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“Glee” Episode 209 Recap: Brittany’s Got the Magic

Let’s start here: If you like the subtle, nuanced handling of dramatic themes, Glee isn’t your show. But if you like your message written large with its own band, spontaneous choreography, and Heather Morris dancing backup, well, then, welcome to my world.

And welcome to this week’s episode, “Special Education,” where Will asks the Bambi-eyed Emma to come to sectionals with him, and starts raving about his set list.

“Let me guess,” she says. “Finn and Rachel are going to do a ballad, followed by the kids doing a classic rock number where Mercedes will belt out the last, jaw-dropping note.”

He asks if she’s been rifling through his desk, but she says no. “It’s what you always do.” Then she tells him he has a whole constellation of stars, and maybe he should let them shine.

Will takes her words to heart and gives the leads in their opening number to the world’s blondest couple, Quinn and Sam, instead of Rachel and Finn. He also recognizes that Brittany’s and Mike Chang’s dance moves could not only win Sectionals, but possibly cure world hunger. 

Turns out they’re going to be center stage, leveraging one of New Directions’ advantages over the Hipsters and the Warblers, which is dancing. Seems Will thinks the Hipsters, a group of senior citizens who went back to high school to get their GEDs, are more likely to bust a hip than a move, and the Warblers, as is painfully obvious if you stop watching Blaine and check out his backup boys, all have sticks up their butts.

Then he breaks the news to the glee kids. Rachel flares up at him giving the ballad to “Ken and Barbie,” and Barbie bites back.

“You used to be just sort of unlikable,” Quinn says, “but now I pretty much feel like punching you every time you open your mouth.”

Santana’s had enough, too, and, just as we all saw coming, tells Rachel that she and Finn had sex last year. Mr. Schue shuts it all down by saying his plan is final and telling them to deal.

Kurt, in the meantime, has put on the Dalton Academy uniform (oh, Kurt, I will die without your little fashion shows!) and attended his first meeting of the Dalton Warblers. His glee (sorry) at being in a warm and welcoming environment is written all over his face.

The Warblers have a tradition: The newest member has to care for Pavarotti, the latest in a long line of canaries representing the spirit of the group.  “That bird is your voice,” they say.

Kurt assures them that he’ll take Pavarotti everywhere, including his job in a stray cat rescue group at the bottom of a coal mine.

Seems these boys don’t only have sticks up their butts when they’re dancing, because they do not laugh. They did not appreciate Kurt’s humor. Which will mean they won’t appreciate Kurt. And this, my friends, is not good.

And as quick as you can say, “Kurt Hummel is my favorite character,” they’re very politely shooting down Kurt’s ideas for giving their Sectionals set some “show biz pizzazz.” If Dalton Academy were a real place, I would go there now and be very, very intolerant of them.

Rachel and Finn are at couples counseling with Emma, where Rachel seems to think the main problem is that Santana is hotter than she is. Then Emma suggests Rachel should storm out. So she does, in a very subdued fashion.

Artie rolls into a classroom and sees Brittany standing in a corner, back to the room. He is puzzled.

“I’m paralyzed with fear,” she tells him. “I’ve been here since second period. I really have to pee.”

Brittany is terrified that she’ll let New Directions down at Sectionals.  “I can’t handle the pressure. I know I’m more talented than all of you. Britney Spears taught me that. It’s just… I can’t have whether we win or lose on my shoulders.”

Artie offers to let her use his magic comb, which will ensure she can’t lose. She calls him the best boyfriend ever. She kisses him. A thousand lesbians on Twitter suffer debilitating nausea and vomiting.

Meanwhile, Will is recruiting Puck to find them a member to replace Kurt, but Puck has not let go of Kurt’s absence. “Kurt’s gone,” Will says. “He’s not coming back.” (Will clearly does not have the same ability to see into the future that I do.) So Puck seals the deal with a fist bump.

Blaine catches up with Kurt on the stairway at Dalton Academy, and offers Kurt an audition for a solo at Sectionals as a consolation prize for getting shot down at the Warblers meeting.

Puck, who clearly does not have a well-developed sense of consequences, chooses the locker room for his glee club recruitment drive. Karofsky tries to shut him up, and Puck explodes.

“Don’t push me, Karofsky,” he says. “You forced my boy Kurt out of here, and juvie or no, you’re already first on my list to go all death star on.” (I would so pay to see that.)

Karofsky and his goon squad say they’re going to make an example out of Puck. “Not the face, not the face,” Puck yells as they swarm him.

The next day in the glee room, Santana’s wondering where Puck is. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday, and I need him to get me a chair.”

Mercedes wonders if he quit the club since Kurt left, and says that if they win, it will be because “we gave them Kurt.”

“If we lose,” says Brittany, “we should throw possums.”

Rachel comes in, a piece of duct tape ostentatiously over her mouth. She’s on a silence strike at losing her solo, which she breaks long enough to tell Mr. Schue he’s just threatened by her talent.

