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Glee Season 3 Episode 5

The First Time

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AIRED: Nov 08, 2011

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EPISODE REVIEWS
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Episode Summary

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The opening night of the school musical is approaching and the two leads are contemplating taking their relationships with their respective significant others to the next level. Meanwhile, a scout visits McKinley High which could influence Finn's future.

Fan Episode Reviews (9)

Extremely Well Done!

10

By Mariegal19, Oct 08, 2012

This episode was truly amazing!

Everything was top-notch from the acting to the songs and the songs actually apart from "Uptown Girl" really fit into the episode and made a wonderful companion to what the characters were going through "off-stage."

Kurt/Blaine's conflict in the parking lot was GREAT, it was even better than I imagined it felt so organic and real!

Their make up scene after the musical was just as touching and great!

Kurt/ Karofsky's little scene was amazing I really liked seeing him back and I hope we get more of him soon it was nice to see him look remotely happy & accepting of himself especially after what happened last year.

I really liked Tina's little speech it was really cool and I think it fit really well into the storyline I also liked Mike's small subplot with his dad it was heartbreaking and really sad to see.

Beiste was absolutely incredible in this episode! I loved how we got 2 see her character grow, her courtship was really sweet and true to her character!

Artie's little story arc was lovely and very true to his character too!

Finn/ Rachel also surprised me as well their storyline was authentic too I liked how Finn was sort of like the "girl" in their relationship it was awesome!

The one thing I didn't like was how Brittany described her "first time" it felt really bizarre and kinda scary that was the ONLY flaw with this episode thorough!

Both of the "love scenes" were touching and unbelievably sweet!

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This was the best episode this season, with a few (very) minor hiccups.

8.5

By rgibson2, Dec 01, 2011

Finally the musical is over and done with - one more number from WSand I was out the door. But this episode was the best all season, with afew minor exceptions.

Going into it I was skeptical of the writers and directors ability to handlesuch a touch subject, though I'm sure they anticipated the abstinencecrowd when creating the episode. All in all it "the first time" was handledwith dignity and taste and focused more on the love quotient than thelust.

Despite what I said above the interweaving of some of the WS songs with the plot was also welldone during both the Blane/Kurt/Sebastien scene and the ending "first time" vignettes with Blane/Kurt and Finn/Rachel. Featuring musical numbers by other cast members was also refreshing. As a sidenote: I feel a little bad for Damien McGinty, the Glee Project winner - he won a 7 or 9 epiosode run and if this one counts (he was on the screen for a VERY short time) then he was ripped off.

Okay a few minor gripes: The scene with Mike Chang and his dad musthave something to do with an upcoming episode b/c it was just thrownin out of the blue. Artie talking about sex with Bieste? Can you EVERimagine talking to one of your HS teachers about THEIR virginity?Speaking of Bieste, what about her "first time"? That would have beenfun to include. Where was Sue? Campaigning? Finally, I have mixedthoughts about the whole Sebastien storyline. Aside from the "Kurtdoesn't need to know" aspect what's with the underage drinking? Hellif people wanted to get up in arms about something that should havebeen it. Again, minor.

So they've kept me for now. Let's see what next week brings.

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Glee has never terribly been a show that's interested in process.

8.5

By colten97, Nov 30, 2011

It's interested in results. Many shows would have gotten a good half season's worth of plotlines out of the kids getting ready to put on West Side Story. You would have had the initial reading episode, the episode where we learned all about how Artie was finding himself as a director, the episode where some of the kids had a brief romance, the episode where dress rehearsal was a disaster, etc., etc., etc. But Glee has never much wanted to do the boring stuff on the way to the fireworks factory. It wants to just get to the fireworks factory as soon as possible, so we get an episode that crams all of those different episodes into one—most of them in what amounts to a single scene or a half-scene or just a dramatic beat—and it's also an episode that's all about doin' it. Surprisingly, it works pretty well. Or, put another way, this is an episode where Schu only appears so he can sit in the audience and tear up about how great his kids are. So, yeah, it's pretty good.

Artie's worried that Rachel and Blaine's romantic chemistry just isn't cutting it—despite the fact that they're still on book and performing without facing each other—so he summarily orders them to have sex. Anyway, this gets into my one big gripe with the episode, so we might as well get it out of the way here. Wasn't Blaine supposed to be the worldly guy who ushered Kurt into the ways of being a gay man in the 21st century? Didn't we have that whole thing where he was in love with an older guy who worked at the Gap? And, sure, none of that's predicated on Blaine being older and more experienced than Kurt necessarily, but didn't it sure seem like he was there for a while?

