Glee

This was probably one of my favorite episodes of Glee's second season. After last week's underwhelming Justin Bieber centered episode, I didn't have very high hopes for this episode but I was pleasantly surprised. While I didn't necessarily enjoy the music numbers as much as I have in the past, I really appreciated that nearly everyone got airtime this week. Supporting players like Emma, Beiste, Burt and Figgins all got a chance to shine and actually contributed to the storyline instead of dragging it down with needless adult shenanigans (Burt never does, but the rest are hit-and-miss).



The episode's plot revolved around Mckinley High's increasing population of intoxicated students. Figgins involves Schue and asks him to have the Glee Club perform at an Alcohol Awareness Assembly (an AAA meeting, so you know it's serious) to help deter students from coming to school drunk. This ultimately leads the Glee Club to hold a party at Rachel's house – her dads are away on the Rosie O'Donnell cruise – so she can experience her first drink and let loose a little.



The house party was a great diversion from the usual school set-up. Finn's explanation of everyone's drunken archetypes and the cutaways that followed were great (Lauren (to Puck): Who said your hairstyle was cool? Geronimo?). It was refreshing to see Rachel have a little fun instead of pouting and I got a kick out of her scenes (the wine cooler tickets, her spin the bottle make out with Blaine, their drunken duet, "It tastes like PINK!")



The Blaine and Kurt drama was handled well, and Blaine's explanation about experimenting made sense. Kurt understandably fought against it but I'm glad Blaine put him in his place, reminding him that Kurt's stance against him was very similar to Karofsky's against Kurt. The "bye/bi" statement at the end was clever, if not a little corny.



Schue's night out with "Shannon the Cannon" at a honky-tonk bar was another welcome change and I'm glad the night didn't end with them hooking up (I like that their friendship has stayed intact and thankfully his drunk dial wasn't aimed at her) I will say Beiste fared better in her minor singing debut than Lauren's from last week– I'm just not a fan of The Waitresses. Extra points for the piece of hay in Will's teeth afterwards and his lenient grading – I should really encourage my teacher's to do the same.



Sue's attempt to get Schue into a 12 Step program was typical Sue but it did allow for a fun callback to her pushing people down the stairs. Her airing of Will's voicemail message over the school's PA system was a tad cruel, even for Sue (and in reality, would they really allow a teacher to do that to a fellow coworker) but for Glee, there's always a couple moments in every episode where you have to suspend belief. Can Figgins really be inept enough to believe the Pep Rally disaster was merely a stunt?



The episode's end was a little jarring, though. Rachel finally has something to write about from her experience with Blaine but the fact that she got over it so quickly didn't ring true. For someone who's been b*tching and moaning over the same guy for months, it hardly seems like her character to suddenly recover from another failed relationship. Also, while Schue's attempt to control alchohol consumption in the Glee club had its heart in the right place, hearing a character like Santana agree to it without much thought didn't register as sincere to me.



As for the music numbers, the aforementioned "Don't You Want Me?" duet between Blaine and Rachel was probably my favorite followed by "Tik Tok" (Was it me, or did it sound ten times better in the episode than the standalone single on iTunes? Maybe it's the visual aspect that makes up for it, but I listened to the song a couple hours prior to the show and it sounded like Kidz Bop) I'm not a huge fan of country music so I doubt anything Glee covers will make me reevaluate my opinion of a song as white trash as "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (funny, I was just praising a song by Ke$ha). I'm Artie'd out right now so I didn't really dig "Blame It (On the Alcohol)" – there needed to be more "Artcedes" harmonizing or "Santittany" in it for it to work for me.



Episode highlights:



Rachel's Original Song – You gotta give props to Lea Michelle for singing so passionately about a headband. I knew it was a little premature for the ACTUAL original song, but Rachel's first attempt at songwriting had me in stitches. "When school girl pigtails won't do / I need to control my 'do!"



