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“Glee” recap (5.06): High School Bitches

Previously on Glee, all the awesome people in Lima, OH started migrating away from Lima, OH-only to be replaced by bots containing echos of their personalities. Mr. Schue went on the most inexplicable crusades for the grossest shit (the right to twerk with his students, just for an example), and not even Principal Sue Sylvester’s death glare could make him shut it down. Fed up with Marley’s disinterest in his boners, Jake got his hanky-panky on with Bree on her letter jacket under the bleachers, and so Marley climbed up on top of a literal wrecking ball and smashed some bricks through some windows and broke up with him. Also, Kurt and Blaine got engaged and never saw one another again for the rest of their lives. Principal Sue hosts a McKinley High School career fair and excludes singing and dancing from everyone’s future, but if Will Schuester wants to stand on a stool and demonstrate what a career in The Arts looks like by popping that grown-man ass up and down all afternoon, she’s cool with that. Will, however, has a better idea: He will use Sue’s dismissiveness to teach a lesson about “a goofy-looking kid who struggled for years” and became one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Yes, it’s BJ week. And before Sam and Blaine hop into that magical subway portal that connects McKinley High to Bushwick, NY, they perform a BJ together. Just kidding, everyone. It’s not real BJs. Boys can’t even kiss on this show. It’s a Billy Joel song they sing together: “Movin’ Out,” which climaxes with them nearly getting murdered on an MTA bus because of sing-shouting in commuters’ faces and ends with them piling into the Hummelpezberry loft for a giant group hug.

Now, put a pin in that because we’re going back to Lima.

Artie’s been doing some thinking about Becky-which she knows, duh, because clearly he’s been in love with her since kindergarten-and has decided to help her realize her dreams of attending college. Sue’s not feeling it, like at all, so Artie asks Becky’s parents for permission to take her on a road trip to Cincinnati. He sings “Honesty” to her, because nothing makes a girl on this show change their mind about a thing like singing to her, and finally Sue relents and gives her blessing. In one way, this is just another classic example of Glee sending in a straight white guy to fix the problems of a minority student, but in another way, Artie also is handicapable, so it’s much more palatable. He actually knows what it’s like to be afraid to move away from what’s comfortable because of being different. And Kevin McHale’s voice is delicious, as always, so that’s a plus.

They hit up the University of Cincinnati, where a group of students with Down Syndrome are participating in a life skills class, and while a gifted Beckretary like Becky probably doesn’t need this class, she fits right in with the other students, makes them laugh, gets her flirt on with the cutest boy. Becky really loves it, but is afraid to tell Coach Sylvester because she doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. “Oh, Becky,” Sue says, “I don’t have any feelings.” And so Becky reveals that she’s outgrown the high school bitches at McKinley and wants to move away to college. Sue smiles at her so sweetly and starts helping her strike all the swear words out of her application essay.

Not only does McKinley High School boast a teleportation hub between Ohio and New York, it also possesses a time-traveling mechanism that allows students to jump between years. For example, Jake and Ryder and Marley have all traveled to 2012 to start their love triangle storyline over from the beginning. No one cared last time. Will they care this time? (No.) But, hey, it’s never the wrong time to talk about how you can’t “get back” the first time you have sex, so, sure, why not. Marley’s mom tells her to protect her v-card until a special boy comes along who deserves to swipe it, and Marley agrees that is a real good idea because you can’t “get back” your virginity. The person who wants to “take” her virginity, of course, is Jake, and the person who does not want to “take” her virginity is Ryder. How do I know? Because he sings “Innocent Man” at her to prove he is not an evil v-card swiper. (“Swiper, no swiping!”) Jake responds by clomping around and lifting weights and perving in the girls’ locker room, singing “My Life.”

Marley chooses a date with Ryder, who is innocent, which: Ha ha ha, tell it to Unique.

Despite Sue’s glorious protest-“Oh no, no, no! Don’t you dare! Over my dead body will you inexplicably shoehorn in another Billy Joel song just to punctuate one of your weekly lessons that inevitably veers off into an acrid barrage of angst and affirmation.”-Will decides to close out BJ week with a razzle-dazzle group performance of “You May Be Right.” (He may be crazy.)

