NBC's 'Smash' brings the curtain down on several regulars

The road to Broadway has ended for several members of NBC's musical drama "Smash."

Series regulars Raza Jaffrey, Jaime Cepero, Brian D'Arcy James and Will Chase will not be returning when the series returns for its second season. The exits follow the departure of creator and show runner Teresa Rebeck.

The characters played by the four actors were among the most heavily criticized, and many fans of the show, which explores the behind-the-scenes turmoil surrounding the making of a Broadway-bound musical about Marilyn Monroe, are likely to cheer their absence. 

Jeffrey played Dev, the fiance of actress Karen (Katherine McPhee), who slept with Ivy (Megan Hilty), Karen's chief rival, near the end of the season. Cepero was Ellis, an assistant who was also scheming and plotting.

James portrayed Frank, the put-upon husband of songwriter Julia (Debra Messing), while Chase played Michael, the married leading man who had a brief but obsessive affair with Julia.

There's a chance the charcters may show up in an episdoe or two to wrap up their story lines.

Are you happy these characters have been "Smash"d?

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Photo: The cast of "Smash." (l-r) Brian d'Arcy James as Frank Houston, Jaime Cepero as Ellis, Christian Borle as Tom Levitt, Megan Hilty as Ivy Lynn, Raza Jaffrey as Dev Sundaram, Katharine McPhee as Karen Cartwright, Debra Messing as Julia Houston, Jack Davenport as Derek Wills, Anjelica Huston as Eileen Rand. Photo by: Mark Seliger/NBC.

'Smash' finale recap: Let Megan Hilty be your star

Just before the last episode of the first season of “Smash” aired, show runner Theresa Rebeck announced that she would not be returning for Season 2. Instead, Josh Safran, a "Gossip Girl” producer, is coming in to, in the words of Tom (nee Christian Borle), “reboot” the entire show.

Though this type of personnel change isn’t unheard of, it is rare for a major show to lose its captain this way, and one can only guess that Rebeck, a creature of the theater, decided that some of the magic that she was hoping to translate onto the screen was irretrievably lost and that she was better equipped to work on a smaller scale with the strong stuff, rather than the diluted version writ large. Or perhaps she just realized that the show, as it stands now, is massively flawed and that the energy it would take to right the ship wasn’t something she was willing to waste on Katharine McPhee’s mealy-mouthed line readings anymore. Or perhaps she was asked to gracefully exit to make room for a helmer who understands how to take the show’s potential and deliver something worthy.

Because this show does have potential! When I watched the pilot back in January (doesn’t it feel like years ago?), I knew that this was a show that would live or die on the score. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman came out of the gate blazing, with numbers like “Let Me Be Your Star” and “The National Pasttime” that have held up throughout a season of listening to them -- at least as well as any Broadway soundtrack holds up. And with the exception of a miscalculated Ryan Tedder number and that bizarre turn to Bollywood, the show’s best element has always been its original music.

Take the closing number from Monday night, “Don’t Forget Me,” a final energetic ballad that led into a “Let Me Be Your Star” reprise. Even though I was furious that it was McPhee singing it and not Megan Hilty -- but more on that in a bit -- the song moved me, and I thought it was a fitting way to end a musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. She pleads for the audience to remember her good qualities, how hard she strived, and not how hard she suffered. She wants to be a legend. A tall order, but as Marilyn is the textbook definition of legend in our culture, it doesn’t feel stretched, and even the fade-in of a large projection of her face comes at just the right moment. It’s sappy and overstated, sure, but so is much of the best work on Broadway, and I know I would have applauded like mad for that finale had I been in the audience.

So what we’re left with at the end of the first season -- and they haven’t even made it to Broadway yet, oy -- is that the show within a show works on some basic level. The thing that doesn’t work is the outer shell, the NBC show, and I think Rebeck saw the writing on the wall about that. But because NBC is pressing toward Broadway with this thing, they will have to figure out a way to make it better. And I think we all know that means not just handing over the reins to Karen.

Here’s the thing: I see what they’re doing here. Karen is the more moldable, malleable, Norma-Jeanable option for the role; she is the pre-Marilyn Marilyn, prone to fits of shyness and doubt and occasional reveries of intense talent. But she’s also boring and stiff, and those are two things that Norma Jean never was.

