52nd Street: The SMASH Finale


Founder
05/15/12 03:36pm
13 Comments

What is it about being lectured at the end of a musical that brings an audience to its feet? The last-minute number, “Don’t Forget Me,” sung prettily by Katharine McPhee at the end of last night’s  finale, goes down in history alongside preachy musical closing numbers like “Children Will Listen,” which drop everything at the close of their storyline to turn and give invocations and instructions to the audience. In the case of “Children Will Listen,” the ending note of the fairy-tale based, high-school-theater Sondheim favorite, “Into the Woods,” it’s all the more frustrating when the adults nod sagely, wipe tears from their eyes and leap to their feet, because it seems throughout the entirety of the show children weren’t listening. They were escaping towers and going to balls and climbing beanstalks, and if there’s one thing that’s more difficult than being lectured at at the end of a musical, it’s being lectured at for a reason that has to be interpreted to make sense. (I can’t wait for all the Sondheim fans to come debate me on this point. BRING IT. I love me some Sondheim but let’s not pretend closing numbers have ever been his strong point.) The broader point with the Into the Woods song is that children will NOT listen to you, but they will see and absorb everything, so WATCH WHAT YOU DO, YO. Only problem? Not really present as the point of the show as you watch it. Until the end! Then everyone gets their Big Sharp Point and gets to walk out saying what the show is about!

This is why it is semibrilliant for the halfassed and quickly written number to be a lecture song.

Karen sings it out at the end

However, as lecture songs go, this is a very, very pretty one. I can’t say if the show supports it: we’ve still only seen perhaps ten percent of Bombshell. (Any bets on how long it takes to get to Broadway in real life? Two years, perhaps?) It also, despite some clunky lyrics (every time we sing Happy Birthday we should think of Marilyn Monroe? No thanks!), gave the ending of Bombshell a true hairlift moment: the starlet at her gold-spangled starletiest, dressed as she’d prefer to be remembered, beseeching the audience (as the real Marilyn did in her last interview, noted in the first episode of this show) to remember her well. As lecture songs go, this one is downright integrated. There was also the little riff of the music from “Let Me Be Your Star” at the last swell, one of those tried-and-true-because-it-works tricks that brings the music full circle; nicely done in the Wittman and Shaiman way. (Listen closely to the end of Hairspray and you’ll hear it, too: the strains of “Good Morning, Baltimore,” at the end of “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” They do it because it cues us to a proper ending. They do it because it gets results. It says hey, you were standing up when you walked in here. Stand up now before you leave.)

Finale shot!

There you have it. A show that is really about the show, even if it took a detour through libido land first. It’s about the ineffable something that makes a person a star: that made Marilyn a star and that is going to make Karen one. That is going to bring people to her door so they can tear pieces from her. Just like Marilyn.

Ivy just doesn’t have it. She’s been holding out hope that she’d fall into it, or it would mature into her. It hasn’t. For however much she tries and however perfectly she can imitate it, she doesn’t have it. And that’s the point, isn’t it? For every Karen there are a hundred Ivys. Showbusiness wouldn’t be heartbreaking – or glorious – without them. This show is better for understanding that.

And that’s where we leave our fair cast until we pick up in September. Is Bombshell a hit? Will they make it down the I-95 to New York? Will Ellis die a painful death? If he doesn’t, can he please? Is Derek going to get his Bleached Blonde Bombshell trifecta?

Next year, the show will have a new showrunner, former Gossip Girl showrunner Joshua Safran. I’ll do a once-only FYI here: Mr. S is an old friend of mine, from my sixteen-years-old-and-starstruck-about-everything days. (Now I’m exactly twice as old and exactly half as starstruck.) I’ll just say this appointment made me more excited for the development of the show than anything that has heretofore happened on it. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be swell.

We’ll have more opinion pieces on SMASH and where you think it should go, over the next week. If you have made it to the end here, I congratulate you, and I look forward to duking it out in the comments over whether Ellis should die via wheat thresher or televised brawl. (Wheat thresher any day, for me. For you for me for you for me. Dawg. </RandyJackson>)

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  • Ellisdies

    WHEAT. THRESHER.

  • jpegfilms

    As usual, loved your analysis. I too, was increasingly disappointed in the show when they make Ivy the big bitch villain. I find it MUCH more satisfying to be rooting for both of them. The more conflicted I am, the better.

    I will say just a few things

    1. I do not buy for a SECOND that Karen could learn/memorize a song she’d never seen of heard before that was finished 5 minutes before the curtain went up. That stretched the believability too far for me.

