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“Glee” recap (5.15): Facts of Life

What if I told you Glee was going to tackle the comeback of gay-bashing in New York City and the social/economic realities of interracial dating in a post-Obama world, and that it was going to do so with restraint and grace and power? I know. I know. I started watching with one-and-a-half eyes closed also, but they kind of crushed it? I don’t want to infuse you with a false sense of hope or anything, but these last few weeks have been a complete Gleesurgence (sorry), harkening back to those precious first 13 episodes in season one when things made sense a full two-thirds of the time and the performances caused big ol’ fat tears roll down your cheeks and you couldn’t wait to see how your favorite characters were going to come correct next week.

It’s almost like the writers and producers heard the cries of its anguished fan base and the critiques of critics who stuck around, and decided, OK, fine, here is the show you fell in love with. Too bad it’s too little, too late. The ratings are plummeting just when the show is re-finding its soul.

So, it’s Sondheim week and kicking things off is a haunting rendition of “No One is Alone” as Rachel and Kurt and Blaine walk down the street bearing candles and white roses, a vigil for a gay friend of theirs who was beaten into critical condition. Unsurprisingly, it is Kurt who is most deeply affected by the news and the sight of the mementos honoring their friend. We met him when he was getting tossed into a dumpster and we’ve lived with him through a dozen kinds of bullying over the years. I don’t have a lot in common with Kurt Hummel. He possess more courage and poise than I could hope to have in a zillion years, but the quiet rage that simmers in his blood when he feels helpless? Boy, do I ever get that.

Funny Girl‘s producer meets with his cast and crew and reminds them that the coming weeks of tech and rehearsal are going to require 30 hours of their days, every day. Rachel is on board, of course; like Blaine, she neither sleeps nor blinks on account of the brevity of life compared to the things that need to be accomplished. The thing is, though, that it’s time for NYADA’s midwinter critiques and if there’s one constant in the Gleeverse, it’s that Carmen Tibideaux accepts exactly zero shit, so Rachel needs to show up and be on point. Her producer says that’s fine. She can have one lone hour to do other things.

Sam is up late on Mercedes‘ couch watching Facts of Life. (“It’s about this old red-headed lady who runs this boarding school for lesbians and I think the boarding school burned down so now the old red-headed lady opened up this pot dispensery called Edna’s Edibles. They all work there.”) He’s chomping on a bucket-sized bowl of Lucky Charms and laughing super loud. Mercedes comes downstairs to ask him to be quiet but no one can resist the charms of the lesbian show about weed, so she joins him.

He tries to talk to her about how their relationship was over before it even began and it just doesn’t seem fair. She rolls her eyes because is it his first day on this show, or what? No one cane date anyone for longer than ten minutes if the producers are going to pair literally everyone with literally everyone else before the show ends! And anyway, she performed “I Will Always Love You” during their breakup, so what else could we possibly ask for? (Answer: Nothing else. None of us deserve to hear Amber Riley‘s voice. It is a heart-kiss from the gods bestowed upon us in their most benevolent moments.)

Of course she follows up her rejection with some hardcore making out, so you can see how Sam would be even more confused than usual.

(But wait! There’s more! When Sam can’t sleep at night, Blaine reads him Star Wars fan fiction. Sam doesn’t like the canon(ish) bullshit George Lucas churns out under a pseudonym. Sam likes the good stuff. If you stumbled onto Sam’s Tumblr, there’s no way you’d walk away thinking he was straight. Anyway, that’s what he tells Mercedes before the level seven canoodling.)

Monday night pot luck is a go. During their second feast, Artie catches Sam and Mercedes playing footsie under the table, which makes everyone think about how no one ever knew what the heck was actually going on with them because they didn’t participate in the New Directions tradition of airing the minutiae of their relationship during every rehearsal with a special song and dance to be critiqued by Mr. Schue. (The relationship drama, I mean. That’s what Mr. Schue critiqued. Not the actual performances.) Kurt brings up the midwinter performances and Rachel announces that she will be blessing them all with a Sondheim rendition of her own.

Sam and Mercedes go for a walk along the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge looming behind them, and she tells him that she can’t be with him and he tells her he’s going to throw eleven dollars in pennies into the river and wish on every single on of them that she’ll change her mind. Chord Overstreet is a frenetic performer, and I mean that as a compliment, but he’s so chill in this scene. Maybe it’s on purpose. Maybe Mercedes calms Sam down on the inside. He tells her he gets how the performance of humanity is tedious, but we can all adapt. She’s not worried about what animal rights activists think about her faux fur, for example. It’s a stretch, analogy-wise, but Mercedes throws her coat into the river, anyway, and Sam throws some quarters at a random lady eating lunch on a park bench.

The main thing, though, is that Mercedes brings it with Aretha‘s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” once Sam is gone. She’s so good she makes the carousel come to life with just the glory of her voice. Heavens to Mergatroid, her voice. Amber Riley’s voice, no joke, makes me feel like someone opened up my chest and applied a soothing balm right to my heart. And she’s such a commanding performer, I can’t even look away to tweet while she’s doing what she does. I missed her more than I realized. I hope she’s here to stay.

I don’t want to blow your mind with this next thing, so cover your ears so your brain doesn’t bust out of your noggin. Mercedes is having dinner with two black friends. That’s right. Three black women on network TV at the same time. They warn her about how perception is reality when it comes to celebrity, and there’s a chance that dating a white guy is going to play as betrayal to the black community. And then Sam shows up and makes everything more awkward than it ever has been. Like in the history of awkwardness. Not since Adam and Eve realized they were nekkid have things been so awkward. He does some Chris Tucker impressions and asks about weaves and why parents of future hip hop artists name their kids after cars.

Tesla and Shanice are like, “Oh, wow. You’re not just white; you’re like Britta Perry white.”

