Kitty and Marley try on their costumes in the girls bathroom. Kitty is confident in her black latex “Femme Fatale” bodysuit, and when Marley comes out in her gold and floral Wonder Woman-esque outfit, Kitty peels back Marley’s arms from hiding her body and declares her to look “H-O-T-T” hot. When Marley explains the WF logo is meant to stand for Wallflower, because that’s what she sees herself as, Kitty renames her Woman Fierce, says that she will be buying Marley a new wardrobe to show off her body, and that together they’re going to kill their heroine performance. This would be a really touching girl power moment if it didn’t come with a side-serving of encouraged bulimia. They perform Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero” with more lesbian sexual tension than anything in the entire Brittana plot line. Kitty’s got a whip, Kitty’s wrapping Marley up in her whip, and Kitty’s using her whip as a rotating fan to create a wind machine effect on Marley’s hair.
I kept expecting there to be some big practical joke moment, like for Kitty to shame Marley in some way, because of the set-up earlier in the episode, but nope. Everyone cheers for them, Finn praises them, and they hug genuinely. After the performance, Brittany points out that she can’t smell raspberry hair gel (Raspberry. Hair. Gel.) – “Does anybody know where Blaine Warbler is?” Finn reminds them that Blaine has been going through a rough time – Tina rolls her eyes and calls Blaine’s behaviour “like a bad Lifetime movie,” which is harsh but fair – and that he’s decided to finish his senior year at Dalton Academy. The rest of the seniors stare incredulously at Finn, except Sam, who looks troubled.
After Jake pulls Finn aside to discuss what Ryder revealed to him in the locker room, Finn takes Ryder to a meeting he’s set up with the district’s special education director. Ryder looks confused by the situation, and becomes defiant about needing any help. The teacher, Mrs. Penkala, is kind to Ryder and has him participate in various tests in regards to the way he reads and learns. Ryder doesn’t seem to be able to process individual letters, only recognising words he already knows as entire images, and is diagnosed with dyslexia.
I’m going to take a second to point out that in his very first episode, Sam was stated as being dyslexic and the plot line went absolutely nowhere except to make him act kind of dumb and vague. I’m also going to point out that apparently Schuester never thought to help Brittany – with her 0.0 grade point average – in the same way that Finn is helping Ryder. Discrepancies aside, this is handled very nicely, and when Finn meets Ryder after his testing, Ryder weeps angrily about having carried this secret his whole life – people telling him he needed to apply himself or focus, when he believed inside that he was truly not intelligent, that no matter how hard he tried he would always be stupid. He’d tried to hide that “inner truth” from the world, fearing his secret “stupidity” since childhood. “Now you can put it down,” Finn tells him. “’Cause the only secret is that your brain works a little differently than everyone else’s.” Ryder smiles through his tears as he explains the new education program he will be working within, and thanks Finn for helping him. “I owe you,” he says, and Finn says no, actually, he owes Jake for this one.
The man in question is getting his lunch from Mrs. Rose, charming her as she talks about her recent weight loss. She tells Jake that Marley talks about him all the time, and he admits that he knows he’s blown his chance. She gives him a wink and tells him it’s never too late to change, and the two jocks who harassed her before start insulting both her and Jake while ordering her to get back to work.
Jake is about to take them on again when they’re joined by about five others who surround him. Ryder – with the back-up of Artie, Joe and Becky – enters the cafeteria and makes his fellow football players back off, ordering them not to go near Jake again. The two Mega-Studs announce their got-each-others-backitude, and a beautiful bromance is born.
We then cut to a shot of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and for a second I legitimately thought we’d gone to commercial, but I am soon thrilled to realise that it’s actually an on-location shot of Puck’s life in LA, where he’s earning some extra cash as a costume character on Hollywood Boulevard. After offering to prostitute himself to a couple of European tourists, he gets a call from his “half-bro with the afro,” who’s needing some brotherly advice. Jake asks Puck what to do about pursuing Marley now that he and Ryder are BFFs. Jake’s “what do you do when” explanation is so similar to the Finn/Quinn/Puck storyline that I thought Puck’s answer was going to be “well, I slept with her and got her pregnant,” but Puck advises his little brother that he has the advantage simply by having Puckerman DNA, and that if he sits back and plays nice, Marley will come to him. “Don’t be a dick…” Puck advises, “But don’t give up. Thanks, bro.” Jake clarifies, and ends the call.
A) Puck may still be my favorite character on the show – he’s certainly the one with the best and most consistent character development, and B) this “Puckerman brothers” storyline is actually turning out a lot better than I thought it would when we first got the spoilers of New Puck over the summer.
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