Smash: The Nominations (2x16)

Smash! Why? Why do you do this to my emotions? Why must you give me an episode like this? Are you trying to kill me? God, everything is just so adorable! And angst-filled and full of song and dance. Oy.

Okay, so I should probably be a bit more coherent now. This episode centered around waiting for Tony nominations. Exciting, tense, and full of drama. As a musical theatre enthusiast and participant, it's always fun to see the world explored on a bit of a larger scale. And the Tony's... they're a big freakin' deal to us theatre geeks.

So, there were a bunch of threads going on all at once, but they were tied together pretty well. I am usually pretty happy with this show's ability to connect everything together. So, let's get started.

Tom is anxious about getting a director's nomination, and he ends up pissing off one of the committee members, a certain Patrick Dylan, by checking his phone in the theatre. He is excited because he has won the Outer Circle award (actually, tied with Derek). Tom has a lot of my favorite parts of this episode, including his extremely touching speech to Derek, during which he thanks him for all his help and claims that Derek should win the whole award for himself. The two of them actually hug. I swear I died a little from happiness.

Other great Tom moments came in his interactions with Patrick Dylan. He tries to apologize with a bottle of wine, but the exchange goes horribly wrong. This Dylan guy is not-so-subtly gay, and clearly there was something going on between them. The only thing that bothered me about this is that Tom didn't even mention Kyle or have any minor crisis about the fact that he's moving on rather quickly. Oh well.

Then there's Ivy, who has been pretty messed up lately. She's falling asleep during intermissions of Bombshell, saying really insensitive things in public - such as that Hit List is only popular because of Kyle's death. Little does anyone know that she's having trouble because she is pregnant. Karen won the Outer Circle award over Ivy, and actually Hit List took most of them from Bombshell. This is just another reason that Ivy is tense.

She wants to tell Derek about the baby, but things don't work out so well - Ivy actually goes to tell Derek, but catches the end of his conversation with Ana and decides to leave without telling Derek what's going on.

So... where Ivy's concerned, I had a few problems here and there. For one, I really wish she would just tell Derek and get it over with. I mean, we all know she will in the finale, so I don't see what the delay is all about. But my bigger problem was that after she said something really insensitive about Kyle, apparently the internet took her side, and Hit List was getting negative feedback. That felt really unrealistic to me. In reality, the backlash should have been against Ivy herself.

Poor Jimmy is upset because Jerry doesn't think that Kyle will be nominated for best book, and he tries to promote Kyle to the press. However, interviewers seem to want to talk about Julia Houston more than anything else. Apparently, rumors are floating around that Julia was a big part of writing the show. Jimmy is furious, and angry at Julia. He even throws Peter in her face, saying that she used a dramaturg so she has no right to try and claim credit for Kyle's work.

Now, Peter was a waste of everyone's time at the start of this season, so I was more annoyed than anything else to have him brought up again. But other than that I enjoyed this plot development. Jimmy was Kyle's closest and oldest friend, and Julia was briefly very close to Kyle as well. Their animosity grew, but by the end Julia apologized for the way the rumor mill was going, and Jimmy was able to congratulate her on her nomination.

Derek. Oh, my darling. Best part of the episode, hands down, was the moment when he came clean about Daisy and Ana. At first, he tried to buy Ana off by setting her up with another audition, but when Ana actually agreed to take the new job and back away, Derek finally saw what an ass he was being. He told the truth to an interviewer, and now the world will finally see Derek for who he truly is. But oh my God. He actually came clean about it all on his own. And you might say - correctly - that this doesn't excuse all the stuff he did, but it still shows that his character has room for positive character growth.

The nominations... obviously we don't care about anything other than the ones for Bombshell and Hit List, and I'll list the ones we know of. (On a minor note of annoyance, we don't get to see what all of the noms are, probably because they're considered "boring," such as noms for light design, etc. etc.)

I really loved these scenes, while Tom, Julia, and Ivy all watched for the announcements together, and Ana, Karen and Jimmy watched together too. Jimmy and Karen are hesitant but cute together, which I am glad to see.

So - 

Best Supporting Actress noms to Leigh for Bombshell, Ivy for Liasons, Daisy for Hit List (ugh).

Choreography noms to Derek for Bombshell and Derek for Hit List.

Book noms to Julia for Bombshell and Kyle for Hit List. Apparently, Kyle is the youngest person ever nominated for best book. Awww! The look on Jimmy's face when Kyle's name got announced was precious. He was so happy/sad!

Score noms to Julia and Tom for Bombshell and Jimmy for Hit List. Yay!

Director noms to Tom for Bombshell and Derek for Hit List. Tom was so excited and shocked... Julia and Ivy were so happy for him! Derek is apparently only the second person in Tony history to have three personal nominations in one season, but this exciting news is juxtaposed with the fact that he is all alone as he hears the news. This was a really tragic moment, as Derek finally has all he could hope for professionally, but he has lost everything personally.

Best leading lady - Karen and Ivy. Duh. But I was really annoyed by the little fake-out they did with Ivy there. What was the purpose to that?

Alright, just a few other little notes here. Julia and Frank are apparently in the middle of a very nasty divorce. This feels a bit out of left field, like they're just desperately trying to cram something in from Season One to tie everything together. I do feel bad for Julia, though.

Daisy isn't all that amazing. Neither is Ana. I don't know if it's just the part of the Diva, or what. I just haven't been all that impressed by either of these ladies. Although Ana is really pretty.

So, overall I found this to be a great penultimate episode. The flaws are mainly ones of pacing, and it's inevitable that the show would have some issues here because it's been cancelled. Sometimes, there's just nothing you can do!

8/10