Previously on Glee, the director of the Broadway revival of Funny Girl fainted almost dead away when he found out that McKinley High School produced both Rachel Berry and Santana Lopez, and so he hired the latter to be the former’s understudy, a decision that resulted in a fisticuffs for the ages. Kurt and Starchild drank awesome Jell-O shooters and listened to awesome music and sat around soaking up each other’s awesomeness. And Artie and Tina‘s battle for valedictorian resulted in Blaine Warbler being named valedictorian. On her day off, Rachel is rehearsing for 14 hours with a full band. She is delighted when Elliott shows up with her dry cleaning and a green tea and a key to his apartment – where she lives now, in his bedroom, while he sleeps in the bathtub with a towel for a blanket – because she’s sure he wants to spend an entire day watching her perform Funny Girl six times in a row. She calls him her new “best gay” and he’s like, “Dude, that shit’s been offensive since the first time Carrie Bradshaw conjured it into existence with her mouth. I’m not your pet monkey. And I’m not your personal assistant either, P.S.” She likes his style. She also likes his voice. They duet on “Barracuda” and even the Wilson sisters are impressed.
Elliott explains for the first of many times that it’s all about the music and the friendship for him, but Rachel refuses to listen.
Santana refuses to listen, too. She is at home putting in her own hair extensions, standing in front of a giant poster of her Yeast-I-Stat ad campaign. It’s the most Santana thing you’ve ever seen. Like of all possible combinations of Santana-ness, the only thing that would make this more Santana is if Brittany was lounging nearby feeding Lord Tubbington a plate of ribs. When she hears the door open, she thinks it’s Kurt, but actually it’s Elliott who has come to collect some more of Rachel’s things. Santana tells him she’s a master at destroying Rachel Berry, and with this new weave she’s going to be 84 percent more effective.
The longer she monologues, the wider his eyeballs get. It’s actually pretty hilarious to see a new/normal person reacting to the fullness of Rachel and Santana’s whole deal. He’s like, “Y’all sound like a couple of psychos, to be honest.” And Santana is like, “Duh, we are a couple of psychos. We just look like we do and sound like we do, so no one really questions it.” She wears him down with her mania until she finally finds the chink in his exceedingly sexy skin armor: He needs a roommate because he needs some money. Santana says if it’s money Elliott needs, it’s money Aunty Snix has.
(Best actual line of dialogue: “I’m here for Rachel’s sheet music. Do you know where she keeps it?” “Up her butt.”)
Santana hires Elliott to run her lines with her at the diner, so of course Rachel loses her mind when she sees them palling around, sitting in her section, requesting her presence. It’s so satisfying to watch Lea Michelle and Naya Rivera play off each other like this, huh? They were just babies when we first met them, soft-volleying everything like an egg toss and now they’re like one of those ferocious Olympic ping-pong matches. They shout about who is better and who will always be better. Elliott’s eyes are seriously about to bug right out of his head at this point, but Kurt is just sitting in the background folding napkins, yawning.
The whole thing devolves into a diva-off set to the tune of “Gloria.” Elliott performs with them as the “judge,” but again, he just wants to get his sang on! He doesn’t need this! He tells them he’s not choosing between them! What he should tell them is that their main problem is they want to rip off each other’s clothes, so maybe making out is a good step in the direction of making up. But he doesn’t do that. He yells at them both and also at Kurt a little bit and skulks off, and while I appreciate very much his no-drama approach to life, you are not even trying to tell me that a dude named “Starchild” who owns multiple suits and top hats made of sequins is this adverse to shenanigans.
Kurt gives Rachel and Santana one last chance to call a truce, but when his mediation devolves into another zing-fest, he kicks them out of his band. Pamela Lansbury is over! There’s a new band in town and it’s him and Dani and Elliott and deal with it! He invites them to the first show but they don’t hear him over the sound of their clashing wit and sexiness, and the squirrels in Santana’s hair.
