Glee: Preggers

The episode opens with Kurt wearing a black sequined jumpsuit and bopping around, awesomely, to “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It).” When his father catches him, Kurt claims to be on the football team and manages to convince him that sequined unitards are pretty standard apparel. Kurt may be my favorite character.

Terri’s sister Kendra gives her some Lamaze lessons. Terri confesses that her pregnancy is a fraud. She wants to confess the truth to Will, but Kendra talks her out of it, claiming, “Dishonesty is food to a marriage -- it’ll die without it.” I’m still not feeling Glee 100%, honestly, but I’m a fan of all the bon mots.

In other news, Sue Sylvester has begun hosting a local news segment, “Sue’s Corner” (in her debut appearance, she rhapsodizes about the benefits of caning). The station manager grows concerned that her cheerleaders won’t make it to Nationals, seeing as three have defected to the glee club, and implies that Sue’s future with the station is contingent upon the success of Cheerios. This hardens Sue’s resolve to destroy the glee club.

Rachel flips out when Will gives the solo in “Tonight” from West Side Story to Tina, the cute girl with the blue streak in her hair and the stammer, instead of to her.

Kurt tries out for the school’s losing football team, and is all kinds of adorable about it (“Hi, I’m Kurt, and I’ll be auditioning for the role of kicker”). He boogies around the field to “Single Ladies”, kicks the ball cleanly over the goal post, and celebrates making the team with his best pageant wave.

Quinn tearfully confesses to Finn that she’s pregnant, even though they’ve never had sex. She reminds Finn of the time he prematurely ejaculated in the hot tub when they were making out. Aw, crap. Every time I mention the phrase “prematurely ejaculated”, which seems to happen an awful lot while discussing this show, my website keyword stats start getting wonky.

Sue blackmails Principal Figgins by threatening to leak a cheeseball PSA he starred in about the dangers of embolism unless he agrees to let disgraced music teacher Sandy Ryerson return to the school. Sue and Sandy conspire to lure Rachel away from the glee club in the hopes of crippling it, with strategically-placed notices about upcoming auditions for a production of Cabaret, in which all hopefuls must come prepared to sing the Celine Dion song of her choice. This, naturally, is catnip for Rachel.

Will squabbles with Rachel, who is still furious with him for giving the solo to Tina. This is the point where I need to take Rachel aside and have a stern chat about her monstrous and unattractive sense of entitlement. Rachel’s argument is that she’s clearly the better singer, and thus it’s not fair to give Tina the solo just to boost Tina’s self-confidence. Per Rachel: “Why do you have to hurt me to help her feel good?” Here’s the thing: The value of anything artistic -- writing, singing, dancing, painting, what have you -- is always, always subjective. No one ever deserves to be chosen for the lead, and being given the big solo is not Rachel’s automatic right. I've been in Rachel's corner thus far, but her attitude in this episode is ghastly. Anyway, Tina ends up singing “Tonight” in rehearsal and doing a lovely job.

A sobbing Finn tells Will about Quinn’s pregnancy, which sort of weirdly and awkwardly segues into Finn asking Will to give the football team dance lessons to improve their performance on the field. The dialogue on this show is head and shoulders above the plotting. Will mentions Quinn’s pregnancy to Terri, which gives her all kinds of ideas.

After Finn fills Puck in about the pregnancy, Puck taunts purported virgin Quinn, mentioning that, unbeknownst to Finn, they’ve slept together. Quinn offers up this rationalization for events: “You got me drunk on wine coolers, and I felt fat that day.” Later, as Quinn sobs in her car, Terri accosts her, gives her prenatal vitamins, and offers to help her through the pregnancy.

The football game goes poorly, until the team rallies and performs a beautifully choreographed routine to, yes, “Single Ladies.” Finn scores a touchdown, then Kurt kicks the final goal, thus winning the game. In the stands, Will and Emma hug passionately. Quinn and Finn smooch while Puck storms off the field in a jealous huff.

After the game, Kurt finally comes out to his father, who isn’t terribly surprised by this turn of events.

Three football players, Puck among them, join the glee club. Will still refuses to give the solo to Rachel, so she quits, which... good riddance. If I were Will, I'd've booted her from the club for lousy sportsmanship. The episode ends with pregnant Quinn by herself, looking miserable and scared.