Rachel's Portrait – It was a quick throwaway joke at the beginning of the party but the portrait of Rachel in her dad's basement was spot on. I think they may have exaggerated her Jewish nose a little bit, but hey, as long as Lea can roll with the punches I don't see why not.



Brittany Upchucks – For all the Rachel haters out there (I'm not one myself but she can be irritating) I think she got her comeuppance via Brittany throwing up on her. Also loved Heather's delivery of the line that followed her public retching: "Everybody, drink responsibly."



Becky's Xylophone Playing - Seriously, can she join the Glee club too? I don't care if she just plays an instrument. The club can be announced as "New Directions along with their backing band, Becky and the Jetts!" What do you think? More clever than Blaine's "bi" line or just as corny?



That's all for now. I'm actually a little disappointed there'll be a two week break before we get to see Holly Holliday's return. Who knew all I needed was a little alcohol to make me want Glee again?

One of the best episodes of the season! I could not stop laughing during the scene of the party. Especially during the scene where Finn shows the different archetypes of different people at the party. The funniest part was when we saw Mercedes and Tina laughed uproariously. It was so funny! Also, when Sue is heard throughout the school the message when Will was drunk but that the message was for Emma! Too funny! The best lines of the episode was 3 sentences of Rachel. The first is It Tastes like pink. It tastes like pink!!!. The second is Your face Tastes awesome and the last being when Finn said about Rachel's song Is That a song about your headband and she responds Yes. It's Why it's called My Headband.

One of my more minor complaints about the show in its second season was how the focus shifted from interesting and complex character development and plots that focused on the characters to more cliche high school drama moments. All the breaking up and hooking up this season has frustrated me a bit, and the focus on the glee club has been at an all time low as the writers seem intent on botching up the dynamic of the show. I also didn't enjoy how Will and Kurt, two of my more favorite characters on the show, were getting less screen time in favor of the love triangle/square/pentagon between Sam, Santana, Finn, Rachel and Quinn.. it just seems pointless, especially when Kurt and Will are such intriguing characters.



Enough rambling though; I thought this episode was one of its better installments. Principal Figgins wants Will and New Directions to give a performance in celebration of alcohol awareness, but Rachel has no idea what being drunk or tipsy is like, so she holds a party at her house (while her parents are on a "Rosie O'Donnell cruise," whatever that is...) The party scenes were pretty cliche party scenes, but it was fun to watch the group play spin the bottle, and I actually liked Rachel and Blaine singing "Don't You Want Me Baby?"



From here, the episode splits into three different places: Rachel realizes she might have a crush on Blaine, Blaine thinks he might feel something for Rachel, which upsets Kurt, and Will realizes he has no way to blow off steam, which he remedies by going out to drink at a country bar with Coach Biest. I'm really glad that we got some Will scenes, and the drunk dial he makes to who he thinks is Emma was touching and hilarious all at once. I just didn't understand why the kids were so mad at him for indulging in alcohol once.. they act so mad, but the truth is he's legally able to drink and they're not.



I liked the Kurt/Blaine/Rachel triangle that the writers created, and if anything, I wish it would've gone on longer.. the drama could've been elevated because of it. I did like to see Kurt's dad back again.. I was a little frustrated the lack of him as well, but the show seemed to get a lot of stuff right with this episode.

It was great seeing Britney sing lead again, she really did a great job-- I wish they'd use her more than once a year to lead a song! Rachel's terrific, but she's not the only woman with a good voice; they mix it up for the guys periodically, why not let Mercedes and Santana and Britney sing more? But as for the "message" of the episode, they handled it rather well-- unlike the Bieber episode and some other theme ones, it wasn't contrived, it was based on normal behaviour-- a party without parental supervision, calming nerves, a night out and drunk dialing an ex, etc. Good for them for having the courage to tackling a thorny issue. But if they were looking for an anti alcohol song, why didn't they use Kim Mitchell's Go for Soda? It was a theme song for MADD for a few years in the '80s, it was originally a rock song but could be mixed up a bit, and fit the theme perfectly. It wasn't a trendy song like Ke$ha, but it could have been raised in practice. It's not like they don't do vintage songs on this show along with the more current ones!

