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“Glee” Episode 302 Recap: Kurt Hummel, Homo

We said we wanted more character development. We said we wanted the writers to focus on the core characters. We said we wanted continuity. We said we wanted everything to be so queer it was like unicorns, Judy Garland, rainbows, and Pride flags all rolled up into one and spray-painted with glitter all over McKinley High.

We said the writers and producers of Glee would never give us those things.

We were wrong.

Welcome to “I Am Unicorn,” my darlings.

The gay begins with Brittany, fresh-faced and Cheerio’d, informing Kurt that she thinks he’s fabulous and loves everything he does. So much so that she wants to run his campaign for student body president.

“Out of all the kids in the school,” she tells him, “I think you are the biggest unicorn.”

“I’m sorry?” Kurt says, totally confused. (Kurt: It’s Brittany. Just roll with it.)

“Well, when a pony does a good deed, he grows a horn and he becomes a unicorn, then he poops out cotton candy until he forgets he’s magical, and then his horn falls off. And black unicorns, they become zebras.”

“Oh,” Kurt says. “That’s a terrifying story.”

“No, it’s not,” Brittany says. “No, okay, no, the point is, a unicorn is somebody who knows they’re magical and isn’t afraid to show it. You went through hell last year, and you never forgot how special you were. And I slept with a lot of people and I’m really popular so I think I can get you mega-votes.”

Since no one can resist Brittany, Kurt’s in.

Cutting to the choir room, first I’m so distracted by Blaine‘s pink bow tie I can hardly focus on what’s happening. When I do, it’s to find out Vocal Adrenaline came in second at Nationals, and Dustin Goolsby (Cheyenne Jackson, who was woefully under-used last season in the role) was fired as a consequence.

“That’s the only good thing to come out of that lost weekend,” Finn says, then, when Rachel jabs him, “Except us getting back together.”

Ummm, did Artie say Dustin Goolsby was “so handsome”? And did Mike say he finds Kurt’s shimmying “distracting”? Is the entire Glee Club going gay in front of my eyes?

Mr. Schue tells the kids this is their chance to make up for the year before, so he’s going to be holding mandatory “booty camp” workouts after school for those students whose dancing could use a little help. He singles out Finn, Puck, Mercedes, and Kurt… Kurt? Really?

Kurt feels the same way and objects, at which Mike does a little imitation and mini-critique of Kurt’s dancing style that’s hysterically funny and just a little bitchy. I like seeing more of Mike Chang this season. And we’ll be seeing even more — he’ll be helping Mr. Schue with the Booty Camp. Which I devoutly hope is the name of next year’s Glee reality show.

Blaine, in that pink bow tie, a persistent affectation this season that has me longing for his Warbler outfit, asks humbly if he can join the remedial dance class so he can spend more time with his hunny bunny. I mean, so he can catch up with the rest of the kids.

Since Mr. Schue won’t be directing the musical — West Side Story — this year, the kids want to know, who is? Turns out it’s Emma, Coach Beiste, and Artie. Okay, then.

Artie at first demurs, but Tina reminds him that directing is his dream. I kind of liked the memories of Tina and Artie that brought back. I want them back together even though he and Brittany broke up and I don’t have to wish harm on him anymore.

So, guess who strolls into the teacher’s lounge? Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel), Rachel’s birth mother, the adopter of Puck and Quinn‘s baby, and the former coach of Vocal Adrenaline! Turns out she’s been hired to start a second Glee Club at the school at the request of, and paid for by, the wealthy father of Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies), who didn’t make the club in the season premiere due to the fact that she not only can’t sing, she can’t even move her lips and sway quietly in the background. Asperger’s!

Shelby promises not to poach the New Directions kids, but Will’s not worried about that, he says. He’s worried about how hard having her there is going to be on Rachel, Puck and Quinn.

Shelby says that for a while she was trying to do the single mom thing in New York City, but now she knows she has to make things right in Lima.

