Glee Episode 513 Recap: New Directions For Lesbos!

Welcome to the thirteenth episode of the fifth glorious season of Glee, a charming country-style chowder of a tale about a quantum physicist from the near future who, due to a time travel experiment gone wrong, is doomed to forever hop through time, taking the place of humans to “put right what once went wrong” with the help of his womanizing best friend, who is actually a hologram. This crushing tale of daring heights and multiple avalanches deals with situations including prom-worthy headbands, three-legged tables, cylons, Bacon Clubhouse Rules, irritable bowel syndrome, ponies, undercuts and Frosted Mini-Wheats.

This episode made me nostalgic for the last week of my senior year at Interlochen, because seriously THERE WAS A LOT OF MUSICAL THEATER KIDS SINGING and alumni everywhere and people wondering if it was okay to go to New York City without a plan. It is, by the way, although it’s an expensive place to go without a plan, but lots of people (including me) just needed to taste it anyhow, and then things have a way of working themselves out.

We open in the teacher’s lounge, where Holly Holiday and April Rhodes are enjoying a generous spread of pre-chopped vegetables while playing “fuck or chuck” with the Fine Older Men of McKinley High when Sue Sylvester saunters in and calls April Rhodes “America’s favorite alcoholic dwarf whore” as April accents her melon with Splenda and her coffee with victory gin.

Sue then admits she’s not anti-April, really, because Holly and Sue are BEST BEST FRIENDS so she tolerates April by association! Holly and Sue even auditioned for The Amazing Race together, and their tape is amazing and would therefore win the race if I ran the world.

Sue then agrees to allow Holly and April shoehorn music into regular class-time activities all week long to further celebrate the unseemly demise of the Club once known for its Glee.

We then skate gracefully into the hallowed hallways of McKinley High, where Tina Cohen-Chang’s walking and monologuing about this week’s Way Tina Has Been Wronged. Somehow, despite all logic and facts available to us as human beings, Tina was rejected from Ohio State.

Thus, Tina’s re-focused her sights on New York, New York, home to world’s most affordable manicures, and specifically Mitzvah University, where she hopes her Cohen-ness and photoshopped account of her time at a kibbutz will snag her a spot despite missing the deadline.

Tina saunters into the Glee Room, where the kids are wrapping up Sir William’s golden dildo collection, which sends Tina into a depressive spiral. Then Blaine pops in with his big news: HE GOT INTO NYADA!

In a dervish of delight, Sam accidentally knocks Tina unconscious with a giant golden dildo, thus transporting her to an alternate universe in which the Gleeks star in a Chums, which is like Friends, but happening right now in your face instead of in the ’90s!

It’s a mad-cap sitcom world where all these wacky teens are cohabiting in the Barbie Bushwick Dreamhouse Loft, which is indeed approximately the size of Rachel and Monica’s Barbie Greenwich Village Dreamhouse Loft. Guys I was so into Friends, I even bought the book. Okay, I bought the book whenever there was a show that had a book.

Also, I got the haircut. I got the Rachel. Nobody told me that the Rachel doesn’t work very well on crazy Jewish hair like mine and this is before I knew that flatirons existed and anyhow, it looked about half as good as this:

Tina wakes up from her special nap to declare that New York’s gonna be amazing, you guys!

Cut to The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, where Kurt and Mercedes share a little story about a recent fight they had regarding the vegetative content of tater tots and how despite said fight, the terrific twosome managed to triumph over adversity and remain friends.

Why? Because it’s so silly for good friends to ruin everybody’s lives for no reason! 

Kurt: The most upsetting thing is watching two people you love fight about something ridiculous and there not being anything you can do to stop it!

Basically they’re trying to tell Rachel and Santana the same thing I’ve been trying to tell them in my recaps which is to SQUASH THIS THING. Okay? So they’re about to do something even the worst enemies can bond over: DREAMGIRLS.

“I’m Changing”
http://youtu.be/hzQgWtXUeEU

After a refreshing commercial break, we return to the McKinley High restroom, where Rachel is exhausted/depressed regarding this tedious rivalry and is therefore making Santana a peace offering — she’ll  just straight-up give Santana ten shows and Santana can pick the shows so her friends/family can be there to witness the glory.

It’s a generous offer, but Santana turns it down because she is being a total asshole nut who doesn’t understand how Broadway works.

