Last week on Glee, I was stumped by the cultural relativity of Ms. Britney Spears, so when the sneak peek of this week’s episode revealed that it would be about spirituality, I thought, I’ve got this shit covered. I’m from Alabama – the only thing I did more often growing up than going to church was attempt to get other girls to show me the training bras under their shirts. RELAX, I WAS STILL WEARING A TRAINING BRA TOO.
As it turned out, I was wrong. I did not have this shit covered, because the episode opens with Finn burning a grilled cheese sandwich and finding the scorched face of Jesus on the bread. I make a grilled cheese sandwich at least once every other day – why don’t my sandwiches have an image pressed into their burn spots? WHERE IS MY BURNED IDOL?! Granted, if there’s going to be a burned religious figure in my bread, it’ll probably be Buddy Christ, or more realistically, Adam Lambert.
Finn cuts off the non-holy portion of his sandwich, then prays to the remaining bit for a football win since his team sucks.
Meanwhile, Kurt brings his dad, Burt, breakfast at his job. I have no idea what Kurt has brought him, or what Burt says he plans on eating instead of whatever good-for-you concoction Kurt has likely brought but I’d probably prefer Burt’s meal myself which may be why I am a walking advertisement for a Wilford Brimley-style diabetic supply infomercial today.
Burt reminds Kurt about their weekly family dinner, in place since before Kurt’s mom died. Kurt does not want to participate in this all that much anymore because he has way more hip places to be! The hills are alive with a Sound Of Music singalong, after all. Burt reminds him that he’s stood by him always, even buying him a Maria-style bonnet as a kid (BEST DAD EVER) but this doesn’t sway Kurt. He’s ready to roll around in some edelweiss, family dinner be damned.
At Glee Club practice, Finn announces there’s a new man in his life. Sadly for many of us who would enjoy the onset of any sort of gay love on this show besides somewhat implied lesbianism, it’s not Puck, new football player Sam (who, as I mentioned in last week’s recap, will from this point forward be known as Justin Squared), or any other eligible bachelor on this show. No, Finn has to hook up with this dude in sandals who doesn’t even have a texting plan and is saving himself for a marriage that isn’t legal in a crapton of states and many nations where this dude hangs out: Finn is now intensely involved with the Lord, and wants to sing all about it.
via fyeahgleecast.tumblr.com
The Glee kids have a mixed reaction. Mercedes and Quinn go all “shout to the lord… ”
lynnearlington.tumblr.com
Will Schuester wants to direct them less toward God and more toward personal spirituality since he needs this job to pay alimony.
Puck goes all profound and logical and shit and I kind of love him a lot and not just for this, but especially when his personal ode to spirituality is Billy Joel’s “Only The Good Die Young,” a charming tune about getting in the pants of that girl we all knew in high school who was so religious she didn’t even believe in wearing pants, but in a knee-length skirt kind of way, not in a Donald Duck kind of way.
http://gleefans.tumblr.com
Back at the Hummell garage, Burt is with a customer when he hits the floor and loses consciousness.
Kurt is unleashing some sixteen-going-on-seventeen-style oh-snap about his The Sound of Music singalong on a jock in French when Will & Emma come to get him to tell him that his dad is comatose in the hospital, and what follows is a teenage boy begging his dad to hear his voice and know he’s there and to squeeze his hand if he hears him, and even I’m not cold enough to make a joke about this. My girlfriend would tell you all that I am actually a Cadbury egg, hard on the outside and gooey on the inside. On a recent trip to Florida she had me crying over Dumbo’s mom and we weren’t even watching Dumbo and now anytime I start to get emotional she Twitpics me a photo of a Cadbury crème egg.
Finn has been busy spending his time praying to Grilled Cheesus in the hopes that Rachel will let him grope her, and thus is pissed that no one pulled him away from his slowly hardening, stale idol to tell him about what happened to Burt who is apparently now a father figure to him without us, you know, resolving last year’s blowup between them or anything like that. I’m distracted, however, by Brittany’s earnestly written book report (produced in crayon!) about heart attacks, a gift from her to Kurt to pass on to the hospital.
http://ohsteptome.tumblr.com
Mercedes comes to Glee wanting to sing about God, coming up with a rendition of “I Look To You” that is both oddly filmed and oddly edited from a musical standpoint and really, I have no real issues with religion itself but if we’re gonna go inspirational can we pick a good song that’s going to make me pay attention instead of trying to figure out if I can see Mercedes’s bra through her shirt? She does things to me, ladyfriends. She’s kind of exactly my type.
Kurt loses his shit on the kids, hauling into a rant about how God is a fairy tale and he’s like Santa Claus and also perhaps an elven wonder. Brittany wonders if God is an evil dwarf. I always picture God to be a combination of Zeus and Bowser or some shit, like a spike-covered white-bearded turtle in a bed sheet.
