A more somber turn this time, after last week's Madonna-fest...

Proving me wrong (and I hate when that happens), this week’s episode opens on Kurt and Mercedes in Sue’s office, in uniform. Glee, being a show that tends not to carry its plot threads further than a week, actually has the Glimmer Twins continuing with their Cheerios subplot. That’s fine with me, so far as it goes, and demonstrates progress on a show thus far dogged by inconsistent writing and a lack of self-awareness. In fact, that’s the real theme of this week’s show: not the surface notion of “home” and “what makes a family,” but that the series has finally sort of caught up to its own narrative failings and is cognizant of its inadequacies.

That and crying. Lots of crying in this episode. They could have just called it “The One Where Everyone Cries.”

So Sue, to impress a journalist sent to interview her, commands Mercedes to lose ten pounds in a week and to wear the standard uniform (including a skirt) or she’s off the Cheerios. Stunned, they sit there slack-jawed as Sue continues her narcissistic ramble. We immediately cut to Will confronting Sue, who has booked the auditorium for the next week so the Cheerios don’t have to practice in what is supposed to be an Ohio winter, which no one is dressed for. Why don’t the Cheerios practice in the gym in the winter, like we just saw them doing last week? Why is this even a plot point?

This idiocy is furthered in the following scene as Will tells the Nude Erections that they can’t use the auditorium to practice. Finn asks, “How are we supposed to practice for regionals without the auditorium?” How about the room you’re in, nitwit? Is it just me, but I don’t see what the big deal is and why part of the week’s B-plot revolves around this ridiculousness. They’re still a couple months from competition, it’s not like they need it for dress rehearsal or anything. Or like they ever rehearse... anything.

After the club’s three-minute-long meeting or class, or whatever the hell it is they do in the middle of the day, Kurt brings the creepy back via attempting to enlist Finn in his plans to redecorate his room, making lots of crush-eyes and (not for the last time this episode), causing Finn some confusing feelings. You know, the kind a straight dullard gets when he can’t figure out that a boy is flirting with him.

Mercedes, skipping lunch after Brittana (a portmanteau of “Brittany and Santana” because I’m lazy and because where I type one, I’m usually typing the other) gives her the beginnings of a complex, is getting the sympathy eyes from Quinn. The former head cheerleader is all too familiar with Sue’s obsession with the team’s appearance, what with it being the reason she’s “former.”

Finn’s mom, Carol (sporting a new hairstyle and new clothes), is selling off their furniture, much to his consternation. Since his father died while Finn was still an infant, all he has to remember him by are the objects left behind. Finn about shits himself when she’s trying to offload the easy chair in which his father is sitting in the only existing picture of them together. She takes this time to drop on him that she’s got a new boyfriend - Kurt’s father, Burt.

Kristin Chenoweth returns as former glee clubber and Will’s first crush, April. She’s been running the roller rink in town, which is owned by her seventy-five-year-old sugar daddy and which Will is trying to rent to provide the club with a place to practice, continuing that inanity. Because they’ve managed to get six minutes into an episode without having a song, April and Will duet on Springsteen’s “Fire,” to remind us they’ve got an attraction, which April’s p.a. assisted declaration of “I just had a sex dream about you!” pretty much already covered.

Will lets slip that he’s divorcing Terri and needs to move into a smaller place. Number one, why can he now no longer afford to live there? Terri spent the pittance she earned compulsively buying craft supplies, so I assume Will was paying for everything anyway. Oh, that’s right, the show’s plots aren’t based in any kind of logic, which is as disposable as the plots themselves. Sigh. There is no number two. April takes this as an opportunity to move in on Will under the guise of moving into Will’s place to sublet, continuing the show’s unsubtle subtext of really being about a collection of lonely, miserable people, something this episode hits with full force.

"Lots of crying in this episode. They could have just called it “The One Where Everyone Cries.”"

Finn finds out that Kurt set their parents up and gave Carol her badly needed makeover, but is still too dim to figure out that he did it to get closer to him. Physically closer. Sharing a room. Dumbass. He freaks out, but not for the right reason, leaving Kurt pouting in the hallway. Sigh. Look, I feel for Kurt; there’s nothing quite as heartbreaking as watching someone pine for someone who can’t love them back, but what he’s doing is selfish in so many ways, not the least of which is involving their parents in his shenanigans, who really hit it off and enjoy each other immensely. What is Kurt thinking - that some gay porn trope is gonna blossom from their forced cohabitation? That Finn is going to suddenly develop feelings for him after he sees how lustfully he stares at him while he’s getting ready for bed? Poor, sad, lonely babygay Kurt needs a boyfriend... badly.

This is immediately followed up with Kurt singing “A House Is Not a Home,” directly underpinning every character’s romantic realities: Finn ignores Kurt’s stares and tears while thinking about his father, Quinn isn’t happy with Puck, Tina and Artie still have some things to figure out between them, Rachel and Jesse are outwardly functional and Will is having silent second thoughts about Terri. Amidst all this are Brittany and Santana, linking pinkies for the third episode in a row with the latter resting her head on the former’s shoulder, who then leans hers on Santana’s. Could theirs be the only genuinely honest relationship on the show?

