Glee: Vitamin D

Will leads the kids through a lackluster rehearsal. There’s only two weeks until Sectionals, and he’s worried they’ve become complacent. The kids have seen their competition schedule: They only have to beat a school for the deaf and a halfway house for wayward girls to make it to Regionals, so they’re feeling pretty confident about their chances. In the teachers’ lounge, as Emma lovingly wipes mustard from his chin, Will tells her he wants to find some way to motivate them. Sue interrupts to share her motivational technique: Each week, she kicks someone off the cheerleading squad at random. As she puts it, “We’re dealing with children. They need to be terrified.”

Will decides to revitalize the glee club by pitting the kids in a competition against each other, boys versus the girls. They’ve got one week to plan, rehearse and perform a mash-up. While Will yammers on about this, Finn keeps nodding off. Yeah, mash-ups don’t thrill me, either. Finn also has kind of a long voice-over about how he likes Quinn, but he’s fascinated by Rachel. It’s… a little flat. Monologues really aren’t Glee’s strong suit, though he does get in a good quip about having to mask the scent of Biofreeze with Drakkar Noir.

Sue’s having a bad day: She broke her juicer while making a beef bone smoothie, and she noticed Quinn having muscle tremors while forming a pyramid during Cheerios practice, which Quinn blamed on being exhausted from glee club rehearsals. Sue vows to destroy Will for damaging the strength of her squad. Sue stops by the Schuester home for tea and meddling: She tells Terri that Will is messing around with Emma. She urges Terri to take a job as the school nurse -- the former nurse is currently in a coma, thanks to Sue pushing her down the stairs -- to keep a close eye on her errant husband. Even though Terri has no nursing background, she gets the job, having sold Principal Figgins on her skills in folding hand towels and defibrillation.

Puck and the rest of the glee club boys convince Finn to go to the nurse to do something about falling asleep in class. Terri takes an interest in Finn’s well-being, seeing as (she thinks) he’s the father of the baby she’s planning on appropriating. To cure his sleepiness, she gives him pseudoephedrine pills, which she claims are like vitamins.

A hopped-up Finn gives pills to the rest of the New Directions boys. They perform an energetic version of their mash-up, with Finn and Artie singing the leads. Their selected mash-up? Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” and Usher’s “Confessions.” And… it’s really good. I think both songs were vastly improved. The girls are stymied by the stellar performance, until Kurt plays double agent and tells them about the pills.

Quinn’s been skipping rehearsals, so Rachel confronts her and tells her not to worry -- the glee club kids won’t judge her because of her pregnancy. Aw, I like Rachel when she’s being a decent human being.

Coach Tanaka and Terri conspire about ways to break the mutual attraction between Will and Emma. Terri gives the coach some pseudoephedrine and tells him to propose to Emma. Which he does.

Rachel bawls Finn out for taking the pills, suggesting he follow her example instead with a rigorous diet and exercise routine. She loses a little of her moral disapproval, though, when Finn points out that the guys are going to trounce the girls in the competition. So Terri doses all the New Directions girls with pills, Rachel included.

The girls perform their mash-up -- Beyonce’s “Halo” and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves -- and it’s swell, but I’m going to give the edge to the guys.

Emma tells Will she doesn’t know what to do about the coach’s proposal. When Terri spots them together, she orders Emma to stay away from her husband. Emma retorts that Will is too good for Terri, and just as I’m starting feel a little bit of sympathy for Terri, Terri makes a ghastly comment about how Coach Tanaka’s mixed ethnic heritage will cause genetic disorders in their offspring. Terri, babe, you’re making it hard for me to get in your corner.

Quinn decides she has too much going on in her life right now to be a mother and agrees to give Terri the baby.

Emma braves the unhygienic and unsanitary confines of the boys’ locker room to tell Tanaka she’ll agree to his proposal, provided she can keep her name, live in her own home, and not see him outside of school. The coach agrees to these conditions. Which is very sad.

Rachel and Finn, good kids at heart, feel guilty and terrible about taking the pills. They confess to Will, who is horrified about Terri giving the kids drugs. Principal Figgins asks for Terri’s resignation. He now also has grave doubts about Will’s judgment, so he assigns a co-director to the glee club: Sue.

As Emma glumly tells Will she accepted the proposal, Rachel throws the pills in the trash and returns to her uber-healthy, super-motivated daily fitness routine.

Comments

levitatethis said…
The mash up of "It's My Life" and "Confessions" was fantastic. I'm now officially obsessed with it. "Halo" and "Walking on Sunshine" was fun and hopped up but the boys totally rocked their song. And I agree that they improved both songs in the process.

I think this week the show did a better job of showing the two sides of Rachel -- that she can be selfish and singlemindedly driven but also genuinely nice.

