Archive

“Glee” Episode 216 Recap: Gay Romance and Rockin’ Regionals

“They kissed.”

I saw that as a trending topic on Twitter, and I thought, no, could it be? I usually try to avoid Twitter for the three hours leading up to airtime, and particularly #kurtrules and #gaysharks, because I’m in California and I don’t want to be spoiled, but never, no, not once have a made it all the way to 8 p.m. without at least getting a rough idea what happens and what the Queer Nation thinks about it.

This was another landmark week in same-sex high school romance for Gleeks. The two most recent episodes have represented for queer youth and coming of age in a way I’ve never seen on broadcast television before, let alone one of the most popular shows in the country, with a mostly young audience. If you want a hard-hitting critical analysis of “Original Songs,” definitely do not read this re-cap. Glee is making me very happy lately and I don’t care who knows it.

The episode opens with a Warblers number, this one with… quelle surprise… Blaine singing lead on Maroon 5‘s “Misery.”

Kurt seemed to be channeling the audience zeitgeist for once, rolling his eyes and conveying tolerant disapproval (oh, face of Chris Colfer, how I love thee) at Blaine’s excellent and yet predictable performance, before ultimately surrendering to the music and doing the obligatory finger-snapping back-up swaying thing like a good Warbler should.

Do I get points for the longest run-on sentence in recap history?

Blaine is exhilarated, and he announces to the Warblers that they have their song for Regionals. He breathlessly compliments the “Burberry-esque” cover Kurt’s made for Pavarotti’s gilded cage, and asks how Kurt liked the number.

“Can I be really honest with you?” Kurt says, sounding much more like our old brave, strong, opinionated Kurt than the tentative one we saw when he first got to Dalton Academy. “Because it comes from a place of caring: Been there, done that. Look, Blaine, your solos are breathtaking. They’re also numerous.”

Blaine explains that the council decides who gets the solos, then says, “Do I detect a little jealousy?”

“No, you detect a lot of jealousy,” Kurt says. “Look, Blaine, sometimes I don’t feel like we’re the Warblers; I feel like we’re Blaine and the Pips.”

Rachel next debuts her newest original song for Finn. It’s an ode to her non-existent siblings: “I’m the only Berry on my family tree.”

“Wow, it’s better than ‘My Headband,’ that’s for sure,” says Finn. That’s setting the bar so low a snake couldn’t slither under it. Then he gives her some really excellent and perceptive advice — that she can tap into her deeper, more real emotions when she’s singing, but she’s not doing it yet with her songwriting. And as always, I stubbornly refuse to listen to the little voice that points out that Finn is simply not bright enough to articulate something like that.

Quinn is spying on the two of them, and mentally voice-overs that she’s going to do her damndest to hang onto Finn so they can be prom queen and king. In the spirit of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” she decides to cultivate a friendship with Rachel.

Back in Kurt’s bedroom, he and Pavarotti are whistling a duet when the little canary keels over dead. We cut immediately to a Warbler’s council meeting, where Blaine is scandalizing everyone by suggesting they change the color of their ties for their performance at Regionals, when a black-clad, pale, tear-streaked Kurt walks in.

“What’s wrong, Kurt?” asks an obviously concerned Blaine.

It turns out the loss of Pavarotti has hit our boy hard. “He inspired me with his optimism and his love of song,” Kurt says, crying. “He was my friend.” He takes a deep breath. “Now, I know that today we meet to practice do-wopping behind Blaine while he sings every solo in a medley of P!nk songs, but I’d like to sing a song for Pavarotti today.”

He hands a cassette tape… a cassette tape? Hasn’t he been making CDs for his friends for a while now?… to some random Warbler and then sings “Blackbird,” one of like three Beatles‘ songs I can stand. Don’t hate me.

He weeps throughout the song, he kicks its butt (of course), and throughout it all, Blaine stares at him like he’s never seen him before. And sings backup. My life is now officially complete.