I understand why Derek is seeing her strange ghost wander around the halls like a specter from his own personal version of “Scrooge.” His vision of Marilyn is that of an innocent, a child, a ball of beautiful clay that men shape. And while it's problematic that the director of “Bombshell” has a misogynistic skew on the whole story, it does fit right into Derek’s persona. He likes his women to be little girls, delicate flowers, requiring his attention. It’s worth noting that when he was the sweetest to Ivy, she was at her lowest point, abusing drugs and getting kicked off stages. He wants to be the big daddy in the room, and Karen is a canvas on which he can paint that fantasy, down to her backstage melt-down. He has to coax the performance out of her as if she’s a baby bird, rubbing her curves and telling her that she’s a star, that he loves her. There were many men that treated Marilyn this way, and it possibly killed her. Which is to say, Derek has chosen Karen for now, so that he can treat her and mold her however he likes. I’m just not sure that it won’t kill her in Season 2. Just wait until she sleeps with him and he loses interest (and he will).

It wouldn’t be such a problem that Derek went with Karen as the big choice if the show didn’t have such a captivating starlet in Hilty. McPhee did a serviceable job on that last number, but I kept thinking that Ivy would have brought something else to the song entirely. Karen’s “Don’t Forget Me” felt like a pleading, a wish. I bet Ivy’s would have felt like a command. The show is so miscast, in that Hilty is clearly a Broadway performer with the chops for that kind of theater, and McPhee is more of a pop star who somehow keeps beating out the Broadway performer -- it doesn’t make logical sense. We are all supposed to suspend our logic and go with the idea that Karen’s the raw talent who is secretly a genius, but I don’t know why they keep pushing that narrative when clearly it isn’t true.

Hilty is the real genius in the Marilyn role -- even Anjelica Huston knows that, even if she couldn’t sway Derek -- and if I were here, I would be contemplating the fistful of pills as well. The show wants us to care about Karen and to despise Ivy, who sleeps with other people’s boyfriends and tries to sabotage everything. But the best person in real life is not always the best person for the job, especially when it comes to show business. I hope that next season they let Ivy redeem herself and take her place. Bernadette Peters needs something else to do besides look devastated.

Borle told the L.A. Times that next season will focus more on the nuts and bolts aspects of putting on a Broadway show, and less on the soapy drama, to which I say (like Sam) hallelujah! My favorite little bits of this episode were Julia and Tom trying to hammer out orchestrations and the stage manager trying to keep everyone happy during a crash run-through. I’d gladly take more of the technical behind-the-scenes sausage, which the pilot was so good at portraying with auditions rather than plot lines involving Dev or Michael Swift. I can’t even get up the energy to worry about the fate of Karen and Dev. She’s a star now, so I’m assuming that relationship is going to fizzle under her spotlight. As for Michael Swift, he may have impregnated Jules, but that doesn’t make him less creepy or predatory. All he has done is thwart their Chinese baby plans.

The only side character who remains compelling at the end is Ellis, who threatens to enact revenge on “Bombshell” while wearing a red devil suit. His little speech to Eileen about doing what needed to be done (a.k.a. nearly murdering a movie star) and how near-murderers never get coffee for anyone was preposterous, and he deserved to be fired. But part of me thinks that in 15 years, Ellis is going to be one of Broadway’s most successful producers. He is not afraid to get his hands dirty with peanut shavings or possibly blood, and showbiz tends to reward insane ruthlessness. I hope the second season explores this dark patch instead of just making him the villain. Ambition does have its place on Broadway, and I’m interested to see where Ellis lands once he learns to harness his.

And that’s all she wrote, folks. See you next year, when we hit the Broadway stage. Will Karen even do a hip thrust that doesn’t make her look like a fembot? Will Ivy channel Marilyn even more than she already does with an overdose? Will Nick Jonas give back the Degas? Will Ellis burn down a theater while he stands there cackling? Will Anjelica Huston ever sing again? And how long can Julia hide her belly beneath her flowy Eileen Fisher garb? All will be revealed soon. Until then, don’t forget Marilyn, or she will haunt you.

 The Songs!

“Mr and Mrs Smith” 2 out of 5 Jazz Hands. Karen has about as much chemistry with Michael Swift as Julia has with her own husband. Not a great start to her star turn.