He says he’ll take her at her word, the more arts at the school the better, and may the best Glee Club win.

“We will,” Shelby says.

Quinn and the Skanks are roughing up a girl in the restroom, when Sue walks in.

“Skanks, I want to talk to that lady alone,” she says, pointing at Quinn. They comply. Who wouldn’t?

Sue contemplates Quinn, who’s smoking. “First of all smoking kills. Second, it really does make you look cooler, doesn’t it?”

Maybe not. Sue continues, “You’ve never looked worse. You’ve lost your child, your boyfriend, your rep and worse, your high pony. You know who I blame? The Glee Club.” Sue offers Quinn a chance to get revenge on the show choir by starring in a video about a day in the life of a girl from whom the arts stole everything.

Quinn agrees as long as Sue puts sofas down under the bleachers for the Skanks. Apparently standing around smoking all day is hard on the feet.

Kurt and Brittany are strategizing about his campaign in her bedroom. It involves large amounts of glitter and sequins, a unicorn horn, a Teletubby, the Pride flag, and a limitless array of iconic queer cultural items, including ruby slippers. And did I mention Brittany is wearing the unicorn horn? This is without question the most gay-packed scene in the history of television, and I exempt nothing from this statement. Not even other shows or Glee episodes I’ve previously dubbed “most gay ever.” This is the one.

Brittany wants to plaster the school with hundreds of thousands of pink glittery posters of Kurt, and hand out a swag bag full of gay goodies, which she calls ” Kurt Hummel’s bulging pink fun sack.”

Kurt is not buying it. He thinks it’s just a tiny wee bit too gay, for which his cure is “What becomes a legend most?” ads and an anecdote about Judy Garland, because that’s not as gay as glitter and unicorns.

Next, it looks like Shelby and Puck might have been conspiring at some sort of intervention for bad!but!hot!Quinn. Puck brings her in to see Shelby, and Quinn is shocked to see her.

Shelby’s offering redemption in the form of letting Quinn be part of baby Beth’s life in exchange for getting rid of the pink hair and bad girl routine. She tells Quinn that she’s been searching for Rachel all her life, and doesn’t want Quinn to go through the same thing. She wants her to be part of Beth’s life — but not like this.

“You think you can tell me what to do just because you signed a few papers?” Quinn says. “You’re not her mom. I’m her mom. That is something you are never going to be.”

Quinn, Quinn, Quinn. Has the pink dye eaten your brain?

At Booty Camp, Mercedes is rebelling. She says she doesn’t want to dance; she wants to just “park and bark,” where she wails on the high notes and stands there while everyone dances around her.

We also learn that Blaine is a junior. Allow me to take a moment to say a few things.

One, I don’t think so. That would mean Blaine was 15 when we met him, and I don’t know about you, but I watched that “Teenage Dream” number and that boy was not 15. And whence the mentor routine with Kurt if he was a year younger? Wouldn’t they have mentioned that at some point? And what about the previous season, when Blaine…

Okay, screw the continuity argument. I don’t want Blaine to be a junior because my heart is firmly set on Kurt and Blaine moving to New York City together with Rachel at the end of the season, and having Blaine still be on Glee with Kurt gone? No me gusta.

Blaine, who was obviously born to play Tony in West Side Story, says he’ll be trying out for Bernardo or Office Krupke, as long as his hunny bunny is going to be Tony. I feel the foreshadowing anvil of doom falling on me.

Rachel is practicing for her audition for the role of Maria, and who should turn up but Shelby. And just as Will predicted, Rachel freaks right out. But she and mom finally bond over, of course, Rachel’s audition number.

“I played Maria eighteen times,” Shelby tells her, encouraging her to sing the song “Somewhere” from the musical. Rachel says she was planning on singing “I Feel Pretty,” and Shelby tells her, “You’ll never be a star — or get the lead — if you play it safe.”

