I'm short on time and Smash is trying to burn off its episodes given that two will air this very week. But we've got two to catch up on as well so let's rush through like we're running out of breath on a big note.
Ivy is back to being Marilyn in "Bombshell"
2.8 "The Bells and Whistles"
In this episode Derek gets too fancy with Hit List which needs to be a pared down show. He learns his lesson dropping the LED screens and choreographing a human-only dumb number "I Heard Your Voice in a Dream" in which dancers block Jimmy from reaching Karen. In one of Smash's most unintentional self-defining moments, Karen is placed on a pedestal (literally) and merely stands there looking pretty with arm outstretched. That's what she's good for. The camera treats it like she's pulling equal weight while Jimmy solos and dancers dance effortfully underneath her.
The biggest surprise of the episode is Anna's "If I Were a Boy", an impromptu bar number meant to get her the "diva" part in Hit List. The number is capped with an absolutely endearing moment where she drops her divadom and returns to geeky chorus girl as soon as her back is turned to the men she's trying to impress. I've previously had no use for this character but she totally worked that scene. Well done.
Meanwhile Ivy is back to Bombshell and the show SUDDENLY remembers with "(Let's Start) Tomorrow Tonight" that it's about Broadway Musicals and Broadway Musicals can be fun. Bonus points for letting B♡BBY (Wesley Taylor) & Jessica (Savannah Wise) flank Sam as the three MVPs of the chorus... (though it's weird that they dumped Dennis, the only other chorus boy with lines in most episodes to be dumped from Season 1)
Gay Gay Gay: Last week on Musical Chairs I thought about writing about Season 2's weird unspoken insistence that Smash is not a gay show at all by effectively eliminating the gayness from the narrative. Sam got the boot, Tom didn't even flirt with anyone, and Kyle seemed largely asexual. So it was kind of a surprise to see the gays get some action this episode. Even if the action was very short-lived and in Tom & Sam's case immediately snatched back like the worst kind of cocktease. Anyway... if you shouted "it's still about musicals and musicals are gay!" than you're not helping. Musicals were once beloved by all sexual persuasions and it's stupid that they aren't anymore. The end.
Grade: B
This episode is titled all wrong. If you're talking about bells and whistles to distract you from the show's slow death, you're talking Bernadette f'in Peters who returned in...
2.9 "The Parents"
...the title of which refers to two of them, though not a couple. The first is Father of Karen (supporting actor of ubiquity ) who disapproves of her quitting "Bombshell" especially when he realizes it was over that asshole Jimmy whot he show attempts to stir up sympathy for by revealing that he's in way deep over a drug debt and is willing to steal from arts patrons to pay it off? How is this supposed to stir up my sympathy exactly? HATE HIM. And each and every episode the show adds another brick in the tower of that hatred. Clearly none of the writers have ever watched any movies or televisions and then absorbed what leading men are supposed to invoke in audiences (even if they're anti-heroes). The second and most important parent is Mother of Ivy (Bernadette Peters returning as Broadway legend Leigh Conroy). Lee is not a thinly veiled version of Bernadette herself despite the multiple Tonys and the Gypsy wig in "Hang the Moon" since Peters is not a monster mom, having no children apart but for the furry kind for whom she is an awesome mom.
Best bit that wasn't "Hang the Moon": B♡BBY getting as impatient as television audiences with a lame toothless scene between Leigh & Ivy. 'This is boring. Where are my catfights?'
I don't have much to say about this episode but for the fact that it was curious funny / typical to see an anti-gravity number (shades of Jane Krakowski's Nine triumph without the wit) from a show within the show (Hit List) that just last episode swore off "Bells & Whistles" of any sort. Oh, Smash! You can't help yourself with the wishywashy. In the episode this episode was all about "Hang the Moon" and the chance to hear Bernadette sing a new song. And for that alone I want to give it an A. But only singular Bernadette earns that so we'll go with a B-. The show is so much better than it was at the beginning of Season 2 but still worse than Season 1 and also why the hell did we waste a month on Jennifer Hudson again? Her storylines only delayed the clear direction they decided on for Season 2.