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[0:00] Aaron Albano: You're listening to Smash from The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I'm Aaron Albano. And I'm Mo Brady.

[0:25] Mo Brady: Welcome back, listeners, to our tongue-in-cheek recap of what is television's most detailed depiction of the theater industry. And yes, we're still talking about Smash, the NBC series that chronicled the creation of a Broadway musical and all of the drama that ensued along the way.

[0:40] Aaron Albano: Theater fans like us had a love-hate relationship with Smash when it aired. So, Aaron and I are going back, episode by episode, to figure out why.

[0:48] Mo Brady: We're diving into each episode to figure out why something as emotional as creating a Broadway musical could land flat with TV audiences. So let's dive in and talk about Season 1, Episode 14, Previews. Aaron, give us the stats.

[1:01] Aaron Albano: Absolutely, Mo. Previews, the penultimate episode of the season, premiered on May 7, 2012. It was written by David Marshall Grant and directed by Robert Duncan McNeil. Another weird Star Trek connection, Robert McNeil played Lieutenant Tom Paris, also on Star Trek Voyager. The viewership was up from the previous week, wonderful, being seen by 5.2 million viewers. Thank goodness.

[1:33] Aaron Albano: Since the episode included Bombshell's first preview, we heard snippets of all our favorites by Shaiman and Whitman: Let Me Be Your Star, The 20th Century Fox Mambo, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Don't Say Yes Until I Finish Talking, and a reprise, finale version, of Secondhand White Baby Grand. One newcomer to the original Smash catalog was, get ready for it, the titular song of Smash, sung in its entirety by Megan Hilty and Katherine McPhee. Two covers in this episode were Kurt Weill's September Song, sung by Anjelica Huston, and Donnie McClurkin's Stand, sung by Leslie Odom Jr. and Katherine McPhee. And what happens in this penultimate episode, Mo?

[2:14] Mo Brady: You mean the penultimate episode of Smash Season 1?

[2:17] Aaron Albano: The penultimate episode.

[2:18] Mo Brady: Yes, the penultimate episode. Here we go. It's the first preview of Bombshell, and while Derek doesn't want to jinx it, he thinks the show is in pretty good shape. But Bobby, the soothsayer, tells us, you go out of town and all hell breaks loose. He's right, as Derek and Rebecca continue to canoodle, even after Karen tells her that Derek is seeing Ivy. Michael Swift is back in the show, arriving at the theater only to be greeted by Julia's entire family. But despite the backstage drama, the show goes on. In a never-before-seen number, Ivy and Karen lead the female ensembleists in a number that feels wildly reminiscent of 9 to 5, down to the use of a mustachioed Mark Kudisch. All in all, the show goes well, but ends to crickets instead of wild applause. What's the problem? Ellis hits the nail on its wig-prepped head, saying it's Rebecca. She's good and all, but she's not landing any of the numbers.

[3:13] Aaron Albano: When Ivy finally confronts Derek about his dressing room antics, he tells her, Rebecca needs my attention and I'm giving it to her. Is there any other approach? Spoiler alert, there is. After accepting Dev's second take at a marriage proposal, Karen comforts Rebecca about the show's first preview audience's poor response to the show. But as she is confiding in Karen, Rebecca has an allergic reaction to her smoothie and gets sent to the hospital. With previews for the weekend cancelled, the creative team is plotting their game plan if Rebecca doesn't recover in time. The understudy, Karen, hasn't had any time onstage, but Ivy knows the whole show, yet neither gets the chance when it is announced that Rebecca has recovered.

And while the drama seems high, it all seems to absolve by Sunday morning when Sam gets the entire Smash family to go to church. Wrongs are absolved, sins are forgiven, and Karen unexpectedly leads a gospel number. But after the service, Rebecca calls Karen to say that even though she's well, she's not going back into the production, and they will have to crown a new Marilyn after all.

[4:20] Mo Brady: What a penultimate synopsis, Mo! What a penultimate episode, Aaron! How'd you like this episode, Mo?