After teleporting to Bushwick, Sam and Blaine follow Santana and Rachel and Kurt over to the Starlight Diner for some grilled cheese sandwiches and singing and dancing. Kurt gave them solid sightseeing advice, but they mostly visited campus visits all day. NYU and Columbia-because of course one of Blaine’s safety schools is an Ivy. Kurt says Blaine doesn’t need a backup plan because he’s the greatest singer in all the lands, and then he stands up on stage and says the same thing to everyone in the restaurant: “Now, you may not know the name Blaine Anderson yet, but you will soon when it’s lit up all over Broadway!”

Blaine performs “Piano Man” with Sam on harmonica, and everyone dances around the diner with candles, which seems dangerous and terrifying, to be honest. The crowd loves him. They cheer and cheer. Kurt rushes the stage and kisses Blaine full on the mouth with so much passion and pride. Heh. Jokes. Kurt stands on top of a counter, 500 feet away, and whoops and hollers in Blaine’s general direction.

Sam’s college interview does not go so well. He explains that he wants to study feminism because he supports women taking off their shirts and eating Cheerios off the floor, and when his interviewer doesn’t respond favorably to that for some reason, he gets even more nervous and starts babbling about how he loves diversity and has this black lady ever heard of Mercedes Jones? Maybe he should have tried to do an impression of someone being composed during an interview or something. Back at the loft, he reveals his secret dream to Rachel: He really wants to be a male model so he can sit on a bench and watch buses drive by with splash photos of him in his underwear, his “junk as big as a car.” Dreams are dreams, even car-sized junk dreams, so Rachel feeds Sam some dinner and sets up an impromptu photo shoot for him with a Funny Girl photographer.

He’s a businessman! He’s a cowboy! He’s an underwear model! He don’t need no Channing Tatum Former Male Stripper Grant!

Sam’s photos land him a meeting with the Bichette (Bee-shay?) Agency, headed by Tyra Banks, who is impressed by the fact that Sam’s “Midwestern eyes have the vacant stare of a cow’s.” She doesn’t have any of those on her roster, and if he loses 10-pounds-“You think I’m fat?” “Not in Kansas.”-she’ll be happy to sign him up for runway shows.

What about Blaine’s big audition? Weeelll, he kind of balks at it, telling Kurt with a sort of wide-eyed mania that maybe he wants to be either the worst thing in the world, another Mr. Schue, or something more legitimately noble, like a doctor, because when he was little, he loved to play Operation. Kurt pauses his inventory of Blaine’s traveling wardrobe (“For your audition let’s try to avoid shocking patterns and anything that says ‘Look at me, I’m the center of attention, and this primary color proves it!'”) and says he gets it, gets how Blaine is freaking out about moving to the most terrifying city in the world to pursue his greatest loves, but that he can’t shy away from his greatness because he’s afraid. And then Kurt Hummel says the sexist thing: “I can’t stop you from failing, but I can promise to make it safe if you do.”

A girl said that to me one time and I made out with her like, just, yeah, it’s none of your business, but whoo boy. That’s what Kurt and Blaine do too. Then they make out so very – wait, no. Another brother-hug.

Blaine’s audition happens off-screen, but we can be sure he nailed it. And as a thank you to the Hummelpezberry loft for hosting them, Blaine buys them a whole piano. Santana rolls her eyes, says, “I’m not gonna be able to survive if you and your Hagberry are gonna be tickling those ivories, belting out gay hits from Rent and Showboat all day!” But she returns with a hairbrush-microphone to belt out “Just the Way Your Are” with them. Rachel and Sam share a moment, and I love Sam, I do. I’ve nearly been beaten to death by mobs of angry lesbians for loving Sam. But Glee, listen to me when I tell you this: IT’S TOO SOON. Santana makes a face to beat all faces, and the song rolls on.

Psst, Fox, this right here is the show you are looking for. Not the Rachel/Sam thing. But the rest of it. This is it.

Next week: Puppets!

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