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“Glee” recap (5.17): The Love Bubble

It’s the day of the show y’all! Well, technically the night before the day of the show and Rachel is stuck in a nightmarish hellscape. It’s every bad dream rolled into one. She’s suddenly naked (yea!), her teeth fall out (boo!), and her friends and adversaries are all gathered to watch her shine or fail. Becky is there to act as the nagging voice in Rachel’s head. “You are a hack. You don’t deserve this.” Suddenly Rachel is sophomore year Rachel, with her reindeer sweater, plaid skirt and knee socks. She sings “Lovefool” by The Cardigans, as her voice goes in and out of pitch, the world around her spinning, the haters booing. She wakes up in a cold sweat.

That morning, Kurt tries to calm his friend’s nerves. The critics thought she killed it in Syracuse, and she’s going to be amazing on Broadway. Rachel doesn’t care, because she’s been trolling all the Broadway message boards and comments sections, where jealous actors and fanatical theatre fans have come to gather and delight in tearing her apart until there’s nothing left of her but a bobbed wig and sinew. Of course, all this is a very meta commentary on well, commentary. Kurt doesn’t want Rachel to get mired in all the negativity so she takes away her phone and promises to shield her in a love bubble, filled with only her close friends. I call that happy hour.

At McKinley, which I though burned down or was a strip mall by now, Sue Sylvester finds Will walking through the hall. Emma is hella pregnant, so she can no longer use her plane ticket and Sue wants it. Will is confused since Sue recently went on a diatribe about New York on her news segment, “How Sue ‘Cs’ It.” In it, she said NYC was shaped like a dong (true) and smelled like pee (also true), but it turns out that Sue had never actually been to the Big Apple before. (It’s our dong-shaped, pee smelling island, and we love it, dammit.) Will agrees to give her the ticket, but makes her promise to attend opening night of Funny Girl. She agrees and when Will leaves, she has a little fantasy sequence of her own. With a shake of a snow globe, she and Will are transported to the best community theatre version of Annie you’ve ever seen. They sing “NYC” and it’s beautiful, with a classic flair. As the song ends, they actually find themselves in the city, running with their luggage through a sea of yellow cabs.

Sue and Will aren’t Rachel’s only visitors. Tina is in from Brown, with tales of her roommate and her new gay boyfriend. Rachel is on vocal rest because that is something we singers do to save our voices and be as insufferable as possible. It’s true. All is grand until Tina starts talking about the awful blog posts and commenters. Kurt and the gang mercifully stop her. Rachel claims she is fine and sequesters herself away to take a nap and cry quietly. Mercedes scoops Tina up and takes her back to her apartment to keep her out of Rachel’s hair.

Kurt wakes up in the middle of the night with a start. He follows the voice of a young woman saying terrible things about Rachel. He finds Rachel watching a vlogger tear her apart, while sitting in a pile of printed negative reviews and crumpled kleenex. It’s time for an intervention.

The gang all shows up to try and make Rachel feel calm and loved. Sam plays acoustic guitar in her face, Blaine offers a massage with his magic hands, and Kurt presents Rachel with a gift basket from the one and only Babs. Rachel knows she’s being conned however, because any self-respecting gay boy would know that it’s Barbra, not Barbara. She blames Tina for the treachery. To make matters ten times worse, Sue Sylvester shows up and invites herself to stay at the Hummelberry loft. Will accidentally booked a room with only one bed, and Sue is convinced he’s an adulterous perv now. The gang all stares at her, their faces contorted with shock and horror. Thank heavens that help is on the way. Help just happens to be slo-mo hair-flipping, high heel leather boot-wearing, Santana Lopez. Too bad that pigeon had to ruin the moment.

It appears that seven months of nonstop Hawaiian scissoring with Brittany has done her a world of good. She walks into the shitshow and gets to work. Rachel doesn’t think that Santana’s tough love is going to work, but she’s never really understood the magic of one, Ms. Santana Lopez anyway. Santana whips out her phone and starts reading terrible reviews out loud. Rachel’s heart sinks, until she finds out that the reviews were actually of Barbra’s performance as Fanny Brice. Babs had haters too, but she knew the mirror had two faces, and both of them told those assholes to piss off. Santana reminds Rachel that failing is not in either of their natures. So time to get up, get out, get up get out and live it. Rachel emerges from her room, pumped and ready to open the show. Group hug time. I wish Quinn were there.

Outside the theatre, Will catches Sue trying to scalp her ticket. He can’t believe her, but after five seasons of this, why is he at all surprised? A man catches her eye, and the world around her becomes like the gym scene in West Side Story. All slow like and blurry. Could it be love at first sight? She decides to keep her ticket after all when he heads into the lobby.

Rachel sits in her dressing room, looking absolutely perfect as Fanny Brice. There’s a knock at the door, and Will comes in bearing flowers and words of encouragement. He tells her how proud he is and that she is making both their dreams come true. Rachel confesses to buying a seat for Finn, which makes my eyes tear up. Finn is still so much a part of Rachel’s everyday, that it makes sense to save a seat in his honor on her special day. Right as Rachel gets her places call, Will’s phone rings. Emma’s water has broken (Who knew she was THAT pregnant!). He has to fly out of there and miss Rachel’s opening night, which she totally understands. She makes her long walk through the backstage, past her cast mates and crew, and takes her place center stage behind the curtain. Tell me you did not get goosebumps at this part. The curtain rises and she is greeted with applause.

