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“Glee” Episode 208 Recap: “That’s Why We Feed Them Glitter”

The Glee wedding episode’s been over for an hour, and I’m still staring at my computer, trying to figure out what happened and what I think about it.

The episode opens with Kurt, wearing some kind of Icelandic headgear that looks quite adorable on him, being dragged down the hall of McKinley High by his dad and Finn’s mom, Carol. They rush up to where Finn is standing by his locker.

Finn looks more bewildered than usual. “Is this one of those interventions?”

But no, it turns out Burt has just proposed to Carol. Kurt is squeeing over Carol’s ring, but Finn looks completely freaked out.

Kurt offers to plan the entire wedding. “I have a trunk full of wedding magazines hidden under my bed. I’m thinking of a russet and cognac theme — those are colors, Finn. Fall wedding colors.”

Burt warns Kurt to keep the budget low, because they’re going to be using all their savings on the honeymoon. “We’re gonna go to Waikiki,” he says proudly. “Stay at the hotel where they put up the stars of Lost.”

Carol notices Finn’s not saying anything, and Burt assures him they’re going to move into a new house, one where everybody has his own bedroom. He also tells Kurt that, when it comes to the wedding, he doesn’t care about the booze or the food, but he wants one heck of a band. “I’ve been eating right and I’ve been exercising, and I want to boogie at this wedding with Carol.” He calls him “Mr. Wedding Planner.”

Kurt’s up to the challenge, of course, and says he’s going to hire the New Directions band. “Long story short, you’re having a glee wedding.”

Burt and Carol aren’t the only ones planning a wedding. Becky Jackson is on the job — well, on the phone with her feet on the desk — in Sue‘s office, where there’s a stack of wedding invitations being stamped.

It all started, Sue tells us in voiceover, right after she does a segment of “How Sue ‘Cs’ It” on the local newscast. This one was on homelessness: “I just prefer to think of the homeless as outdoorsy. So shine on, urban campers; you smell like adventure.”

Rod, the Ted Baxter-esque anchor Sue used to date, announces his wedding to his co-anchor on the air. Sue goes nuts, and tries online dating at EDesperate.com, where she lists her interests as “Extreme taxidermy, tantric yelling and poking the elderly with pins.” There’s only one match for Sue Sylvester, however, and that’s Sue Sylvester. So she’s marrying herself.

And inviting the Obamas.

I have no idea if this is some kind of clever statement on same-sex marriage or just more adventures in the Sue-verse, but let’s just go with it.

Then we’re in the locker room, where Finn saunters up to Sam, who’s working out and showing off an impressive pair of arms. Sam tells Finn he’s gunning to get his position as quarterback back, and Finn says Coach Beiste won’t replace him as long as he’s winning.

“You can’t win every game,” Sam says, adding that he’s just on the cusp of being the most popular kid in school and he needs to be quarterback — to round out his resume, I guess.

Finn also digs at him about how “you can’t even get Quinn to be your girlfriend.”

“I’m working on that, too,” says Sam. Then they fist bump. I don’t know if this is male bonding or just weird.

Anyway, it sends Sam off after Quinn, where he drops to his knees, ring box in hand. He tells her that he loves her, but her response isn’t what he was hoping for.

“We’ve known each other six weeks,” Quinn says. “Stand up. You’re freaking me out.”

He tells her it’s a promise ring, and she answers, “What are you, six?”

But after Sam gives her equal parts “we’d be the star couple at the school” and “I’ll love and respect and cherish you always,” she tells him she’s not saying ‘no,’ just ‘maybe.'”

Then Kurt is standing at his open locker, beaming at the little male-female wedding cake topper under the watchful gaze of Blaine’s photo, the word “Courage” in letters cut out of magazines pasted underneath. Finn walks up and says he doesn’t really understand the wedding plan, especially the part where they release 300 black doves indoors.

“Won’t that get kind of messy?” he asks

“That’s why we feed them glitter, Finn,” Kurt answers. I mean, duh!

