Glee S1E22: Journey

"I'm seriously gonna puke in your mouth."

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Glee S1E21: Funk

"Sue Sylvester has hourly flair ups of burning itchy highly contagious talent."

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Glee S1E20: Theatricality

"Asian vampires are the most vicious of all the vampires!"

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Glee S1E19: Dream On

"Do you want to hear my research that proves my mother is Bernadette Peters?"

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Glee S1E18: Laryngitis

"Last week I joined a black church."

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Glee S1E17: Bad Reputation

"The cruel slow motion laughter is just your imagination."

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Glee S1E16: Home

"I haven't had a drink in 45 minutes!"

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Glee S1E15: The Power of Madonna

"Mercedes is black, I'm gay. We make culture."

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Glee S1E14: Hell-O

"I'm engorged with venom and triumph."

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Glee S1E13: Sectionals

"She's the one they made me talk to when they found out I was keeping that bird in my locker."

Sad as we are to see the show go on hiatus until the spring, we were looking forward to this episode because the depiction of sectionals meant we were pretty much guaranteed a bunch of great numbers. We weren't even thinking of plot much but we got that in spades too. We have to admit, as annoying as the two pregnancy storylines sometimes got, we kind of love how they brought them each to their conclusion: as mundanely as possible. Will finds a baby bump pillow and lifts Terri's shirt. Done. Rachel, standing as she does in the center of things in the Glee club, figures out the obvious and tells Finn she doesn't think he's the father of Quinn's baby. Done.

But let's face it, the musical numbers are what keep us all coming back week after week and last night's episode did not disappoint.

Y'know, it could be argued that giving "And I Am Telling You" to the sassy, chubby black girl is just a tiny bit on the cliche side, but a): they treated it like the expected thing it was, and b): she FUCKING NAILED IT with a version that would have made both Jennifers sit down for a minute.

And what do you do after the sassy, chubby black girl brings down the roof with the anthem for sassy, chubby black girls everwhere? Why, you hand the Jewish girl with the Broadway Baby styling "Don't Rain on My Parade,"(the anthem for Jewish girls with Broadway Baby styling everywhere) and turn her loose, resulting in yet another roof coming crashing down.



But the episode wasn't just a nod to the gays - because anthems for sassy, chubby black girls and Broadway baby Jewish girls are naturally anthems for gayboys as well - because we got a cute version of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and a KILLA version of "My Life Would Suck Without You," complete with choreography that served as callbacks to pretty much every other number this season.



And in between we got a ton of drama and a little bit of comedy. In fact, we got what we considered the funniest line and delivery of the entire season:

"Okay. I'm just gonna come out and say it. This is a singing competition. I don't know how those deaf kids got in. They weren't singing, they were like, honking, and everyone was crying and I was like, "Get off the stage. You're terrible and you're making me super uncomfortable."

So hard were we laughing at that that we didn't hear the next five minutes of dialogue.

Sue, of course, got the remainder of the best:
"Hey buddy. I just stopped by to feed my Venus Flytrap."

"You'll be adding revenge to the long list of things you're no good at, right next to being married, running a high school glee club and finding a hairstyle that doesn't make you look like a lesbian."

"Get ready for the ride of your life, Will Schuester. You're about to board the Sue Sylvester Express. Destination: horror!"

It was a completely satisfying hour of television. If the series had been canceled at this point, these 13 episodes would have stood on their own . Thankfully, they'll be back in the spring, stripped clean of most of the silliness plotwise, and geared up for regionals, promising better and better numbers. Can't wait.



[Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com - Video: Dailymotion.com]


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Glee S1E11: Hairography

"I'm gonna say this as nice as I can. But you look like a sad clown hooker."

We are still in the throes of turkey and carb overload-induced coma while simultaneously attempting to gear ourselves up for what we hope is a mere toe-dip into Black Friday madness, and since this was a pretty disjointed episode that recycled a lot of the same old conflicts, we're only up for bullet points and videos. We figure that's all you're up for too. Ready? Go.