In this episode, at least, Blaine's so young and inexperienced that he needs his own Blaine, some Warbler named Sebastian who's been to Paris and Lima's premier gay bar. It'd be interesting if the show were playing around with the idea that Blaine was bluffing, that he was putting on a worldly exterior to hide just how little he actually knew. And, yes, confidence goes a long way and can get you in a lot of doors. But it really does feel like Blaine left Dalton and went to McKinley and also abruptly realized when he got there that he was going to have to replace whole portions of his personality with a different one so he could have a ready-made character arc. The story arc hasn't been bad by any means, but it does feel like Darren Criss is playing someone who's quite a bit different from the guy he was playing last season.

That said, I thought most of the rest of the episode worked. This is probably my inner theatre geek speaking, but I enjoyed the vast majority of the West Side Story numbers, and I like the way that the show used them to comment on the action, occasionally directly, occasionally indirectly. The storyline mostly drops away toward the end so the kids can perform an elaborately choreographed and staged—seriously, suspension of disbelief, yes, but this is the greatest high school arts program ever, and the teachers are throwing it together with paperclips and Slim Jims—version of "America" that doesn't have anything to do with anything but is one of the best production numbers the show has ever done. When the songs are this much fun, the show can get away with having them not really have anything to do with the plot or characters, but this one also highlighted Rachel and Blaine's nerves, Finn's anger, and the whole question of whether McKinley could put on a good musical at all. There's something to be said for getting dessert before the meal from time to time, and "America" was damn good dessert.

Another reason this mostly worked? As much as it possibly could, it focused on the kids. Yes, there were a few scenes where Cooter tried to charm Coach Beiste and she just didn't get that he was hitting on her, but for the most part, we were zeroed in on Rachel, Finn, Kurt, and Blaine. Much as I love some of the other kids, they only popped up when the story needed them to, and that was the right call. The exception here? A weird, tonally off scene where Mike Chang's dad dropped by just to repeat everything he said back in "Asian F," but add in the fact that he wanted to be a tennis player at one time. It's tough to criticize anything in Glee for being "on the nose," but this scene was pretty on the nose, particularly since it was largely the only part of this storyline we got to see and it ended with, "If you dance, then you are not my son!" which should be beneath even this show.

Anyway, yes, the kids. This was basically an episode about the two couples, with Artie wandering through storylines to bring people together or play matchmaker or briefly realize that performing the roles of assistant director and set designer and costume designer and whatever else it was he was doing was too much to place on his shoulders, prompting a pre-show freak-out. The material about Blaine and Kurt and Rachel and Finn talking about having sex was unexpectedly sweet, and there was little talk about, "Oh, gosh, if I give you my virginity, will I always regret it forever, and maybe I should just wait?" Thanks to a pep talk from Tina about how it's nice to have sex for the first time with someone you really love and how it will give you memories you'll cherish forever, no matter how the relationship ends, Rachel, at least, seems to think, sure, having sex as a teenager, if you're safe and conscientious, can be a fun, nice thing to share. Kurt and Blaine conclude the same, and the episode ends with some tastefully shot staring-into-each-other's-eyes and post-coital cuddling. It's, dare I say it, nice.

Of course, there's plenty of stuff on the way there that's fun, too. Since the episode opens with Artie telling these two crazy kids to have sex with their significant others, the episode has to end with at least one couple having sex or with both of them doing so. So there needs to be some false conflict, and I can't say this was my favorite thing in the world. Rachel blurting out to Finn that she was only having sex with him because she was worried about her performance was stupid. I buy that as a character motivation, but I don't buy it as something she'd just say accidentally, out of nowhere. It was a way to prolong the inevitable.

That said, the big night out at the gay bar was a much better way of extending the other storyline. Kurt's a big ol' romantic who wants to have sex with Taylor Lautner in a field full of lilies or something, while Blaine doesn't have any such illusions about his first time. So Sebastian—who all but steps out and twirls his mustache at several points in this episode—represents something of a credible threat, and the gay bar scene also gets at another difference between Kurt and Blaine. The latter is starting to think, more and more, about how he could stay in Lima and help people. Presumably, he means that there may be a role for an out and proud gay man in a small town as a pillar of the community and someone for gay teenagers to look up to. And he's not wrong! But Kurt's not wrong to want to pursue his dreams in New York either. Like Finn and Rachel, the show is exploring what happens when two people are right for each other in high school but almost certainly won't be the second they graduate.

