Bunheads - Summer Finale - Recap and Review - A Nutcracker in Paradise
Man, that was a great hour of TV. Bunheads was arguably the biggest surprise of the summer, and "A Nutcracker in Paradise" exemplifies why it's earned every bit of its accolades, mixing heart with genuine pathos, drama with levity, comedy with catharsis. It's as good a ten-episode run as I've seen from a freshman series, bringing the show full-circle from its premiere, while making the growth of the characters and this world from premiere to finale self-evident.
Now onto the episode...
Fanny's (Kelly Bishop) production of The Nutcracker (part of a Christmas in July tradition in Paradise) is her Super Bowl, and this two-week period of constant performances accounts for the majority of her income, so she's understandably taken off-guard by the sudden reappearance of Sasha (Julia Goldani Telles) as the lead for The Nutcracker, at Michelle's behest. As Fanny watches the run-through of the number, caught somewhere between confusion and concern, we're treated to Michelle's (Sutton Foster) modern interpretation of the classic ballet: the rats (or mice, if you're asking Fanny) are reimagined as crooked Wall Street Businessmen, and Melanie and Ginny are presented as their arresting officers. It's easily the best dance sequence to which we've been treated on the show, even besting the “Paper or Plastic” routine in episode five just for its hypnotic energy. Fanny loves it, and is ready to welcome Sasha back into the fold – except for the problem of the ringer she hired to play the lead role of Clara after Sasha quit. The arrangements have already been made, and the ringer will be in Paradise for the week. Everyone seems to be afraid of this new dancer, who's as smooth on the dance floor as she is cold and robotic in person.
Fanny gives Sasha the task, as part of her punishment for quitting in the first place, of breaking the news to the ringer that she will not be playing Clara. The ringer is terrifying in her abilities. She never stops dancing, even while while reading a book during her break. Worse, she's scarily perfect at it, and she has no intention of relenting the lead to Sasha. Dancing is her entire life, and she seems insulted that this girl who quit ballet (for cheerleading, no less), is threatening to take the role of Clara from her. She has a history of putting ground glass in the toe shoes of her rivals, and it looks like Sasha, who calls her “The Toe Shoe Terminator,” is next on her list.
Meanwhile, Fanny is looking to make Michelle a more permanent fixture in the ballet studio, discussing the possibility of Michelle running the place on her own for a while, now that Michael has started talking about traveling to Montana. One of her first acts in this new sort-of-partner role is to squash the beef between Ginny, Boo, and Michelle, getting Boo to admit she's okay with Ginny dating Charlie because she likes Carl, while Ginny vows she'll never talk about Charlie around Melanie, and Melanie vows not to make fun of Carl's height. (I'm sure that was as exhausting to read as it was for me to write.) Our bunheads are a unit again, and not a moment too soon, as Boo (Kaitlyn Jenkins) finally has the encouragement she needs to make a stand for Carl.
At the fundraiser Michelle organized, at which she's set to perform her Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers routine with Carl, Boo declares her feelings in front of half the town. It's a charmingly uncomfortable scene, rife with the awkwardness and uncertainty accorded to genuine teenage love. Boo doesn't have a clue what she's doing, standing at the microphone and blathering aimlessly about how she screwed things up. It's one of the most honest moments in the series, and the dance Carl and Boo share together gives the opening number a run for its money, set to a cover of the classic Muppets tune “The Rainbow Connection,” here performed by Weezer and Hayley Williams. The entire number is saccharine in its arrangement, but beautiful in its simplicity, and very affecting, since Boo is the one bunhead who's had the hardest time acclimating to the social rigors of teen life. Between the diet, enduring the rejection of the Joffrey Ballet, her own mother's doubts of her as a dancer, and losing her crush to her best friend, Boo has gone through a lot to get to this point. If nothing else, she's earned this one moment in the sun.
Of course, happiness in Boo's love life doesn't necessarily translate to the same for the the other bunheads. Sasha meets a boy from the basketball team named Roman, a flirtation which starts out promisingly enough, but is still a work-in-progress. Meanwhile, Ginny (Bailey Buntain) tries to make it work with Charlie, even trying to keep good on her promise not to talk to Melanie (Emma Dumont) about the situation, despite the fact that it's clear she needs someone to talk to (given her dependence upon a twelve year-old dancer to be her sounding board for her plans to lose her virginity at prom). But all of Ginny's best-laid plans end in disaster when she catches Charlie in his car after rehearsal, sweet-talking another girl. She's devastated, and takes out her frustrations on Melanie, who she feels distracted her from making things work with Charlie. Though the girls ultimately bond over their mutual hatred of Charlie, the fragility of the situation suggests that these girls might have harder fights ahead of them as they negotiate the landmines of teenage social life together. This has always been one of the most genuine aspects of the show, its attention to detail in communicating the difficulty with which teenage girls manage their friendships and relationships, as interests often clash in combustible ways. As much as Bunheads serves as a character study, it also throws teenage societal constructs into stark relief, particularly when compared with the mating habits of adults.