“Howl” 3 out of 5 Jazz Hands. I really love this song and the jingoistic USO choreography, but I don’t love Karen in it. Ivy standing backstage imagining her own rendition (P.S. “Smash,” please stop with all the flashbacks in Season 2 -- it’s like shaking your own hand) doesn’t help Karen any, as she was so clearly better, effortless and charming at it. Karen gets through the number, but I am not seeing this extra spark that Derek tells Ivy about. She looks mechanical and scared.

“Don’t Forget Me” 4.5 out of 5 Jazz Hands. And then she brings it home, and it’s magical. This is one of Tom and Julia’s best songs yet. Maybe they should always cram in a new ending on the day of the show to keep things fresh. I wasn’t feeling Karen’s tragic sexuality in her suicide scene, but her begging not to be forgotten in this number made me forget how much better Ivy would have been and just focus on McPhee in the role. Because we are stuck with Karen as Marilyn going into Season 2 -- at least for a little while -- any number that makes her more likable is a good thing.

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-- Rachel Syme

Photo: Megan Hilty and Jaime Cepero. Credit: Will Hart /NBC

Upfronts 2012: NBC aims to look beyond music

NEW YORK -- NBC is not going to turn into one big musical.

The troubled network relaunched its hit “The Voice”  this year after the Super Bowl. That helped bring in big numbers for the show’s early episodes and made it a nice lead-in for the network’s heavily hyped midseason musical drama “Smash” —  which, though by no means a ratings powerhouse, pulls in solid numbers. 

So it makes sense that music from both shows was rampant at NBC’s upfront presentation to advertisers held at Radio City Music Hall on Monday. 

“Smash” stars Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty performed the ballad “Let Me Be Your Star,” before being joined onstage by “The Voice” judge s— Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green and Christina Aguilera — in their signature red revolving chairs (which will get more air time when the series returns in the fall).

 Advertisers were even shown a clip, introduced onscreen by “30 Rock’s” Tina Fey and late night host Jimmy Fallon — imagining what the upcoming season might look like if it went through the “Smash” machine: with a montage showcasing actors from “Parks and Recreation,” “The Office,” “Law & Order:  SVU” and even “Grimm,” belting out mid-scene.

Then there was a performance by “The Voice” winner Jermaine Paul. And yet another performance by Katherine McPhee.

But there’s no need to break out the headphones.

“I’m not hijacking the network and turning it into a musical,” Greenblatt assured.

'Smash's' Christian Borle: Expect show to be 'rebooted' in Season 2

NEW YORK -- "Smash" fans wondering how the departure of show-runner Theresa Rebeck will affect the drama's second season could get an inkling of the changes by listening to Christian Borle, the actor who plays Broadway composer Tom Levitt on the NBC series.

"I just met [new show-runner] Josh Safran for the first time last week and kind of heard what was on the docket, and it's going to be a totally different ... show," Borle told Show Tracker, alluding to Rebeck's replacement as he used a profanity for emphasis. "The show is almost getting rebooted."

Borle said many of the changes to the show, whose season finale airs Monday night, are still taking shape, but one shift he's certain of -- and excited about -- is a deeper exploration of the things that go into staging a Broadway musical.

"What I think is going to happen with Season 2 is that it's actually going to delve more into the process of the creation and what the writing partnership is, the nuts and bolts of that room," he said. "We looked at it briefly in Season 1 but didn't really; it was kind of, in a way, a shorthand to get us to the next event."

The series has tried to strike a balance between depicting the creative process behind the show and showing the relationship shenanigans of those putting it on, with some viewers criticizing writers for overly soapy developments in the latter category.

Borle was having a snack at a diner down the street from the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where he is logging as many as two performances daily of "Peter and the Starcatcher," his antic show about pirates and Peter Pan.

Despite the Broadway setting for "Smash," fans of the series get to see a different side of the 38-year-old in "Starcatcher," in which he plays Black Stache, a wisecrack-prone, over-the-top-villain with a penchant for physical comedy. (More on Borle's evolving dual-track career -- he just received his second career Tony nomination for the role -- on our sister blog Culture Monster shortly.)

For all the strong reviews of "Starcatcher," Borle's fictitious Broadway production on "Smash" has weathered criticisms, mainly from people who believe that it takes too many liberties with how a show actually gets put together.

