Previously on Glee, Marley Rose couldn’t remember How Clothes Work, so she contracted an eating disorder, despite the fact that she should be feeling really good about herself as a lady because two men-folk keep validating her existence with homoerotic wrasslin’ matches. Jake and Ryder worked out a bro-type truce when Jake helped Ryder get diagnosed with dyslexia and Ryder told his jock friends to stop bullying Jake just because he’s a poor. Blaine’s post-adultery existential crisis continued unabated until Sam worked his Overstreet magic and made our little Gollum remember how he used to be a happy hobbit in the gay ol’ Shire and convinced him that maybe he should stop punching himself in the face all the hours of all the days. And Finn Hudson was buried with Will in baptism and raised to walk in the Schueness of life. Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, Quinn Fabray walks into mine. She’s on the stage in the auditorium at McKinley High, singing a little Simon and Garfunkel. And before you can say, “She’s coming back, I know she’s coming back!” she’s joined by Santana and Puck and Mike and Finn, and they’re doing a “Homeward Bound” mash-up with that ubiquitous “Home” song that sounds like it’s from Mumford & Sons, but is instead from an American Idol guy. I don’t know who directed this episode, but whoever did it is as in love with Old New Directions as we are, because the camera is – it’s like pining to hold each of their hands and twirl them around and around in a field full of dandelions and then lay them down and make sweet, musical love to them under the wide open sky of home. It’s all slow-mo and caressing their faces and ethereal and dizzy. I mean, I get it, camera, but keep it in your pants; we’re only 10 seconds into the episode.
So, the gang is all together again, except for Rachel and Kurt, but don’t you worry because Quinn knows exactly what’s going on with Rachel because Rachel is haranguing her at every turn to use a gifted train ticket to come visit her in the city. Quinn is like, “Sorry it’s obvious she still loves me more than you after all this time, Finnigan.” But Finn just shrugs and says, “I kept you two apart as long as I could, I guess.” Just like every other week of this show, I am determined to give The New New Directions a real chance to win my heart, because it’s the mature thing to do and also because you guys keep telling me it’s what I need to do, but now The Old New Directions have come home for the holidays, and my good intentions are for naught. But Finn has a pretty good idea this week. He pairs up each Old New Direction-er with a New New Direction-er for the purpose of Sectionals mentoring and making us care. Old Quinn is with New Quinn, Old Puck is with new Puck, Old Mercedes is with New Mercedes, and Old Santana is with New Rachel, because there is no such thing as a New Santana because you shall have no other gods before her and all that. Out in the hallway, Jake and Ryder decide between the two of them what the future holds for Marley. “Shall we allow her to choose between the two of us?” Jake asks, and oh, they laugh, because a woman making a decision for herself is just about the most hilarious joke they’ve ever heard. They agree that Jake can have Marley and Ryder can have the dance solo in “Gangnam Style” at Sectionals. (Marley, meanwhile, is monologuing in her mind about how she can’t let down New New Directions so she’d better keep on starving herself. And while she’s thinking all that, she’s sort of falling down in the hallway due to starvation and banging up against lockers and smashing into people and slurring her words. Tip-top shape, basically, is what she is in.)
Rachel and Kurt are walking through Manhattan arm-in-arm, like they do. (Chris Colfer really is one of the most beautiful human beings on this earth.) Kurt is waffling about going home for Thanksgiving. For one thing, he really misses his dad. (So say we all.) But also, it’s Sectionals weekend and it feels weird being away. And plus: Blaine. Rachel says, “When we go home, we get sad, and we realize we shouldn’t be there, and our pseudo-boyfriend cheats on us when we let him out of our sight.” One day Kurt is going to need a lot of therapy because of Rachel’s inability to recognize him as an autonomous human being – or, well, Rachel’s inability to recognize anyone as an autonomous human being – but for now, Kurt says he’ll stay, as long as she promises to show him the best Thanksgiving ever.