- Except there are no videos. Boo to Fox, who apparently is protecting its property vigorously. It gets harder and harder to find decent embeddable performance clips from each episode, and this week we couldn't find any at all, unfortunately.

- It says something about the quality of the episode that we're not particularly upset about Bullet Point # 1. There just weren't any kickass musical numbers. Sure, "Papa Don't Preach" was cute (and Quinn's best vocal performance yet) and so was "True Colors," if only for the long-overdue Tina solo. Her voice was perfectly suited for the song. That Hair + Beyonce mashup was funny - especially the deaf kids' reaction to it - but it's not like we were humming it the next day, which was kind of the point, we guess.

- But what really kind of made us uncomfortable was the "Imagine" number. They were clearly going for the lump-in-the-throat effect (and to be fair, they got it from us, a little bit), but we couldn't help thinking how rude it was for the New Directions kids to jump in uninvited. And it struck us as a little bit of a copout on the creators' part. If you wanted us to tear up over the deaf choir, then have the bravery to give them the spotlight on their own.

- "It's like cool epilepsy." lines like this, along with characters like the pick-pocketing Aphasia, are what keep the show from skirting too far into Hallmark Channel sweetness. The occasional political incorrectness of the show is, for us, a selling point and to its credit, it's applied equally to all the characters, from the pregnant head of the chastity club to the scheming bitchy queen, plotting to trick his unrequited love into loving him.

- Having said that, there's no denying that the show definitely has a problem with its female characters. Terri, her sister Kendra, Quinn, Sue Sylvester, Rachel - they're all either batshit crazy or scheming bitches, usually both. It's to the credit of Jane Lynch and Jessalyn Gilsig that they can find the comedy in their characters, but it's episodes like this one that illustrate just how pervasive it is on the show.

- And speaking scheming queens, we have to give it up for Kurt, who got some of the best lines of the night.

"You need something to distract from your horrible personality. Most of the time, I can't stand to be in the same room as you."

"Rachel manages to dress like a grandmother and a toddler at the same time."

"It makes it hard to appreciate your talent because I wanna shove a sock in your throat."

"Makeovers are like crack to me."

It could be argued that Kurt's character is a cliche and a tragic one at that, but like we said, it's a little refreshing that the gay character can be as politically incorrect as any of the other ones and they've built up enough goodwill by showing us various sides of the character in previous episodes, so we don't mind it at all.

- In case it wasn't obvious, this was clearly not our favorite episode of the season. All the plotlines feel like well-trod ground at this point. Don't get us wrong, it's always an hour bound to get you to laugh at least once and enjoy at least one musical number, but this one was a bit of a letdown.

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Glee S1E10: Ballad

"I have to go. They'll think I'm pooping."

Sometimes, you just gotta give up the stuff you want in order to get the stuff you need. Last night's episode was sadly Sue Sylvester-free, but in the end we didn't mind because there was big movement on the plot front. So big that we honestly didn't see it coming. Not only do Quinn's Glenn Beck-watching, chastity ball-attending, constantly buzzed parents now know about her pregnancy, but they threw her out of the house, leaving her to live with Finn and his mom and her amazing denim vests. Further, Puck blurted out that he's the father of the baby, except he blurted it out to Mercedes, who had the best intentions but didn't exactly give the best advice as to how to handle it.

Plus there was a cute and funny subplot about Rachel crushing on Will and Terri suffering years of hormonal high school girls going after her husband. In typical Terri style, she figured out a way to make it work for her: by treating the girls as household slaves. And believe it or not, the last girl who had a crush on Will, Suzy Pepper, is played by the same actress who plays Sal Romano's wife Kitty on Mad Men, Sarah Drew. Go look it up. That girl is a chameleon. She was completely unrecognizable last night. The only reason we knew who she was is because Lorenzo has always loved her since her appearance on the late lamented Wonderfalls.