Comments

Ingrid Richter said…
So let's see - we have a hysterical pregnancy and a pregnancy via hot tub. I think the only two bizarre pregnancies left are immaculate conception and MPREG...

Great recap, Morgan!
Morgan Richter said…
Heh. Well, I assume Quinn's pregnancy is a result of her actual sex with Puck instead of from Finn messing up a perfectly good hot tub (and if Finn's gray cells were working better, it probably wouldn't take him long to work this one out), but yeah, at this rate I'm pretty sure we'll have an immaculate conception by the end of the season.

I have to say, Quinn sucked me in with her genuine distress about her pregnancy. Dianna Agron is doing a nice job of giving some nuance to a pretty flat character.
levitatethis said…
The football team dancing is now one of my favourite tv moments. I also really liked how Kurt didn't compromise himself but went about getting on the team and proving himself his own way. And that final scene with his dad? Very sweet.

A part of me gets where Rachel is coming from but most of me wants her to shut up and take a lesson in being a team player.

I like that there are certain things that went against expectations -- like Puck seeming to want to be a father/help out (though he couched it in a derisive attitude).

Loved that we got to hear Tina sing. I hope the show continues to show more of the other members of the glee club.
Morgan Richter said…
The football team dance routine -- and the way the spectators and opposing team were getting into it -- was pretty awesome. I also thought Kurt's dad reaction to Kurt's confession was great. (The actor who played his dad stars in a series of really annoying commercials for cable television here, which kept running through my head during his scenes. No fault of the actor -- the commercials themselves are just inane and over-played.)

I think Rachel's reaction was realistic, given her uber-driven personality type, but it wasn't sympathetic. So you don't get to sing the lead even though you think you deserve it? Suck it up, Rachel, and don't ruin Tina's important moment. (I'm reminded of second-season Heroes when Claire and West wreaked their ghastly and excessive revenge on mean Debbie -- hi, Dianna Agron! -- for not letting Claire on the cheerleading squad. Might've been unfair, Claire, but a place on a squad is not a god-given right. It happens. Move on.)
levitatethis said…
I also loved the football player from the opposing team who started dancing :-)

What I still like about Rachel is that her sense of entitlement feels real to me. It's very selfish and annoying but if they'd made her this really supportive "let's give everyone a shot" person I would have found her "too good".
Morgan Richter said…
Yeah, I think I'm having such a sharp reaction to Rachel's tantrum because I've met so many Rachels in real life (and have seen so many Rachels on reality shows -- that incredible sense of entitlement! Anyone who has ever said "I deserve to win" in re: a talent competition or anything else with a subjective element is a Rachel). I'm still hoping she learns a valuable lesson about the importance of teamwork. I like Rachel, and I don't like seeing her behave that poorly.
Jason Gilman said…
"The dialogue on this show is head and shoulders above the plotting."

Actually Morgan, while Glee's dialogue is great, the plotting isn't that bad either- just pretty darn absurd. I've chosen to just accept this absurdity and roll with it. In this case, Finn coming to Will for help, convoluted though it was- actually kind of made sense. Will helped him loosen up his dancing by appealing to his athletic experience last week after all. Now Finn's hoping for some Glee club performance magic to work in reverse. Plus it actually solved the Glee club numbers issues in a reasonable way.

Loved the Kurt stuff this episode and that joining the football team proved a miraculous success all around. That was unexpected and cool.

I also think it's also a good sign that the writers are already starting to flip our sympathies towards Quinn and Rachel. Quinn is a much more interesting character now that she's lost her powers of invulnerability (so to speak). Sorry, old Heroes habit die hard I guess.
Morgan Richter said…
Jason, I'm still not sold on Finn sobbing while telling Will of Quinn's pregnancy, then neatly segueing into asking him for dance lessons to help improve his football. They tried to bridge it with him thinking that being better at football = being better able to provide for Quinn & baby, but it still felt like there was too much of a disconnect between the two issues. Might've worked better as separate scenes.

Kurt was the star of this episode. I hope we get to see more of him on the football team. And it's great that they're giving Quinn some more nuances.