Why does Dr. Horrible's Death Ray explode?

Question

In the final episode of "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog," Captain Hammer picks up Dr. Horrible's death ray and tries to use it against Dr. Horrible...but it blows up instead. Why?

Answer 1

Dr. Horrible's contraptions have a tendancy not to work as they're supposed to.  Remember the one that was supposed to transport gold out of the vault and it came out liquid...?  Or the Freeze Ray - first it took a long time to 'warm up', then this time he tries to use it, it shorts out at the worst possible time.  He's just not the best at getting technical apparatuses to work at the right moments...

Answer 2

When Captain Hammer punches Dr. Horrible, he flies backwards and drops the death ray as he falls off the stage. There is a quick shot showing the death ray being damaged as it hits the ground.

Answer 3

The reason the Death Ray exploded is because when the gun hit's the ground it started a chain reaction that overloaded the gun with power. You can see that the gun has obviously overloaded when it's in Captain Hammer's hand.  Dr. Horrible examines the gun and quickly realizes that it has become unstable and says, "Don't...!" and is interrupted by Captain Hammer's smug retort, "I don't have time for your warnings!", so when he pulls the trigger all that power was released at once causing a big ol' boom and changing Dr. Horrible's world forever.

Answer 4

I think it blew up because when Captain Hammer punched Dr. Horrible, the ray fell to the ground.  If you watch the video again, you can see that it makes some weird noises and stuff after that, so I'm assuming that Captain Hammer broke it and it exploded.