Back in McKinley’s majestic auditorium, the Glee Clubbers are working on their propped-up “What a Feeling”s. Everyone’s like wah wah wah this is silly these face shields are stupid blah blah blah. The students stand up and ring that bell and yell “Union! Union! Union!” Also Santana says Wanky for some reason. I have no clue why.
DON'T CARE WHY. LOVE IT.
Honestly, if they actually had spent all season working on the number with those costumes and the sparks flying it would probably be an incredible performance.
I IMAGINE THIS IS WHAT A WIGGLES CONCERT LOOKS LIKE
Sue, is basically totally unimpressed with everyone’s dancing skills (apparently Booty Camp helped zero) demands that everyone pick up the pace. I mean, it’s not like everyone else has been training all year. Oh wait.
OH THAT'S HOW YOU HAVE LESBIAN SEX!
Sue even remarks that Jennifer Beals would be rolling in her grave which is SO NOT FUNNY because IFC totally could have done that to us.
EXCUSE ME? I DON'T THINK YOU'VE PROPERLY CONSIDERED THE RAMIFICATIONS FOR THE L WORD IF BETTE HAD BEEN KILLED OFF.
Elsewhere, Santana, Brittany and Mercedes barge in to the teachers lounge unannounced to confront Coach Beiste about the whole not-leaving-her-abusive-husband thing.
It’s basically 100% inappropriate for students to confront teachers about their personal lives or, for that matter, for teachers to so deeply inform students about their personal lives. Regardless, my feelings about Glee‘s PSA about domestic abuse are largely consistent with Riese’s. Anyways Glee does that thing where they juxtapose the stated Serious Issue of the episode with stuff like Brittany saying she doesn’t wear any underwear. Hawt, but either way somehow this turns in to Beiste getting invited to Nationals even though she claims she’s not welcome in Chicago after she body slammed some dude. Which really clarifies Glee‘s non-violence message.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE CANCELING VARSITY WOMEN'S MUD WRESTLING ?!
Cut to the Men’s locker room where Kurt debuts his avant garde amateur show choir porn entitled Vocal Adrenaline Human Centipede. No but seriously they call a dance move the human centipede and I think the writers probably should have gone ahead and Googled that phrase before using it. I think the Glee writers need an intern. Kurt, again, refuses to dress in drag because this is an epically stupid idea and Mr. Shue has nothing to say about this because he is epically stupid.
MUCH LIKE THUNDERDOME, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.
Star-sweep back to the auditorium, where Rachel has forgone any classes and just sits by the piano rehearsing all day long. Tina walks in all jazzed up about teamwork and Rachel Berry now. I get more lemon zinger tea because I am tragically bored of this plot line. Tina suggests she and Rachel go see Sister Mary Clarence in person and blow her away with a rock rendition of “Salve Regina.”
AND AFTERWORDS MAYBE I COULD JUST BRUSH YOUR HAIR FOR A LITTLE WHILE
I refuse to let the Sister Act jokes die. Refuse.
Back in the choir room, Sue has a new plan to spice things up by hiring “little people” to dance with the Club at nationals. Besides the fact that this is definitely some type of -ist, I’m guessing it’s against the rules. Then Puck comes out in the worst drag ever. Really this is a missed opportunity because I bet, given the proper assistance, Puck could have made a nice looking drag queen. Regardless, Captain Will is totally over gimmicks and just wants everyone to sing and dance together in to the sunshine.
I FNID IT SOMEHOW WEIRD THAT THIS FOLLOWS THE STRIP POKER EPISODE
After Glee Club — which apparently takes places in the middle of the day — Puck has a run-in with those hockey bros by his locker. “Rick the Stick Dick” gives Puck a hard time about not graduating and wearing a dress for Glee Club. It was actually pretty painful to watch because the thought of Puck not graduating does actually break my heart in to a million pieces. It also made no sense because if Puck was a talented athlete (even just by McKinley High Standards) he could probably do no wrong. Hey — what happened to basketball season? The two decide to fight out by the dumpsters because talking about your feelings is for wusses and weirdos.
WHY DON'T YOU SHOW ME HOW YOU REALLY LIKE IT?
Speaking of talking about your feelings, Tina and Rachel process all the feelings as they drive to see Whoopi who, despite being a big deal in New York, is still puttering about in the Midwest. Feelings about Nationals and feelings about NYAYAYAADADAD. Hilariously, Rachel is concerned about missing a year of ingenue eligibility. I had to Google “ingenue,” but Rachel has nothing to worry about. That Lea Michele girl is still playing young innocent characters and she’s 25 and never went to college.
