Episodes like these make me wish that Glee were a heavily autotuned cover band that just put out some covers every few months instead of a weekly television program.
0:01–It’s actually the seventh episode he’s credited for this season. Ryan Murphy has six. Brad Falchuk, who is consistently the best of them, has four.
0:28–5,000 x .25 is actually 1,250. I mean, I understand what they mean by that equation, but that’s not how you’re supposed to write it.
0:58–The last time Will suggested that the glee club raise money by selling food, Puck laced the cupcakes with weed. And now they plan on pushing saltwater taffy “like crack.” What this says about the Girl Scouts is up to your interpretation.
1:17–Is the first time Santana has been slushied? Do we have to make sure that everyone gets it at some point?
1:24–”Nobody cares about us, and no one has for thirty-nine episodes now.” Are you sure we can’t get Matt Foley in for a motivational speech?
I will keep asking You.
1:30–I thought Mike Chang was going to say something about how feeling put-down on is something they should have dealt with a long time ago, and that it’s stupid to continue belaboring it when they’re this close to winning Nationals. And then I was reminded why I’m a pessimist.
2:02–That is why they put them on the Academic Decathlon team, incidentally. It might be said that they’re on the Academic Decathlon team because common perception of the show suggests that they’ve been marginalized, but then again, those saying it are wrong. Keep that in mind for about twenty minutes.
2:29–The other categories, besides “Cat Diseases” and “Deadly Cyclones,” were “Defunct Sodas,” “Famous Mervs,” “Fat or Pregnant,” ”History of Shoehorns,” “Organic Chemistry,” “Potpourri,” and “White Rappers.”
2:36–Anyone else think that Brittany knowing a lot about outbreaks of certain cat diseases really isn’t that funny? And neither was her happy exclamation of how she loves saltwater. Pretty sure they burned her out.
3:09–”Why don’t you just have your parents pay for it?” asks the most bourgeois member of the club. Tina responds, in her own bourgeois manner, “Because then we wouldn’t have a stupid plot device to do this ‘Night of Neglect’ concert.”
3:28–No, Will, not more math!
4:25–I don’t understand. Every time the writers give Sue some grandiose plot to work out, it makes for a stupid episode. So naturally, they quite literally elevate her to comic book levels of grandiosity and hope it sounds funny or something.
4:54–Looked it up on YouTube. Found this. Don’t watch it at work, mostly because the economy is tanking and it doesn’t need your help to make it tank further.
5:40–The last time I was around that many people giving each other silly names, there was a drinking game involved. These people were ostensibly sober.
6:35–Yes, Holly Holiday, tell him about his dreams while you stroke him.
7:14–Yeah, that was my reaction.
7:22–Wow, that wasn’t the easiest possible joke to have made in this situation.
7:23–Tina looks like Anne Hutchinson.
7:30–Oh, sweet Jesus, I missed the word “annual” the first time. They can’t possibly be telling us that they want to keep doing “Nights of Neglect.”
7:56–Second time that Sandy has used the “I’m ready for my close-up” line. A Night of Neglect had an awful lot of reused material.
8:01–”Sandy, how do you manage to enter a building without setting off all the fire alarms?” was probably the best part of the episode. Says a lot about it.
8:17–I guess that “can’t be within fifty feet of children” thing expires after a season, huh.
9:05–That’s because she wears stupid hats.
This hat was so bad that it became a meme.
9:32–Gaaah the short jokes are lazy.
10:05–Charice is probably the best pure singer on this show, but her “All by Myself” was disappointing. When you do the Celine Dion cover of this song, the point of singing it is to show off how good your voice is. And I got that part. Charice has done two solo pieces on this show, and they were both essentially power ballads. That’s one of the conundrums they have with Lea Michele, I think. At this point, we know just how good she is, but hearing her power through the same soulful pop songs and showtunes anthems is already old. We’re already well on track with Charice…I mean, even the staging is identical.
