Season Three explores a new Quinn, the old Rachel, and pros and consequences of arson ...

So yeah, Glee is back. Can you hear me sigh heavily from wherever you are? I spent a lot of time last season complaining about how bad the show had gotten and debating whether or not to continue reviewing it. By the end, I’d pretty much decided against it. What changed between then and now? Nothing, I’m just a sucker for things like this:

Yep, that’s all it takes - turn the hottest woman on the show into some kind of alterna-chick and I’m putty. I know, I’m weak; make no mistake, if our new alien overlords land and they look like that, I’ll go Quisling faster than you can say, “Please don’t shoot me with your ray-gun, pink-haired master of the universe!”

So was it worth selling out my entire race as Borite-mining slaves? Let’s find out!

Pro: Hey, directed by Eric Stoltz! This is already looking up.

Con: Oh look, they’re starting with another news... blog... cast... meta... thing.

Pro: But they do point out how mercilessly mediocre Finn is at everything.

Pro: Several characters’ grades are established, lining us up for them to, in fact, be graduating at the end of the season. That’ll be pretty sweet if we can get rid of Rachel.

Con: Sam gets put on a bus... off-screen.

Pro: The hockey team returns momentarily to slushy Finn. It’d be cool if they could develop this in to some sort of plot, but I think we know better at this point.

Con: Will’s morning-wood joke was... off-putting.

Pro: Emma and Will packing each other’s lunches in Superman and Wonder Woman lunch boxes.

Con: Will’s replacement in Crossrhodes couldn’t have won a Tony already.

Con: Lauren gets put on a bus...

Pro: ...but at least it was on-screen.

Pro: Yay, staff writers!

Pro: Yay, Marti Noxon!

Pro:

Pro: Julliard doesn’t have a musical theatre department, dashing Kurt and Rachel’s hopes of ditching this one-horse town. I love seeing Rachel disappointed. I applied to Julliard... I didn’t even get a “thanks but no thanks” letter; they just kept my fifty bucks. Assholes.

Con: Sue. I just don’t care. Her schtick is very tiresome, but I can’t seem to figure out if it would be more or less so if the show wasn’t so waffly about it.

Pro: Tina’s hair is nice, though. She’s apparently grown out that slick Victorian goth period. I liked that... ::sigh::

The Pro-iest Pro That Ever Pro-d a Pro:



And The Attendant Doubleplusunpro:



This is not funny. An “ironic Ryan Seacrest tattoo”? So basically, within the first few seconds of her showing up for the season, you’re telling us not to take Quinn seriously and that in no time flat, she’ll ditch this super-flattering, detestably hot look she’s got going on. What the hell is wrong with the people that make this show?

Con: The fence separating Quinn from Brittany is a little ham-fisted, compositionally.

Con: Oh, wow... I don’t think Dianna Agron is selling the new Quinn very well.

Provisional Pro: The Skanks, Quinn’s new circle of friends, could be interesting if given time to develop. Even if they don’t, it’d be awesome if they formed a riot-grrl band. I can see sweet, sexy alterna-Quinn on stage, throttling a mic stand, wearing a white Les Paul with black polka-dots... ::shudder:: I’ll be in my bunk.



Pro: Sheila once ate cat poop.

Con: Quinn lets Rachel give her little speech. If this were a serious character shift and not just some bullshit to snag me into the new season, she would have put a stop to that nonsense tout de suite. How about, “Why does that hole in your face continue to make noise?” When Rachel is like, “We were friends,” Quinn should’ve shot back, “We were never friends; I’ve always hated you. You stole my boyfriend - twice!”

Pro: Sheila prefers the Bangles.

Con: That whole scene was a classic example of “tell not show”: if you want us to buy the new Quinn, you should’ve showed us Quinn being anti-social or self-destructive instead of having Rachel tell us that she dated a forty-year-old skater-guy over the summer. Show us this, unless we’re just not supposed to take it seriously at all.

Con: And another thing: she comes off like Olivia Neuter-John at the end of Grease holding that cigarette and not smoking it. Blech.

Pro: New set - the lunchroom.

Con: Rachel gets the first verse of the new season.

Con: This number is not interesting... you know, except for the upskirt shots of Brittany and Santana.

Pro: New character Sugar (Vanessa Lengies, Waiting...) is pretty fun.

Con: However, when I said I wanted more Queen songs, Sugar’s terrible screeching isn’t what I had in mind.

Con: Will has no concept of what a “try-out” is. If you accept everyone who asks to be in the club, then it’s not a very good “try-out,” is it?