Thus reassured, Finn asks for more details on his role in the wedding, and Kurt reels off a long list of activities, from giving his mother away (“Incredibly creepy,” Finn notes) to doing a mother-son dance.

Finn says he doesn’t think that’s a very good idea, due to the fact that he can’t dance, and Kurt looks exasperated.

“Trust me, Finn,” he says. “I’ve been planning weddings since I was two. My Power Rangers got married and divorced in so many combinations they were like Fleetwood Mac.”

That’s all it took to convince him. “I guess if I could pull this off, it would make seem like a cool stud.”

Finn walks off, and Kurt takes his wedding couple and shuts the locker door — and there’s Dave Karofsky, oozing threat and creepiness from every pore.

He stands way, way too close to Kurt.

“I don’t want you near me,” Kurt says, voice trembling. But Karofsky doesn’t care, just pokes his finger into Kurt’s chest and presses as hard as he can as the background music grows more ominous. And then he snatches his finger back and grabs the little wedding couple.

“Can I have this?” he asks, his voice both silky and menacing. He doesn’t wait for Kurt to answer, just says, “Thanks,” and walks off. It’s absolutely terrifying, and Kurt looks absolutely terrified.

Mr. Schuester sees him, and scurries over. “Are you okay?”

Kurt doesn’t even look at him, just shakes his head.

Mr. Schue takes him to the principal’s office. Sue (still principal) isn’t totally unsympathetic, but insists her hands are tied because Karofsky didn’t physically hurt Kurt.

Mr. Schue objects, saying that he pushed Kurt into the lockers all the time.

“I can’t expel a kid for pushing you into the lockers. He’ll just say, ‘I didn’t push him. I tripped.’ That excuse works like a charm. I use it all the time.”

“He didn’t shove me this time,” Kurt says. “He just terrified me.”

“Lady,” Sue says, “I can’t suspend a student because he scares you. High school is a dry run for the rest of your life. It’s rough. People can be mean.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Mr. Schuester says.

Sue explains that she was bullied, and her handi-capable sister was the object of cruelty. “I know very well how cruel people can be. Was it difficult? Yes. Did it make me stronger? You bet.”

Kurt interrupts. “It’s the fear that’s the worst. I never know when it’s coming. I can’t concentrate. I don’t feel like I’m part of the school at all. I feel like I’m in a horror movie where this creature follows me around terrifying me, and there’s nothing I can do about it? You don’t know what’s going on in this kid’s head. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

At this point, I almost thought he was going to tell them the whole story, but he backs down. “Maybe I’m over-reacting.”

“Lady,” Sue says, “If this kid lays a finger on you, you come straight to me and I’ll expel him faster than a Thai takeout place can re-pack a delivery order. But until that happens, and I’m genuinely sorry to say this, there’s nothing legally I and the school board can do.”

Kurt leaves with Mr. Schue, but he stops at the door and turns back to Sue. “You know, when you call me ‘Lady,’ that’s bullying. And it’s really hurtful.”

“I’m sorry,” Sue says, unruffled. “I thought that was your name. As an apology, I’ll allow you to choose from the following nicknames: Gelfling, Porcelain, or Tickle-me-dough-face.” (I’m not sure I got that first one right.)

“I guess I’ll go with Porcelain,” Kurt says.

“Damn,” responds Sue. “I totally wanted Tickle-me-dough-face.”

I can’t really figure out what I think about this whole scene. Obviously, Kurt is on his own with this problem. But there’s a softness and some kind of mutual connection between Sue and Kurt here, too. Also, when he said it was like a horror movie and he never knew when it was going to happen next, I cried. I honestly did, and so did half of Twitter.

Anyway, Rachel has decided to take charge of this whole bullying problem. Looking super-hot in a little gold and black outfit, she’s spearheading a “glee girls with boyfriends on the football team” movement to get Karofsky to back off of Kurt.

