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“Glee” recap (4.06): Leave it to Glee-ver

Previously on Glee, “Grease” was the word, was the word that you heard, it had mood, it had meaning. Just joshing with you. “Retard” was the word and it was spoken aloud by Finn Hudson in reference to a baby. Artie & Co. cast Unique in the role of Rizzo, much to the chagrin of Sue Sylvester. And, after his breakup with Kurt, Blaine was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. Like if those homeless puppies from the Sarah McLachlan commercial starred in a two-hour movie that was filmed in 3D and written by Nicholas Sparks.

Will finally announces to New Directions that he will be abandoning them to join the Blue Ribbon Committee on Insufferability in Washington D.C. whereby he will secure funding for “the arts” while working as a Paul Ryan impersonator on the weekends. This means, of course, that Finn Hudson will be taking over the glee club. When Tina protests, Will explains that Finn is like one of those baby animals that suckled at the teet of a whole different species when it was a child because its mother rejected it, which made his introduction into the wild kind of complicated and unsuccessful and so now he has returned to drink Will’s breast milk for all time.

Tina isn’t the only one who’s pissed about Finn. Sue calls a meeting in Figgins’ office and says that Finn’s appointment to the role of New Directions leader means her truce with the glee club is off. Figgins explains that glee club is extra-curricular activity, and as such, Finn doesn’t need to be qualified to lead it. And anyway, this is a school where Will Schuester taught Spanish for like ten years without ever even knowing a word of Spanish. Qualifications Shmalifications. Sue storms out like it’s season one.

NYADA. Rachel has secured herself an audition in an off-Broadway production of The Glass Menagerie, but she can’t feel good about it until a boy tells her she should feel good about it, so she asks Brody if it’s OK to feel good about it. She also tells him that she and Finn are broken up for good for real for sure this time. Sensing an impending invitation to her pants party, Brody says he’ll help her prep for her audition. Cassandra July is lurking around outside the room, creeping on their conversation, twirling her evil mustache and fingering the rope she’ll use later to tie Rachel to some train tracks. She peeks her head in and tells Rachel not to bother with the audition because the director will devour her, but rather than heed her advice, Rachel suggests Cassandra audition as well. You know, for the older part. To get back in the game.

Cassie goes, “Speaking of Machiavellianism, Brody, would you like to be my TA and assist me in the dark of night?” He sure would!

At McKinley, Marley is having trouble fitting into her Sandy costume. Her regular clothes, the ones she wears every day, those fit just fine. Every morning she puts on her clothes that fit and every night she takes off her clothes that fit, but for some gosh darn reason, this costume appears to be shrinking. That is because it is shrinking. Kitty has been sneaking into the auditorium and taking it in. She has also decided to befriend Marley and Unique and Tina and Brittany. She invites them over for a sleepover, to eat popcorn and talk about boys and talk shit about their classmates in the Burn Book.

Marley drops by the cafeteria to ask her mom when she started getting fat. Mrs. Marley explains that her weight was always a struggle, especially after she gave birth to Marley, but that Marley shouldn’t worry about it right now, because: a) She is not gaining weight, as evidenced by the fact that her clothes still fit and if she’s so worried about it, how about hop on a scale, and b) Marley has so much going for her besides the fact that she is skinny, like for example her sweetness and her empathy and her vocal skills and her hats. Actually, no. Mrs. Marley explains that the only thing worse than being fat is nothing, so they’ll both start a diet immediately.

Finn wanders into the teachers’ lounge probably because he is looking for the loo and even though he went to this school for four years sometimes he still gets lost. Sue marches across the room in three giant steps and tells Finn to get his no-good, ugly keister off her property before she pumps his guts full of lead. Finn’s sorry about the baby thing, but Sue’s not hearing it. She tells him he has hate in his heart while calling him all sorts of names to prove what it sounds like when a person has hate in her heart, I guess. Oh, and also, she’s taken the liberty of reserving the auditorium for Cheerios practice, so good luck finding a place to stage the musical, Hudson.

Luckily Finn has at his disposal an entire garage where the mechanics are familiar with young men breaking into song and dance at the drop of a hat, thanks to watching Kurt Hummel grow up here. Finn invites the dudes over to practice “Grease Lightning.” After explaining that Grease is all about literal grease, he asks them to perform. The lyrics have been sterilized, the pelvic thrusting has not. In order of thrusting technique: 1) Mike, of course 2) Sam 3) Ryder 4) Jake 5) Jesus 6) Finn. After the performance, Finn tells them to give it another go with twice the energy, which, honestly, sounds a little bit like Eeyore ordering a Red Bull.

At NYADA, Kurt finally admits to being so broken up over Blaine that he’s existing solely on a diet of Ambien and The Notebook. (There’s a cocktail that’ll get you into that costume, Marley!) He wants to go back to McKinley to see Grease. And by “Grease,” he means “the hair gel attached to the hair attached to the head attached to Blaine perfect face.” Rachel thinks it’s one of the worst ideas she’s ever heard, which, coming from Rachel, is saying something. She wants to go for moral support, but also she is broke. Luckily, Cassie is still eavesdropping on every one of Rachel’s conversations, so she be-bops in and says Rachel can have her JetBlue frequent flier miles to book a trip home. Cassandra July is a bitch, but I’m not going to pretend to be mad about watching her stretch like that.