Sadly, Rachel is going through this thing lots of smart, talented kids go through around 18/19 years old when they suddenly realize that they’re not the only talented kid out there and all of their dreams might not come true and maybe they won’t get in to Tufts Early Decision. Or something. Either way, Tina is all, “I love you, let me just put your fingers in my mouth for a second and soak up your epic greatness” because she’s a Rachel Berry fangirl now. Or else just naturally a really kind and supportive person or else just needs a friend.
AND AFTER I FINISH BRUSHING YOU HAIR MAYBE WE COULD JUST HOLD HANDS AND MAKE FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS
Outside at the dumpster, it’s Bro Versus Bro as Puck and Rick duke it out for Ultimate High School Bully Glory. Puck takes a mean swing at Rick after Rick insults his father’s microbrew company. I mean, you can’t just go around insulting other people’s dad’s microbrews. Jeez.
WITH THIS LITTLE RESOLUTION, PUCK COULD ALSO JUST BE POKING HIM IN THE EYES
They fight. Rick kicks Puck’s ass and throws him in a dumpster and everyone chants “Loser Loser Loser.” But wait! Puck climbs out of the dumpster and pulls out a motherfucking knife!
YOU NEVER BRING A KNIFE TO A FISTFIGHT
Coach Beiste breaks up the fight (which is like a full two minutes long — which is a really long time for Glee in case you forgot) and drags Puck over to talk about his feelings.
WordPress is telling me that “motherfucker” is a word but “fangirl” isn’t. I think that says a lot about Autostraddle.
Coach Beiste yells at Puck who admits his knife is just a West Side Story prop, and tells him he could get arrested and he’s got priors. PRIORS. Puck doesn’t give a hoot though because no one ever cared about him or told him he was a special magical rainbow dolphin. Not even Mr. Schue who basically tells that to everyone.
IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT
Is it weird that I kind of think Mark Salling and Dot-Marie Jones did a great job with what they were given? I mean, they did what they could with what they had. It kind of felt like a bad version of that Good Will Hunting.
Rachel finally tracks down Sister Mary Clarence where she’s been kidnapped by Vince’s men — I mean Madame Tibideaux where she’s teaching a master class on singing and ruining some young man’s dreams. Rachel asks Madame Tibideaux if she received the 143 voice mails, 12.8 fruit baskets and her own left kidney that she sent. Madame Tibideaux remarks that Rachel is being a selfish little twat who is no more entitled to her attention than the other billions of people who come on Hollywood Squares. Tina, who is still all hopped up on teamwork, interjects that Rachel is not only just a selfish twat, she’s also massively talented (although clearly not so talented that she could skip college completely and star on Broadway right out of high school). Rachel tell Madame Tibideaux that if she would just listen to her sing it would open up the magical key to the kingdom of her heart. Whoopi tells them to git.
I'M NOT SURE IF YOU'RE AWARE OF THIS, BUT I'M A FUCKING EGOT
Back at home with Cooter, Beiste has it all figured out now that she processed her feelings with Puck. She’s gonna build a pool and have Puck clean it all summer. Or just move out.
THIS IS A SERIOUS FACE FOR A SERIOUS MOMENT
Cooter is super duper extra sorry, but on the bright side he recruited a kid from Newton South which is a high school like 15 minutes away from my apartment.
EW.
But Shannon (which I should really call Beiste during these private moments) is having none of it. Dot-Marie Jones nails it as Cooter spews out every PSA abuser line from “You can’t hate me more than I already hate myself” to “Who’s going to love you the way I loved you?”
BAM.
In what is only the third song in 25 minutes, Puck and Shannon join together for a round of Taylor Swift’s “Mean.” It would be a lot easier to take this scene seriously if Shannon wasn’t in knee socks and Puck wasn’t 30. Or maybe if they were singing something other than Taylor Swift. Shannon finishes off by announcing to Puck that he can retake his European Geography final because his teacher is totally hot for his mid-length hemlines or something. We probably should have seen this one coming what with Puck being on the cover of the Graduation Album. Shannon tells Puck he’s not alone and, yes, this would have been an excellent moment for “No One Is Alone” from Into the Woods but no one listens to me.
SOMEONE IS ON YOUR SIDE (OUR SIDE) YOUR SIDE, SOMEONE ELSE IS NOT
Over in the costume room, Tina drops some teamwork shit on the rest of the newbies.
WHO EVER GETS THIS KIND OF COSTUMING SPACE?! WHO?
Tina is happy to be sewing someone else’s costume because they are all unique beautiful rainbow colors and together they make a majestic sunset. As someone who spent a lot of time sewing costumes for amateur musical theater I feel obliged to let you know that The Costume Committee is almost always one girl who gets tricked in to it by her friends repeatedly and there’s never a nice big sewing room like that. However, the level of last-minuteness Glee is presenting is highly accurate.