So here's what you missed on GLEE!:



Continuing the show's rather annoying trend of relationship roulette, the unlikely pairing of Rachel and Blaine totally sends Kurt's world upside down as his mega crush waves Bi Bi and embraces his beer goggle smooch with the wannabe diva. Eww, right? I mean, Blaine, up until now, has totally been the show's gay mascot, even to our in-house, but totally out gay Kurt. Way inconsistent and completely left-field, but it did give Rachel a story for her [better be] awesome song.



Meanwhile, Mr. Schu has an awesome night out with coach Beiste, although the song they sing is a little rubbish. (Actually, most of the songs this week were weak - holy alliteration, Sue!); but we get to see him completely wasted AND humiliated all in one episode. Niice. Even though Sue doesn't get that many memorable one-liners this week, I cringed hard (like it was my day job) when she outed Mr. Schu and his message he left for Sue that was actually meant for Ms Pillsbury (or did she take her husbands name?...I don't really care).



Finn took some time out from being a stiff (Hookay, so he was joe-sober-driver guy, fair enough) to break it down for needy Rachel the archetypes themz females fall into when gettin' slizzard. So I thought I'd expand on some male archetypes:



The Mover = the totally awesome drunk guy who gets the party started with his awesome moves.



The Friend Guy = that drunk guy who you've probably talked to once that time at a random party who professes his admiration and love for you, declaring your official never-ending friendship from here on out. You'll never see him again.



The Girlfriend Guy = that guy who just won't shut up about his bloody girlfriend. ''She's pretty amazing, isn't she?'' - yes, so just STFU!!



The Perv = He seems like a great guy every other day, but when he's sippin' sizzurp, he's all makin' with the hands, sees skirts as play things and feels a magnetic pull towards boobz. Careful to pay him ANY attention, as even a quick stare can trigger the perv within, and he's stuck on you like a leech for the rest of the night.



The Mess = you know, the one that's face first on the floor (formally known as The Mover).



Now that we're up to speed, Britanny warns Rachel that she doesn't feel well, but when the diva says the show must go on, Britanny SHOWS her just how unwell she feels. And it's purple. (Although this time Rachel did not specify whether or not it actually tasted like Purple.) And then because Santana has to have a whiff of everyone's spotlight, she, too, spews purple, this time at the audience and I'm left cursing why this episode wasn't in 3D.



So this episode didn't really work for me. It didn't really have a clear message, either. The message was murky at best, purple at worst. Blaine's curiosity was never taken seriously enough. In order for the story to thrive, it forced our Gleeks to become genuine alcoholics. Funny party aside, it just didn't click, and that's because Glee should stick to being light-hearted and fun, and not all with the speechifying.



Kurt's relationship with his dad never really works either, and by that I mean Kurt always comes off as the ass-hat, cos his dad is so so amazing. Kurt whips up this drama storm and doesn't really make sense half of the time during his arguments, but we're meant to root for him cos he has sad face. No, Kurt, your dad is just pure awesome, simple as. Stop being an irrational ass-hat to him. Yeah, Kurt was upset, but why did he whip out the gay card? To his pro-gay father? CONFUSED. (But not as confused as Blaine whose totally to blame for this argument ever taking place. Ever notice how Blaine sounds very similar to blame? Coincidence? I think not.)



Not nearly as funny as previous weeks, and just plain awkward in parts, too. I really only enjoyed the grownups this week, and I seriously love coach Beiste.



I can't wait for our gleeks to become hardcore drug-addicts next.

