The continuation of my first-time watch of Glee episodic recaps, featuring my live reactions.
Okay, Emma looks so cute in a suit with her hair done up and red lipstick. Old Hollywood styles always look stunning on her
Will meanwhile...I don't like his hair slicked back like that
"You're All The World To Me" seriously suits Jayma's voice so well. I didn't used to really like Emma's voice, but her songs in the last two episodes have been wonderful
"THE HOUSE IS UPSIDE DOWN" I don't know why I find that as funny as I do
Sugar's outfit is truly brilliant. Sugar is truly brilliant.
Sam and his impressions, my beloveds
Sue's rants. I have never felt so seen as I have with Sue, specifically and only because her sentences go on for so long and have innumerable themes, subjects and lists, broken up only with commas and semicolons
"Shout" is super fun, and I never would have guessed that Brittany's voice would sound so good with soul music. My one concern is in the 'little bit softer now' part it just sounds like they've...turned the volume down, not like Blaine's actually singing quieter. That aside, it's so fun.
Sugar lying on the table is hilarious
This is how I find out that Downton Abbey was around in 2013. Also Adam does a very good Hugh Bonneville impersonation. Sam, take notes.
I can't tell whether Kurt's tone is sarcastic when he's talking about 'She's Having A Baby', but it is funny
Also Santana. I am liking her more this season, and I guess her saying offensive things is slightly nicer when she's not doing it in a mean-spirited way (or you know, a comparatively less mean-spirited way)
Kurt's introduction of Moulin Rouge. Comedy gold
I don't always like Kurt and Blaine's harmonies, but they work here
That looks like a great hug. That was an amazing hug.
Santana loves stirring up drama, and sometimes it makes her fun, and sometimes it makes her really frustrating
Although I do enjoy her calling out Brody for being a creep. I don't like him either.
Also Santana rooting through pockets and draws--HILARIOUS. She's doing it with such intensity too.
"You guys pretend to be all accepting and stuff, but when your friend shows up, moves into your home and goes through all your stuff, you're offended?" Okay, I can forgive all of her other offences briefly, Santana is too funny in this episode for me to hold them against her
Adam's accent just makes everything he says amazing
Finn and Artie committing to the bit with the wigs
Emma's parents are so equal part funny and horrible
Adams 'yea' is adorable
I LOVE that the boys have incorporated Artie's wheelchair into their choreo. Allyship fr.
Also, I know Sam was behind 'Old Time Rock n Roll' (a song I rly like btw)
I'm not convinced the girls can top that. It was legitimately an awesome mashup
Marley looks stunning
Girl, why would you ever believe Kitty when she says she won't tell. She's an awful friend.
I feel like all the glee bullies (except Quinn) do this thing where they feel personally compelled to zone in on particular physical features when talking about and to people
Marley, I pray you do not listen to Kitty. She is an awful friend, I repeat. Also her advice has never gotten you anywhere ever
Yes, Unique lead!
Oh my, Marley's voice suits this song to utter perfection *chef's kiss*
Old Hollywood glamour will always suit everyone
Also their mashup is straight-up out of Moulin Rouge, so I'm not sure they should be counted
Adam truly shines in this episode
I cannot not smile when Finn does. The eyebrow-raise, crooked-smile, shrug combo is just so sweet
I can't believe Will got his students involved in the public serenade, but then, this is Will
Emma's nightdress is so pretty
Okay now I know why the students were involved--so we can get this awkward moment when he thanks them and makes them leave
One nice thing about this show is that they do recycle outfits--Emma's coat in this scene is from S2 Sectionals
And they're still avoiding the whole Finn-and-Emma thing. I guess they think drama is better if you let it stew.
"I'm not. I mean, I am. Just not now." Santana, I will not say this often but, I love you
Santana genuinely being very comforting. I am liking S4 Santana
Jake Puckerman and Marley Rose--ilysm.
Oh no, girl. You are not imagining Ryder instead of Jake. Unlike, the Finn/Emma thing which needs to be addressed, I would really rather the Ryder-kissing-Marley thing be dismissed as a moment of weakness from Ryder and they go back to normal, where Jarley are sweet and Ryder is a good friend.
