Aaron wonders where the Glee cast gets off on the subject of sex...

In an effort to reduce the amount of time it takes me to write these recaps while maintaining an anal-retentive attention to detail, I’m going to continue trying new formats and see what sticks. Getting right to it...

In a plot of particularly poor taste, the members of Nude Erections use a mental image of Coach Beiste to cool down when things get too hot during intimate encounters, who finds out and decides to quit. Will gets her to stay and gives her a first kiss when she tells him she's never been.

David Karofsky, one of those thirty-year-olds who keep harassing Finn (whose name I only know because I read Wikipedia), has been repeatedly bullying Kurt, who, tired of being bullied and not taken seriously by his friends, goes to spy on Dalton Academy. He finds a boys’ school with a zero tolerance policy and a fellow gay student, Blaine (Darren Criss), who encourages Kurt to stand up for himself.

After pushing Kurt into a locker, he doesn't back down and confronts David (Max Adler: the white jock). As their argument intensifies, David tells Kurt to leave or else, but then kisses him instead. Shocked and scared, David flees the locker room. Later on, Kurt, along with Blaine, tries to talk to David who denies the incident happened. In the hallway, David again bullies Kurt by pushing him into the lockers and walking away.

Pro: They brought back the mailman joke!

Pro: Tina’s first and second-to-last outfits are mostly white, which I applaud. I feel her costuming has been straying a little too far into the Gothic Lolita end of the spectrum lately, but these are pretty great; white can be goth too! I couldn’t get adequate screenshots of either, though.

Pro: Puck has returned.

Con: He brought his landing strip with him.

Pro: Kurt is finally standing up for himself after being pushed into the lockers one too many times. It’s interesting how every guy in glee either is or has been on the football team and more than half the girls are or have been Cheerios, but none of them lift a finger to help Kurt. Finn’s made a couple of gestures, but gets bullied himself, now along with Sam, but there’s still Mike and Puck. Between them all, you’d figure they could buy Kurt some slack.

Pro: Kurt’s acrylic bow tie has a watch and gears in it.

Con: Quinn is an awful tease. At least Rachel isn’t sexy, so when she doesn’t put out, it’s not a big deal; but while Quinn is being all prim from one corner of the mouth, the other is going, “Is this hot enough for you?” and “Say my name... I said say my name!” Quinn needs to cut the bullshit and bang Sam but do something crazy like wear a condom. Or blow him... or give him a handjob... or watch each other masturbate - then she doesn’t even have to touch him!

Not only here, but on many network programs about teens, sexuality seems to consist of bunting (I don’t actually know what I mean by that), first base and teleporting to home. There is a belligerently vast array of sexual activity teens can engage in to preserve virginity and/or avoid pregnancy and disease, but for some deranged reason, it is verboten for characters to engage in them... ever.

Sexuality (and I don’t mean orientation) is really wacky on this show. On one end you’ve got Quinn and Rachel, who will not put out to the point that subplots have revolved around their pruditude. On the other are Brittany and Santana, whose sexual omnivorousness is played for laughs. We get princesses whose sexuality stops at the neck and insatiable fantasy objects (they’re interracial bisexual cheerleaders for fuck’s sake!) with no discernable middle ground.

Where’s the committed high school couple who have a bunch of fun, responsible sex only with each other? The closest we get is Tina and Mike whose activities we know next to nothing of, but they’re into each other enough that later this episode we see them fooling around in an unused classroom, but again as a set-up to a joke. As MESSAGE-tastic as this show loves to be, what point are they trying to make here? Madonna or whore? Tired. Tired, tired, tired bullshit! I call shenanigans!

Con: Quinn goes to Sue for advice, which is a generally terrible idea and Quinn knows that, so why would she do it?

Pro: The school exterior location shows up again (twice!), underscoring an oddity with the scene: last time, they mounted a big, showy number to which exactly two people paid attention, but this time, two guys sing and everybody’s involved. I guess that steel drum section that just happened to be there helped?

Pro: Kurt’s outfit to blend in with the students at Dalton: his ubiquitous twenty-eyed Docs, dark green plaid knee-length shorts, a double-breasted blue blazer and a red tie.

Pro: The lead of Dalton Academy’s show choir, the Warblers (from here on out referred to as the Garglers), Straight Gay Blaine serenades Kurt with a song about “going all the way tonight, no regrets” backed up by his colossal eyebrows.

Pro: The whole scene where Puck and Artie ask Santana and Brittany on a double date is awesome and quoted in its entirety below. Punctuated by the other girls’ reaction shot.

Pro: Will sticks up for Beiste and later comforts her when she is on the verge of quitting (see below). This is the Will of season one, a character who is likable but still kind of silly. The scene where he berates Mike and Sam over the Beiste issue makes up for some of this season’s idiocy and out-of-characterness, but doesn’t quite rectify last week’s egocentric extravaganza.