[4:44] Mo Brady: I'm liking these episodes more and more. You know, like, I think this is where it's starting to feel more like Fosse-Verdon, in that it feels more like a limited series. Everything has a purpose, there's drama, the drama has to do with getting the show up. I'm along for the ride now.

[5:00] Aaron Albano: Yeah. I mean, it's winding down to where the show finally gets on its feet. We've watched it go through all the prep work, and now we're finally, it's finally starting to pay off. And somehow the inclusion of Rebecca just, like, makes all of the Ivy-Karen drama that much more interesting. Like, I never really understood why there was so much hand-wringing over whether it was going to be Karen or Ivy. They're both different, they both have different qualities, they both have different experience. But, you know, in the end, it's like, choose one.

[5:29] Mo Brady: Totally. But, like, the idea that this movie star comes in and that she's got her own power and changes the game, and so it just makes it all the more interesting. And maybe just because it's a conversation that we actually have in the theatre business more often, it's like, there's a star and then we'll figure out who's going to cover the star.

[5:50] Aaron Albano: Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's very, we've had this conversation before about how the entrance of Rebecca as Marilyn sort of changed the dynamic between Ivy and Karen. It's just something out of left field that, like, that changes the dynamic and then allows them to sort of grow.

[6:10] Mo Brady: If Smash Season One was a musical, Rebecca Duvall would be the best track to have because you don't come on until three quarters the way through Act One.

[6:19] Aaron Albano: If even that. Her entrance is like the end of Act One, and then we watch Act Two dealing with Rebecca.

[6:27] Mo Brady: Yeah, exactly. But it forces our lead characters to change in ways that are unexpected.

[6:33] Aaron Albano: Right, and unite in ways that are unexpected and have rivalries in new ways, which were getting sort of stale in the first 10 episodes of the show.

[6:43] Mo Brady: Absolutely. I mean, and even like, we'll get to the end of the episode, but even when our soothsayer Bobby, all wise and all knowing Bobby, Bobby Yoda, for lack of a better word.

[6:52] Aaron Albano: Bobby Yoda, hashtag Bobby Yoda.

[6:55] Mo Brady: Hashtag Bobby Yoda. When he reintroduces like, so who's going to play Marilyn? And then the camera sort of like zooms into their faces looking at each other. I remember thinking while I'm watching it, I'm like, we're doing this again now? Because I feel like we've grown out of that sort of pettiness. And then to kind of hint that we're going to return to it. I was like, oh, man.

[7:21] Aaron Albano: See, and for me, I was like into it because it felt necessary. There's new information. Rebecca's not doing the show. We need someone and we need them now. We didn't know this before. Versus the Hemming and Hawing before felt like, just choose one of them. You've got all the time in the world. The show's not going anywhere. You're just like doing a workshop.

[7:39] Mo Brady: You know, what would be? Well, I mean, what would be interesting? Of course, like, because it's been forever and we're watching them sort of in time. What would be cool is if the next beat was Karen and Ivy sort of being like, you should play the part. No, you should play the part because they have those moments in the show. You can count on Karen being genuine because she's been nothing but genuine the whole up the whole show, the whole season. But Ivy, when she's like, but Karen's the understudy. If we got a sense that that was actually where she is now, and that look, that was the change of their dynamic, I feel like that would be a really interesting growth that we've seen in their characters. I'm not sure if we will, because again, I don't remember.

[8:22] Aaron Albano: I don't remember how it ends either.

[8:25] Mo Brady: Could it be we're like on the edge of our seat the way we're supposed to be? I don't know. We'll see.

[8:32] Aaron Albano: I do also want to say in terms of music, I just think this is where the series is getting a sense of how to use music. I like that the two covers are a September song that Anjelica Houston sings in a piano bar and the church song. Although, man, did we really need Karen to lead the song at the back?

[8:51] Mo Brady: That was my biggest issue, too. I was like, I'm sorry, we're at Sam's church. Let him at least sing with Karen if we're going to let Karen take lead.

[8:58] Aaron Albano: There was no world in which we needed Karen to lead that song.

[9:03] Mo Brady: No, I mean, unless we're in the Smash world. But at the very least, just let Sam and Karen lead the song together, because it's, I don't know, Sam's church. But man, oh man, it was nice to hear Leslie Odom Jr. sing.

