Unique, Marley and Tina, who have been watching Fondue for Two online, accost Kitty and Brittany in the hallway – as fans of the show, they demand to know Kitty’s big secret. Kitty won’t tell, but Brittany does – it’s the Spice Girls. Bitch, please, in what world are the Spice Girls something shameful? Especially compared to Bring It On: Fight to the Finish? From the way Kitty was acting, I thought she’d revealed that she was into something super messed-up, like child porn. The girls all pause for a second, stare, then start to scream in joy, all admitting their love and quickly deciding that they all must do a Spice Girls number for the week’s assignment.
Santana, who has moved back into the Bushwick apartment without explanation – but let’s face it, she probably just came back and demanded to be let in – is getting her own way with Kurt by holding the threat of revealing Brody’s secret to Rachel. Kurt’s trying to protect her, he thinks it will mess her up too badly if she finds out before her audition for Funny Girl – I guess that’s still a thing that’s happening – and as Rachel continues to pine over him, we discover that Rachel doesn’t know why Brody left, just that he has left, with no real explanation. Santana taunts Rachel about this, or pretends to, in an attempt to cover up the fact that she knows exactly why, but she attempts to cheer Rachel up by suggesting they play a prank on Kurt. I don’t understand pranks, they just seem like bullying to me, but whatever, Rachel is tickled by the idea.
They sneak into his room while he’s asleep, to soak his hand in water in an attempt to make him wet the bed, and to their great shock they discover Kurt in bed with Bruce, his boyfriend pillow. Rachel exclaims over the arm’s creepiness, and Kurt blearily defends himself, mumbling wildly as he explains – “I kept thinking about the ad, you know, ‘are you lonely, do you need companionship’ yes, yes, I need all those things.” Creepy or not, it is, as Santana states, probably safer than trolling Grindr.
Sam, terrified, pulls himself up in front of the glee club to announce his status as a Fanilow. What starts out as a quiet admission escalates into a defensive rant as the glee club – you guessed it – stares in silence. There’s a lot of blank staring in this episode. “This is who I am, and I make no apologies,” Sam finishes up, and performs “Copacabana” for the glee club, complete with ruffly jacket that I am sure has a technical name and is most commonly seen in conjunction with a plastic fruit headdress.
Now, I love this song. I won’t call it a guilty pleasure because I don’t really do guilt – I’m not ashamed of anything I like, whatever the genre. I really like this song and Sam sounds amazing on it – vocally maybe the best he’s ever sounded, his tone is lovely. Can we get him some Sinatra next? Put him in a suit and let the boy croon.
The club members join in on this one, singing along, prancing around and acting out the song’s story. It’s pretty close to being a beloved choir room group number, and I love everything about this song and performance in general – a total highlight of the season for me. At the end, everyone cheers for Sam and most of the other glee club boys also admit to liking Manilow as well. Sam can’t believe it, but Blaine explains that that’s the point of guilty pleasures – that they’re things lots of people like, but that it was brave of Sam to be the one to stand up and say it out loud, opening the door for others.
The McKinley Spice Girls have a meeting to work on their number. Many bad British accents are attempted as the girls jump around throwing the V sign and talk about who should play whom. Kitty, in an attempt to be nice, says that Marley should be Posh Spice, “because you’re so skinny and you make everyone uncomfortable!” Their delight is interrupted by the entry of their final member, Tina, who returns to her role of professional joy-killer, as she tells them, shellshocked, that something horrible has happened. We cut straight to the reveal of what this is as Marley storms down the hallway, shouting at Jake, who’s at his locker. “Tell me it’s not true,” she demands, cold and angry. “Tell me you’re not planning to sing a Chris Brown song.” Ooooooooh.
Sam finds Blaine in the library, indulging in a pile of Goosebumps books – I guess they’re meant to be a guilty pleasure of his – and they notice that their guilty pleasure exposure seems to be spreading to other students in the school. Let me ask, since when is the glee club so influential? They always seem to affect the school in big ways, they’re the hub of everything – surely they, by now, are the elite. Why do they only have twelve members – at most – and still get shunned whenever the plot requires it?
Anyway, Sam tells Blaine that all week he’s been leading this guilty pleasures excercise but he hasn’t really come forward himself with any confessions – he’s been talking the talk, but Sam needs him to walk the walk. At this point, it’s kind of obvious that Sam knows what Blaine’s hiding, knows that it’s hurting Blaine, and he’s trying to encourage Blaine to just come clean and let it go, that it’ll be okay. This friendship, you guys, they are beautiful.
Marley, followed by the other four, drags Jake into the choir room to yell at him about supporting Chris Brown, and the discussion that follows is actually one of Glee’s finest – the quality reminds me of that weirdly great conversation they had about religion in the “Heart” episode of season 3. “I get that Chris Brown is a douchebag,” Jake begins, and the Spice Girls all accost him in a circle, yelling over one another about how terrible he is – Kitty even references his recent fight with my boo Frank Ocean – but Tina sums it up with the most important fact: “He beat up his girlfriend Rihanna, and then he got a picture of a battered woman tattooed on his neck, the dude is a psychopath.”
Jake states that he knows, that he understands – and that’s why he chose the song, because he does not like or approve of Breezy, but he does like some of his music, and he feels guilty about that fact. He goes on to say that in glee, they do songs by people like Whitney Houston and Britney Spears – people who aren’t role models – “You shut your mouth,” Brittany interjects – and even Rihanna herself, that they always do Rihanna songs but that performing her songs doesn’t mean they’re agreeing with her personal choices or the message that her reconciliation with Chris Brown sends.
Jake makes a reasonably fair point about separating the art from the artist, one that I would say applies to most people and their shortcomings, but I’m on Marley’s side when she says that when it comes to Chris Brown, she can’t hear his music without thinking about how much of a terrible person he is. “If there was a list of people’s music who we should never do in this room, Chris Brown would be at the top of that list,” Tina adds, and the girls all give final retorts, leaving Jake to his thoughts.
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