Mike takes the fellas through an advanced dance class, and the idea that either Ryder or Jake could ever make their bodies do the thing Harry Shum Jr. makes his body do is ha-ha-ha-larious. But, well, Jake throws the dance-off due to his previous agreement in which he bartered a human life for a dance solo. The New New Directions’ ladies crowd around Santana, Quinn, and Brittany and ask what sacrifices it would be appropriate to make at their altar. The girls squeal and fawn and ask them to demonstrate their legendary sinchronicity, so the Unholy Trinity breaks out into a little “Come See About Me” by the Supremes. It’s a Motown throwback to season one’s “Say a Little Prayer” and another reminder that Quinn has undergone more personality transplants than if Dr. Frankenstein had ADHD and a time machine and a hundred badrillion human brains at his disposal. When they’re finishing up their performance, Santana notices that Marley looks peaked, so she tenderly says, “Are you about to ralph or something?” Marley is like, “Heh. No. What makes you [wobble, wobble, wobble] say something … I’ve got to go anyway, I’ve been sold into indentured servitude to Jake.” Kitty trails along behind Quinn like a puppy, barking her praises and licking her face. But Quinn is familiar with how she looks, the curve of her hip, the cock of her eyebrow. Strangers prostrate themselves before her in the mall sometimes, for goodness sake. What she would rather have as an offering is some salacious, untrue gossip. So Kitty obliges by explaining that Marley’s took up vomiting because Jake Puckerman wants to make the sexes with her. Quinn reacquaints herself with storming through the halls of McKinley in a manic rage, and it feels so good. She tells Jake to leave Marley alone the way Puck should have left her alone because Sectionals ain’t no joke, yo. There’s both rhyme and reason to it, and New Directions never gets a berth just because they’re the main show choir on this show.
Cassandra July will not be teaching Dance 101 today, because the budget of this episode is already bursting at the seams with the returning cast plus the new cast plus the Old New Directions adults plus SJP. Instead, Brody is teaching the class, which, of course, causes Rachel to make such a scene of “How dare you!” and “Don’t touch me!” and whatever. Brody tells her that she would have boned Cassandra July too, given the chance, and Rachel cannot dispute the claim. She invites Brody to the Hummelberry Orphan Thanksgiving as an apology for being insane, and he accepts. He’s like, “Should I bring Cass for a threesome?” And she’s like, “Probably – well, no. Kurt would be extra lonely if he had to listen to that noise coming from my bedroom all day. He’s very scared of the zoo.” At Vogue, Kurt and Isabelle have a heart-to-heart about Blaine and Thanksgiving and being an orphan in New York City during the holidays, and I’ve got to say, I was a little bit worried about SJP in this role just because Sex and the City 2 kind of made me retroactively hate the whole show, I think, but she is just so wonderful. She is the anti-Hudson, the anti-Schuester. There’s nothing patronizing about how she interacts with Kurt, no thinly veiled need to be validated as a worthwhile human being because she has the capacity to mentor with love. There’s a heartfelt wisdom behind her words (and, of course, she’s the Yoda of being single in New York City), so when she tells Kurt that, in her experience, accepting someone’s apology is often the way to find the closure you need to move on with your life, he really hears her. And also, she agrees to journey way the hell out to Bushwick for his Thanksgiving, as long as she can bring some friends.
Kitty is taking notes from Quinn about how you’re always doing the judges a favor if you give them a little smile or a wink. Dianna Agron has had more screen time in this episode than she did in the entire third season. Santana busts up their mentoring session to tell Quinn that her girl is a sociopathic laxative-pusher. She discovered it when she was rifling through Marley’s bag (just another privilege of mentorship!) during rehearsals. They way Quinn and Santana express their love and concern for one another is by shouting horrible things that are all very true. They’re the only people with balls big enough to say the things that need to be said, but they’re both so goddamn terrified of being vulnerable for five seconds that they can only achieve their love through hollering. Quinn says she went to “Jodie Foster’s clambake” earlier this semester, which is an obvious euphemism for finally giving in to her bi-curious side, and, in fact, I will now be saying “Jodie Foster’s clambake” when referring to all lesbian sex acts. Also, she is dating a 35-year-old professor who smokes a pipe and is married, because of course she is. Santana says Quinn is still letting men define her, Quinn says Santana is hiding in Kentucky because she’s too scared to follow her dreams, Santana calls Quinn’s lover “Professor Patches,” Quinn slaps Santana, Santana slaps Quinn, Brittany walks in and shouts, “Hey, what are you guys doing!” like she’s had to do about a billion times before. Santana is more than a little turned on when she muses that Quinn was always a genius slapper.