Any other person would be like, “It seems suspicious that you are offering me, your stated archnemesis, a favor as big as a plane. Your motives, are they ulterior?” But Rachel is like, “Of course everyone wants to give me everything I want, and so thank you for those tickets, ma’am.”

At Kitty’s Terribleness Emporium, the Grease-ladies sleepover is underway. Marley wants something low-cal for her sleepover snack, so Brittany suggests Kleenex on account of they taste like clouds. Kitty, however, has a “better” idea. She leads Marley into the bathroom, brandishes two fingers in what could be considered a very suggestive gesture in the wide world of lesbian sign language, and instructs her in the fine art of self-induced vomiting. Kitty leaves Marley to her bulimia and launches into “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” in her bedroom. And just when you thought she couldn’t get any more vile, she mocks Marley’s hat.

The song is fine, and Sugar is perfection as Frenchy, but doesn’t Brittany seem so out of place here? She belongs with Quinn (RIP) and Santana, and this episode doesn’t do anything to dispel my feelings that graduating those two and Mercedes may have ruined the show. I think it was just too much too fast. Graduating Rachel and Kurt, sending them to New York but allowing us to stay involved in their lives, that was a good move. But with Santana and Quinn and Mercedes gone, it’s hard to give a shit about what’s happening back at McKinley. I mean, we’ve already invested three years with our characters, so Mercedes’ upcoming ten seconds of exposition about attending UCLA and doing her background singing and hanging out with Puck, that carries more weight than every stupid thing Ryder and Kitty and Marley and Jake have done this whole season.

Sue has taken the liberty of calling Unique’s parents to explain about RizzoGate. They are concerned for her safety, especially after finding out she was shoved inside a locker – which is one of the mildest forms of physical abuse students engage in at McKinley, to be honest – so they tell her to assume the persona of Wade at school, and also: No Rizzo. You want to feel sorry for Unique. You want to feel sorry for Tina, too, because she assumes that she’s finally going to get the chance to shine. But the truth is, I can’t feel sorry for either of those guys, because:

SANTANA LOPEZ!

Artie took the liberty of calling Santana and asking her to fly to Ohio and play Rizzo, and since she’s been in training for the role since she was a toddler – and also because every day she doesn’t see Brittany’s face is another day she dies a little inside – she hopped on a plane and here she is. Brittany is gazing at her with more open affection than we’ve ever seen, I think. Like she was starving for the sight of her. Like how you don’t realize sometimes that you haven’t eaten in two days until someone puts a bowl of soup in front of you and you realize how very hungry you are, and please, sir, may I have another? She says, “The important thing is that Santana is here.” And she means it as an answer to every question.

Also, it is pretty hilarious, this meta commentary running throughout the episode about how this year was meant to be Tina/Jenna Ushkowitz’s year. When she walks in and sees Santana, she is seriously like, “Are you f–king kidding me with this?”

Rachel and Kurt walk arm-in-arm through the halls of McKinley like so many million times before. They reminisce about their old lockers and how Kurt was able to hide his gayness from Mercedes for about five minutes back in season one. As if summoned by their nostalgia, Mercedes shows up and they all hug and squeal and we finally find out that Mercedes is working it ’round the clock in Los Angeles, doing the UCLA thing and the back-up singer thing and the hanging out with Puck thing. Is it too much to ask for the back half of this season to return every character to McKinley and have them pretend that the first half of the season was a collective fever dream?

Now, just to be clear, Kurt came here to see Blaine, right? That was his expressed reason for flying to Lima, OH, correct? He’s not sleeping, he’s not eating, he’s barely functioning as a human being because his heart is shattered into one badrillion tiny pieces, yeah? Then how come when he’s walking and talking with Rachel, he’s like, “Man, I sure hope I don’t run into Blaine, because that would be awkward“? Well, the best place not to find Blaine, of course, is backstage at the musical in which he’s starring. When he almost accidentally literally runs right into Kurt, and then looks up and realizes it’s actually Kurt, he looks like what happens when your heart gets punched in the face. Like he can’t breathe and also like he’s going to break down into tears of relief and anguish because the only thing worse than not seeing Kurt again is seeing Kurt again.

Finn lumbers into the scene and says something about how the four of them have been through a lot together or whatever. This episode is has way too many plotlines and ten thousand scenes, so I understand the need to consolidate this meet-and-greet, but I really do wish the writers wouldn’t juxtapose Klaine and Finchel like this. They’re not the same. Rachel and Finn are classic teenage sweethearts who barely have anything in common when they’re attending the same high school, and certainly don’t have anything in common six months out of high school, and yeah, that’s a hard reality, but it’s real life. Kurt and Blaine, on the other hand, are the real damn deal, and ten years from now, they should be telling their daughter the story of Prince Warbler and his Teenage Dream while walking their Bichon Frise through Central Park and eating ice cream.

