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Glee Season 4 Episode 17

Guilty Pleasures

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AIRED: Mar 21, 2013

8.7

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Episode Summary

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The New Directions tackle an assignment, meaning the songs as well as groups that everyone is too embarrassed to admit that they love.

TV.com Episode Review

Glee "Guilty Pleasures" Review: The Teachings of the Spice Girls

This was a solid episode that even managed to squeeze in some non-batshit-crazy public service announcements, which was both weird and welcome. I haven't been this un-conflicted about Glee's messages since Season 2.

By MaryAnn Sleasman, Mar 22, 2013

Fan Episode Reviews (5)

Great Episode!

8.5

By Orbster251, Mar 22, 2013

Last week's episode was fun, but the songs lacked. This week however the songs are amazing and the story pretty sweet and genuine! We all have guilty pleasures and this was a way to show people that its ok to have them. My musical guilty pleasure is also WHAM and Spice girls, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. I grew up listening to them and they dominated my life and now 15 yrs later, i still nod my head and even dance and sing to some of the songs when they are played.

Best part of the story was Rachel dealing with Brody's Jiggalo status. Granted it was unfair of her to judge him. We're all adults we make our decisions. I know what he does is bad but we all get what we deserve, she lied, so he lied as well. This stuff is real. Glee is so good at dealing with the real. Also, Blaine finally admitting to his crush on Sam was also dealt with sweetly. Knowing Sam so well, and glee being true to its characters, Sam taking Blaine's crush like eating a slice of cake was heartwarming. I'm glad its out in the open so now everyone can move on. Maybe not Tina! And i thought Rachel was annoying.

Funniest part of the show was Kurt's boyfriend pillow!! How creepily funny. Also when he was caught by the lady roomies, his sleepy reaction was fantastic "curtains mean privacy!". As a middle eastern girl, I did appreciate his oily comment, because its so true.

All in all this was a great idea for an episode! It's a shame we have to wait 3 weeks for the next one!

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great performances and many wtf moments

7.5

By CristinaAlber, Mar 22, 2013

I think I have given up to watch Glee because of the stories and relationships and messages (yes, there was a time when there was a message). I simply enjoy the performances, and there were many very nice performances this week again. The spice girls were cool, Sam and Blaine with Wham were the coolest and Jake did a really good performance on Bobby Brown. It was good that Kitty bitchiness was mentioned. But what was it about the Chris Brown thing? I think it was unnecessary and out of place, all this judging (I am speaking objectively and not taking sides), it's so not Glee. Like I wrote in reviews of other eps, Glee has lost its path.moreless
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Not the worst - but a total waste of an hour of my life anyway!

1.0

By Glee_meh, Mar 22, 2013

Have to say the first 10 minutes of this week's episode seemed to return our faith in the writing; a hard reset back to the days when issues, albeit somewhat out of the blue and completely contrived yet story-building in a bizarre; way were the norm for the show. The Bruce arm... c'mon, that was just good TV... bizarre, dumb, brainless and yet somewhat intriguing all at the same time. The Fan-ilow confession, brilliantly option giving but again I have to ask how kids that were not even born until the mid 1990's (1996 birth year makes them 17 this year); would confess that WHAM (pre-solo career for George Michael - whom none of them would have listened to either) and Barry Manilow (whose career flourished in the early to mid 1980's before losing all his money and fame to a manager who stole all his money and got away with it), is even a plausible story point?

While I was born in 1970, and am about the same age as the creative/writing staff; and have to admit my own past musical shame of having had a teen-hood that saw me sing my share of Copa Cobana and Wake-Me-Up before you Go-Go while in my morning shower routine... these kids were born some 12 to 14 years after these songs were experiencing their heyday on the radio (you know... radio... something that these kids wouldn't know what to do with if they saw one... since its not an i-phone app or downloadable via i-tunes to an i-pod).

