Synopsis: Everyone pushes forward to the workshop performance while Ivy’s mom visits, revealing the nature of her insecurities. Meanwhile, Karen is presented a tremendous opportunity and things come to a head with Julia and Michael over their affair.
If you have not seen this episode yet and do not wish to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
Recap: With the workshop performance fast approaching, the production staff arrives at the work space to find that the builder’s boiler is broken, causing the building to overheat, and the air conditioning not working. Eileen struggles with the building manager trying to get a plumber down to fix the place in time. Relaying her problem to the bartender at the Bushwhack, he says he knows a guy who can help. Against regulations, Eileen has this plumber come in the day of the show, causing the building manager to threaten to call the cops. She insists that he go ahead but mentions she’ll contact all of her wealthy and influential friends and let them know of his reluctance to handle things in a timely fashion. He relents and in thanking the bartender for his help, she invites him to watch the performance.
Karen shows up at a recording studio to meet with Bobby Raskin and is surprised to find that she’s meeting with a sound engineer instead. He helps her record a demo. When she arrives at rehearsal, she receives a message to immediately return to the studio to work further on the demo. Unsure what to do, one of the ensemble members gets her excused for an hour. The demo goes great and Raskin decides to set up a personal meeting with Karen, set for the day of the workshop performance. The ensemble members push Karen to forget the workshop and go for the opportunity, as Raskin will be taking off for a month after the day. Devoted to the show, she decides to stay for the performance and is blown away by both Ivy and her daydreams of performing as Marilyn.
Julia and Michael continue their affair until Michael’s wife and son show up to rehearsal one day and reality hits Julia hard. Leaving rehearsal earlier, she goes home and finds Leo smoking marijuana with his friend. When she tries to reprimand him, he lets her know that he knows about her and Michael. With all of the pressure, Julia tries her best to avoid Michael’s advances, leading to a blow-up between the two during a script reading. Michael performs well during the workshop and pours himself into a song that serves as Joe DiMaggio’s break-up with Marilyn.
Ivy arrives to rehearsal late with her visiting mother in tow. Being a Broadway star in her own right, the cast convinces Mom to sing an a capella version of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”. While she wows the crew, Ivy feels upstaged. Feeling the tension of her relationship with her mother, who never offers her praise for her stage accomplishments, Ivy takes a sleeping pill on top of the medication she’s been taking. A CAA agent arrives for the workshop leading one of the ensemble and Karen to speculate loudly if they’ll consider replacing Ivy, unfortunately within earshot of the actress. Her mother arrives late just as Derek is making his opening introduction of the performance, drawing attention to herself. This rattles Ivy and she has focus problems throughout the workshop, much to Derek’s chagrin. Later, Ivy confronts her mother after she offers praise about Derek and Michael but nothing for her. Her mom tells her that she thinks the world of her talent but sees how challenging it has been for her to break out. She says she never waited the life of rejection that theatre often is for her daughter and that caused her to be standoffish.
Following the workshop, Eileen, Julia, Tom and Derek read some reviews and discuss what they need to start fixing about the show. Eileen floats the idea of replacing Ivy which Tom protests. Derek admits that Ivy has been wonderful but he does have concerns about her. Tom suggests that Michael is the one who needs to be replaced. Eileen, aware of Julia and Michael’s affair by way of Ellis, agrees with the suggestion and asks Julia’s opinion. Derek makes his own objections, believing Michael to be one of the outstanding things of the show. The choice left to Julia, she agrees that Michael should go.
Returning home, Julia tells Leo that they will be firing Michael, letting him know without saying it that she has ended the affair.
Review: Smash‘s resurgence continues this week with an episode that rivals the pilot for best of the series to date. When the show focuses on Marilyn, it takes on a buoyancy and energy that shows how compelling the material can be. Yes, we still get peeks into the lives of the performers and staff, to varying effect, but those moments feel more relevant instead of diversionary.
By introducing Ivy’s mother, Broadway legend Lee Conroy (played by exquisite Broadway legend Bernadette Peters), we are finally privy to what is both driving the star-hopeful and simultaneously subverting her through her insecurities. Yes, it’s a time-honored (read:well-tred) tale of seeking a parent’s approval, but it manages to give Ivy (Megan Hilty) a proper depth that they’ve been clumsily fumbling with for weeks now. Interestingly, they make the most of Ms. Peters time on the show by not stretching the confrontation out into another or further episodes down the road. Lee comes in, makes Ivy feel inferior, tells her daughter that she didn’t want her to struggle with the same soul-crushing aspects of the business she did, and is out by the end of the hour. They certainly didn’t resolve the issues of the relationship, allowing them to bring Mom back down the road, but we weren’t left to suffer through weeks of the same tension before the two finally exploded on one another. It’s not clear that the show would have the ability to have sustained something like that without getting tiresome quickly, so they should be commended for cutting to the chase.