Except for the final highly emotional number, the songs were a little flat this week. "Endless Love" was great but they talked all through it and Cory's "I'll Stand By You" was sweet, but he definitely doesn't have the voice for solos. And while they finally figured out what a mash-up is (not a medley), we didn't think Will's mash-up of "Don't Stand So Close To Me" and "Young Girl" actually worked. Of course, the second the words "You're having my baby" came out of Finn's mouth at the Fabrays' dinner table, we groaned and covered our eyes. One thing that's notable about the song choices (and to be fair, we didn't notice this until someone - oh, okay: Laura - called us up and pointed it out): they weren't exactly subtle. "Endless Love" leads to a crush, which leads to Rachel wanting to sing "Crush." Finn needs to get the baby out in the open so he sings "Having My Baby." Will is concerned about Rachel's crush so he sings a mash-up of "Don't Stand So Close To Me" and "Young Girl." Not so much a criticism, just something that we hadn't noticed until it was pointed out to us. Thank god we didn't have to suffer through Kurt's proposed rendition of "I Honestly Love You."

So yeah, we were nearing the close of the hour a little disappointed with the musical numbers until the glee club offered up a song that's appeared in one too many movies and phone company commercials to have any sort of emotional impact and yet, there we were, tearing up listening to it. Manipulative? You bet. But isn't that what music is supposed to do, manipulate your emotions?



Once again we have to single out Artie. That kid really does have a fantastic, soulful voice. We loved his version of "Dancing with Myself" last week, but this performance was his best yet. It's just funny to see this skinny white kid open his mouth and have a big soul voice come out. And we can't imagine ever getting tired of Mercedes' crystal clear voice.

Finn and Kurt bonding over their dead parents was sweet and believable, a bond that makes sense for the characters. Unfortunately, Kurt's growing crush is a little painful for us to watch. It's something any gay boy can relate to but most of us didn't take it so far as to try and convince the captain of the football team to give up girls permanently.

Anyway, it was kind of an uneven episode but we didn't care. It was still fun. Let's wrap this up with our favorite quotes along with the rest of the numbers.

"It's a male duck."

"I could totally sing this song with Finn, but screw him if he thinks he's taking the Diana Ross part from me."

"I never noticed this before because he's always trying to ruin my career, but Mr. Schu has really pretty eyes."

"Listen, you little psycho, this is Will's wife, and if I don't get enough sleep my antidepressants won't work and then I'll go crazy and I'll kill you."

"He's cheating off a girl who thinks the square root of 4 is rainbows."

"He'll be crying into my shoulder pads."

"Hey, Barbra Streisand. We need to have a little talk."






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Glee S1E9: Wheels

Rolling on a river, kittens.

We're not gonna lie to you. Despite our endless cheering for this show, our viewing experience quite often is vocalized thus: "Wait, what?" "Why is she --?" "Didn't they just --?" "Who would do --?" And ends thus: "You know what? I'm just gonna go with it."

Well, last night's episode was the first time we didn't have that reaction. Oh sure, they're still pushing the implausible baby daddy storyline, but this time the characters involved are all acting like, well, like real people would act in such an implausible situation. For the first time, we actually felt a little tension there and wondered how it was going to be resolved and who was going to wind up hurt. Don't get us wrong, we'll bet you a dollar that it'll all come out by the season finale and Quinn and Puck will wind up together, but for the first time we were actually curious about how they were going to get to that point.

Even more encouraging is that the writers seem to have gotten a better handle on each of the characters and they're blooming right in front of our eyes. Sue Sylvester isn't just a crazy fascist; Artie isn't just "wheelchair guy"; Tina isn't just "stuttering girl"; Kurt isn't just -- well, okay, Kurt IS the gay one, but they added some layers to that and honestly, any scene between him and his father is a scene worth watching. They play off each other so well and their individual pain is both subtle and utterly believable. Also, blonde girl has a name! Britney! And a personality! Dumb Blonde! Okay, maybe they need to work on that one in terms of fleshing it out, but they did manage to wring a "I can't believe they just said that" politically incorrect joke out of it with the revelation that she copies her math answers off the girl with the developmental disability.