Santana: No. I want them all. The only reason why you’re doing this for me is because you know I’m gonna go on Showgirls on you and win. No more scraps, Rachel. I’ll be happy and kiss and be friends once you give me the part.
Rachel: God what is it about anymore with you Santana? I don’t get it.

Cut to Animal Husbandry Club, which Holly Holiday has decided to use as a forum for a WILD MUSICAL PERFORMANCE! Specifically, Eddie Murphy’s “Party All The Time.” It gets really homoerotic.

It’s super fun, like a dance club in a ’90s movie but also Xanadu but also a PG-13 foam party or a photoshoot for a PARTY TIME fashion spread in YM Magazine.

Witness:

http://youtu.be/JREMC_fWCEs

Cut to the Glee Room, where Brittany has stolen lilies from acres of innocent maidens to woo her lady-love back to her lesbilicious lap. “They’re the lesbian of flowers,” Brit-Brit explains, handing her lady-love two one-way tickets to Lesbos island.

Brittany: “I figured once we arrived at the Girl-on-Girl paradise that is Lesbos that we’d never want to leave.”
Santana: “Okay listen. Brittany, I love you but running away with me and living on a lesbian island is not what you want to do. You just don’t want to go back to MIT.”

Just ’cause she’s a super math genius doesn’t mean she has to do math, says Santana, because being a math genius wasn’t ever her big dream and neither was living on a lesbian island with Santana. That’s our dream, DUH.

Brit-Brit says that Santana never wanted to be a Broadway star, SO THERE. Santana says all that matters to her is that she is a star, a shiny star with lots of money and fame, which is actually a really solid point. I mean, being a Broadway star isn’t my dream either, but were I offered a lead role, I’m pretty sure I would take it. (Don’t worry, friends, not all Broadway shows involve singing.)

Brittany insists, “I don’t wanna run away with you because I want to run away. I want to run away with you because you and I are the only truly awesome people I’ve ever met, and I’m tired of doing stuff that only matters to people less awesome to us.” Then Brittany lays it on thick:

Brittany: “Listen, you have spent most of your life in the closet because you cared about what people thought about you. Walking away from a dream that you don’t actually care about is you winning, because it’s you saying, This is not who I am and I don’t care who knows it.”

What???

Santana: “You know, it’s funny. I spent months tangled up in knots, and in five minutes, you straighten me out. You really are a genius.”
Brittany: “I’m just the world’s foremost expert in the field of Santana Lopez.”

Aw.

Back in the Glee Room, Tina’s lamenting her rejection from Mitzvah University on account of not being Jewish enough, and now what will she do? Her pals suggest hitting up New York City without a plan, just like Kurt did and Sam’s gonna do! I did that once and I got an awesome job at The Olive Garden and learned a lot about myself, I highly recommend it.

Tina’s friends respond to her concern that she’ll become a “free-floating loser” by performing a sweet sentimental acoustic rendition of the Glee original song “Loser Like Me”!

“Loser Like Me”
http://youtu.be/juUOmeV9g1c

I really liked it, what can I say.

Cut to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, where Santana has found Rachel rehearsing and has some important news — she’s gonna quit the show ’cause it’s Rachel’s big dream but it’s not her big dream and she’s too lazy to do eight shows a week.

I hope this means Santana will be re-joining her cross-dressing jam band with Demi Lovato and Adam Lambert and becoming a rockstar. In the meantime, she’ll settle for a spirited performance for Glee Club on stools!

http://youtu.be/PKNUBQvsIvs

It was super cheesy and I spent most of it reading an NPR story about Akron.

Back in Sue’s lair, Sue informs Holly and Sir William that One Million Moms and all the animals from Noah’s Ark, your mom, your mom’s mom, and also The Animal Husbandry Foundation of Life have come together against their recent musical performance, and now they have to just STOP IT with the random musical numbers. IT’S OVER.

Sir William tells Holly to give it up ’cause Glee Club is totally over and they’re gonna shoot the rest of the season in New York and he’s totally at peace about it and she should be, too. Holly goes straight to Artie and says to meet her in the auditorium with his camera. Also Artie is in love with Holly but Holly isn’t in love with anyone, except for obviously that guy from Coldplay. (Editor’s note: I have bad news for you, Riese.)