Speaking of which...
Godot finally makes his move on Michelle, since he's leaving for Australia and doesn't know how long he'll be gone. The two hookup, drawing the amused ire of the town. But Michelle has to maintain focus despite the clear interest she has in the bartender, as The Nutcracker is set to open. Michelle has used these sudden, inexplicable partnerings as a way of managing her feelings about her late husband, Hubbell. She's failed to get any kind of closure on his death, due in large part to Fanny's aversion to discussing the situation, and also because Fanny herself is having trouble processing her grief, as we see tonight. Godot seems more like a temporary salve to a larger issue for Michelle, who needs to deal with her lingering grief over her late husband before she can find happiness with anyone else, whether it's Connor the Director or Godot the bartender.
Which brings us to The Nutcracker. It's a pretty entertaining number that deserves recognition in its own right; that is, until The Toe Shoe Terminator strikes again. In a desperate ploy to steal the part of Clara from Sasha, she switches the company's hairspray with mace. As the girls lineup for a quick refresh backstage, Michelle sprays them all down, inadvertently blinding them and turning the show into an all-out disaster. The big two-week show period must be canceled, as the girls recover in the emergency room, and Fanny blows up at Michelle for her incompetence, but more so for having meddled in her life with Michael.
Michael has left Paradise because Michelle had a talk with him, implying that Fanny wanted to settle down. Michael, who's always lived his life on his own terms, free to come and go as he pleased without the strains of commitment, is spooked at the prospect of Fanny wanting to commit. He ends their relationship of thirty years without another word, leaving Michelle to shoulder the blame; not only for Michael, but for the mace disaster, or for forcing Fanny to cancel her most profitable show season, but for the general bad luck that's befallen her ever since Michelle came to Paradise. She stops just short of blaming Michelle for Hubbell's death before storming out to calm the livid parents.
As Michelle rests in an open hospital bed, we're treated to the best sequence of the entire series: a haunting, revelatory dream sequence in which Michelle performs “Maybe This Time” from Cabaret for an audition, set against a starkly-lit black background peppered with mirrors. It's Sutton Foster's finest moment in the show, as she exhibits the full range of her dancing, singing, and acting talents. The episode also marks the return of Alan Ruck as Hubbell, who appears in the dream, which is beautifully-shot, with the objects of Michelle's concerns rendered in a lyrical, meditative tableau behind her (such as the bunheads dancing in the distance, bathed in white light against their black outfits, completely out of focus, but still present at the forefront of Michelle's consciousness) as she discusses with Hubbell just how much things have changed in Paradise since she's arrived. The conversation culminates in the greatest question the series can never answer:
“Would it have worked?”
Michelle is desperate for some sort of answer. “Would I have stayed?” Hubbell is gone, and it's impossible to ever know for certain. As Michelle awakes, she exits the hospital to the angry sounds of parents calling for her head. Suddenly, in an outburst of solidarity, the bunheads (with Sasha leading the charge) stand on their chairs and recite “Oh Captain, my captain!” in an homage to 1989's “Dead Poets Society.” Not all of the girls know exactly what they're doing, but they all know what it signifies: nobody wants to see Michelle leave, much less like this. The conflicted look on Michelle's face of pride and heartache is a gorgeous piece of acting from Foster. She reminds the girls that at the end of the movie, the teacher still had to leave anyway. But before the girls can despair of this fact, she thanks them in the manner of Robin Williams at the end of the film, before correcting herself: “Thank you, girls.” Michelle exits the emergency room and, perhaps, Paradise altogether.
Bunheads is a tremendous show, as winning in its subtlety and simplicity as it is affecting in its pathos, to say nothing of how genuinely funny the show tended to be from week to week. One can only hope that when (if?) the show returns, it can maintain the quality of these first ten episodes. It's been an absolute pleasure recapping this show for you guys each week, and I find it's an assignment I'm going to miss quite a bit, as few shows on television provide as cathartic and enjoyable a getaway.