“I appreciate your thoughts, but I don’t want your prayers,” Kurt tells them, and yet somehow this still does not make sense to these kids.
Sue drops in just in time for our lesson on separation of church and state! Auto Correct in my word processor changed “lesson” to “lesbianism” in that previous sentence which I believe is AutoCorrect’s way of giving a shoutout to the kickass Jane Lynch. Shut up and let me have a fantasy. She pulls Will and Principal Figgins in for a lecture on how this spirituality segment is screwing with our civil liberties. Sue recommends anyone who wants to sing for Jesus should attend Sweet Holy Mother of God Academy on I Love Jesus Street. I think I might have seal-clapped here but I can’t remember because I aspirated some sweet tea in the process.
Rachel pulls Finn into her bedroom for a conference on the state of their union, which means she’s putting on her controlling hat and Finn’s getting an eyeful of boobage. She wants to make sure his recent conversion to Christlike living doesn’t mean that he thinks she’s going to allow him to let him choose their future mountain of babies’ religious beliefs. No way! As a reward, he gets to touch her boobs. CHEESUS IS REAL.
Sue is Super Damn Serious about keeping religion out of schools and wants Kurt to help file a complaint about Glee’s choice of lyrical topic for the week, which leads to the banning of spirituality week, which leads to people ragging on Kurt for speaking up, much like non-televised non-fictional people sometimes push their religion on others! Brittany gave Kurt a card that says heart attacks are just from loving too much. This root cause is also to blame for my poor grades in freshman math and possibly the grinding sound my old vibrator made before I replaced it.
Emma is pissed – pissed, I tell you! – about the complaint that Sue and Kurt made, and wants Sue’s reasoning behind attempting to use common sense and logic barring those poor Glee kids from expressing their religion in a state-funded public setting. SUE GETS REAL, Y’ALL. She prayed for years for anything to help her sister, Jeannie, to make people see how amazeballs Sue thought and still thinks she is, but instead Sue’s prayers went to the dead letter office in heaven and Jeannie still had Down syndrome, so Sue doesn’t believe in God either. Emma basically has no argument left so she says that’s arrogant and and the Sue Sylvester Hand Of Verbal Bitchslapping comes down with a righteous clap to let us all know that it’s nowhere near as arrogant as trying to force religion on someone.
Finn prays to Cheesus in the locker room! Seriously, is he carrying Cheesus around in his backpack? Does Grilled Cheesus have his own special pocket in there? If there’s a cheese-proof pocket in a backpack somewhere, I need to know of this thing’s existence for immediate purchase.
Puck walks in and admits he’s praying for Kurt’s dad, and Finn says OF COURSE HE IS TOO, YOU GUYS, except he’s really been praying for boobs and football and now to be quarterback again.
There’s no more religion or spirituality allowed in Glee, so Rachel holds Finn hostage in a park so she can sing “Papa, Can You Hear Me,” which does sound quite pretty but is indeed cringeworthy when the scene changes and Rachel is singing it to Kurt’s dad while a third of New Directions is huddled around Burt’s hospital bed. WHAT THE HELL, YOU GUYS. THIS SHIT IS CREEPY. Kurt is feeling my WHAT THE HELL sentiment just as strongly as he brings in an acupuncturist to try to help his dad and tells everyone to stop with their meddling prayers and to get the hell out of Burt’s room.
Justin Squared finally shows up! Thank Cheesus; everyone else in this episode is giving me a headache other than Puck. He’s in a football huddle talking about some move called “naked bootleg” during the football game and sadly this is not a euphemism for gay boy shenanigans. Much to my football-loving girlfriend’s chagrin I am clueless about this football crap so whatever it is, it gets Justin Squared hurt, which means Finn’s the quarterback once more. CHEESUS STRIKES AGAIN.
At the next meeting of New Directions, Kurt announces his dad isn’t any better but he has a musical number prepared, which is always the way to go in the event of adversity. He explains that when his mom died he wanted Burt to say something to make it better, but he couldn’t, so he simply took Kurt’s hand. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” is interspersed with flashback-like memories of Kurt’s childhood. His kickass dad is out there with a small Kurt looking like a wee version of the Eleventh Doctor in a potentially tweed jacket and bow tie as he learns to ride a bike as well as Burt having tea parties with his tiny son, pinkies in the air, and at the cemetery when Kurt’s mom died.
Kurt is crying. Most of New Directions is crying. Everyone on my Twitter feed is crying. I am not crying. Why am I not crying? Because my dogs are whining to go out. AGAIN.
