Tell me more, tell me more! Was Rydell High even real? A recently resurfaced — and very dark — fan theory about the 1978 hit musical movie Grease speculates that Sandy was actually dead the entire time and the whole story takes place in her head.
The song “Summer Nights” explains that Sandy, played by Olivia Newton-John in the film, and Danny, played by John Travolta, met on the beach when he rescued her from drowning in the ocean. “I saved her life, she nearly drowned,” Danny sings while showing off for his friends, the T‑Birds.
The Reddit theory says that Danny never saved her and she actually did drown in the ocean, only dreaming that she fell in love with the hot hunk she’d seen at the beach. This explains the end of the movie: Sandy and Danny flying off into the sky in the car was actually Sandy flying up into heaven. The theory also mentions that the last line of “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee (Reprise)” is “Goodbye to Sandra Dee.”
“Everything that happens in the last scene is just a little TOO perfect,” one Reddit user wrote. “Danny and Sandy are back together despite everything, Rizzo SUDDENLY isn’t pregnant AND Kenickie suddenly decides that he actually loves her, the geeky kid gets onto the sports team, EVERYTHING is suddenly okay, just the way that sweet, innocent Sandy would have wanted it to be.”
Another similarly bizarre theory suggests that both Sandy and Danny died in the rescue attempt, and the movie is Danny’s dying dream. The Reddit user added that he made up the name Sandy for the girl because they died at the beach. “He envisions what his life would have been like if he had rescued her,” another user wrote, according to Good Housekeeping.
Now that’s summer dreams ripped at the seams! We’d rather believe that Grease was a happy love story. Either way, the musical garnered tons of attention earlier this year during Fox’s Grease: Live, which starred Julianne Hough as Sandy, Aaron Tveit as Danny and Vanessa Hudgens, Carly Rae Jepsen and Keke Palmer as the Pink Ladies.