"I've been interested to hear what people's thoughts have been. Some people's criticisms are valid and some people's, to my taste, are not," he said, smiling as he declined to elaborate further. "But it comes back to the same thing as a medical drama or a courtroom drama or a cop show. It's television -- you have to take leaps or people are not going to care."

Still, he did imagine the theater-making aspects that are evolving for the fall.

"What's true about Season 2 is that there's still a core group of people who ... love the theater and want to continue to talk about it as honestly and as truly as possible. But the mechanics are going to change. We shall see if it's for the better."

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-- Steven Zeitchik
twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: Christian Borle and Anjelica Houston in "Smash." Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

'Smash' recap: It's time to pray

There was one thing that “Smash” got right in its bizarre turn toward religious fervor Monday night: the equation of watching the show with an act of faith. I have so much hope for the show every week -- one might say blind devotion based on nothing more than a hunch and a prayer -- and that’s what keeps me coming back.

I have faith. Perhaps this is because I came into the show already kneeling down at the church of Broadway, one of razzle-dazzle’s loyal subjects, and I was prepared to let the holy water of song and dance wash over me and renew my spirit. Ever since I heard the first bars of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” as a little girl, I was a convert. But faith can only get you so far. I have prayed to the gods of “Smash” to ask them to deliver me from poorly plotted television, and they have not answered me. Repent!

To be fair, there was a lot to like about this episode. I enjoyed the eponymous “Smash” ditty that Tom crashed in at the last minute to give his precious tomatoes something to do other than sulk about sitting on the sidelines while Rebecca Duvall commits career suicide in the Marilyn role. Ivy’s swishing about in that vavoom green dress was a better argument for her ability to step into the starring role than I’ve seen in weeks. Kat McPhee looked a little awkward with her hip thrusts, but the vocals were on point, and I found myself thinking that if I was a member of the Boston audience during that performance I would have been smiling like an idiot throughout that whole number. The guy they cast as Zanuck, who somehow magically appeared just in this episode to fulfill his musical obligations and has drama with absolutely no one (the nerve!) was perfect at it; his final cigar chomp almost made me applaud.

And let’s not skip over the blessed event of Anjelica Huston finally flexing her pipes and performing a torch song in a swanky Boston cocktail lounge (it’s no Bushwacks, but it’ll do). I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for Angie to sing since the dawn of time. When she started, I was worried that her talking version of “September Song” might be more Ke$ha than Eartha Kitt, but once Lady Huston started singing in earnest, I was charmed. So was Nick, apparently. Even the mafiosos who broke his wrist back in New York couldn’t get him down after watching that.

'Smash' recap: We're in tech!

This weekend, on a hunt for wrapping paper of the Mother’s Day variety, I ducked into one of those over-cluttered gift shops that carries everything from dusty Beanie Babies to waxy candles scented like a wicker basket. And there, front and center, was an entire shelf devoted to Marilyn Monroe-abilia. There were Marilyn mugs, a Marilyn picture-frame bedazzled with rhinestones and pink puffs of marabou, a silhouette-shaped card that played “Happy Birthday” in Marilyn’s voice. There was a pen that stripped Marilyn down to a two-piece when tipped, and an air freshener for the car dash that gave off a kind of cheap, rosy perfume from a cutout of her head.

With all that Marilyn kitsch crowded together, any single item looked devoid of meaning. Suddenly, Marilyn seemed a big, bawdy joke, an American punch line. It’s the same effect one might get from watching “Smash.”

Over the weeks, I have been admittedly less than enthusiastic about the show’s development -- I felt robbed after the exuberant pilot of "The West Wing" for Broadway we were all promised. Instead, what emerged was a daffy soap opera filled with pop covers drowning out the compelling original score. The “Smash” album hit iTunes Tuesday and has already rocketed to the top of the charts, but it is worth noting that only five of the 13 singles on the album are “Smash” originals.

That said, I’m ready to let go of the side of “Smash” that secretly wants to be “Glee” and to accept the hits for what they are: vehicles to get people to tune in every week. I’ve made my peace with it. And I’ve decided that deep down, the Auto-Tune isn’t what bothers me most about this show, which has become less of a pleasure and more of a guilty one (or a show that I “hate-watch,” to use Emily Nussbaum’s words). What bothers me the most is that the use of Marilyn Monroe has become increasingly clumsy and blunt, whittling her essence to a few chintzy pieces on a shelf.