It's at the gay bar where Kurt meets his old nemesis, Karofsky, who's transferred high schools, so terrified is he of people finding out he's gay. The two have something like a coming to terms, and Karofsky lets on that he's just trying to get through his senior year before his life can really begin. And it's here that the show zeroes in on what it's doing this season and why it's been, on average, a better show than it was in season two, even if it's not exactly as crazy and wacky as it was then.

For all that Glee doesn't seem interested in the process of getting to a point and so much more interested in just getting to that conclusion, it's actually taking its time this season to examine who these people are in their senior years and whether they'll choose big dreams or something smaller-scale. And to the show's credit, it's not really condemning anyone for any of their choices. Blaine's desires aren't demonized. Yes, they'll get between him and Kurt, eventually, but they're also worthwhile, positive goals. And the scene where Finn erupts at Rachel about how he'll never get out of town, about how he's not good enough at football and not good enough at singing, is surprisingly powerful. Lima is many things, but over this final season, the characters are going on a journey wherein they decide whether or not it's a place they want to make better or a place they want to escape as best they can, even if escape only comes for a few fleeting moments in bed.moreless
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Practically perfect in every way

10

By sodapopgirl721, Nov 30, 2011

(Spoilers ahead).

The latest episode of Glee was just... amazing. Breathtaking. And everything in between. The episode revolves around the opening of West Side Story and Rachel and Kurt losing their virginity. If they had done this in season 2, it would;ve been a disaster. But this year they managed to pull it off in a poignant, beautiful way. To break it down, this episode was amazing because of:

It didn't surprise me at all Rachel would have sex to make her acting better. Really, does that surprise anyone else? And she talks it over with the glee girls and while the populars (quinn, brittany, santana) tell her to wait, Tina tells her that her first time was perfect because her and Mike love each other and no matter what happens, she;ll always look back on that first time with no regrets. In this day and age of casual sex and revenge sex and hey, look at Quinn's first time, it's nice to see a teenage couple having sex simply because they love each other and they want to be together.

Puck. He didn't have much in this episode but I loved the part he had. Finn asks him for advice on protection and Puck thinks he's cheating on Rachel and tells him "That's not cool. And that's coming from me." When Finn tells him he wants to do it with Rachel, Puck approves and adds, "I always thought it'd be me, but secretly hoped it'd be you." The Puckleberry shipper in me couldn;t help but "awwww!" at that part.

Lack of Sue. Don't get me wrong, I love Sue and Jane Lynch is a fantastically underrated actress who should be getting the recognition she deserves, but there is very little left for her character anymore. The "Sue is trying to destroy glee club... AGAIN!" has worn just a tad thin, and while the congress plot is good (sort of) we no longer need to see her every episode, and it was nice she wasnt in this one.

Blaine/Kurt/Karofsky. Blaine returns to Dalton to invite his Warbler buddies to WSS and some new Warbler starts hitting on him and isn;t subtle about it at all. Like, he doesnt mind Blaine has a boyfriend. He invites Kurt and Blaine out to a gay club to which Kurt accepts because he worries they;re too "safe." There Kurt runs into Karofsky who we learn transferred to another school but has accepted himself. It was nice to see him and Kurt toast to "baby steps."

Lack of Will/Troubletones I'm sorry, but lately Will and Shelby's rival glee club have just provided annoying plot points that time could be used for anything else. In this episode, Will was just in the audience watching the show with Emma, and that was perfectly fine.

Finn. A recruiter comes from Ohio State and tells Finn his football dreams are dead. He is devastated and feels like he'll never get out of Lima and Rachel tells him he just outgrew his dreams, but they;ll find new ones together. He is surprised she still wants to sleep with him and she tells him she wants to be with the boy she loves.

Blaine tells Kurt he doesn;t care about Sebastian and wants to be with him.