Speaking of women who are defined by men, Rachel is helping Brody prepare a turkey for cooking at the Hummelberry loft. He asks Rachel to rub her hands all over the cold turkey flesh while he rubs his hands all over the cold turkey flesh and even though she is a professed vegan, the way they’re messaging that dead animal skin together is really turning her on. Kurt is grossed out in more ways than one, so he tells them to cut it out. Because it is raining and also it is Thanksgiving and also we haven’t seen SJP walking in the rain with an umbrella through the mad streets of Manhattan yet, she cannot find a cab. So her guests arrive a little bit early and those guests are Shangela! And Ryan Heffington! It’s about time this show had some proper drag queens! They use their powers to teleport Isabelle right into the loft, and then they break out with a Scissor Sisters/Promises Promises mash-up of “Let’s Have a Kiki” and “Turkey Lurkey Time.” It’s like one of those times when you’re watching Glee like an inside joke between you and every gay person on earth, while all your straight friends just gawk at the screen and wonder when that actual fuck is happening. It’s a real good time, is what I am saying. A real good time. It warmed me up in my bones. Sectionals time! Marley is gnawing on a Tic Tac in the bathroom and moaning about how hungry she is, but also she is just glad to fit into her dress, which, let me say it again: MARLEY, ALL THE CLOTHES IN YOUR CLOSET STILL FIT EXACTLY THE SAME! USE YOUR BRAIN, DUMMY! The New New Directions pray that this performance will lead them to the top of the mountain with Old New Directions and that none of them will keel over and die right on the stage.
The Warblers are up first and of course they get to perform two songs. The main thing you need to know is that Hunter Clarington wants you to blow his whistle, baby. I think he means oral sex, though, you guys. I think he wants you to go to Jodie Foster’s clambake with him. The Warblers are flawless, as always, even though they are evil. They are followed by the Rosedale Menonites, who perform a medley of “Over The River And Through The Wood” and “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round The Mountain,” and it’s one of those songs that, like, if Blaine is singing it, you think he’s talking about blowing his whistle, but when the Rosedale Menonites are singing it, it sounds like they’re talking about an actual forest and an actual mountain. Backstage, Blaine’s phone rings. And it is Kurt. He has climbed out onto the fire escape in the cold in the rain to call Blaine because no matter how warm and wonderful it is inside his loft right now, he is still cold on his insides because of the hobbit-shaped hole in his heart. At first, he just wants to accept Blaine’s apology and move on with his life, like Isabelle told him was the grown-up thing to do. But then he thinks wishing Blaine luck at Sectionals is also the grown-up thing to do. But then once he starts talking, he can’t stop, because just the knowledge of Blaine on the other end of the phone is making him feel whole and alive again, and so he invites him to go ice skating at Christmas, invites him to have a real conversation with him about their lives and their future, invites him to laugh with him because he’s still scared of that mouse he saw one time at Lima Bean. Blaine’s face lights up like Christmas and he blurts out that he loves Kurt so much, and Kurt cannot help himself. He says he loves Blaine too. They stay on the line just long enough to let the other one know they never, ever want to hang up. When Kurt crawls back inside the window, Isabelle sees him. She strides across the room in three steps and wraps him up in her arms. (Anti-Hudson. Anti-Schuester.)
Right. So. Gangnam Style. It’s a Korean ditty and Tina gets a chance to sing for the first time in like three years and that strikes me as pretty racist. But New Directions does it well. Sam is amazing and so is Sugar. And Brittany. And Blaine. They’re all pretty great and the audience is really feeling it. When they finish, it’s all cheers! cheers! cheers! And then Marley Rose inhales her last breath and drops dead on stage.
RIP New Rachel. Maybe Tina will get a chance to sing the songs usually reserved for white people now.
An enormous thank you to my screencapping partner Lindsay (@ScenicPenguin), who never sleeps and will miss Marley most of all.