This episode felt very different from othes and started with Figgins instating a week for Alcohol Awareness. The kids went to Rachel's place and got drunk. Loved how Blaine and Kurt were invited and how each drunk personality was shown- Mercedes and Tina acting creepily happy, Santana being loud, Quinn and Lauren being angry, Brittany acting like a stripper, and Rachel being an unlikable needy drunk towards Finn. Glad that at least Finn and Kurt stayed sober. Spin the bottle- awesome (though sadly no les-kisses). Loved Will and Beiste at the cowboy bar- they were so out of it. And then how he graded the papers when he got home.

Kurt's talk with his dad was awkward and nice, but Blaine waking up in his bed was just awkward.

Best performance was Tick Tok- the whole scene was great. First, when Rachel gave everyone a mixture of whatever was left in her dads' liquor cabinet, including the cough syrup (gross.) Then when Brittany did those splits- wow. And when she said "I don't feel so good" in the middle of the song. So disgusting when she blew all over Rachel's face and Santana threw up too. And then the audience goes completely silent as Brittany quietly tells them not to drink. Priceless.

Figgins not suspending anyone was a wow moment. Sue playing the drunk-dialing message Will ment for Emma was awful. It was, as she put it, public humiliation, to the extreme becuase it was infront of all the students. She shouldn't be allowed an intercom for that.

I was glad that Rachel and Blaine didn't work out, and when he shouts out "I'm GAY and they are both excited about it.

The drunk pledges were good, but they should probably stay in affect even after the competition. It was a good idea, and sort of sweet of him to offer.



Overall, it was a great, different episode. Just because it was about the dangers of alcohol doesn't mean the whole hour had to be a lecture. It was fun and even glorified drinking. However, the display of the effects set the message in deep for everyone.

This episode was great in many ways. First, I felt it presented underage alcohol use from there point of view rather than the adult view. The peer pressure that Rachel was under is very prevalent in the High School environment. Furthermore, The open dialogue between the teachers and students in regards to drinking was a good way to show how discussions can be handled. Always saying don't do it, but if you choose to you hear ways to be safe. The song choices were great, showing how drinking is glamorized by the media. As the kids said its all beer commercials show is people having a good time with now consequences, and how socially acceptable the behavior is. in all this episode was a step up for Glee. The past episodes have been a little dry and not much to it. This one, however, was full of fun and a little meaning.

If this episode of Glee had aired twenty years ago. It would have been a pretentious, ham fisted, prechy piece of garbage. Thank God those days are over as Glee was able to give us an hour back with laughes and a reasonable message. Drink ... responsibly.



There is no melodrama here. No car crashes, or alcohol poisioning or date rape. The Episode shows us how fun drinking can be. And how not fun hangovers can be as well as some of the other consequences of booze (drunk dialing, being mocked) But it is all mixed with some clever gaggs and interesting character beats.



The situation with Kurt and his father really spun my head in a knot. When a drunk Blaine crashed in Kurts room. Kurt was right that his father wouldn't have cared if Finn let a drunk friend crash. But does the fact that Kurt is gay mean he should be treated like a girl in this regard?



Even while all that was going on Blaine and Rachel were on the verge of starting a relationship after a drunken kiss lead Blaine to question just how gay he was. They wrapped his story up in a far too perfunctory manner, rendering the whole thing meaningless, save one obvious joke. But it was entertaining. Which is all you can really ask from a television show.

The Blaine/Rachel relationship was fun and exciting but I was so glad that the writers nixed it by the end of the episode. That the Glee club members are actually socialising outside of school was a nice touch. In previous episodes I could see Puck especially, crashing the party with others making all kinds of trouble.

The talk with Kurt's dad was embarrassing and slightly hypocritical of Burt, but I can understand where he is coming from. What I would like to see is what Blaine's family thinks about him being gay sleeping over, etc...

I think my favourite quote was Blaine's line after kissing Rachel. "Huh, yep. I'm gay 100% gay Thank you so much for clearing that up for me Rachel."