She’s worried about Kurt, who she says is “losing weight, and not in a good way; he’s barely even fighting me for solos anymore.” I guess we’re supposed to understand from this that some time has passed, and things haven’t changed.

“We’re all lucky enough to have boyfriends on the football team,” Rachel goes on. “I say we band together and demand that they confront Karofsky.”

Quinn objects that she’s not dating Sam, and that Rachael just set the feminist movement back 50 years. They’re arguing when Tina leans across Quinn and asks Brittany, “I’m confused. Are you and Artie officially dating now?”

“Deal with it,” Brittany says. And that loud shrieking sound you heard is every lesbian in teevee land screaming, “NOOOOOOO.”

Then Brittany lowers her voice and asks Tina, “When you guys were fooling around, did he ever like just lie there?”

Right on cue, Santana walks in, asking why no one told her there was a “glee girls meeting.”

Rachel, who for some reason is being snotty to Santana in this episode, says it’s only for girls with a boyfriend on the football team. Santana says she’s dating Puck.

“You’re getting naked with Puckerman,” Quinn corrects her. And Tina mentions that he’s on probation and will get sent back to juvie if he gets into a fight.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Rachel says pointedly.

Santana flounces out. “You’re so on my list, dwarf.” 

Rachel then pings all my foreshadowing buttons and says that if anything happens to Kurt they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves.

Meanwhile, Sue’s meeting with her wedding planner, who can’t wrap her brain around the fact that not only is Sue marrying herself, she’s officiating at the ceremony. Just as Sue is firing her, Sue’s mother, Doris (Carol Burnett!), walks in.

Doris insults the wedding planner, who flees, then takes a few digs at Sue, who blurts out, “Mom! What are you doing here?”

“Good news, Suze,” she says. “We caught the last Nazi.” Seems Doris and, until his death, Sue’s father, were off hunting Nazis for 30 years, without once seeing their daughters. And now Doris wants to sing at Sue’s wedding, even though she thinks it’s ridiculous.

I am not a big Carol Burnett fan, so those of you who are can expand on this scene in the comments.

Back in the hallways, Rachel is getting nowhere with Finn, who thinks that confronting Karofsky will result in him losing his position as quarterback.

“Are you saying being quarterback is more important to you than helping out the kid who’s going to be your stepbrother?”

“We both know I can help him more if I stay on top,” he rationalizes. “Kurt’s gonna be fine. Rachel, I’m sorry. I want to, but I can’t.”

“I’ve never been so disappointed in you before,” Rachel says, and walks off.

Mike and Artie didn’t disappoint anyone, though. They confront Karofsky in the locker room, demanding he leave Kurt alone. Karofsky refers to Kurt as a “homo,” and attacks Mike and Artie, knocking them to the ground and overturning Artie’s wheelchair.

Sam leaps to their defense, and is getting pummeled pretty hard by Karofsky when Coach Beiste comes in and breaks it up. I honestly thought something would come out now about the harassment, and that maybe she’d be just the person to do something about it, but no. We just cut to one of the 45,000 commercials they aired during this episode.

Oh, and Puck stood by and observed the whole thing without saying a word. What a guy.

Next up is a super-creepy scene where all the girls are fawning over their big, strong, injured guys. And Puck says, “You have no idea how hard it was for me not to jump into that beat-down.” Santana asks where Finn was, and says he was out on the field when it happened.

Mercedes, who has been pretty absent in this episode so far, says that it shouldn’t have gone down without Finn. (What did she want him to do, explode Dave from outside the building with a psychic death ray?)

Kurt says it wasn’t Finn’s problem, or anyone’s but his, but he thanks them all anyway, “especially Sam.” Mr. Schuester comes in and asks what happens, while Finn clearly struggles with feelings of guilt.

In the auditorium, Sue is waiting to practice the wedding song her mom offered to sing for her, but Mom’s late. When she finally gets there, she shares her belief that Will is hot, and also that she doesn’t think Sue appreciates the sacrifices she made to be a famous Nazi hunter.

