Sensitive issues, as ever, with the New Directions crowd...

I don’t really know how to go about tonight’s recap. The episode’s main theme was aspects of faith or the lack thereof. I hold very deep, conflicting opinions about the subject in my personal life and I’m torn between writing a five-page treatise called “Politically Correct Discussions of Religion vs. Attacks on Atheism and/or Antitheism in Television Narratives” and just ignoring it as much as possible. I think I’ll go with the latter and save myself the headache.

Instead, I’ll lead off with a lingering problem I’m coming to terms with about the series: there is no logic. Trying to apply real-world reason or rules to this program is a frustrating exercise in futility. Among the completely unrealistic, batshit aspects of this show: Sue’s physical abuse of students going unpunished, Artie’s function on the football team, Brittany’s ability to continue progressing through grades, full production numbers performed without a minute’s practice (and without a budget), and Finn being considered a good singer. That’s just in-universe; it doesn’t even cover the real-world complaints such as Lea Michele getting two solos an episode (though she only gets one this week) while they turn her character from an interesting, humorous examination of brutal overachievement to an contemptible shrew.

Trying to complain about the show’s cracked logic feels futile, but it grates so hard and so frequently against my suspension of disbelief that I can’t just leave it alone. Part of it has to do with the series’ wildly vacillating tone, which can go from pratfalls to hate crimes in seconds. The ludicrousness is built into the show now on a very basic level and that’s hard to undo once it starts - it’s like a cancer of the narrative that’s too far gone to excise. Sigh... so what’re you gonna do? Nothing - shrug it off and move forward, getting your kicks however you can.

No kicks on tonight’s episode, though!

After Finn sees the Jesus burned into a grilled cheese, he decides to start praying, treating the Lord, in his words, “like a genie.” His newly-discovered spirituality rubs several of his club mates the wrong way, including Jews Rachel and Puck and atheist Kurt, and also draws cross looks from Artie. For no reason I can parse (other than its smirking implication of conning Quinn into losing her virginity to him), Puck hops down to sing “Only the Good Die Young.”

That and Kurt’s momentary discussion about Burt’s health were all the foreshadowing this show could scrape up, being incapable of subtlety as it is. Following a disagreement with his son over what is and isn’t sacred (a weekly family dinner vs. a yearly sing-along screening of Sound of Music), Burt has a heart attack and enters a coma due to a lack of oxygen to his brain.

This forms tonight’s A-plot: the religious ganging up on Kurt under the guise of trying to “help.” He feels insulted not by the others’ choice to believe in the “great spaghetti monster in the sky” but by their inability to respect his wishes to keep God out of his heartache. The rest of the club sees this as a perfect time to have a week of singing about spirituality while Kurt withers in the corner. Them’s some awesome friends, I tell ya.

While Kurt’s atheism, which swings between not believing in God to thinking He’s a prick (antitheism), is grounded in his logical refusal to believe a god that is good would make him gay while setting the world against him, Sue’s doubt stems from her unanswered childhood prayers to correct her sister’s Down syndrome. No one’s ever dropped that extra chromosome ever in the history of anything and there’s never been a recorded miracle of a disability reversing, either. Sue’s fallacious argument meets Kurt’s justified dispute when she tries to have him file a formal complaint with the county so she can fuck with Will some more on the basis of keeping spirituality out of schools.

Much like last season’s Humanization of Quinn subplot, this season seems to be featuring the Dehumanization of Rachel. Whereas she was previously tolerable and entertaining, this year she has yet to honestly do anything that wasn’t selfish, self-aggrandizing, aggravating or purely for her own benefit. Even singing at Burt’s bedside was because she wanted to, not due to any desire of Kurt’s, who banishes her, Quinn and even his best friend, Mercedes when they show up at the hospital.

