Photo Source: Craig Blankenhorn/NBC
The workshop for "Marilyn: The Musical" is finally over and we don't know where the show is headed. Ivy (Megan Hilty) and Sam (Leslie Odom, Jr.) are back in dance class while Julia lies in bed munching grapes as her husband Frank (Brian d'Arcy James) tries to cheer her up. Sooner or later we had to have d'Arcy James, one of the few regular cast members who is an actual Broadway musical star, do a song. So, in one of the weirdest rationalizations for a number the writers have yet devised (give them time, though), he sets up a karaoke video game and sings along for a few minutes.
Ellis (Jaime Cepero) continues sucking up to Eileen (Anjelica Huston) just as her daughter Katie (Gummer) drops by from India, where she works as some kind of activist. Before we go to the title sequence, we learn that Derek (Jack Davenport) and Eileen are "going in a new direction" with the show and want Karen (Katharine McPhee) to sing a number from a new songwriter. I've never written a Broadway musical, but I'm pretty sure even in show business they aren't this sneaky and two-faced.
Ellis continues to act as a double agent, informing Tom (Christian Borle) about what he's overheard from Eileen about this mysterious new song while Julia and Michael (Will Chase) calmly and quickly tie up their affair. That was fast. Karen's boyfriend Dev (Raza Jaffrey) gets an actual plot, scheming to undermine a rival for the press secretary job by employing dirty Internet pictures. Julia's son Leo (Emory Cohen) has a court date for his marijuana arrest, allowing Debra Messing an emotional outburst in front of the judge—despite Julia's earlier freakout about any legal trouble that could endanger the family's planned adoption.
Despite her misgivings, Karen begins rehearsals for the new song in a Brooklyn studio, and it is looney tunes! We get a glimpse of three male dancers in white masks prancing around while Karen belts out a Madonna-like number about sex. Are they planning a MTV version of "Marilyn"? Eileen and her estranged husband Jerry (Michael Cristofer) have a confrontation over money (again) while Katie catches Ellis in his favorite position: listening at the door.
Tom and his lawyer boyfriend (Neal Bledsoe) are having dinner, where they kiss over the pasta. I get such mixed signals from this couple. Didn't they have lousy sex a couple of weeks ago, and then Tom was attracted to Sam the chorus boy? Since Ivy and the chorus kids are now out of work (except for appearing eight times a week in "Heaven on Earth"), they stage a musical number while bowling. If that were my alley, I'd throw those guys out for dancing in the lanes and on top of the tables. Where do they think they are? The set of "Glee"?
Ellis tries to make trouble by tattling about the new song to Ivy, before having a philosophical discussion in bed with his girlfriend Cyn (Condola Rashad) about what losers all artists are and how he's going to be a producer—as soon as he figures out what they do.
Then we have the big weird number Derek has been cooking up with Karen. It. Is. Insane. Karen-as-Marilyn writhes around in a sheet while those white-masked dancers snap photos of her and disco music throbs. It's like a bad parody of the "Air-Rotica" number from "All That Jazz." Katie chastises her mother for betraying Julia and Tom, and Grace Gummer gets the best line of the night: "I grew up in show business and it's this kind of crap that made me want to flee to Micronesia."
Eileen suddenly has a change of heart and apologizes for the number to everyone but the home viewers. Ellis suddenly appears and schedules a meeting with the entire creative team. Wouldn't Tom or Julia have been more likely to say, "Who the hell are you? Shut the fuck up and get us some coffee." Instead, Tom and Derek have a big confrontation, during which we learn the reason for their antagonism. Apparently, when the two worked together on a show 11 years ago, Derek got good reviews and Tom was panned, and a male critic was having sex with Derek's father? HUH?
Eileen suddenly realizes what every Broadway producer already knows: A star is needed to get the show on Broadway. After stabbing her in the back, Derek counsels Ivy…by sleeping with her. Again, what is this woman thinking? Next week, Frank finds out about Julia's affair and Ivy seems to be handing out leaflets in Times Square.
