Synopsis: In an effort to revamp the show, Eileen and Derek commission a new song from another writer and stage an exhibition to show the staff a possible new direction. Derek talks Karen into performing the number but tells her to keep it secret from Tom & Julia.
If you have not seen this episode yet and do not wish to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
Recap: Everyone is anxiously awaiting any word on movement of the show following the workshop performance. Trying to find ways to tweak the show after tepid response, Derek enlists Karen to stage a test performance of a new song he’s thinking will demonstrate a bold new direction for the show. The catch is that the song was not written by Tom and Julia. He tells her that she has to keep quiet about this. After discussing the odd situation with Dev, Karen decides to go for it and finds herself shuttling out to Brooklyn to meet with Derek in a stashed-away performance space. Working with producer Ryan Tedder on the number, Karen gets the chance to play a very different version of Marilyn, standing in more as an avatar for Derek’s vision of this number than as an actual character.
Dev meets with reporter R.J., who offers some interest scuttlebutt about the guy from Washington, D.C., who was brought in to take the job that Dev was up for. He apparently tried to pick up a young woman with some scandalous nude pictures. Dev, trying to keep the moral high ground, decides that he doesn’t want to know. However, he changes his mind and invites R.J. and her crew over to get more dirt on his rival. They discover that he’s been involved in a number of kinky things, many involving underage girls. He compiles a report and hands it over to the mayor’s office. Awaiting the fallout, Dev finds out from a friend that everything he submitted has handily disappeared and that someone is making sure this guy is untouchable.
Tom and Julia are flustered to find that Eileen and Derek aren’t returning their calls. Tom has Ellis go to Eileen with a CD of new music, which she doesn’t respond to. Meanwhile, Julia meets with Michael to tell him of their decision to let him go. They meet at a park with his family nearby and he already knows he’s fired, saying he would’ve quit if he hadn’t been. He tells her he made a mistake and that his family is the most important thing to him. They part coldly. She reconnects with her family, she and Frank attending a court hearing regarding Leo’s park violation.
Ellis intercepts a call from Derek for Eileen and the director tells him to tell her that their little experiment is going well. Ellis proceeds to drop a hint while talking with Tom and the writers mobilize to figure out what’s going on. While hanging out with his girlfriend, Ellis declares that he finds the writers sad and wants to pursue being a producer. He tracks down Ivy and tells her about the project Derek and Karen are working on.
Ivy is nervous about not hearing about the status of the show and begins avoiding calls from friends. They finally coax her out for an evening of bowling. The next day, Ellis makes sure he runs into Ivy to tell her about the secret project and takes her out to Brooklyn to see it.
Eileen gets a visit from her globe-trotting daughter Katie, who tells her that she had to come see her after a sudden infusion of $3 million in her trust fund. Katie brings Eileen together with Jerry to tell him that he should support her mother with money instead of foisting it upon her. Eileen declares that she doesn’t need or want support from Jerry. Meanwhile, she tries to figure out what to do with her newfound space in the new apartment she’s just gotten.
Derek and Eileen invite Tom and Julia out to Brooklyn. Ellis and Ivy sneak in through the back. Karen performs a modern pop number and dances on a bed in a white sheet while masked dancers build a cage out of the bed. When the song ends, Derek explains that he was testing a possible new direction for the show which infuriates Tom and Julia. Katie pulls Eileen outside to chastise her for the tactic. Realizing her error, Eileen returns to apologize to the writers. Ivy storms off in disgust and runs into Karen outside, where she tells her that she stabbed Tom and Julia in the back. Inside, as everyone argues about the show, Ellis intervenes and declares that Eileen has made her decision. Eileen leaves with Ellis and Katie. Julia exits, leaving Tom and Derek alone. They argue about the experiment and about their past together, eventually coming to an agreement that they both aren’t quitting the show. Derek tells Tom it’s time he started added some edge to the songs.
The next day, Eileen, Tom, Julia, and Derek meet to discuss the future direction of the show. Tom and Julia will continue to write the songs and book, as well as come up with a title, and Eileen makes the decision to start looking for a star to take on the role of Marilyn. Leaving the office, the staff finds out the Eileen has hired Ellis as her assistant. Tom goes off to break the bad news to Ivy. She’s heartbroken and he offers her her old spot in the ensemble of Heaven and Earth. Eileen returns home to find that Katie has decorated it for her and the two say goodbye.
Later that night, Derek stops by Ivy’s to offer her some comfort.
Review: Uff da! After the uptick in quality and movement of the show the previous two weeks, Smash comes crashing back down into an episode that was mostly drivel. What’s fairly perturbing about this episode is that there are actually some lovely ideas on display but the execution throughout ranged from lackluster to pedestrian. The only redeeming quality of this episode is the confrontation between Tom (Christian Borle) and Derek (Jack Davenport) that was inevitable and didn’t disappoint. In fact, the last 15 minutes of the episode from that face-off on felt like a much better version of the episode than everything prior to it.
Dragging the episode down was its pacing, even with the trademark “tidbit” scenes that last a minute or two at best. Here, it felt like they were shuffling characters around for most of the first half of the episode, trying to get everyone to Derek’s little staged number with Karen. Most obvious with this were Eileen, Ellis, and Ivy.
