Aaron's mystified by the strange hall-dwelling trinity of the size-challenged - among other things...

Time for an extra helping of didactic ramblings as Glee begins winding down its second year. Representing a season-low in viewership, they go back to the Well of GaGa in the hopes that a second go-around can justify the extra length of a Very Special Episode. Here’s a spoiler: it doesn’t.

CON: “Finn can’t dance” is getting a little tiresome as a plot point.

PRO: Yay, Rachel got hurt!

PRO: Yay, Colonel Sandurz!

CON: Boo, reinforcement of Jewish stereotypes!

CON: Will is still the worst teacher ever. Who (that values his job) would allow Santana to just insult everyone in the room in turn?

CON: Tina’s blue contacts... has she ever worn them before?

CON: Will doesn’t want his legacy to be conjugated verbs and glee trophies. He doesn’t? That sounds like a pretty good legacy for a Spanish teacher who doesn’t speak Spanish and glee coach to have.

CON: Oh shit, Emma said “born this way,” and it gave Will a terrible idea for this week’s easily discarded or misinterpreted by the end of the hour theme.

CON: Santana thinks that if she were prom queen, Brittany would drop Artie for her, which is almost as ridiculous as Artie thinking getting on the football team would get him Tina back.

PRO: Sam’s drive-by Sean Connery imitation in reference to Santana’s hat.

CON: Santana is only hanging out with Kurt, Blaine, Tina and Mercedes because they couldn’t figure out a better way to have her learn about Dave being the obstacle to Kurt’s return.

CON: Wait, so Santana wants to tame Dave so Kurt can come back, making her a hero in exactly twelve people’s eyes, which somehow translates to her having enough votes to be prom queen and get Brittany. How does that work, exactly?

CON: And further, if her absurd plan were to actually work, what would the end result be for the character? She gets Brittany, but to what end? Does she stay in the closet and go back to humping Brittany on the sly? Does she come out (which she has no apparent intention of) and try a public relationship? So may confusing things going on this episode, I sure hope they get straightened out by the end.

CON: Spoiler - they don’t.

PRO: Excellent delivery of Santana’s Freudian slip - “I’ve gotta gay... Go. Go, I’ve gotta go!”

CON: Emma unveils a machine for printing on a shirt that which the characters are most ashamed of or would like to change but can’t because they were “born that way” (there’s that damn phrase again!); I wonder how they’ll screw this up. Spoiler: badly.

PRO: Quinn’s surprising bounty of self-awareness.

CON: How is it that the only people running for prom queen are glee kids, the bottom scrapings of their school’s popularity scale? By the rules of this show’s fictional universe, if anyone else was running, they’d win because they’re more popular than Quinn by default.

PRO: Brushing aside the show’s obscene method of ignoring the difficulty of writing a mash-up, “Unpretty / I Feel Pretty” was really well performed and narratively effective, especially in light of later events in the episode.

CON: Oh hell, why brush it aside? The show’s reliance on original mash-ups (a contradiction of terms, I know) is one of the more unbelievable aspects of its fiction. The people scoring the mash-ups (not to mention the costuming and stage lighting) are obviously professionals, not the kids themselves or the ridiculously talented high school jazz band that regularly backs them up.

CON: I don’t get why they’re all dressed the same. Is this some commentary on how the obese are a shunned group who look identical in the eyes of the genetically blessed? Are they a heretofore unmentioned club? I have no idea what’s going on here.

PRO: Santana and Dave’s “date” to set up their beard-dom (not to be confused with "Growing the Beard").

PRO: I don’t like Finn’s singing voice, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t find something he could do well.

PRO: Looks like Sam’s growing that Bieber shit out.

CON: Twice Tina says there’s no Asian sex symbols, but a quick Google search says otherwise. Now, if she’s talking about males, that’s a whole 'nother story.

CON: Damn, Will’s judge-y little tirade to Emma about her refusal to address her “problem” was pretty shitty.

CON: Emma said “born this way” again.