“Smash’s” big gamble, starting out, was whether or not anyone would care enough about Marilyn to care at all about “Bombshell.” The musical-within-a-musical could have been about anything -- the Tudor dynasty, contemporary politics, Joni Mitchell, the roaring '20s, you name it -- but they went with an iconoclastic character partly because she’s familiar to a mass audience and partly because she is glamorous and fun and beautiful, qualities the producers wanted to stamp onto their own young stars. The Marilyn story comes with drama already baked in; the high-highs and the low-lows, the rapture and the fame and the suicide.  But as the show proves, there are complications that go with Marilyn, and hers is not a story that belongs in just anyone’s hands.

'Smash' recap: Welcome to Bollywood

One of the reasons that “Smash’s” pilot was so compelling (Remember that? Remember those halcyon days when this was still the most exciting show of the midseason and “Girls” was just a whisper on the wind?) was that it seemed this was a show that managed to be a musical without the artifice. As in, the songs blossomed organically from the plot, instead of clawing through it while making little tangential sense (eyebrow raised in your direction, “Glee”).

Sure, it’s not probable that a woman in a Marilyn outfit could belt her heart out on the street at 9 a.m. and still manage to hail a taxi — normally cabbies avoid stopping for the insane — but that was a small suspension of disbelief to make for what was overall a genuine use of theatrics to enhance the drama. If “Glee” is a commercially minded show, in that massively popular songs seem to appear at random in order to give tweens a chance to swoon and buy things on iTunes, then “Smash” appeared to be it’s older, wiser cousin. The songs would still be catchy, but the point was not to drive up clicks but to make a coherent whole that one day could become a coveted album, or perhaps even a real-live Broadway show. “Glee” has become a perversion of the classic musical form in its current state, and “Smash” was here to save the day.

That was all before.

Now I am not sure what this show is — and I’m not sure that “Smash’s” producers know, either. It has gotten away from them somehow, and it is all the more naked a departure because the cast has to keep pumping out tunes every week. A show that jumps the shark while singing and gyrating is a unique kind of train wreck, like a drunk and overexcited relative getting down alone on the dance floor at a bar mitzvah. It’s so easy to be embarrassed for it that you go through stages of denial. Maybe they meant this ironically? Maybe they had a ton of fun dreaming it up in the writer’s room, and it just didn’t fully cook on screen? Maybe they wanted to give their costume department something to do?

I’m of course referencing the Ganesha in the room here, and that is the over-the-top Bollywood fantasy number that dominated the second act of the show. This wasn’t the first musical number to pop out entirely from a character’s psyche (Ivy’s loopy mirror dance takes that title), but it was the biggest and the least sincere, a tinsel spectacle that served only to remind us of what the show might have been.

The Marilyn side of things has gotten stale — movie star allergies this, Karen’s low confidence that — and there aren’t too many chances to infuse new glossy showstoppers into the musical before the premiere. So the spangles must be generated from thin dream sequences, and what results is a number that feels almost aggressively out of place. To quote Stefon, the Bollywood number had everything: Karen with fake eyebrows, Derek feeding Ivy grapes on a divan, Tom rubbing a lamp with a furtive glance, R.J. reaching for a snaky orange, Julia and Frank line dancing for their lives, Dev contorting like a yogi, Ellis holding a velvet box of jewels he probably stole, Anjelica Huston trapped in a hell of her own making. What it didn’t have was heart.

'Smash' recap: Can Uma Thurman do Marilyn?

Uma Thurman has arrived! And she’s not half-bad. In “Smash,” I mean. In “Bombshell,” she is a nightmare. 

For all that Thurman is -- and all the spangly star power that she drags along with her to “Smash” (you can only be introduced to Katherine McPhee so many times before the current formula stales), she is not an actress who naturally oozes a Marilyn Monroe vibe. She’s beautiful and blonde like Marilyn was, and a bit skittish and odd to boot, but she’s not as buxom, or velvety in the voice, and she doesn’t waft fumes of carnality and Chanel No. 5 when she moves. She has the dippy, airy quality required for the ditz scenes, but something’s missing underneath -- a deep pool of unshakable funk that causes one to inhale a fistful of barbiturates, perhaps.

