Our detailed recap of last night’s new episode of Glee is here! This week it’s written by Glee Chat’s Natalie.
After last episode’s dramatic final – Santana slapping Finn for outing her – the pair are pulled up in Figgins’s office. The principal tries to suspend Santana, citing an apparent zero-tolerance policy for physical violence. “Is that why you’ve suspended all the kids who’ve been tossing slushies in our faces for the past two years?” Santana snarks at Figgins, who replies, with his usual “my hands are tied” attitude, that the school board does not consider slushies a suspend-worthy weapon. After Santana claims she can’t be blamed for her Hulk-like rage, Finn steps in and insists that Santana did not hit him, that it was a staged slap and refuses to say otherwise, despite the adults not believing him. However, due to this, they are unable to punish Santana.
Santana asks Finn why he’s done this. He claims he wants her at sectionals, to make it a fair fight between ND and the Troubletones, but touchingly adds “I know we’ve been at each other a lot over the past couple of years, but the truth is I think you’re awesome.” He wants to help her embrace herself, and stop hiding that awesomeness, and so he insists that the Troubletones and ND merge rehearsals for the week in order to participate in a lesson plan that he hopes will help Santana.
Rachel, meanwhile, is worried over Kurt’s class president election, which it appears he will lose. He is also despondent, and complains that the only way he will win is by fixing the vote, the way JFK apparently fixed Illinois in 1960. Rachel is horrified at his suggestion, but Kurt seems to be seriously considering it. “I have Kennedy’s impeccable hairline. Why can’t I have his ends-justifies-the-means mentality? What choice do I have?”
In the choir room, Finn tells the two groups his lesson plan: Lady Music Week – music by women and for women. He tells Santana that everyone in the room knows and accepts that she is gay, and that this week they would be trying to teach her that no matter what happens out there in the world, she truly does have a support group. He gets Blaine and Kurt to start them off, and they sing Pink’s Perfect. Santana is unimpressed.
Sue tells her journal that her congressional campaign is not going well due to people thinking she is a lesbian, and will get worse when the slanderous ad runs. She decides to have a public relationship with a man in order to boost her image, and selects a likely fellow from her hilarious black book of booty calls. Meanwhile, Will and Emma talk to Bieste about her progress dating Coach Cooter, which she feels positive about.
Puck continues Lady Music Week by singing “I’m The Only One” by Melissa Ethridge – he says something sweet, awkward and supportive to Santana at the end, but he really sung most of the number to Shelby, and Quinn notices. She approaches Puck and asks him about it, then propositions him – her mom is going on a “Jesus booze cruise” and Quinn makes it plain that she wants Puck to come over to her empty house and have sex with her. She reminds him that when Beth was born, he told her he was in love with her. He tries to turn her down gently, but when she becomes insistant, he tells her flat-out that she is the craziest and most selfish person he has ever met, and walks off.
Finn meets Santana at her locker and earnestly asks how she is liking the lesson plan. She asks him if he realizes that he is forcing her out of the closet, and wants to know why. In an absolutely chilling and unexpected moment, he states that it is because he’s scared that she will die. He references Jamey Rodermeyer’s suicide after his involvement in the It Gets Better project. “You deal with your anxiety about this by attacking other people and one day that’s not going to be enough for you and you might start attacking yourself.” Finn, on the verge of tears, tells Santana how much she means to him and that if anything ever happened to her and he hadn’t done anything to help, he would never be able to live with himself. He walks away, upset, and we cut to his contribution to Lady Music Week – a slow rearrangement of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, which he sings directly to Santana with the other boys joining in at the end. She cries, and hugs him, and he
tells her that he loves her.
While picking up a takeaway chicken dinner, Bieste runs into Sue and Cooter on a date. While Sue takes a call from USA Today, a devastated Bieste asks what is going on, and Cooter apologizes and says he’s tried to take her on dates over and over, but that she keeps treating him like a buddy and that he needs more than that. Both Cooter and Bieste look sadly at each other over the situation.
The seniors are casting their votes for the student council election, and we see the various characters making their choices. Santana sweetly puts a heart, instead of a tick, for Brittany, and kisses the ballot for luck. Puck adds Ross Perot to his ballot. Kurt gives an anxious internal voiceover about this being his last chance at getting into NYADA. McKinley is also hosting polling booths for the congressional election and Sue flaunting her relationship with Cooter. In a fantasy sequence, Shannon sings Dolly Parton’s Jolene, in which the narrator begs another woman not to take her man.
Santana is harassed in the hall by a boy saying all she needs is the right guy to straighten her out. Santana looks taken aback and scared, but before she says anything, the other girls step in. “Move your busted creeper ass.” Mercedes says, and the others back her up. The boy replies smoothly that he’s just trying to make Santana “normal”. “She is normal.” Brittany informs him, with Quinn adding “It’s not a choice, idiot.” The guy becomes angry and accuses them all of being lesbians, to which Rachel responds “so what if we are?” All the girls then sing I Kissed A Girl, to the amusement of the boys (and complete awe of Rory), and Santana tells the group that she came out to her parents and they were cool about it. She just has to tell her abuela – her grandmother. Figgins interrupts the cheerful group and calls Kurt to his office.
