This week on Glee, it’s Thanksgiving – look, we went through the timing thing last week, just go with it – it’s Sectionals and it’s also Everyone Comes Home Except Kurt and Rachel Because They’re Too Cool And Also Sad Now. We get our first dose of Quinn the Yale undergrad, Jake and Ryder continue to be the best bros who ever bro’d, Kitty is crazy, the sky is blue. Kurt and Rachel have a very unique New York Thanksgiving, and Marley puts the entire club, and herself, in jeopardy. Read our full Glee recap below:
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but when I see my old school friends, I always have a touching medley prepared about homecomings, which I transmit psychically to the group so that everybody knows their assigned parts. I mean, who doesn’t, right? Quinn, Puck, Mike, Santana and Mercedes reunite with Finn on the auditorium stage while singing a mash-up of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound” and Phillip Phillips’ “Home,” fulfilling their promise to come back together for the first major holiday since graduation. It’s sweet – my heart clenched at Quinn and Puck holding hands, and I was weirdly emotional about Quinn hugging Finn in delight – but this show really has to find a more realistic way of incorporating musical numbers for the characters who are no longer directly performing. Glee has always suffered from this, but this scene particularly stands out. Someone beginning a sing-a-long of an old familiar song and everyone else joining in with a rousing chorus? That I could buy, they did perform for three years and can work instinctively together, but this – a new performance, a mash-up – these aspects make it really difficult for me to appreciate the intended emotional impact of the scene, because I’m too busy going “oh, okay, did Mercedes mail out everyone their sheet music in advance so they were prepared to construct this moving reunion?”
Blah, blah, internal Marley monologue about how she’s always dreamed of being a singing sensation on stage, blah, she knows everyone’s depending on her, especially her two boyfriends, blah, she’s feeling the pressure, blah, she’s sad that she hasn’t lost 12lbs like her mom. I’m sorry, I’ve stopped caring about this storyline, due to the fact that Marley has displayed the qualities of both a major bitch and a major idiot.
“So I said, ‘You girls are gonna need another cup.’” This charming dinner conversations has our graduates in hysterics as they Puck regales them with tales of his Los Angeles conquests. As they squish into a booth an Breadstix, they toast the fact that almost all of them kept their promise to come home. Rachel and Kurt’s absence is noticed as they catch up on one another’s lives – apparently Rachel is pestering Quinn to use the train ticket that Rachel gave her (a shining moment of continuity!) but that Quinn is very busy and important at Yale. Puck particularly looks proud of her, and if these two don’t end up together in the long run I’m going to lodge a formal complaint. Or set fire to Ryan Murphy’s car. Finn says he has a favor to ask everyone, and at the next glee rehearsal we see what it was – he’s asked the graduates to act as mentors for his newbies. After introducing his friends as legends, claiming any one of them could go on to become POTUS one day – “I don’t know about that,” Artie grits out through a fixed smile – Finn pairs up the group – the Puckerman boys together, Mike with Ryder, Quinn with Kitty, Mercedes with Unique, and Santana with Marley. That last duo is the most interesting to me, all the rest seem rather obvious. All in all, it’s not the worst plan in the world. Finn says that the mentors are there to help with anything the new kids might need, and when Quinn makes a quip about birth control, Kitty giggles and swoons, gushing about how cool and funny Quinn is, how alike they are. Santana looks them over approvingly, clearly saving that mental image to build on later.
Finn starts laying out their actual plan for Sectionals – a Marley and Blaine duet, and then for a group number, PSY’s “Gangnam Style.” Santana calls this out as a terrible idea, stating that no one currently in the club can tackle such a big dance number aside from Brittany – “and that includes your little Hand-Jive,” she says, “that looked more to me like a hand-j..” At that point she’s cut off, by Joe, who still doesn’t have a plot, and that certainly was a thing you just did there, Glee. Finn commands that they need to do this – “an ambitious number with a strong dance element,” in order to hit the Warblers where it hurts, as this is apparently their calling card. Is it? Back in Blaine’s day, they just stepped and clicked, unless they were in the privacy of their own library where they could jump on furniture. He says that one of the boys will need to take the dance lead with Brittany, and that Mike has promised to teach them the dance. Mike looks taken aback by that – oops, yeah, Finn forgot to ask, actually, but never mind, who’s it going to be, lads? “Hello? White Chocolate?” Sam the Stripper reminds the group. He starts to beatbox and gyrate as the others groan and try to shut him up.
As Ryder waxes lyrical about landing Mike as a mentor, Jake stops him and admits to going out with Marley. Ryder takes it like a man and asks if it’s an official “thing,” and Jake says that he’ll end it if Ryder wants him to, that he doesn’t want to be mortal enemies with Ryder again. Aw, look at that healthy, functioning friendship. Don’t get too attached, kids, a relationship that stable and reasonable cannot be allowed to last on Glee! Jake tells Ryder that he wasn’t planning a fling with Marley – that he really does think she’s special, and Ryder says, rather clipped, not to end it on his behalf. He pulls himself together and jokes that Jake better not steal the “Gangnam” dance lead from him as well, and Jake laughs that he won’t. Marley, you actually kind of don’t deserve either of these lovely boys, what with your inconsiderate behaviour towards Ryder last week and how you let them fight over you because it made you feel special. No thanks. Jake, Ryder, cut out the middleman, or middle-girl. You deserve each other.
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