Welcome to the twelfth recap of the fourth season of Glee, a variety hour featuring a rotating roster of uninspired pop covers performed by lithe industrious teenagers with a passion for fundraising under the esteemed tutelage of the Great Goddess Rumbledethumps‘ one and only son, Finn Hudson. This week, all the boys took their clothes off and all the girls kept their clothes on. It was quite an experience.
But guys can I just talk to you for a minute? The Whole Foods across the street from my apartment just added a bulk cookies area! My whole life has changed. They even have hamentashen! In related news, this week I uncovered the secret to “why we got an apartment in this area for such a reasonable price” — the building’s previous owner killed himself and afterwards they discovered he’d been hiding his son’s dead body in the wall for four years! They found the makeshift tombwall in the laundry room which shares a wall with our apartment, so we call it The Laundry Tomb now. Anyhow, onward ho!
We open on a brilliant, beaming Ohio morning, where Hunter Warbler’s escaping a hectic courtroom bombarded by press desperate for news on The Warblers’ unceremonious ousting from Nationals due to their habit of sticking things up each other’s butts.
By “things” I mean “syringes filled with performance-enhancing drugs,” obvs.
We thus glide joyously over to what appears to be The Glee Room again, where Rumbledethumps scrawls “Regionals!!!” on the whiteboard of truth, inspiring the children to scream in simultaneous orgasm.
Finn then implores his charges not to “waste time celebrating” ’cause they’re short on prep time now that they’ve spent the last three weeks executing poorly-planned plot stunts like the dud Sadie Hawkins dance and a horrifying Christmas special. There’s only a few weeks left to audition, plan and perform a series of songs before pretending like none of that ever happened and doing the Macarena at Nationals.
Then Finn proposes they focus on raising money, because Glee Club loves fundraising (see also: Episdoe 111, Episode 217, Episode 221) and they’ve got to fund a bus ride to Indianapolis, “the Paris of Indiana” (-Artie). Some of the earnest youths chime in with solutions:
Teen Jesus: “I’d be willing to cut off my hair to sell it for extra cash.”
Meow Mix: “To who? Jamaican kids with Rastafarian cancer? Or as a rigging on a haunted pirate ship?”
Sam: “I could sell more of my semen.”
Riese: “WHO WANTS TO SELL TAFFFY???!!!!!!”
Although I’d personally be thrilled to see Teen Jesus shed his stupid white-boy dreads, Tina’s got another idea involving stripping one’s body of things: The Men of McKinley Calendar! Tina gushes that this year’s Glee boys are the best-looking Glee boys of all time, so I think they’ve wiped Mike Chang from the Glee Collective Memory officially now, and therefore they should pose in a calendar and sell it. Basically, she wants to see Blaine naked.
Tina: “I think Blaine should definitely be December. You can do a Santa thing, but sexy. Sexy Claus.”
Mhm.
We then zip on over to the Estate of Brittany S. Pierce for another rousing episode of everybody’s favorite Daytime Cooking Program, Fondue for Two!Â
Brittany, in an act of misguided goodwill, brings poor sad Marley-Kate onto the show to insult and attack all her tender spots:
Brit-Brit: “You may know tonight’s guest only as the girl with the fat mom who ruined Sectionals for everybody.”
Brit-Brit then pursues a psychologically damaging line of inquiry chock-full of zingers like “Do you think that you relate to The Hunger Games because you yourself are hungry?”
Marley desperately grasps to re-steer the conversation by offering her pet psychic services to Brit-Brit and subsequently suggesting that Lord Tubbington’s got an online gambling addiction and wants to lose weight, which despite being true, doesn’t sway Brit-Brit from her perspective on Lord Tubbington’s troubles: she thinks he’s a slum lord with buildings that aren’t up to code. Well, at least there’s not a dead body in the wall. Hahahahaha!!
Brit-Brit: “Please admit to my viewing audience that you are in love with Jake. I thought so! If Jake is brave enough to take off his clothes for the Men of McKinley calendar, don’t you think you owe him the same courtesy?”