After dinner, they tell Mercedes that Sam seems nice, and they have a serious appreciation for his spot-on impressions of all the Huxtables (“I don’t think a Tempest Bledsoe impression is easy to do”), but being with him is going to alienate the black women who want to be her and the black men who want to be with her, which is 80 percent of creating a brand that sells. I can’t speak to the truth of their worry because I’m not a part of the African American community, but I will say that I have been longing for Glee to get these characters to New York to explore what happens when you take Mr. Schue’s ideals out of the ether and try to live them out in the real world. Or, well, as real as the world gets where an 19-year-old from Lima, Ohio lands the kind of recording contract that allows her to live lush on both coasts before her album even drops.

Mercedes breaks up with Sam when she gets home. And she kicks him out, but sweetly.

For her midwinter critique, Rachel will be performing “Broadway Baby” – with Blaine. Carmen Tibideaux is not amused. It was meant to be a solo performance and so what if Lea Michele and Darren Criss would sell out Broadway, baby, every single night they performed together; the assignment was to fly alone. (Parenthetically, instead of another inevitable diva-off, I would very much like to see Rachel and Blaine get into a theater-actor-off. Rodgers and Hammerstein would legit rise from their graves to judge that competition.)

Rachel tries to explain that she can’t reschedule her performance because she’s got Funny Girl going on, but Carmen Tibideaux is like, “Welp. I guess you should have done it correctly the first time then, huh?”

So Rachel just drops right out of school, which is a shame for a lot of reasons, including the fact that even if you’re as bananatrousers bonkers as Cassandra July, you can still get a job at NYADA when your Broadway career is over.

Kurt and Rachel meet for dinner and have another in the series of fights they’ve been having for years and years about how her ambition is blinding her. He says, “Please don’t drop out of school; this city chews up people like us – yes, even supernovas like you, Rachel – and spits us out and having a degree is an investment in not ending up perpetually homeless like Sam.” She hears, “You’re destined for failure and I don’t believe in you.” It escalates like a rocketship. One second she’s telling him he doesn’t support her and the next second she’s telling him he doesn’t have the kind of courage it takes to step out and fight for your life in the real world.

Kurt has the chance to prove her wrong, literally. As he’s walking home, he sees a gay guy getting beaten up in an alley, so he sprints the heck right down there like a real life Batman and even when they turn on him, even when they smash him in the head with a brick and beat in his beautiful face, he looks right into their eyes and tells them he’s not afraid of them.

Over at the Hummelpezberry loft, Blaine tries to soothe Sam with some Star Wars fanfic about polygamist Ewoks, but that just agitates Sam more because of course Ewoks are polygamists. Too canonical! The phone rings. It’s the news about Kurt. Artie and Rachel and Mercedes get calls too. I don’t know who directed this episode, but it’s super slick stylistically. Glee loves its quick cuts and swirling cameras, but there’s a depth and gravitas to this episode with long shots and unconventional framing; it feels very grown up. Anyway, they all rush to the hospital, where Kurt is OK, but banged up really badly.

He’s unconscious when they go into his room, but Rachel says he knows they’re there. Blaine takes his hand and sings “Not While I’m Around” and it’s one of the most touching things I have ever seen on TV. It almost feels like an intrusion to watch it. When Blaine finishes singing his promise, he curls up next to Kurt in bed and wraps him up in his arms as best he can with all those tubes and monitors sticking out everywhere, beeping Kurt’s life like he’s nothing more than some organs and bones and not the soul-anchor of Blaine Warbler and Rachel Berry’s whole entire world.

Mercedes invites Sam to the recording studio to apologize and also to hear her sing an original song called “Colour Blind,” which is way too on the nose for this storyline, but I do not give a fuck because Amber Riley is my phoenix song

If you’re not already sobbing, prepare yourself. Burt Hummel bursts into Kurt’s hospital room and absolutely demands to know what the hell he was thinking rushing down a dark alley to take on four homophobic bullies by himself, but Kurt quietly pushes back and says he’s hurt but not on the inside. Now he knows, with complete assurance, who he is.

Burt’s mad at himself for thinking Kurt would be safer in New York than in rural Ohio, mad that the fighting he’s doing in Congress isn’t changing everyone’s heart even if it’s changing laws, mad that he couldn’t be physically fighting right next to his beautiful son. Kurt says, “That is who I am, you know. Your son. Burt Hummel’s son would do exactly what I did last night.” Burt knows it’s true. He’s so proud and he’s so terrified, because when your kid is as brave as Kurt, how else are you going to feel?

Kurt goes right back to the memorial for his gay-bashed friend and puts out fresh flowers, because of course he does, because that’s who he is. Probably he bought them in the hospital gift shop and came over as soon as he was released. Blaine says their friend woke up, that he’s going to be OK.

Before Monday potluck, Rachel tells Kurt how ashamed she is for saying he’s not courageous and how deeply she loves him. He shrugs and half-smiles and hugs her, because it wasn’t even their worst fight, really, and nothing like what Rachel and Santana get up to.

For his midwinter critique, Kurt sings “I’m Still Here” for NYADA and Carmen Tibideaux and his friends who are his family. Burt is there, too, mouthing the words, which gets me more than anything else. I was already crying. That part made me choke-sob. Burt Hummel, you wild majestic unicorn. Chris Colfer kills this number and hops up on the piano at the end, triumphantly singing, “Kurt Hummel is still here.”

Oh, Glee. This is why I can’t quit you.

Next week: Blaine finally finds a pair of pants that are too tight; Sam proposes an abstinence club, which makes Kurt laugh harder than any joke he’s ever heard; and Artie reveals a shocking something. Also: Swords and Pat Benatar, the theme episode you’ve always secretly wanted.

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