Marley, you need to get him into a good headspace for this kind of thing, not just drop it on him when he's just finished with a Big Romantic Gesture
(one the flipside I am so glad she told him before Kitty did. Kitty's evil successfully averted!)
And the winner is...everyone. (it's obviously the boys, even though the girls looked and sounded spectacular, the boys were original and more creative)
Sugar!!! Love her!!!
Finn finally confesses and like Marley, chooses a poor moment. I do, however, like that he got it all out there, rather than just going with the select information.
Cory Monteith truly was The Actor for subtle facial expressions. He really did put 100% acting effort into Finn
It’s been 5 years since I last posted. I’m a semi-grown up mess now. I wasn’t even sure I could recover my email/password combo. I did. Here’s a thing I made. Enjoy.
The episode felt like a mix of early season 1 and early season 4. In part because it had the same theme of building a team and really getting to know those kids who form the current ND. But also, the sense of the episode felt very season 1, those first 13 episodes that were filled to the prim with multiple characters narratives that don't have much to do with the overall plot of the season but still connected to it because they narrated the formation of a team, with a side of Will\Sue showdown and Will creeping on watching the students from the wings (though he was visible to them this time) And it's also very season 4, with the early episodes that were near completely dedicated to the newbies to make them known to us.
(And I maintain my opinion from back then. I'd have preferred if the newbies stories were interwoven with the stories of the old cast across the season, instead of them being background characters who sing then having an episode that is solely about them. I liked the episode and I like the new newbies, but as I don't know them all that well and only have minimum info about them, there was a point where I was not as connected as I usually am with the show. And I like the relationships to be a mix of new and old, instead of the old cast mainly interacting together, and the new one mainly interacting together.)
- Masculinity and femininity intersect again in this episode and gender is very present. Myron's Bar Mitzvah signals his coming of age, his being a man, and his celebration is him performing with the Glee club. He also borrows Kitty's panties after he soils his own. Sheldon talks about the best thing about being a man when he is eating his lunch, and mentions something that has absolutely nothing to do with gender, except it kinda does. Because eating messily is frowned upon when it's a woman doing it but it's more acceptable if you're a man. Spencer is trying to show off his masculinity in front of Alistair and his initial response to Roderick is talking about him being a wuss. Roderick tells himself to man up right before he climbs the rope to rescue Myron. There is Madison being called dominating and controlling and Mason being a badass male cheerleader. There is Sue and Sheldon supervising the work out at the beginning of the episode, with Sheldon being the one willing to sympathize and cut Roderick some slack, whereas Sue refuses to back off and basically humiliates Roderick. Will brings up Bob misgendering Sue and Sue jumps on Will's back and brings him to the ground. And Kitty and Madison appear to shape Myron's eyebrow and groom him in the background of the final Will\Rachel talk.
- The first scene with Sue, Sheldon and Roderick ties into a couple others. Sue preaches change and acceptance to Sheldon in Transitioning then runs off to fat shame a student, which is something also connected to Sheldon. Roderick talks about how people are always throwing fat jokes at him in the premiere when he was walking the hallways alone ad we saw how Sue makes students wear pig masks to shame them for their weight. She doesn't make Roderick wear one now, but she gathers everyone around to witness his attempt at climbing and puts more pressure on him. Public humiliation in both cases. Sue continues to handpick who gets seen a a human being and thus gets supported by her and in what way, and she continues to think that fear and humiliation are incentives.
- Once again, Sue is masking her awful behavior with talk about something right and making it the facade that she hides her awfulness behind. She talks about America struggling with diabetes when she is publicly shaming Roderick. But it's not about Roderick's health to her. This is the woman that encourages disordered eating in her Cheerios. It's about looks. The false martyrdom is back at play.
- That's why I liked the resolution of the Roderick\Spencer plot though it seemed a little off and too easy, because.... isn't Roderick afraid of heights? But what I liked was how the Public Humiliation circle at the start of the episode was replaced with a circle of support as Roderick climbed the rope. How Spencer was showed to care about Roderick's health at the end as opposed to Sue, because he is happy that Roderick is exercising but discourages him from taking protein supplements and tells him that eating organic chicken is better. How Roderick felt like Spencer really had his back and not just out of a desire to get to his lab partner.
