Glee season 5, episode 5 “The End of Twerk” aired last night, where a twerking craze sweeps McKinley, while in New York, Kurt and Rachel go a little crazy trying to recapture the juice of life.
After last week’s Glee Chat podcast, entitled “Oakland Booty,” we got a comment from a listener saying “congratulations to Darren’s ass for becoming a series regular” – a statement that proved strangely prophetic as this week’s episode, “The End of Twerk,” opened on Blaine shaking it while grasping random bits of furniture, alone in the choir room.
Tina sneaks up and films him, Blaine freaks out in a bad way, Tina shows everyone, Schuester freaks out in a good way (do I even need to make the pederast jokes any more? Insert one here), and declares that everyone should learn to twerk to give them the edge at Nationals.
A masterclass in twerking is held, Glee gives Jake a throwaway line acknowledging that twerking does not begin and end with Miley Cyrus, and, one paragraph in, I am already sick of typing the word “twerking.” Sue, spying from the control room at the back of the auditorium, looks reasonably unimpressed by William peering at nine teenage asses. Oh, hey, when are they going to put in a token effort to recruit new members for Nationals? They need 12, remember? LOL if Sugar shows up again.
In NYC, we see Rachel at a hair salon, giving the stylist a request to make her look completely different. She later arrives at the rehearsal studio for Funny Girl (we welcome back Peter Facinelli and Ioan Gruffudd as her director Rupert Campion and co-star Paolo San Pablo) where the two actors will be running through “You Are Woman, I Am Man,” a song from the musical. Rachel pulls off her knitted hat to reveal a thick shoulder-length bob cut – a style that she claims was popular in the era Funny Girl is set. Campion is less than impressed – he reads Rachel the riot act about how, as the director, he has to make every styling choice after careful consideration, even saying that in her contract she’d find it states something similar.
Rachel defends herself, her right to explore and express herself to get into character, and Campion waves her off, requesting that they do the number so well that it makes him “forget” about the haircut stress. The pair acts out the song – a flirty “should-I shouldn’t I” number that brings the two leads together, and by the way, Ioan Gruffudd can really sing! Just before they finish, Campion stops them. “It’s the haircut…” he begins, looking stern, before breaking into smiles and telling Rachel it worked and made her more Fanny than ever. Excited and relieved, she explains her rebellious move and promises not to do anything else like it.
For the next scene, we see Glee‘s next attempt to be social justice warriors – we’re finally going to “handle” the transgender bathroom issue, apparently. Unique asks for a bathroom pass during Mr Schuester’s class and we see her go into the girls bathroom from an empty hall. Unfortunately, Bree is in the washroom, doing her lipgloss, and reacts rudely and cruelly to Unique’s entrance. Unique tries to say it was an accident, but Bree isn’t buying it, so Unique nervously explains her insecurity and uncomfortability about using the men’s room and how she only goes in the girl’s room during class so that no one sees her and gets upset.
Bree pretends to act sympathetic and promises to keep the secret, but what actually happens is… for some reason… a free-for-all in terms of bathroom usage? Bree starts sneaking into the men’s room to make out with Jake, Brett starts using the girl’s room because he’s a sensitive soul and likes it to be clean and nice-smelling, and somehow this all ends up with a half-naked rave. That escalated quickly. I have no idea how or why.
We learn that, despite seeing her in the salon chair, Rachel’s haircut is actually a wig. She tells Kurt that she felt the need to rebel and see Campion’s reaction in order to have more creative room. Kurt’s reaction is very worried, given that Rachel risked her dream job in order to play mind games, but Rachel calls this attitude boring, and despairs at Kurt about how dull he’s become – just attending class, watching TV while eating junk, skyping with Blaine and going to bed – same thing, every day.
Rachel explains how good it had felt to risk everything and not even care, and asks if Kurt remembers how in high school everything felt urgent, like everything was a last-chance situation – “Yes, it was very stressful,” he replies while wolfing down a large tub of ice cream – but goes on to ask if this mindset is anything to do with losing Finn. Rachel says maybe it is, and Kurt makes a snap decision to join her in her diving-into-life antics. He pulls himself off the couch and agrees to go out and do something crazy with her.