AND AFTER WE FINISH HER COSTUMES WE'RE ALL GOING TO TAKE TURNS MAKING SURE RACHEL IS EMOTIONALLY AND PHYSICALLY SATISFIED
Shannon goes ahead and asks Will and Sue if she can chaperone the Glee trip. She informs them she’s left Cooter since he turned out to be more of a Dick (heyooo). Also she has the smallest number of personal possessions ever. Clearly that bag is not actually big enough to hold all of her knee socks.
I'M SORRY, BUT THAT SUITCASE WOULD HOLD LIKE TWO PAIRS OF PANTIES AND A HAIRBRUSH MAYBE
Anyways so Rachel and Finn share some sappy moment about how their Unique Factor is really just that they’re all so different. Diversity guys! To celebrate an entire episode without an obnoxious pep-talk/lecture from Finn, Rachel and Tina sing “What a Feeling” all the way from the auditorium on the way on to the bus to Nationals.
APPARENTLY THIS IS THE BEST MOMENT OF TINA'S LIFE. DREAM BIGGER, GIRL.
Did you say Nationals!?!?!
AS AN ADULT MAN, WILL REALLY NEEDS TO GET HIS INVOLVEMENT IN THE LIVES OF HIS STUDENTS IN CHECK
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I love how Rachel-as-Tina looks like all the Avril Lavigne fangirls I knew in middle school. And, also, really hot.
Naya as Artie = Gasp + Swoon.
My elaborate scheme to work a picture of Rashida Jones into a recap was flawless.
$100 bucks if you can work Rashida Jones into every Glee post going forward. Thx!
I try to read the ambiguity surrounding Unique’s identity as their own confusion. It’s probably just Glee effing things up, but it makes me feel better to think it’s Unique not being entirely sure what they are. Gender identity is something I struggle with too, some days I feel like I’m just a wannabe drag king, whereas other days it’s more of a, yeppp I’m definitely bigender. So I can relate to that part of Unique’s character, even if it’s just me applying wayyyy too much queer theory to Glee’s abuse of pronouns.
Yeah, but constantly throwing around He/She is super offensive. Haven’t the writers ever heard of using They as a gender neutral pronoun? Jesus Christ seriously.
I agree. This is sloppiness from Glee, and He/She is straight out not OK, but aspects of the character weirdly relatable from a teenage bigender perspective.
I enjoyed about seven seconds of this episode and they were Kurt and Blaine as Jersey Shore people and Santana saying wanky when Sue used the word “grinding”.
1) Re: Your hair. Cut it. Summer is coming. Also, global warming.
2) Every time Jane Lynch mentioned Jennifer Beals/wore a vest, it made me think of Joyce Wischnia, her weird uterus game, and that time Alice called her “Mr. Wischnia.”
There wasn’t enough of HeMo’s legs in this episode.
This episode surprised me because it was like OMIGOD GLEE IS BACK WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED WHY COULDN’T THEY HAVE DONE THIS ALL FUCKING SEASON?? And I was in tears when Puck and Bieste had their scene in the locker room. Legitimately. Oh god my heart.
p.s. Lizz – Santana said wanky because of a “grinding” comment that was made. It was pretty obvious why she said that.
yep… an episode that was supposed to highlight some of Jenna Ushkowitz’s talents… becomes all about Rachel.
as long as I can count the Britanna kisses on one hand, I’m not cool with one of them being actually between two hetero characters. if not for the kiss in the next ep, I would have been actually pissed off about that.
I wish the switch thing had lasted longer though. Brittany and Mercedes did a good job, I thought, and Santana all dorked out as Artie was awesome/hot.
google dr. she bloggo’s review of the episode. i actually really like her take of this episode as basically acknowledging that tina is more than talented and capable enough to get the solos, but in order to do that she needs to be rachel berry. bonus points to the episode for highlighting how much of an idiot finn is. dr she bloggo: http://www.drshebloggo.com/2012/05/rbi-report-props.html
honestly, this is the only episode all season i’ve not been enraged about or bored by, and have actually emotionally reacted to in ways unrelated to offended anger. and all those puck/bieste scenes? solid gold. maybe it’s just that i haven’t seen good will hunting since it was in theatres, but watching both scenes side-by-side, i think mark salling out-acted matt damon there, and i feel for puck. this storyline, and that ranting/crying scene in the locker room, have been so long coming, and however mad i am at the show for putting it off so long, at least the payoff was well worth it. if only that puck/shannon relationship had come sooner.
yes, i’m finally mature enough to judge an episode, and individual scenes within the episode, independent of the general offensive mess that this show has mostly become. honestly, i wish the whole season had been this good.
THAT’S WHY I LIKED SANTANA AS ARTIE
channeling Rashida
oh my heart
Also, “Grinding Union” #wanky
the best.
I liked this episode! Every time they manage to do an episode that isn’t a complete train wreck my reaction is WOOOOOO and then to excitedly talk about it for a week until they manage to do another shitty one.
ahh refri(d)gerator. oft googled, i’m sure.
