d & Ailleann -

yes, she was waffling a little bit, but Hammer was such an arrogant prick. He tossed her into garbage! He was yawning on a date. I just wanted more assertiveness from her. She couldn't even be assertive when she was trying to get signatures. All those people were walking right by her. She just seemed oblivious and then too meek.

I get that, but... sometimes people are meek and don't stand up for themselves, you know?

yeah, but...

this was so short. I would have liked the conclusion better if that hadn't been the case. Her doormat tendency coupled with her death, just left me a bit unsatisfied. Maybe if she and Hammer had died...

but a lot of the things you point out are kind of par for the course for the genre.

I've seen a lot of musicals - but normally:The music is of high enough quality to make up for a lot. A lot musicals, say Sondheim manage fairly high ratios of wit to witlessness, and put some depth into characterization. (Many, not all) operas are more comparable in writing quality, but then they have really really good music, really really good singing, plus my opera tolerance is not really that high either. This looked to me like a case where parody was used an excuse for really bad writing. But some of the posts help me understand how it can be seen differently.

And I agree with what someone else wrote here earlier - the ending song is wonderfulness. Such a tight, smart production.

Seriously, when the soundtrack's out?

I'm with d that Penny was definitely hoping to talk to Billy again in the laundromat and if he hadn't been so busy plotting how to kill Hammer and had met up with her things would have worked out differently.

Which totally feeds into the Greek Tragedy concept that Sail brought up.

Kalshane,

and honestly, I am not trying to belabor this point because while I'm disappointed, I'm still likely to buy the DVD, etc.

But my response is: why should whether she likes Hammer have anything to do with Billy? She's an adult woman. Yes, I think she was hoping to see him at the laundromat, but Hammer is still a dick.

I think by the time the dedication ceremony was going down she knew it wouldn't work out between her and Hammer but she felt she had to pretend for the sake of appearances.

You know what? - yes, without Penny Hammer wouldn't help to save the building, but given Penny's sheer assertiveness, can you see her doing so on her own? I can understand why Hammer's allure was lost on Penny once the building was secured to her cause.

Le Nubian,

In the final laundromat scene, based on what she's singing, she's obviously having doubts about her relationship with Hammer.

I don't know if having a conversation with Billy would actually change how things worked out with her and Hammer, as Laga suggests she may have already made her decision and was staying with him for the press conference for the sake of appearances but I do think that it might have further softened Dr. Horrible's resolve to kill Hammer. He plainly has doubts right before his freeze ray wears off and if he had talked to Penny and realized she wasn't as blindly smitten with Hammer as he believed, things may have gone down much differently.