Death Of A Bunch Of Showgirls
Sunday's series finale of Smash came a little too soon for those of us who've only gotten to about Stage 29, particularly since it was kind of...great? Admittedly, I am biased -- I loved even the dumbest episodes the way people love their brain-damaged, three-legged dogs -- but I sincerely do feel like if this were the first episode a person ever watched, he or she would think it had some redeeming value. Ultimately, I can't speak for those people (people who don't like musicals, or who do base their viewing choices on perfectly reasonable TV criticism): for me, the episode had me firmly in its talons from the opening "Under Pressure" singalong which was able to feature everyone because it was a dream sequence! Yes, I know dream sequences are cheap! I don't care! I loved it!
My unconditional love for Smash doesn't, as I wrote in the Slate post linked above, mean that I was blind to its faults, but that's exactly what "unconditional love" means: just as I retain my affection for my husband even though he generally leaves his dirty socks on the floor beside the laundry hamper, so did I love Smash even though Jimmy (Jeremy Jordan) was a charisma vacuum whose success...well, to call it "improbable" is an insult to unlikely events that might, somehow, actually happen in this world. Jimmy and his various problems were infuriating when they weren't merely boring, and the show's producers made a mistake in thinking we were ever invested enough in his well-being to be anxious about his drug use or legal challenges; even when he jerked Karen (Katharine McPhee) around, it felt like the right fate for such a damp dishrag of a character.
From the start, the show has only intermittently realized what the viewer has known all along: having every character around her insist that Karen is a star hasn't made it so; Ivy (Megan Hilty) is the true triple threat, with the more compelling backstory, the propensity to make and immediately regret bad decisions...the one we're actually rooting for. Who, outside the world of the show, ever wanted Karen to play Marilyn Monroe on Broadway? Who wanted Karen to end up with Derek (Jack Davenport)? Who wanted Karen to win the Tony? I just can't believe that anyone who came to the show because he or she loved musical theatre really hooked into lucky ingénue Karen over Ivy, the trouper who finally got the role she was born to play. And the constant effort to turn Karen into Smash's heroine was a strain on the proceedings all along.
But the two-part finale felt like an ending everyone knew was an ending (and judging by the Times Square ads for The Client List, it wasn't filmed all that long ago). The season built toward the obvious climax of the Tonys, allowing for one last round of Broadway stalwarts cameo-ing as themselves, and giving Smash's producers the chance to deliver their final verdicts on cast and storylines. The sacrifice of Kyle (Andy Mientus) paid off with his Tony win. The split and reunion of Tom (Christian Borle) and Julia (Debra Messing) paid off with their win for Bombshell -- a win that, fittingly, they missed because they were too busy congratulating each other for being so great. Derek got to win the directing Tony so that the show could reaffirm the notion that the work was more important than the man by having the man say so in those words. The evil Daisy (Mara Davi) got to win her category not only so that neither Ivy nor Leigh (Bernadette Peters) had to snatch it away from the other, but so that Derek could use his newly reaffirmed Broadway power to restore Ana (Krysta Rodriguez) to her rightful role as the diva. Ivy got to win Best Actress because she'd paid her dues. And though Bombshell took the Best Musical prize so that Jerry (Michael Cristofer) didn't triumph over Eileen (Anjelica Huston), and so that all of this mishegoss over these two seasons of Smash were retroactively made "worth it," the performance we actually saw at the Tonys is the one from Hit List, in a stripped-down version people had real fun doing. Thus does Smash sign off on Broadway, old and new. Whether you want to see Wicked or Once, Smash says it's okay!
Like Bombshell and Hit List, Smash probably could have used a dramaturg to tighten up the storytelling -- keep Karen and Ivy from having the same feud over and over again, keep Karen and Jimmy from having the same breakup over and over again, keep Jerry and Eileen from sniping at one another in exactly the same ways; I mean, I could go on, and if you watched the show, you know I could. But like Bombshell and Hit List, the music on Smash was always good enough for me to forgive its worst plotting missteps (and yes, I even liked the Bollywood number. I'M SORRY). So even though we'll never get to see Ivy and Derek's baby, or Tom and Julia's movie musical, or Jimmy...getting out of jail, I guess, I can buy all the songs and enjoy a bittersweet moment on the elliptical when "Let Me Be Your Star" shuffles up. Smash certainly got more of a chance than it really earned, and I feel like, because I always knew it wasn't going to last, I treasured every stupid, sublime moment.