A “Grease” fan has an explanation for the movie’s unlikely love story of a high school bad boy and his goody-two-shoes gal — it was all a dream!
The conspiracy theory, which is being recirculated thanks to a Reddit thread, claims that Sandy, played by Olivia Newton-John, was actually dead, or dying, throughout the 1978 movie.
The user, who first posted the theory three years ago, cites the lyrics to the film’s opening number, “Summer Nights,” which says that when Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy first met, he “saved her life, she nearly drowned” — and argues that Sandy actually died on the beach that day.
“As she drowned, her brain deprived of oxygen, she had a vivid coma fantasy involving her summer fling Danny, where they shared a magical year of high school together,” Redditor atomicbolt wrote.
As evidence, the fan cites the movie’s increasingly “outlandish” visions, namely the final scene with Sandy and Danny driving away from the school fair in a red convertible, which defies the laws of gravity and flies into the sky — interpreted as Sandy ascending into heaven.
Another Redditor took things even darker, claiming that Danny was also dead the whole time and made up the name “Sandy” because he met the cute blonde on the beach, and that the movie represents his dying wishes for his final year at Rydell High.
“Danny tried to save a beautiful stranger from drowning but lost his own life as well in the process,” the user wrote. “He envisions what his life would have been like if he had rescued her.”
One thing the morbid theory doesn’t explain? The existence of “Grease 2.”