make sense of all this. The YouTube user basically put the analogy like this-

Man whose wife is dead = widower

Woman whose husband died = widow

Child who’s got no family because his/her parents died and there’s no one to take care of said child = orphan

Parents whose child dies = ?????????

“There is suffering too terrible to name… we push away the unimaginable.”

The YouTuber basically said these exact words in their comment: “There are no words to describe parents who have lost a child.”

Oh dear god. That covers EVERYTHING.

In Pride and Prejudice, trying to circle back here, Austen talks about how it’s an undeniable truth that men with enough money want companionship. For Alexander Hamilton, he was penniless and poor with no family, but he lived for love and freedom, and he said the money would come later. Eliza Schuyler, who became his wife, also said that a legacy and money would come later, if he had just STAYED ALIVE.

And what did he do instead? He got himself killed by his own coworker, Aaron Burr, delivered to his home in New York, and as the song goes, Eliza and her sister Angelica “were both by his side when he died, death doesn’t discriminate…”

Also, in the final scene “The World was Wide Enough”, for a split second, we see Hamilton throwing away his shot after long and incredulous deliberation inside himself as he looks over his shoulder and considers his life, his future to come, and all the people he loved who’ve died in his past- then Aaron Burr loses his patience and doesn’t wait, the death didn’t discriminate here at all, and the ability and capacity to stay alive wasn’t enough.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

So, who actually tells the story??? Aaron Burr did get arrested, but because the duel was in New Jersey, according to Wikipedia on the history of this moment and its aftermath, the case was open way too long that they had to release him on a technicality. Dueling with guns was outright illegal in both states of New York and New Jersey, but the penalties of gun duels were more lenient and softer in Jersey than they were in New York. Fuck New Jersey.

In the end, we find out who really does tell the story: It’s ELIZA. A woman, who at the time of the War of 1812 it was impossible for women to be authors or have any job unless they wrote under a pseudonym of a man’s name. Women weren’t granted any rights until the 20th century with the dawn of the Roaring Twenties and the 19th Amendment. But as the finale music goes, Elizabeth Hamilton-Schuyler actually lived 50 more years after the death of her husband, making her death recorded as one of the oldest and longest lives that lived in America during the 19th century- back then, people were expected to die around age 50, 60, or 70. The number one cause of death in the 1800s for women was childbirth and the number one cause of death in men were accidents or epidemics. Again, medicine during the 19th century was ridiculously medieval and something of disgrace and disgust.

The things she did were incredible. Because the man she loved grew up an orphan, she started America’s first orphanage in New York. Eliza and Alexander actually had seven biological children, she was pregnant seven times her whole life (how is her body able to do that in those days???), and one of her children died as a teenager, we know that story. But when she opened the orphanage, she adopted young children like crazy and started giving them forever homes as well, because she hated the idea of having children with no mommies and daddies. She started America’s very first foster care system. You could hear the deepest sadness in her voice in “It’s Quiet Uptown” even though she didn’t show it, Eliza loved her children, and she was so angry and mortified by her son’s death that she wanted to help more children like her son and her orphaned husband, even though he cheated on her once with Maria Reynolds and wrote The Reynolds Pamphlet about it, in which she decided to run away. She took him back anyway and forgave him, and it started at the time their beloved son died.

Pride and Prejudice also talks deeply about family and money. Charlotte Lucas, who’s Lizzie Bennet’s best friend, tells her after Lizzie turns down her cousin Mr. Collins’s offer of marriage, that Charlotte and Mr. Collins are getting married, and it hasn’t been a week later since Lizzie rejected him. Charlotte tells Lizzie three things: 1- romance in marriage is optional and money is more important than love so you can have a roof over your head and protection, 2- she’s 27, and most people in England find it disagreeable in those days for a woman over the age of 25 to find a good husband because society thinks a young woman in her 30s is an old maid (HEY! I’m 32 years old and I’m still dating, IDIOTS!), and 3- her family is dirt poor and they can’t provide for her anymore, so they’re kicking her out of the house because in those days, women were useless and were used as commodities and possessions and not people. “So don’t judge me, Lizzie…”

That’s why I was so angry with Hamilton having powerful women in this show, because women still had no rights in those days. But again, this performance had minorities playing all the roles, including having a black George Washington, played by the handsome, talented, and charismatic Christopher Jackson, who played Benny in the original cast of In the Heights and is one of the founding members of Freestyle Love Supreme as rapper name C-Jack. Sigh.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, I had my sights on the man who played Marquis De Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in that musical too, who’s now in Hollywood filming a TV show called Snowpiercer after winning his first Tony Award. Daveed Diggs performing “What’d I Miss” was a little of jazz and Motown, kind of like The Big Bopper and Little Richard, almost. He so FINE. Yum yum. Daveed Diggs, baby, call me. ðŸ˜›

So back to the women in power thing, Eliza was given lots of prospects, unlike poor Charlotte Lucas. Because she was a widow of a man in power, she actually had the upper hand. She was able to put the rest of Hamilton’s plan into action. She was able to publish his letters, as well as the letters he got from Washington and Jefferson. As she says in the song, “I put myself back in the narrative,” and she kept writing, for the last five decades of her life. It would also be honest to mention that Hamilton did eventually take care of her. The Schuyler Sisters’ father was a hard rich man who believed that his daughters should marry rich. But when he gave Eliza away to Hamilton, it was almost as if there was a trust between the two of them, especially in what is my favorite song from the musical, quite honestly: 

("Helpless" original scene removed due to copyright)

Uh… No way, that’s not a Hamilton song. That’s not Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songwriting. He didn’t write that song. No, that was in Waitress! Sara Bareilles should be singing this! No frakking way, Lin, you did NOT write this song! That is a romantic song that only Sara Bareilles would write- No, Alicia Keys, more accurately-

No, I’ve just listened to “3 Hour Drive” on Alicia Keys’s episode on Song Exploder on Netflix. GodDAMN, what the hell does this song supposed to sound like, I mean- NO!

ShutupshutupshutupshutupSHUTUP!!!!!

But something still holds me back from hating this musical.

“Why are you writing like you’re running out of time?”

Hamilton was trying to do too many things at once because he didn’t have enough time then. Lin-Manuel Miranda also said in an interview with Song Exploder in the Netflix episode, that Hamilton viciously wanted to die and he had no time left on this Earth. Which is how I made this connection:

“ELIZA! My love, take your time! I’ll see you on the other side…”

And Hamilton, now choking on his tears, raises his gun to the sky above him, and chokingly sings, “Raise a glass to freedom…”

WAIT!

*Gunshot fires*

WHAM.

I jumped immediately. Not the first time when I heard the song, because it was close to five in the morning when I finally finished listening to the whole thing. I jumped when I saw that shot in the video, “The World was Wide Enough”, where Aaron Burr finally takes over in telling the story of the murder and the aftermath. The entire layout and stage arrangement of that scene, including the moving FLOOR that is turning like a record on a turntable (!!!), was never even done like anything I’ve ever seen in a musical recording before, because all the Broadway musicals I’ve seen were in movie format.

Dahmmeeeeeeet.

There needs to be a part four now.

To be continued…