Episode Report Card Demian: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Shannen sings!
By Demian | Season 3 | Episode 24 | Aired on 01.19.1997
Tonya darts her eyes over at Nancy and mumbles, "Mom, you’re embarrassing me." Mrs. Harding makes with the "Fine! Do it yourself, you ungrateful little cow!" and stomps off. Tonya turns sadly to Nancy and glums, "She knows I’m gonna choke." Nancy tries to reassure her with, "You’ll be fine. You have to be good to get this far." The shot cuts to the stage, and "this far" is revealed to be the "SoCal Youth Talent Show." Draw your own conclusions on that one. The emcee floridly announces "Suzanne Boxer of Palmdale." Tonya looks like she’s going to wet herself. Nancy bares those teeth again and tells her, "You can do it. Good luck." I’m meant to interpret this as a sign of Nancy’s kind and giving nature, but Nancy’s smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, if you know what I mean. Tonya pulls herself together and emerges on stage. She crosses to hand her sheet music to the accompanist, then plants herself center behind a microphone. Scary Psycho Bitch Mommie mimes "SMILE DAMMIT" from the audience and jerks her head in the judges’ direction. Baby Jane Harding beams dutifully. The pianist plinks out an intro, and Tonya begins in a weak, breathy alto, "Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me." Then she blows it. If you ask me, she blew it right off the bat with her choice of material, but whatever. At least it’s not "Tomorrow" from Annie. She mumbles through the next line of the song, then freezes. As Scary Psycho Bitch Mommie gesticulates frantically from her seat, the judges whisper dismissively amongst themselves. The emcee gallantly rises from his stool off to the side and urges Tonya to "try again later." Scary Psycho Bitch Mommie leaps indignantly to her feet and storms the stage, ordering the pianist and Tonya to continue. "You’re humiliating her," the emcee hisses. "This is none of your business," Scary Psycho Bitch Mommie spits back. Mrs. Kerrigan does not approve. The emcee hustles Harding mere et fille from the stage, Tonya screaming, "No! I haven’t won yet!" all the way. Upon reaching the wings, she screams the latter again into Nancy’s face. Nancy tells Tonya not to give up. Scary Psycho Bitch Mommie snarls, "You don’t know the first thing about it!" Nancy pretends to care for a moment, then fixes that fake smile on her face again to make her entrance. The emcee introduces Nancy as "Heather Romley of South Pasadena." Palmdale and South Pasadena? Snerk. This is even more white-trash than I thought. As the pianist plays Nancy’s intro, Scary Psycho Bitch Mommie tells Tonya she’s "crashed and burned for the last time." "You just watch someone who knows what they’re doing," she continues as she jerks Tonya around into a pose the director ripped straight from Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? -- the scene where the preadolescent Blanche Hudson sullenly regards the performing Baby Jane from the wings. Only, you know, the hair color’s been reversed. And "I’ve Written A Letter To Daddy" is a hell of a lot creepier than what follows. Anyway, out on stage, Nancy charms everyone with her rendition of "Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries." Everyone except me, that is. The song’s cloying and clichéd, Nancy’s alto is as weak and strained as Tonya’s, her phrasing is a disaster, and she keeps going flat. Would that this were the worst singing in this movie. It goes downhill from here. Trust me. Why can’t I be recapping The Commitments? Sure, the acting in that is spotty at best, but at least those people can sing. ["Get Holly Marie to star in a remake and it's all yours." -- Sars] Anyway, the camera pans down from Nancy’s face to her hands, which she holds folded in front of her. The only hint that she’s anything but entirely composed is her nervous habit of rubbing her thumbs together. The shot cuts abruptly to a much-older pair of hands, thumbs a-rubbing, held folded in front of a red satin dress. As Nancy’s childish warble echoes off into the past, the camera pans up a brief expanse of red satin past the silver musical-note pendant to the adult Nancy’s face. Nancy’s all grown up now, and she turned into Shannen Doherty in the process. Normally, I’d call her by her character’s name, but please. The real Shannen-Doherty-as-a-Heather appeared in a far superior movie.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25Next