- Parallel #1: Sue says that Roderick is a disgrace. She also told Quinn that she is a disgrace. Quinn who was overweight as a kid and was humiliated and taunted for it and had to undergo an operation and go on a harsh diet to feel accepted. Quinn whose nickname was Lucy Caboosy (and the camera focuses on Roderick's butt as he walks down the hall.) Quinn who got dumped by Puck because she gained weight and who Sue aimed a fair share of weight remarks at during her pregnancy.
- This is the first time we see Roderick walking in the hallway with his headphones on again since the premiere, isn't it? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? I'm singing out as loud as I know how. He is not being heard here. He protests that he doesn't want to take Madison out and Mason continues to push him to. He says he doesn't want to sing with her and Mason ignores it and runs off. Spencer's response to his asking for help and wanting to try is ridicule and he only does help when Roderick becomes a bridge to Alistair so it's not about Roderick himself. Roderick clearly doesn't want to be paired with Spencer but he doesn't say anything until Spencer calls him a quitter, when he was the one who wanted to try initially.
- Spencer really reminded me of Puck in this episode. The whole vibe of showing up his physical attributes and crushing from afar, showing his softer side and even being a jerk but giving sound advice (well, in some places. In others he was just a jerk. Period) are all things that Puck have done before. And the puffing up his arms thing remind me of Jake and Ryder in Naked. And Spencer is the current "player", like Puck and Jake were. Basically Spencer is the Puckerman brothers.
- Parallel #2: There was this vague background parallelism going on between Rachel and Blaine on one side, and Mason, Madison and Myron on the other. The twins have been compared to Blainchel from their introduction, due to looks and intensity and performing background mostly. But Mason also says that their parents were all about performing since they were kids, and Rachel's parents are the ones who are canonically confirmed as being into performing and into pushing their daughter into performing opportunities. At least Blaine's mother is the same, considering that she raised Blaine AND Cooper, who have been performing since they were kids too and we've seen how Pam's performance methods mirrors Blaine's in a lot of ways. Mason sings a Queen song dressed eerily like Blaine's outfit in Don't Stop Me Now. Madison in the cafeteria was Rachel dialed up to twelve and on steroids and there were a lot of parts where the conversation between Mason and Madison had echoes from conversations between Rachel and others, mainly Finn and Kurt. Even Spencer's crack about the twins dating is somewhat connected to this. Duets have been used as a weird equivalent\allegory to relationships on the show and who are the people Rachel often duets with? Her romantic interests, Kurt who is her platonic soulmate, and Blaine. Also problems with a controlling sibling that just has so many opinions about your life and about your performances and looks is something that Mason and Blaine should totes have a conversation about.
Now Myron is also a child star with family that encourages and provides performing opportunities. He is Jewish like Rachel and is a more extreme version of young!Rachel, and he has similar looks and style to Blaine's. His room also has the same layout as adult!Blaine's room (I'm pretty sure they used the same set).
- Parallel #3: Jane has never been to BreadStix because her mom says it's infested with cockroaches. Tina has never seen Twilight because her mom doesn't like Kristen Stewart. Tina was Other Asian. Jane was Other Girl. Tina pulled away from stuff so as not to cause tension in the team. Jane does the same after witnessing Madison's tiff with Mason. Tina was silenced a lot and existed in the background. Jane is also silenced and hasn't sung in a while, the most prominent example was during the invitationals when she was the only one not singing, and she gets cut off by Madison in this episode. She too seems to exist in the background. Jane is totally The New Tina.
- Jane is an attention hog for.....having big natural hair and beautiful legs? Meanwhile, it's the boys who get solos in the episode.
- Callbacks to season 1:
* Will refuses to accept money from Myron because it's against show choir rules, and Sue gets that look on her face. That was one of her weapons against Will in season 1, when he used one of the mattresses the kids got from the commercial and she caused the kids to go to Sectionals without their coach because of the stink she raised.
* Will's comment about his body spray. Because one of his weapons against Sue was her crush on him which he fostered himself. And even though it makes me super uncomfortable for feelings to be used as a weapon against someone, I'm still glad to have a reminder of that plot (which I previously bleached my brain to forget) because just like Will learned from Sue's stunt with the mattresses, she also learned from him with his stunt with her. He used Sue's heart to go after her in season 1, and Sue used Rachel's heart to go after her in season 6.