It’s rather hard to distinguish just what the reasoning was in bringing in Eileen (Anjelica Huston) and Jerry’s daughter Katie. It was as random a move as Ivy’s mom showing up for a single episode and far less effective in offering anything new to either Eileen’s story or the divorcing couple’s dynamic. Once again we’re left with the two jawing at each other over money and not a single advancement of either their relationship or the money situation. Eileen declares, once more, that she doesn’t need anything from Jerry. Even more troubling was a the unnecessary scene where Eileen brings Katie to the Bushwhack and introduces her to Nick the bartender. There are so many times when it seems like they have no idea what to do with Eileen but they’ve got Anjelica Huston so they don’t want to waste her cachet. Sadly, they do so more than not and even though I liked ultimately how she felt bad for conspiring with Derek behind Tom’s and Julia’s backs, despite her intentions, it felt like a bit of a cop-out to give her conscious to her previously unmentioned and unseen daughter. Mamie Gummer’s performance did nothing to help make this go down any better either. The one moment where the two connected well was in the end after Katie has decorated Eileen’s new place and as the younger character is shuffling out the door.
Ellis was like the worst cockroach in the world this week; he just kept popping up all over the place!. One can’t help but feel bad for Jamie Cepero because he’s doing well in the role but the role is so reviled and rightfully so. Of a cast of nearly all not-very-likable characters – hopefully they’ll work on this going into the recently announced Season 2 – Ellis stands out as worst of the bunch and not in any way that an audience can get behind him. His meddling, eavesdropping, and blatant, dripping self-interest make every moment with him on-screen a chore, but this episode causes the audience to want to hit the guy. The moment he tried to assert himself as Eileen’s voice during the fallout from Derek’s little exhibition was a last straw and I anxiously awaited the moment an errant Fresnel slammed into him from above. It’s hard to imagine that the character is pleasant to write for except for the most bitter of scribes with many axes to grind and the scene with his girlfriend where he dismisses the creative talent and decides he’s going to pursue producing was an ugly moment. Somehow, they’ve glommed him onto Eileen and, like Julia said, we’re stuck with him.
As for the exhibition, it’s kind of hard what to make of the piece. The tenor of the number – “Touch Me” – and the modern staging and concept scream much about the supposed genius of Derek as a director and a choreography. By the same turn, it’s both seemingly familiar and dreadfully too modern to really be more than an Off-Broadway commentary on the sexualization of female celebrity and expectation of both males and an audience as a whole. It’s trying way too hard and the pop-infused tune – complete with en vogue producer and OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder – feels far from timeless, sadly the way that many of today’s musicals lean without regard to longevity.
The real meat of this experiment is the seeming betrayal of Julia and Tom in an effort to shake up the show from the lukewarm responses the workshop production received. It’s actually a quite clever idea but they make the decision to handle it all in the hour and you never really get a strong feeling of its significance. That said, we’re finally brought to a climax in the long-festering hatred between Tom and Derek and this scene between the two where they finally begin to hash out their problems is actually one of the best of the series so far. Sure, they spout off an entire volume of history between the two that seemed a bit laying it on thick, but the work between Christian Borle and Jack Davenport here is wonderfully informed with life. I found myself actually surprised that their history was this involved. The pilot made it seem that they had worked together once and the experience went bad, not that they were as personally attached. Amidst that over-exposition of their circumstances, both actors conveyed a real sense of history that finally made the relationship tangible. This likely won’t be the last of these two clashing but it was good to see them come to somewhat of a begrudging peace.
This also paved the way for one of the better surprises of the narrative: they fire Ivy. The team decides that the only way to overcome the less-than-thrilling response to Marilyn – in addition to finding an actual title to stand behind – is to attach a star and begin gearing the show in such a fashion. This, again, is one of those moments where they do the theatre world right and it’s nice that they are throwing another element into the mix instead of sticking strictly to the Karen-Ivy rivalry. As we’ve just passed the halfway point in this first season, it would be rough to have to continue with the see-saw – and Ivy’s mental collapse with success – without a few curves to keep us interested. Hopefully, this is a storyline they play to the fullest and keep for a while and not yet another that burns hot and dies just as quickly.
A few things that stood out: Kudos to Borle and Megan Hilty for a truly touching scene when Tom has to tell Ivy of their decision. I felt Karen’s naivete was actually written and played very well, as she questioned the secretive nature of the arrangement with Derek even while going along with it. The soft moment between Derek and Ivy at the close of the episode.
A few things that would embarrass even the most delusional stage mom: The whole bowlerama “Dance to the Music” number felt like incredibly bad filler. The ludicrous way they write Katie out of New York – have fun with the fish in Alaska. Frank serenading Julia with Bob Marley via Guitar Hero was so silly the show even thought so (though I did like the cut-away to Leo cracking up over it). The court bit for Leo’s park infraction that baldly seemed like a way to give the Hustons something to do as a family and keep John the lawyer around another week. The side plotline with Dev, RJ the reporter, and the ominous quality of the guy from Washington, D.C. who was brought in to take the job Dev was up for feels completely out of place with everything else that’s going on.
In addition to the news that Smash is getting a second season comes word that showrunner Theresa Rebeck is stepping down to return to her own theatre pursuits. One hopes this manages to infuse some life and strength into the show. More importantly, some consistency would be severely welcome. Though with most of the season finished before it started airing, it’s doubtful that anything’s going to change with this year’s run.