In the choir room, Will is breaking the bad news to the kids that My Chemical Romance‘s attorneys have issued a cease and desist letter, preventing them from performing “Sing” at Regionals as they’d planned.

“How much do you want to bet Coach Sylvester had something to do with this?” Mercedes says.

“One step ahead of you,” responds Will, and we get a flashback of him confronting Sue with the letter.

“Do you know anything about this?” he roars.

“I do,” she says calmly. “Now, I met the drummer from My Chemical Romance at a drum circle, spring break, 1996. We had a brief affair.” So of course, she ratted out New Directions for performing their song.

“You took away my Cheerios,” she says. “Consider this the first salvo of World War Sue.”

This re-awakens Rachel’s idea of performing original songs at Regionals, and this time, her new frenemy, Quinn, supports the idea. Finn happily trots at heel like the puppy dog he is, and in the end, the group decides they’ll all come up with some original songs for Regionals.

Santana is standing at her locker when Brittany walks up. “Hey,” Brittany says, soft and sad. “Can I ask you a question? We used to be really close, and I really miss being your friend.”

“Still waiting for the question,” snaps Santana.

“Did I do something wrong?” Oh, Brittany. Sob.

“I don’t know, did you?” Santana says, turning to look at her. “All I know is you blew me off to be with Stubbles McCripplepants.” Ouch. “But it’s your loss. Because now I get the chance to write a heterosexual song about Sam, that we’re going to sing at Regionals.”

“Wait. You’re still dating Sam?” Brittany asks. “But you told me you were in love with me.”

“I honestly don’t know what I was thinking,” Santana says, looking away. “Look, can you stop staring at me? I can’t remember my locker combo.”

This is all kinds of deep and yes, satisfying to me. Because while I’d love to see Brittana ride off into the sunset at Glee‘s end, all I ever really wanted was to see real emotional honesty in the treatment of these two, and, well… like I said before: Ouch. And take way my lesbian card if you must, but I’m okay with where Brittany and Santana are right now.

Right at this moment of peak emotional intensity we get Sue strolling up. “Well, well,” she says. “If it isn’t Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-fake boobs.” She castigates them for deserting her and sparking her downfall as a cheerleading coach.

Then when Brittany and Santana open their lockers, dirt spews out all over them. “I don’t even remember putting that in there,” Brittany says.

Meanwhile, back at Dalton… the Warblers’ council is sounding like a fangirl convention on steroids. “You know, I think Blaine’s version of the song is better than the original,” opines one Warbler. (I’m sure some kind person will identify all the minor Warblers for us, but I don’t know any of their names. I probably shouldn’t have admitted that.)

“But it’s not in his natural key,” says another, to loud objections from the rest: “How dare you?”

“Enough,” Blaine says, an eloquent hand gesture conveying his dismay — although it can’t come close to capturing the massive ennui on Kurt’s face. “I’m tired of this.”

“I agree,” says one of the fanboys, I mean, Warblers. “I think you should just pick the song you want to sing.”

“No,” Blaine says. “I’m tired of the Warblers being all about me.” This is hysterical. Who says the writers don’t read what fans say?

As Kurt looks on in dawning amazement, Blaine adds, “Make sure everything I’m about to say goes down in the official minutes.” He looks at the council leaders. “We are going to lose at Regionals.”

The room erupts, and Kurt just stares.

“I am incredibly grateful for the belief you’ve all given me as a junior member to lead you in all in these wonderful songs this year,” he goes on. “But from what Kurt has told me about New Directions, I just know I can’t beat them on my own. Which is why I propose that we re-arrange our 11 o’clock number, and turn it into a duet.”

Kurt’s face throughout this speech is priceless, and the look he gives Blaine at the end of that statement is the absolute quintessence of Kurt Hummel.

“Why don’t we just play it on kazoo?” exlodes the Head Warbler as the crowd goes wild, and not in a good way.