[9:18] Aaron Albano: Absolutely.

[9:19] Mo Brady: He is such a good singer. Spoiler alert, Leslie Odom Jr. is a good singer. Hot take.

[9:27] Aaron Albano: Hot take. That voice is butter. That voice is so smooth and so creamy. It's great.

[9:35] Mo Brady: And speaking of songs, how did you feel about our new Smash song that we see in the show?

[9:41] Aaron Albano: I was just like, I don't know.

[9:43] Mo Brady: You didn't like it?

[9:44] Aaron Albano: It was fine. It was fine. I thought it was fine. I liked it fine. I thought it gave them a good feature without overshadowing Marilyn. It was very Secretary is Not a Toy, where all on 9 to 5, complete with Megan Hilty and Mark Kudisch.

[10:01] Mo Brady: I know, right? There were shots where I was like, I feel like I'm watching 9 to 5 right now.

[10:06] Aaron Albano: Literally same thing. Just straight up cut from 9 to 5. It does this thing that all the numbers are doing, which is taking us out of the trajectory of the story. I don't know what the story of this musical is.

[10:18] Mo Brady: Yeah, me neither, frankly.

[10:19] Aaron Albano: What is the plot of Bombshell? I don't know.

[10:24] Mo Brady: I don't either. And maybe that's sort of the problem with the show?

[10:28] Aaron Albano: No, the problem is Rebecca.

[10:30] Mo Brady: Oh yeah, let's get there. Okay, how do you like Uma slash Rebecca as Marilyn? Go.

[10:37] Aaron Albano: I don't think I've seen enough of her to know if she's good at the role.

[10:43] Mo Brady: We've seen her sort of speak talking through, but the scene work that she's asking for, where she gets to sort of dig her teeth into things that Rebecca Duvall is better at, we haven't seen any of that.

[10:56] Aaron Albano: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. What do we see in this episode? We see the opening of the show, the Let Me Be Your Star, Rebecca Duvall arrangement. We see the finale where she the reprise of Secondhand Baby Grand.

[11:10] Mo Brady: And that moment to me felt very Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Did you see Women on the Verge?

[11:14] Aaron Albano: I did not. I didn't see it.

[11:15] Mo Brady: In 2011, I had a giant mirror that tilted down. I was like, okay, all right, I see all of your references, Smash. Anyway, okay, keep going.

[11:24] Aaron Albano: But yes, we've seen that. We saw her in Mr. and Mrs. Smith being out of the light. I thought she was fine. Maybe it's because they lowered expectations. But I feel like all the moments we saw of her.

[11:38] Mo Brady: In Bombshell, the show, felt like she had rehearsed and progressed and gotten better and now she was playing Marilyn pre-Broadway.

[11:45] Aaron Albano: Yeah, the show wants us to think she's bad, so it's hard for us to think she's good, because they're never showing us Rebecca Duvall succeeding as Marilyn. They're only showing us her struggling.

[11:53] Mo Brady: We see her and her work, and immediately after, we see what we're supposed to take as universal response. Like the end of the show, for instance. She ends the show, and I'm watching her delivery of "Secondhand White Baby Grand." She's giving it. She's playing the part. She's dying. I'm believing it. But then, instead of allowing that to settle, we get an immediate pan to the audience and everyone's moderately clapping, which on one hand, I'm like, Tom, write something better. And also Tom and Derek, you haven't really set up a scene where people end in uproarious applause.

[12:29] Aaron Albano: It's Miss Saigon. If they orchestrated after Kim commits suicide and then, you know, you'd have a moment. You almost have an applause sign to the show, where whether they bought into it or not, they know they're supposed to applaud here. Come on, Tom. I mean, Tom's Tom. But here's a question. Speaking of all the audience responses, turning it on its head, this is my first Mo Brady fact check of the entire podcast.