When she turns up in Finn’s room, however, she completely crosses the line into Terri-tory (see what I did there?). I’ll quote her entire bullshit demand:

Let’s discuss your newfound love for Jesus and how it’s affecting me. I want this relationship to go the distance, but I need to know that when I’m twenty-five and I’ve won a bunch of Tonys and I’m ready to have intercourse and babies, that those babies will be raised in a certain way. I want my children to be raised in the Jewish faith. Both of my dads’ peoples were slaves once; I need know that my children will be free to worship in a way that I decide is right.

Leaving aside the purposely absurd middle part and Finn’s reaction to it (“You’re not gonna have sex till you’re twenty-five?”), her selfish, monomaniacal reasoning and demand (“how it’s affecting me” and “in a way that I decide is right”) cuts to the core of her Rachel-ness, exposing what a self-involved douchebag she really is. The idea in and of itself wasn’t what offended me, after all, my mother made the same stipulation during my gestation, but in Rachel’s case it is solely because she wants it that way, which I find abhorrent. To her, it is a demand to be met, not a conversation to be had.

"We have yet to reach the event horizon, but I can see the superheated gases of the surrounding stars swirling towards the point at which its space-time curvature becomes infinite suck."

And poor Finn. Poor Finn just wants to cup a titty and will agree to anything to get it: “And they should totally eat that salty orange stuff with their bagels.” I know this is just a holding pattern until they re-establish the Finn/Quinn/Puck/Rachel love rhombus, but do they have to make Rachel so wretched in the lead-up? Speaking of the dim bastard, Sam (they guy from two weeks ago of the homoerotic mouth-and-balls banter with Puck) dislocates his shoulder and Finn becomes quarterback again. I swear, it’s like the show has a gravitational pull of a black hole towards its own status quo. I think when all the plots reach the singularity and are crushed to infinite density, I’ll stop watching the show. As it stands, we have yet to reach the event horizon, but I can see the superheated gases of the surrounding stars swirling towards the point at which its space-time curvature becomes infinite suck.

But before that happens, we’ll hopefully get more musical numbers like this month’s Kurt solo. Though he wears a laughable red Member’s Only jacket, he tells a story about his mother’s burial and sings a song about his father, complete with flashbacks to Kurt’s babygay youth featuring streamers on his first handlebars and Burt indulgently participating in a backyard tea party (the fun kind, not the ones with Republicans). I’ve long held that the father/son relationship between Burt and Kurt is easily the series’ best performed and believable. Chris Colfer and Mike O’Malley sell their bond effortlessly and performances like tonight’s alternate arrangement of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” remind me why I continue to watch.

Taking a tongue-in-cheek pop ditty with its nudge-nudge wink-wink subject matter and stripping the text down to its essentials reinforces what I still believe are the program’s primary themes: connection is imperative and music, the common language of humanity, can facilitate those ties we so desperately seek. Colfer’s work tonight reminded me that his Emmy nomination was well-deserved and he may well get more in the future... even though his most impressive scenes are dramatic and he got nominated for comedy.

Not so impressive was Finn’s overproduced rendition of “Losing My Religion.” After a meeting with Emma shows him how God didn’t make his prayers come true so much as chance and the influence of others, Finn questions his faith as quickly as he found it, singing a song that is no more about religion than “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” is about holding hands. I know I just praised a number for recontextualizing its lyrics, but that was clever and moving while this was transparent and ham-fisted.

Moving it along and skipping a couple scenes, Kurt visits his father in hospital and admits he doesn’t believe in God, but that he believes in the sanctity of their family. Of course, Burt begins to stir when Kurt starts crying. They spare us one cliché (Kurt finding the Jesus) to foist another upon us (last minute resuscitation) in the next breath. Good job, Glee writer Brad Falchuk... you just can’t do anything right, can you?

So even though I hoped Burt’s coma would last at least into the next episode, thus creating some twinge of continuity between the episodes and avoiding another single-hour subplot, I’m still happy for Kurt. The rest of them, though... I don’t know. The show’s general pattern of mediocrity could be worse - I mean hell, it could be Heroes - but it seems whatever magic that first batch of episodes held has fled, leaving only momentary glimpses of what the series could be, if they wanted it to be.

