Let’s be honest here – sometimes ships sink, and that’s okay. Is Glee doing the right thing by Klaine, one of their most dysfunctional couples, by having them go the distance?
Klaine, the pairing of Glee’s Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson, has been one of the most celebrated TV couples in recent pop culture history. Chris Colfer was already making waves for his portrayal of Kurt, and as one of the most highly publicized young gay relationships in the media, their popularity could even be called groundbreaking – no one in the Glee fandom will ever forget the reaction to Darren Criss’s “Teenage Dream” debut, to the couple appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, or to their first kiss.
My name is Natalie, and I’m a recovering Klaine addict. Klaine has spawned millions of words of fanfiction, helped young teens connect with their families, inspired charity campaigns, and been the subject of an unhealthy amount of internet drama. I remember the glory days, when Blaine knew Kurt’s coffee order and Dalton Academy was known as “gay Hogwarts,” a fan-created haven of happiness, tolerance, and late-night boarding school shenanigans. Everything was Klaine, and nothing hurt. But it’s time to admit that life isn’t a fairytale, that people are inherently flawed, and that Klaine shouldn’t be endgame for Glee.
The Decline
I stopped supporting Klaine at the end of season 2, ironically when Blaine told Kurt he loved him for the first time. Something about Kurt’s way of responding struck me as uncomfortable, but I gave the show the benefit of the doubt and hoped that my favorite couple would have a great story in season 3. It wasn’t to be. From the moment that Kurt pressured Blaine to transfer out of Dalton and join him at McKinley, everything went downhill and picked up speed as it rolled. Glee couldn’t go a week without some sort of minor Klaine upset, usually involving bad communication, petty jealousy, selfishness, manipulation, neediness, competitiveness, or an imbalance of power.
This carried on through season 4 until the couple broke up, due to infidelity on Blaine’s part. I’m not going to claim that there’s any excuse for that, but Kurt’s treatment of Blaine in the time that they were trying to manage a long-distance relationship was less than considerate and borderline neglectful. They eventually got back together when Blaine proposed — another conflicting moment where it seemed like Kurt was planning to say no, and season 5 was basically season 3, the New York edition: incompatibility, tension, criticism –- a dysfunctional partnership. They hit bump after bump and never properly smoothed those bumps over. They never learned, they never grew. Watching them suffer became repetitive and frustrating.
It was lonely at first, not shipping Klaine. I was in the minority, and fans were passionate and vocal about defending the couple and forgiving each problem as it came. But as time has passed, the issues that turned me off have become more and more apparent to the audience at large. It’s been interesting, watching Glee fans trickle away from this pairing or recognize its faults. In our Valentine’s Day coverage, Klaine was listed as one of the top TV ships that need to sink, and I didn’t even write that article! I’ve got to assume that the only people still shipping Klaine nowadays are the ones holding on to their love of the moments the duo shared in the past, or people who are more invested in participating in fandom than they are in following the canon. That isn’t a criticism, but the fact of the matter is, Glee has been writing Klaine as an unhealthy couple for years, and I find it difficult to believe that the show isn’t aware of that. They can’t possibly think that what these characters have been acting out is sweet, reasonable and loving. If they do, I’m sort of concerned.
State of the Union
Let’s recap the Kurt/Blaine situation in season 6: in a flashback, Kurt called off the couple’s engagement in one of the coldest and most ruthless break-up scenes I’ve ever witnessed on television. It was like watching Miranda Priestly fire an inept underling. A few months later, probably because no one is paying enough attention to him, Kurt claims that he’s made the biggest mistake of his life and decides that he wants Blaine back.
Blaine took the break-up hard, dropped out of college and moved back to Ohio to live at home for a while. Time passed and he began to move on, securing a position as coach of the Warblers, which seems to make him quite happy, and even dating a new guy – Dave Karofsky, the closeted bully turned kindly bear. Yes, the Blaine/Karofsky relationship is weird – no matter where Klaine are at, and no matter what kind of person Karofsky has become, I just can’t see Blaine moving past Karofsky’s background of assaulting Kurt, but that’s a whole other story. Kurt comes home, tells Blaine his intentions, and Blaine turns him down.
Kurt seems to give up on pursuing Blaine almost immediately, going on to try internet dating, but things are complicated by Sue Sylvester, who has a nefarious plan to get them back together. This resulted in a couple of horrible episodes featuring Sue as an insert for fandom, breaking the rules of Glee’s own reality, talking about shipping, crying at her secret Klaine shrine, and a whole truckload of other nonsense. It was embarrassing, mostly because it was out of touch — Sue was portraying popular fandom opinion circa 2012, not 2015. It was also very unclear about what the show wants you to feel. Sue is delusional, therefore are we meant to be against what she obsesses over? Is it a clever anti-Klaine commentary? Or is this Glee’s idea of generous fan service? Either way, the end result was a forced Klaine kiss which made a few feelings stir between the ex-couple.