After the meeting is over, Mercedes talks to Kurt in the hallway and says he’s both pushing her away and closing doors without consideration, which is both valid but also extremely irritating when it comes to religion because everyone is a horse of a different color in this manner and when the horse in question sprouts a coat of bright gay rainbow flag. Mercedes wants him to go to church with her, promising he can wear a hat. Kurt is apparently easy for hats. I have been known to enjoy the company of a good hat but solely on other people’s noggins. I come out looking like Dr. Seuss’s worst damn nightmare in a hat.
Finn confesses to Emma that he and Grilled Cheesus have been on a high school crime spree which started so innocently. He only wanted to win a football game, and then it derailed into a life of high crime involving touching a real human breast and getting Justin Squared hospitalized. Emma tries to steer this guidance counseling session in a logical way, directly contradicting the speech about religion and spirituality and shiny ponies of faith she gave Sue earlier. God doesn’t spend a lot of time talking to us via sandwiches, especially one that is probably five seconds away from being a health hazard.
Finn is disillusioned.
Finn is distressed.
Finn is losing his religion.
Finn is losing his religion to the point where he storms down the hall and into the library while singing “Losing My Religion,” because we didn’t have to just make this the most uneven wasted-potential episode ever but we had to bring the holy name of Michael Stipe and R.E.M. into this and it’s just… there are no words, people. It’s just bad.
Finn stares at Kurt creepily through a library bookshelf. I want to crawl under my couch and die except my couch is a futon and unless I become Polly Pocket there’s no way I’m fitting underneath that bitch so instead I just cradle my dogs close to me and dream of a better tomorrow when I no longer have to try to recall this episode in detail.
Kurt goes to church with Mercedes in a hat that I would like to wear on my head if I didn’t have a head with the proportions of a real-life Cabbage Patch Doll, and Mercedes asks the congregation to pray for Kurt’s dad while outing him as a nonbeliever and going all “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with a choir. I think I’ve watched too much American Idol because I did not even recognize this at first.
gleekietartie.tumblr.com
Sue goes to see Jeannie. They talk about God and why Sue doesn’t believe in one – but Jeannie does. She wants to know if she can pray for Sue. Sue says yes. Even with the unbalanced residual WTFery of this episode, Jane Lynch is still amazing here, and I bow down to her epicness.
Kurt goes to see his dad again, all alone this time, and talks to him about their first family dinner after Kurt’s mom died and how the chicken was raw and they laughed before wondering if it was okay to laugh yet. Kurt still doesn’t believe in God after the disdain of his choirmates and Mercedes taking him to church, but what he does believe in is the relationship he and his dad have.
Burt squeezes Kurt’s fingers. There is more crying. I try to refrain from Cadburying it up.
New Directions takes the stage to sing “One Of Us.” I remember when this song came out and it was considered blasphemous and everyone was all YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD and OF COURSE GOD DOES NOT GO TO SONIC FOR REESE’S BLASTS and things of that nature and now it’s like the most tame thing ever.
I spend the duration of this song staring closely at the white t-shirts the girls are wearing to see who has a visible bra.
itsnotadreamanymore.tumblr.com
Finn eats Cheesus, his falling napkin on the former altar of the paper plate closing out the episode, meaning to speak volumes about his faith or whatever. Next time: Finn gets food poisoning and expires belly-up like a lab experiment. Just kidding. Next week: duets? For the love of Cheesus, please be funny.
Kurt’s hat was ridiculous but I have to believe I could pull it off. And you are hilarious, please do this all season.
My favorite Sue smackdown was when she dismissed Emma with the 1/2 orangutan comment.
Agreed. The “lustrous ginger mane” bit made me laugh in all kinds of mysterious ways.
My thoughts in the last 2 minutes of this episode:
-They are NOT gonna have Finn eat that sandwich.
-I hope they cut to a shot of the sandwich and it is covered in green fuzz.
-Oh. My. God. He’s eating the sandwich.
-Next week on Glee: Finn is in a coma. Spirituality gets shoved down our throats-Part 2!
I could NOT believe he ate that week-old grilled cheese. I would have vomited had I not been too busy sobbing into a couch cushion while the dog and cat stared at me like I was a lunatic.
too many emotions while reading one comment! grilled cheese: disgusting. sobbing: :( need a hug? dog/cat: want.
and losing my religion was a terrible horrible no good very bad choice of a song to sing on this teevee show.
One of my biggest pet peeves about religious people is that they tend to try to “convert” you into believing. I am an atheist and try to be tolerant (yes sometimes I fail) about others people’s faith. However, if I don’t go around trying to convince people that there is no god then respect me and don’t try to convince me there is. Also don’t get me started on the separation of church and state issue since I would write a book. Anyway, semi rant out of the way.
I think the recap was great and funny especially for such a “heavy” episode. I hope you continue these throughout the season.
Finally, ewwww on eating the sandwich at the end just ewwww!!!!!
I learned a valuable lesson from Glee. No more praying to sandwiches.
