Katharine McPhee Becomes a Bollywood Bombshell, Uma Thurman Is a Friend with Benefits & More Smash Highlights

NBC’s theater-loving Smash explores our media-crazed world, where there's no such thing as bad publicity. In this week’s episode, aptly titled “Publicity,” Karen (Katharine McPhee) gets seduced into being a Page Six regular. The Bombshell understudy blows off her boyfriend Dev (Raza Jaffrey) to hang with her new BFF, movie star Rebecca Duvall (Uma Thurman). But when Karen starts getting the wrong kind of attention, will she choose Rebecca and her fab lifestyle over Dev? Meanwhile, Leo (Emory Cohen) goes missing and his mom Julia (Debra Messing) goes undercover. Read on for more highlights.

Most Unlikely Friendship: In a classic case of “keep your enemies closer,” Rebecca invites Karen out to party, so she can “check out the competition.” She's likely a bit concerned after Ellis (and pretty much everyone) overhears Derek (Jack Davenport) gushing at Karen about her talent. Rebecca shows Karen the high life and persuades her to sing Leona Lewis' “Run” on stage at a swanky nightclub. Can you say subliminal message? 

Best Perk of Befriending a Movie Star: Forget fame and fortune; concentrate on the free clothes! Now that Rebecca and Karen are hanging out (with pics in The Post to prove it), things get even better for Iowa when the Hollywood headliner exposes her to one of the benefits of stardom. “I did a campaign for 'Molly M.' last month,” Rebecca says to a stunned Karen, gifting her with a $2,000 jacket. “I thought that maybe you could use some of it. You can’t live your life in yoga gear. Don’t you wanna be me?” Yes, but we’ll pass on the stalker boyfriend.

Weirdest Anxiety Attack: Karen finally gets Dev and Rebecca together for dinner at a downscale Indian restaurant, and it is so not fun. Rebecca makes one racist comment after another and Dev does not let anything slide. How to cope? Karen has a full-blown Bollywood panic attack, of course. Suddenly Dev (Jaffrey showing off moves possibly perfected during his real-life stint in the West End’s Bombay Dreams) is in a full-fledged musical number of “A Thousand and One Nights” filled with Hindi garb. The entire cast pops up as well, including Ellis (Jaime Cepero), who fantastically steals a necklace from Eileen’s (Anjelica Huston) treasure chest. At least somebody has their eyes on the prize.

Funniest Threat: After Leo runs away from home, Julia understandably gets desperate, but who knew she'd go bonkers, too? She confronts her son’s best friend for answers. “You better talk to me right now you little creep, or I’m going to make your life a living hell,” Julia barks. “I’m famous. I’ve had plays on Broadway! That sort of thing means something to people in New York City.” If you say so, Jules. P.S. Your Harriet the Spy get-up gives us the giggles.

Biggest Double-Cross: Now that Rebecca is the star of Bombshell and Karen is the understudy, Ivy’s (Megan Hilty) in spot number three but not for long. Ivy gets Ellis, who is always ready to be evil and a bit peeved that he's been put on smoothie duty (don't ask) for Rebecca, to text message Karen that she's done for the day. With Karen gone, a fuming Derek gives Ivy the new number “Second-Hand White Baby Grand." We don’t know what a second-hand baby grand sounds like, but that second-hand solo sounded awfully good!