What is going on with Smash? I loved the first two episodes of the musical drama, propelled by the action of embarking on a large-scale, glitzy Broadway musical. I was even going all Marilyn Monroe, eyeing a package of blonde dye with bombshell intentions.
But Monday’s instalment veered so much into character development that I was more interested in checking Facebook than tuning in to Julia et al.
Now that Ivy’s landed the headlining part, she’s all suspicious that it’s because she’s sleeping with the director. Which, aside from being a tired, tired cliché, probably isn’t true since she is so talented. But, it’ll make for some interesting storylines later on, especially now that Julia and Tom know about it.
As for everyone else in the show, we got belaboured characterization after belaboured characterization. Poor Karen, relegated to the chorus, went home for a baby shower. And just to hammer home the fact that the girl can sing, she got her own little performance moment in a karaoke bar.
Though I’ll take Katherine McPhee singing any day, the whole dalliance just seemed like a forced opportunity to give her a requisite number. In fact just a few scenes of her at home (if any) would’ve sufficed in the episode, since she’s not in the immediate fray and everyone else was getting development too.
The biggest mozzarella moment of the night went to Karen and her boyfriend, Dev. The moment: Dev giving Karen a full-out deep kiss and her asking what movie they were reenacting. His response? “Gone with the Wind, baby.” Ugh.
Speaking of Dev, he indulged in a British version of trash-talking with Derek, which seemed kind of unnecessary since Dev doesn’t really have a reason to hate him that much right now anyway. He might as well have streamed a little circle of urine around Karen, howled at the moon and called it a day.
Elsewhere, thank goodness we weren’t put through Julia’s adoption storyline again, admirable as it may be. The news that she and the newly instated Joe DiMaggio portrayer Michael Swift (who got his moment of glory performing Bruno Mars) came out instead. And it will surely scrounge up some juicy storylines.
But the way it did … double ugh. The flashbacks of her and Michael were so movie-of-the-week they might as well have been in sepia. (As an aside, do we really need background scenes of Michael and his family this early in his introduction?) And of course Ellis was overacting at eavesdropping while Julia told Tom. Ellis, the rat. He “borrowed” Julia’s notebook and apparently found something juicy but we don’t know what it is yet.
I really didn’t care for the scenes of him with his girlfriend (?), or him as a character altogether, and his confrontation with Julia felt lacklustre. But the question begs to be asked: What does he have on her, anyway?
And Eileen … The first time she tossed a drink in her ex-husband’s face was funny, but doing it two more times in one episode? Overkill. I get that she wanted to make a personal statement by buying herself some knock-off Marilyn-inspired earrings, but the girl-power writing of the storyline – especially the villainizing of her ex when he mocked them – felt too broad.
One good thing that came out of the episode was the hint of what kind of timeline we’re looking at before the Marilyn musical hits the stage. As Derek told Karen, “It could take five years for Marilyn to hit the stage and a lot can happen.”
Criticisms aside, though, I do like Smash. A lot. It’s just that after it lost 30 per cent of viewers for its second episode, this isn’t the one that will lure the dearly departed viewers back. Which could be a scary thing for NBC, which has poured so much promo into its baby.
On the plus side, I hear next week’s episode is great. And if the show doesn’t want to lose more viewers, it had better be.
Smash airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on CTV and NBC.
What did you think of the episode? melissa@tvguide.ca or comment below
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