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“Glee” recap (5.14): The lost season 4 premiere

Previously on Glee, the alcoholic guardian angels of New Directions decided to set sail on a gay ol’ ship around the world, leaving the minstrels of McKinley High to fend for themselves against the laws of logic. Once Holly and April‘s curse was broken and time was restored, the tenth-year seniors of the glee club finally made the move to New York City, where Kurt‘s band was thriving and Rachel‘s Funny Girl was underway and Starchild was a bit of a sage and Santana and Brittany were welcome after their honeymoon. “Demi Lovato?” a reporter asked Ryan Murphy. “Demi Lovawho?” he replied.

Many months after breaking free from the endless winter of Lima, Ohio, Artie and Sam and Blaine have arrived in New York City in the throes of a polar vortex. (Seriously, I feel so terrible for all these actors every time they do a number outside in this episode; it was March of the Penguins-levels of cold here the week they were filming.) Luckily for everyone, the producers of Funny Girl are so grateful for Rachel’s hard work in their out of town pre-opening tour that they’ve decided to give her a town car for personal use, all hours of the day and night. She rides through the city singing “Downtown” and meets the gang in Washington Square Park. They hug and are happy, even though they’re freezing their tits off.

Here are some things you knew about Blaine Warbler without ever being told: He’s an all-night cuddler, he sleeps in boxers and a tank top and puts on leather loafers when he wakes up, which always happens the moment the first rays of sunlight trickle through the window, so he can make gourmet in-bed breakfasts for Kurt. Lemon and blueberry pancakes? Check. Fresh-pressed coffee? Check. The Arts/Fashion section of the Sunday Chronicle on a Wednesday? Check. It’s kind of the most adorable thing that a guy who wins all the solos and scholarships and academic honors and show choir trophies without trying tries full-time to make Kurt so happy. He walks him to school, carries his books to class, meets him for lunch, cooks him dinner, presses his clothes, crawls into bed with him at night and does all the stuff you read on A03 but will never, ever see (apparently).

Kurt wonders if they’re turning into a lesbian couple and Blaine laughs because they don’t have the same haircut yet, so no. They duet on “You Make Me Feel So Young” which involves delightful harmony and lots of waltzing and all the domestic things. Making the bed, picking out clothes, brushing their teeth, pillow fighting, grocery shopping, post-grocery shopping making out.

Well, almost. Sam bursts in and interrupts them before that last thing. It’s the final straw for Kurt. He tells Blaine that after months of couch-surfing, he’s got to kick out his bestie.

(I’ll bet you fifty American dollars that Kurt and Blaine touched and talked more in that five minutes than they have the rest of this whole season, combined. I think probably the reason they sent Brittany and Santana away this week after giving them two gloriously romantic episodes in a row is that if you combined all this and all that into a single hour of TV, marriage equality would suddenly just become legal in all the places in the all the world, simultaneously and without precursor, and an economic and quality-of-life boom with that global magnitude might knock the earth off its course around the sun.)

Artie is wheeling through Union Square when he gets mugged by a guy on crutches. The Ryan Murphy Special: minority on minority crime. He shouts for the guy to come back, that his laptop is in there, but it doesn’t work.

Sam is at home playing video games in the middle of the day for the 60th day in a row, so Blaine – who saved a bunny from traffic and helped a homeless man find a shelter and changed a tire for a taxi driver and tuned all the guitars at the music shop and gave directions to a group of tourists and taught a yoga class, all on the way home from walking Kurt to school – decides to have an intervention. They zoom off to Times Square to sing “Best Day of My Life” with a gaggle of street performers.

Blaine twirls an extra who looks like she’s in literal shock. Like one minute you’re walking up 42nd St. bitching at your mom and dad about how it’s too damn cold to be outside and they just had to sit on the uncovered top deck of the tour bus, and the next thing you know, Darren Criss is whirling you around in Times Square and you’re peeing yourself. That’s what her face looks like. Like a Saturday morning cereal commercial.

In mime class at NYADA (“And now we will stop to pick a flower, and in front of your eyes, the flower dies”), Kurt spies Blaine, who has gotten permission from Carmen Tibideaux to take this upper classman symposium with Kurt. In fact, he is in six of Kurt’s classes. The mime prof. is like, “And now you’re trapped together in a glass box with the person standing next to you, and the air likes his lungs best and so you will be dead within seconds.” Kurt is not amused. He becomes even less amused when Blaine wont stop futzing around with the Soda Stream machine back at the loft while Artie tries to tell the story of getting mugged.