At the show, Kurt disappoints the crowd by telling them Pamela Lansbury has disbanded. (Hilariously, someone actually yells, “WHAT?!?”) He rambles for a few minutes about how this trio isn’t the trio he envisioned himself in just a year ago, but when life gives you lemons, you make a new band with Adam Lambert and Demi Lovato. They look fly as hell in their tuxes and they sound so good. When the audience goes bonkers after their first song, Rachel and Santana look at each other like, “Wait, so people clap for performances that don’t include either of us?” It’s a startling realization.
The next day:
Santana: Are you rifling through my panty drawer, lezzer? Rachel: Yes, but only because it used to be my scented candle drawer, which reminds me: I don’t have any friends. Santana: Yeah, me either. I mean, even in high school we didn’t even have any friends who were girls. I was in love with Brittany, so that doesn’t count. I think there was another girl in New Directions – Xena? Gina? – but mostly we all fought over boys and solos. Rachel: Truly it is one of this show’s continued failings that it won’t let two women form a healthy relationship with one another.Pamela Lansbury reunites in the Hummelpezberry loft, on accident. Everybody feels weird, including Dani who feels bad for not feeling bad that Kurt kicked Santana out of the band. Elliott just wants everyone to get along, so they can bake cupcakes win rainbows and curry. Rachel rolls her eyes at him and Santana calls him a traitor, before kissing Dani and bouncing right behind Rachel.Santana: That and the fact that Quinn lives an hour away, but where is she? Rachel: But like why did you go after my thing? Santana: Because I was drunk and we were at a wedding and I was so lovesick over Britt-oh, you mean your Broadway thing? You would have done the same to me, dude. Rachel: Fair enough, I guess. One Three Hill: Honeys! We’re home!
At McKinley High School, Tina and Artie and Sam and Blaine continue their slow-mo crab walk into the third year of the final months of their senior year, and with two weeks to go until Nationals, they decide it is time to start practicing for Nationals. I’m just joshin’ ya. Of course they’re not prepping for the biggest show choir competition in America; their teacher is busy having sex with his wife in the faculty bathroom. Becky hears a lot of thrashing and smashing in there, so she opens up the door and lets out such a yelp.
Sue summons Emma and Mr. Schue to her office where they confess that they’re doing it all over the school because they’re trying to get pregnant. Nobody on earth Jane Lynches like Jane Lynch. Her face. She whispers, “Oh. God. Why?” Also she says she understands that pheromones cause some women to want to “copulate with emotionally stunted man-children, with butt-chins, who befriend teenagers, and can’t rap” but why couldn’t they just wait until they got home? I don’t remember exactly when Sue became the voice of Tumblr, but it really is a small glory. Becky is scarred for life and so am I when Emma apologizes again but says she has to go lie down in her office with her feet in the air because they were “able to achieve emission.”
In the hallway, Tina and Blaine and Sam break it down with some Destiny’s Child for the reason that it’s always the right time to break it down with some Destiny’s Child. Mr. Schue interrupts their fun, all, “I, too, enjoy jumpin’ jumpin’ with ballers whose pockets are full-grown, but I don’t want you to lose sight of the fact that the fifth year of your senior year is drawing to a close, so cherish these moments.” Tina is overcome with nostalgic vapors, so Blaine and Sam rush to her aid while side-eyeballing Mr. Schue. They also push Artie out of the senior hug circle because he got a storyline last week.
When Sam and Blaine’s caps and gowns arrive, Blaine insists that they try them on, because what if his isn’t so tight that his junk is strangled, the way he likes his pants? He’ll have to have that thing tailored immediately! Tina sees them in their graduation gear and melts down again. Sam’s idea of comfort is to promise her one Vine of his impressions every week for the rest of his life in exchange for the same number of boob Vines from her. Tina is kind of shocked to hear that a teenage boy is interested in her rack because she spent seven of the last ten years of her senior year being in love with a gay guy. Blaine’s idea of comfort is to organize a school-wide senior lock-in so they can make some last-second memories before they all move into the same apartment in Brooklyn.