Apparently Sue’s Corner is still a thing, Rod’s still a sleaze, and Sue still has beef with Andrea. Love that you can manage to keep up subtle continuity with this part of the show that hasn’t been seen since season 3, Glee – take and apply to all aspects, please – but basically Sue’s Corner addresses the important global twerking crisis and how she won’t stand for it.
Sue bans the dance at McKinley and applies to have the same rule at all Ohio schools. The glee club is outraged and Schuester supports their anger, making some crap up on the spot about Sue drawing lines in the sand about what’s acceptable, and that twerking is all about blurring lines, between “past and present, men and women, tradition and envelope-pushing.” You can tell which members of the glee club are smarter than others, because some of them have looks on their faces which clearly read “you do talk a lot of utter bollocks.”
Schuester says that the whole attitude is encapsulated in “that Alan Thicke song that I love…” and Artie, one of the people who would definitely call bollocks, looks at Will like he’s dirt and says asks if he means “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. “Exactly.” “That’s not what that song’s about….” Will conveniently ignores Artie and makes the glee club – and many other students in the school – shake their butts at him while he roams through the halls singing “Blurred Lines.” It’s unfortunate.
Sue calls Will into her office, tells him that “Blurred Lines” is a song about date rape – which Will can’t comprehend – and promptly fires him. Will actually tries to pull the First Amendment excuse, saying it’s freedom of expression, but I can’t sum it up better than this quote: “You, a married 37-yr-old, just performed a song about coercive sexual advances, while nine minors twerked alongside you down the hallways of a public high school.” Yeah. Gross. Will… refuses to be fired, which isn’t a thing, otherwise no one else would ever be fired? Like, no, I’m keeping my job, I just don’t accept you firing me. NOT A THING, Will.
Kurt and Rachel’s “let’s go crazy” attitude leads them to a tattoo parlour, where, after swigging some Limoncello, they decide to surprise each other with tattoos. Pro tip, kids, from your moderately tattooed writer: don’t ever drink before getting a tattoo. Not only may it impair your judgement, it is also a physical problem – alcohol thins the blood, making the tattoo wound bleed more and pushing the ink out. The tattoo will get damaged. Don’t do it. God, Glee, you’re so irresponsible about the things that really matter. The next morning, a hungover Kurt is horrified to find that not only is his new shoulder tattoo, intended to say “it gets better,” misspelled, but that he can’t even commiserate with Rachel, who says she didn’t end up going through with it.
The bathroom anarchy at McKinley has been overthrown, and Unique has found herself forced to use the men’s room. When she nervously attempts it, she’s accosted by some guys in a way that manages to tick both the queerphobic and sexual harassment boxes, and when left alone, begins to sing Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy.” This cuts to the same song being performed by Unique in the choir room, as the club watches sadly. Presumably she has explained why she’s singing, because after she finishes, Jake stands up slowly and asks for the names of the people who harassed her so that he can do some ass-kicking. He’s backed up immediately by Sam and Ryder – I guess there’s no hard feelings between Unique and Ryder now, after the epic Catfish romance? – but Schuester tells them it’s not the way to handle it and Unique agrees, saying it may make things worse.
I’m not really sure I agree with Mr Schuester’s methods at the best of times, but his plan to convince the school board to rule against Sue’s twerk ban is particularly batty. He recites a speech about how different dance crazes throughout the ages were seen as scandalous in their era and with the passage of time, now appear quaint and unthreatening. He dismisses twerking, which has roots in African tribal dance rituals, as something that will be seen as silly and nostalgic in twenty years, so that’s not disrespectful or whatever, but he seems to convince the school board, as he walks into Sue’s office afterwards looking very smug.
Sue explains that Unique came to see her about the bathroom issue, and that Sue generously granted Unique access to a unisex toilet. Will looks pleased and moved by Sue’s kindness, but is less pleased to discover that Sue’s gift to Unique is a purple Port-A-Potty, bolted to the choir room floor. Unique is humiliated, the club is dismayed – all except Tina, who finds the new addition very convenient and uses it frequently while everyone is in the room.