He goes off on her. “You have a terrible attitude, you’re a lousy sport, and it’s not okay anymore.”

Puck trails in, Lauren Zizes in tow. “I found him in the porta potty,” she says.

Flashback to his ordeal, pounding on the walls of the tipped-over john, shouting, “Buddha! Allah! Satan! Help me!” Apparently there are no atheists in foxholes and no Jews in porta-potties.

When after 24 hours Lauren pries open his plastic tomb, he gazes up at her. “Are you an angel?”

“Screw you,” she says, but gives him a reluctant hand out.

He asks her to join the glee club, and she agrees in exchange for some Cadbury eggs and “seven minutes in heaven with you.”

 “I have to say, she kinda rocked my world,” Puck admits, to Santana’s obvious horror.

Rachel sees Santana blow a kiss towards Finn, and then Santana hisses at her, “Did I tell you he bought me dinner after?” (I recall her saying something like, “You’d better get me a cheeseburger now,” but I digress.)

Puck walks up to a despondent Rachel and offers his sympathy, which she mistrusts. But he assures her that his porta-john ordeal turned him into a nicer guy. Well, sort of.

“I prayed. I promised him that if he got me out of there, I’d start being nicer to people. Then I realized there was no way I could do that, so I changed it to just Jews.”

He offers to help her deal with her problems with Finn, and offers her his arm. “Have you been working out?” she asks. “Your arm seems bigger.”

“It’s the steroids,” he says.

Tina, done up as a Goth cheerleader, accosts Artie in the hallway and tells him that Mike and Brittany aren’t just rehearsing their dance moves, they’re having an affair.

Artie says the fact that he hasn’t seen much of Brittany is understandable. “It’s Shark Week.” Plus Brittany and Mike are just rehearsing. But he looks worried as Tina stalks off.

Rachel’s sorrowfully poking at the piano keys in the auditorium when Kurt walks in. “I’ve been sitting in my car for over an hour, waiting for Karofsky to make a Mickey D’s run,” he tells her, then asks for her help with his Warblers solo audition.

“Why should I help you?” she says. “You’re our competition.”

“Because even though we hate each other, we’ve had our moments.” Awwww. “And no one knows how to hit a ballad like you. You are as brilliant and talented as you are irritating.”

She agrees, and asks him what he has in mind. Sadly, it’s Celine Dion, but fortunately, Rachel knocks that out of his head, and proposes — and demonstrates —  “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” as an alternative.

She starts to sing it, brilliantly and beltingly, and then we start cutting back and forth from her in the auditorium to Kurt at his audition. It’s one of my favorite Glee techniques, and it works extremely well here. And both of them nail the song.

Blaine, sadly, does not agree, and makes a gesture when Kurt is singing to tone down the hand motions. I saw a lot of people on Twitter who thought that was cute or something, but I interpreted it as Blaine trying to make Kurt less, well… Kurt. It kind of hurt my heart.

As did the look on Blaine’s face when Kurt sang, “So I chose freedom.” Blaine… listen to the boy. You need him.

But no. In the next scene, Blaine tells Kurt he didn’t make it, and that he should stop trying so hard. “I don’t know how it worked at your old school,” he says, “but did you notice we all wear uniforms around here? It’s about being part of the team.”

Kurt says he’s used to screaming to be noticed, but Blaine says, “You’re not going to make it as a Warbler if all you care about is getting noticed.” Right, Blaine, that’s all he cares about. Not, you  know, staying alive.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt says.

“I know it’ll take some getting used to,” Blaine tells him, “but you’ll fit in soon enough.”

Oh, teenage angst, how I love thee!

Artie tries to press Brittany to go to a movie with him, or meet him for a latte in the morning, but she says no and rushes off, not meeting his eye. I was hoping this meant she was back to her old slutty ways and would be dumping him soon, but alas…

The students are all in a bad mood while they board the bus for Sectionals, and Will loses whatever sparkle he has when he finds out Emma’s not going because it will upset Carl. I know a lot of people are all about the Carl and Emma, but not doing what you want to do because your boyfriend doesn’t like it? Sick dynamic. And it makes Carl look kind of petty and controlling. Then again, I love Will and Emma because their fandom pairing name would be “Wilma,” and who can resist that? (Yes, I know it’s officially “Wemma,” but not in my world.)

At Sectionals, Kurt comes up to Rachel who is at the candy counter, trying to score the Raisinets Lauren is demanding before she’ll go on. “Did you get your solo?” she asks him.

He tells her he didn’t, and she says, “If you didn’t get a solo, they must be really good.” Which I actually saw as a compliment to Kurt, but she apologized. I’m totally loving this softer Rachel, and the Rachel-Kurt friendship is awfully sweet. I like her so much better in the context of a tragic diva than a high school girl dating the star quarterback.

“Being in the Warblers has really made me question everything I thought I knew about myself,” he tells her. Which can be a good thing but hurt me a little bit anyway.