10:12–Did I just see Heather Morris turn her head to the side with the same expression of concern on her face twice in the past thirty seconds?
10:28–The first time they used Eric Carmen’s “All by Myself,” Emma was sitting alone in her car crying as the rain fell around her, her mascara running as she sort of mumbled along to it. As has already become a major theme, they’re using it again, this time to sell .mp4s. Murphy was 31, Falchuk 25, and Brennan 18 when Celine Dion’s cover of this song came out (and Charice’s is clearly based on Celine’s); in the tradition of Jon Kyl, this is not intended to be a factual statement, but I’m pretty sure that one of those three got broken up with and immediately started binge-listening to this song.
13:37–This subplot was just woefully dumb. To me, there’s a definite difference between being a pushover who doesn’t have any self-value and someone who doesn’t want to actively butt heads with the person who has the biggest ego around. Mercedes is probably the most marginalized character on this show. She’s notable for being a stereotypical diva-ish black woman, being overweight, and having a good voice. Her character has never been explored; if there’s one word I’d use to describe her, it’s “unrealistic.” She seemed to understand that Kurt was gay, but still wanted to date him just for the sake of it. She risks suspension over tatertots, and to be honest, this tatertots thing has defined her this season. Characters on Glee, like Mercedes, are often loud. And Mercedes has now joined that group that’s not just loud, but obnoxious.
13:38–I have a little bit over one thousand words in this post thus far. I stopped writing here on Wednesday afternoon because I was thoroughly depressed by all this. It’s Friday afternoon now and I just watched an excellent episode of Modern Family, so I’m ready to give this another go.
13:44–Therein lies the difference between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.
14:50–Every time Glee suddenly ends or ignores a plot device, I can’t help but think of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men,” where is written, “This is how the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper”
15:09–That look you see on Will’s face really does say, “Good, I can still deflower her, but I have to somehow get rid of that chick I’m dating now so I can convince myself and others that I’m a good person.”
15:35–Take this how you will, but Glee chooses to privilege the most random things. Such as: OCD over depression or bipolar disorder, or homosexuality over bisexuality or transvestism. Take that how you will.
17:16–”It’s okay if the star is being a bitch! She just wants to be ‘appreciated and respected and has no idea how to do it! She just wants to be loved.”
17:59–It’s funny, some people actually think that’s what a history class looks like. That wasn’t me dumping on Glee for their Wallis Simpson joke-thingy, that was me having a bad recollection of my high school history classes.
18:49–Cheyenne Jackson was on 30 Rock for a little while back there. He was hilarious. He was fun to watch. And, as Ian Brennan reminds us, he was very good-looking. But he was also subtle. And the fact that Jackson has to be about as subtle as a brick wall to act this role is a shame. He’s so much better than this.
19:06–Will, the overprotective jealous boyfriend. How could we possibly make him more attractive?
20:04–Will: “This woman who had a heart-to-heart with me about her inability to commit to anything seems to be having a commitment issue. Where the hell did that come from?”
22:02–Max Adler, who, from all accounts is a sweet human being, was a good pick to be a relatively stupid hulking bully. And when I said he was “doing a great job” back in Furt, I was referring to how he managed to silently be a scary force haunting Kurt. But he’s out of his depth here.
24:12–It must be in Jenna Ushkowitz’s contract that she’s never going to finish a song well. In the first season, she cracks on the last note of “Tonight.” This season, she has been completely incapable of finishing a song she sang to Mike Chang, and now can’t manage to finish her performance due to heckling. If we’re supposed to believe that there’s more than one side to this character, and this episode was a way to shine a light on that new side, then what a failure.
26:36–Another wonderful dance from Mike Chang, even more proof that Glee is most interested in keeping their characters in little bubbles.
27:28–If this is the worst episode of Glee ever made, then this may be the worst scene. However, watching Will and Sue sing to small cancerous children in Comeback probably still “wins” in terms of pure, unadulterated schmaltz.