Her heart isn’t heavy enough; Marilyn’s has to be so big and bleeding that it sinks like a stone. So far, the only contender on deck with an organ that weighty is Ivy, whose raw insecurity is gnawing at her bones like a werewolf. McPhee ... well, we’ll get to McPhee. Needless to say she looks like a girl going as Marilyn for Halloween when she dresses the part. Not good.

Back to Thurman/Rebecca Duvall, who doesn’t even really have to be all that good. She is a bloody movie star! And in the meta-pseudo-showbiz world that “Smash” conjures every week, bringing on a bona fide celebrity to play a bona fide unqualified celebrity is the producers’ subtle way of poking fun at the stunt casting that currently plagues Broadway. The shows that value big names over big talents are usually the butt of inner-circle theater jokes, and “Smash’s” snickery team of shownerds are broadcasting their scorn for the Hollywoodization of theatah to the national audience.

Their message: You wanted a real star on this show (because Angelica Huston, Debra Messing, and Bernadette Peters are not enough), NBC? Well then, this is what you get. And she is going to ruin it.

'Smash's' Jaime Cepero on playing the guy people hate

He's the guy on "Smash" who probably causes you to scream at your TV. 

Jaime Cepero plays Ellis, the overly ambitious assistant, on NBC's Monday night drama. His drive to move out of the lowly position causes him to post private work sessions on YouTube and steal notebooks from purses. And, hey, it has kind of worked. He went from being a composer's assistant to a producer's assistant--so he's making progress. But now he's slept with a male talent agent despite having a girlfriend in order to move up the ranks some more.

It's all made for a somewhat insufferable character. Show Tracker spoke to Cepero about playing a character not many people like.

This is your TV debut—what’s the experience like given that your character hasn’t really ingratiated himself in the eyes of viewers?  Some people can’t stand him.

I love it. It just lets me know that I’m doing my job correctly. People really dislike the character. I think the way he’s written is to get that reaction out of people. It just shows how great the show is that people have reacted so strongly to this character. I never really got to play a villain before so this was a real stretch for me. Having people come up to you and say, “I hate you on ‘Smash’” or ‘I can’t stand seeing you on my screen,” … I’m like, “Uh, thank you?” I don’t really know what to say sometimes but I think it’s a good thing and I think it’s an awesome character to play.

What is the deal with Ellis being so ambitious? An assistant to a producer credit? Really?

'Smash' recap: Has Marilyn gone rogue?

If I know “Smash” like you know “Smash” (and I know the show exactly as much as any of you who have stuck with it for 10 episodes), then I can predict that the love heaped upon Karen’s cherubic face in Monday's episode will last for approximately, well ... it’s probably evaporating already. “Smash” is a show that, by its very premise, has to continually flip-flop between its starlets, never making a solid commitment to either, always promising them more. In other words, kind of a heartless jerk. And I won’t be surprised if the pendulum swings away from Karen faster than Angelica Huston can swill a martini.

“Smash’s” most powerful fuel is the rivalry between the two actresses for the part of Marilyn; it’s the tension that got viewers so titillated during the pilot, the drama that raises the ante every week (well that, and the decision over whether there is a Marilyn to cast at all). It’s a compelling beginning, but as the show groans on there is only so much back-and-forth that viewers can take.

First, Karen won the a slight edge thanks to a provocative birthday fan dance (Karen now fondly remembers this as “sexual harassment”), then Ivy surged ahead with her pout-erful line-read and her willingness to play at the national pastime with Derek. Then Karen threatened Ivy, with her blatty-blat vibrato and inability to wallflower in the background, and Ivy’s confidence became as flimsy as her grip on reality. So then Ivy’s out, and Karen’s back in the picture, writhing around in bedsheets to a low-rent-Britney club jam.

Of course, her rave-of-one is seen as disloyal (never side with the straight guy in theater!), and so she’s dumped from the musical as well. Ivy responds to her rejection by ruining a Broadway show, and Karen, similarly dejected, dives into the emotional muck with her old rival. The two give a superbly awkward but rowdy busking performance in Times Square, lulling us into thinking that maybe the show has reached some sort of stasis; that with their little "Once" routine, our girls have reached common ground and will glide ahead as equals into the bright lights.

