Last week's Joss Whedon glory gives way to another Glee pot-boiler...

I don’t know what the hell’s going on with this show. It’s getting to the point of being categorically hit-or-miss; one week, you’ve got competently produced, engaging entertainment and others are awful, gimmicky tripe. Whatever grace they pulled the first thirteen episodes off with seems to have fled, leaving an awkward mess behind for fans who became addicted way back then to slog through.

The show is way too reliant on gimmicks and stunt casting lately, what with the Madonna episode, Joss Whedon directing, Neil Patrick Harris, Olivia Neuter-John, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel showing up and now this supposed Lady Gaga episode. So we’re clear: this was not “the Lady Gaga episode” like episode fifteen was “the Madonna episode.” Two of Gaga’s songs are performed, which is the same number of Kiss songs, so it could have just as easily been called “the Kiss episode,” which, as awesome as I think both the song and video for “Bad Romance” are, would have tickled me much more than the tiresome, slightly embarrassing display thrust upon me this week.

But anyway, there’ll be time for more bitching later...

Oh look, something to bitch about right out the gate! The episode opens on Tina and Will in Figgins’ office, defending her right to dress “goth.” I place quotation marks around “goth” because up until this episode, she’s been less “goth” than “stupid American teenager who looks like Lip Service and Tripp NYC catalogues exploded on her.” That being said, the fetching dress and hat combination (featuring sparse, gaudy-but-not-ostentatious costume jewelry and a cute skull-and-crossbones faux-cameo) she wears in the asinine opening sequence as well as the black and red skirt with black jacket and lace gloves of the last scene ARE goth, as opposed to whatever passes for “gothic” attire has been shat on her for the previous nineteen episodes.

Moving on, though: Figgins has some kind of batshit notion that Tina thinks she’s a vampire since the fat A/V girls attacked the nebbishy Jewish blogger-kid with their mouths. Maybe they were just hungry. Seriously, though, I think the writer (the normally spot-on series creator Ryan Murphy) needed an lazy excuse to have the glee kids dress up like Lady Gaga (like “freaks”) and show solidarity with Tina, but it did give us the opportunity to hear the phrase “lacy demon-clothes.”

The continuing saga of Kurt’s predatory courting of Finn finally gets somewhere this week, with Finn and Carole about to move in with Kurt and Burt. I’m going to skip all the bullshit lead-in and get to the point, a skill the show ought to occasionally employ. After Kurt redecorates his room (“our room”) in a manner gayer than previous (a grey/white minimalist design that I really liked) under the expectation Finn will share it with him, the quarterback finally stands up to his erstwhile place-kicker and his inappropriate crush.

Upon seeing the new décor (“I used Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper in Morocco as my inspiration”) Finn loses it, saying things that should have been said weeks ago and finally calling Kurt out on his attraction and how uncomfortable it makes him. “I don’t want to change clothes in front of you! Have you noticed I put my underwear on in the shower when you’re around? I don’t want to worry about that kind of stuff in my own room, man!” When Kurt tries to play coy about “what kind of ‘stuff’,” Finn puts his massive, goofy foot down, “You think I don’t see the way you stare at me? How flirty you get? You think I don’t know why you got so excited that we were gonna be moving in together?” Well, honestly, every reaction you’ve had to those things has been to look kind of confused, but that’s your standard reaction shot, so I can see where Kurt might have thought he had a chance, since you didn’t say any of this stuff three or four episodes ago.

"While Rachel is realizing Shelby’s her mother, I’m having an epiphany of my own: if a shoehorn had a sound, it would be Idina Menzel singing “Funny Girl.” Seriously, could they have crammed a number into the plot any more ineptly?"

When Finn begins to refer to the room as “faggy,” Burt comes down to front him off about how the thoughtless use of slurs can hurt as much as fists. Message! As well-intentioned and acted as the monologue is, it can’t help but come off very after-school special-ly in that way Glee is rapidly becoming associated with. However necessary I think the speech may have been, I can’t help but wish it had come a minute or so later, as Finn and Kurt needed to have this argument to sort out any kind of friendship or future brotherly feelings the show is clearly telegraphing.