27:59–What might be more obnoxious than anything else is the lesson that I learned here about technology. I agree, it takes more balls to say something nasty to someone’s face than it does to say it on the Internet. But trying to pathologize the Internet as the biggest reason why people are unkind to others is stupid. Kurt’s done it before too, in the first episode of this season, where he called out the cowards who sat on the ‘Net and championed those who “stand up and sing about” what they feel. It’s not new, not even for Glee, and it’s just an unintelligent premise all around.
28:58–Glee also wants to play analyst every time someone is unkind. If you read my post on Never Been Kissed, you’ll remember that I didn’t care much for the “Karofsky is gay and ashamed therefore he must take it out on gay people” thesis. Nor do I much care for this “bullies only pick on people because they feel bad about themselves” thesis. I understand that there’s a good amount of research that backs that up, but are we really supposed to believe that’s true in every case? And are we supposed to look upon that sort of immaturity with sentimental pity?
29:08–”Just think how you could lift up the world if you turned some of those barbs into roses.” Doesn’t having an Oscar mean you don’t have to do this kind of crap anymore? (There’d be a picture here of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, but WordPress doesn’t want me making fun of them, apparently.)
29:24–And the reaction to Gwyneth Paltrow’s sermon was supposed to make me think that this wasn’t saccharine? Also, because Glee is about as nuanced as a sledgehammer (and hurts about as much when your head is involved), Azimio is now gay. Sigh.
29:35–Jacob ben Israel is fifteen?
30:32–She’s a bigger star than you are, Mercedes, because Lea Michele is a bigger name than Amber Riley. She gets the moments in the sun because Glee knows they can sell the slim white chick more easily than they can the fat black one. I wish I had better reasons why, but unfortunately, I have to use that logic is because short of blaming crass casualty, Glee has not given me any other way to reason through it on the basis of the action in the TV show.
30:57–It’s very bourgeois to suggest that the reason Rachel gets to be the star is because she wants it more.
32:38–The difference between Gwyneth Paltrow’s voice and Adele’s is, to borrow from Mark Twain, the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Not that I really hold with judging covers sheerly on the basis of how good it is compared to the original, but this just really sticks out to me.
34:52–Think OJ ever said that to his wife? …too soon? Too soon.
35:47–Really? Not only was the glee club going to run out on the everpresent and underappreciated band and the orchestra backing up Holly Holiday on “Turning Tables,” but Mercedes was planning on running out on this gospel choir backing her up on “Ain’t No Way” too? Douchebags.
38:38–Great performance of an iconic standard. I just can’t believe we had to go through all that crap to get to it.
40:10–Oh Will. Your favorite date would be the one that ostensibly involves sex.
40:30–One of the things I don’t think I’ll ever understand is how every relationship needs to end with a kiss or some fondling or something like that? Do we really have to see one final example of eroticization? Does it actually make us feel better? I think if whoever had just broken up with me were rubbing my neck like that, I’d give her what for.
40:33–Or kissing me. Like, really, what a bitchy thing to do. But here’s the thing. It’s Glee, and we all know that the relationships matter to the writers as much as fifty percent of American marriages mattered to the people in them.
41:37–Right, so the kids will take drug money from someone who was fired by McKinley to finance their trip, but they wouldn’t get their parents to pay for it? What?
42:34–The contestants at Riverfront are named “D. Lightman,” “L. Dobler,” “G. LaChance,” and “Travis Strong.” To the best of my knowledge, those are homages to WarGames, Say Anything, Stand by Me, and Radio Free Roscoe.
42:40–Really? No one in the studio thought, “We’d like to say hi to our friends in glee club” was just totally unnecessary? Actually, no one thought this entire episode was unnecessary?
Final thoughts: Worst episode of Glee I’ve seen. Stupid lessons, rehashing the worst elements of Glee, and overall good musical numbers that couldn’t distract from the idiocy of the plot. Congratulations, A Very Glee Christmas, you’re off the hook.
“I’ll finally get to see Marilyn.”