And speaking of disabilities, they've only really lightly touched on what it's really like to be an outsider, especially in high school. Mostly, they've just played it for laughs, but we're not going to deny that we teared up a little at Artie's cute rendition of "Dancing with Myself."



But then we really lost it when Sue visited her sister. Didn't see that one coming at all. And for some odd reason, it really works for the character. Somehow, her previous flashes of sheer insanity and nastiness don't actually contradict the warm, loving Sue we saw briefly last night. Credit must be paid to the awesome Jane Lynch, who nailed that scene.

Honestly, we were just happy to see a show that didn't COMPLETELY revolve around the most attractive members of the cast. It's not that we want them to ignore Quinn, Puck, Rachel and Finn (not to mention Will, Emma, and Terri), but a little bit of a spotlight on the so-called "lesser" characters was desperately needed, especially Tina and Artie. Their "date" was incredibly sweet, but this being Glee, had to end somewhat badly. We really hope they pick up on this plotline and don't leave it dangling.

Also, Kurt and Rachel in a diva-off! Who doesn't love that? The outcome was pretty much predetermined but they added a nice twist on it by having Kurt reveal he deliberately flubbed the note for his father's sake. That's an examination of being gay that you don't normally see on television: how far out of the closet can I go before I pay a price? It's a question that every struggling gay person has to answer at some point.

And finally, as the minutes wound down on the show, we were afraid we were going to be left without a big number to take us home. We should have known better:

Where did they get that ramp? How did they all master their wheelchairs so quickly? Where is the musical accompaniment coming from? You know what? We're just gonna go with it. Because we honestly think this episode was the best of the series so far.


[Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com - Videos: hulu.com/photobucket.com]


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Glee S1E8: Mashup

"It was a message from God: Rachel was a hot Jew and the good lord wanted me to get into her pants."

Okay, before we get into it, watch this (as if you needed to be asked):



Amazing, amirite? In fact, this may be our favorite solo of the series so far. Puck has a great voice, which makes us wonder why he's not singing male lead instead of Finn. Still, we've been bitching and moaning about handing the mike to anyone but the two leads, so we won't belabor the point this time.

Here's what makes this clip so amazing and how it's going to lead us to bitch again: while the camera swoops and pans during the song, we're treated to some great dialogue-free character bits: Rachel is swooning, Quinn is swooning (And can we say, we don't blame them a bit? Who wouldn't swoon while a boy who looked like that sang that song to them?), the lightbulb is slowly going on over Finn's head, and, our favorite, Santana, the girl who dumped Puck due to his poor credit rating, looks like she wants to vomit. This is something the show does very well: these quick cuts just to show a character's reaction to something. It's a great way to fill in the details on a character without taking pages of dialogue.

Now, why on earth would we complain? Just this: all those little character bits demonstrated that a Rachel/Puck romance not only works wonderfully, it opens up the show to a ton of possibilities, plot and character-wise. So what did they do? Dumped the idea before the show was over. Stupid, Glee folks. Very stupid.

In fact, much as we loved the episode, this dropped plotline kind of soured us on the whole thing. Sure, we never expected the kindler, gentler Sue Sylvester bit to last the whole hour and we weren't disappointed when she went right back to being sociopathic Sue at the end, but this, we just can't let this one go.

And the whole arc about the social repurcussions of cool kids hanging with the dorks - hasn't this been done already? A couple of times now? Will and Emma stare longingly at each other and sigh while Ken looks on, angry. Hasn't that been done enough? The Puck and Rachel pairing was the first thing to come along since the pilot that really threatened to turn everything on its head; the first really new thing to come along in 6 or 7 episodes. Plus, we would have loved to see the two of them share a duet. Aren't we all a little tired of the endless Rachel/Finn duets?

