Craig Reviews Smash: Hell On Earth

*SPOILER WARNING*


Not much happened on Smash this week, as the show seems to be stalling, much like the Marilyn musical, which now has a name at least! There was, however, just enough development to make for an interesting and entertaining episode, with several key characters getting in on the drama. It isn’t entirely without it’s flaws, but overall this was one of the better episodes of Smash so far, perhaps because it stopped and took a breath for a moment. At any rate, it’s definitely an improvement over last week’s disappointing filler.

 The episode jumps right in on Karen preparing for a day of auditions, effectively giving up on waiting for Marilyn, while Tom discovers that his boyfriend, who I had assumed would already be dumped by now, hence not knowing his name, is a Republican. Honestly, the show is doing a little too much to make it clear that these two guys are not meant for each other. The whole Tom/Sam thing also became practically guaranteed during this episode, after several weeks of being completely obvious, so it’d be nice to have that little thread start going somewhere sometime soon. Then we get to the real meat of the episode, as Frank, Julia’s husband, discovers a song Julia has written that seems to indicate she’s been cheating on him. Ok, so it was a slightly cheesy way of discovering it, but I’m so glad it happened. A few characters have been wandering through this show without consequence for a little too long now and it was becoming irritating, so I’m glad that Julia finally has to face up to her reckless actions. The storyline was generally handled well, and watching a home become broken was powerful and, at times, upsetting.

Yeah, this happened.

Elsewhere, Ivy’s pill-popping becomes a cause for concern this week, as the show’s ‘Two Marilyns’ theme goes from subtle subtext to ‘DO YOU SEE WHAT WE DID THERE?’. Ivy’s Monroe-esque downward spiral starts spiralling much faster, as she tries to deal with her envy of Karen, who she loses out to in an audition for a national commercial, and the ‘anxiety’ that the Marilyn musical has caused her. Honestly, Ivy really does not come off well during this episode, and if you manage to still like her by the end then you’re a stronger person than I. She’s been a bitch for a while now, and I could deal with that, but this week she just wallows in self-pity, and comes off as pretentious and ungrateful. She’s back in ‘Heaven On Earth’ after being ditched as Marilyn, but she grimaces and pouts her way through the performances, clearly now finding it beneath her. At the end of the day she should be happy to be on a stage at all, so when things start falling apart for her I found it hard not to feel a little glad. And fall apart they do, as Ivy takes to the stage while dosed up, stumbling through half a song before being sent off stage. I liked that this sequence was occasionally reminiscent of the ‘Let’s Be Bad’ performance from episode five, reclaiming a little bit of that subtlety at least, but the fact that it was seemingly played for laughs seemed a little off to me. Ivy is clearly in a very dark place to have gotten to this point, so it didn’t strike me as particularly comedic and I found the scene quite awkward to watch. Karen ends up witnessing the whole debacle, before getting drunk in public with Ivy and having a good old sing that makes them friends, temporarily at least. I’m fairly sure Ivy will hate her again by next week, she seems a bit fickle that way. Just look at how she keeps jumping in bed with Derek.

Speaking of Derek, he gets a minor bit of drama of his own this week, when Eileen gets a little crafty in dangling the threat of replacing him in front of him. We all know Derek’s not going anywhere, and this thread gets so little screen-time that it never really feels like anything more than a reason to remind us that Derek’s still here. Ellis unfortunately gets as much presence in this episode as always, and just when you think he couldn’t be any more irritating he attempts to force his way into a co-producer role because he believes he’s found the show a star. Weirdly it seems to be implied that he had sex with a guy in order to get this star on board, which I really did not get at all. At any rate, Eileen is having none of it, and wastes no time in letting him know that he is nowhere near capable of doing what a producer does. I still don’t understand why she’s employing him when he’s made it clear on several occasions that he’s a horrible human being, but it was still nice to see her put him in his place. Of course, I’m sure he’ll have a new sneaky scheme by next week, so I doubt that’ll last too long.

Then it all ends with a name, as the musical finally gets a title, now going by ‘Bombshell’. I like it, and I hope it’s an indication that the musical will start moving again soon. While I liked this episode a lot I can’t help but feel that the show just doesn’t work as well without the musical at it’s core. This episode at least benefitted from a slower pace that let us focus on a few key points, rather than throwing everyone’s drama at us simultaneously as the show has been prone to do in the past. If future episodes can take a leaf out of Hell On Earth’s book then I don’t mind getting more of this kind of episode, but I definitely think at this point in the show the musical needs to come back into focus.