[13:21] Mo Brady: Oh my god, I can't wait. I feel famous. We get to Uma Thurman slash Rebecca Duvall's speech. Speech, not a speech. She says to Karen, "I'm the star, Karen. It's my fault. Everyone thinks it and it's true. If it weren't true, you'd be Marilyn, wouldn't you?" It's after she has this therapy session on the phone where she's freaking out that no one applauded and that she's alone and that she's out there by herself and she's ruining the show. She has all of this star pressure that she's putting on herself, but also the show's putting on her. I wanted to ask you because we're doing this because we both did the show and we were both actors once upon a time. You have since left the business and now you are in the position to critique theater for your profession or one of your professions. Would you agree with her?

[14:13] Aaron Albano: No, I disagree. I think it's the producer's fault because let's look at Kinky Boots' wild history of people playing Charlie, right? It started out with Stark Sands and then it was going through some typically musical theater performers who replaced him. Then there was the more music star that would go in as Charlie, like Jake Shears and Brandon Urie. I feel like there were some other ones that I can't remember. There was an American Idol guy maybe. I would never say, oh, it's the actor's fault that they aren't good enough in the show. I would be like, well, they should have been hired to do the thing. If you want a star to come in and sell tickets for your show, it's your responsibility to train them, prepare them, create a show in which they can succeed. If you don't, you shouldn't have hired them. That's not their fault. All of those singers have remarkable talents. They may just not be theater talents.

[15:21] Mo Brady: So here's a question. In that vein, is Ellis right? Because he says it's Rebecca. She's good and all, but she's not landing any of the numbers. Is Rebecca really the problem? Ellis is a producer on the show.

[15:33] Aaron Albano: Rebecca is not landing any of the numbers, but that's not necessarily Rebecca's fault because she's been hired for a thing she can never be successful at. I think that's Eileen's fault. I think Bombshell's a bad show.

[15:48] Mo Brady: I think it might be also. And you know who's not doing it any favors? Derek. What has he brought to the table? What has Derek brought to the table? Is there anything directorially that has happened that you're like, oh, that was a good choice for this?

[16:01] Aaron Albano: I don't know.

[16:06] Mo Brady: No. One thing that annoys me about Derek the most is why hire understudies if you're not even going to use them. God bless Dennis. We just saw them hire Michael Swift, who apparently knows the show. And so they wash over Dennis to hire Michael Swift back.

[16:27] Aaron Albano: Justice for Dennis.

[16:28] Mo Brady: Justice for Dennis. And then now when they're concerned with Rebecca, their first jump isn't, hey, Karen's been here this whole time. The automatic jump is, well, Ivy knows it. You hired these people for a reason. And maybe this is my ensemblist roots and cover roots coming out. But I'm just like, there are so many examples in our industry and in Broadway history where we have understudies who saved the show and went on, like, proved their worth and proved their brilliance by keeping the show afloat when that were in the same pickle that Bombshell is in.

[17:06] Aaron Albano: I feel like the most famous example of this was Thoroughly Modern Millie Out of Town.

[17:12] Mo Brady: Right.

[17:12] Aaron Albano: Aaron Dilley, for whatever reason, couldn't do the show. And instead of cancelling the show, they put on Sutton Foster. And Sutton Foster went on to take over for the role and get catapulted to stardom.

[17:27] Mo Brady: That's the Shirley MacLaine story. Shirley MacLaine was the understudy, went on in Boston in, this is Pajama Game, in the Steamheat role. And that's how she became a movie star.

[17:39] Aaron Albano: That's how she became Shirley MacLaine. Same thing in more recent days, like T. Boyich over at Mean Girls. In previews, Barrett Wilbert Weed couldn't go on. And none of the understudies for Janice were rehearsed up. Instead of cancelling the show, T. Boyich, who didn't cover the role at the time, was like, I can do it. That was her Broadway debut.

[18:02] Mo Brady: Yeah, it was her first performance.

[18:03] Aaron Albano: It was her first performance on Broadway ever. And she knocked it out of the park and saved the show.

[18:09] Mo Brady: That would have been a really exciting story to watch as a Smash audience, but that was not the story they told.

[18:17] Aaron Albano: How did you feel about Tom and Julia's dynamic in this show, in this episode?

[18:23] Mo Brady: Oh, gosh. I mean, we've been following their sort of trajectory and leading to, like, let's split them up in two. There's the fight in the theater, and then there's the reconciliation in the church.