In the office, Figgins tells Kurt and Burt that there has been a problem with the election – Kurt has won, but by more votes than there are students. Someone has tampered with it, but Kurt denies his involvement – though digs himself into a hole by admitting he had considered it. His father and the principal both look unimpressed. Tearfully he finds Finn and Rachel in the hall and tells them what has happened, and after he rushes off, Finn tells Rachel immediately that he was not responsible. She admits that she was – that she was so worried for Kurt that she had done it to try and help him. Finn tells her that she has to confess, and not let Kurt take the blame, and Rachel looks troubled.
In geometry, Puck astounds his teacher by actually showing his intelligence, and is then called out of class by a family emergency. It’s Shelby – Beth split her lip and she had no one else to call. At the hospital Puck takes charge and is mature and responsible with the doctors, and Shelby cuddles him gratefully. They then go home and sleep together. Shelby once again, like after their kiss, tells Puck it was a mistake and that he needs to leave. Puck reacts angrily and says Shelby does not know what she is missing out on, and calls her a coward. He goes to find comfort in Quinn, who tries again to have sex with him. She makes it clear that she wants to fall pregnant with another baby, and Puck sits her down and makes it clear that he knows Quinn is very, very damaged, that everyone has let her down the past few years and not noticed how damaged, and that he believes in her and wants to help her properly. She is touched and demands he stays to cuddle
her. He willingly obliges and then tells her about his relationship with Shelby.
Santana visits her grandmother. She tells her abuela how much she loves and admires her, but that she has to tell her a secret. “Santana, are you pregnant? Because I will beat you up with this chair.” Santana assures her that’s not it, and tells her the real situation, that she is a lesbian. She explains how hard it has been and how much she wants to be herself, but her grandmother is horrified and disowns her. Santana is heartbroken.
A newspaper announces Burt Hummel has won the election, and Sue discusses her loss with Cooter. Bieste interrupts them to ask what it means, now that they no longer needed to stage things for the press, and Sue says she has come to adore Cooter and would not give him up. Cooter says that he does care for both women, and Bieste admits outright that she had trouble expressing herself in the past, but that she is in love with Cooter and that she won’t lose him without a fight.
In the choir room, Shelby and Will congratulate their groups on the week’s assignment, Kurt congratulates Brittany on her student president win, and Santana sings “Constant Craving” to the group. Shelby takes over a verse while a montage plays – of Shelby looking on at Puck, Bieste working out in pain, Blaine helping Kurt with his NYADA application, and Rachel approaching the choir room in tears. The song finishes, and Rachel tells the club that she admitted to rigging the election. She is suspended for a week and banned from competing at Sectionals.
My thoughts –
– I loved the Finn and Santana dynamic – like, the fact they actually care about each other despite the drama. One thing that has always bugged me about Glee is that they have so much drama that they don’t often show the underlying loyalty, and that group must really all know each other very well at the end of the day. Even before Glee, it’s a small town, they probably all grew up together and they rarely show that. The Finn and Santana stuff really felt natural to me, not out of the blue at all. I was NOT expecting the It Gets Better reference or the suicide fears and I found it extremely touching and started to cry.
– Rachel rigging the election – I heard about this in advance, but it makes so much more sense that Kurt planted the idea. Rachel has a better and less ruthless person than he is – though they both have their moments – and the fact that he was the one to originally have the idea makes a lot of sense to me. Dear, dear Rachel, you are so absolutely hopeless. She is such a genuinely good person but so completely unaware of how to put that into practice due to being so poorly socialised. I love her so much.
Note: when Mercedes voted, she did not say a word about being loyal to Kurt, she was just like ‘can’t let Santana gloat.’ I would call this as Kurtcedes being officially over and Hummelberry being our real one true fag/hag pairing. I’ve thought this for a while, but some people have been trying to cling to Mercedes and Kurt’s friendship. Not me, though – I found it an incredibly shallow friendship that was built from convenience and will ultimately be something they both forget, whereas Kurt and Rachel will probably be lifelong BFFs.
– I didn’t like much of the music this week, but I HATE HATE HATED Perfect. I seriously winced at the mental picture of Klaine singing it to each other in their car. The idea that offscreen they have some sort of lollipop magic-land fairytale going on is ridiculous to me. Anyway, the song did not sound bad, but it was such an awkward moment. They had no chemistry, and they were so damn Stepford at the end. It would have been more powerful coming from one or the other of them. As a unit, it was borderline offensive, like “do what we do, and you can be unrealistically happy like us!” – I feel like that as out gay teens, they could have offered something a bit more powerful. I would have liked to see it come from one, or the other, or both separately, but something about the cheesy unit they presented in that number – if I had been Santana I probably would have walked out. I LOVED Santana’s quips about Blaine – the gellervention and ragging on the bowties – I love it when Glee puts fandom complaints into the mouths of the characters, I find it hilarious.
– I want Puck/Quinn forever in some format, even as best friends. I think what they have is really important, and they are probably my only actual OTP of the show. I am so, so glad for what Puck said to her in her bed. She needed that so badly and everyone in the fandom has been screaming that for three years. I hope there is follow-through. Also, Puck is way too good for Shelby, she is messing him around and he deserves more respect. He’s an amazing person.
– Dear Golden Globes and Emmys. Please stop nominating Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch for awards. Please start nominating Naya Rivera. Thank you.
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