* Suzy Q: this made Suzy Pepper, who also had a crush on Will, spring to mind. But this is also the nickname Sue's mother used for her back in Furt and it's fitting it gets brought up now considering that her mom is back next episode. (Also I can't hear Q without thinking of Quinn who have been paralleled with Sue a lot.)
* It's Sue vs Will Round 546255654, complete with Sue going crazy in the hall way and throwing students against the walls. God help us with how overused and repetitive and boring this part is.
- Self-aware Glee is the best Glee. I loved the acknowledgement that no one really knows the new kids because so far, it has all been about the Alums. Also, this episode shows that they weren't really a team. They got involved with the familial activities of OND but again, that was about what the Alums had, that was the Alums' story. But this group of kids weren't a family. They weren't even a team at this point. They don't know or see or hear each other. They are still learning.
- There were a lot of echoes of season 4 newbies in this episode. Kitty snarks at Will (and Rachel but mainly Will because she was looking right at him) about introducing an alumnus again, because as soon as any of the Alums showed up, NND faded into the background and it became about the Alums, not the current students. It has also happened with Rachel this season. Then there is pairing the students part, and Will tries to get Spencer and Roderick to do it together after he witnesses their fight, which Finn also did with NND in Dynamic Duets. DD ends with Some Nights, in which they are wearing the same color and in which Kitty rolls her eyes after singing with Marley, and Jake and Ryder begin their friendship. This ends with The Cool Kids with them in the same color, Kitty rolls her eyes after singing with Myron, and Spencer and Roderick begin their friendship. Then the newbies photos magically show up on Sue's board, when they weren't there before and when, technically, it makes no sense for them to be there considering that Sue already forced them out.
- The Cool Kids felt like a hybrid of Chasing Pavements and Some Nights. It's the first group song the kids perform for their coaches out of a competition setting and in a similarly colored outfits that signals their team status, just like CP and SN. Some of the choreography reminded me of Chasing Pavements and the overall feeling was very Some Nights.
- Kitty, Rachel and Mason were the stars of this for me. All the facial expressions they pulled throughout the episode were spot on. Rachel's face in the scene where Sue recruits them made the scene for me. Kitty was golden. I'm so happy that Becca is back this season. And Billy Lewis Jr is a super star.
- It's hard to appreciate that someone outsmarted Sue and beat her at her own game and played the rules the same way she does, because Myron is so obnoxious. The boy is a menace, and he needs an attitude adjustment like yesterday.
- I LOVED The Cool Kids. My favorite number of the episode, with I Want to Break Free coming in second. The part where Kitty is in the center singing on her own and leaning towards every single one of them in her dancing was the best.
- The twins conversation in the choir room was really lovely, and really kind. I loved seeing the dynamic beyond the performance-bound, sentence-finishing duo we saw before. And I loved that Madison's realization came after a song in a typical Glee fashion.
- Mason is someone who gets heard better when he is singing than when he is talking. Yeah, the parallel with Blaine is getting more shaped up.
- The whole thing with Sam\Finn parallel thing is getting too much for me. There are places where the parallel is part of the storytelling but in this episode, with Sam getting comments that Finn typically would have gotten about his dancing, it is making me feel weird and uncomfortable. I feel like Sam is disappearing into being a surrogate Finn and I don't like it.
- Will telling Rachel to listen to the kids. Well, I mean it's a sound advice on its own. Except.....really, Will? He was the master of not listening to his students or hearing them but not really hearing them. I do think that Rachel still has a lot to learn with this and that for the most part, she doesn't really know her students. But she is trying and she is improving. Will continues to think that his methods are the best thing since sliced bread and dear god, do I need someone other than Sue to call him out. Kitty is doing a bang up job of it. I vote she continues.
Kurt’s therapist says he was always picking fights with Blaine because men argue to stay connected, but Blaine didn’t want to do that because he’s not afraid of intimacy. I do not know if that is true about men. I started to Google “fighting to stay connected” but Google suggested “fighting to save the world” and the first result was “SUPER FIGHTING ROBOT MEGAMAN FIGHTING TO SAVE THE WORLD,” so I … lost a little bit of time on that one.