Brit-Brit suggests that because New Puck is getting naked for the Most Horrifying Calendar Ever, Marley-Kate should consider getting naked with her feelings and confessing her love to New Puck, but don’t worry, New Puck won’t see it because “Fondue for Two” exists in another dimension of time/space. Oh also this happened:
We travel forward in time on a bat out of hell to the menacing lair of the ambivalent Principal Figgins, who’s called a meeting with the “sexy teen imbeciles” to discuss how they “managed to receive the highest and lowest SAT scores ever recorded at McKinley.” They should’ve taken their SATs like three months ago/last year and if this is January, college applications are due in like approximately a minute from now, but whatever.
Sam easily assumes he’s the secret genius, but not so fast — our underdog, Brit-Brit, employed a strategy which saw her filling in A for a while, and then C for a little bit, and then D and then A again and then using the dots to draw a clown and then a penis, and it earned her a near-perfect 2340. Meanwhile Sam’s score was at monkey-standards. Brit-Brit tells him he’s a handsome monkey, which’s probably kindhearted but also kinda mean considering the academic encouragement she gave to Santana when her prospects dimmed. This show has no consistency, so I doubt this disparity means anything because nothing! means! anything! in! Glee!, but still, just saying. Anyhow, Brit-Brit says Sam’s sexy and she knows it:
Brit-Brit: “Sam, don’t worry, okay? You don’t need to go to college like the rest of us.  You have a great body. You could be a personal trainer. You could be a greeter at Abercrombie. You could be a greeter at Abercrombie’s corporate headquarters— whatever you wanna do. But meanwhile, my future looks bright, I’m gonna graduate, I’ll go to Harvard or Princetown or MITT or Stanford and Son or the University of California at Charles Barkley’s house because evidently, I’m one of the smartest people in America.”
What’s funny is that the only member of this graduating class who truly could skip college is Brittany S. Pierce, who I predict could have a promising career dancing with Beyoncé, an independent woman you may recall from this evening’s Super Bowl and last week’s press conference and your still-beating heart.
Thus we galavant gayly through mountains of snow and rivers of slush and gullies of mud towards the great great city of New York, New York, where The New Rachel’s chatting with the director of an inevitably abysmal student film, poetically titled “Come Back To Me, Grandmother: A Journey Into Alzheimer’s.”
I’m unaware of the director’s name so I’ve decided to name her Lorna (Doone, after Natalie’s favorite cookie) for the purposes of this recap. Rachel grapples for meaning:
Lorna: “The grandmother slipping into dementia is an allegory.”
The New Rachel: “Of course, Yeah —”
Lorna: “Obviously, the end of the world.”
Oh right, Lorna adds, also you’ll have to show everybody your knockers.
But is Rachel ready to unveil her naked breasts? The New Rachel can’t think of anybody better to consult than her younger, wiser self, before she moved to New York and got involved with eyeliner and a hunky nudist. New Rachel notes that her breasts are her prizewinner, but Old Rachel counters that she makes Geyerdean turn off the lights while cuddling.
Old Rachel: “You have a beautiful body, but are you really ready to expose yourself to the world?”
The New Rachel:Â “That’s what all great artists do, they expose themselves.”
Old Rachel: “Expose their souls, not their flesh.”
The New Rachel:Â “But it’s all part of the same package, am I really expected to be able to bear my soul if I’m ashamed of the body that holds it
Old Rachel:Â “I think a little shame is a good thing.”
Okay — Rachel Berry did you miss your Miss Lady Drama Business podcast today? Because woman, you’ve gotta save your rack for something really kickass, like The Real L Word. Just kidding! No truly, it’s just good business for an actress specifically to hold out on nudity until you get paid for it or, you know, if you’ve been offered the lead role in an ultimately Tony-winning Broadway musical like Spring Awakening. Or perhaps you’ve been offered a plumb role like Kate Winslet’s in Titanic, or if your name is Angelina Jolie and you’re in Gia. Remember Angelina Jolie topless in Gia? The first girl I ever kissed and I rented Gia from the video store and never gave it back.
Old Rachel points out that New Rachel’s not a porn star and notes that New Rachel’s hair and makeup are very Real Sex. Unable to reach a suitable conclusion, they choose the worst way possible to solve a conflict, which’s by performing a split personality duet of Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn.
At the song’s stunning conclusion, Rachel consents to the topless scene.
