Why Couldn't NBC Give Smash That One More Chance?

We've been fairly critical in this space over the past two months (marathoning definitely highlights the problems with the characters, as does the weird run of fifteen and seventeed episodes instead of the tighter ten or thirteen we would've gotten on cable...not to make excuses), but I just want to reiterate my sincere love for Smash, a love which this last run of episodes really confirmed. I feel like many a hope-watch ends like this: the show finally found its way when it was too late. Plus, we get to see a lot of Hit List fully formed here, and I love it so so so much. The "Don't Let Me Know" sequence where Amanda becomes a pop superstar through a very SYTYCD-ish dance montage is fabulous.

"Impact"? PHRASING! Poor Kyle. I commented in an earlier post that it seemed like they were implying Kyle wasn't talented, and I was glad to see I'd misremembered that. Hit List was a sensation on its own ("as current as a status update," reads a pullquote on the theater, which, what?); it was only the Broadway transfer that was spurred by Kyle's death. It was also interesting -- and a little frustrating for me, as someone who, when I worked directly in this world, worked mostly Off Broadway, and who now works with theaters around the country -- to see Broadway discussed as the only acceptable outcome for Hit List. Also, the upsizing of the show definitely made it look worse, in my opinion. Lots of shows (including the somewhat painfully paralleled Rent) transfer with the same basic sets and costumes and an "if it ain't broke" attitude, but I get that Smash the TV show wanted to show us some bigger production numbers. (And I'm never complaining about "I'm Not Sorry.")

Yeah, no, to clarify, I love that number because it's completely ridiculous, and I wish we could see Ana perform it instead. OH WAIT, WE CAN, thanks to the magic of DVD deleted scenes!

That costume is all the proof we need that Hit List was better downtown.

Daisy does get credit for finally, finally calling Karen out on two seasons of her bullshit: "Unlike you, I have been trying to get here for ten years. Ten years of lost roles, endless showcases, teaching Pilates. All the while knowing I was just as good if not better than everyone around me. After two years of that, let alone ten, you stop caring about being a good person, and you do what it takes." Though it's awfully weird of them to put that in the mouth of the biggest villain since Ellis. (I mean, I know plenty of actors who have not stopped being good people. Most of them, probably!)

At least she didn't have any voiceovers?

If only that car had backed up! (Potentially amusing sidebar with potentially annoying name-dropping: not long after Smash ended, I went to see Krysta Rodriguez in a real Broadway show, and Andy Mientus (Kyle) happened to be there too, so we wound up waiting for her backstage near each other. Multiple people approached him and told him that they always think of him now when crossing the street. Smash's greatest legacy: pedestrian safety! He also pointed out that we never see what hits him, but people almost always told him they were so sorry Kyle "got hit by that truck" or "that bus." Fans really wanted Kyle squished.)

Anyway, I remember watching the first time around, with all the Jonathan Larson talk early on, joking that they were going to kill off Jimmy. I never thought they'd actually do it, and I never thought it would be poor Kyle. And I never ever thought they would be so Law & Order literal ripped-from-the (almost twenty-year-old) headlines about it!

They do a decent job of explaining that Kyle is starstruck (and if there's one thing Smash loves, it's a talent crush), but it did feel shoehorned in. When I started this run of episodes, I wondered if I'd accidentally skipped one because I'd forgotten that everything between Tom and Kyle after the Bombshell opening is told in flashback. They're sort of adorable together, though, except when Tom sings "slow down you crazy child, you're so ambitious for a juvenile" to Kyle.

But we really really need to talk about this Rent stuff some more, because it's so weird. So, quick recap of the pretty famous real-life story: Jonathan Larson died suddenly after the final dress rehearsal of Rent. The first preview was canceled but the cast decided to perform the show sitting at music stands for friends and family. By the end of the first act, people couldn't contain themselves and were standing up, doing the full choreography. From there, the run sold out, the show was a phenomenon, moved to Broadway...if you're reading about Smash you probably know the rest.

So...the exteriors for MTW were shot where all of that actually happened. Scott's office was made to look pretty much just like the offices there. (Every single poster as far as I can tell is from a real production.) Hit List is already running and sold out when Kyle dies, so that's different, but then they do the performance at music stands until Jimmy runs on and says he wants to do it full out. Weirdest of all, unlike in real life (as far as I know!), Scott -- who is played by an original cast member of Rent! -- is a total creep about the whole thing, deliberately using Kyle's death to get the Broadway transfer to happen. Also bizarre, at one point Derek says, "I will not turn this into a requiem" to Scott, played by Jesse L. Martin, who sang the song in Rent that is literally a requiem and also sang it at Jonathan Larson's funeral. Certainly people have questioned what would have happened to Rent if Larson hadn't died, and all the press attention that came with that, but this was the most direct parallel of anything on all of Smash, and making Scott so gross was a really bizarre choice, making what I suspect was actually intended as a loving homage come off kind of...icky.

