Smash Ep 9: Valley OF The Ivy

On the night that the new Judy Garland play(with music), "End Of The Rainbow" opens on Broadway, we get Episode 9 of SMASH that is full of booze, pills, and heartbreak. Coincidence? Methinks not. Last night's episode was a doozy - quite possibly the most entertaining episode. A couple of things went to head. Firstly, they are really setting up the Tom/Black dude affair. Why else would they make the lawyer guy a Republican? I mean, they must know their target audience and they must know that two seconds after that reveal, the whole audience will recoil against him. Later on, Tom and the black guy go on a date. Now you can't say you weren't warned. Julia's husband, Frank, casually sees sheet music to a song Julia wrote about her affair with Michael. Uh-oh. But truly, we get to see a real actor in action - Brian D'Arcy James. He is intense, he is effective, and not for a second does he go over the top. I mean, Deb Messing was pretty good, too, but you can see a big difference in how they attack their roles, as evidenced by Deb's flapping of her arms when he left the house. And now we get to the funnest part of the episode (intentionally or not) which is Ivy's downward spiral. Pills, booze, and Prednisone has affected her, aggravated by her depression of losing the Marilyn role, and she has reluctantly come back to "Heaven On Earth," wherein she is back int he ensemble, behind Norbert Leo Butz as St. Peter. Well, one pill comes after another and she has a breakdown on stage ("People were asking for refunds," Tom says as I roll my eyes) which leads her and Karen singing Rhianna's Cheers Drink To That song in the middle of Times Square. (By the way, I love how they picked and chose certain billboards to blur and highlight, and am curious as to why) That was kind of campy and fun, and I think finally the producers and writers have gotten a sense of what this show should be. I think the show is changing from being a show about making a musical to be a soap about the people who make musicals, and I think it's a smart move. I will not give a lot of words, but I should say that I liked him being bitch-smacked at the end of the episode. Next week, Uma is in the house, I can't wait.