Okay, okay. We're bitching too much. We really did like the episode. Loved Emma's solo on "I Could Have Danced All Night," a perfect blend of character, costume, and song. And while others may bitch about Will's constant white guy rap, we think it's funny and besides, unlike a LOT of white guys who attempt to rap, he's actually good at it. We think he's cute enough, but when he starts dancing, he goes from cute to hot in a couple of seconds. Also, Kurt (and there's never enough Kurt to our tastes) got a great bit in when he took one for the team and pointedly asked Finn if his football friends would do the same for him. Nice little burn there. And of course, how can we ever forget the image of Sue and Will swing dancing?

Okay, let's wrap this up with our favorite quotes and a couple more musical numbers.

" I can't be caged in, Sue. That's why I got my tiger tattoo."

"Someone get me to a day spa! Stat!"

"You sunk my battleship, Rod. And you sunk it hard."

"I, for one, think intimacy has no place in a marriage. Walked in on my parents once and it was like seeing two walruses wrestling."





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GleeS1E7: Throwdown

"Are you an Eve who was born a Steve?"

As far as we're concerned, the show gets a little tighter with each episode and last night's was the tightest yet. Plot, character motivations and music all combined flawlessly. For once, we didn't have a "What the...?" moment. It all made sense. We had hopes that the show could eventually pull this off. They're trying to do a balancing act and so far, they've never quite achieved what they achieved last night. Sure, most of the plots are wholly implausible, but at least they make a kind of internal sense for the show.

There's a lot of criticism of the character of Will's wife Terri and in a way, we kind of feel sorry for the actress playing her because we think she's doing a really good job in an almost impossible role. Yes, she's annoying and self-centered and the fake pregnancy plot is completely implausible, but when she grabbed Will's face during the fake ultrasound and implored him to remember this moment and remember that they loved each other, it played really well. You could feel her desperation to keep her marriage together and the insane lengths she's gone to to make her husband happy. Obviously, it's not going to end well but we can't deny we're insanely curious to see how they're going to wrap this one up.

The show is also doing a damn good job of taking cliches like the bitchy cheerleader and turning it on its head. Quinn not only got a great little musical number with the Supremes' "Keep me Hangin' On," she also got some great character moments as well. The final number, an emotional rendition of "Keep Holding On," wherein the entire glee club basically pledged to be there for her was ...well, we're not ashamed to say we teared up a little bit and that was due almost entirely to her performance. When she looked down lovingly at Artie, of all people, we totally believed it.

Here's a question we want to throw out to you to hash out: Most of the time, the show's musical numbers occur in-story, meaning it's a scene where the characters are supposed to be singing or performing. Every once in a while they go the fantasy route, wherein the characters walk around singing at times when no one would do so in real life. They did this with Rachel's version of "Take a Bow" a couple episodes back and they did it twice last night with Quinn's number and again with Rachel and Finn's duet of "No Air." Does it bother you when they do it? Does it take you out of the show? Frankly, we don't mind it at all but we love classic musicals, which tend to trade in that sort of technique constantly. We know some people find it a bit too unrealistic and it takes them out of the story. What say you, minions?

As usual, Sue Sylvester was on fire last night, getting almost all the best lines. It's also nice to see that the writers are finally realizing that Will isn't the goody two-shoes he likes to think he is. He's as inappropriate around those kids as Sue is.

To wrap it up, our favorite lines followed by our favorite numbers. Actually, we really wanted to post Mercedes' version of "Hate on Me," not just because we loved it but because we're happy any time they yank the mike away from Rachel. Don't get us wrong, we think she's got a stunning voice, but so do several of the other cast members, Mercedes most notably. Unfortunately, we can't find a video of this number on line. Found it!