April shows up at Will’s, ostensibly to scope the place out for subletting, but he shuts down her romantic overtures before they duet Barbra Streisand’s mini-medley of “One Less Bell to Answer/A House Is Not a Home” in separate rooms. The song finishes up with April crawling into Will’s bed and him reaching for her hand. I hope to God he doesn’t go try and fix things up with Terri, eradicating more than half a season’s work on his plot.

Kurt cries some more during a conversation with Burt after the Hummels and the Hudsons have dinner wherein Kurt feels left out of a conversation his father has about sports with Finn. The selfish bitch has the gall to dodge Burt’s question about why he set him up with Carol. One would hope it’s because he sees how fucked up what he’s doing is, but somehow I don’t get the feeling that’s right.

Mercedes, now on a liquid diet of the swill Brittana tells her Sue has them on, begins hallucinating that her fellow glee clubbers are food and passes out in the lunchroom. Quinn (much more noticeably pregnant than last week) imparts some needed knowledge to her teammate in a heavy-handed speech linking eating right and self-esteem. Mercedes cries in a “what have I become?” moment - she won’t be the last this hour.

Kurt runs to Finn, telling him they need to break their parents up. Finn is behind Kurt one hundred percent (ahem, no pun intended), owing to his own complacent desire to keep his life the way its always been. When Finn’s passive-aggressive attempt to get his mother to give up Burt on the grounds that she’s throwing away his father fails, Carol calls him out on his selfishness and explains how happy Burt makes her and how she hasn’t forgotten his father, but has talked to his ashes every night for sixteen years. She cries, too.

Sue’s interview turns out to be a piece of real investigative journalism intended to out her as the cheat and all-around terrible person she is, but Mercedes’ impromptu performance of “Beautiful” makes the interviewer think this was the planned presentation and that Sue’s inclusion of round, black Mercedes and presumably Down’s Syndrome-afflicted Becky are honest attempts on her part to have a wide variety of people on her squad, which could be no further from the truth.

Finn attempts to confront Burt, whose completely human and understanding defusing of his issues catches Finn totally off-guard. They sit down to watch a basketball game together, with Finn offering his father’s chair to Burt while Kurt stares mournfully from outside. Subtle. See, Kurt’s standing outside looking in because he’s on the outside looking in at a situation he created... and crying.

"I oughta stop thinking so clearly regarding Glee, it’s gonna get me in trouble"

Earlier, while the kids skated instead of practicing, April decided to leave her sugar daddy unless he made her legit. Turns out the confrontation killed the old bastard and April, flush with two million in hush money, “bought” the auditorium for the glee kids. What the fuck does that mean? How do you buy a building in a public school? And if “buying” it means the glee kids have exclusive use of it, what are the school’s drama club and band going to do? I oughta stop thinking so clearly, it’s gonna get me in trouble. The episode wraps up with April singing “Home” from The Wiz, which she’s planning to finance the first all-white production of. The glee kids sing back-up and Mercedes’ eyes look a little damp.

So a week went by with barely a peep from Rachel and significantly moved Mercedes, Will, Kurt and Finn’s plots forward. Actually, most everyone got a little momentum, even if you had to really be looking to see it. Musically, the episode was very solid, with a solo from both Kurt and Mercedes; who, last week, were both lampshading their lack of facetime. Will got some good belts in, although both of his songs were duets with April, whom the episode leaned on a bit heavily. Then again, there’s no reason to let Rachel yell at the top of her lungs again if you have a singer of Chenoweth’s caliber at your disposal, if even only for a week. Aside from some “Message!!”-style dialogue and singing (I’m looking at you, “Beautiful”), the episode satisfied. Now if only they could figure out how to advance more characters at a time, they’d really be getting some place.

Grade: B

Random Observations

The three-tiered caste system of characters. Brittana seems to have moved up to the second rung while fan favorites Artie and Tina slip down to Mike and Matt’s home in the dirt.

This week’s songs. Only one obvious pop hit, and a slow, serious one, at that. Bravo - we needed that after the relentless onslaught of last week.

Brittany’s diary. I would love to read that dingbat’s innermost thoughts.

SONGS:

“Fire” - The Pointer Sisters
“A House Is Not a Home” - Dionne Warwick
“One Less Bell to Answer/A House Is Not a Home (reprise)” - Barbra Streisand
“Beautiful” - Christina Aguilera
“Home” - from The Wiz

Great Lines

Sue - (to Kurt and Mercedes) How do you two not have a show on Bravo?

Brittany - I’m pretty sure my cat’s been reading my diary.

Finn - I was conceived on that bed.

Carol - You were conceived on a pinball machine.

April - Everybody, grab a girl... or grab a guy, if that’s the way the good lord made ya!

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