Glee: Showmance

I missed the sneak preview of Glee in the spring, so this is all new to me. Here’s the setup: High school glee club coach Will Shuester and his squad must place at regionals, or funding for the program will be cut. He needs twelve kids in the squad to compete, and he’s only got six. The grim news is delivered by Will’s chief nemesis, Sue Sylvester, the brusque coach of the school’s cheerleading squad. (The cheerleading squad is named, awesomely, Cheerios, which is one of many details that won my heart, just a little bit). Plot = established.

Here are the players: There’s Will’s brittle pregnant wife Terri, played by Jessalyn Gilsig, who played Claire’s doomed birth mother Meredith on Heroes. There’s Emma, the school’s germophobic guidance counselor, played by Jayma Mays, who played Hiro’s doomed love interest Charlie on Heroes. There’s obnoxious one-note cheerleader Quinn, who is played by Dianna Agron, who played obnoxious one-note cheerleader Debbie on Heroes (no, not the obnoxious one-note cheerleader who was murdered by Sylar. That was Jackie. Debbie was the obnoxious one-note cheerleader whom Claire and West traumatized in a cruel prank for committing the unpardonable sin of not letting Claire on the team). There’s Quinn’s cute boyfriend Finn, the glee club’s newest recruit. There’s cute, prim Rachel, the shining star of the glee club, who pines after Finn. There are also a handful of other kids in the glee club, none of whom get much to do in this episode, but all of whom are, if the musical numbers are any indication, crazy talented.

Will and Terri are in the process of buying a prefab mansion too expensive for their means. A montage of Terri in her dream home rolls while the glee club kids sing Kanye’s “Gold Digger”, and at this point I started to have a whisper of a shadow of a problem I might possibly have with this premiere, which might possibly turn into a problem I’ll have with the show as it progresses: Terri is materialistic and self-absorbed, Emma is sweet but neurotic and flighty, Sue Sylvester is spiteful and paranoid to the point of buffoonery, and Quinn is… an obnoxious one-note cheerleader. See where I’m headed with this? Ryan Murphy, who created Glee, also created Nip/Tuck, which is a show I sort of love, but damn, it’d be nice if he’d knock it off with the “Aren’t women silly and/or soulless?” undertones on his shows, especially considering the affection shown in the depictions of likeable do-gooder Will and hapless swain Finn. Right now, smart-yet-awkward Rachel stands as the show’s best chance to produce a cool, multifaceted female character.

Will takes a second job as the school’s night janitor so he can afford the Grand Foyer Terri wants built in their prospective home. While scraping gum off of desks, he bonds with Emma, who barely conceals her crush on him. Will and Emma share a tender moment after she tells him about the traumatic childhood yogurt incident that sparked her lifelong fear of dirt and germs.

In the ladies’ room, Emma catches Rachel trying and failing to become a bulimic to fit in with the popular girls and win Finn’s affections. When Rachel tearily tells Emma, “I guess I don’t have a gag reflex,” Emma chirps, “One day when you’re older, that’ll turn out to be a blessing.” I mention this to make the point that, whatever quibbles I may have with this premiere, it’s hard to deny that the script can be damn funny. To get close to Finn, Rachel infiltrates the school’s Celibacy Club, of which Quinn and Finn are charter members, and ends up participating in some inspired lunacy, such as a bit where club members pair off in couples and grind against each other with balloons pressed between their loins: If the balloon pops, Quinn claims, “The noise makes the angels cry.”

Rachel convinces the rest of the glee club, without Will’s knowledge, to add some sex to their upcoming performance at the school assembly to drum up interest in the club. I would have thought Will’s original plan, which was to perform Chic’s disco classic “Le Freak”, would have done the trick, but instead they substitute a raunchy version of “Push It.” This goes over swimmingly.

Later, Rachel and Finn rehearse (Rachel has packed a tidy picnic lunch, including virgin Cosmopolitans) and end up making out. Due to premature ejaculation and/or a flashback to a traumatic memory about learning how to drive, Finn abruptly breaks off their hanky-panky and runs out of the auditorium.

Terri discovers she isn’t really pregnant -- she’s having an hysterical pregnancy. Didn’t Lana have one of those, back in one of those really terrible seasons of Smallville that we’re all trying so very hard to forget? She tries to break the news to Will, but can’t bring herself to do it, though she does tell Will she’s willing to give up on buying her dream home.

Quinn, who suspects hanky-panky between Finn and Rachel, auditions for the glee club, along with two of her minions, by singing “I Say a Little Prayer for You”. By and large, the musical numbers, while a little canned, are the best part of the show. Sue decides to use the cheerleaders as her spies to gain ammunition against Will to bring down the glee club.

And then Rachel sings a big, swoopy, awful ballad, which takes us into the credits. Which is a damn odd way to end an episode.

So that was the premiere of Glee. I liked it. I didn’t love it. I’m already tired of the two parallel love triangles, in which decent, downtrodden guys (Will, Finn) are torn between the shallow, self-absorbed women they love (Terri, Quinn) and the sweet-natured women who love them (Emma, Rachel). If Quinn and Terri don’t start revealing some hidden layers soon, I don’t know how much longer I’ll hang in, because really, the world doesn’t need another show about obnoxious, mean cheerleaders. However, the dialogue is pretty zesty, as are the musical numbers. It’s off to a solid start.