But Blaine’s not done. “Now, we all lost one of own this week; Pavarotti’s voice was silenced by death, and I don’t want to silence any other voices in this group.” He pauses expressively, and I seriously want to give Darren Criss an Emmy nomination just for getting through this without totally cracking up. Cuz the meta-ness, it amuses.

“I think Pavarotti would roll over in his tiny, tiny little grave,” Blaine intones somberly.

“The placement of which has yet to be determined,” interjects Kurt, looking grief-stricken.

The King of the Warblers calls for a vote on Blaine’s proposal to make his solo a duet, which passes. Kurt says he’d like to be on the audition list, but Blaine’s not done: He wants to sing the duet with Kurt, and undoubtedly impressed by his moving rendition of “Blackbird,” the council once again raises its hands and says “aye.”

Kurt’s overwhelmed and happy, but Blaine? He’s beaming. Oh, Blaine. I’m liking you tonight.

Back in the choir room, Will has handed out rhyming dictionaries to help the kids with their original songs, but Santana interrupts and says she and Tina have already written a song, and they’d like to perform it.

And this explains the other trending topic on Twitter last night: “Trouty Mouth.”

“This is a sing I wrote for Sam,” she purrs, shrugging off her jacket and revealing a spaghetti-strapped tank. Then she wails away on a soulful song, the lyrics of which I at first didn’t understand because I don’t think I had much blood going to my brain at that point. Fortunately, teh Googles had them:

Guppy faced, trouty mouth

Is that how people’s lips look where you come from in the south?

Grouper mouth, froggy limbs

I love sucking on those salamander lips

Wanna put a fishhook in those lips so cherry red

If you try hard enough you can suck a baby’s head

Sam objects, voicing the pain of a thousand Chord Overstreet fans, but Santana refuses to stop, only to be cut off by Will, his face creased with agony, whether at the sheer badness of Santana’s lyrics or the pain she’s caused her bf, I don’t know.

Puck, too, wrote a song, he says; this one, for Lauren. He thinks it will make up for hurting her feelings with “Fat Bottomed Girls,” and it’s called “Big Assed… Heart.”

In this case, it’s not the lyrics I want to share with you, but Mike Chang‘s hand gestures.

Will says that neither of those songs are quite what they’re going for. Ya think?

Out in the hall, Quinn pressures Finn about campaigning for prom king and queen, and when he starts to waver and suggests they wait until after Nationals, she gives him the eye and says, “First it was after Regionals, now it’s after Nationals. Do you want to be in this relationship or not?”

“Woah,” he says. “Scary Quinn. Okay. Uh, after Regionals.”

They walk down the hall hand in hand, and we see that Rachel’s overheard the whole thing.

Back at Dalton, Kurt is gluing sequins on Pavarotti’s little casket (of course he is) when Blake strolls in. He seems nervous, and says he’s chosen “Candles” by Hey Monday for their duet.

“I’m impressed,” Kurt says, tipping his head adorably. “You’re usually so top 40.”

“Well,” Blaine says, sitting next to Kurt, “I just wanted something more… emotional.”

Does Kurt blush or get flustered? He does not. He gives Blaine a look and asks, “Why did you pick me to sing that song with?” You go, you brave boy.

Blaine looks ten times more nervous, and also somewhat adorable, and says, slowly, “Kurt, there is a moment when you say to yourself, ‘Oh! There you are!’ I’ve been looking for you forever.” He takes Kurt’s hand.

“Watching you do ‘Blackbird,’ that was the moment for me. About you. You move me, Kurt.”

Kurt’s face breaks in the most beautiful way.

“And this duet would just be an excuse to spend more time with you.” And then Blaine leans so far forward he’s half out of his seat, and kisses Kurt. Really kisses him, long and hard, faces pressed close together, Kurt’s hand finally rising up to touch his face. And I swear, this one’s romantic enough even for Kurt’s little Broadway-musical-loving heart.