“What’s become of us, Kurt?” Rachel asks him. “So, do you miss us?”

He says he does, and the Warblers don’t appreciate his individuality as much as the glee club did. And he feels like he let them down.

“It’s your life,” Rachel says, shaking her head. “You weren’t safe at McKinley anymore.”

“How come you weren’t this nice to me when you were my team mate?” he asks.

“Because you were my only real competition.” And they hug. Awww. I may have to get on Team Rachel after all. I love this.

Oh, and Kurt lets slip that he already knew about Finn and Santana.

The competition begins, and as we could have predicted, the Hipsters do a great rendition of Mike & The Mechanics‘ “In the Living Years.”

Then the Warblers do “Soul Sister,” Blaine singing lead. This clip was leaked earlier this week so it’s not new to anyone, but maybe now we can understand why Rachel’s cheering Kurt on from the audience, Puck is glowering and Mr. Schue looks like he has acid reflux during the song.

Rachel leads a standing ovation when they’re done, and then we cut to the green room where New Directions is having its usual pre-competition nerve-fueled fight. And it looks like Brittany and Mike are having an affair… and Brittany is all but groveling to Artie about it.

Now, I’m trying not to turn this entire recap into “If they don’t stop this whole ‘BARFIE’ arc I’m going to kill myself,” but I have no problem with Brittany having sex with every guy and girl at McKinley. It’s part of her charm. But seeing her all cringe-y over cheating on Artie (which it turns out later she didn’t do) or losing his stupid comb (which is what she did) really pisses me off.

Anyway, there are a bunch of other little dramas, but Mr. Schue gets them back on track, and they hit the stage — although just before they do on, Brittany tells Artie she didn’t cheat on him, she lost his comb while she was at Motocross practice. Oh, Brittany.

It wasn’t a magic comb, he tells her. It was just a comb he picked up off the floor and was taking to the trash when he saw her.

“And you let me comb my hair with it?” she asks.

He tells her that he shouldn’t have told her it was a magic comb, and that it’s her and her moves that have magic. Gee, Artie, ya think? We could have told you that a long time ago.

Then they kiss and say schmoopy stuff. Whatever.

The performance leads off with Quinn and Sam singing “The Time of My Life,” and they just don’t have the power that Finn and Rachel would have. And I really love Quinn as a character, and thought Sam was interesting, but we’re not seeing any of that in this episode.

Kurt leads the standing O, and then … Santana sings The Zutons’  “Valerie” (better known as covered by Amy Winehouse). And Brittany smacks her butt before she starts singing. And dances backup. And dances front-up with Mike, doing all the fancy acrobatic moves you’d expect from a cheerleader but that aren’t really my favorite part of Brittany’s dancing… and Santana crooks her finger and beckons her over, and Brittany dances her heart out and shakes her hair and stalks on her high-heeled sandals, and none of that is enough, it’s really not, but I loved it anyway. And Santana was amazing.

The crowd agrees, and in something of an anti-climax, New Directions and The Warblers are tied for first place.

Back at McKinley, Emma breaks it to Will that she and Carl eloped to Vegas while he was at Sectionals. He looks like someone killed his puppy.

Rachel confesses to Finn that she’d almost slept with Puck after she found out about Santana, and they break up.

“You said you’d never break up with me!” she tells him.

“I never thought you’d make me feel like this,” he says. After what happened with Puck and Quinn, that one really hurt.

He also pointed out that he and Rachel weren’t dating when he slept with Santana, but he and Rachel were dating when she almost slept with Puck — but I don’t think that’s really the problem here. Was it that he slept with Santana that upset Rachel, or that he let her think he was still a virgin, even after she’d admitted she hadn’t really slept with Jesse last year?

Back at Dalton Academy, Kurt’s freaking out because his canary — “your voice” they called it, remember? — isn’t doing well and has stopped singing. And in case we didn’t get the thematic anvils dropped on us earlier, Blaine assures him that he’s just molting. “He’s growing a new coat of feathers, so his body has to shut down a little. He’s got food, water, seems to like his cage. Just give it a little while. He’ll be singing again in no time.”

Tina’s abandoned her Goth cheerleader garb, and she and Mike make up with an “Asian kiss.”

Santana expresses her sympathy to Mr. Schue that Miss Pillsbury married “the finest dentist alive.” He says they don’t need to talk about it, and starts talking about how they’ve faced some challenges, but now they need to celebrate. He offers Rachel a solo, but she says she doesn’t feel like celebrating, and passes the opportunity to this week’s “unsung heroes,” Mercedes and Tina.

They do a kick-ass, Glee’d-out rendition of Florence + the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over,” and would you think less of me if I admitted that when Santana started wheeling Artie around on stage I hoped, just for a second, she’d push him off?

During the song, we also see intercut scenes of Rachel de-Finnizing her locker and Kurt staring, then smiling, at his bird in a gilded cage.

Next week: Christmas!

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

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