And… cut to The Dave Karofsky Born This Way Legendary Fund Regionals Celebration! This year’s judges, epically unqualified as per ushe, include District Zoning Commissioner Melba Jackson-Wright, President of the Ohio Plumbers Union Local 109 Harl Beindorf and Central Ohio’s number one late-night horror movie host, Svengoobles! That’s a direct transcription, by the way, I didn’t make that up.
The anxious children take their seats and we’re then immediately treated to at least three days worth of The Warblers, fronted by Sebastian the Sanctimonious Gay, slaughtering/performing two songs I’ve never heard before and hopefully will never hear again. The message, however, comes in loud and clear: You’re Number One! You Can Make it Through The Rain! Believe In Yourself!
Sebastian the Sanctimonious Gay is swimming so deep in the “who the fuck cares about this dipshit” swamp that I can barely hear him sing, but his teeth are lighting up my room!
Finn, always a go-to guy for Asinine Gestures of Faux-Compassion, shows his support for Blaine’s assaulter and reverence for Karofsky’s near-death by calling upon all his limbs and organs to assemble themselves into human form and then haul Finn’s head into a standing position and then start clapping his hands together and cheering.
“Why are you cheering your competition?” inquires an extra, and Finn exaltedly replies: “life’s too short!” Yup, apparently Finn’s uncovered the Golden Key to Happiness, “life is too short to remain seated.” Mhm. Tell that to Artie, asshole.
Following that exercise in aural hot water torture and about 20 seconds of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow’s operatic number which to be honest I truly enjoyed, we slip backstage where Puck is Glambertizing his eyeballs and Finn and Rachel are getting antsy that nobody has talked about them for at least three minutes.
William almost launches into a pre-game pep-talk but then predictably turns the mike over to Finn, who pep-talks the team by…
…talking about himself!
Finn: “After the competition, Rachel and I are gonna get married… with everything that’s happened lately, we thought a lot about what Mr. Schue said, we didn’t wanna wait any more, we just want to live every day like it’s our last.”
Yup, when William imparted upon his wise pupils that there’s so much passion and sandwich spreads ahead of them in their long long super-long mega-long lives, Finn heard “life’s too short, time to get married!”
I liked Rachel way better before she became a total fucking idiot. Or, as it was so eloquently pointed out this week in The Atlantic:
 “The pending nuptials are an affront to viewers who have respected and followed these two characters’ arcs. There’s no way that a teenager as level-headed and driven as Rachel would sidetrack her life in this way, nor would a person as grounded as Finn be delusional enough to think marriage is a good idea. It’s a bizarre, soap operatic twist for a show that had stopped being a primetime soap and has instead, for better or worse, embraced its status as a teen drama modeled after ’90s after school specials.”
Anyhow, sensing the team’s emotional pliability in the wake of Karofsky’s Attempted Suicide, Finn and Rachel attempt to now guilt-trip the team re: attending their obnoxious “tasteful” ceremony (Rachel Berry, my princess, we both know a girl like you would not settle for appetizers at a courthouse! What have you done with the real Rachel Berry and when will she return with a plan involving Southampton and the cast of Fiddler on the Roof?)at the Justice of the Peace after Regionals.
Rachel blathers about how much she prefers the people who supported her stupid decision over the people who pointed out that she was making a stupid decision, which allows for a psychologically weighted shot of Quinn looking conflicted to enable another round of easily-assembled Faberry gif montages.
Somewhere in a better land/season far far away from here, Jesse St. James is shaking his head in despair, “Finn, Finn, Finn, you don’t bring a team together by talking about your silly dream of marrying a woman seventy thousand times more talented, attractive and intelligent than you are. The pre-game pep-talk is about giving the people a dream they can achieve — a dream they can achieve both because that dream actually involves them and because that dream is possible.”
Smear to the Performance Dome, where the New Directions Self Esteem Songs Show begins with a mediocre group number which again begs the question, “If you must make some random male New Directiontoid rap every single episode, why do you keep exclusively adding more and more white guy New Directiontoids to this cast?” But good effort, Blaine! And thank you, G-d, for letting Santana handle some of the rapping this time, bravo.
Then Santana graces us all with her talent, skill and beauty for “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)”, backed up by the eminently superior goddesses of The Troubletones.
