We then drive the fastest cars on the road back to McKinley, where Mercedes tells Rachel that New York is Rachel’s Endgame.
To remind Rachel of her True Destiny, Mercedes has assembled a low-rent set reminiscent of the New York New York Hotel in Las Vegas, peppered with tiny children in top hats. As they perform, Rachel’s volleyed back to clips from previous seasons — the striped coat and the beret! That time she took a cab to Chinatown! That time Kurt showed up and they hugged! That part in the red pill hat that they always play on hulu before the episode! DOO DOO DOO!
http://youtu.be/_bnmAm73_JE
I hope if I move to Ohio that a bunch of lunatic high schoolers show up in top hats to remind me of that time I threw up in an alley in the West Village or that time we got stoned and looked at all the fruits at Whole Foods.
Unfortunately, this stunning musical experience can’t convince Rachel to return to New York City. She’s just not ready. That’s what we’re all here to discuss tonight, I think: hearts over minds, love over fear, friendship over everything.
Shortly thereafter the hallowed hallways have become packed with Brittany’s new Latino fan base ’cause Queso Por Dos has been renewed for two seasons!
Santana sends the fans packing so they can have some real talk:
Santana: Why do you think that it’s okay to go behind my back and be friends with someone who would rather see my dead than in love with another woman?
Brittany: You came out to Abuela ten years ago, okay? Times have changed.
Santana: It was three years ago, and nothing has changed for her, and it never will. And believe me, it’s not JUST the homos she has a problem with because it took that bitch 50 years to talk to a black person, and it was her mailman, and then she accused him of stealing her Christmas cards.
Brittany, because she believes the world can be sunshine and rainbows as long as you open the windows and let in the light, thinks Abuela simply fears the unknown, and will come around once she sees how cute Santana looks in menswear:
Brittany: “Maybe it’s our job as young hot progressives to educate older, scary farts. I mean, if Abuela gets to know us and sees that we’re somewhat normal, like how I sometimes dance in my sleep and you sometimes dye your hair blonde for no reason, then she’ll see us for who we really are, oaky? And then maybe she’ll understand that, aside from that awesome lesbian sex part, that we’re just like everyone else. We at least have to try, right?”
Santana softens, ’cause that’s what Brittany does to her, and Santana lets her continue the mission, maybe knowing it’s a lost cause but also knowing Brittany wants to try. The framing is weird, though. I get it, but I don’t really like it: straight people don’t have to accept gay people because we’re just like them! They have to accept us because our differences don’t make us any less worthy of love. They have to accept us even though a lot of us aren’t anything like them.
What’s Sam Evans doing? I figured you’d ask, ’cause I know that’s what we’re all still here for is Sam Evans, let’s be real. No actually he might be my favorite male character on the show at this point. I love his look in this scene, it’s very “Christmas At Best Buy”!
http://youtu.be/2yARh6XtqGs
Well, Sam’s creeping on Mercedes, mostly, until they sit down and have a little talk about how even though he used to touch her boobs and now he can’t, they can still be friends because she’s dating a Christian Rock singer who’s waiting for marriage. She says he should go for it with Rachel, they both admit they’re a little jealous, which makes Sam feel better, and SCENE.
Rachel changes her mind about the audition! She’s gonna go for it! She’s never been this scared in her whole life, not even when Finn broke her nose or when she first saw Baby Drizzle or when all her friends started teleporting coast-to-coast like magicians or when Mr. Schuster opened his mouth and let words come out of it.
Which brings us to a lively rendition of “Promises, Promises,” which does that thing where Rachel is in Ohio and then suddenly she’s in New York and it’s all very high-energy and full of vim and vigor.
http://youtu.be/VvL_NgHMlIo
Back at the April Rhodes Memorial Pavillion, it seems that Brittany has somehow tricked Abuela into hitting up her granddaughter’s former high school for no reason, just to be blindsided by Santana singing “Alfie,” which I’m sorry, just makes me think of that year Jude Law was in everything.
Abuela must be so confused. “Why is she singing Burt Bachrach? She knows I prefer Soundgarden.”
http://youtu.be/GG_84tre27k
Following this non-sequitor display of music and gownery, Brittany brings Abuela onto the stage to face her estranged relation, who she admits is the fiance she’s been speaking of. Abuela is unimpressed:
Abuela: So you come into my home, treat me with kindness, lure me here and trick me into seeing my granddaughter and hear her sing?
Brittany: Yes, because I love Santana more than everything and I would do anything for Santana, okay? Even tricking a sick old woman.
Abuela is skeptical, but then Santana steps forward to say her piece, and it’s a nice, fat piece of emotional blackbird pie:
Santana: You taught me to be a strong Latina woman, to be bigger than the world was ever gonna give me permission to be, and I have. You taught me not just to exist, because I’m worth so much more than that. And without Britt, I just exist. She’s the love of my life, and I’m going to marry her, and I want to share that with you because without your love, I think I just exist, too.
Brittany: Please, please, just come to the wedding.
Abuela: No. Right is right. I love you Santana, but I don’t love your sin. Girls marry boys, not other girls.
I hate it when this show still makes me tear up. DAMMIT SHOW.