Back in Glee Club, Quinn and Puck sing a song that has nothing to do with their present situation and it’s really corny and unfortunate. Either Rachel is dying of lesbian jealousy that Quinn has left her for a man-sized root vegetable or she’s sad that her boyfriend died. It’s hard to know with this show.

Witness:

http://youtu.be/KglN957uXNA

After their little song, Quinn tells everybody that she and Puck are gonna be boyfriend and girlfriend now. Then they have a private conversation about long distance relationships in front of the whole class and in general everything is just super weird and inappropriate.

Sir William says that was the last song ever sung in Glee Club, which sucks because it was stupid. He says it’s over now and it’s been an honor, and Rachel is like, get your hand off my shoulder, you man-child.

Sir William walks into his office to find an invitation to some kind of secret event. It’s gonna be like Eyes Wide Shut I think.

Oh never mind, it’s a tribute video to Sir William! Yup, all the Glee kids have gathered all of their feelings together to make a little film for Sir William’s hypothetical baby, all about how wonderful their Dad was and how he could dance like Fred Astaire, sing like that annoying guy with a last name I can’t spell, and helped Tina be Prom Queen! Also, cute gay stuff:

Santana: Okay, it may seem a little weird to you but back here in the Dark Ages, it was still crazy for girls to love girls and guys to love guys, but your Dad made sure that we felt safe loving whoever we chose.

Also, William made Puck into a kinder person, and he saved Kurt’s life and therefore the lives of his unborn babies birthed using Quinn as a surrogate and apparently William was a good trans ally to Unique, maybe that happened offscreen?

And despite everything I am and everything I believe in, this video makes me cry because I smoked too much pot before watching the episode, and it segues into a performance of “Don’t Stop Believin’” which GETS ME EVERY TIME! 

I got so nervous wondering who would take Finn’s part, and felt relieved when it was Kurt, and then felt sad about Finn all over again and how they had everyone do a little intro like they did in Glee on tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0CjDPqCMc

Holly Holiday and April Rhodes have been watching from their vantage point at the back of the theater. “Our work here is done,” they decide. “We did it flawlessly and looked flawless while doing it,” says Holly Holiday, before inviting April to go get drunk, rob a bank with her, and then go sailing around the world on a gay boy cruise ship. April agrees. Now that’s a spin-off I’d like to see.

Cut to the sad lonely Room Formerly Known as Glee, where Unique is asking Fake Quinn if she’s gonna say “Hi” when they see each other in the halls. It’s like The Breakfast Club! Marley says that Sue can’t take away what they had here and that they are much better people now, but unfortunately they are all really boring characters, and we have better things to do with our time.

Cut to the Auditorium, where everybody is graduating! Yay! Also, Tina got into Brown!

And Brittany S. Pierce gets to graduate because WHY ANYTHING! Santana gives her a kiss on the cheek, but I don’t know if that means they are being just friends or if Glee is once again robbing us of the lesbian tongue kissing that is our birthright.

Later in the bathroom of love, Santana tells Brittany that Lesbos is not an island filled with lesbians but rather an island filled with German tourists and therefore she’s changed their tickets to first go through Hawaii and then back to New York!

Then they kiss on the lips like two girls who used to bang all the time who haven’t banged in a year JUST KIDDING they kiss on the lips like two girls who are being polite.

Wait but also what about Dani? THEY NEVER EVEN GOT TO BE NAKED IN BED TOGETHER. I think Brittany and Santana together are super-cute and I like how they’ve both grown and changed and come back together but also, I mean, what about Demi Lovato? I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FEEL. How do you feel?

Meanwhile in the Room Formerly Known as The Glee, Sue and Sir William have a heart-to-heart about feelings. Sue says her whole life she’s been searching for a worthy adversary, but she found Will, and she is really going to miss him a lot, and she thinks that he did a lot of good work.

Then she says she got him an interview at Carmel High so he can coach Vocal Adrenaline if he wants to. He’s like, but they’re our mortal enemies, and she tells him that there is no “our” anymore and besides, they have a real budget.

Sue: “You did what you could do here. And that was much more than I could ever care to admit. But it’s really over.”

Then Will stands alone in the room, hearing the voices of Glee Club Members past and bowing to an imaginary audience. And that’s it. GOODBYE CRACKER BARREL, GOODBYE CLOCKS TICKING!

Next week on Glee, everybody will be in New York City, and hijinks will undoubtedly ensue!