The show should also be praised for not letting Julia (Debra Messing) and Michael (Will Chase) off the hook for their choice in the affair, something it seemed they were somewhat willing to do last episode. Tossing Michael’s wife and son right in Julia’s face might not have been the most subtle plot development but it was wonderfully effective to knock some sense into the lyricist. It’s unfortunate, though, that we aren’t able to get to know Michael’s wife more as a character instead of just a plot device. As the Julia-Frank relationship was one I enjoyed early on – they all but abandoned it to go down this affair path – it would have been nice to see more of Michael and his family together to get a real sense of the affect of the affair, especially with the tease they gave of how supportive she is of his profession. It’s (so far) a missed opportunity to give Michael more life and color beyond just being the lusty actor determined to poach the writer.
Will Chase was splendid this episode, bringing an edge and raw emotion to the table that charged every scene he was in. In particular, the chemistry between he and Messing was thrilling in the scene where Julia subs in as Marilyn as they rehearse text from the show and go off-book with a confrontation about their real relationship. (This was further highlighted by Derek’s obliviousness in asking for the stage manager to write the lines down to use later. Delicious little theatre moment.) Michael’s aggressive and obsessive pursuit of Julia hasn’t been expressly appealing but Chase sold his frustration and desperation very well this time around. Not only was he given a spotlight moment with DiMaggio’s song but his ravaged appeal pointed to Julia through the song was heartbreaking and poignant. The instant his quivering tear broke and fell down his cheek at the close of the song was chilling. The song was a true highlight of the entire series.
And then they decide to cut Michael from the show, much to Derek’s protestations. (This appears to be leading to his own behind-the-scenes machinations next week.) Tom, Eileen, and Julia all understand how detrimental it will be to keep him around and this made for a beautiful scene between the four actors as they discuss the problems with the show coming out of the workshop performance. Everyone was note perfect – especially Anjelica Huston playing the knowing but not revealing aspect of a seasoned people person – and again the show should be praised for taking the chance of introducing a [relatively] main character into the run and then cutting him out. Obviously, it’s not the last we’ll hear of Michael but it is a nice nod to the realities of the theatre world.
Also delightful this go-round was Katharine McPhee, who hit all the right notes in both Karen’s pursuit of working with producer Bobby Raskin and in soaking up the production of Marilyn and Ivy’s performance, specifically. Her rendition of Colbie Caillat’s “Brighter Than the Sun” for the demo was magical and brightly engaging and the set-up with the surly sound engineer was a nice bit of fun. (I only wish that the show – and any musical show, for that matter – would rely on the artist’s voice and not give us a fully produced number any time someone sings. This moment would’ve been even better with a simple a capella version from McPhee instead of incorporating a nonexistent full backing band.) Even better was her absolutely beaming response to the numbers as the workshop performance was going up. Yeah, it’s a tad syrupy to have Karen be so devoted to the show, even going so far as to give up her meeting with Raskin against the advice of her fellow ensemble members, but McPhee sold it with natural aplomb.
The workshop performance – which, in reality, was more like a backers’ audition – gave us a chance to review the majority of the numbers we’ve seen on the show to date, and see just how many actually work. Megan Hilty is spectacular throughout, even when Ivy is not because of her issues with her mother, and even when a song like “20th Century Foxtrot” (Or Mambo, or whatever the true title is) doesn’t hold up as well upon further listens. The one thing that stands out about the show-within-the-show, so far, is that there isn’t a lot of cohesiveness just yet, really feeling like a number of vignettes rather than an organic work. The advantage to this is that it doesn’t feel like the show is anywhere close to being done and, therefore, dragging out the creative process for the sake of padding a story. Part of the fun going forward will be seeing the ways in which the show now changes and evolves.
A few other pleasures: having Eileen put Ellis (Jamie Cepero) in his place when he rats on Julia and Michael; Eileen’s flirtation with the bartender; Julia and Leo’s final scene when she tells him Michael’s being fired and he breaks down (though I wish they had a stronger actor for Leo); Derek actually showing a bit of a soft side and care for Ivy when her mother is in the room; conversely, Derek’s calling Ivy out for her lack of focus during intermission (a grievous break of protocol during an actual run, as Tom mentioned, but spot-on for a director during a workshop); and Jack Davenport’s hilarious delivery of Derek’s line about not being the most offensive thing he’s said all week when Julia runs out of rehearsal upon seeing Michael’s family.
Things I could really do without: Ellis; Tom’s defunct relationship with John the lawyer; Tom’s dead-on-arrival “flirtation” with Sam; and the impending addiction/bad reaction storyline for Ivy now that’s she’s popping sleeping pills on top of her medication.
Smash is still far from perfect but this episode is much more of the show I want to see (and have them build upon) than the one its been somewhat wallowing in for weeks.