WOMP Womp. It’s not what Brittany expected, because well — it just doesn’t make sense. Homophobia like this doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that it’d be so much louder than love, but it is for so many families out there. Abuela is stabbing her granddaughter in the heart, but maybe they could just let it rest right there, but Brittany doesn’t let it rest. Instead she basically says “Good Riddance,” but using a lot more words:
Brittany: Good. I’m glad you’re not coming. You know, The New York Times said um, half the increase in support of gay marriage is due to generational turnover. That’s what smart people call “crazy uptight bitches dying.” You guys lost, okay? And honestly the rest of us are just going about our business being normal and waiting for you to come around and not because you can stop us from getting married, but just because you’re kind of annoying.
Abuela is shocked, of course — you’re letting her talk to me like this? — and I am, too, because, no, Brittany, that’s not how you talk to somebody’s grandmother, even if she doesn’t appreciate how cute Ellen and Portia were at their wedding!
On a broader level, though as far as the idea that it’s okay to wish the death of old people who are homophobic — I know those are the facts, and that’s certainly what just happened here, but we often don’t always give old people enough credit. Yes, the world is full of Abuelas. It’s full of the parents and grandparents who have rejected so many of you reading this right now. But I’m not the only one who avoided visits and phone calls with my (now) only living grandparent to avoid having to tell her the truth about my life because I believed, erroneously, that All Grandparents Hated The Gays. A friend of the family had told me specifically, “there are some things your grandmother doesn’t need to know.” So I kept my distance and I kept quiet. But that was a mistake, because I was wrong, because she just loves me and wants me to be happy, and she loves my girlfriend, too. ‘Cause you know what else happens when you get older and older? You run out of fucks to give! You just want people to be happy. Waiting for people to die isn’t the answer, and animosity against those who dare to live isn’t, either. I know kids whose parents rejected them but their grandparents, ultimately, took them in. The numbers don’t lie: most of your grandparents are not cool with you being gay. That’s true. But not all of them. So there is so much good in this episode, but this tiny bit here — this “we’re just waiting for you old farts to die” bit? Nope. Not into it.
So, Santana gets her last word in:
Santana: Take a look, because this is what real love looks like. And I love you so much. But Britt is my family now and if having her in my family means not having you, then that’s a trade I’ll take any day.
Back in the Teacher’s Lounge, Rachel’s raving about how much she enjoyed her audition, being back in the saddle, and having immediate access to a plethora of Vegan dining options. She had nothing and everything at stake, and she feels very zen about it. This pleases Mercedes and Samuel. This pleases them very much.
Nothing can stop Rachel Berry, says Sam, and by the way, how about that date? Did you hear about the four-course meal for $12.99?!!!
In the hallowed hallways, Brittany and Santana, arm and arm, galavant down the hallway like two ladies who’ve probably just had fists in each other’s vaginas. Santana reflects on how she should be mad at Abuela, but now just feels sad for her. It’s part of the Homophobic Relative Stages of Grief, I think.
Brittany apologizes for saying nasty things to Abuela but Santana apparently appreciated it more than I did, it seems: Brittany stood up for her, and she liked that. Santana doesn’t let people stand up for her, really, ’cause she’s always the first boots on the floor to advocate for her own damn self. But she can do that for this girl. No matter what, it turns out.
“Let’s go humor these tone-deaf weirdos,” Santana says, and they head to the April Rhodes Memorial Pavilion for a big speech on Chosen Family. Artie says he’s not sure how to fill Abuela’s seat at the wedding because well, SO MANY PEOPLE WANNA SIT IN IT! It must be a really fancy throne.
Maybe it’s just a really large chair:
Anyhow, now it’s time for the moral of the story: family isn’t what’s in your blood, it’s who’s in your heart. Despite my aforementioned feelings about Brittany being rude to Abuela, this is some real true shit. It’s really too bad more people weren’t watching when this happened, but I think this was the moment I realized this last season is kinda ours. Brittany and Santana have had more couple-time this season than in all the seasons that came before us, as I believe Heather also pointed out during the engagement episode. For better and for worse, all the way home. Sometimes your family turns on you, but there is so much more family where that came from:
Kurt: Family are the people who embrace you with open arms no matter what.
Blaine: They can see the pain in your eyes even when you’re fooling everybody else.
Mr. Shue: Family is about laughing louder, smiling bigger, and livng better.
Sam: Family’s like fudge, mostly sweet, with a couple of nuts.
Mercedes: And although we’re not related by blood, we’re bonded by something much stronger: love.
We Are Weirdos But We Are Not Alone, so to speak.
Everybody pretends like Sam didn’t just made a gay buttsex reference. Now that they’ve declared themselves Santana’s New Abuelas, they’re prepared to invite themselves to be in her wedding party, hand out programs and dental dams, release the doves, organize the silent auction, hire the snapdragons, carmel the corn and polish the leather.
http://youtu.be/tZdwBOP97ws
The children gather at Mr. Schues’s to eat tiny sandwiches and drink sparkling cider and reconnect with lost loves of yore! We end with Kurt answering the door to find Blaine, no Karofsky in sight.
What if the unholy trinity had a threesome as a bachelorette’s party? Just an idea.
