Bunheads - Season 1 Episode 8 - Recap and Review - Blank Up, It's Time

Fanny (Kelly Bishop) is back from her extended vacation in "Blank Up, It's Time," and that can only mean that we're in for more back-and-forth sniping once she gets a chance to talk with Michelle (Sutton Foster). This is how Fanny operates, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't think the show would be better without her, as talented as Kelly Bishop is in the role. She's a problematic character for Bunheads, in the sense that she's a constant source of friction; and while this usually means a good well from which to draw drama, "Blank Up, It's Time" utilizes Fanny, until its explosive final moments, as a source of irritation.

This week, we're at the beginning of Show Season, the summer stretch where the ballet is in constant performance mode, preparing for one live performance after another, at everywhere from restaurant openings to town festivals. Fanny is back in control of the girls and her first act is removing Sasha (Julia Goldani Telles) from her role as Ginger Rogers, opposite Jordan (So You Think You Can Dance runner-up Kent Boyd) as Fred Astaire. Sasha is quietly incensed at the principle of losing the role, which she's always performed, simply for having a farmer's tan after getting too much sun. Sasha has been considering taking up cheerleading, but isn't sure how to balance it with dance. This is to say nothing of Fanny's derisive attitude towards cheerleading, equating its artistic value with that of plate-spinning. As Sasha debates what path to take, Fanny is busy offering the role of Ginger Rogers to Boo (Kaitlyn Jenkins). However, a family issue comes up with Jordan, so Fanny must recast Fred Astaire, giving the part to another young man in their company, Carl.

Not only is Carl several inches shorter than Boo, as opposed to the tall and graceful Jordan, but he also clearly has a crush on the perennially shy dancer and goes about wooing her in the most irritating ways possible: calling her Bettina, pestering her for her email address, and insisting that she listen to his Stewie Griffin impression. Yet he has his charm, and Boo seems open to the possibilities he presents, in much the same way Ginny was intrigued last week by the possibility that there are actually cute boys out there that would want to date her. Unfortunately, Ginny isn't as open-minded about Carl as Boo was about Charlie, as she and Melanie browbeat Carl with insults and reject him on Boo's behalf. It's a stark reminder that our bunheads aren't necessarily above the kind of youthful cruelty you might see in the halls of Rosewood High on your average Pretty Little Liars episode.

Another person who isn't above sniping: Fanny.

She doesn't invite Michelle to a play (titled "Blank Up, It's Time") so much as declare to Michelle that she's coming. Once at the show, the two women get into an argument over the show's director, Connor (Chris Eigeman), who shows interest in Michelle. Michelle denies anything is going on, while Fanny passive-aggressively declares that she'll wait for Michelle while she goes and has sex with the man. The argument, which might have been meant to communicate Fanny's inability to accept the possibility of Michelle moving on after Hubbell, instead comes across as the insults of a bitter old woman whom Michelle just can't please, no matter what she does. The episode gets better, in this regard, once Fanny and Michelle are separated and both characters are given breathing room, but it's a problem the show still has to deal with, and "Blank Up, It's Time" only does a marginal job of doing so. But hey, progress is progress, even if it's just baby steps.

Even better, Fanny is shown to have a personal life independent of Michelle or the dance studio, as we meet her long-distance boyfriend Michael (guest star Richard Gant), a man of whom we don't see or learn all that much, but who knows Fanny perhaps better than anyone in Paradise. If he's going to become a part of the main cast, Gant would be a welcome addition, as he pulls off the classic Amy Sherman-Palladino dialogue with the kind of subtle verve that makes Michael a fully-realized, lived-in character from the word "go." Just great stuff from an immensely talented actor, on a show full of them.

Now, Fanny's sniping jabs aside, Michelle actually does wind up sleeping with Conor, but the director proves to be clever, charming and as quick-witted as Michelle herself. However, problems are introduced once Michelle admits that this is the first time she's been with a man since Hubbell. Suddenly, she finds herself choking back tears before sobbing outright, overcome with grief she didn't know was lingering there, beneath the surface. She never properly grieved Hubbell, perhaps out of the knowledge that, while Hubbell was a genuinely good man, she didn't really know him all that long, or all that well. But it all comes out here, and Fanny is the first (and only) person Michelle tells the next day, at the studio. "I thought about Hubbell," Michelle tells Fanny. "I just came here to tell you that." Michelle is simply letting Fanny know that, though she might move on with her life, romantically, it's not as if she's ever going to forget Hubbell, or fail to remember just how good a man he was, and how vital he was in bringing them together. Fanny, appearing genuinely touched, simply smiles and says "Thank you."

This, of course, leads to our climax. Just as Boo and Carl are about to do their dance as part of dress rehearsal, Sasha storms in, dressed head to toe in black, with dark makeup, darker boots, and even darker hair, streaked with "adolescent rebellion blue." She and Fanny have a war of words, and in a show of solidarity, Michelle tries to intervene to present a unified front, but Michael tells her to simply let Fanny handle things. This is her space, and it's sacred ground, so for Sasha to waltz in and take Fanny to task for how she handles her dance studio is an act that basically amounts to minor sacrilege. It's an explosive confrontation, with Sasha declaring that everyone is sick of Fanny's rules, her uptight attitude, and her outmoded way of thinking. We've come to learn, over the past two weeks, the function dance serves in Sasha's life. It's her outlet, her escape from a broken home, and maybe even her silent passion. Fanny, in Sasha's mind, has corrupted this environment, making her continued patronage of the studio untenable. Sasha quits, announcing that she's committing to cheerleading full-time. And like that, we're one bunhead shorter. This doesn't bode well for the company either, as she's arguably the best dancer.

But Fanny is more than happy to show Sasha the door anyway, which is unsurprising given Fanny's low tolerance for insubordination. That said, one has to think that it wounds her, at some level, to lose a student in this fashion. Fanny is a character who is very much defined by her relevance to her students. If she isn't teaching dance, there isn't much purpose to her life. It's nice to have a little vacation now and then, as she's had for the past two weeks, but it would never have been a permanent arrangement. Fanny needs this school, these girls, this life in dance. It's every bit her life to teach in this studio as it is Michelle's destiny to eventually join her, but the disharmony in the studio has thrown the dance company off-balance, as evidenced by Carl and Boo's clumsy take on the Astaire/Rogers number. What is it going to take to restore balance? Can Sasha really bring herself to give up dance?

"Blank Up, It's Time" is hardly the best offering in this first season of Bunheads, but that's only because it feels like a table-setting episode, gearing us up for what's to come. There's only one episode left before the summer finale, meaning we'll have some idea of what the big issues of the season, going forward, will be when Bunheads returns next week.