Scott really does seem like an idiot on every level, doesn't he? Which is a shame, because unlike some of the idiots on this show, he's played by such a likable actor! The Gatsby stuff makes no sense to me at all. Starting with: why would anyone want to see that?

But if Tom really wants to do it, why doesn't Julia propose doing the musical at MTW? Why doesn't Scott just get another play? It's not like there's a shortage! Why does he think he'll get away with sneaking around? I've certainly never been in a situation like the one they're in, but I'd be surprised if the Hit List cast wouldn't want to do the show, so why the subterfuge? Like with Tom's histrionics, it makes me hate a previously enjoyable, sensible character for no good reason.

It all kind of works out in the end, and in the tiny hint of a setup we get for the Season 3 that might have been, it's implied that they're going to keep working together, but the fight really is dumb and boils down to poor communication between people who should know better. Hmm, just like all of Julia's relationships! Not that Tom is blameless, what with his constant childlike behavior. We're meant to believe these two are pretty Broadway-famous -- has Tom never been nominated for a Tony before? Because he sure acts like a doofus about it!

I loved the Q&A scene if only because it was such an obvious (and fairly clever) homage to "Franklin Shepard, Inc." from Merrily We Roll Along, and I love when the show gets its musical theater nerd on.

But yeah, Tom would know how to campaign by now, and Agnes would coach him, and he'd certainly know the rules about bribing hot voters.

But I guess he just couldn't handle all the...pressure he was under.

Well, I've been marathoning Smash, I've picked up some writing tips! Smash's writers never seemed entirely sure how much they wanted the show itself to be a musical (or maybe they wanted more and were constrained by budget), and as much as "Under Pressure" veers into Glee-ish territory, I LOVE that we get to see the entire main cast (minus Kyle's ghost, which really seems like a missed opportunity) come together and sing their faces off (in Jeremy Jordan's case one fears maybe literally) in the finale.

Have all these people even been in the same room before now? The moment when they all converge on the stage of the Marquis is so satisfying to me.

COULD HE??? You know I love him, and props for going for it (Anjelica Huston too), but...

No, totally. And that's what I love about it. Derek has to be in it, because they're all in it. It has such great energy, with all of them together on an actual stage like that. I think they pretty much knew they were shooting the last episode, too, so it gives it some real emotion. It doesn't hurt that it's a pretty unkillable song.

Yeah, I was definitely strutting through Times Square to it today. It doesn't quite rise to the level of "Let Me Be Your Star," but it certainly helped the series finale go out on a high note.

I'd forgotten too! The sequence where they're all watching the nominations being announced was delightful, and I found myself getting genuinely wrapped up in it with them! Jimmy falling in love with theater, not just because of Kyle's death but because of the family he found and the work he finally became proud of, and realizing the show could continue without him was both moving and important (like, on a practical level). And I definitely cried when Jimmy cried at the announcement of Kyle's win...and all the way through his speech...and totally broke down when he said "It's okay, I got the one I wanted." And then there was Ivy's acceptance speech, which might as well have been the mission statement for the entire series, as well as its farewell: "For me, there is nothing more magical than that moment right as the lights go down and the crowd is waiting in silence with anticipation for the show to begin. It's a moment full of hope and full of possibilities. So I'd like to thank the audience for coming, and for believing, as I do, that there is nothing more important or special as live theater." THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY EYE.

It's all very dramatically satisfying and, shocker, pretty realistic! I totally buy the awards getting split up like that, with Hit List taking the artsier stuff (and Daisy for her showy, splashy, flight-including Diva) and Bombshell getting the production win for Best Musical. It didn't even feel cheap, which it totally could have.

She certainly has the most amazing doctor, who calls her with test results at midnight! But yes, as sad as I was to see Smash go, I can't say I needed closure on that arc, or Jimmy's visit to prison (you know what they do to boys with a Tony in prison, don't you?), or Julia's reconciliation with Michael Swift and his couch. For all the seeds the writers planted just in case, they clearly knew they were almost certainly done, even giving us the thinnest possible pretext for a fantastic closing number, and literally making the last words of the series "show's over."

Given the fact that Bombshell is apparently becoming a reality...maybe? Though cult status doesn't really exist without cancellation, does it? So who knows. Even when its budget constraints were showing, there's no way Smash was cheap, or logistically easy, so I get it. A friend of mine recently suggested that if it had been on just a year or two later it might have been picked up by Netflix or Amazon, and that feels plausible. One thing's for sure: Broadway (and Off Broadway, and regional theater, and Canadian theater) are incredibly fertile ground for stories (take a look at the cast list alone for the show that HBO decided not to pick up the year before Smash, and do yourself a favor and get a hold of a bootleg of the script), so we may never get Smash 2.0, but we'll get something like it. The logistics would be a nightmare, but I'd love a non-exploitative reality show tracking a Broadway production from first rehearsal through opening night, or the Tonys. Get on it, Logo!

Me too. Thank you for letting us be your stars!