Marley's opposition to a Chris Brown song is somewhat understandable since the guy has all the musical talent of a tomato seed, but at the very least the music would be something much more contemporary than the bubblegum pop of the early 80's... and the whole we hate him because he beat up his girlfriend... George Michael got busted for having gay sex in public bathrooms with underage teenage nobody had a hissy fit about the inclusion of WHAM in the opening sequence. And let's not forget the Warblers have done Whistle - a song all about teaching young girls how to properly give blow jobs.... yeah, a bunch of underage teenage males singing on a public stage in a regional competition to other underage girls about teaching them how to properly suck a guy that was somehow OK. Hmmmm... can we say this Chris Brown opposition is yet another in the long list of poorly written wholly contrived points of contention yet again?

Redemption comes in Blaine's performance of (yet another song popularised some 12 to 15 yrs before the birth of any of these Glee Kids) with a Phil Collins homage. But in a wide-sweeping way the lyric certainly hits the mark as does the camera work isolating the gaze between BLAM. It opens a world of possibilities for the future of BLAM in a nice way.

Spice Girls.... ok, yet more music from before these kids were even born... but if we assume that's the norm for this show then at least it was done in a nice way, and as someone in their early 40's it is always nice to hear the music of my own youth on modern TV.

anyone at all noticed the absence of one Will Schuster from the episode or would we all just prefer he stay out "sick" indefinitely?!

OK they had a very definite problem with Chris Brown but apparently have no problem with Bobby Brown who used to regularly BEAT The HELL out of their already declared (via last season) hero Whitney Houston?!?! Does Ryan Murphy know anything about music and the history of the artists he references during an episode or is he just marginally a fan of 1980's music while remaining a lack luster hack writer with no sense of continuity or factual research before making millions of dollars a year for himself by selling this thoroughly unresearched and factually devoid tripe to network executives who also clearly know nothing about music? Bobby Brown was WAY worse than Chris Brown could ever aspire to be when it came to drug use, alcohol abuse and beating on popular music divas he was dating and/or married to. "You knew about Vicky the robot girl but you didn't know about Bobby and yeah wait to cover your a_s mister Murphy.

FINALLY, 45 minutes into this week's episode we deal with Brody which was entirely devoid of emotion. No yelling... no ";you betrayed me" nothing reminiscent of how over-the-top mad the characters got about the "breakups" episode where Kurt cheated via phone TXT on Blaine... and definitely far from the huge power medley of the 3-way couples break-up or Santana-Brit/Kurt-Blaine/Finchel from earlier in the season. What a footnote to the story line this one a complete non-event. And Rachel's shrugging off of the whole thing as ";well I didn't really love you anyway I was just making Finn jealous"; was beyond lame and not really even true to the spirit of the characters either. This guy can't write.

Where's Coach Beiste? Did Dot-Marie get fired from the show? I hope not. Her story archs were some of the few that were actually watchable and her character development was really nice to watch. Hope they don't do a huge network mistep by removing her from the show (until they move the entire thing to New York and kill off the Lima Ohio portion of the cast forever).

OK, heading into the Facts Of Life marathon (which again is something none of these kids would have watched as they weren't yet born when it aired on TV), but it seems the show for this week is over.

What did we learn? Uhmmmm...... Principal Figgins is AWOL so apparently the school runs itself without a Principle, Coacch Sue and the Cheerios are nowhere to be seen - perhaps they're off recording some new Olivia Newton John videos for Youtube or something, Emma is out of the picture after last week's miraculous digging up of her super duper secret location she had been hiding out at (her sister's house - DUH!), Finn is nowhere to be found - maybe he's hiding from the New York City Police so he doesn't go to prison for assault and Battery and destruction of private property after trashing that expensive hotel room and beating up Brody last week, Rachel never actually loved or it seems even liked Brody enough to fight for him but instead walks away from him without so much as a tear or angry word (yes I always move people into my bedroom who I don't like.... don't you?!?!?), Jr Puckerman has no clue about the music artists of the 1980's and who was a wife beater and who was rightly so as he wasn't born till the mid 1990's; Kitty .... thinks Lord Tubbington is going to die and hates fondue????; Unique-Wade seems to be over his-her violent opposition to being called "a boy" and does a Spice Girls number this week, Sam is an idiot and wouldn't pick up on a love song directed at him if there was just him and the singer in a room alone together with a neon flashing light that said I'm in love with you! and the show can survive without the whistful stylings of Will Schuster for a whole episode while still drowning the audience in early 1980's music, contrived story lines and walk-through acting that would make even a fledgling director tear his hair out and vow he'd never work with teenagers (who are actually in their mid to late 20's) ever again.