Heather Hogan's "Loser Like Me" recap on Autostraddle
.... I'm not formally doing Glee recaps for this season, at least for the time being. I'm not writing for Billboard as much anymore, so instead I'm focused on features, interviews and other Glee-related projects for various outlets (Out, Vulture, something else in the works...), but skipping "official" recaps and reviews. I'll still post some thoughts here like any good Glee fan on Tumblr, and I'm pretty sure I'll be contracted somewhere to write about the finale, but that's all.
(For the numbers, I've officially recapped 76 of the 121 Glee episodes. I didn't do season 1 or officially the first half of two, and I am missing these last 13. My guestimate is on recaps of Glee alone I've written 112k words.)
Also, because I don't know if I ever posted it, my everyday writing for The Daily Dot is here. It's never about Glee, but if you're into the world of YouTube and "viral" news there's a lot to enjoy.
Oh Glee, how I have missed you, the way you delight me, the way you frustrate me, and the way you surprise me.
1) As a fan of Ryan Murphy's work and the angry story about fame that he has been telling on AHS, I find myself fascinated and delighted by Rachel's initial reaction to her show failing. Not the going into hiding part because it is never the answer but.... Uninvited, because as much as Hollywood loves a success story, they also love trainwrecks, and that's exactly how Rachel was being viewed. The young girl who got the ravest of reviews on Broadway only to leave for TV and tank, and it's all on her, because she was the face of both. I got chills while she was singing Uninvited. She is not a spectacle. She wasn't going to let people make a spectacle out of her.
2) I don't know if I'm reaching or not, but That's So Rachel felt like a joke on fandom. Because what we saw? That sure as hell wasn't the script the gang was shown reading in 5x20, and the characters (Cert, Bartie) were the same one in Mary Halloran's weird script, and the singing got cut by the network. Fandom, we have no idea what it takes to write for TV. Also, the whole "blaming the face of the show" for the failure of the show. Um, wonder where I read that one before? :)
3) Both Blaine and Rachel fall into the trap of trying to run things the way they were before. Blaine keeps talking about tradition when Jane first approaches him and he doesn't know what to do, and Rachel tries to run the club the way Will did, recreating her own experience and telling Roderick what she would have done if she was the one auditioning. But both are fast learners and both end up doing the right thing. Priority 1: Help the kids. They fight for change. They end up colliding in a situation where neither (or both) was wrong. I can't blame Rachel for accepting Jane and she didn't know about Blaine fighting for her, she was honoring what Jane wanted. And I can't blame Blaine for viewing it as a betrayal. He brought her Jane, he was putting his job on the line trying to change a deep rooted tradition at Dalton and he had the carpet swept from under his feet just when he succeeded. Kurt made the whole thing worse because it wasn't about whose team needed members, it was about Blaine feeling betrayed that his friend did that to him and rendered his success meaningless. And Blaine's trust in Kurt is shattered to pieces if he thinks that Kurt doctored this to get back at him.
5) As much as I love that Blaine fought for Jane, she was right. She is looking for a community, the one that her father and uncle were a part of, the one that proclaims that once a warbler, always a warbler. She spoke their language, she drew them in, and they didn't want her. What kind of community would she have if they viewed her as an intruder? Blaine can't change that, he has no control over it. He can get her in, but he can't make them accept her in their midst.
6) And on the note of a community that isn't really a community, I was surprised by how Home presented the imagery of Mckinlely, and those who once belonged to it, as a community united during the pep rally. But it's an illusion of a community.
7) For someone who is adamant that he is a co-director and not an assistant, Kurt sure keeps telling Rachel to take action. She is the one who needs to be proactive and she is the one who calls the other alumni. He hasn't quite gotten a grip on this yet.
