SMASH! SEASON TWO: EPISODE ONE. A TREATMENT
The winds of Smash’s breathtaking first season still blow strong through us all. To wait for January for another episode is too much to ask. And worse still is the fear that NBC will not be able to give us back Smash as we knew it and loved it.
We thus faithfully submit this treatment for the premiere episode of Smash’s second season. If the Smash staff will just go ahead and use this, we feel confident that it will set them on the right path.
This episode will be presented in three installments over three consecutive evenings here at Rushfield Babylon. The first begins after this…
SMASH
SEASON 2: EPISODE 1.
OOOO LA LA!
A TREATMENT
by
Stacey Grenrock Woods and Richard Rushfield
Over a black screen we hear sounds. Cars honking. They are taxis. A man bellows, “Watch it buddy! Waddya blind?!”
The sounds of a hot dog vendor drizzling relish on a piping hot dog.
An old lady feeding the pigeons in the park, her seed bag crinkling, the seeds crackle when they hit the asphalt..like a thousand tap dancers.
Steam seeps up from the city’s subterranean caverns, with a sinister “HISSSSSS! HISSSSSS!” The sounds of a million secrets lying just below the sidewalks. The sidewalks of New York.
On the black screen the words flash:
TWO MONTHS LATER
It is three months later. The screen fills with a shot of Broadway, alive with traffic and tourists and dancers and smoke.
We see a theater and pan up to the marquee. And there it is. In giant letters
BOMBSHELL
starring Karen Cartwright
(as Marilyn Monroe)
Bombshell has come to Broadway.
The camera moves up past the box office. A delivery boy in neatly pressed brown uniform opens the door and we slide inside.
In the theater it is pandemonium.
Chorus girls cry out in pain from being stuck with needles during fittings.
On stage, Derek SCREAMS at Dancers: No. No No. That’s one, TWO, three, four. What is wrong with you people?
Julia and Tom bang on a piano.
Eileen hands out stacks of cash to pay for the curtains.
It is one week from opening!
At the back of the house, Linda yells out.
ONE WEEK TO OPENING! WE OPEN IN ONE WEEK!
At the piano, Tom starts to pound out a song, and sings:
There’s no business, like show business
Like no business I know!
His voice leads us on a tour of Smash world. So much has changed since we left the gang in Connecticut.
We pan across a newsstand. Karen Cartwright in on the cover of every magazine in America. A massive headline on The Gobbler screams:
THE BEST NEW MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY SHOW IN 70 YEARS!
Across the Smash Kingdom, everything has fallen into place and everyone is incredibly happy.
We see Julia and her husband are back together and deliriously happy. They are so cool with everything that they are having dinner at the house with Michael Swift and Tom and his friend Sam.
They are so cool with the past that when Michael, is too drunk to walk home, they make a bed for him on the couch and Julia, Frank and Leo all tuck him in.
Once Michael is asleep, Leo gives Julia and Frank a surprise. His final report. Straight A’s! For the entire 8th grade At the bottom it a stamp certifies, Junior High School Graduate. Onward to high school!
As they walk home from dinner, Tom and Sam, his dancer boyfriend, are deliriously happy. But as they skip along, Tom stops and turns to him, grabs his arm and looks him in the eyes.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says.
“Yes, Tom. I do.” he answers. “You know what this will mean to America?”
“Forget about America! What will it mean to you! Think about your career!”
“Tom, when I come out as the first gay dancer in Broadway history, I’ll have accomplished more for the world than I ever could in my Capezio slippers.”
“My God I hope you’re right,” Tom sighs. “I hope they don’t burn you at the stake.”
“They’ll have to burn you first!” Sam says throwing a snowball at him. Tom laughs “Oh No!” and chases him into the street.
Where Sam narrowly misses being run over by two motorcycles. Sam and Tom give them the finger but we saw as they drive away, doing wheelies on the motorcycles in Hell’s Angels jackets are.
EILEEN AND THE BARTENDER!
The two of them are deliriously happy and go riding motorcycles together every weekend. They are taking a break from preparations for the show for one last ride out to a big gang rally in the Hamptons for the weekend. Randy Cobra sits in the bartender’s sidecar, swigging Whiskey from a brown paper bag.
But first!
They pull their motorcycles over in front of Tiffany’s
Eileen runs in to make a purchase. Sitting on a pedestal in the center of the store is the most expensive hat in America. Made of pure diamonds. Price tag: $885,000.
Eileen walks up to the clerk and says “I’ll take it!”
With Bombshell sold out for months to come, Eileen doesn’t have to worry about money ever again.
Even Jack, to his chagrin, has nothing to complain about. At breaks in rehearsals he is having sex with Karen in Marilyn costume and they are deliriously happy.
In between rehearsals and having costume sex with Jack, Karen gives her family around New York. Her 150 cousins are in town staying in tents pitched outside the theater, camped out waiting for the big opening night.
Dressed in overalls and chewing on hay, none of them has ever used electricity before and they gaze in wonder at the lights of Broadway.
“Look it moved!” cousin Ephraim points when one of the bulbs flickers out and back on again.
When Karen takes them into the Trump Plaza, they cause an enormous pile up when they recoil in horror from the escalator. Aunt Hattie runs away shrieking.
Back in rehearsal dressed as Marilyn, Karen stops to chat with the kids in the chorus.
“Can you believe we open in just one week?”
Karen hugs them all. They are all so excited. But one makes a sad face.
“But it just still so weird that Ivy’s dead.”
“I know.” Says another. “Soooo weird.”
The kids exchange sad faces until Jack yells, “Places please” and they race off to dance.
Linda yells: SIX DAYS TO OPENING! WE OPEN IN SIX DAYS!
The show looks flawless.
And at home at the Houston’s house, Michael Swift wakes up on the couch. The family invites him for their morning shower together where they sing Why Do Fools Fall In Love? Back at the theater, the cast joins in.
Everything is perfect! and nothing can go wrong!
BUT!!!!!!!!!
As they prepare the house of the theater, a stagehand climbs the stairs and suddenly stops and screams!
THE RAILINGS ARE ALL STICKY!!!!
To be continued….
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