Mother and daughter fight out their past history while singing the song “Ohio” from the musical Wonderful Town. Again, I’ll have to let the Carol Burnett fans do this scene justice, because it left me stone cold. I couldn’t wait for it to end.

What we got when it did was worth the wait: Kurt giving his dad and Finn dance lessons. Kurt’s totally blasé about the fact that he’s dancing with his father, and he has that same attitude when it’s Finn’s turn — a nice change from last year’s unrequited puppy-love-bordering-on-stalking.

Finn, however, isn’t as relaxed as Kurt, and wants the door closed before he’ll dance with him. But just as Finn’s putting out his hand to dance with Kurt, Karofsky walks by and makes a limp-wristed gesture at the door.

“What the hell was that?” Burt says, pissed off.

Kurt tries to brush it off. “It was nothing, Dad.”

“That’s not nothing, that guy was making fun of you. What the hell’s his name?”

Kurt doesn’t say anything, and Finn locks eyes with him. “Tell him, Kurt.”

Burt’s really angry now. “Tell me what?”

Finn’s implacable (finally). “Tell him, or I will.”

Kurt breaks. “His name’s Dave Karofsky. “He’s been … harassing me for a few weeks now.”

Burt isn’t satisfied. “Harassing you how?”

“Shoving me, and giving me a hard time.”

“There’s more. There’s something else you’re not telling me.”

“He threatened to kill me.”

Burt flies out of the room while Finn says, “What?”, clearly shocked. Then they both run after Burt, who has Karofsky slammed up against a wall.

“You like picking on people? Why don’t you try me?”

“Please, you’re sick,” Kurt pleads, while Finn pulls Burt off Dave.

Burt stares at Finn. “What the hell have you been doing while this going on, huh?”

Finn looks gutted.

In Sue’s office, presumably the next day, Burt and Kurt are there with Karofsky and his father, Paul, who bears an eerie resemblance to Paul Krugman.

Burt is furious that Dave threatened Kurt’s life, and even Paul seems to believe there’s some fire behind the smoke. He points out that Dave’s been acting strangely at home for several weeks, and asks why Kurt would make the story up.

“Maybe he likes me,” Dave says, and denies everything.

Kurt says that Dave threatened to kill him if he told, but when Sue pressed to know what he was being threatened not to tell, Kurt, with an odd glance at Dave, says, “That he was picking on me.”

When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe it. Why the hell would Kurt protect Dave? As I watched it the second time to do the recap, I thought, no, I bet he thought no one would believe him, and that Dave might well do just what he’d threatened to do if he told. I’m not sure which one of those is right.

Sue, however, believes Kurt’s story, and expels Dave for threatening his life. It’s a proud Sue Sylvester moment, and even Dave’s father seems happy with the outcome.

And it’s the day of the wedding. Finn is having trouble with his tie, and Santana, flowers in her hair, helps him with it. She calls him “Frankenteen,” which is just what he is. She also encourages him to recharge his coolness quotient by admitting he had sex with her the year before, but he doesn’t want to hurt Rachel, who thinks he’s still a virgin.

Santana threatens to tell “the dwarf” herself, but when Rachel comes in, she doesn’t.

Glee does its own version of the famous “JK Wedding Dance” video, set to the Bruno Mars song “Marry You.”

After Finn and Rachel get things going, Sam and Quinn dance down the aisle, followed by Kurt and Mercedes doing the tango. Brittany pushes Artie, and Puck and Santana dance on in, but then Brittany and Santana are dancing together, twining long ribbons as part of their moves. Sigh … please, Ryan Murphy, no more Barfie. Give us our Brittana.

Anyway, Mike and Tina dance on down, followed by Burt, who totally cracks me up with his dancing, then Carol — and they get a standing ovation, but all I’m really noticing is that there won’t be any prayer, at Kurt’s request, and Brittany and Santana are being all adorable in the background.