[18:37] Aaron Albano: I love the fight in the theater, because it felt like they were actually getting at something. I'm totally on Tom's side. I think Julia literally made her bed, and now she has to lie in it.

[18:46] Mo Brady: Sure.

[18:47] Aaron Albano: She needs to grow the balls to be able to work with people if she's going to sleep with them.

[18:54] Mo Brady: Fair.

[18:55] Aaron Albano: I appreciated that there was like an actual argument going on where I felt like people who really like each other and really care about each other were just on two completely different sides. It wasn't as stereotypical as some of the fights that we see on Smash, where it was good versus evil.

[19:13] Mo Brady: Well, what I liked about it was that we sort of finally got to the crux of their issue, and maybe even the crux of the central issue of the show, where we're seeing all these relationships that can't withstand this business. Mostly we've seen those in a romantic sense, but now we're watching this established partnership and friendship be tested, and then Julia basically says it out loud. She's like, you are choosing the show over our friendship. Tom agrees. Tom agrees, and that's when they kind of break down. They're like, you're right, we don't have a partnership anymore.

[19:58] Aaron Albano: Which maybe that's why Bombshell's so terrible. We're supposed to think it's terrible because they don't have a partnership anymore. It could never be heaven on earth. That blockbuster hit that apparently has multiple productions. But when that happened, it was, oh, to me, it seemed like it was saying the central argument of this show seems like it is, can you be invested in the industry?

[20:36] Mo Brady: Can you be invested in, is it possible to be invested in the theater while still being invested in other parts of your life?

[20:40] Aaron Albano: Yeah, and it seems as though what it's saying, it seems like you can't, right?

[20:46] Mo Brady: Yeah, that's exactly what it's saying. You have to put the show first, because if you don't put the show first, then the show suffers. Except the show's suffering.

[20:54] Aaron Albano: Well, that's because people aren't putting the show, and people aren't believing enough. They need to clap for Tinkerbell more, Aaron.

[21:02] Mo Brady: Oh.

[21:03] Aaron Albano: Wow, that was a reference.

[21:04] Mo Brady: Yeah, it was great. Why, but like, why can't this show promote the idea of balance?

[21:13] Aaron Albano: That's not the elevator pitch of the show. The elevator pitch is the drama behind the drama.

[21:19] Mo Brady: So there's always got to be drama.

[21:21] Aaron Albano: Yeah, which maybe that's where we are. Maybe that's why something felt like it was missing, because we wanted this cathartic, hopeful message out of the show, and they wanted to produce a TV show.

[21:37] Mo Brady: Yeah, well, or at least believe that everybody in the show is on the same page. It's something that I think Smash is more successful about in season two, where the rivalry becomes between productions rather than within a production.

[21:53] Aaron Albano: Yeah, that's true. Spoiler alert.

[21:56] Mo Brady: There's a second season.

[21:59] Aaron Albano: Spoiler alert. Seven years ago.

[22:02] Mo Brady: There was a second season of Smash. Wonderful.

[22:11] Aaron Albano: To keep up to date with next week's recap, be sure to watch episode 15, also known as the season one finale of Smash, aptly entitled Bombshell.

[22:21] Mo Brady: You can find Smash episodes on either the NBC app or on NBC.com.

[22:25] Aaron Albano: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady.

[22:28] Mo Brady: And by me, Aaron Albano. There are two great ways you can be helping The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, especially if you'd like us to continue recapping season two, which is right around the corner.

[22:40] Aaron Albano: Yeah, let us know.

[22:42] Mo Brady: And the second is by becoming a Patreon member. You can do that at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist.

[22:47] Aaron Albano: You can subscribe to The Ensemblist on Apple Podcasts, follow us on Spotify, or listen to all of our episodes at bpn.fm.

[22:55] Mo Brady: And be sure to follow The Ensemblist on Instagram because things are changing all the time.

[23:00] Aaron Albano: They sure are.

[23:01] Mo Brady: All the time.

[23:04] Aaron Albano: Thanks for listening, guys.

[23:05] Mo Brady: Until next time.