Okay, but can I continue to pray to Jane Lynch/for Jane Lynch to marry me?
This is acceptable.
Loved this– you are awesome! My only point of contention here is that I LOVED Finn singing Losing my Religion. What can I say? I’m warming to Finn in spite of myself.
this was an awesome recap!! I’m pretty sensitive about religion in the sense that everyone should mind their own damn business as long as it’s not hurting anyone (satanism, for example). The fact that Kurt asks them not to pray for his dad is a little abrasive, but the fact that they keep praying AND shoving it in his face to try and prove something to Kurt about prayer is just damn ridiculous. It’s ok to pray for someone, just don’t try and make a point out of it.
You made me giggle. You need to do these for the rest of Glee.
Actually, I would contest the idea that Satanism harms anyone… at least if we’re talking about LaVey et al. Hedonistic, okay, but harming people? Nah.
I was annoyed at almost everybody in the Glee club(except Kurt and Brittany) throughout the whole episode, I’m a religious person but if someone expressly asked me not to pray for them I wouldn’t do it, or at least I wouldn’t constantly rag on them about it. Like a hug is good you know, anyway awesome recap:D
finn better have vacuumed packed that shit because he grossed everyone including jesus out
i think this has been my favorite episode of glee this season, and it’s definitely up there with the all time favorites.
for the most part i loved how they dealt with the religion aspect. i liked that they chose sue, the character that typically ratchets up the escalation of animosity, to be the one arguing for complete denial of glee kids talking about their spiritual lives, showing that maybe such a demand goes a little too far. there isn’t any reason the kids shouldn’t be allowed to sing about spirituality, or lack of spirituality, if they want to– it’s about expressing themselves isn’t it? isn’t that what all their songs/episodes are about– expressing themselves?
sue’s argument wasn’t strictly rational, her emotional connection through her sister compromised the argument by making it personal, rather than an issue of policy.
the character’s that were at their worst in this episode were the ones that just couldn’t listen to each other. mercedes, rachel, and quin, who, even after kurt’s solo, refused to connect with him in a way that would comfort and make sense to him, instead setting up prayer vigils and dragging him off to church. just depressing.
sue and kurt on the other hand, more than made up for them– by the end they could actually listen to someone else without having their own beliefs offended. and that was nice.
i didn’t feel like spirituality was shoved down my throat this episode. i didn’t feel like emma’s two speeches were somehow in conflict with each other. i thought it was kinder about issues of religion than this review makes it out to be. also this review made me hungry for cadbury eggs. ^_^
I dunno, when I was in show choir and we sang songs about God in Latin or in bluesy renditions retelling about “a man of the Pharisees, his name was Nicodemus and he didn’t believe” it was TO WIN SHIT, so…I have trouble relating here. We just wanted to win our version of the Nationals.
I hated all but a few of the songs in this episode, but discussion’s been great and this post is AMAZING.
I was super uncomfortable with how disrespectful and insensitive the kids were toward Kurt’s atheist beliefs. The majority of their arguments and protestations when challenging his belief system were total, utter shit, and it was horrible of them to TREAT HIM BADLY because of them with his father in a coma (or at all, as a friend). If it was some Christian’s dad lying on a hospital bed, it’s not like all the Atheists in the room would get to frown, furrow their brows and heavy-handedly attempt to coerce the Christian into not praying. It was so insulting.
Not to mention the fact that – and he even pointed this out – he was uncomfortable with many church’s stances on gays. It never even came up again in the episode.
I cried so hard during the ep, but I laughed three hundred times during this <3 NEVER STOP THESE AWESOME RECAPS.
Your Doctor Who references make my heart giggle and feel happiness and warmth.
Also, I love the way you write these.
Honestly, Doctor Who is the only thing I love on this earth more than myself and perhaps fried balls of pepper jack cheese.
Those are essentially my feelings as well. I love a lot of things. Like coffee and a cozy cardigan. However, the Doctor tops them all.
I live under the constant delusion that aliens may one day take over the skies and he will save the day.
I’m gonna confess something. I might not like Glee anymore. It’s just turned into a big wtf thing with a only a few rewarding moments for me. So, from now on Ashleigh’s great recaps is all I’ll have. :S
I agree. I liked the Brittany/Britney episode the most this season which is saying something ’cause I am a anti-Britney lady. The music is not the same quality as last season!
Personally my favorite thing about the episode was Puck’s rant on Jesus. I think there were three different nicknames for Jesus? Oh and Rachel making a “Sofie’s Choice” reference. Which I feel as though I’m the only one that noticed that.
Oh and the little Brittana love that was on there with the little smile that Santana gave Brittany after she said heart attacks were because people love to much.
And who doesn’t love a little (BLATANT) lesbian subtext in their shows?
I thought this episode was totally boring. :[