This week on Glee… don’t say it, don’t say it… “Glease”… is the word. Damn, couldn’t help it. McKinley High stages Grease, and our New York posse comes to see the show, on a trip that ends badly for pretty much everyone involved. Other McKinley grads have a nicer return to Lima, and in case you haven’t noticed, Kitty is a psychopath. Read our full Glee recap below.

This week we open in the choir room where Will is making some bad life choices. Wow, must be Thursday. In this case, he drops the bomb about leaving for Washington and about Finn taking his McKinley position. Apparently it’s the first the club has heard of any of it – he didn’t cat-on-the-roof them at all. The older club members freak out – Tina, particularly, starts angrily shouting, and Artie objects saying “but Mr Schue, glee club is your life” in a not particularly complimentary way, which is the truth, while the newer members exchange looks of ‘what the hell is wrong with these people,’ “I mean, it’s not like we know him that well or anything,” Unique mutters to Marley and Jake. Tina continues to dress down Finn as the ex-captain tries to keep calm and convince the club that he will be competent, when they’re interrupted by Sue demanding Will and Finn’s presence in the principal’s office.

Sue, due to the fact she’s bugged the choir room’s portrait of Lillian Adler, has discovered Finn’s appointment as the new glee coach and she’s just a fraction more upset about it than Tina. “This is just another one of your ill-conceived, bizarrely sentimental schemes that displays absolutely no forethought and appears immediately ridiculous to everyone in America… except you,’ she says, but she actually makes some good points about why the plan is unreasonable. Figgins, however, points out again that glee is an extracurricular, so that teaching rules don’t apply, though his support of the situation may stem from the fact that Finn – the most level-headed one in the conversation – is apparently taking on this role without payment. When Sue’s objections are shot down on all fronts, she loses her cool, stating that if Finn is appointed, her shaky peace with the glee club will be over, and she storms out, overturning desks and bludgeoning students in the hallway, in a good old-fashioned Sue rage black-out. I guess Glee ran out of ideas of things for Sue to do, because it seems we have our season 1 antagonist back. Cool. Or something.

In the lovely NYADA dance studios, Cassandra July has called in some of her upperclassmen to partner the freshmen and help them improve. Brody makes a beeline for Rachel and as they jete across the floor they catch up on all the gossip, stuff like Rachel’s breakup, and Rachel’s first off-Broadway audition, and Brody’s forearms. Cassandra listens in on every word, tells Rachel that she’s not ready to work with the tough and crazy director, whom she herself has auditioned for before. Rachel non-abrasively says that she can manage it, but manages to insult Cassandra when suggesting that she should audition as well, for one of the older roles. Cassandra then pulls Brody aside and asks him to pledge his life and every waking minute to her as her new toy boy, I mean TA. Brody jumps at the chance, though requests some time off over the weekend to help Rachel prepare for her audition.

Backstage on the Grease set, Tina – who’s apparently still wardrobe bitch as well as playing a bit part, despite being promised the spotlight in her senior year – is fitting Marley for her costume, which just isn’t fitting. “Maybe it’s stress bloating,” Tina ungraciously offers, but we soon find out the real reason – when Kitty wanders over to berate Marley about her weight gain and genetics – “I usually don’t believe in the lame-stream media’s definition of ‘science,’ but it just makes sense that your metabolism is grinding to a halt. You’re getting the body you were destined to have,” – we see a flashback to Kitty sneaking in at night and altering Marley’s costume. Kitty does try to play a friend to the other girls, though, and talks about accepting who you are, the way she has accepted the fact that she’s a loner because everyone assumes that due to her popularity, she’s too busy. She claims she joined Grease to attempt to make some real friends, and invites Marley and the other girls – including, with reluctance, Unique – to a Grease-style sleepover at her house.

Look, on one hand, I like Marley’s mom, I do, but when Marley goes to her after this in order to debrief and ask when she could expect her own genetics to kick in, I’m not sure the advice of not being a quitter, taking control of her body and going on a diet is the best example of support. I get that Mrs Rose doesn’t want Marley to face the same unhappiness she did, but my first response would have been to say “You’re beautiful,” not “You’re thin and beautiful,” to say “you don’t look any different to yesterday, let’s weigh and measure you because something weird might be going on,” and to say “you just be you, don’t worry what people think.” Mrs Rose seems to have a very set idea of what will make Marley happy, and what’s important for her to achieve, and at this point I’m just not sure that the same things are important to Marley and she only feels like they are because other people make such a big deal of them.

Finn heads over to the teacher’s lounge, where Sue immediately tries to herd him out as he tells her he’s come to apologize for the way he spoke about her baby in the last episode. He apologizes calmly and with shame, but Sue does not accept it and says she sees his true colors, that he still has hate and prejudice in his heart. Defeated, he says that since he tried to make things right and was rejected, the issue is on her now, and when he starts to leave for rehearsal, Sue lets slip that since Finn’s redefined what it means to be a McKinley teacher, she’s done some redefining of her own and booked out the auditorium for Cheerios practice. Presumably what she’s redefined is the fact that April Rhodes bought them that auditorium specifically so that Sue could not do this any more, but, like, you know, whatever.

