Catch up on Smash every night with Playbill! It's available to stream with commercials on NBC, and available for purchase on Amazon. Episode 12 recap here.
Kathie Lee Gifford is on hand to watch Ivy teach students (and her!) "The 20th Century Fox Mambo." It's all part of Eileen's Tony Awards campaign to blanket the town in Bombshell. It also includes Ivy moderating a Tom and Julia talkback, which should be fun considering they're not speaking.
Had my first laugh out loud moment in a while when Eileen asks where Julia is, "It's not like her to miss something like this," she ponders. Eileen. Eileen! Julia skipped her own first preview! (Also gems: "Marisa Tomei broke her leg" so the Moonstruck musical isn't coming in, and there's an Imitation of Life musical adaptation allegedly DOA.)
Down at Hit List, Jesse L. Martin and Derek are laughing at all the producers who are attending that nights performance, all ready to write a check without having even seen the show. But Jimmy has disappeared! Never mind, he rolls in still rolling. That loses them the cover of New York Magazine, but what does Jimmy care? They're sold out, right? Know what he does care about? Casting his understudy. Jimmy inflates this into a tantrum of what would typically be considered titanic proportions, but for Jimmy is just a hangover. Oh no, it's a broken heart!
Kyle is of course loving this, since he gets to plant his feet on the moral high ground and defend Jimmy to Ana and Karen. Plus he gets to tell Jimmy all about his secret affair with Tom. And his parents are in town and Carolee Carmello is his mother! Hes having a great day, honestly. Fans are lined up outside hoping for tickets, he's got a cute boyfriend and a thing on the side with Tom—Kyle is on top of the world! What could go wrong?
On top of everything else he's dealing with today, Julia takes her Gatsby away from Jesse L. Martin, now that Tom isn't going to direct City of Angels. That's the second play she's ripped away from him... but this time, she changes her mind and tells Tom she's not giving up Gatsby. Tom promptly threatens legal action. And then it's time to get on stage and talk about their partnership! Obviously they're professionals, and put on game faces for the event—or wait... Tom dissolves the partnership in the middle of the panel. Man, they really can't sabotage Bombshell enough, can they?
Producers Kevin McCollum and Daryl Roth are at Hit List and chat with Derek—if Smash were on TV now, do you think I'd get a crack at playing myself? (They'd probably recast me with a name.) Before the show starts, an announcement practically demands the audience record the entire show. The watch parties we'd be organizing around Hit List in 2020!
It seems to go well, despite a high Jimmy wandering all over the set and ultimately not being in place to catch Karen when she falls. Guess what? Fired! Which leaves Leslie Odom Jr free to step in and take the role! And... the consensus among the producers is that it's too edgy for Broadway. Kyle insists that he be the one to tell Jimmy he's getting fired and he does not do it as kindly as one would expect.
Jimmy promptly stands up on a bar and tells everyone off, while... no one does anything about it. He storms off, Kyle decides to cut him out of his life... and promptly steps in front of onrushing headlights. And everything was going so well, too.