Rachel becomes Barbra/Fanny Brice, and belts out the opening number “I’m the Greatest Star” which also happens to be the go to audition number for every 14-year-old girl. Sue complains audibly from her seat, which happens to be next to the critic from the New York Times. She gets up and walks out, right at the same time as the mystery man. Rachel continues to tear it up…but I was left wondering, where the hell were her fathers? How in the world would they miss this moment?

In the lobby, Sue asks some poor usher to call her a cab. The mystery man asks if she’s new around town, because the way to get a cab in NYC is to wildly wave your arms while swearing your face off in the street. They bond over their mutual hatred for the show and after Sue finds out that he is restaurateur, they head off to grab a bite together.

At intermission Mercedes and Kurt sneak backstage to offer up their own words of encouragement. Rachel is barely holding it together. She saw Sue get up and leave and is worried it will negatively affect her review. Her producer, who is also now in her dressing room, agrees with Rachel and proceeds to drop a pile of pressure in her lap to close out the show with a bang. He tells her if the NYT doesn’t give you a good review, you are doomed. DOOMED. Hey Mr. Producer, that is some bullshit right there.

Sue’s mystery man’s name is Mario, and basically the male version of Sue. He offers to make her a meal and she’s taken aback because no one has ever done that before. Her parents were more the TV dinner type of people, what with all the Nazi hunting. The men in her life don’t really stick around long enough to get to that point, either. Mario is shocked because Sue is just his type of gall. Cruel, delicious and tall. (We all have our types. I like curly hair and a sense of humor.) Sue is overwhelmed and admits that she never expected to meet someone like Mario, least of all in New York. Mario tells her that Funny Girl would have been so much better if she had been in it.

With that, Rachel is near the end of the second act and singing the opening phrases of “Who Are You Now”, a song that always makes her think of Finn. Weirdly, it soon becomes a duet with Dream Ballet Sue, as the two women think of their respective loves. Sue sings and dances sweetly with Mario in the restaurant. Rachel of course, sees a beaming Finn, waiting for her in the hallway. I cried when I saw Finn’s smile, and I’m crying now as I write to you good people about it. Rachel cries too, and digs deep inside her heart, offering a little piece of it to the audience.

After the curtain closes, there is much celebration in Rachel’s dressing room. It’s filled with flowers from Mike, Puck and QUINN. Oh Quinn, you don’t send me flowers anymore, sings the Faberry fandom, wistfully. After crushing Rachel’s spirit, Mr. Producer offers to throw an opening night party for her and all her friends. Once he leaves, Rachel tells the gang that she’d rather just be with them until the NYT review is released the next morning. They have just the place. Blaine, Kurt and the rest of the frailly take Rachel to a place that could only exist in New York. A musical theatre leather bar. As soon as Rachel walks in, she is recognized by adoring fans. They beg her to sing, and she’s in absolute heaven. She struts around the bar, signing people’s body parts and singing “Pumping Blood” by the NoNoNo. It’s a full on dance party! Wave your hands in the air everyone! Santana does a special dance, just for the #Gaysharks I think. Who needs a glass of water? CAN I GET SOME ICE WATER PLEASE?!

Rachel and crew stay out until dawn, and when they arrive at the loft, are surprised to find Mario and Sue post flagrant delicto. They have done the deed all over the apartment, including the couch and Rachel’s bed. Hopefully the Boyfriend pillow remained unscathed. Sue launches into one of her nasty tirades, but Rachel isn’t having it. Maybe she’s still drunk from the scent of leather and burgeoning fame, but Rachel tells Sue what a rotten person she is and orders her to get the hell out of the apartment. She is met with hearty applause from her friends. Apparently New York is Sue Sylvester’s kryptonite.

It’s finally time for the New York Times to be released and they all head down to the magazine stand. Rachel can’t bring herself to open the review, and neither can Kurt, so Santana does the honors. The New York Times thinks Rachel is a smash hit, and they all take turns reading the glowing review out loud. Just then, Will calls to celebrate his good news. He and Emma just welcomed a little boy named Daniel Finn Schuster. For the first time in a long time, all is right with the world.

Sue and Mario walk through the barf-covered streets of morning Manhattan, holding hands. They are at an impasse because Sue doesn’t want to leave Ohio, and Mario can’t leave his life in New York behind either. Plus, Lima already has Breadstix, so you know. They suck face on the street before Sue gets in a cab heading back to the great, very flat, state of Ohio. In her new episode of “How Sue ‘Cs’ it,” she stand by her original comments about New York, but changes her heart on the sentiment behind it. New York is a place of endless possibilities. Sue Sylvester loves New York.

Next time on Glee: Holy shit, Shirley MacLaine singing Janis Joplin. Also, some dude telling Rachel that she has a face for radio. Apparently he has not seen her L’Oreal commercials, because she’s worth it.

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