I’m not sure why Burt and Carol’s vows are like a tribute to Kurt, but okay. It’s their wedding. And their vows are very funny and moving at the same time.

Although when Carol was talking about love, Santana seemed really upset, almost like she was crying. And I couldn’t help thinking about how in this episode she described herself as “dating” Puck, but Quinn said they were just having sex. And she was all about trying to get Finn to date her again, even though she clearly has no interest in him as a person whatsoever. So yeah, tell me: What’s going on in Santana’s mind about Brittany?

I can’t decide if we’re getting jerked around and what we’ve gotten of Brittana is all we’re going to get, or if this is all going somewhere, or if I’m just imagining the whole subtext. And I’m also thinking about how since it’s 15 years post-Xena, why are we still settling for subtext? Can I has grown-up teevee girl/girl relationships now please?

Mr. Schue sings the marimba song “Sway,” which I guess was somewhat recently covered by Michael Buble but is an old dance floor standard. Their dance is super-sweet. I love them and their straight love.

Finn gives the toast, and it’s also all about Kurt. Which is just bizarre. And he talks about the way “we,” meaning the McKinley High students, give couples “shipper names,” like Finchel, and he and Kurt are now “Furt.” It’s always kind of cute when the show acknowledges fandom, even if the whole thing’s a bit bizarre.

Then Finn launches into another Bruno Mars song, “Just the Way You Are,” which he sings to Kurt. Then he holds out his arms and they do a little bit of very bad and awkward ballroom dancing together, and then the whole glee club and the happy couple join them on the floor. Rachel and Mercedes dance together while their guys are otherwise occupied, although everyone reverts to opposite-sex coupledom after a couple of minutes.

Sue’s sister, Jeannie, and their mom are at the rehearsal for Sue’s wedding — her dress is an awesome track suit wedding gown.

Sue, as officiant, intones, “By the power vested in me by a website. I hereby pronounce you Sue and Sue. You may kiss yourself.”

Doris goes off on her daughters, who band together and say they’ve become a family without her. Sue goes on to say her mom is a bully and she’s not welcome at her wedding.

Back at McKinley, turns out Quinn’s broken into Sam’s locker with a nail file and got his ring. So they’re together now.

And the school board decided to send Dave Karofsky back to McKinley, because there were no witnesses to this threat against Kurt. What the… ? Really?

However, the school board president did apparently administer a verbal warning to Karofsky. How comforting.

Sue tells Kurt she’s resigning as principal in protest, and she’s doing to be a pair of eyes in the hall, watching out for Kurt’s safety. But he says he’s living in terror. Oh, Kurt. It annoyed me how the wedding was all about you, but all is forgiven and I just want to buy you an ice cream cone.

Mr. Schuester is all hot on getting the club to work on their Sectionals numbers, which they haven’t even chosen yet even though the competition is one week away. Obviously they’re going to win or the season is over, but they could at least act like they’re sweating it.

Mr. Schue says he has an idea for a solo for Kurt, but Kurt says he wants to make an announcement.

He thanks everyone for their support, especially Finn, saying it’s wonderful to have great friends and a true brother. But he’s transferring to Dalton Academy immediately, using Burt and Carol’s honeymoon money to pay the tuition. “Karofsky’s coming back tomorrow, which means I’m not.”

Santana makes a hand gesture I can’t interpret but that seemed to carry some sense of distress. Everyone is horrified, and they offer to protect Kurt. Puck says they’ll form a perimeter like the Secret Service. Kurt thanks them again, but says only a “zero tolerance no bullying policy” like the one at Dalton can keep him safe.

There’s a very tender albeit silent moment with Mercedes, and then Rachel asks, distraught, if he’ll be competing against them at sectionals. And then he leaves, tears in his eyes.

Next week: Kurt’s in a Dalton blazer, and New Directions goes to Sectionals. And Santana covers Amy Winehouse covering Zutons! (You can check out some gorgeous promo images from next week’s episode at gleeforum.com.)

And here are our favorite #gaysharks Tweets of the week!

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