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Props & Nationals
Fuck this show & its treatment of trans issues. I thought the last episode with Unique has made it clear that she was transgender; now I am unsure, mostly because I'm unsure that Glee knows the difference between a drag queen and a trans person.
Tina's lines were awesome. SOMEONE OTHER THAN RACHEL, KURT, AND FINN WAS TALKING. And then it was a pile of crap.
The episode tried to retcon the show's complete & utter waste of Ushkowitz as an actress. But instead of making everyone important & special, which used to be the theme of Glee, the lesson learned by the end of the episode is that everyone should learn their place.
It's typical of ontd_glee fandom to interpret this as the show's creator Ryan Murphy telling the actors to STFU, but this time around, that interpretation actually made it into some of the reviews posted on major websites.
ALSO MIKE CHANG WAS A JERK. UGH.
The bodyswapping was kind of awesome, and I really wish that it had lasted more than 6 minutes or however long it was.
OMFG Colfer's interpretation of Finn was THE BEST. Also notable: Dianna Agron's interpretation of Sugar, Naya Rivera's interpretation of Artie (insert "Artiepreach.gif" here).
Meanwhile, Rachel and Puck learn that by whining enough, they will get second chances.
Most aggravating, there is still no mention of Brittany failing any classes/etc., and we the fans know she's not going to graduate because she hasn't appeared in a cap & gown in any of the promos. Puck has had two episodes about his struggle to graduate, and he actually will, despite having pulled an actualfax knife on a classmate last night. Meanwhile, Brittany is the class president and hasn't had a single reference to her performance in school, and she will actually fail.
There's not a lot to say about Nationals, which was more interesting than any competition episode has been this year.
I found myself feeling EMOTIONS when the kids got fake-slushied with glitter and finally accepted by their peers, but the braver choice would have been to let the New Directions lose, in my opinion. They banked EVERYTHING on to winning that competition. Finn literally bet his Honeymoon money on it; Rachel bet her future, everyone needed it, and life doesn't usually work that way. It would have been way more ballsy to see the kids fail, I think. But the writers are not down with good writing, generally.
Lesson learned from "Nationals:" People don't deserve to get bullied if they win competitions!
Rachel getting to give some classmate an autograph would have been a lot more touching if I still gave a flying fuck about Rachel, but the show wants me to SO BADLY that I just cannot.
Lea Michele has way more chemistry with Jonathan Groff than she does with Cory Monteith. Which is saying a lot, since Cory Monteith is her actual boyfriend, if the weekly press releases about their relationship are to be believed.
My favorite recap of both episodes was Ryan McGee's, which is usually the case.
Still no mention about the status of Dave Karofsky, whose attempted suicide was used to propel the Finchel marriage AND THEN NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN, EVEN IN PASSING.
Cast interviews are currently hilarious because nobody has any idea what the FUCK will happen in season 4. Will Quinn, Puck, and Mercedes leave or still be on the show?! NOBODY KNOWS, like even the actors don't know, I don't think.
Songs purchased from last night's ep: Pinball Wizards, Starships, Edge of Glory.
Related, I liked Van Der Waff's evisceration of NBC's Smash in his Glee recap:
After some solid episodes near the start and a couple of randomly good hours in the middle of the run, the show was just a bland, boring mess, a show that had literally no idea what its audience thought about it at any given time and often seemed to race in the exact opposite direction of what the audience wants.
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Watching Tina have this moment of utter clarity only to have it spun into her becoming the fembot by the time she has the 'team player' moment with Sugar just galled me.
And Mike, what the hell was that? Tina has done everything to help him out but she's being selfish?
I'll say this about Mercedes' one time boo, Shane: when she had her diva moment, he was right there to say, "Yes, these people treat you like crap and you need to take your light somewhere and be appreciated."
It was clumsily handled and fandom of course thought that Mercedes was an uberbitch for doing it but I'm sorry, if I had been in a club that was supposed to be a club for almost three years and suddenly everything I've done isn't good enough because I can't do one dance move (hello there Mike Chang and Mr. Schuester) which they don't end up doing anyway AND at the end of the day, all of my efforts are in service to Rachel's proposed stardom? No, that's wrong on so many levels.
What kills me in all of this are the people and story threads left at the wayside of the afterschool special approach to storytelling: Dave Kurofsky, Unique - don't even get me started there, and so many others.
And there's much longer meta I could write about women and in particular women of color and how they're treated by this show that will only raise my blood pressure.
I'm at the point where I think of Glee like Heroes: Season 1 made me fall in love, Season 2 baffled me and Season 3 just made me tear my hair out.
I've stayed with it because I wanted to see this particular story complete but I don't know if I will be back for Season 4. With the schedule change to Thursday, that puts Glee up against at least one new show I really want to see, Shawn Ryan's The Last Resort. Andre Braugher vs. Lea Michele. There's no contest.
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I forgot that Shane was that awesome! I wish they had utilized that actor more. When Mercedes picked Sam, it didn't feel like a choice because Shane barely had any lines at all.
Schue calling Mercedes lazy was THE WORST. It makes me happy that my section of fandom still remembers this and regularly brings it up to ridicule his shitty character, though.
There's just SO MUCH this show could stay about stardom and bullying and who "deserves" to be treated in certain ways.
omg, I think I only watched a handful of episodes from Heroes season 2, and never bothered beyond that.
I admire those who will be able to leave Glee after a certain point, or who already have. I think given how "into" the fandom I'm in, I'll probably be watching as long as it's on the air.
Of course, it helps that I don't watch anything else "as it airs" on TV - I wait for it to show up on Netflix discs/streaming.
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