This felt like 43 minutes of teaching Tina to give up the fight to be noticed and accept the status quo. Congratulations Glee.
But Lizz you are more hilarious than you could ever know.
Whoopi Goldberg is almost – ALMOST – enough to make me watch Glee instead of just reading the recaps, on account of how when I was a baby gay (in Catholic school!) I saw Sister Act and REALLY REALLY wanted Mary Clarence and Mary Roberts to be BESTEST FRIENDS forever and ever and they could go to Reno together and minister to the hookers and sing together and everything!
(I was twelve and I hadn’t heard of shipping yet).
Unfortunately, comparing Sister Act to Glee is sort of like comparing a fine Camembert to the stuff between your toes after a ten mile hike.
When I was telling my friend about this episode I invented loads of false spoilers and then she watched it and was really disappointed none of this stuff actually happened. My favourite is “spoiler: Mr Schue is now bald because your mom wanted her chest hair back”
I really liked this episode to be honest. By the end of it I felt like crying about the 18* previous episodes that could have been as good as this one and weren’t.
*I exclude “Heart” because that one was good too.
Same same same same same
Lizz, this recap was wicked excellent. Your wit did not go unnoticed, you should write more recaps! Of anything!
Well first off, Glee had two episodes on one day before the finale because they didn’t want to interfere with the American Idol finale next week. So they doubled up before hand.
I loved everyone’s switch and impressions of each other. It was hilarious. :)
Check out my glee blog <3
gleerificnewsstop.wordpress.com
Ohh!! Thanks for clarifying. I thought I was watching the season finale all night.
Sometimes life is hard.
This recap was really great! I’m glad I’m not the only one that hears nyayayadadablahblah every time it’s mentioned, which is a lot.
Also,when Puck and Bieste started singing Taylor Swift I almost died.
Good job on the recap, buuuuut isn’t Pucks exam European Geography? #geek
And doesn’t she let him try it because she wants him to I dunno… Try, not shag her?
Also: “selfish little twat who is no more entitled to her attention than the other billions of people who come on to Hollywood Squares.”
It was kind of a relief seeing Rachel knocked off her high horse of entitlement… Knocked off Finn.
“And after we finish her costumes we’re all going to take turns making sure Rachel is emotionally and physically satisfied”
I died.
I can has Naya.
Schue is that tracksuit was even more pervy than usual, he cannot pull off Sue’s snark
Look at Santana as Artie. She is by far the cutest.
I also think that Quinn looks ‘totes adorbs and slightly gay’ every episode, if by ‘slightly gay’ you mean ‘really gay for Rachel’
I understand this was a good episode, but I was still too bored to watch beyond the switcheroo part.
Also, Artie with a ponytail was creepy, but bespectacled Santana was totally adorable!
First and foremost… Salve Regina in Sister Act is potentially my favourite scene in any film, ever. You could’ve posted that alone and this recap would be the best ever.
As for this episode:
My dislike for Finn has (surprisingly, but rightfully so) not transferred to Cory Monteith – as I liked him as Kurt.
I agree re: the Puck/Bieste scene – they did do well with what they had. I also realise that I will probably always respond emotionally to kids-being-messed-up-by-their-parents storylines. IT’S RELATABLE.
Most significantly… what stood out to me was Tina’s line after she sang: “My first standing O”. I feel like I may be the only person whose mind went to a dirty/that’s what she said kinda place after hearing that.
I hate to say it (because Rachel can be really annoying) but Rachel is incredibly hot as Averil Lavigne, er I mean Tina (and Lea does a really job playing her).
And the thumbnail picture of Puck as Blain scares the hell outta me. I keep thinking he’s going to appear at the end of my bed and stand there smiling creepily at me the whole night.
Dear Autostraddle: PLEASE stop using the word ‘lame’.
I especially love how after Tina fell into the fountain, the guys were like, “We think you hit your head pretty hard. We need to get you back to the Glee club!” I’m pretty sure none of the members are nurses.
Santana could kiss me where it hurts any day…
So I was looking at the screenshot of Puck in that horrendous drag and then got sad because that dress just so happens to be sitting in my closet, though now when I look at it i feel all gross and dirty and it doesn’t look pretty anymore….
maybe i’ll just lock it away and try to wear it a again in a few months?
I have so many feelings about that dress existing in real life. So many feelings.
You can be gay and transgender and in to drag but I think it’s a given that I don’t trust Glee to understand any of the words I just said.
This is the first glee episode I’ve really enjoyed all season. The switcheroo was adorable and I actually found myself caring for the characters by the end of the episode.
(Also, Jane Lynch was smokin’ in menswear, DAMN)
I love a lady in menswear, and Jane Lynch is no exception.