We open with the glee club kids sing “Don’t Stop Believing”, and already the episode is off to a fine, fine start. I love Journey. Embarrassing but true. After Quinn rushes out mid-song to vomit, Finn frets to Will that all the dancing will endanger Quinn’s pregnancy. Rachel is still gone, having defected last episode in a flurry of snitty entitlement for the starring role in Sandy Ryerson’s production of Cabaret. The kids figure Rachel’s absence dooms them to mediocrity. As Puck puts it, “That Rachel kid makes me want to set myself on fire, but she can sing.” (The glee club, by the way, is called New Directions. Not sure how I’ve missed that thus far, but I’m using it from here on out.)
Terri and Will eat grasshopper pie at a garish family restaurant. Their server, who is sporting plenty of flair, turns out to be a former student of Will’s. He’s currently attending another high school, even though he’s 24, because the school keeps failing him so he can continue to sing in New Directions’ chief competitor, Vocal Adrenaline. This gives Will ideas.
Emma calls Finn in to encourage him to apply for a music scholarship. She points out that he’s more likely to win that than a football scholarship… provided New Directions does well at Regionals. Finn realizes they need to get Rachel back for this to happen.
A reporter for the school newspaper interviews Rachel about her starring role. Rachel is totally odious, as is the reporter, who asks her to show him her bra in exchange for positive press. Finn visits Rachel with the intention of luring her back to the glee club, but Rachel isn’t having any of it. As she puts it, “It’s clear my talent was too big for an ensemble.” Oh, Rachel. I sort of hate you these days.
Will tracks down April Rhodes, who was a senior when he was a freshman in high school. April, who was a blazing talent in the glee club, never graduated. Will visits April, who is drunk and sultry. She invites Will in for a drink, chirping, “I just cracked open a fresh box of wine.” Box wines have come a long way in recent years. A realtor arrives, exposes April as a squatter, and kicks April and Will out of the house. Will offers to let April return to high school and get her diploma, as long as she joins the glee club.
Will introduces April to the assembled members of New Directions. She gives them the once-over and describes them, aptly, as “the world’s worst Benneton ad”, then launches into “Maybe This Time” from Cabaret. Because April is played by Broadway powerhouse Kristin Chenoweth, she naturally does a great job, but if we’re going to do Cabaret, I wish they’d gone with “Mein Herr.” Despite her obvious vocal chops, the kids aren’t sure they want her in the group. April does a stellar job of winning them over, one by one. She befriends Kurt with cheap Chablis and muscle magazines, teaches Mercedes and Tina optimal shoplifting techniques, and shows up in the boys’ locker room dressed only in a football jersey and seduces Puck. When April meets Rachel, who is growing exponentially nightmarish, Rachel calls her “ancient” to her face and flounces off. Setting aside the ego trip, what’s with the outright nastiness, Rachel?
After a drunken Kurt vomits on germphobe Emma (requiring an emergency room visit and four decontamination showers), Emma tells Will she disapproves of April -- and of Will giving away the kids’ chances to sing to an outsider.
As part of his plan to lure Rachel back to New Directions, Finn takes her bowling. Rachel protests having to put her fingers into the germ-ridden holes of the bowling ball. Just bowl, you insufferable twerp! Why have they turned Rachel into such a foul, unlikable creature? In a nearby lane, Will bowls with April while confronting her about being a bad influence on the kids. She offers to give up drinking, then takes him to the bar to sing a karaoke duet of Heart’s “How Do I Get You Alone?” Rachel and Finn split some pizza and end up kissing. When Finn asks her to come back to New Directions, she accepts and tells him she’ll quit the play. Finn looks suitably guilty.
The glee club kids cluelessly try to figure out why Quinn keeps getting sick in the mornings, until Puck sets them straight. When Rachel returns to the club, the other kids fill her in on the new scandal. She confronts Finn, who has just turned in his scholarship application, and slaps him for toying with her emotions. Rachel runs into Sue, who offers to give Rachel complete artistic control if she’ll return to Sandy’s musical.
New Directions performs for the first time in front of a real audience. April shows up drunk, but manages to belt out a powerhouse version of “Last Name” anyway. It’s a smash success, but Will refuses to let her go back out after intermission, telling her he made a mistake in asking her to join the club. April takes it gracefully and decides to give Broadway another shot (Will diplomatically suggests Branson instead). Will breaks it to the kids that she’s no longer in the club. Rachel pops up and offers to go on in the second act in April’s place. Or, I dunno, Quinn could do it, or Tina, or Mercedes, or anyone else who’s been to all the rehearsals and hasn’t acted like a monster. But no, Will gives the part to Rachel. She leads the group in Queen’s “Can Anybody Find Me Somebody to Love?”, and it’s a great number, but it’s disappointing to see this episode ending with Rachel getting rewarded for her unbroken string of crap behavior.
Comments
Don't get me wrong, Rachel can be a royal pain in the ass, but I wasn't so bothered by her getting back into the group (as long as the others still get a chance to be stars in their own right) since I'm more interested in the dynamics in that group then having it all split up.
There's something inherently very likeable and sympathetic about Rachel, so I don't find it at all entertaining to see her behave like a monster (unlike Sue, or Sandy, who are both so over-the-top unsympathetic that they're fun to watch). With Rachel, I just want someone to sit her down and tell her to grow up. Instead, she's getting coddled.
I got a kick out of Finn as manipulative seducer because he actually kind of likes Rachel and his end goals were essentially positive- get Rachel back in Glee, do well at Regionals, get music scholarship. The way it blew up in his face was kind of awesome too.
I understand what you're saying about Rachel getting the lead role, but Will completely undermined himself when he brought April on to front the group. He had Rachel, drove her away to and then didn't nurture the remaining talent like he should have (what was the point of standing up to Rachel last week otherwise?). Rachel had full creative control of the musical, but chose to come back to New Directions because she realized she missed and valued her friends. That's good enough for me.
I think my whole point is that it shouldn't have been her choice to come back and automatically reassume the lead in New Directions, when there were people who had much more of a right to that role just by virtue of sticking it out and doing a damn good job. I wish there'd been some, any, repurcussions for Rachel. With the other viewpoint characters, there's more of a balance when they misbehave: as you point out, Finn's treachery completely backfires on him, and now he's made things worse for himself. Will absolutely should not have brought in April, and the show made it clear it was a bad course of action, and by the end of the episode Will is well aware that he fucked this one up. With Rachel... I don't know. I don't get that she had any learning curve, other than "Sandy yells at me, whereas the glee club kids like me, so therefore I'll go back to the glee club." It wasn't enough for me. If she hadn't automatically assumed the lead again -- if Will had benched her for an episode, or if she'd sung backup, I would have been satisfied that the show wasn't, in fact, condoning her behavior. As it is, I get the impression the show is trying to say that it's okay for Rachel to crap on other people because she's so talented. There's a different tone to the treatement of Rachel than there is to either the treatment of the other flawed "good" guys -- Emma, Will, Finn (none of whom have ever been as outwardly spiteful and unpleasant as Rachel) -- or the sometimes-human "bad" guys -- Puck, Sue, Sandy. It makes me uneasy.