Smash Season Finale: And the Marilyn Is...

The NBC hit series closed out its first season with a number of cliffhangers, including a possibly pregnancy and drug overdose

By Tierney Bricker May 15, 2012 3:00 AMTags
Katharine McPhee, Megan Hilty, SmashNBC

Peanut allergy be damned, the show must go on!

After a season filled with some pretty glorious highs (We're still obsessed with "Let Me Be Your Star") and some stellar lows ("That's why I moved to Micronesia," real line said by Eileen's daughter), Smash closed out its polarizing first year on a glorious note: The finale, "Bombshell," achieved the perfect balance of the characters' personal drama with the fascinating inner workings of a Broadway show.

Drama, pressure, anxiety, excitement, we felt it all! Oh, and Marilyn was finally revealed: So was it plucky up-and-comer Karen (Katharine McPhee) or seasoned chorus vet Ivy (Megan Hilty)? Find out...

Karen Is Your Star: Karen, Iowa native and "tech" survivor, is Marilyn, y'all! However, it wasn't exactly a cakewalk for Karen to finally get her time in the spotlight. Tom (Christian Borle), Julia (Debra Messing) and Eileen (Anjelica Huston) didn't think Karen would be able to handle the pressure (or choreography or songs or acting, etc.). It didn't help when a desperate Ivy returned Dev's (Raza Jaffrey) engagement ring to Karen and spilled the beans that she slept with Karen's fiancé.

Still, Karen had one person in her corner: Derek (Jack Davenport), who championed her the entire episode and gave her the strength to go on, despite the Ivy and Dev sexytimes of it all. "Art isn't therapy. We're not here to work out our personal problems," Derek tells her. "We're here to take those problems and completely exploit them to hell with how much we hurt. Actually the more we hurt, the better...You've always had so much of [Marilyn] at your fingertips, and now you have the heartbreak."

And exploit that heartbreak she did. We were like proud mama bears watching Karen own the stage and prove that it doesn't matter how "green" you are when you're born to be a star. And that final (absolutely stunning) number "Don't Forget Me"? Chills, we tell you! (P.S. We're so down with a Derek and Karen romance in season two. Just putting that out there.)

She's Going Down: Oh, Ivy. Girl is one mustache twirl away from full-on villain status. It's hard to feel bad for the über-talented actress when she constantly finds new ways to out-awful herself. Ivy waited until the perfect moment to unleash her big guns (sleeping with Dev, hanging on to Karen's engagement ring) and did so in particularly cruel fashion. (In the immortal words of Cher Horowitz, "Way harsh, Tai!")

Karen's success, the deafening roar of the audience, the reappearance of her legendary mother (Bernadette Peters) and learning Derek just doesn't believe in her as Marilyn—it was all too much for Ivy, who turned to pills to cope. Will Ivy follow in Marilyn's tragic footsteps, or is this all one big master plan to upstage Karen and the show? We'll find out...

A Baby on the Way?! Time to buy a congratulatory scarf (or baby scarf!) for Julia as we were led to believe that the playwright is with child...ex-lover Michael Swift's (Will Chase) child! While we didn't see Julia take a pregnancy test or anything, the fact that she said the last time she threw up was when she was pregnant with Leo is pretty much all the confirmation we need. The pregnancy could be the final straw for her husband, who could barely control himself when he saw Julia and Michael speaking. (Turns out Michael's wife left him. Go on, girl!)

In other Julia-related news, her son Leo is still around and he still can't act. At least he keeps his parents well-fed?

Ellis Is Still the Worst: Shocking absolutely no one, Ellis, assistant/self-proclaimed Bombshell "producer," revealed that he was the one to put a nut in Rebecca Duvall's (Uma Thurman) kale smoothie. And guess what? He's proud of the fact that he almost killed her and ruined a perfectly great kale smoothie. Alas, this time, Ellis did not get away with his shady behavior: Eileen finally fires the little weasel after he demands that Ivy play Marilyn. (He's basically the Gretchen Weiners to Ivy's Regina George.) "You haven't heard the last of this," the oh-so-awful one threatens before sneaking away to go be awful somewhere else. (Anyone else think he's going to the New York Post with all of Bombshell's dirty secrets?)

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)

What did you think of Smash's finale? Do you think Ivy will be OK? Is Karen was the right choice for Marliyn in the end? Sound off in the comments!

PHOTOS: 2012 May Finale Spoiler-rama!