Enough of that, let’s move on to the “plot.” I’m doing a lot of snarky quotation marks tonight; must be a sign of dissatisfaction with what I’m expected to be entertained by. Rachel shows up fretting because Vocal Adrenaline are doing a Gaga number. Sssssssssssssso? If they’re anything like Nude Erections, it’s one of many, many numbers they work out to competition level, complete with lights, costumes, make-up, choreography and hair, only to not use them at competition because you can only use three songs, not the two or three songs per week they seem to perfect with no rehearsal.

Rachel, Quinn and Mercedes sneak into a Vocal Adrenaline rehearsal where Shelby is drilling her students’ dance steps and giving them advice on what theatricality actually means. God... Sue (who does not show up this episode) was right - Will Schuester, you do suck! To give an example, she sings “Funny Girl,” and while Rachel is realizing Shelby’s her mother, I’m having an epiphany of my own: if a shoehorn had a sound, it would be Idina Menzel singing “Funny Girl.” Seriously, could they have crammed a number into the plot any more ineptly?

Yes... yes, they can; but we’ll get to that. In the meantime, Rachel and Shelby have a pretentious, self-servingly dramatic conversation which winds up properly awkward. I really hope this all turns out to be bullshit and that Shelby is just destroying Rachel to take out the competition at regionals; it would be cruel in a way that suits the show. Oh, and look - speaking of hamfisted segues, here’s Will exhorting the virtues of Gaga and the Haus of Gaga and babbling in an informative and not nearly natural way that bothers the shit out of me. This episode does for Gaga exactly what I hoped the Madonna episode wouldn’t do for her: aggrandizingly performing a clumsy rimjob on its subject. While the “Madonna is a legend, blah blah blah” dialogue in her episode seemed honest and appropriate, this hour’s fawning comes across as cheap propaganda.

Finn, in an effort to avoid dressing like femme-Bowie, rightly points out that the group generally does what the girls want, and Will agrees. The solution? Dress up like Kiss. I actually think that is a fine idea. It doesn’t stop two thick-necked football players (who look like they’re almost thirty) from threatening to kick his ass. Now that I think about it, why don’t they ever fuck with Mikeandmatt or Puck, who are also football players in glee? The jocks push Gaga-dressed Kurt and Tina into some lockers, prompting Kurt to front them off about something I tuned out through, knowing it was some “individuality trumps conformity” ramble which would be answered with threats. Oh, and I was right.

"Strange, however, that even though they sanitize the song (removing repeated uses of the word “bitch”), the Hitchcockian verse about anal sex (“I want your psycho, your vertigo stick/Want you in my rear window, baby, it’s sick”) slips in, no pun intended"

The girls (and Kurt) perform “Bad Romance.” This recap is long already, but I can’t help but pick this apart, having a vested interest in the song and video, whose dancing the group tries to emulate. I say “tries” since they don’t do a particularly good job of it, nor do they do the tune justice, vocally. Kurt’s voice is too high in the mix and he sings in a lower register than the girls - it doesn’t really work. Santana, on the other hand, sounds great during the bridge and Quinn (though purposely distorted) acquits herself well.

Strange, however, that even though they sanitize the song (removing repeated uses of the word “bitch”), the Hitchcockian verse about anal sex (“I want your psycho, your vertigo stick/Want you in my rear window, baby, it’s sick”) slips in, no pun intended. This is a problem at the end of the episode, too, which I’ll just go ahead and skip to since I’m not really following the plot flow for this recap anyway.

Rachel and Shelby don’t wind up bonding, but Rachel wants to have a proper duet with her mother, which is semi-understandable. For some deranged reason, however, she chooses an alternate arrangement of “Poker Face.” Seriously? This is the song you want to sing to/with your mother? “When it’s love, if it isn’t rough it isn’t fun?” Wouldn’t it have made infinitely more sense for Shelby to sing “Poker Face” as her theatricality example at the beginning of the episode and have them duet “Funny Girl” at the end? Or “Speechless,” which plays in the back ground of a scene, meaning they paid for it, they might as well have used it. You know what? That’s this week’s theme - not individuality, but inappropriateness cause this episode’s got it in spades.

The guys sing “Shout It Out Loud” wearing Kiss-esque costumes, but at least the make-up was accurate. I guess all the money went to the Gaga outfits (this episode had the highest budget to date). Finn is Gene Simmons... but he’s playing drums. Mike is Peter Criss... but he’s singing. Matt is Eric Carr... but is also singing. Puck and Artie are Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley, respectively, and actually play guitar... not the right models, though. Sigh...