Finn takes the boys in the Grease cast over to Hummel Tires and Lube to help him work on an old car while rehearsing, and for some reason, when they show up they look really confused as to how the situation is relevant to their musical, or how they can perform without a stage, and all sorts of other issues that seem a little odd from a group who’ve performed on mall elevators, in mattress stores, in the cafeteria… but I guess some of these guys are new and have not yet been hit with the irrationality stick. Finn does his best to be inspirational as he, Mike and Artie lead the boys in some method acting as they perform “Greased Lightning,” which basically mirrors the movie as it switches between the car shop and the old clunker to a white fantasy world with their suped-up “honey-wagon.” (Yes, Glee took some liberties with the lyrics in order to keep things PG.) Blake Jenner as Ryder Lynn as Danny Zuko is really likeable and quite green and unrefined, in a good way, and Sam as Kenickie is flaw-free, but the whole thing was a little flat, for something that should be an explosive number. I initially thought this was just Glee missing the mark, but when they finish, Finn tells them it’s a good start and to do it again with double the energy, so I’m thinking maybe the flatness was on purpose.

Kurt is helping Rachel stretch in the dance studio when he gets a text from Tina updating him with some Grease news. He starts to pout and Rachel reads his mind and pre-emptively tells him that no, they’re not going to go to the show, that it is not their problem or their business any more. They’re interrupted by Cassandra, who promptly makes their conversation her business, and Kurt explains the scenario. “Her recently broken-up-with ex-boyfriend is directing my recently broken-up-with ex-boyfriend in a school production of Grease.” Cassandra says that they should go – go for closure, go to have fun, go because it’s Grease, go because it’s their high school, their friends. Kurt, raw and open, tells Rachel that he’s going to go and see Blaine – “I need to see him, I haven’t seen him since. I’m not sleeping, I’m living off of Ambien and The Notebook,” – and that he can’t do it alone. Cassandra plays the understanding teacher and offers the pair her frequent flyer miles to take the trip, and she definitely doesn’t have any ulterior motives in getting Rachel out of the city for the weekend she was meant to spend rehearsing her audition with Brody.

The New Directions ladies gather at Kitty’s house for their promised sleepover, laden with junk food. Marley nervously asks if there are any healthy snacks, and Kitty thoughtfully takes her aside and explains the basic principles and benefits of bulimia. While Marley contemplates life in the bathroom, Kitty comes out and makes fun of Marley’s innocence, leading into a perfect, almost-frame-by-frame staging of “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee.” Kitty’s room is set up almost identically to Frenchy’s in the film’s sleepover scene, down to the placement of the school pennant on the wall, and the number is one of the strongest in the episode. Kitty’s closing line, “some people are so touchy,” was perfect and in context without duplicating Stockard Channing, and all the scene was really missing was Tina as Jan doing some Brusha-Brusha-Brusha.

Back at school, Sue is going out of her way to ruin all Finn’s work, and her current plot is that she’s informed Wade’s parents that she, as Unique, will be appearing in Grease as Rizzo. They had no idea. The Adams’ seem like nice people – this isn’t a ‘Mike Chang as Frankenfurter in Rocky Horror‘ situation – and were proud of Wade’s performance at Nationals, but cite Chicago as being a very liberal place, different from Ohio, and that they actually fear for Wade’s safety if he does this at McKinley. Sue, claiming to be concerned, reveals that she’s seen Unique being physically assaulted in the halls, which Finn apparently wasn’t aware of, and the Adams’ decide to pull their son out of the play and ask him to not dress as a girl during school, purely for protection, saying he can do whatever he likes at home. Wade claims it hasn’t been a big deal, but sadly goes along with his parents wishes and Finn is left without a Rizzo, which was Sue’s big plan, of course. Apparently there’s no one else in the whole school who could pull off the role – like, I don’t know, Kitty, who has only a small role currently and knocked a Rizzo number out of the park in the prior scene, so Finn calls in Santana, because of reasons. Tina, who was apparently the understudy and prepares a costume, gets turned down by Finn and plays the part of fandom by stating ‘you have got to be kidding me,’ absolutely disgusted. I love Santana a lot, but really, she doesn’t even go here. Do you even go to this school? No. Come on. But I bet Unique’s even more upset than Tina, as she stares in on the girls’ proceedings.