8) Sue forced the newbies to transfer and Mckinley lost its magic. That was so apparent after Take On Me when it turned out that the student body participation was an illusion. It still puts things into perspective that she was worried what a few teenagers might do that she got them out to ensure no opposition. Now Glee club doesn't even inspire contempt, it inspires indifference, which is worse. (Also, fuck you, William Shuester. "You guys weren't there" Yes, because no one else mattered enough for you to fight for. Kitty should be set free on his ass. Serves him right that VA don't respect his authority)
9) Both Kurt and Blaine are in therapy. God, you have no idea how much I cheered. I've wanted this for a long time because I feel like they needed some outside help to recognize their patterns. The process is obviously different, since Blaine's therapy focused on getting him out of the depressive episode he has fallen into and ease him back into the outside world after he, too, fell into hiding. But I'm very interested in seeing where that route leads him and what realizations will come with it. Because there is a whole lot there. One thing that jumped out at me: Blaine is putting up a front of being over the break up. He is as fine as can be. He got himself out of a slump and he is building something, but his reaction to Kurt seemed far too friendly and okay for me to accept. He started the episode with his words dripping with bitterness when he was telling Rachel that they were too young, only to be that friendly with Kurt? Nah, I'm not buying it, especially not after "I will never forgive you" and Blaine's life crashing around him, and his distrust at the end of the episode. I think he just shoved it aside and tried to move on without dealing with it, and I think, as he usually does when he internalizes stuff, that he is headed for an explosion. Because that boy is angry.
With Kurt, I feel like there is already some progress, even though I don't really like the gender speech of "men fight in lieu of intimacy" But I think that this is a great start for him to realize that he does have trouble connecting and letting Blaine in and that in their fighting, he keeps acting like Blaine is an adversary and keeps throwing his walls in Blaine's face..... and Blaine isn't like that. He doesn't connect like that. He doesn't love like that. I love that Kurt has recognized this, his own pattern and how different Blaine's is. I keep going back to "I think of boundaries as walls, instead of places to grow within" Thing is, it was both. Kurt needed his space, and that was legit and Blaine needed to learn to let him have that space, but his space was never going to be a separate apartment, it was never going to be his and his alone (the toothpaste fight? It seems so superficial, so simple, but as always with those two, it's a manifestation of something more complicated. To me, that read as Kurt not being mindful of someone else's presence in the loft. He was still having trouble sharing his space and accommodating Blaine in it. And damn, three hours? That must have been brutal)
We've talked, after TURBP, about how it was great that Kurt learned to share his space with how he planned the work space for Blaine, but someone on my dash once pointed out that Kurt added some noticeable changes to Blaine's outline. I didn't think much of it then, but maybe it was an attempt of Kurt to control Blaine's presence in the loft and in his life? Maybe he was still having trouble letting Blaine in and that was his compromise then? Only he couldn't manage to let Blaine in and he started throwing up emotional walls when there was no physical walls to be between them.
(And man, if Kurt doesn't sing Back to December at one point, that would be a missed opportunity)
10) I was bothered a bit with how much info we got told instead of shown or just was skipped. Like, what happened with Blaine's living situation after the break up? Did Kurt try to help when Blaine started failing his classes or did he decide that a clean break would be best? Did Kurt try to help and Blaine just wasn't open to getting help from him?
11) Blainofsky is definitely not an easy relationship to discuss and Blaine's headspace remains a mystery for the most part, but it looks like Dave really cares about Blaine. And Blaine looks.... comfortable in it, even if not loving or affectionate with Dave, he never leaned away from him but he also never leaned in. He accepts Dave's touch but never initiates anything. I got the impression that for Blaine, it's because Dave is nice and reliably there. That's what struck me the most during Home. Dave was the only one with Blaine, offering physical affection, while all the others, including his two best friends and several people he lived with once, were singing about being home, and didn't even turn to look at him. Blaine was on the outside of that. I think that it's about being able to trust Dave's presence which is something Blaine had trouble with with Kurt.
12) How affectionate Dave was with Blaine really gave me pause. On one hand, I do love that Blaine is getting that because he is a tactile person and physical touch has always been a tell for me for when he wasn't okay (Dynamic Duets, anyone?) But on the other, it just made the cracks in Kurt and Blaine's relationship more apparent, didn't it? It made Kurt's distance prior to the break up, starting from season 5, more clear. (And was it just me or was Dave a bit manic and hyper at Scandals? It was like he was overcompensating. But I have no understanding of Dave Karofsky so who knows)
(Okay, I'm going to stop talking about Kurt and Blaine now and save it for another post)
13) I love the new newbies. The twins are quirky and just my type of weird, Jane and Roderick are amazing and adorable and I already love them. The only one I'm still iffy on is Spencer.