Then the two of them duet on the song, and it was epic. Their resemblance to each other is astonishing, and so is their chemistry. And at the very end of the duet, we morph into the auditorium where Rachel is singing the song alone, with just a glance at the end to where Shelby had stood next to her earlier. It was a beautiful, heart-filled scene. I got tears in my eyes.

Sue’s filming her video, and after a little B-roll on the school grounds showing how low Quinn’s sunk, she takes her star, her camera, and her assistant, Becky, into Will’s office to confront him over how he’s ruined Quinn’s life.

He’s not having any of it, and rises to the occasion magnificently. “You’re not a little girl anymore,” he tells her angrily. “How long do you plan on playing the victim card?” Everyone in New Directions just tried to be her friend — Mercedes even let her live with her after her parents threw her out. “So now you’re a trainwreck. Well, congratulations. But you stride into my office and tell me it’s my fault? Well, then I have something to say to you: grow up.”

It was seriously Mr. Schue’s finest moment.

Puck goes to Shelby’s house to see Beth and beg to be part of her life. Shelby’s clearly considering it.

Kurt auditions for the role of Tony by singing “I’m The Greatest Star” from Funny Girl. It’s the kind of Broadway number I’m not a fan of, but he climbs all over a huge scaffold he had made for the audition, and generally does a great job. I don’t know how this performance will get him the role of Tony, though.

At the end he brings out his sais and does a twirling routine, which reminded me of the first time I saw anyone working with sais: Gabrielle in Xena: Warrior Princess. You can make any two fandoms collide if you work it hard enough.

Even if the song didn’t do it for me, I’ll say this: Chris Colfer plays this part as a teenage boy who’s going to be a star but isn’t yet. It’s brilliant.

After auditions, Puck goes after Quinn in the girls bathroom. He tells her she looks like “a real housewife of Reno,” and that she should lose the skank act and get it together to be in Beth’s life. He shows her a photo of the baby on his phone, and says, “She needs you in her life. I don’t want her having questions, or being messed up.” Our girl looks like she’s going to cry. I pretty much already am.

Which isn’t the best way to go into the next scene, where Coach Beiste, Emma, and Artie are talking about the casting of the musical. Beiste likes Rachel for Maria, noting that “she’s Jewish, which I think helps with the Puerto Rican thing.”

Then they dissect Kurt’s audition, or rather, they dissect his manliness. And his “toothpick arms” which, hello, is not fair. The arms have been working out, Emma. Don’t you have eyes?

What they don’t know is that Kurt can hear every word.

Later, a dejected Kurt is walking down the halls and sees Brittany and Santana hanging his campaign posters, as pink and glittery and unicorned as ever.

“I thought I said you had to tone it down,” he says.

Santana whips around. “This is toned down. In the original ones, the unicorn was riding you.”

Kurt grabs Rachel and asks her to help him with a second audition, and Brittany looks devastated.

“I failed my precious unicorn,” she tells Santana.

“No, look, this campaign is brilliant,” Santana tells her. “If he doesn’t get that, then he doesn’t deserve to have you as his campaign manager. There’s no one like you. You’re a genius, Britt. You are the unicorn.”

Twitter exploded. My heart may have stopped beating. Will we get our Brittana after all?

Kurt has chosen to perform a scene from Romeo and Juliet with Rachel. He notes it’s the play that West Side Story was based on, and he and Rachel are in full costume, courtesy of the vast and well-funded costume and prop department at McKinley High.

They laugh at him. Even Rachel, the consummate professional. I’m not sure I get it, because he was, I thought, pretty good. But when Rachel lost it when he want to kiss her, I could see from his face that he was crushed.

Quinn, meanwhile, stops by Shelby’s office, where the coach is trying to work with the tuneless Sugar Motta, without any luck. Sugar takes off, and Quinn says, “She’s hopeless.”

“Nobody’s hopeless,” Shelby tells her, then recounts her own misspent youth, when she, like Quinn, got a little skanky, with a Sinead O’Connor haircut and Regis Philbin tattoo. But if Quinn wants to be part of Beth’s life, she says, things have to change. And, echoing Mr. Schue, she says, “The first step to becoming an adult? Stop punishing yourself for things you did when you were a child.”

