I like Glee well enough, but episodes like this one make me sort of wish it’d give up on having any semblance of a plot and just present a weekly half-hour of peppy musical numbers loosely strung together with vignettes, Sha Na Na style. That’d be awesome.Sue and Will are now co-chairing the glee club, and it has, of course, been disastrous. When Principal Figgins calls them in for a progress report, they lie and claim the collaboration is going swimmingly. They’ve decided to each arrange their own separate numbers for Sectionals, with a coin toss to decide which song gets performed first.
Will asks the kids for music suggestions for Sectionals. Mercedes wants to do “something a little more black” than their usual stuff, but Rachel snippily tells her it’s the glee club, not the krunk club. Oh. This version of Rachel is back, huh? Quinn and the other cheerleaders duly report back to Sue, who decides to drive a wedge in the glee club by planting the seeds of racial unrest.
Finn accompanies Quinn for her ultrasound, where they discover she’s having a girl.
Steve, the creepy school reporter who tried to get Rachel to show him her bra in exchange for a positive review about her performance in the school play, threatens to announce Quinn’s pregnancy in his blog. Rachel is fairly indifferent to this, until he informs her that he’ll also reveal her crush on Finn. She gives him her underwear in exchange for killing the story.
Sue wins the coin toss and announces that she’s going to divide the glee club into two separate groups, with Sue taking all the minority kids. Sue’s group rehearses their number: Jill Scott’s “Hate On Me.” Sue and Will squabble some more (she used the piano for rehearsal during his scheduled time, she burned all his sheet music, she mocked his hair). Terri counsels Will to start playing dirtier against Sue, so Will flunks most of the Cheerios in his Spanish class, making them ineligible for the squad. Sue goes ballistic about this and attacks Will in a scathingly awful manner. When Figgins takes Will’s side, Sue once again threatens to expose his anti-embolism public service announcement. Figgins retorts that he already put it on YouTube himself (where it only got two hits).
Finn gives Quinn his suggestion for their baby’s name: Drizzle. Quinn gets upset, because Finn knows she’s not planning on keeping the baby. Finn tells her he wishes she was more like Rachel, which: bad move, Finn. Disastrous.
Despite being divided into two separate groups, the glee club kids get together for a covert jam session of Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me.”
With Rachel and Finn taking the leads, Will’s group rehearses their number, “No Air." Quinn throws a Sue-orchestrated tantrum in which she decries the horrible way Will purportedly treats minorities. This inspires Puck, who is Jewish, and cheerleader Bridget, who is Dutch, to defect to Sue’s group, leaving Will with just Quinn, Finn and Rachel. Sue agrees to give him back the kids if he passes the Cheerios. Will refuses.
Terri almost gets caught without her prosthetic belly by Will, who tells her he’s made an appointment for them both with the obstetrician. Terri and her sister Kendra threaten and abuse an obstetrician to get him to cover for the fake pregnancy. The obstetrician goes through a great deal of subterfuge to produce a fake ultrasound for Will and tells him Terri's having a girl.
Quinn tells Rachel to stay away from Finn, and Rachel tells Quinn to stop acting as Sue’s mole. In response, Quinn belts out a chorus of “You Keep Me Hanging On.”
After Sue is rude during Will’s group’s performance, Sue and Will get into an epic shouting match. Finn breaks them up, and the kids all storm out in disgust. Sue steps down as the co-head of the glee club, because she can’t stand the messy displays of emotion. She tells Quinn that she knows about her pregnancy -- the news will be reported in Steve’s blog in the morning. It turns out Sue found Rachel’s underwear in Steve’s locker and got him to spill the beans about Quinn. Quinn sobs in the hallway while Finn comforts her, then the reunited glee club sings Avril Lavigne’s “Keep Holding On.”
Comments
This is kind of the reaction I had to last night's episode. I'm digging the show a whole lot, but I realized I'd be cool with almost a variety show presentation...
Rachel's krunk comment made me want to smack her but I do like how the Glee kids rallied around Quinn at the end (Rachel included).
I agree with a poster at another site that "No Air" unfortunately showcased Finn's vocal limitations and as much as I love Corey (sp?) in the role I wonder how another of the male leads would have done.
In a way, however, this all goes nicely with the way the show dealt with the issues of the minority students and Rachel/Finn being held up as the main singers by Will. Sue made a nice play on that front but we'll see how the show proceeds from here.
With all of that said, I loved the "Hate On Me" session -- the singing, dancing, the whole shebang.
As for Will -- if Mike Chang wants to pop-and-lock, let him pop-and-lock! Use his skills damnit (btw I'm liking that the show seems to be working that in).
Yeah. I've been seeing on other sites kind of a growing frustration with the way Will champions Rachel and Finn to the detriment of the others. As you point out, Finn's not a powerhouse singer (he's fine, he does a nice job -- I don't want to knock him too much) whereas Artie did some great work on last week's mashup, and Mercedes is easily Rachel's equal.
The nastiness of the show wore on me a little this episode. I get that the characters are supposed to be over the top, and that the humor comes from us being appalled by their behavior, but for me the nastiness overwhelmed the humor in a couple of scenes -- Kendra threatening the obstetrician, Sue referring to the glee kids in horrendously inappropriate ways -- and I just felt that glum helplessness that comes from watching awful people do and say awful things.
if Mike Chang wants to pop-and-lock, let him pop-and-lock! Use his skills damnit
Yes! Will, you've got a gold mine there! Let him pop-and-lock!
And I like Rachel and Finn, and I'm aware that with only a certain amount of episodes in the can the writers had find a specific focus (like the Rachel/Finn/Quinn triangle) but it was nice to see the other characters get a bit more of a showcase.
On a side note, although the actress who plays Quinn can sing I'm not crazy about her voice. It's a bit too breezy for me and though that works on a song like "Say A Little Prayer" it didn't work that well for me last night.
I have to admit I wasn't totally thrilled that at the end it was back to Rachel/Finn/Quinn singing the leads, but in the context of the storyline I'm willing to not get too annoyed with it since it fit.
I'm hoping that with this show picked up for another season that the writers will get the chance to explore more of the other characters in terms of this show as an ensemble.
There was certainly a nastier edge to last night's show and I wonder if that's one of the reasons I didn't love the episode. It was nice to have the Glee kids turn on the adults at the end and tell them to knock it off.
I'd like the writers to decide if Finn is supposed to be a moron or a relatively innocent nice guy. There are times they write him as an idiot and it doesn't work for me because I tend not to see him that way. It's off putting.
Principle Figgins continues to rock my world. Besides the fact that he put his own video on youtube and it only got two hits I love his "Not the children" plea to Sue as she goes Godzilla in the school and still manages to grab a kid to toss aside.
Lord, yes. Sometimes he seems like he's destroyed all his brain cells through sniffing airplane glue or something, and that doesn't quite work for me.
It was nice to have the Glee kids turn on the adults at the end and tell them to knock it off.
Agreed. It was a nice antidote to all the bickering and quarreling. Unless it's done brilliantly, it's just not all that much fun to watch people yell at each other.
Principle Figgins continues to rock my world.
One of the unsung (ha!) heroes of the show. He's awesome. I loved him spiking Sue's guns by putting the embarrassing video on YouTube himself (and then seeming vaguely disgruntled that it only got two hits).