Smash Recap – Understudy

Last time: Ivy’s out of Marilyn the Musical Bombshell and is a pill-popping maniac but she got drunk with Karen and they sang their feelings so it’s okay even though they aren’t besties, Uma is going to be Marilyn, and a bunch of crap about totally ancillary characters the show would be better off without like Julia’s family and Karen’s boyfriend and some pretty girl who sometimes talks to Karen’s boyfriend.

This week is Nobody Can Bother To Show Up To Rehearsals For Bombshell Week. In the absolute hands-down best scene the show’s had since The National Pastime and The Twentieth Century Fox Mambo, the guy who’s playing some role couldn’t bother to show up so Tom (I fucking LOVE Tom. breakout star for sure. MOAR TOM NAO.) fills in. Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking is an all-male number, taking place in a locker room with all the dancer boys wearing towels and yapping about how Marilyn is a pain-in-the-ass tomato. Sassy and adorable and Tom is AWESOME. Loved it. Smash, give us TONS more of these moments, and tons less of the crappy stuff.

Oh, look. Uma can’t make it. Apparently she’s in Cuba with Sean Penn. Jesus, Smash, I can suspend disbelief to see impromptu Times Square singalongs, but not THIS. Sean Penn goes to HAITI, duh. Meanwhile, all the potential investors are sitting in the Most Intimidating Room Ever to try and meet Uma, who totally won’t be making it. Eileen is embarrassed, and the investors are all “lady, if you want $7,000,000 from us, you’d better prove your show is worth it. your husband wouldn’t have fucked this up. he at least knows that Sean Penn is in Haiti and that Haiti and Cuba are totally different islands with totally different cultures where the people speak entirely different languages duh.”

It is hard to do blocking when you don’t have an Uma there to move around, so Karen is offered the job of understudy for Marilyn. I hope they know that although Karen is a decently tall person when among the ensemble, she will never ever fit into Uma’s costumes. Oh, and big surprise – Derek is just as much of a dick to Karen whilst directing (even when he hallucinates her as Marilyn) as he was to Ivy. The ensemble bets on how long until she cries. I like those kids. They’re fun.

Karen slips up and tells Dev that Derek hit on her (I’m not even really sure he did… she’s the one who ripped off her clothes and hopped into his shirt and sang and danced right up to his lap, but hey, what do I know? maybe in Iowa that means he’s making a pass?) and Dev is livid that Karen is a lying liar. Which means that Dev is REALLY mad that he’s lying to Karen about his job prospects. Ahh, Psych 101 courtesy of Smash. Oh, and then when Derek came by to tell Karen that Uma would finally be showing up some day, Dev punched out Derek and they had a BritFight in the street and it was lame and boring and should have been way more interesting and Derek should press charges and kick Dev and his dumb lady friend off the show to DC.

Ivy is sad that all her friends are still working on Bombshell and she’s stuck doing nothing at all because she obviously lost the gig at Heaven on Earth after last week. She sang Kelly Clarkson looking all sad around the city and then dolled herself up like Marilyn and walked back into rehearsal for bombshell. Until the moment that everybody was so happy to see her as Marilyn and clapped for her, I thought she really HAD fucking lost her mind and was dressing up in character and walking in there. I’m glad she isn’t that nuts. Instead, her plan is a) project her Marilyn knowledge onto Karen and tell Derek that Marilyn needed gentle handling so maybe Karen does too; and b) buy Karen new sunglasses and be friendly so she can get back into the show. Or something.

Frank isn’t back yet and nobody cares but Julia is whiny and sad and spent most of the episode not telling people that Frank moved out and won’t talk to her and instead is rude and sad and ignored a reporter who wanted to know about her and Tom’s 10th anniversary as a team and ignored the high school putting on a crappy play of their crappy first show and was super rude and sad. Who cares. And her kid still can’t act. Maybe he can disappear and live elsewhere with Frank? And then we don’t have to see more of that storyline ever again.

Eileen doesn’t like pandering to demanding rich people all of a sudden, but luckily her bartender friend has a friend with way too much money who might be willing to invest in the show. So then she meets him and has Ellis do a background check and Ellis finds that the rich guy is clean but the bartender is sketchy and Eileen won’t hear a word against the bartender even though Ellis (rightly) points out that bartender guy could want (and probably deserves) a cut of the action by introducing Eileen to the rich guy. Whatever. And then Eileen kissed the bartender. I was *shocked* that Ellis wasn’t lurking around the corner watching them kiss.

And then Uma showed up.

Next time: Uma, Ivy, Ivy, Uma. Uma, Ellis, Ellis, Uma. Uma, Eileen, Eileen, Uma. … I think that’s all the vowel names? Uma is a pain in the ass, also, obviously.