Last week’s episode, “Transitioning,” made things even more confusing. Kurt, executing character-typical manipulation, made sure he and Blaine were paired up to sing a duet together at a party. They sing, they have a few drinks, they talk about old times. Then Blaine, overcome and conflicted, kisses Kurt. The next day, he admits this to Karofsky, and they amicably break up –- like, no big deal, we had a few months, we were only living together, see ya! — in order for Blaine to go running back to Kurt with a teary declaration of love. Let’s remind ourselves here that Kurt harshly dumped Blaine, Kurt was the one who came back to town claiming that he was going to get Blaine back, and yet, Blaine is now the one doing the running, and crying, and begging. Hmm.
The real kicker, though, is that when Blaine finds him, Kurt is on his way to a date with Walter, his (much) older new paramour, and is seemingly oblivious to what Blaine could possibly have on his mind. I mean, what? This episode shows Karofsky reading Blaine’s silence better than Kurt does, and although I don’t think Karofsky is Blaine’s one true love, that mere fact says something important about the way Kurt and Blaine treat each other. Even if Kurt might have an inkling about what’s going on, he doesn’t pursue it, and seems perfectly content leaving Blaine in distress to go on his date. Kurt obviously orchestrated the whole situation at the party in order to get the result that he ended up getting, and then he just turns around like butter wouldn’t melt. What is wrong with these people?
If you’ve been keeping your ear to the ground, you’ll have heard the rumors about Klaine reuniting permanently during this Friday’s upcoming episode, “A Wedding,” but before we have to deal with that, I wanted one last shot at rushing in and shouting “I object.” I do not want Kurt and Blaine to end up together. It worries me that Glee thinks that they are showing this couple to the audience as their idea of a positive, meant-to-be love story. It’s no Fifty Shades level of problematic, but no one should want this relationship for themselves.
Cause of Death
Kurt and Blaine are very different people, as many great couples are, but their biggest problem lies in what makes each of them feel secure and comfortable in a partnership. Blaine needs the type of relationship where both parties put the other person first, and rely on a healthy co-dependence — something where the neediness is equal. Kurt needs the type of relationship where both parties are self-sufficient, and enjoy each other’s company as a delightful bonus to an independent life. This issue has been the fundamental problem between them for four seasons, and it is the root of every fight, every mishap. It’s an irreconcilable difference of values, of what love means to them. Kurt and Blaine love each other, but the way that they show it does not match up.
I feel like they’re stuck like this because Kurt, for a long time, genuinely thought he was the kind of person that wanted the type of love that Blaine offered — he had a picture in his head of who he would be, when he found romance, and he kept attempting to live that fantasy, but it has literally never worked for him, possibly because he refuses to recognize his own personality. And Blaine, who began life on Glee as a confident character, has been demoted to an incredibly passive person, eager to please and clinging to every scrap of love and validation that comes his way. Blaine’s biggest fault is neediness, and Kurt’s is cruelty. Those traits feed each other in a toxic way.
There is no denying that these characters work as friends. They work when they’re able to support each other on their own terms. They worked in season 2, as friends, with a slightly charged and flirtatious element. It’s easy to see why people fell in love with the potential of this pairing. They returned to this dynamic in season 4, when they repaired their friendship after the first break-up, and for a minute, I even shipped it again. But every time they actually get back together, the same problems happen. They just do not work when they’re putting everything on one another. Does Glee genuinely think that this is a true love situation, or do they realize they’ve been writing a trainwreck? Is there a higher plan? Please say there is.
Kurt and Blaine might make fantastic life-long BFFs. They might even make a great couple one day, ten years from now, after they’ve learned how to live and love on their own terms. But if they stay together the way they are now, they’re going to crash and burn again, no matter what loving speeches the show might give them in the final episode.
Glee’s time is drawing to a close, and the very last thing I want is for this pairing to be given a happy ending that I will never believe in. I truly hope that Glee is aware of what it’s been implying for the past five years, and chooses to finish Klaine’s journey by, after reconciling, breaking them up once and for all. I’d like it to be peaceful, this time, something filled with grace and honesty – no cheating, no white-hot irritation, just the acceptance that this high school love affair, while undeniably life-changing to both the characters and the audience, isn’t going to function forever. In the words of a song that Glee will never cover, “All I could do was love you hard, and let you go.”
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