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Back in February, when NBC's "Smash" had its premiere, you might have thought that the first season of an hourlong scripted series about the making of a Broadway musical would climax with the opening night on Broadway. But, no. Here we are, 15 episodes later, in Boston at a fictional venue called the Wilder Theatre (a reference to Billy Wilder? Thornton Wilder?), where Bombshell is playing a fraught tryout. The destination of Broadway is being saved for the second season, apparently. We now know that there will indeed be a second season of "Smash," reportedly 16-18 episodes, to launch in midseason 2012-13. The imagination reels at what the next chapter will bring. A flash-forward to a year from now, when the Marilyn Monroe show is a smash, Karen (Katharine McPhee) is a star, and a new stage project for the contentious collaborators is eyed? Probably not. Unless the series gets a radical rethinking by the series' new "showrunner" (the person in charge of story), "Smash" is expected to immediately pick up with the threads from which its characters are now cliff-hanging.
photo by Will Hart/NBC |
"Why wasn't it me?" Ivy asks him.
"I see her in my head," Derek responds. "She just has something that you don't. I'm sorry." This is blunt, not cruel. (Derek has been crueler this season.) Julia, Eileen and Tom could say no to his decision, but the theatre world (including the potentially poisonous New York Post columnist Michael Riedel, who calls Eileen for progress reports) is paying attention. Canceled performances? They mean lost money and bad publicity.
Karen, who is learning the scenes, blocking and choreography of the entire show in one day (she says knows the songs), goes missing after she finds out that fiancée Dev (Raza Jaffrey) slept with Ivy the other night. The envious Ivy revealed the lurid news to her rival by showing Karen the engagement ring that Dev left in her hotel room. Ivy offers some unclear reference to Dev being like Joe DiMaggio. More fuzzy logic and fuzzier motivation — and this episode was written by series creator Theresa Rebeck. Dev apologetically admits to the deed, saying he was drunk — and he thought he and Karen were "finished." Karen pushes him away and disappears. Derek also tells Dev to get lost: "She's mine now!"
Derek then follows a trail of jewelry and costume pieces (paging wardrobe!) to a storage room in the theatre, where Karen has hidden herself behind a rack of clothes. Derek gives her a pep talk, inevitably linking her plight to Marilyn Monroe's passion. McPhee continues to be brilliantly real and understated in her non-musical scenes; if she and Hilty are not Emmy nominees this summer, it'll be a crime. Meanwhile, eager Ivy (who heard Karen is missing?) is summoned by Tom, Julia and Eileen, who are apparently going to ask her to step in. Dressed in full Marilyn regalia (wig, makeup and costume), Ivy springs from the wings: "Do you guys need me?" No, actually, they don't. Karen is back, and ready to rise.
Photo by Will Hart/NBC |
By the end of Episode 15, after Karen has aced her first performance, and while she is wowing the Boston audience with that brand-new 11-o'clock number, we see a depressed Ivy looking into a dressing-room mirror (a dirty habit for her). She spills a big handful of prescription pills in the palm of her hand. (She apparently wasn't needed in that full-company closing number, and no one notices her absence.) We think it was the sudden Boston appearance of her Broadway-star mother, Leigh Conroy, played by special guest Bernadette Peters, with champagne in hand, that pushed Ivy over the edge. Admitting to your mother that you're still in the chorus is not easy, especially when your mother has a Tony at home. We don't see Ivy swallowing pills, but it's a memorably campy soap-opera moment — one that indicates that Ivy hasn't grown at all over 15 hours of TV drama. Maybe starting with Hour 16 she'll pull an Effie White and start changing. For now, she's lost in Boston.
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This week's ticking-clock episode begins with the curtain about to go up, and flashes back 12 hours earlier to show the entire company huddled at the theatre at 7:45 AM to learn which Marilyn will go on. (Broadway Equity actors dressed and ready at 7:45 AM? Maybe for a "Today" show appearance, or the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.)
photo by Will Hart/NBC |
Some highlights of (and comments about) Episode 15:
ELLIS AND EILEEN: Sleazy producing assistant Ellis (Jaime Cepero) fancies himself a producer and objects to the casting of Karen. "I didn't get Rebecca Duvall out of your way so you could ignore me yet again," he says to Eileen, admitting that he added ground peanuts into "the stupid smoothie" of the allergy-prone Rebecca. "Don't ever call me an assistant ever again." Eileen fires him on the spot, and he returns with this mustache-twirling exit line: "You haven't heard the last of this!" The structure of this episode is very Aaron Sorkin, very "The West Wing," even if the writing is not. What's missing in "Smash" is not structure or plot, but execution — a deeper exploration of the creative process and relationships supported by meticulous dialogue that tracks from moment to moment. It all goes back to logic and clarity; "Smash" doesn't have to be "The West Wing," it just needs to make sense. We hesistated to call "Smash" a soap before, but we give in. We also know that soaps can be sophisticated; go get a DVD of "Knots Landing," the "Dallas" spinoff that was packed with weak and ambitious people whose choices were deliciously articulated.
photo by Will Hart/NBC |
SAY IT WITH MUSIC: The USO number, "Never Met a Wolf Who Didn't Like to Howl," the bones of which were seen earlier in the season, is in full flower here, with Karen singing and dancing with an ensemble of 11 men. The imaginative work of series choreographer Joshua Bergasse is aching for an Emmy Award nomination. (Karen seems to walk on air, her footsteps supported by the hands and arms of the men.) And the way she's thrown around the stage by those boys? Showbiz Whimsy! It takes weeks of trust and collaboration; here, she had an hour, perhaps. For the 11-o'clock number, the series' excellent Tony Award-winning songwriters Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics) and Scott Wittman (lyrics) have written a post-mortem musical coda to Marilyn's life, in which she appears in a gold sequined gown to plead, "Don't Forget Me." Behind her, chorus girls (not Ivy) appear as Marilyn in various stages of her development. A key-change prompts spontaneous applause from the Boston crowd, which includes Eileen's ex, Jerry (Michael Cristofer), her lover Nick (Thorsten Kaye) and boy investor Lyle (Nick Jonas); they eat up the "American Idol"-style Big Number.
Photo by Will Hart/NBC |
Karen's season-ending, final, frozen, back-lit pose — with upraised arms, head pulled back and neck exposed — closely echoes cover art from Bernadette Peters' "Sondheim, Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live At Carnegie Hall" album. Karen would be lucky to have the career of a Broadway baby like Peters, who never had an obstacle like Ivy Lynn.
See you next season.
(Kenneth Jones is managing editor of Playbill.com. Follow him on Twitter @PlaybillKenneth, and Tweet your thoughts about "Smash.")
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