But lo, our dreams are deferred again. Ivy’s little drug binge had serious consequences, and now she isn’t in any show. Meanwhile, Karen is somehow back in the “Bombshell” ensemble, the newly crowned understudy for a missing person. Karen is our triumphant Marilyn ... and we are back to where we started! Aren’t you exhausted?

'Smash' recap: Is this a bombshell or just a bomb?

Did you hear something? Maybe a loud crashing noise? Kind of like an explosion? Was it ... a bombshell perhaps? Don't worry, there will be no dangerous shrapnel here. This is a metaphorical bombshell, the kind that detonates in people's lives after they have affairs and leads them to come up with a very on-the-nose name for their almost-Broadway musical, all the while whispering the word "bombshell" itself and stoically drinking scotch and staring out of a window.

Yes, just when we thought "Smash" couldn't get any sillier, this episode comes along to blow to smithereens any sense of nuance or mystique the show had left. Not that "Smash" has ever been a testament to subtlety (counting the number of times any character says the name "Marilyn" to move along a plot line could be a lethal drinking game), but there was still some aura of the unknown about it at the beginning, the tension of who would get the role and if the musical would ever coagulate into something looking like a Broadway show.

Well, we are still waiting, but the show seems to want us to care less and less about "Marilyn," err, "Bombshell: The Musical." At least, it wants us to take a break from all that shimmying and belting and take a long hard look into our main players' emotional lives. It seems to be working: If Eileen should decide to cancel the production and run off to Micronesia with Ellis and her magical bartender and never look back, I for one would shed zero tears about it. And yet, as the musical recedes farther and farther from view, buried by Ryan Tedder club jams and hammy Rihanna covers, I realize I would rather have it back than spend any more episodes in such close quarters with everyone's personal dramabusiness. At least with "Marilyn" we got some raunchy baseball jokes.

But we'll have to wait for Uma Thurman to show up and inevitably be not quite right for the role to get back into that world, so for now we are stuck with drugged-up angels and kissing at Republican benefits. Might as well dive into the muck.

'Smash' recap: Ellis stirs up drama with a capital 'D'

Hello, my lovely Smash-Test Dummies! I hope this week’s "Smash" was more fun for you than it was for me. I apologize for the belated recap, but can you blame me? After watching “The Coup,” I fell into a deep slumber and entered a dream state in which “Smash” took place in another world entirely, a Broadway paradise where Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin rule like gods over a benevolent kingdom made of tap shoes and pancake makeup. A world in which all children learn jazz squares and drag slang and what it means to exit stage left.

But then I woke up, and realized we are not living in that world. “Smash” is attacking that fantasy, bit by bit -- as it is trying to shove aside all of its original Broadway vibes and replace them with pop friendly iTunes-bait.

Last week, I mentioned that the “Glee” bug had bit “Smash” right in the cortex, and that hasn’t changed. In fact, this week, we got no show tunes at all; the one original song, “Touch Me,” was written by OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, a club banger more indebted to Gaga than Gershwin. While I saw some hope for the theater diehards last week with Bernadette Peters’ cameo, this week’s full-court pop press proves that “Smash,” which just got renewed for a second season, is not the “West Wing" of theater we thought it might be. Instead, it’s every other soap opera in primetime with karaoke thrown in for good measure.

This is not to say it is not fun stuff -- I will admit to being way more into this show than I’m comfortable with -- but it is frustrating, and frankly, not turning out to be the bill of goods we were sold. Of course, in one of her more cynical interviews, showrunner Teresa Rebeck told New York magazine that she wanted to make “a huge hit” for NBC, and would act solely in that interest. I don’t know if it says worse things about us or “Smash” that it’s devolved into a mess of deeply unlikeable characters with access to a jukebox. Maybe that’s what we want? Maybe that’s what makes a hit? Man, this is getting as depressing as an Arthur Miller play.

The other option is that Rebeck is a genius. That in taking the show from high-minded principles into a gaudy ploy for song downloads is a statement on what has happened to contemporary American theater. Just as Eileen now wants a star for “Marilyn” and Ivy Lynn is kicked to the curb to disappoint her mother yet again, perhaps “Smash” is showing us that dreams are futile and what matters in the end is who holds the paycheck.