I guess these guys are performing Grease out of order because Sandy and Danny haven’t even been on-stage together yet, apparently, but it’s time for “Beauty School Drop Out.” Blaine nails it because being a teen angel is as natural to him as breathing. Kurt watches him and is sad and Blaine watches Kurt watching him and is sad, while Sugar gazes at him like the pink-haired personification of AfterElton.com.

Marley is freaking out some more about her costume, so Kitty does that finger thing again and leads her to the bathroom. She points to the toilet and says, “Puke!” Marley is four seconds away from a full-fledged eating disorder. It looks like all hope is lost. Is there no man around who can save this woman from herself? Yes, actually. Yes, there is. His name is Ryder and he busts into the bathroom and tells her not to make herself vomit because if she does it, she won’t be kissable, on stage or off stage. She smiles at him and says, “Thanks, Ryder. I just needed a boy to give me some attention so I could understand what self-worth is really about.” He’s like, “Don’t thank me; thank my mentor, Finn Hudson.”

Anyway, back to couples who belong together for all time, Brittany snuggles up to Santana at the makeup mirror as she preps for her solo. With their mouths they say the miss each other and with their eyes they say they love each other and with their body language they say that doing the mature thing and trying to figure out who they are without each other is the worst fucking thing and so maybe they should stop fighting their destiny. One of the most beautiful things about Brittany S. Pierce is that she has never, not even for a second, doubted her place in Santana’s world or in Santana’s heart. Brittany just knows. She knows Santana loves her the best. She knows Santana needs her the most. But also she knows that you can only nudge Santana in the direction of the truth. We’ve seen her do it a billion times.

So when she tells Santana how easy it would be for them to get back together and Santana doesn’t budge, Brittany just says, “OK, but don’t forget when you’re singing your solo that it comes from a place of such brokenness. So, you know, if you have any deep sadness to tap into, you should do that.” In some ways, Brittany has always been waiting for Santana. Not waiting by locking herself away and pining, but waiting while she’s living, waiting for Santana to acknowledge the things that have always been true.

Santana sings “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” and, like always, Naya’s voice is a balm for my weary soul. Which is why when Kate Hudson interrupted to sing along while boning Brody, I legit shouted at the TV, “SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE!” Santana looks at Brittany waiting in the wings (metaphor!) and starts to realize that Brittany is right again like all the times before. Unique (as Wade) sings also. I like Unique. Unique is great. BUT STOP SINGING OVER SANTANA, YOU ASSES.

Before the last number, Ryder kisses Marley and Jake gets mad about it so Kitty gets mad about that so she sucks donkey balls some more and tells Marley not to freak out during the performance on account of the notoriously tough sophomore critic who is in the audience. Also, Ryder is shocked – just absolutely bamboozled! – by the sight of Marley in her leather costume. I guess when you cast a musical one week and stage it the next week, there’s no time for dress rehearsal?

“You’re the One that I Want” is supposed to be all about Marley and Ryder, but Rachel hallucinates back to the time she and Finn performed this very song on that very stage, and Brittany and Santana are dancing together again, and so are Kurt and Blaine, and basically what she is wishing is that these new kids never came to town, and for the first time in our lives, Rachel Berry and I agree on something.

After the play, Rachel rushes to the bathroom to call Brody because male reassurance is her crack, but Cassandra July answers the phone, all, “Gotcha, bitch! You just thought I was being nice by encouraging you to fly home and settle your shit with your boyfriend and also buying you a plane ticket, but really it was part of my plan to do all the sex with Brody to prove that I’ve still got!” Rachel is like, “I know a thing about being pathetic and desperate, but wow.” Also, she cries. Finn sees her crying. He wants to know if she’s crying over him. She is not.

Blaine tracks down Kurt in the hallway and says they need to talk, but Kurt is only interested in talking when he is the one who commits relationship indiscretions. When Blaine is the one who strays, Kurt shuts that shit down. Blaine pleads with Kurt to understand that it was a one-time thing, that he was lonely, that it didn’t mean anything, but Kurt says he can’t trust him and so the breakup is still on. He links arms with Rachel again and they say they want to go home – to New York.

The sophomore critic gave Grease a rave review. It only took him like five minutes to write it up. I see a great future for this guy as a TV recapper. Will gets sentimental about how much he is going to miss these guys. Verbatim:

Will: I am going to miss you guys!

Glee club: *crickets*

Will: I am going to miss you guys so so so much!

Glee club: *crickets*

Will: You mean literally everything to me.

Glee club: *crickets*

Finn and Will stroll the halls and talk about how every girl needs a boy to save her and ballads are a man’s best friend. Finn says, “I got this.” And Will is like, “Yeah, you do!” And, unlike Brittany, these two are never ever correct.

Next week: Superheroes! The Roles Brittany and Blaine Were Born to Play!

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