Rachel orders hot water with lemon and Sam wants to talk about booking modeling jobs with his new haircut and Artie is so depressed about his laptop and Blaine is doing the soda bubbles and Kurt’s head is about to explode.

Kurt: Oh my god, you guys, just stop. Rachel: My thing should take precedence right now; Mr. Schue told me I’m the most important person in the world! Blaine: Wait, Mr. Schue told me I’m the most important person in the world. Sam: Uhhh, no. That’s what he told me. Artie: Excuse me, Mr. Schue said that to me.
Uh oh!

Kurt goes to Elliott to talk things through because Elliott has been blessed with the gift of radiating sexual energy perspective. Kurt was already freaking out about losing his autonomy, but then Blaine brought home a couch full of bed bugs last night and Kurt thinks it’s an omen for their doomed relationship. Elliot smiles at him, says, “You don’t do anything in half-measures, do you?” Kurt doesn’t understand the question and he won’t respond to it. The answer, of course, is in his every outfit, but that’s really neither here nor there at the moment. Elliot says maybe instead of tanking things with the love of his life, he should maybe just talk it out with Blaine and set some boundaries. They sing “Rockstar.” They sound amazing. The land of TV needs so many more best friendships between gay men. These two are a balm.

At the Hummelpezberry loft, Blaine tries to make things a little more Blummelpezberry by mapping out a workspace. Sam interrupts him to say he’s booked some modeling jobs with Bubble (butt-enhancing underoos) and will be moving out of Bushwick and into a house with 12 models like some kind of youth hostel where you can’t wear clothes. As soon as Sam bounces out, Kurt bounces in – and is horrified with what Blaine is doing to their loft. Standard first time living together blues. Whose place is it, really? Whose stuff is it, really? Who could host their own Bravo decorating show, really? Kurt invokes Elliot’s name and whoooo boy, Blaine does not like that one bit.

Have we ever gotten to see Blaine go on a jealous tirade before? I don’t think so. It’s amazing in its awkwardness. First, he busts into Elliot’s apartment without waiting for an invitation. Then, he spends five minutes explaining the etiquette of friending your friends’ fiances on Facebook and what kind of selfies are and are not appropriate for engaged dudes on Instagram. He yells about vampires and shampoo commercial hair and tattoos until he’s in Elliott’s face going, “I LOVE KURT! I LOVE KURT!” Elliot’s eyebrows are incredulous, but in a nice way. He hands Blaine a guitar to soothe him the way a body pillow would do and says Kurt is awesome, but he’s not into him, and more importantly, Kurt’s only got eyes in his heart for Blaine, whom he won’t ever shut up about, by the way. It’s all, “Blaine was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom this and Blaine is a Pulitzer finalist that” all day, every day.

Rachel decides that if she stops experiencing real New York at the age of 19 she won’t have any actual experiences to draw on for her future EGOT-ing, so she meets Artie at the Union Station subway stop, where he’s been sitting for like three days trying to work up the courage to ride the train again, and tells him she’ll use her ferocity to protect him from would-be muggers if he’ll never coddle her. He agrees. They sing “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” with a train full of those “IT’S SHOWTIME” performers that make everyone even grumpier on the way home from work. But miracle of miracles, they spot the guy who mugged Artie and with the help of Rachel’s pepper spray, Artie hoses him down and calls the cops and gets his laptop back.

Back at the loft, Kurt and Blaine decide to be 100 percent committed to each other in different apartments for a little while. Sam shows up and says he’s decided to move out of Model House because it’s all drugs and filming porn and no one understanding his impressions over there. And then, straight from heaven, Mercedes Jones descends and announces that she is going to east coast it for a while. Her label is even putting her up sweet brownstone with an extra bedroom, which she will, of course, be happy to rent out to Sam and Blaine. She tells Sam there’s not going to be any funny business in a way that indicates there will be plenty of funny business.

Rachel sings “People” while her buddies prepare for their soon-to-be weekly tradition of Monday night potluck. Kurt and Blaine hold hands and buy flowers. Artie explores the city with a smile on his face. Sam and Mercedes unpack. They meet up at the Hummelpezberry loft that night, happy and full of hope.

Last week I said that “New Directions” would have made a fine series finale, but I was wrong. “New Directions” would have made a fine season three finale and “New York, New York” would have made a fine season four premiere. Welcome to the Big Apple, you gays (and gay-adjacents). Concrete jungle. All-night waffle delivery.

Next week: Remember when Kurt got dumped in the dumpster at McKinley in the pilot? Yeah, that, but in the real world.

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