Not the worst episode to have been aired but certainly an hour of my life I will never get back again.

What a piece of CRAP!

And I gave up watching this week's new episode of "Bar Rescue" on SPIKE

Hmmm....

Amnd the reference to the movie version of ABBA... c'mon... NONE of that movie cast could sing to save their lives. Pierce Brosnan was a great Private Eye in TV's Remmington Steele, and a semi-good James Bond... but as far as a singer.... NO WAY!!!! That movie was an insult to ABBA and regarded as one of the world's WORST movies of all time by REAL ABBA fans, only surpassed perhaps by ISHTAR or WATER WORLD as the biggest waste of film in the history of movie making.

My KINGDOM for a writer who isn't a complete musical moron!!!!!

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I Guess Everyone Has A Gulity Pleasure

7.0

By Mariegal19, Mar 22, 2013

This episode was a bit of a step up from last weeks, still that's not saying much.

I sometimes wonder why I still watch this show. I guess because it in itself is a guilty pleasure.

I gave this episode a somewhat high score because I utterly adored Blaine & Sam's developing friendship, I loved Blaine's solo it was wonderfully heartfelt and sweet.

I loved the Glee Girls doing the Spice Girls, it was another highlight for me!

All in all those were the only things I loved about this episode, the rest were quite dull for me at least.moreless
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I didn;t notice it until now, but....

7.0

By sodapopgirl721, Mar 22, 2013

(Spoilers ahead).

Say what you want about the glee writers, but they pay attention. Yes they;re incredibly stupid, but they know people have wondered why on Earth these people tolerate Kitty. And oddly, this episode focused a lot on Kitty, more than most, so I;m attacking that first. I am not one of Kitty's fans and have been waiting not very patiently for her to get her comeuppance all season. Then this episode Brittany invites Kitty to be on her talk show because everyone hates her for being the sociopathic psychobitch that she is... and that;s when I got it. Glee is acknowledging Kitty is a terrible person. They;re acknowledging that everyone knows it. They;re even acknowledging Marley and everyone else knows the exact role she played in Marley;s troubles. And as we learn this episode, THEY JUST DON'T CARE.

But that;s not a surprise, right? It;s just cause Glee;s that kind of show. Glee isn;t the show that has big Exodus-style, confrontation scenes, amirite?

OH, WAIT. I seem to remember in a faraway land entitled season 1, one Finn Hudson discovered his best friend fathered his girlfriend;s baby, and what did he do? He beat his mohawked bro into the ground while the rest of the glee club watched. Now, I'm not advocating pummeling Kitty or violence in general, but at least then they acknowledged things weren;t okay. It took a year and a half for Finn and Puck to be friends again, and... oddly he and Quinn dated again but it was still more realistic than this. The girls came up and crowded Kitty for her guilty pleasure, but they should;ve confronted her like that about what she did to marley! They should;ve all come at her and Will should;ve said something heavy handed and she should've been freaking expelled. But no, the closest was right after the fact when Santana knew what she was doing and called her on it, but no one listened. The direction the story has taken this season is we know stuff is going down; we;ve just elected not to care.

Which brings us to Sam and Blaine, aka the dynamic duo who;ve saced this season and deny it all you want, the only two reasons people are coming back week after week (my third reason was to see kitty get her comeuppance, but you had to crap on that too, didn;t you, writers?!) This week when everyone starts talking guilty pleasures Blaine is worried Sam knows he likes him and Sam later reveals he does knows, but as things are on glee now, he just doesn;t care. While I think that is a good attitude to take and Sam managed to make it adorable as ever ("We;re friends and you;re into dudes, if you weren;t into me i;d be pretty offended") but literally no reaction? Other than worrying Blaine's getting a boner during their hug? Is one of the last five episodes this year going to be entitled "We shoved so many problems under the damn rug it literally exploded?")