CON: Repeatedly calling Emma’s anxiety disorder / phobia “OCD” is oversimplification at best and misinformation at worst. I’m not qualified to say what Emma’s problem “actually is,” but since many people tend to accept what they hear on TV as fact, constantly referring to it as “OCD” will make many people think what she has is OCD. Yes, she has an obsessive compulsion towards sanitation, but it’s borne from a pathological fear of germs and general uncleanliness, which seems to be the root of the issue.

PRO: So, I’m not sure how I feel about the whole “Santana and Dave Anti-Bullying Beard Alliance” thing, but I’m leaning towards “pro” if only because it kind of smells like character development for Dave. Thing is, this can only really play out two ways: Dave grows, even reluctantly, to accept himself and others or he flips out and goes on a murderous rampage when the pressure of Santana’s blackmail gets to him. The first is transparent and pat, while the second I made up just now off the top of my head because in retrospect I really only think this can only go the first way, given how the show operates.

PRO: The Bully Whips’ inane berets.

PRO: Yay, Burt’s back! I love Mike O’Malley. Did I ever mention he’s a writer on Shameless, over on Showtime? Yeah, apparently that connection is why Emmy Rossum was supposed to show up as Kurt’s lesbian aunt, but I don’t think that’s happening any more.

PRO: Even though it reiterates Santana’s cockeyed plan, the scene between Kurt, Dave and their fathers was well done and probably the most satisfying of the show, especially given what’s to come.

"Glee continues to be both the most self-contradictory and self-congratulatory show I can think of off the top of my head. They fuck up their own message, then pat themselves on the back as if they’ve really tackled some issues."

CON: I don’t think I’ve ever really understood Puck’s fixation on his Jewishness and his vehement objection to Rachel’s possible nosejob on the basis of this mystifying notion of her schnozz being some sacred symbol of Jew unity further compounds my confusion. Since Puck’s principal traits, prolific wangsman and juvenile delinquent, have been sidelined by his relationship with Lauren, all the writers have to fall back on is his lip-service Judaism.

CON: Kurt’s white Lip Service straightjacket.

CONx3: While we’re talking about the scene, though, why is it that Kurt waited till halfway through the day to come back to McKinley? How is it that the Garglers were able to get the day off to drive halfway across the state to sing a goodbye to Kurt they could have done the day before, when Kurt was still a student at Dalton? What is that goddamned piano doing in the courtyard?

PRO: I do like the little brooch Kurt made out of the keys to his absurd jacket.

CON: As nice as it is to have Kurt back, I’m entirely displeased that more than half of the extra time this episode got was taken up by his goodbye number from the Garglers and his glad-to-be-back solo. They stopped the episode dead in its tracks for what amounted to around twenty minutes with commercials.

PRO: However, that was a great solo.

PRO: The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Lucy Caboosey. A well-acted scene by both Agron and Fink, showing again that the only subtlety this show is capable of is in its performances.

CON: Give a motherfucker a rope, he wants to be a cowboy: All that extra runtime to burn it up with nonsense. Can Kurt’s “Barbravention” be seen as anything other than padding out the episode? I’ll reluctantly accept that Kurt could put together a flash mob in a day, after all, he assembled a wedding in about seventy-two hours, but not only is this unrealistic, it’s pointless. How did this “song” and scene convince Rachel not to get a nosejob? Is there magic in just chanting the name “Barbra Streisand”? Is it like saying “Beetlejuice” three times?

PRO: In a vacuum, though, it was pretty fun; in the context of the episode, however, it was just wasting even more time.

PRO: I guess this episode, we got the version of Finn that isn’t dumb as rocks and goofy in all the wrong ways. Really, it underscores the show’s incredible lack of character continuity, but you gotta take what pros you can find, right?

CON: I still don’t get it.

