All right, so, I’m a little late to the game. I just read a spoiler about next week’s SMASH, so put your fingers in your eyes – I mean, your hands over your ears – well, just do what you do when you want to avoid spoilers if you don’t want to be spoiled, OK? It’s late.
The following was on TVLine:
What to Expect | Nick Jonas returns as child star-turned-Bombshell investor Lyle West, per The Hollywood Reporter. … We end this season at an out-of-town tryout, in Boston, and we still don’t know who’s gonna play Marilyn,” executive producer Neil Meron tells us. “It is going to be a cliffhanger!”
Aside from being really freaking annoyed that we still aren’t going to get an answer on who plays Marilyn, and that not everyone is of my mind that an ending without a cliffhanger is a way of showing that a story is secure in itself, it isn’t all that surprising. The pictures from the episode (see throughout) are showing that both Ivy and Karen get Marilynned up for the big stage. A preview video shows Derek coaching Karen. I was all, “DUUUURRRRR, it’s KAREN,” in my recap.
Too often we just snark out here without putting our money where our mouths are. Creation is difficult and producers don’t get paid enough to put up with our complaints can’t be blamed for everything if we can’t come up with something better. So, with no promises of anything even approaching good, I thought I’d give it a shot here. Without further ado I present my projected storyline and predictions for Smash‘s first season finale. (Keep in mind, Nick Jonas is returning to the show as one of its producers, so that’s two bits of bias with which I enter this charade.)
Some of this, I actually think will really happen. The parts I don’t, you can probably guess. And away we go!
EPISODE OPENS:
- The
dream teambunch of geniusheads who really believed a suicide scene at the end of a musical was going to get a standing O have their big sit-down. - Over the wails of woe that they don’t have a star, and while they prepare to do another jerk-around number on the person they hired to play an understudy on TV, Tom can barely contain himself. DuSuck is gone! The song and not the star can be king again! He wants to fix all the little things they did to make the rest of the show suck more so that DuSuck wouldn’t seem to suck so much, but there’s not time for that, and he throws a tiny hissy.
- They have the fourteenth conversation of this type this year: “Karen or Ivy?” One of them, probably Baronness von Huston, sick to death of this conversation despite the many rooms and cities in which it has taken place, is pulling from a flask; she starts asking, “Iren or Kivy?” “Ivanka or Korra?” Derek pipes in with, “I can’t just hand this off to an amateur, especially when I haven’t slept with her yet!” and goes off in search of more condoms (and Karen) so he can make this decision like an artist.
- “Oh, honestly,” says Baronness von Slushiface (at this point). “Where’s my other-side-of-the-tracks boyfriend? I got a new Henry Higgins outfit and he’s picked out the perfect Eliza Doolittle hat, and I’m randy and on a schedule.”
- Enter Eliza himself, breaking up our little tableau. With him is the investor he pulled out of a heroin ditch.
- The production team, which has dissolved into one gay man weeping over his piano about whyyycan’twejustpickIvvvvyyyyyyyyy; a female writer trying to figure out what part of this moment in her life she can use to fix the show (so that she can insist, later, that it is OUTRAGEOUS! that anyone in the show have any crossover into her personal life); a semi-drunk-but-only-showing-it-through-crooked-smiles-and-asymmetrical-bangs producer, and a director who has absconded in search of some Marilyn-shaped bootie, suddenly remembers that someone is paying for this dang show and they better have a plan stat.
- Enter Nick Jonas, also looking for a Marilyn to bang. Three assistants walk behind him carrying the Degas, holding a can of kerosene and a match in case the show doesn’t rebound.
- Derek, frustrated in his search to stick it to Karen, comes running back in with a burst of inspiration. They can both do it! We’re out of town, no one talks between cities these days ANYWAY, let each girl take a night, do her best, and the producers can make this decision for us since, frankly, the four of us are like Snooki trying to choose gold or silver eye shadow before heading out to D’Jai’s to hook some hotties, you know what I’m saying?
- Everyone applauds. The genius director has done it again. Cut to gratuitous shots of iMessaging and Karen and Ivy sharing “God, I hope I get it” looks while their chorus friends fawn over them each in rotation. Dang it, they were just about to have a sing off! Because that is what people do!
- Big company meeting in front of the stage!
