'In the Heights’ Post-Credit Scene Features a Bonus Lin-Manuel Miranda Moment
Published June 12 2021, 1:02 p.m. ET
In a tweet on Thursday, June 10, In the Heights director Jon M. Chu offered moviegoers a “pro tip” for watching the new musical film: “Stay past the end credits,” he wrote. “You won’t regret it.”
And sure enough, In the Heights does have a post-credit scene. And better yet, it features another glimpse of Lin-Manuel Miranda — the talent behind the music and lyrics of both the film and the original Broadway musical — as the film’s piragüero.
The scene caps off the jokey rivalry between the piragüero and the Mr. Softee truck driver, portrayed by Christopher Jackson, who played the character Benny in In the Heights’ Broadway run before teaming up with Lin again as George Washington in the smash-hit musical Hamilton.
The piragüero seizes a *hot* business opportunity in the post-credit scene.
In that bonus scene — which plays around the 2-hour, 23-minute mark of the HBO Max version of the film — the piragüero sees that the Mr. Softee truck has overheated.
“It’s hotter than the islands are today,” he sings. “Mr. Softee’s truck is broken down / And here come all his customers my way / I told you I run this town!”
Ever the hustler, the piragüero does a little price-gouging amid the heat wave and electricity blackout. “Piragua, piragua / One-twenty-five, piragua! / Piragua, piragua / Two-twenty-five, piragua!” he sings. “New block of ice, hike up the price / Lai lo le lo lai, lai lo le lo lai / Blackouts are nice, blackouts are nice / Lo le lo lai / Keep scraping by / Piragua!”
And finally, he offers the disgruntled Mr. Softee truck driver a free piragua, which the latter man grudgingly accepts.
By the way, Christopher’s cameo isn’t the only nod to Hamilton in the film: Listen for a riff on the Hamilton number “You’ll Be Back” when Kevin (played by Jimmy Smits) is on hold with Stanford. “That was indeed a Lin idea, and we wanted to make it a Muzak version,” Jon told The Wrap recently. It’s all part of the Lin-ematic Universe.”
Fans are LOL’ing about the post-credit scene in 'In the Heights.'
On Twitter, In the Heights viewers are eating up that post-credit scene like a frozen treat on a hot summer day.
“The post-credit scene with @Lin_Manuel and @ChrisisSingin is the funniest!” one fan tweeted. “Don’t stop watching until you get there!”
Another fan raved about the moment on Twitter, writing, “The post-credit scene for #InTheHeights was perfect.”
Another viewer, meanwhile, hopes the rivalry will continue in another movie. “As we all know, post-credit scenes promise a sequel, so we are all waiting for the [Piragüero] versus [Mr. Softee] film in the Heights cinematic universe,” that viewer tweeted.
The movie as a whole is getting rave reviews.
It’s not just the post-credit scene that has everyone applauding In the Heights, of course. The film currently has a 97-percent Tomatometer rating and a 96-percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating near-universal acclaim.
“For all that the film celebrates the specificity and beauty of Washington Heights, it also telegraphs that the neighborhood’s precious, incubated culture hinges on not the physical space itself but the people who inhabit it,” observed The Atlantic’s Carlos Aguilar.
The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern wrote, “How much pleasure can you take? How much joy can you stand without flinching? One way to find out is by watching In the Heights.”
In the Heights is currently playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.