Even Brittany gets a solo this time!
This is followed by a Rachel Berry number, “Here’s To Us,” during which Rachel’s Dads’Â eyes well up with the most genuine tears this episode sheds. They’re so throughly beaming with pride for their little girl and, I imagine, trembling in fear about her upcoming marriage to a Grain Elevator.
At the performance’s end everybody cheers maniacally, including Sebastian the Sanctimonious Gay and His Preachy Choir-Boy Backup Singers, and bla bla bla it’s time for the results! Bring out the Judges!
Who’s it gonna be?
Guess what?
SURPRISE! The New Directions win Regionals, probs ’cause they were the best. But now that they’ve won Regionals, what will they talk about? Oh! Nationals. Then, I hope, Worldinals. Then Galaxyinals. Then hopefully they’lll talk about Karofsky some more.
We cut to Sue’s Lair of Gold-Plated Glory, where she’s summoned Quinn for a little lady-to-lady ladytime.
“Quinn, thanks for coming,” says Sue Sylvester.  “I know you must be exhausted from singing all those ooohs and background ahhhs,” Sue says (wink! nod!). She continues that, on account of either Quinn’s stunning performance or Karofsky The Magical Fruit’s Incredible Hanging Act, Sue’s heart swelled so big that she’s decided to let Quinn back on the Cheerios.
Smear to the Hallowed Hallways of McKinley High, where Quinn — now in her cheerleading outfit — runs into Rachel so Glee can wink/nod at Faberry shippers and play off of the obvious chemistry between these two characters without actually intending to follow through on any of this innuendo, ever:
Quinn: “Hey, how do I look? Coach Sylvester gave it to me earlier and I couldn’t resist.”
Rachel: “I’m glad you’re happy. Everybody deserves to be happy.”
Quinn: “When you were singing that song, you were singing it to Finn and only Finn, right? He really does make you so happy? I wanna support you Rachel, and Finn, and come to the wedding if it’s not too late.”
Oh Lord Have Mercy on our merciful souls. But really, of all the improbable things that happen on this show and even in this very episode, it’s quite sad that chances are strong this’ll remain an eternal tease, just like an eternal flame. Am I burning an eternal flame? Good question.
The Neverending Story of This Day plows forward with the inevitable Kurt-visits-Karofsky-in-the-hospital scene we’ve been dreading since Karofsky took off his belt.
Kurt: “I’m really happy that you’re alive, David.”
Karofsky: “Me too….”
Oh sweet Jesus. Enough, enough! I cannot endure 43 minutes and 55 godforsaken seconds of this episode patting its own back with a heavy hand, jam-packing a tonally disorganized script already full-to-the-brim with allegedly major events like Regionals and “The Finchel Wedding” with lame preachy pandering and exploitation of a serious subject. The serious subject, by the way, isn’t suicide, the serious subject is homophobia! This episode assumes that ’cause we’re saddened by the true deaths of boys we never knew, that we’ll feel similarly affected by the near-death of a fictional tertiary character. The writers are leaning on tragedy to provoke an inevitable emotional response without doing the actual legwork to get us there.
Furthermore, this whole storyline wastes time during which Santana and Brittany could legitimately be improving the lives of young lesbians in the Midwest by making out. I know that sounds like a joke but I’m serious.
I don’t buy Karofsky going this route (and surely he of all people recognizes the root of many bully’s actions aren’t as simple as they seem) and it’s lazy to imply anyone who endures a day of bullying and is rejected by a boy he had a crush on is likely to attempt suicide. It glosses over the serious mental health issues and other compounding factors at the heart of most suicides (like the media did with Eric James Borges, Joseph Jefferson, Raymond Chase and Tyler Clementi) and in its attempt to create open dialogue, suggests that suicide is a reasonable response to internalized homophobia and somebody writing “FAG” on your locker. Bullying fucks people up big time, and that’s reason enough to stop it, we shouldn’t need death anymore to make that point (though we did, once, and I think that point was made and did indeed change the world). In fact, Glee itself handled the issue brilliantly with Kurt’s storyline last season, and this is a sloppy step backwards.