Quinn begs to see Beth, or even only a photo of her. Shelby has a photo of the baby with Puck on her phone, and Quinn looks at it, crying. “You can be part of this family, Quinn,” Shelby says. “I really want you to be. It’s all up to you.”

Kurt has been reflecting on his experience at the second audition, and bitterly tells his dad that he can only play roles in three shows: La Cage Aux Folles, Falsettos, and Miss Saigon — as Miss Saigon.

“Dude, you’re gay,” Burt says. “You’re not like, Rock Hudson gay. You’re really gay. You sing like Diana Ross and you dress like you own a magic chocolate factory.”

Kurt seems taken aback, but his father goes on, asking what the hell is wrong with that. “It’s who you are,” he reminds him.

Kurt says he does want to be who he is, but he also wants to be able to play great romantic roles. His father doesn’t agree. When Kurt says he’s tired of being a unicorn, Burt tells him to re-write the roles or write new ones. “You know what they call a unicorn without a horn? A frigging horse.”

At Booty Camp, Mr. Schue is dancing with Mike Chang in slow-mo, and it’s pretty cool. They get Finn to bust a tiny little move, and the whole gang applauds when he gets through a routine without falling. And then Quinn walks in, and she’s blonde again. And wearing a white dress. And everyone hugs her like the prodigal daughter, and Puck is all full of joy, until Quinn tells him it’s all an act and that she’s planning on getting Beth back from Shelby.

I did not see that one coming. And this isn’t going to be pretty. And Quinn was hot in pink hair.

Later in the teacher’s lounge, we find out that Sue is in first place in her congressional race, and Will, Coach Beiste, and Emma plot to find a candidate to run against her who can defeat her. Brittany has an election on her mind, too; she’s walking dreamily down the hallways, which are lined with pink posters for Kurt.

She sees him, and he tells her he was right; he needs to celebrate who he is. “I am unicorn,” he tells her.

“Oh,” she says, radiantly happy. She hugs him. “I love a happy, happy unicorn.”

“Thank you,” he says, all the air choked out of him.

“I’m so proud of you!” she says.

He invites her to come over after school so they can strategize, but she can’t do it. “Santana and I are working on campaign posters.” (Oh, fanfiction, I hear you be written now.)

“I already have them,” he says.

“They’re for my campaign,” she says. “I decided to run, too.” It seems all the previous student body presidents were guys, on which she blames the double-dip recession. Oh, Brittany.

“Besides,” she goes on. “I’m also a unicorn. Or maybe a bi-corn. Either way. I’m starting to believe in my own magic.”

She wishes him luck and says she’s see him at the debate.

I’m torn. I loved this scene. I love Brittany coming out. I love her being a bicorn. I love her, in case you didn’t know because you never read my recaps and don’t follow me on Twitter.

But the look in Kurt’s face hurts my heart. Brittany! You were going to be an unstoppable team!

I’d say Kurt could be her campaign manager, but of course, I need Santana to do that. In fact, I need a lot more Santana in the next episode and I hope the PTBs at Glee take note.

But Kurt’s very bad terrible awful day is not over. He looks on in pride while Blaine blows the roof off the auditorium with his rendition of “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story. But when Artie asks Blaine why he’s only trying out for Bernardo or Officer Krupke, and if he’s consider reading for Tony, Blaine doesn’t know what to say, and says nothing… while Kurt, face falling, walks out.

And then they just stop it there. A cliffhanger. Because of course, Kurt said he wanted Blaine at McKinley so they wouldn’t be competitors, remember? And now, here they are.

Next week, Brittany wears a black leather mini-skirt and thigh high boots. And Blaine gives Kurt roses. And I guess we all have to decide who we want to see running the student body of McKinley High, the unicorn or the bicorn.

Check out some of my favorite #GaySharks tweets from last night….

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