Next, Jake wants to sing Chris Brown and all the girls come at him like braying hyenas. Don;t get me wrong, I;m not one of those disturbing girls on twitter who think the way chris brown is is sexy (the only fans he as a person has left are messed up girls who invite him to come over and beat them up anytime) but I think it;s wrong to tell a person what kind of music they can and can;t listen to. Music is something that can be either really public or private and if a person wants to listen to an artist, it doesn;t mean that they agree with the person they are in real life. Backlash is also seen when Jake performs a Bobby Brown song, not knowing the history. And both times Marley looks at him like he pushed her mom in front of a van. I don't think Alec Baldwin should;'ve called his eleven year old daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig" but I can still watch 30 rock because he;s a truly gifted comedian (and that incident was years ago) and i don;t like this mentality on glee that if we disapprove of it, you;re not allowed to like it, mister!

And over in New York, again, because the new motto on glee is "yes there;s a problem, we;re just ignoring it" santana has moved back in with rachel and kurt, presumably because they wanted their comforter and pillow back. This I find realistic because while Santana keeps calling Rachel and Kurt her "family" she and Rachel only became friends the last two months of high school, before which she tormented Rachel endlessly, calling her a loser for just being herself. And a person;s home should be a place where they feel most safe, not where they come home and see the person who used to get their jollies from kicking them when they;re down. And Santana has apparently told Kurt what she knows about Brody and evantually tells Rachel. Rachel then confronts Brody and he tells her about Finn coming to town. Last week, I felt that was weird and a touch unneeded, and partly because those glee transporters aren;t marketed to the public and partly because it felt a little cro-magnon, of the "rachel me girl, you no touch me punch face" variety. The one thing I could see was if Finn was still in the Big Apple and ends up going to school out there. Anyways, Brody confronts Rachel about her still being in love with Finn and she admits she thinks she just used him to block her broken heart and to make Finn jealous. I;ll admit, I liked Brody at the beginning because he was a shiny new toy and looked at Rachel like she was an angel, but their relationship went from zero to prenuptials in sixty seconds and it might not be so bad now if they had taken things a taddddd slower. But Brody;s gone. For now, at least.

And on another note, those body pillows with the arms are about the creepiest thing I;ve ever seen. Those are like Furby-level creepy. Massive no-no.

And now we have to wait three weeks before glee is back for the last five episodes this year. And I have absolutely no idea where this year is going.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Matthew Morrison	Will Schuester
Jane Lynch	Sue Sylvester
Lea Michele	Rachel Berry
Chris Colfer	Kurt Hummel
Kevin McHale	Artie Abrams
Amber Riley	Mercedes Jones

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Dean Cameron	Kurt's Acting Teacher	Guest Star
Melissa Benoist	Marley Rose	Recurring Role
Jacob Artist	Jake Puckerman	Recurring Role
Blake Jenner	Ryder Lynn	Recurring Role

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Jacob Artist on Glee from "Guilty Pleasu...

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The Glee Club on Glee from "Guilty Pleas...

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Melissa Benoist and Chris Colfer on Glee...

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Chris Colfer, Naya Rivera, and Lea Miche...

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (2)
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- Brody said that Finn was like Frankenstein when he attacked him.
  
  Frankenstein was the scientist that created the creature and it seems that Brody was making an allusion to the creature not the scientist.
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- Music Featured in this Episode:
  
  "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!
  
  "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow
  
  "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" by Phil Collins
  
  "Wannabe" by Spice Girls
  
  "My Prerogative" by Bobby Brown
  
  "Creep" by Radiohead
  
  "Mamma Mia" by ABBA
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QUOTES (0)
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NOTES (1)
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- Original International Airdates:
  Canada: March 21, 2013 on Global
  Norway: April 28, 2013 on TV2 Bliss
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ALLUSIONS (0)
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