The horror of prom night arrives...

It’s prom night, but unfortunately Eric Stoltz doesn’t bring in Sissy Spacek to murder everyone. Luckily, Will is absent for most of the episode and Sue only shows up in small doses. The gang attends their barely-chaperoned junior prom and I refuse to believe none of them are seniors. Quinn, Santana and Lauren lose prom queen, as they should since they’re in glee and at the apparent bottom of the social barrel, but the winner is a mortified Kurt. Dave and Santana refuse to leave their closets (must be awful nice in there) while Artie mopes over not having Brittany.

Finn/Rachel/Quinn/Whomever

In honor of Cory Montieth’s twenty-ninth birthday, I’m gonna talk about how much his subplot sucks. I normally don’t write any more about this than I have to, but this week just didn’t seem to lend itself to the pro/con format, so I’ve decided to just focus on a few things and relegate the rest to Random Observations. Getting on with it, I can’t even calculate how much this subplot bores me. What’s worse, these are our ostensible leads, but they’ve just been running around in circles for the better part of the season, if not the entire series.

Tonight, though, they seem to have finally broken the cycle, though the fallout will have to wait till next week. Here we have Finn, torn between his pushy, insecure shiksa girlfriend and his pushy, insecure J.A.P. ex-girlfriend. Quinn seems to only need Finn as a running mate for prom royalty while Rachel appears to honestly (without ever really explaining why) be into him. However, the latter’s behavior this week was just kind of odd.. Come to think of it, all their major actions were strange.

Rachel, who has been coming on strong to Finn, even in front of his girlfriend, decides that it’s time for the full-court press, or the Glengarry Glen Ross, if you lean that way. When Finn expresses concern about her attending with Jesse, she tells him “If I want to date Jesse, or anyone else for that matter, it stopped being your business when you broke up with me!” Completely out the window is the fact that her cheating on him is what caused their break-up (as opposed to her being a shrewish harpy who berates him and won’t put out).

She then goes on to ask him to be as supportive of whatever relationship she wind up in as she’s been of him and Quinn, which is exactly bupkis. Last week’s subplot for them was Rachel behaving completely opposite. During prom, she sings directly to Finn a song that appears to continue along the “you should feel sorry for breaking up with me” line. This is completely absurd: why am I supposed to feel sympathy for her? I remember what happened last week!

Quinn, after losing the race for prom queen, takes it out on Rachel. While I don’t have a problem, in principle, with taking things out on Rachel, it logically doesn’t match up. Just how was her loss Rachel’s fault, an egregious enough betrayal to deserve a round slap in the mouth (which I also support)? I can understand her frustration and underlying fears of the future, which constructs what passes as motivation for the character, as well as the writers’ desire to get to the second half of the scene where she enumerates upon them, but the getting there ought to make sense.

Finn, rounding out the problem, picks a fight with Jesse when he sees his sort-of rival kissing her neck during a dance. Mind your fucking business, kid! You great, big, galumphing twenty-nine-year-old teenager! I have a fantastic idea: stop dating the both of them. Go hit on some impressionable freshman or sophomore who may just treat you well, as opposed to causing you nothing but grief and stress over their own absurd, selfish bullshit.

Part of me is really glad the focus of the show shifted away from these three, but it would be best for all involved if there would just be some kind of resolution. I understand that this sort of thing might be the most realistic subplot on the show, but it is a TV show - this is boring and has been all season. Cut it out!

Artie/Brittany

Artie’s musical attempt to re-woo his ex (who’s sitting right next to his previous ex) was sweet, even if, as Mercedes points out, the song choice was questionable. He’s pining for Brittany, who wants to be with Santana (again, for no explicable narrative reason), but still rightfully insists the latter come out . I buy Artie’s deal because I clearly remember the days when the future was non-existent and there was only an empty perpetual present; children and teenagers are like animals in that regard. High school break-ups can be especially hard because you have no sense that tomorrow, or even that day, you might find your next paramour.

Kurt/Dave/Santana

Oh naïve St. Kurt; as a man who was once a teenager in a kilt and stompy knee-high boots, I too must side with your father: you’re stirring the pot and getting testy at the very idea that someone would have the gall to say mean things about your skirt (because that’s what it is to them). Oh bitchy St. Kurt, the kind of person who would dress like that and then be surprised when people make fun of him. Of course no one should fuck with you for any reason whatsoever, but as your father and boyfriend said, it’s just not practical. Le sigh.

Oh pushy St. Kurt, you want Dave to come barreling out of that closet so bad you just can’t help but bring it up every time you’re within earshot. He ain’t ready! How nice for you that you were born without a closet, but the lesson Blaine learned the hard way (while you were standing right behind him) is lost on you: some people’s circumstances aren’t as premium as yours. You (read: we) aren’t completely aware of Dave’s reasons for wanting to stay in that closet, but your writers don’t seem to think it’s important enough to fill us in.

Ok, enough of this speaking-directly-to-a-character device. Both Dave and Santana’s character threads are based around them guarding each other’s closets while neither of their motivations have been explained. We don’t know enough about Dave’s home life, but his dad doesn’t seem like the type to fly off the handle just because he’s got a big gay son; a big gay son’s still better than a dead gay son. Santana, as I’ve said before, we know even less about. However, she has something to come out for: the love of a sweet, hot and I suspect, limber dancer with a heart of gold and a predilection for boobs.

