Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Bunheads: The Nutcracker in Paradise(S1E10)


So here’s the review, only a week late!

We open to Fanny and Michelle discussing the dance Michelle choreographed for the Nutcracker, as they go into the dance studio to see it.  Michelle has found a ‘temp’ to fill in, and surprise!  It’s Sasha.  The evil rat mouse dance is made to look like some sort of boardroom, with Kent from SYTYCD(!) as the main mouse.  Fanny loves the dance, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

We cut to Fanny and Michelle having a nice conversation about the fundraiser Michelle is throwing later in the episode, and then Fanny drops a juicy tidbit:  she found a cabin for her and Michael in Montana, if Michelle wouldn’t mind taking over for a while.  Michelle gladly accepts, and then: SHE comes.

The ringer.  This girl can do ballet in her sleep, and is basically a robot.  Fanny forgot to cancel her after Sasha came back, and basically freaks out.  This girl is terrifying, and no one even knows her name.

We pan to the other girls, and they are busy passive-agressiveing the ringer. “Guess I should take up typing,” from Melanie, I think.

They walk into the room, and Michelle walks into the second coming of the cold war, as all of our main girls are in a fight, which Sasha eloquently disseminates to Michelle.  The whole Charlie/Carl debacle ends with an: ‘And I wish we were all lesbians.’   Michelle manages to be a grown-up for once, and gets the girls talking again.  She then sends Sasha down to ask Fanny about the ringer, and she goes in the most amusing way possible:  arms flung back, chest out, in the epitome of dancer-walk.

So anyway, dancer girl is creepy some more, and Fanny chucks the mean task of getting rid of the ringer to the one person who could handle it: Sasha. 

As Fanny hightails it out of the room, the ringer turns Sasha into her own personal barre, and you can just see Sasha shrinking bit by bit as the conversation goes on, until the ringer has practically made Sasha want to hand Clara to her.

We then cut to: fundraiser, where everyone is dressed in costumes, though it’s a bit weird, because they seem to come from about four different shows, very strange.  Boo is all depressed in her period attire, and Michelle tries to cheer her up, and convinces her to seeks reconciliation with Carl, who hates her due to the Charlie thing last week.  So Boo does the obvious thing, which is go to the microphone, and tell everyone in the room how stupid she was, and that she still really likes Carl.  It was very nearly a crash and burn, but got pulled back at the last minute.  Carl takes her apology, and they dance around to a cover of Rainbow Connection, and it’s super cute, of course.

We then find Fanny crabby, as she found out that Michael’s Montana dream was a solo thing, as he bought a piece of land there.  And then, everything goes to hell in a hand basket.  Melanie gets grossed out by Charlie’s gross friend, and as she’s leaving, spooks Ginny, who goes in for a kiss with Charlie, but manages to split his lip instead.  Michelle then tries to ‘help’ Fanny and Michael, by telling Michael Fanny’s plans.  Sasha runs into random worker, and that was it for her.  THEN, Michelle runs into Godot, and he starts kissing her.  She does not protest, as the whole of the bar watches on.

Fast cut to PISSED OFF Fanny.  The only two minority characters in the whole show are performing a dance, which Fanny declares the most boring dance EVA. We then move to Ginny discussing Charlie things with a girl we later learn is only twelve.  Fanny is now not impressed with another dance, and Ginny is discussing actually inappropriate things with the twelve year old as Charlie pulls up with another girl in his car.  So, no more need for Ginny to plan prom contingencies revolving around when/how/if she should say no to consummating the relationship, especially with that poor twelve year old.

And suddenly: performance.  Fanny is in some sort of suit, and Michelle has a massive bag of doom, since obviously nothing good is going to come of ‘pretty mace.’  Ginny and Melanie are mad at each other again, because apparently Charlie sucking giant monkey balls is Michelle’s fault, somehow? 

The ringer is creepy some more, and then we learn Melanie almost certainly dated her own cousin once.
And then: performance!  Fanny goes out, and give Sasha/Clara the nutcracker, and the dancing is really good…so of course, they go backstage, where Michelle manages to mace the entire troop with her mace, and there is much bumbling, falling, and mass chaos.  Boo and Carl are cute again, some more, and Michelle tries to fix it by indiscriminately spraying water everywhere.  And the ringer is creepy again, as usual.

We then move to the hospital, where everyone is miserable, as is to be expected.  Ginny and Melanie make up over a shared hatred of Charlie.  Sasha and Tyler Roman talk again, and it’s super boring.  So we cut to Michelle and Fanny discussing the maceing, and Fanny is uber pissed.  She revealed Michael left, and Michelle spills that she told Michael about Fanny’s plan, and that when things hit the fan for the second time in the episode.  Fanny basically says things have been wrong since Hubble died, and we cut to…

Michelle doing her audition dance again.  Sutton Foster’s broadway training really comes out, and the piece is fan-freaking-tastic.  She asks how she did, did they like it?, and out steps…

Hubble, who was thoroughly impressed.  Michelle isn’t surprised by him being there, and they talk about how Michelle was there to rock the boat, and they walk to the table in Fanny’s living room, filled with broken frogs, except four, and then our four main girls are dancing behind them in silhouette, with Michelle wondering if she would have stayed as quietly, but louder and louder, parents are yelling. 

Michelle wakes up and realizes what she has to do.  She purposefully walks out the door, to the hallway, where most of the girls are sitting, and the parents are yelling in the background.  Michelle continues out the hospital door, as the girls make a last ditch effort, standing on chairs and calling out ‘Oh Captain my Captain.’  Michelle has to remind them that the teacher leaves in the end anyway, as she tearfully walks out the door.
 
And that’s it for the summer season!  Bunheads has been picked up for at least eight more episodes, so I’ll have more from the girls in January!

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