- Derek: “Right. Ivy, Karen, we don’t trust either of you to park this thing. Frankly, I’ve left Ivy a shattered, blues-singing wreck who can barely tie her shoes without popping a Prednisone. Karen, you just came off the tomato truck and my unresolved sexual daydreaming about you is clouding my ability to see you as anything but wearing too many clothes. So we’re going to do this the way that MTV did with Legally Blonde: as publicly and as humiliating as possible. Go get glammed, girls. We’re gonna audition you right in front of the audience. You’ll be fine. Break a leg. Each.”
- Karen: “What a great opportunity! I can’t believe I’m expected to learn of all of this in five minutes! Gosh dang darnit, I’d better put my cornfield grit to work here! Oh my, I can’t believe it!”
- Ivy: “What a crock of crap. Bitch. Oh by the way, I screwed your boyfriend.”
- Karen: “…” [has breakdown]
- Derek pops into frame from below: “Is a Marilyn having a breakdown? I can fix it! I’m here! I’m the director! I know just what you need!” [begins unbuttoning pants]
- Ivy: [throws shoe at Derek's head and storms off]
- Derek: “What? I am trying to direct, here!”
- Meanwhile, Smellis talks to the Baronness.
- Ellis: “I put the peanuts in DuSuck’s drink. I have saved the show! Give me all the awards, a 50 percent stake, and your weird boyfriend.”
- von Huston: “Don’t let Boston hit you in the ass on the way out.”
- Alternate ending to this scene: the Baronness uses the bowtie (which Ellis borrowed from Blaine Anderson) to strangle him to death.
- Chorus people are jibbering. Dev tries frantically to explain.
- Dev: “Your answer to ‘Will you marry me’ was ‘I’M IN TECH.’ What are you, an iPhone? Of course I slept with the only person with whom you’ve ever had to compete for anything. [pause.] All right, that even sounded wrong to me. Hey! I’m a scumbag! I’ll get out of your life now, but I will use my accent and my exotic charm to seem gallant and tender while I do, because I am trying to shore up support among your hot cast. I need a rebound lay.”
- Karen: [In the middle of four vocal rehearsals, three tap dances and two costume changes.] “Dev, I just, you were the one thing I trusted, you know? The one thing I could count on. I am so earnest it’s difficult for people to make fun of me for anything else. Our love was so pure and you ruined it. And now I have to learn a show in the middle of this and -” [stops, turns and looks at gathering crowd, who apparently heard Dev:] “Look, just because I’m from Iowa doesn’t mean I don’t know how to cut a bitch.”
- Crowd scatters.
- Dev leaves. Rehearsals continue apace, with the level of histrionics only found in theater.
- Julia’s family, meanwhile… no one cares.
- Ivy’s turn first! Curtain goes up and Ivy is all, “I own this stage, and I swear I won’t even fall down.” Karen stands backstage and is all, “My lliiiiife is faallliiiing appppaaaaaaaaart!!!!! Oh, hey. Marilyn’s life fell apart too. Is that – do I – do I know her now? OH MY GOD! I am having a MIND MELD! I know everything about her! I’m gonna KILL THIS!”
- Derek appears behind her. “You know that Marilyn slept with all her directors, right?”
- Karen: “Die.”
- Ivy’s ends to much fanfare: she nailed it and now it’s time for the amateur to put up or shut up. One day of Karen having a complete mental breakdown ensues, followed by…
- …Karen’s turn! The chorus people are excited for her (to her face) and bitching about her (to her back). Dev sneaks in and watches from the back, and falls in love with her all over again, making us all vomit. Tom starts to see that maybe there are other actresses in the world besides Ivy. Nick Jonas slowly releases his grip on the Degas. Ellis sharpens knives outside the theater. The Baronness and Eliza are doing it in a closet. Derek is so close to rushing onto stage and taking Karen right there that someone is restraining him with a silk scarf out of wardrobe.
- The curtain falls, flowers are thrown, tears are shed, and that’s our last shot of the season, folks.
What do you think? What percentage of this will happen Monday night? Low to mid 80s, right? Nah, maybe 70s. Oh, all right. Ten percent if I’m lucky.
Still. It was fun to dream.
If you would like to be instantly alerted to such ridiculousness um, stellar reporting um, late-night machinations in the future? Make sure you are following us on Twitter and have liked us on Facebook. Then you can fever-dream SMASH with us all the time.
Pingback: Preview tonight’s SMASH Finale | LeakyNews
Pingback: Silk Scarf Restraint
Pingback: Fake out! Never listen to SMASH spoilers! (Also, react here.) | LeakyNews