While I think Dave’s story has been paced alright, Kurt was correct - now was definitely the exact right moment to come out; how many more dramatically appropriate moments should be written for a character to squander anti-climactically? No matter how sympathetic they’ve made him (and tonight went a long way do so), without motivation, it’s narratively bereft and mostly moot. Concurrently, Santana’s subplot ran out of steam two weeks ago but still has two to go, unfortunately.

The Relative Popularity of the Glee Club

Ok, assuming I accept the deranged reality in which the glee club is SO unpopular that not even their families will show up to their performances, what was up with everyone going apeshit like they were the Beatles when they performed that ridiculous fart-wisp of pop-cultural ephemera that anyone who watches the episode in a few years will have to have explained to them? Every time they perform (except when the direct point is for them to be ignored or hated) they receive a favorable, if not ecstatic response. How is this supposed to make any sense?

I know I’ve said this before, but if the show adhered to the rules of its own fictional universe, Quinn, Santana and Lauren would know there’s no way for them to win. By the show’s logic, anyone who ran against them should win because they’re more popular than all of them by default. Why make such repeated, loud points about how low the glee kids are, only to contradict them every other week?

In General

I realize I’ve spent the last few pages crapping on the episode, so real quick, the good stuff: Blaine’s number was fun, Dave’s apology to Kurt wasn’t bad, minimal Will is always welcome, they didn’t go for the easy “you can’t be gay at prom” storyline, and probably a few other things I can’t remember. I can’t help but wish the episode would have started with prom and taken place mostly at the after-party since, as a reputedly loose girl I went to school with said without a hint of irony, “It’s what you do after prom that counts.” More memories of the wasted potential from “Blame It on the Alcohol” perhaps. In a perfect world, I could hope for a two-parter where next week I get what I want, but I’ll have to settle for someone dying next week. I can only hope it’s Rachel.

You know, I think it’s time to start watching Community...

Grade: C

Songs

“Rolling in the Deep” - Adele (Rachel and Jesse)
“Isn’t She Lovely” - Stevie Wonder (Artie)
“Friday” - Rebecca Faust (Puck, Artie and Sam)
“Jar of Hearts” - Christina Perri (Rachel)
“I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You” - Black Kids (Blaine w/ Tina and Brittany)
“Dancing Queen” - ABBA (Mercedes and Santana)

Random Observations

Coincidental Con - A second after Rachel tells Mercedes she doesn’t have a date to prom, “Special Guest Star - Jonathan Groff” shows up at the bottom of the screen. Good job, guys.

Rachel and Mercedes’ prom budget - was $20... if they both got five dollar Goodwill dresses (which, by the looks of things cost a damn sight more than that), that leaves ten bucks, which is about a third of what it would cost the two of them and Sam to eat, even at Breadstix. This didn’t even make sense while they were saying it, let alone in hindsight.

Why would they have to walk to prom? - Sam delivers pizza, so I assume he has a car. Also, WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS?

Groff’s voice - they finally chose a song for it that didn’t make me wince. Queen and AC/DC were eye-rollingly wrong.

Still - I love his delivery of Jesse’s dialogue; he is consistently funny when clueless.

When Artie rolled into home-ec - my first reaction was “Why aren’t you in class?” Then when the other guys came in behind him playing instruments, I thought, “Why aren’t they in class? Detentions all around!”

Jar of Hearts - Are sad, break-uppy songs really prom-appropriate? Selfish-ass Rachel.

Sam’s pity-dance with Mercedes - You know, they made this big fuckin' point of Mercedes feeling sad, wanting someone to tell her she’s beautiful and ask her to dance and instead of paying that off by introducing a new character, they have Sam do it, using literally word-for-word what she said to Rachel during her lamentation. Even Brittany asking her to dance would have been more dramatically satisfying and she’ll dance with anyone (it’s true, if you look close, you can see her dancing with extras).

Queen Kurt - If it was a joke or intended to humiliate him, why was nobody laughing or smiling when his name was announced? One person goes “woo!” and one person claps, I just saw three people giving him the shitty-eye and everyone else just looks confused.

Santana’s idea of disappearing - I wasn’t aware of Tribeca as some den of lesbianosis. I’ll chalk this up to a small-town girl from Ohio not knowing her gay geography.

Wait - so was the prom just on pause until everyone returned from their little personal dramas?

Cheer up, Quinnie - there’s always next year.

Wouldn’t it be awesome - to see a Lower Deck Episode featuring the backing band and piano player?

Great Lines

Sue - Oh William, I’m devastated; positively horny with grief.

Quinn - Oh, you can get married as many times as you want; you only get one shot at your junior prom.

Brittany - So? I don’t have a date, I’m just going to dance! Then all your dates are going to ignore you and come dance with me, so... all your dates are really my dates.

Lauren - I look like a lemon meringue pie.
Brittany - I think you look delicious.

Jesse - How was I supposed to know that I was actually supposed to show up to all those other classes in school? I was majoring in show choir; I just assumed it would be like at Carmel and the school would get some Asian kid to take math and English and scientific for me.

Santana - (after Dave wins prom king) You suck so bad, Quinn Fabray; I won!

Santana - (after losing prom queen) Just because I hate everybody doesn’t mean they have to hate me too!

Rachel - Most girls would be upset about being slapped in the face, but I appreciate the drama of it.

Santana - They must’ve sensed that I’m a lesbian! They must have! Do I smell like a golf course?