Con: “Start Me Up / Livin' on a Prayer” doesn’t really work as a mash-up - it felt stilted and cobbled. “Stop! / Free Your Mind” wasn’t that much better. They were “well done” but not actually that good.

Pro: Sue’s triumphant cackle.

Con: Kurt’s claim that not every gay is out to “molest and convert straight guys” is true, except for the convenient omission that he is guilty of that behavior.

Pro: The rest of the above “con” scene, when David gives Kurt his first boy-kiss. Kurt’s horror and David’s fear are palpable as neither has any words. This scene actually caught me off-guard - stereotypical as it is in hindsight, I did not foresee this development or the quality of the scene in which it arrives.

Pro/Con: It’s better than the scene where Will convinces Beiste to stay at the school, which could have easily devolved into Narm, but through the Dot Jones’ performance managed to dodge complete contrivance and wind up sort of heartwarming if still slightly weird (and terrifyingly unprofessional, two words which perfectly describe season two Will).

???: Puck and Artie’s elementary-school vagina-handshake threw me for a loop.

Well, that was better than it’s been lately, despite being written by Brad Falchuck. If this level of quality can be maintained, a better show can probably rise from the rest of this season’s collected ashes of mediocrity.

Grade: B- (points off for mostly weak musical numbers)

Songs

- “One Love / People Get Ready” B-
- “Teenage Dream” B (points off for a horrifically obvious auto-tune juke about half-way through)
- “Start Me Up / Livin' on a Prayer” C
- “Stop! In the Name of Love / Free Your Mind” C+

Random Observations

Artie busking - “I’ve never broken the rules like this.” Except for that time when you did!

Fanservice - Male: 2 Female: 0 (unless you count the extreme close-up of Quinn’s mouth or the brief flash of Brittany’s butt-cheek)

Mercedes - is getting the short end of the stick this season. Six episodes in and she has yet to feature in a subplot. When I saw the episode’s title, I honestly thought it was going to revolve around her and Kurt, not Kurt and Beiste. We know next to nothing substantial about her other than her dad is a dentist and her mom sings in a gospel choir (of course she does). Is she getting shunted aside because she’s fat or because she’s black?

Tina - While we’re on the subject of underused characters, Tina has only two actual characteristics and they’re both external: she’s Asian and she’s goth. What else do we know about her? She had a (catastrophically) fake stutter? She used to be shy? Well, those went away, so what’s left?

Blaine - seems a little too perfect, doesn’t he? A little too self-possessed? I don’t think he’s here to be Kurt’s love interest (though Kurt does have an obvious crush on him) so much as his fairy godfather (seriously no pun intended). He comes from a magical land of tolerance that Kurt finds staggering in its utopia and always knows just the right thing to say, like some gay seventeen-year-old Yoda. This is not a character who can develop - he appears fully-formed from the brow of the writers - and would be better off a figment of Kurt’s imagination than as someone we’re expected to follow since he is merely a storytelling tool for the “Maturation of Kurt” subplot. Or maybe he’ll just disappear like Sunshine, remember her?

David - Will this character and his plot stick around to get a coming out story or is he just a topical cherry on a stereotype sundae? Now that the cliché of ashamed-homosexuality-as-homophobia has been put forth, can we use Azimo (James Earl: the black one) as an example of a more realistic cause of people hating on teh_gheys, like religion or generally ignorant prejudice? Did he remind anyone else of Larry on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Beiste - How hypocritical is it to write sight gags of her in “sexy” get-ups, then scold us for laughing about it?

Artie - is now suddenly really into Brittany. Not that I disagree with this as a subplot; in fact, I would accept almost any reason given for this development... if any reason were given! This came out of nowhere and my curiosity to see how it plays out is the only thing keeping me from hemorrhaging at its randomness.

Great Lines

Sam - I’ve never actually almost killed a civil servant before.

Kurt - You, like everyone else at this school, are too quick to let homophobia slide... and your lesson plans are boring and repetitive.

Will - Look, I’m not tossing the baby out with the bathwater here. Brittany - I’ve totally done that!

Puck - The thing about chicks is that you only have to be a fraction as nice to them as you were mean to them to get them to like you again.

Beiste - Watch your tone, missy; you crap on my leg, I’ll cut it off!

Santana - (to Puck) Hmm. So, how does it feel to be a free man?
Artie - (unconvincingly) All I can say is that I don’t want a long-term relationship with either of you; especially Brittany since I’m not in love with her.
Brittany - Do you guys want to go out to dinner tonight?
Puck - (flat) Not really.
Santana - (deflated) Oh. Puck - Tell you what, you to two show up tomorrow night at Breadstix around seven and if we don’t find hotter chicks to date tonight, we might show up.
Santana - (whispering) You are so cool.
Brittany - Awesome.

Brittany - (to Artie... a paraplegic) I’ve been squeezing your leg for the last hour-and-a-half; are you not attracted to me?

Rachel - (after Will lays into them for the Beiste issue) I’m sorry, what exactly did we do? Finn - No, it’s us... the boys. Mike - ...aaaand Tina.