Grade: C

Songs

(From now on, I’m going to include a grade for each musical number in addition to my comments above or below. These marks are based on an average of performance quality and thematic appropriateness. Extra points will be given for interesting arrangements, outstanding dance or extraordinary presentation. I may or may not show my work and I’ll try not to be too harsh just because I don’t like the song.)

“Only the Good Die Young” - Billy Joel (B)
“I Look to You” - Whitney Houston (B-)
“Papa, Can You Hear Me?” from Yentl (C-)
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” - the Beatles (A)
“Losing My Religion” - REM (C+)
“Bridge Over Troubled Water” - Simon and Garfunkel (C+)
“One of Us” - Joan Osborne (B: extra points for a rare Tina solo)

Random Observations

Emma - was holding Will’s hand while Kurt waited to talk to the doctor.

Finn - is a total bastard. He uses his prayers for a football win, scant access to Rachel’s clothed breasts and his old quarterback position. Shouldn’t he have used one on Burt, especially since he got all bent out of shape at being the last to know about the heart attack since Burt’s “the closest I’m ever gonna get” to a father?

Where’s Kurt staying? - Dead mom, dad in the hospital: the state would be up his ass in a jiffy.

Logic - Ok, I know it’s pointless, but when Mercedes gets up to sing “I Look to You,” it’s one thing to call Tina and Quinn up to sing back-up (maybe they already knew the song), but I can’t believe there just happened to be a harpist there that day when there has never been one before?

the Jesus - I applaud the show’s repeated mentioning of the Jesus when most programs would neuter their references in favor of a more vague “God” and “religion” instead of “Jesus” and “Christianity.”

Second base - When Finn finally gets to it, I totally expected a call-back the premature ejaculation/mailman accident from early in season one.

Third base - There will never be a comedic (or dramatic, for that matter) subplot about head in either direction. Network shows about teenagers do not do this. They also do not do gay characters losing their virginity; so sorry, Kurt, but you’re gonna be misrepresented for the rest of your tenure on the show.

Sue’s “one and only hero”­ ­- in her whole life is her big sister. I knew that Madonna episode was full of shit.

Little Kurt - Does this kid not look exactly like Chris Colfer?

Great Lines

Finn - Something happened to me; I can’t really get into it, but it’s shaken me to my core.

Puck - Oh God, he’s coming out!

Puck - I see God every time I make out with a new chick. (Brittany smiles)

Kurt - (in French) I’m going to a sing-along Sound of Music and in two hours I will experience more culture and artistry than you will in your entire life.

Brittany - (to Kurt) I did a book report on heart attacks if you want to give it to the doctor. Got knocked down a whole letter grade because it was written in crayon.

Mercedes - You can’t prove that there’s no God.

Kurt - You can’t prove there isn’t magic teapot floating around on the dark side of the moon with a dwarf inside of it that reads romance novels and shoots lightning out of its boobs, but it seems pretty unlikely, doesn’t it?

Brittany - Is God an evil dwarf?

Brittany - I made him a card that said heart attacks are just from loving too much.

Sue - Asking someone to believe in a fantasy, however comforting, isn’t a moral thing to do - it’s cruel.

Emma - Don’t you think that’s just a little bit arrogant?

Sue - It’s as arrogant as telling someone how to believe in God and if they don’t accept it, no matter how open-hearted or honest their dissent, they’re going to Hell? Well, that doesn’t sound very Christian, does it?

Emma - Well, if that’s what you believe, that’s fine, but please keep it to yourself.

Sue - So long as you do the same. That kid could lose his father at any moment, you should start preparing him for that. Now get the hell out of my office; I realize you’re only half-orangutan, but I’m still very allergic to your lustrous, ginger mane.

Carole - Friends help out even when you don’t ask.