Blaine is all happy and embarrassed, and kind of ducks his head and puts his hand over his face — Blaine! Mr. Cool! — and Kurt is just staring and full of amazement. And then Blaine blushes and says they should practice, and Kurt says, “I thought we were,” and then they’re kissing again, and it’s clear they’re going to be doing that for quite a while… although that’s all we see.

After ripping my heart out with Santana’s confession of love for Brittany last week, Glee just gave it back to me with this tender scene. It’s not because I’m some huge Klaine shipper — truly, I just want Kurt to be happy, and half the time, Blaine annoys the crap out of me. So it’s not that; it’s the simple sweetness of this first kiss. I really need to go buy these boys ponies now.

The next scene is Mercedes being her diva self singing a self-penned number called “Hell to the No,” with the backup song and dance services of most of the Glee Club, especially Ms. Brittany S. Pierce rocking her floppy red garden hat for all she’s worth, and Santana dancing around the piano. Sam writes “Hell no!” on his notebook and holds it up.

She nails it, but Mr. Schu is still not convinced it’s the right song for Regionals. Santana tells him, “Mr. Schu, I wrote another verse of ‘Trouty Mouth,'” and Sam holds up his little “Hell no” sign again. Hah!

He asks the students what their favorite song is.

“‘My Headband,'” says Brittany.

Alanis Morissette‘s ‘You Oughta Know,'” says Santana. (Of course she does.)

“‘What’s Goin’ On,’ Marvin Gaye,” says Puck, to Lauren’s delight.

What do they all have in common? They’re all about pain, says Will.

This naturally leads them to think about all the cruel things Sue has done to them, and the ways they’re treated like losers, and how it makes them mad and drives them to want to win.

“You guys, I think you may have just found yourselves.” And he circles the phrase, “Loser Like Me.”

A little later, Rachel confronts Quinn about Finn while they’re working on their original song. I confess, this scene kind of whizzed by me the first time, but as I watched it again to do the recap, I got it. It’s really about what’s inside of Quinn, and the life choices she’s passing up, and given her miserable home life, the pain she’s still carrying about giving up her baby and the tumble she took down the social ladder the year before, it made me go from really hating her to wanting to buy her, too, a pony.

“Do you want to know how this story plays out?” she asks Rachel. “I get Finn. You get heartbroken. And then Finn and I stay here and start a family.” She isn’t saying this as if it makes her happy. “I’ll become a successful real estate agent, and Finn will take over Kurt’s dad’s tire shop.”

Quinn starts to cry. “You don’t belong here, Rachel, and you can’t hate me for wanting to send you on your way.”

“I won’t give up on Finn,” Rachel says, insisting it’s not over between them.

“Yes, it is!” Quinn explodes. “You’re so frustrating!” This, she says, is why Rachel can’t write a good song, because she lives in a dream world.

Rachel says she’ll write her original song by herself, and leaves. Once her back is to Quinn, she dissolves in bitter tears. Then she goes home and writes her song, “Get It Right.”

It should be good. It should be epic. It should be worthy of Lea Michele‘s talent. It’s just meh. Of course, that doesn’t stop it from being the third top-selling song on iTunes tonight.

Just before they head out for Regionals, Sue confesses to Will that she forged the letter from My Chemical Romance. But Will doesn’t care; he says he’s glad, because it gave his kids a chance to write their own songs. Sue smirks that she custom-tailored Aural Intensity’s song list to the panel of judges, who it turns out are Newscaster Rod again, plus an African-American nun and a home-schooling Tea Party politician played by Kathy Griffin.

Aural Intensity does “Jesus is a Friend of Mine.” I invoke recapper immunity and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Next up is the Warblers. Kurt’s nervous, and Blaine tells him he’s wonderful and fabulous and adorable, and the two of them “are gonna kill this thing.”