"I empower my Cheerios to be champions. Do they go to college? I don't know. I don't care. Should they learn Spanish? Sure, if they wanna become dishwashers and gardeners."

"I don't trust a man with curly hair. I can't help but picture little birds laying sulfurous eggs in there, and it disgusts me."

"I can't stand the sight of kids getting emotional, unless it's from physical exhaustion."

"Bye, white people!"










[Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com - Videos: viddler.com]



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Glee S1E6: Vitamin D

This was easily the tightest episode so far. For the first time, they managed to combine plot, humor and musical numbers. In previous episodes the best we could expect was 2 out of 3. While the numbers, a mashup of "Halo" and "Walkin' on Sunshine" from the girls and a mashup of "It's My Life" and "Confessions" from the boys, weren't as over the top as some we've seen, they were still entertaining as hell. They can't do "Don't Stop Believin'" or "Somebody to Love" every week, after all.

The key is to make sure that Sue Sylvester is prominent in every episode and this week, they once again gave all the best lines to her. Let's run them down, shall we? First, she said what all of us want to say when we're stuck listening to something we don't want to:
"Oh, dear God, please. Stop talking. I'm trying desperately to ignore the treacly sweet inanity of your asinine conversation but now I've got bile in my mouth."

We are SO going to find a way to use that. Then there were her interesting ideas about how to treat students:
"We're dealing with children. They need to be terrified. It's like mother's milk to them. Their bones won't grow properly."

Her views on motherhood:
"Me, I never wanted kids. Don't have the time; don't have the uterus."

And her descriptions of the glee club:
A "clutch of scab-eating mouth-breathers," and a "cabal of doughy, misshapen teens."

Say what you will about her, the lady knows her way around a sentence. Nothing tops her dead-on description of Emma, though:
"A mentally ill ginger pygmy with eyes like a bush baby."

When Sue wasn't chewing the scenery, we got some movement on the Terri/Quinn's baby scenario and we have to say, it gets more implausible with each episode. How exactly are both of them planning on making the switch without anyone knowing? Yes, yes, we realize that with a show like this you have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit, but since they're already asking us to do that with the musical numbers it wouldn't hurt to make the plotlines at least slightly plausible.

We feel a bit bad for the actress playing Terri, because she's actually quite good in the role, but she's saddled with a character who's awful and whose actions make no sense. The whole Emma/Will unrequited-love thing would have a lot more tension if EVERYONE watching the show didn't hate Will's wife.

So Terri takes a job as the school nurse to be closer to Will even though she's not a nurse (don't think about it too much) and promptly gets to dosing the drowsy kids with pseudoephedrine, which results in two very manic numbers, one from the boys and one from the girls.





A couple things here: the songs and performances are, as always, what make the show. But we'd like to see one of the other girls take the lead, especially Tina or Mercedes. Yes, they've made the hard-to-argue point that Rachel is the most talented and most driven, and we're certainly not complaining about her performance here. It's just that it would be nice to hear someone else take lead for once. They managed to do it with the boys. Finn got a solo but then they handed the mike over to Artie (wheelchair kid) and he's got a GREAT voice. More of that, please. We also liked that these two numbers weren't TOO polished and that for once, they really did look like homemade or thrown-together costumes. Emma never picked a winner, so which team do you think did a better job?

Let's see, what else? Well, we got to see an old lady get tripped on the stairs and wind up in a coma. That's always good for comedy. "They declined my offer to do their hair in cornrows." There was a sweet scene between Rachel and Quinn. For all the plot implausibilities of this show (which, for the most part don't bother us as much as we make it sound), we have to say the writers have done a pretty good job of making us believe that the popular kids and the dorks really can and do start to like one another a little bit. It doesn't seem weird to see Kurt with Puck or seeing the cheerleaders enjoy the hell out of themselves singing backup to Rachel.


[Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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