Kurt heads back to the tattoo parlour and unleashes his fury on the artist, who claims the problem is Kurt’s mistake, not his. Kurt refuses to accept this until the artist, Louis, produces the print-out Kurt gave him as the tattoo design – Kurt himself had typed it wrong and Louis just did what was on the paper. He didn’t ask for clarification because he hates hearing every sob story behind the meaning of a client’s tattoo, but he turns more sympathetic and asks Kurt why he’d wanted a tattoo in the first place. “I wanted to rebel, and shake off my doldrums,” he sighs, like that’s a totally normal sentence – Kurt’s dialogue this entire episode has been exquisite.
He goes on to have a poetic and ridiculous breakdown while analysing his life choices, and the artist, who at first doesn’t know what to make of Kurt, ends up showing him some tattoo mistakes and alterations he has himself, offers to do a free alteration on Kurt’s, and gives him some very existential advice about how if Kurt steps back from the situation now, he’ll never take a risk again, and how he needs to make it into a positive experience in order not to be scared of branching out again in future. He also offers to pierce Kurt’s tongue.
Bree, for no other reason except that she’s cruel and horrid, teases Marley about her lack of twerking skills and uses the opportunity to also reveal that she hooked up with Jake. She isn’t even subtle, outright telling Marley that Jake came to her after Marley wouldn’t let things progress, and taunts Marley about kissing a mole on a private part of Jake’s anatomy. Marley, freaked out and missing the days when her biggest problem was Kitty giving her an eating disorder, confronts Jake and realises that Bree was telling the truth, not just messing around.
Jake tries to explain but Marley shoves him aside and wanders off in a daze, starting to sing Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” in a performance that moves between the vacant auditorium stage and Marley’s inner thoughts, in which she recreates a really cheap and weird version of the Miley video (no nudity, of course) in a room that looks like it’s made of plastic blocks, on a wrecking ball that looks somewhat like a balloon.
Unique resentfully resigns herself to using the Port-A-Potty, or “magic bathroom,” which they’ve apparently started calling it, but Will decides that even though Tina is obsessed with it, he’s not cool with the situation. He escorts Unique to a co-ed faculty bathroom and unlocks it, while trying to give a pep talk about finding places in the world where you fit or something. I am sure he meant well but I have given up listening when he talks. Sue spies on the situation and looks rather angry.
Will later sees Sue in her office, gets screamed at by Becky – by the way, I have a feeling that Becky’s increasing levels of violence, anger and reactionary behaviour are going to come up as an issue soon, because it’s becoming even unfunnier than it was before – and Sue admits that when she saw Schuester taking Unique to the bathroom, it gave her a change of heart, because she found the idea of Unique having to go to Will every time she needed a toilet degrading. Sue offers a trade – she will give Unique her own key to the private bathroom if Will makes the glee club stop twerking. Will turns down this offer, Sue rightly calls that a completely ridiculous place to draw his line in the sand, and Will decides to give Sue a taste of her own rage medicine by throwing a destructive tantrum and trashing the office while smirking. Okay.
Kurt returns to the loft with a tongue stud and a slightly repaired tattoo. He shows Rachel – his back now reads “It’s got Bette Midler” – poetic and creative phrasing, Kurt admits, but something that he feels really captures his essence, and he now sort of loves his tattoo. With the tongue stud, he admits that he thinks he’s been in the same boat as Rachel about Finn’s death – that he’s been going around in a trance, and needed to be “shocked back to life.” Kurt teases Rachel about getting a piercing as well, or reconsidering a tattoo, and she explains that she doesn’t think there’s anything she would love enough to scar on her body forever, and immediately I know what’s going to happen. Knowing doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking when Rachel goes into the bathroom and pulls up her shirt to touch the tiny tattoo reading “Finn” on her side, showing that she did go through with their initial plan after all.
In our final McKinley scene this week, Schuester comes into the choir room and ceremoniously rubs the word “Twerk” off of the whiteboard, declaring that they had to stop. Kitty accuses him of caving to Sue, but Unique sees the truth – that Will came to his senses about Sue’s offer and made the trade that she offered. Will tells Unique not to feel responsible or weighed down about it, and the rest of the club deems twerking no big loss in the grand scheme of things. The episode ends with a celebratory non-twerking kitschy group performance of a song I have literally never heard before in my life. Further research has led to the discovery that it is a recent release called “On Our Way” by The Royal Concept, a band that may or may not be paying Glee for promotion.
Next week, Sam tries modelling and Glee pays tribute to Billy Joel in “Movin’ Out.” Watch the trailer below.