I liked the confrontation between Terri and Emma because even though we know Terri is lying about the pregnancy (and can be a very rude, manipulative person) and even though Emma and Will are inappropriately flirting with each other at work (and Emma has her own insane bag of issues to deal with...the same can be said for Will...but they do have a sweet chemistry together), the fact is that Terri and Will are married and there are boundaries that need to be respected. Should Terri be talking to Will about this? Absolutely. But I'm not surprised that she confronted Emma and made some legitimate (as well as racist) points.

The proposal acceptance scene was one of the saddest things I've ever witnessed. **cringe**

Besides the boys mash up, one of my favourite moments was when a tweaking Finn is all excited to perform and the rest of the guys don't know what he's on. He looks at Kurt and says something like "Vitamin D" at the same time that he throws the box in the other direction. Seriously cracked me up. I also like the fact that Finn is not a good dancer. It totally fits the character.
Morgan Richter said…
I think this week the show did a better job of showing the two sides of Rachel -- that she can be selfish and singlemindedly driven but also genuinely nice.

I think they really nailed it. In her scene with Quinn, she was still kind of driven and thoughtless (she makes a comment about how Quinn has a nice voice, even though she goes sharp a lot because she doesn't have years of training like Rachel does -- but she's clearly just being obliviously inappropriate and not deliberately nasty and spiteful, like she's been in the past couple of episodes), but there was a fundamental decency to her. Ditto with the Terri-Emma confrontation: Both behaved badly, but beneath all the crap they flung at each other... they each had a point.

Oh, that proposal... It just made me so sad and uncomfortable on so many levels. Poor Coach Tanaka, poor awkward Emma.

I have been humming "It's My Life" all morning.
levitatethis said…
One more thing...

I now have a crush on Harry Shum Jr who plays Mike Chang on this show and did those awesome dance moves during the boys mash up.

I'm telling you, a guy with dance moves always gets to me...as my attempt to recreate a scene from "Strictly Ballroom" once proved. Let's just say it was an ill conceived move on my part, but Scott Hastings floor moves were just too awesome to pass up.
Morgan Richter said…
Speaking as someone who has no rhythm, I admire and envy anyone who can dance well. Mike Chang! Good to know that's the character's name. He's adorable and a fantastic dancer.

(Just Jared has a clip of the guys' mash-up, and it's just as awesome the second time around.)
levitatethis said…
I've been watching that mash up non-stop all day. It's so much fun and incredibly well done. And after listening again to the original songs I really do agree that the mash up is better than either and greatly improves on both songs.
Morgan Richter said…
As a general rule, I'm not much of a fan of mash-ups (in almost all cases, I'd rather listen to the original songs intact). But both of those were rather brilliant, and the guys' performance was just so cute and energetic (well, yeah, they were hopped up on magic pills, but still, it was sort of adorable). I have to thank you for pointing Harry Shum out to me -- I love that move he makes where he rises up backwards from the floor, slowly (I'm sure there's some name for it -- wish I could do that).

I also liked that they split the lead vocals between Finn and Artie. It had a good balance. The whole number just worked really, really well. It makes me happy to watch it.
Jason Gilman said…
Great episode! I totally called Howard Bamboo getting busted by the police when he bought so much pseudoephedrine at once. Minor gag scenes aside, the boys mash-up definitely gets the edge in my mind and it was pretty cool that Artie got to be front in center for "Confessions". I hope we get to see a little more into his character soon.

I liked that by the end of things, Will finally got to see just how bad for him Terri really is and actually expressed it to her. Up until now Will's commitment to her was pretty solid and his friendship with Emma was purely platonic, I'm interested to see how things between the three go from here. Can Terri actually pull off the ultimate baby bamboozle? Or does it all just blow up in her face and completely destroy her marriage?
Morgan Richter said…
I totally called Howard Bamboo getting busted by the police when he bought so much pseudoephedrine at once.

Oh, yeah. I know it varies by state, but here pseudoephedrine products are now kept behind the pharmacy counter, and they swipe your ID into a system to register how much you're buying. I think Ingrid mentioned that New York is more old-school about it: the pharmacist or cashier looks at your ID and logs your information into a logbook. But I have no trouble believing in the fantasy world of Glee that you could (try to) purchase 36 boxes at a time.

Can Terri actually pull off the ultimate baby bamboozle? Or does it all just blow up in her face and completely destroy her marriage?

I see no way Terri will be able to pull this off. Will is a little oblivious, but he's got to put things together sooner or later.
levitatethis said…
If Terri pulls off the great baby caper then either she's a brilliant mastermind or Will is a complete moron.

Yes, yes, yes, that slow movement when Harry Shum rises up backwards off the floor? That was the exact moment I developed a full blown crush on the guy.

I agree that it was great to have the main vocals on the guys mash up split between Finn and Artie. I like how we're getting to hear (and see in the case of Mike Chang's dance moves) more of the ensembles skills.
Morgan Richter said…
Yes, yes, yes, that slow movement when Harry Shum rises up backwards off the floor? That was the exact moment I developed a full blown crush on the guy.

I can't blame you. That was damn impressive. I love seeing dance moves (or athletic moves) where I have absolutely no idea how they did it. That was one of those moves.