    2. When the Baroness von Huston was on her iPhone, she was holding it upside down! I couldn’t get past it. The earphone plug was by her mouth meaning she was speaking into the speakers and listening to the microphone. How could no one have told her to flip it?!??! It drove me crazy during the whole scene.

    3. Unfortunately, the show isn’t coming back until January. They want to give the new showrunner time to really develop a season and get into his groove as opposed to getting thrown in and having to learn on the job. Plus NBC wants to keep it paired with The Voice.

    • Melissa

      Hey! Thanks! Here’s my couple things back at you:

      1. She definitely DIDN’T learn the whole song in five minutes. As noted a few times during, the orchestrations were done as was most of the song – and a version of the lyrics (even if a bad one) straight at the top of the show. Most likely she learned it in the hour previous to the show (hard, but possible, plus it’s a simple song), and they were tweaking a couple lines.

      2. I didn’t see that at all! Dangit. I have to go back.

      3. Where did you read this? No matter, I’m psyched either way :)

  • http://twitter.com/19yearslater Sarah Moe

    I disliked the Derek looks through costumes thing not because it was nostalgic, but because it seemed pretty boob-oriented (on that note, how can Ivy and Karen wear the same costumes but Karen and Rebecca can’t?). The finale song was cheeseball but appropriate and, as you mentioned, something similar to what Broadway has done. Of course Karen got the role, she’s been at the top of the pyramid since the first ads. However, I started watching the show for Megan Hilty. Knowing that Karen would get the role, I hoped that Ivy would be Norma Jean, sing sad songs because Ivy’s life is crap and Karen can get over it to be the star. Instead Ivy has become the worst of Marilyn and that could be interesting but might not be. We shall see, but I don’t think Ivy’s dead (ohai, Quinn). Also Tom and Sam are adorable.

  • Heather23renae

    Every episode that I see, I seem to love Derek more and more! Jack Davenport is a master! I would like to go back to when I watched the first episode and see my expression when I tell myself that I am going to absolutely adore Derek. I wouldn’t have believed myself for half a second!

    I have been routing for Karen from the start! I thought she represented a more youthful Marilyn and transitioned well in to the more mature Marilyn. Ivy always seemed like she skipped right to mature.

    I think it says TONS about Megan Hilty’s talent that she turned off her ‘it’. Who the heck can do that?!

    • http://twitter.com/19yearslater Sarah Moe

      Jack Davenport is certainly a master. He and Megan Hilty are both playing somewhat dislikable characters well, but I want them on the show because the actors are fantastic. Unlike, say, the dislikable Ellis- that’s just an oddball situation.

  • Saxy

    Thanks for a great summary of this fun show. I love BOTH of these women and both do have IT, which is really great for this show. For me, the thing about Karen is intrigue. Ivy is fantastic and puts it all out there every time. At the same time, I kind of feel that I’ve seen ALL of Ivy, which is OK. With Karen, it seems like it’s held back somewhat (maybe inexperience?). But when Karen suddenly “put the pedal to the floor” on that closing number, I stopped what I was doing and thought “Wow – what’s this?”. And that makes me wonder what else she has hiding in there, i.e. intrigue. Actually, I’m not completely crazy about either one being Marilyn. I’d love for season 2 to invent a new musical that uses both together because I actually like the chemistry between the 2 girls them selves – more songs like Smash.

  • Heathergois

    “Bombshell” will be on the real Broadway in two years, tops, and I know I’ll be looking for tickets. ;)
    Great article, Melissa. I love your snark and your theatre/Broadway related tidbits. (I have no theatre background, but…gahh, that world has always intrigued me.)
    Brava ;)

  • http://twitter.com/bshrib Beverly

    I have so much hate for Ellis. Seriously needs to die.

  • http://lovelyladykatieann.blogspot.com/ Katie

    Best finale recap ever. Your nicknames for everyone are hysterical especially Joe DiAlltheWayggio. Too funny. I was so relieved to FINALLY get an episode that I liked. Now I just want to be able to see the whole musical from start to finish.

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  • Ali

    I found this show so frustrating. Katherine McPhee is plenty talented, but she does not play the part of Marilyn as well as Ivy. I found the writing on this show so frustrating. It was clear the writers assumed we would love Karen and be rooting for her, but they never made me want to root for Karen. If I don’t see her struggle, I can’t root for her. We saw so much of Ivy’s struggle, no matter how many times she was written poorly. It made it appear to me she wanted it more and deserved it. I hope they can improve the characters that seemed so well-written in the first episode.