In the end, we see both Finn and Rachel and Blaine and Kurt in bed together. Given the trainwreck that was season 2, Glee pulled off the impossible: this episode had a good message that wasnt preachy or tawdry and was simply...beautiful.moreless
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Wow!! So much talent

10

By PeterWilliams3, Nov 30, 2011

What an amazing episode, beautiful singing, great performances, awesome dancing. All the cast are so talented, any of them could outshine Britney or Lady Gaga without breaking a sweat. It is sad that singers of such talent are not being rewarded as well as the ones whose only skill is self-promotion
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Dianna Agron	Quinn Fabray
Chris Colfer	Kurt Hummel
Darren Criss	Blaine Anderson
Jane Lynch	Sue Sylvester
Jayma Mays	Emma Pillsbury
Kevin McHale	Artie Abrams

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Eric Bruskotter	Cooter Menkins	Guest Star
Keong Sim	Michael Chang Sr.	Guest Star
Tamlyn Tomita	Julia Chang	Guest Star
Dot Jones	Coach Shannon Beiste	Recurring Role
Max Adler	Dave Karofsky	Recurring Role
Damien McGinty	Rory Flanagan	Recurring Role

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Episode Photos

Darren Criss on Glee from "The First Time"

© 2011 Fox Broadcasting Company
Lea Michele and Darren Criss on Glee fro...

© 2011 Fox Broadcasting Company
Chris Colfer and Heather Morris on Glee ...

© 2011 Fox Broadcasting Company
Lea Michele on Glee from "The First Time".

© 2011 Fox Broadcasting Company

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (1)
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- Music Featured in this Episode:
  
  "Tonight" from West Side Story
  
  "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel
  
  "A Boy Like That" from West Side Story
  
  "I Have a Love" from West Side Story
  
  "America" from West Side Story
  
  "One Hand, One Heart" from West Side Story
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QUOTES (6)
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- Kurt: (after Blaine drunkenly asks why he won't hook up in the backseat) Because I have never felt less like being intimate with someone, and you either don't see that or just don't care!
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- Rachel: We should make a toast.
  Finn: Yeah.
  Rachel: Alright. To four full months of no fighting or threats of us breaking up. Nothing but love, love, love.
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- Rachel: I don't understand what any of this means?
  Finn: It means I suck! It means I'm gonna be stuck here forever! Recruiter's not gonna recruit me. They said I-I'd reached my ceiling.
  Rachel: They're are other colleges.
  Finn: Are there other schools for you besides NYADA? I'm not good enough! I'm not a good enough quarterback to get a scholarship. I'm not a good enough singer to get into
  NYADA, it's all over for me!
  Rachel: Stop it! Finn, look at me. Your dreams are not dead, okay? You've just grown out of them. You have to find new ones now.
  Finn : I don't know how.
  Rachel: Then we'll figure it out together! You're special. You know how I know that? Cause I'm gonna give you something that no one else is going to get.
  Finn: You don't have to do this. The play's over, there's no point.
  Rachel: No, the point is that I was wrong, and stupid, and immature, and probably not for the last time lost in my ambition, and...
  Finn: And now?
  Rachel: Now, I'm just a girl, here with the boy that she loves, And wanting to remember this moment For the rest of her life.
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- Tina: Losing my virginity was a great experience for me. Because I was with someone I love. It happened in the summer. Mike and I had talked about it for a while, because we knew that The first time was gonna be something we wanna remember forever. And when that moment came, we just knew. It was right, it wasn't rushed...it was amazing. He's my first love, and I'll always look back at that moment as absolutely perfect. No regrets.
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- Sebastian: What do you say we shake things up? I get you guys a couple of fake ID's and we head over to Scandal's in a Vest Limo.
  Blaine: Scandal's? (To Kurt) That's the gay bar.
  Sebastian: The last time I was there, I met the man of my dreams on the dance floor.
  Kurt: That's so sweet and... Are you two still together?
  Sebastian: Sadly, no. We broke up about 20 minutes after we met.
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- Kurt: We're young, so we got all the time in the world to be adventurous.
  Blaine: Don't you think now is the time to be adventurous? While we're still young.
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NOTES (2)
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- Although credited, Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester) does not appear in this episode. Amber Riley (Mercedes Jones) appears but has no lines.
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- Original International Air Dates:
  Canada: November 8, 2011 on Global
  Australia: November 9, 2011 on Network TEN
  United Kingdom: November 10, 2011 on Sky1/Sky1 HD
  Sweden: December 28, 2011 on TV11
  Norway: April 8, 2012 on TV2 Bliss
  Czech Republic: September 29, 2012 on Prima LOVE
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ALLUSIONS (0)
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