Apparently, a school musical only takes a week from casting to curtain, because it’s opening night and the very elegant Hummelberry grace the halls of McKinley once more, wandering nostalgically and pausing at their old lockers before they watch the show. They re-unite with Mercedes, who tells them of her life in California, taking classes at UCLA, recording as a session singer, and getting hit up by Puck for the numbers of any potential sugar mamas she may find for him. I’m sorry, why is this magical California Mercedes and Puck adventure time not getting its own spin-off? Would watch. Anyway she takes the pair backstage to see the cast, and then the inevitable, slightly less friendly reunion happens. Blaine stops in his tracks, shocked, when he sees Kurt, and when Blaine said he wasn’t expecting to see Kurt, the other boy is unable to answer, or even really look at, his ex, so Rachel answers for him, saying warmly that they wouldn’t miss it for the world. They’re then joined by Finn, who’s similarly stricken, though both Kurt and Rachel manage to talk properly to Finn, sharing news of Rachel’s upcoming audition. Blaine doesn’t manage any more conversation, holding his hands behind his back and unsure of where to look, so Finn speaks for both of them, saying “Look, this is really really weird, but the four of us have a lot of history between us, so I just want to say it’s cool you came to see our show. We’re pretty proud of it.” Blaine is, at this point, pressing his lips together in a white line and holding back tears, and he just looks at Kurt nervously and painfully before following Finn off. Overwhelmed, Kurt said it was a mistake to come, and Rachel is shaken too but tells him that they’ll get through it together, that they’ll hold hands, laugh, applaud and that they will never, ever let the boys see them so affected. Honestly I am not sure, at this point, why these two are bothering with relationships with anyone else besides each other. Gender, sexuality, whatever, these two are soul mates, please just be platonic and codependent for life.

They take their seats and the first number that we see staged is Blaine’s single Grease scene, “Beauty School Drop-Out.” It’s one of the best songs they’ve ever given Blaine – it fits him like a glove in every way, and you couldn’t have possibly cast him as anyone else in this musical. Darren Criss could have played a T-bird, sure, but Blaine Anderson was put on this planet to play Teen Angel much in the same way Sugar Motta was put on this planet to play Frenchy. The two of them re-creating this scene was perfection, and sounded wonderful vocally, but Blaine is still quite affected and sad. When he catches Kurt’s eye in the crowd he nearly falters, but pulls himself back together with a fake smile and some gusto. Kurt notices, sighs, and slumps in his chair, both upset himself and possibly upset that he knows he’s thrown Blaine off.

Meanwhile, Marley’s still not fitting her costumes – seriously, a two-inch difference in one day and no one is thinking to measure the skirt and not the girl? Kitty, like a good friend, leads her off to the bathroom to start puking, and this is where Ryder finds her, apparently mid-show. He yells at her to stop and she yells back while crying, and he then shares a dramatic story about his cousin, a wrestler pressured to lose weight who went through the diets, bulimia and finally laxatives. Marley’s expecting the story to have a grim ending, but when Ryder reveals that he did not die but instead lost control of his bowels in front of the whole school, Marley starts to laugh. Ryder comforts her and says matter of factly that he doesn’t want to kiss a girl with vomit-breath, either onstage or off, which is the least subtle foreshadowing in the history of television. He leaves her in the bathroom, and Marley begins to sing Sandy’s “Look at Me” reprise with a sense of resolve as she walks out to the wings to go onstage, watched by both Ryder and Jake.

As Santana gets into Pink Lady mode, Brittany comes over to join her. The two are all smiles and affection, as Brittany tells her that she’s glad Santana came back to play Rizzo. “I feel sad for Mercedes, but if her parents want her to be a boy, then, I don’t know, I guess it makes sense.” Wait, does Brittany really think that Wade and Mercedes are the same person? When Mercedes is actually there working on the musical as well? Really? You know what, never mind. Brittany misses Santana, Santana misses Brittany and claims the only reason she’s doing Grease was to see Britt again. Brittany gives her the sexy eyelashes and says that she’s not dating anyone new, and Santana sighs and reminds her that it would be fine if she was – that that’s the reason they broke up. But, she admits, with a cute face-scrunch, she’s glad that Brittany’s not dating. Oh yeah, this break-up is totally going to last. They literally can’t stop smiling at each other, and when Mike calls Santana onstage, Britt asks if she’s nervous. Santana says she’s not, but Brittany reminds her that because it’s a sad song, she needs to get into a sad headspace and use that – “like how we’re not together any more and it’s okay, but it still hurts a little bit… especially on Fridays, because that was our date night.” Santana’s face in the mirror as Brittany says this is just so beautiful and so distraught.

She goes on to perform “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” in a soulful manner, and in the second verse the song cuts to Cassandra, singing this as she sexy-dances with a shirtless, slicked-up Brody. Wade also takes a verse, singing with heartbreak over what Unique has lost, and by the end Santana has on her most vulnerable face as Brittany watches just off stage, and Cassandra is kissing Brody.

Mike grabs Tina as she comes off, praising her performance and saying how he’s spent all week wondering why they broke up, that it may have premature. Tina admits that that may be so, but that it has tested her, and that she’s liked what she’s discovered about herself – I guess shouty rageaholics are in style this season. She says she does miss him, though, and is open to talking things through. They hug. This scene is sweet, reasonable, healthy, and totally and utterly pointless. I’m pretty sure the only purpose it serves was to remind us of the Tina/Mike relationship so that the couple can be included in the big fantasy pair-off in the next number.

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.