The second Kiss number is Peter Criss’ ballad “Beth,” repurposed here for Puck to sing to Quinn in an effort to show that he can pick a decent name for a daughter (Jack Daniels being his first choice). Finn, trying to apologize to Kurt, gets a verse including the line “a house just ain’t a home,” making reference to Kurt’s Finn-centric performance of “A House Is Not a Home” last month. They do a fine job, vocally, and the song choice serves an admirable dual purpose, but I still think the song itself is weak sauce, but that’s just me.

Well, here we are, another episode down and just two weeks left in the season. This entry wasn’t as hellishly bad as it could have been, but I’m not exactly sure what the problem is. Maybe it was that I rolled my eyes so much I got dizzy. Maybe it was the awkward wedging in of this week’s gimmick. It could have been the acceleration of the Rachel/Shelby subplot caused by shuffling the episodes around. It could possibly have been Finn getting over having his entire life manipulated by Kurt at warp speed because of Burt’s anvilicious monologue on hate speech. Actually, I think I’m just more tired of the wildly vacillating quality of the show than anything else. The show’s been picked up for a third season before the first season is even done. Hopefully the second season won’t be as painfully wavering as this one has been so far. That would be great.

Grade: C+

Songs

“Funny Girl” - Barbra Streisand

“Bad Romance” - Lady Gaga

“Shout It Out Loud” - Kiss

“Beth” - Kiss

“Poker Face” - Lady Gaga

Random Observations (the less impressed with something I am, the more time and opportunity I have to think about other things - see “5 Worthier Recasts for ‘Lost in Translation’”)

My little rant about Tina’s clothes - Between that and the snit I had two weeks ago about Puck’s “mohawk,” can you tell that I take late seventies/early eighties subcultural fashion VERY seriously?

Tina Cohen-Chang­ - So which of her parents is Jewish?

Mike Chang - Wait, both the Asians are named “Chang?” I just noticed that.

The necessity of Burt’s speech - Was it really that necessary after all, given that the program’s show-tunes-loving, musical-appreciating, performing-arts-supporting, all-around-gay-friendly demographic isn’t exactly the sort of audience that needs to be reminded that it’s not cool to use certain words around or to describe certain people?

MikeandMatt - get a line!! EACH!!! So they can talk, after all.

The Gaga outfits - They wore them for like, four days, dancing and performing... those don’t look like they’re easily cleanable. Ewww...

Puck’s Paul make-up - had a Star of David over the right eye instead of a five-pointed star. Nice touch.

Tina’s description of herself - “Even though I’m painfully shy and obsessed with death, I’m a really effervescent person.” At what point in the previous nineteen episodes did she ever mention death or anything deathly? Informed attributes bother me: under no circumstance has Tina ever come across as thinking about death, so having a single line saying so doesn’t fulfill the necessary requirements to be an actual character trait which can be summed up by a throwaway line.

Quinn - Pretty sprightly dancing for someone seven or so months pregnant.

Where the hell was Jesse? - Is he missing because of something that happens next week? See, this episode was supposed to be shown next week, so whatever happens next week was supposed to happen before this. I don’t know why the switch was made.

Chris Colfer (Kurt) and Mike O’Malley (Burt) - really do great work together. I totally buy their scenes.

Santana - looked great in that black lace catsuit - it suits her character. Quinn’s outfit did, too.

“Poker Face” - Cartman did it better.

Great Lines

Tina - My parents won’t even let me watch Twilight - my mom says she thinks Kristen Stewart looks like a bitch.

Kurt - I’m going to put together a palette that expresses who you are and who I want you to be... who you want to be.

Kurt - (about Lady Gaga) She changes her look faster than Brit changes sexual partners. Brittany - That’s true.

Kurt - (about the jocks) They’re Neanderthals - in three years, they’ll be cleaning my septic tank.

Puck - Wait, where’s Rachel? I mean, I only noticed because, like, five minutes have gone by without her saying something totally obnoxious.

Brittany - (to Rachel while wearing a metal mask/headdress shaped like a tentacled lobster) You look terrible. I look awesome.

p.s.: At the very end, the group has a nakama moment I was pretty sure they were never going to have, keeping Finn and Kurt from getting their asses kicked by banding together as a gaggle of freaks. I hate being wrong.