Emma chases down Will in the teacher’s lounge and tells him she can’t feel any babies in her belly dancing the Samba and singing “La Cucaracha” while wearing a tiny sombrero, so she guesses she’s not pregnant. He’s like, “For real? And you don’t feel like anyone is in there patronizing your uterus or anything? Like even just tiny, fetus-sized condescension radiating near your Fallopian tubes?” She does not, and so his bun is not in her oven. He knew she’d fail him this way, so he’s already made an appointment with a fertility doctor. Emma is not impressed. She walks away in a sad cloud of sadness. Coach Beiste has some sex advice involving a farm animal analogy and Sue has some sex advice involving a story about Kenny G and Michael Bolton. Sue’s is grosser, believe it or not. Basically, they advise Will not to do what he always does and seize control of this situation and squeeze all the life out of it like a fun-sponge.
He doesn’t know another way to be, but he says he’ll try.
Blaine’s lock-in gets the kibosh from Sue because of “let’s say Obamacare,” a thing that sends Tina careening to the floor in a heaving, sobbing mess for the third time today. She only finds the strength to stand up and keep going because Blaine promises they’ll just break into the school anyway and Sam says more nice things about her tits.
If you don’t think Blaine Warbler wears his Nightbird outfit to climb into an open window at McKinley High in the middle of the night, you don’t know shit about Blaine Warbler. He says it’s the last time he’ll get the chance to dress up like a superhero, like he’s not going to be cosplaying at Comic-Con for the rest of his life, like all the best people do. After Tina and Sam also crash through the window, they make memories that will last for eternity while singing Simple Minds‘ “Don’t You (Forget About Me).” Because zooming around the hall in a rolly chair is definitely more unforgettable than the national accolades they’ve garnered during their 13-year senior year tenure.
Becky knew these goons were going to stage a lock-in even without Sue’s permission, just like she knew they were going to end up in the theater eventually, so she has created an elaborate game of Twister for them on stage. Tina and Sam skedaddle to a dark classroom to talk some more about her boobies, but Blaine agrees to hang out with Becky for a while, a decision he immediately regrets because she of course turns Twister into a game of psychological torture. Every time you fall over, you have to chug an 11-hour energy drink. It’s like a high-stakes game of The Floor Is Lava because drinking more than one of something called “11-hour” energy will 100 percent make your heart explode.
When Blaine finally escapes, he finds Tina and Sam making out in the sloppiest way you can imagine, and he feels so grossed out and so left out that he storms right out.
Will decides the best way to take the pressure off of Emma, baby-wise, is to go ahead and build a nursery. She’s into it, even though it involves a lot of paint splattering all over the place. They sing “Danny’s Song” and eat popcorn and watch movies and cuddle and – I actually don’t understand why they’re doing this. Jayma Mays is definitely leaving the show and Will is definitely going to New York, so I mean, I guess they’re just going to get her pregnant and then do the most emotionally exploitative thing ever to get him out of Lima? You can’t even believe this show for five seconds of sweetness!
At school the next day (the lock-in was on a week night?!) Blaine is still mad about Sam and Tina because not only did Becky almost kill him, but also he missed out on bumper bowling with Artie and Kitty (which he loves because of course he does). They apologize and explain that everyone has to make out with everyone else in glee club, as a right of passage, which is true, actually, and I’ll bet you fifty dollars that if you charted New Directions’ web of incest it would be more tangled than even The L Word‘s.
He doesn’t get it, because he, of course, is sexually fulfilled just shaking Kurt’s hand every once in a while, but he forgives them. And Artie forgives them. And they sing Wilson Phillips‘ “Hold On,” which is one of the top five songs in the history of recorded music and they sound pretty great. It almost makes you sad that the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of their senior year is coming to a close.
At Schuester’s Shack of Constant Condescension, Emma reveals that she is great with child. They hug and cry and I’ll bet you another fifty dollars this ends in the most gory way possible. “Will, it’s twins!” A meteor falls out of the sky and clunks Emma on the head, crushing her skull. “Will, it’s a boy!” A train crashes into the school building and flattens Emma like a tortilla right in her office. “Will, it’s a girl!” Flesh-eating bacteria sneak their way into Emma’s thrice-sterilized lunchbox, gnawing off all her skin by supper time. At her funeral, Will sings Alanis Morissette‘s “Ironic.” Don’t ya think?
Bonus secreencap:
Next week: Hollywood! Nationals! Trolleys! Mercedes Motherfucking Jones and a faux chihuahua!
