As our Danny and Sandy get into costume for the final song, Ryder is left speechless by Marley in her black catsuit, self-consciously patting her up-do. Kitty chooses that moment to come over and shake Marley up a little more, revealing the vicious critic from the school paper who’s in attendance and who “hates everything.” “His brutal deconstruction of your performance will be posted online before you’re even forklifted out of your costume.” Ryder, seeing Marley looking lost and teary again, tells her that she mustn’t listen to Kitty, that she looks and sounds amazing, and when her “yeah” is too nervous and dismissive, he tries to convince her by kissing her. As they pull apart, we see that Jake saw this, because he lurks more than Derek Hale on a bad day in Beacon Hills. The cast goes onstage to perform “You’re The One That I Want,” and after a good effort at the first verse, we cut to Rachel, wistful in the audience, and she envisions herself and Finn in the roles on-stage, surrounded by all her old club-mates who have broken up – Kurt and Blaine, Brittany and Santana, Tina and Mike.
When she and Finn are in the Shake Shack, pulling back and forth, we get an flashback to the footage of them doing this – Finn terrified, Rachel crazy-predatory, in the very first episode, Finn’s very first New Directions rehearsal. It’s an unexpected dose of the feels, and Rachel looks very troubled by her envisioning, leaving the auditorium before the curtain call. She goes to distract herself from her “I probably still love Finn” feelings by calling Brody, but Cassandra answers and frankly tells Rachel that she and Brody are hooking up, and that she basically did it out of spite, feeling like Rachel needed to be knocked down a peg. Rachel, starting to cry, hangs up as Cassandra works herself up into a tirade of insults against her student.
Finn finds her like this, in the hallway outside the bathrooms, and when she tries to play it off, he is disappointed that, after two years of being her everything, she’s going to pretend that they’re not even friends. She says that coming back was a mistake, and too weird, but that she came for Kurt, and for Finn himself – that he’d done good work. He admits that the whole time, he’d been asking himself how she would do it better. “You’re kind of my moose,” he tells her. “It’s muse,” she smiles, and he smiles back, saying “I know. I just wanted to see you smile.” I don’t even care, you guys. These kids, they’ve got something. I say all the time that I don’t care about Finchel, but this is seriously like… they’ve got to get back together some day. This feels wrong. When he asks what’s wrong, Rachel says that she’d rather not say, and when Finn pushes, he makes the quick assessment that it is, in fact, a Brody issue. Rachel claims that Finn can’t know that, and he goes on to tell her he knows all her types of crying, finishing with “crying over a guy, which I know very well, because it used to be reserved for me.” He looks stalwart and disappointed in his past self as he says this, and when Rachel says that they shouldn’t be talking about it, he suggests not talking at all, that it may be best for them to have no contact. Rachel agrees to this, and they both say some closure-y things; Rachel stating that Finn used to make her feel like the most special girl in the world but now being around him is just sad and confusing, and Finn saying that whatever happened with Brody made her cry but this hasn’t. They’re tentatively interrupted by Kurt, who sends Finn to the choir room, and Rachel curtly tells her room-mate that she wants to go home. “I thought this was home,” Kurt says, to which she replies “It doesn’t feel like it any more.”
Blaine, who’s remembered how to use his words, finds them there and says that he needs to talk to Kurt. Rachel leaves them after a nod from Kurt confirming that he’s okay with it, and Kurt – who flew there because he needed to see Blaine, apparently – says he’s not interested in talking to him and starts to walk off Blaine follows him, saying he needs to tell Kurt what happened in regards to the hook-up, which I’m not sure is a great solution here. Kurt agrees, wheeling around and asking, how, specifically, this is going to help – that no excuses Blaine has matter, because he broke Kurt’s trust. He says he was stupid to come back, and that Rachel is right – this isn’t home any more. Blaine is left with his mouth hanging and a kicked puppy face, but honestly, how did either of them expect that conversation to go?
Back in the choir room, there’s better news – the harsh critic from the school paper adored their show, and Artie reads his rave review aloud to the group. Mr Schue says some stuff about loving them or whatever, and feeling confident that he’s leaving them in good hands with Finn as the temporary director. The pair of teachers leave the choir room together, checking in on each other and sharing a lingering hug. Schue then tries to impart all the last-minute wisdom he can about plans for Sectionals, but Finn calms him, saying that he’s got this how. Will turns and walks out, and Finn watches him go with a disbelieving smile on his face, chuckling to himself that this is his place now.
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