Smash's greatest challenge is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. I fell all over myself in talking about the pilot pre-air, because it was gorgeous and full of lush, rich drama about the theater industry, presented in expensive and classy fashion. And sure, we have moments of that. But we also have moments of crazy night-time soap opera antics, which are sort of fun to watch but create an uneven experience. And that's what happened with Episode 7, "The Workshop." The highs of the episode were absolutely higher than in some of the previous weeks, but the lows were unfortunately present as well.
THE SHORT VERSION: We're at the workshop presentation of "Marilyn," which is a rough, unfinished display of work completed thus far to potential investors, in order to gauge interest and identify strengths and weaknesses in the production. It's sort of the Glee-quivalent of regionals or sectionals or semi-formal reductionals or something. It's a big deal.
Eileen's investors are in the house, but there's all sorts of antics with the space because the rehearsal hall is rickety and old. The air conditioning is noisy, some folks get trapped in an elevator for a while, there's issues with the boiler...and of course, Eileen's bartender friend from the end of the last episode is around to help, and flirt with her, and ignore the twenty-to-thirty-year age difference. Ellis doesn't do much this episode, except lurk in the background and catch Julia and Michael making out.
Ivy's mom makes an appearance in the form of stage legend Bernadette Peters. Turns out Ivy is a legacy--her mom is a retired and famous stage actress herself, who steals her daughter's spotlight in a visit to rehearsal and then withholds all the accolades and comments she can in critiquing her daughter's performance, leading to a tearful tantrum from Ivy about how her mommy never really loved her. It's all ok, though, because at episode's end, mom has apologized, and Ivy now understands her mother thinks she's a star.
Tom discovers straight-acting chorus boy Sam is gay, and suddenly seems interested, which is problematic because his adorable boyfriend John is all over this episode begging for attention. And Julia decides to fire Michael Swift from the show, because her son caught them in their little affair and she needs to protect her family. Uh...I think that about covers. it. Oh, and Karen spends some time in a recording studio because of that rich producer who slipped her a card last episode, but then blows off a meeting with him to do the workshop, which is sweet, but a titanically stupid career move. Oh, and there's talk of replacing Ivy with some "star power" in a closed-door meeting between Eileen, Derek, Tom and Julia. And scene!
WHAT WAS AWESOME: We get to see the workshop of "Marilyn" almost in its entirety which, frankly, is flippin' fantastic. It's a joy to see these numbers we've seen unveiled bit by bit strung together into a show, even if that show is deliberately not ready for a full audience just yet. This is a musical I'd see in a heartbeat, and Megan Hilty just kills it. Tonight's new number, "Lexington and 52nd," is a wonderful and dark DiMaggio number about how forgotten he feels when Monroe's in the spotlight, and Will Chase growls through it with rage and charm. I love it when Smash gives us brand new music without the whole HEY LOOK, THIS IS NEW AND SWELL fanfare of marketing. it's just slipped right in there amidst the workshop, and it's flat-out cool.
Bernadette Peters is great in juuuuuuust about everything I've seen her in, and she's in fine form this week. We get our first honest to goodness Broadyway classic number in this show in her performance of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from "Gypsy," and it's lovely. There's also some deliciously complicated Mommy-Dearest stuff she gets to pull early in the episode, which is fun. I like this show when it's subtle. It doesn't happen often. Also great is Anjelica Huston in every scene she's got--even when a perhaps lesser actress would balk at some of the soapy elements to her character (video games and bartender-chasing?), she sells it. And she's got a great scene with Derek where she defines just why she keeps him around and why he's a great director.
What I really love about Karen is that she's not just an actress, but she's a fan of musical theater. She loves being a part of this production, to the point where she falls off a platform mid-number because she's stuck in admiration of Ivy. There's a lot of cynicism in weird places in Smash, and it's good to have a legit perspective of someone in the cast who can still say "wow" about the performance, after seven episodes of pills and betrayals and sex and booze and cliques et cetera.
WHAT MADE ME WANT TO THROW A SHOE AT MY TV: Any time there's drama added to Smash that has nothing to do with "Marilyn," everything grinds to an embarrassing halt. If I were Debra Messing, I'd be royally pissed about how Julia keeps getting the shaft, because she's the worst-written and presented character in the primary cast.
This week, she makes out in a hallway with Michael and gets caught (twice!), and then breaks down crying and has to go home early (unprofessional!) because she doesn't know what to do. And we've got two (TWO!) scenes with Leo, her robot child, who somehow can make Teddy Ruxpin look like Meryl Streep. The writing in his scenes wasn't bad--about as good as can be expected for a confused teenager discovering his mom is shtupping a guy who's not his dad--but c'mon. Do we HAVE to harp on the fact that he's a pot smoker? Can we figure out a different cliche? He also breaks down in his mom's arms at the end, and this kid can't cry to save his life. I actually had to leave the room, it was so spectacularly uncomfortable.
I also wanted a less-pat ending between Ivy and her mom. We've seen the stage-mom thing before, and we had an opportunity here to make for a really interesting relationship. That got cast aside for a standard "Mom used to be a star/doesn't want this life for her baby/but her baby is now a star too!" throughline that didn't sit well.
BOTTOM LINE: I still believe in this show, but it's been a bumpy seven episodes. In the weeks to come, we get Uma Thurman, Anjelica Huston singing (!) and Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic writing an original song for Karen. I really hope the next eight episodes amp it up; we're about halfway through, and this show needs to rediscover its perspective, sooner rather than later.
See you in seven!