Con: Rachel gets the second real number of the season, too.

Con: So let me get this right: Straight-gay Blaine transfers to McKinley to be closer to Kurt. Fine, that’s sweet and all, but we finally get to see him in street clothes and... he dresses like Kurt. Why?

Con: Kurt’s double-breasted bib. Is the idea just that you can hang any old clothing in any old combination off Chris Colfer and call it a costume for Kurt?

Pro: Lots of Cheerio upskirts and Santana being cute in Blaine’s number...

Con: ...but there’s a logic problem here. See if you can follow this: Blaine (a transfer student) pre-plans a number for the patio area involving the band and half the Cheerios. At the end of the number, Santana distracts him while the Cheerios squirt lighter fluid on one of Will’s stupid purple pianos. Quinn then lights the piano on fire with her cigarette. Quinn, who is not associating with the Cheerios or glee, provided the crescendo to the performance. How? How was she involved with the plan? Who was supposed to light the piano on fire if Quinn didn’t do it? I didn’t see anyone else moving to set the blaze.

Con: Now that I think about it, students at this school get threatened with disciplinary action for sneezing wrong, how is it Quinn can smoke out in the open, Santana can plan and six other cheerleaders can perform an act of arson without anyone getting in trouble?



Pro: The looks on Kurt and Rachel’s faces when they realize that there is a “Kurt” and a “Rachel” at every school and they’re all better and more qualified than them.

Pro: Another new character, Harmony (Lindsay Pearce, The Glee Project), can definitely sing. She’s obviously being set up as a foil for Rachel, but we’ll see how that goes.

Pro: Harmony’s number was pretty great; I appreciate the use of Broadway standards.

Con: Kurt and Rachel’s commiseration afterwards was a little cloying.

Pro: Santana gets kicked out of Nude Erections for planning the piano blaze! Finally, consequences! Someone has to answer for something they’ve done!

Con: Even though I know it’s temporary.

Pro: Mercedes intends to play Maria in the club’s planned performance of West Side Story (Brittany: “Is that the one with the cats?”)

Con: This closing number is anticlimactic and totally unnecessary. I would have preferred another three minutes of character development, maybe set up another conflict for the show to ignore until it’s convenient.

So that’s it. Well, it was better than the last episode, which isn’t actually that hard. The episode had a significant drop-off in viewership, though, but still pulled second in its time slot. Glimmers of hope for the series are still there, but don’t put any real money on it getting better. Next week’s episode is called I Am Unicorn and it better be Brittany-centric.

Grade: C-

Songs

“We Got the Beat” - The Go-Gos (Rachel, Santana, Brittany and the Nude Erections)
“Big Spender” - Shirley Bassey (Sugar)
“Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead” - Barbra Streisand / Harold Arlen arr. (Rachel and
Kurt)
“It’s Not Unusual” - Tom Jones (Blaine)
“Anything Goes / Anything You Can Do” - from Anything Goes and Annie Get Your Gun
(Harmony)
“You Can’t Stop the Beat” from Hairspray (Rachel, Mercedes and the Nude Erections)

Random Observations

I fully support - Kurt and Rachel covering “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen.

You know what would’ve been an awesome tattoo for Quinn? - Dianna Agron’s real tattoo.

You know - now that Tina doesn’t need her Nine Inch Nails records, she should give her copy of Pretty Hate Machine to Quinn. I would murder my whole family to see/hear The Skanks cover Kinda I Want To.

My girlfriend brings up an excellent point* - the Nude Erections will probably wind up absorbing The Skanks. They are down three members, after all. Hey, then Mercedes won’t be the token black girl anymore.

The musical numbers - There wasn’t a single one that furthered a plotline, established a character’s perspective or had any real narrative use at all. Remember when the show used to do that? Somebody to Love, anyone?

You think Quinn put out - to her twice-as-old boyfriend over the summer?

Great Lines

Santana - Senior year is all about being Cheerios’ top ho and modeling my fierceness after my numero uno Latina, Paula Abdul.

Jacob - Paula Abdul is an Arab.

Brittany - (off the team’s twelfth-place trophy) I was pretty sure it would grow over the summer.

Kurt - (about Finn and Rachel’s ill-advised kiss last episode) And the YouTube comments were full of pithy banter like, “Why’s that T. rex eating the Jew?”

Emma - Kent State has a wonderful musical theatre program and a macabre back-story!

Becky - What about toast? It’s already baked, I don’t get why you have to cook it again.

*as she is often wont to do.

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