SERIOUS CON: How often is it that an episode of Glee misses its own point by the end? They’re supposed to be wearing shirts that say something about themselves that they’re ashamed of, but Kurt’s says “Likes Boys.” Isn’t Kurt the proudest, gayest boy for a hundred miles? How is this a secret or something he’s ashamed of? For that matter, why does Mercedes’ shirt say “No Weave?” And Will’s says “Butt Chin?” How about “Hypocrite,” “Assclown,” “Pushy,” “Inconsistent,” or if they’re trying to be funny “Can’t Rap” or “Vest-a-holic?”

Glee continues to be both the most self-contradictory and self-congratulatory show I can think of off the top of my head. They fuck up their own message, then pat themselves on the back as if they’ve really tackled some issues. I haven’t seen anything yet to convince me to keep watching the show next season but I’m giving them right up to the last second of this one to show me something worth sticking around for.

Grade: C-

Songs

“Unpretty / I Feel Pretty” - TLC / from West Side Story (Quinn and Rachel)

“I’ve Gotta Be Me” - Sammy Davis Jr. (Finn w/ Mike)

“Somewhere Only We Know” - Keane (Blaine and the Garglers)

“As If We Never Said Goodbye” - from Sunset Boulevard (Kurt)

“Barbra Streisand” - Duck Sauce

“Born This Way” - Lady GaGa (Nude Erections)

Random Observations

Longer Runtime = More Commercials - The average episode of Glee is forty-three minutes long, which means that 30% of the hour spent watching it is taken up by commercials; par for the course. Tonight’s episode was fifty-seven minutes long spread over ninety minutes, coming out to 37% commercials... that’s awesome, thanks guys. At most recent count (October 2010), a thirty-second spot on Glee costs $272,694, earning the network roughly $3.5m per episode. By that math, the thirty-three minutes of commercials (as opposed to the usual thirteen) in tonight’s episode made them an extra $1.9m for only fourteen more minutes of show.

All that extra time - was spent on bullshit, though.

Blaine - I can’t imagine that’s the last we’ll see of him, but for the sake of narrative economy, I suspect he’s going to wind up transferring to McKinley. No way they’d forgo the scads of money Darren Criss’ voice rakes in for them over the iTunes.

Family Update - Lauren has a father; we don’t see him, but he’s mentioned.

Barbra Streisand - is such an undiscerning screenwhore that she’ll probably show up at some point.

Quinn’s hair - So she’s really a ginger, but she’s got about an inch of dark roots. What’s going on there?

The only subplot I was actually invested in - was whether or not Santana was going to wear her “Lebanese” shirt and pop out for the final number, surprising Brittany. Didn’t happen, but I guess that’ll keep me tuning in for the rest of the season.

Great Lines

Santana - Look, maybe Rachel’s fine with having an enormous beak; maybe she needs it to crack hard seeds.

Will - I mean, I’m really enjoying helping you with your OCD--
Emma - You know, I really don’t like that term. Really, it sounds way too scientific and serious; prefer “neat freak” or “cleanybug.”

Emma - "Being a ginger has plagued me my entire life. People say I smell like copper and I get a sunburn indoors at night. And according to recent legend, I have no soul.”

Rachel - Thanks for doing this.
Quinn - I’m surprised more girls haven’t asked me; my nose is awesome!

Rachel - So what’s it like, looking like you look?
Quinn - I pretty much have a warped sense of the world: being a hot seventeen-year-old, you can get away with or do anything you want, so I kind of always assumed people are always nice and accommodating.

Rachel - Why did you bring me here, is there a sale at Claire’s?

Quinn - I stopped going by Lucy because kids made up a mean nickname.
Lauren - “Juicy Lucy?”
Quinn - “Lucy Caboosey.”

Quinn - I was a miserable little girl and now I’m gonna be prom queen.

Santana - (after Brittany produces a shirt that says “Lebanese”) I’m Hispanic... wait, is that supposed to say “lesbian?”
Brittany - Doesn’t it?

As much of a disappointment as Glee is, as long as it’s on, I can look forward to things like this:

heather-morris-getting-swimsuit-jiggy by EgotasticMedia