And Kurt gets to sing first! And it’s “Candles” and he’s awesome, and the two of them are just amazing. And the whole audience is waving candles, and it’s just so romantic and sweet. Where the hell are those ponies? And the look they give each other when the song is done? And Kurt’s cute little bow. Oh, sigh.

And then Blaine jumps into P!nk’s anthemic ode to freaks everywhere, “Raise Your Glass.”

This could have been a disaster. “We’ll never be anything but loud and nitty gritty dirty little freaks”? Not the greatest fit for our jacket-and-tie-clad crooners. But no. They totally rocked it. And the house was jumping, and cheering, and even the New Directions kids gave them an ovation.

Backstage, Rachel tells Finn to listen to the lyrics of “Get it Right,” because she means every word. Then she solos into her pink rhinestoned mic, with the rest of the Glee Club joining in on backup.

The girls are wearing black leggings and cute lace-up ankle boots, with light blue satin dresses with black-ribboned waistbands and bejeweled necklines — dig the shoes and leggings, but the dresses are unflattering on pretty much everyone except Brittany, who seems to be able to wear anything.

Rachel then introduces New Directions, and they break out into one of the best songs they’ve ever done in the two seasons of Glee, an original song called “Loser Like Me.” And it’s not just me; this one’s currently the number one download on iTunes. Kurt pulls big foam “L” gloves out from under his seat and passes them out, and the whole audience loses along with the Glee kids. And at the very end, they take big slushy cups full of red glitter and toss them onto the audience.

I could possibly die happy now.

In the judge’s room, Kathy Griffin’s Tea Partier wants to know if all the kids can prove they were born in the U.S., and it turns out our nun is a liberal former exotic dancer who just joined the convent so she’d have a place to live, and Rod gives New Directions a big thumbs up.

Ms. Tea Party takes a few snipes at Blaine and Kurt, the nun wonders if Dalton Academy is a gay school “or just seems gay,” and then Rod says his hairdresser is a gay, and has been with his partner — also a hairdresser — for 15 years, and he sees no reason they shouldn’t be able to get married and raise a family of beautiful wigs.

Cut to the stage.

“My husband is verbally abusive and I have been drinking since noon,” announces Lt. Gov. Stevens’ wife Carla Turlington Stevens, before announcing that New Directions is going to Nationals in New York City.

Slow-motion happy happy joy joy — except for Blaine and Kurt, who seem kind of crushed, and Sue, who decks Mrs. Stevens. Yowza.

I assumed it would be over, but we’re out in a shade-dappled parkland somewhere, with Kurt holding a red rose and whispering, “Farewell, sweet prince,” as he buries Pavarotti, Blaine supportively by his side.

Kurt’s upset, but not for the reason Blaine thinks, that the loss of Pavarotti reminds Kurt of his mother’s death. Kurt says he’s right, but that’s not the real reason. He’s mostly upset because they lost at Regionals.

Blaine tells him not to worry. “The competition season is over, but we do shows at nursing homes all the time,” he says reassuringly. “And do you know how many Gaps there are in Ohio? Tons.” (Okay, that’s the old Blaine, isn’t it?)

“Yeah, I just really, really wanted to win,” Kurt says.

“So did I,” Blaine whispers to Kurt. “But we got each other out of this. That beats a lousy trophy, don’t you think?”

I am totally ignoring the foreshadowing there. La la la I can’t hear you.

Then they take each other’s hands, and walk off together.

In the choir room, we find out that Will is in fact dating Holly Holliday, and then he announces that the club has voted unanimously to give the “MVP Award” to Rachel.

Everyone applauds, and she says she wants to say a few words.

“Here she goes,” says Santana, “making me regret voting for her.”

But Rachel’s speech is short, simple and heart-felt, thanking everyone for making her feel special. The episode ends with a big beautiful group hug… which is going to have to hold our queer little lovelorn hearts for a while, because this show?

On hiatus for the next four weeks.

And that, my darlings, is what happened on Glee.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button