It’s lazy and dangerous for the show to hold Kurt accountable for ignoring Karofsky’s calls after Karofsky — Kurt’s former bully — had romantically pursued Kurt despite knowing he had a boyfriend and predictably been rejected by Kurt (because Kurt had a boyfriend). Although maybe I’m just saying that because the “if you don’t [date me/kiss me/come over/answer my calls] I’m gonna kill myself” line is WAY overused in teenage relationships to the point that it’s become an endlessly howling wolf reverberating through decades of torrid romances, serving to silence those real legitimate cases where attention is needed. And let me tell you when you get the call that your ex, the one you’ve talked to every day except for that one day, really has tried to kill herself and is in the hospital, it feels nothing like this episode, or any of those empty threats ever did.
We get about three seconds of Karofsky’s Dad crying, and then 43 minutes and 25 seconds of people he barely knew changing their entire personalities and life plans in his honor. If only Lady Gaga had dedicated a concert to him, then this episode’s glamorization of suicide would’ve been complete!
Anyhow, let’s get back to it, shall we?
Karofsky: “I made your life a living hell for months, when the same thing happened to me I couldn’t bear it for a week. My supposed best friend telling me he never wants to talk to me again, my Mom telling me that I have a disease, maybe I can be cured, I don’t know what to do. I can’t go back to that school.”
Kurt: “Then go to another school. I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s not gonna be easy, and they’ll be some days when life just sucks. But you’re gonna get through this, ’cause I’m gonna help you, and so is everyone else who loves you and accepts you for who you are. And if they can’t accept that then screw ’em, right?”
Now they’re gonna be friends! Yay attempted suicide! I will spare you the part where Kurt makes Karofsky close his eyes and imagine being a sports agent with a baby, because I spared myself that part by folding my humanoid figure into the following shape:
Cut to the Justice of the Peace where Hiram and the ‘rents are slapping together a plan to stop the wedding besides just, you know, executing their power as guardians of financially dependent children to stop the wedding. AHEM, may I quote Ohio Legal Services:
“A woman under the age of 18 years, but over 16 years of age, must obtain the consent of both her parents to the marriage in order to enter into a valid marriage with a man.”
Meanwhile, Rachel and Finn check each other out in their wedding get-ups, which is too gross for me to truly discuss. Then Quinn texts Rachel that she’s picking up her bridesmaids dress and will be slightly late as she must stop by the Magic Shop, which so kindly threw together some fairy dust, warlock and rayon and weaved it into a gown during that two hour grace period between Quinn agreeing to attend the wedding and the wedding itself.
Meanwhile, Santana, Brittany and Tina are getting antsy and bored because of the patriarchy and Glee’s inability to recognize that gay females are gay people too — maybe that’s just me actually, probably Brittany is thinking about Laffy Taffy, Santana is thinking about Brittany’s thighs, and Tina is thinking about her One Song Glory.
The teenagers sulk in a bizarre holding room borrowed from the Dalton Academy set as the parents panic:
Hiram: “New plan — I’m gonna fake an eplileptic seizure.”
Leroy: “But you’re not an epileptic.”
Hiram: “That’s why I’m gonna fake it.”
They truly are the actual best, and I wish they’d been here all along — they could’ve been fantastic mentors to Rachel’s BFF, Kurt, as well as constant comic and emotional relief for the rest of us.
Anyhow, so Rachel wants to hold up the wedding ’cause she absolutely cannot marry Finn unless Quinn is there, because she is in love with Quinn like how Mona is in love with Hanna.
So they text back and forth a lot, like OMG WHERE ARE YOU and OMG WHERE ARE YOU?!! and so forth, and Finn is like, let’s just do it, we’ve got two minutes before the jam-packed justice of the peace kicks our asses out the door in favor of marrying some alternate, invisible couple!
Rachel:Â “She said she’d be here, I don’t wanna start without her.”
And so Quinn is reading Rachel’s texts of panic with the confusion of someone still confused about Rachel’s claim that she’s actually planning to marry Finn…
“It’s now or never,” says Finn. Rachel texts! Quinn starts to text!
AND THEN!
THEN Quinn gets T-Boned by a pickup truck!
YUP! Â A truck smashes right into that car, we fade to black, Glee font promises this delight will “be continued…” and… the end.
So, what the fuck was this fuckery, motherfuckers?
