While the title of this review may be better suited for next week’s Billy Joel tribute episode of Glee, it also accurately illustrates my feelings towards the show after last night’s episode, “The End of Twerk.” Everything that occurred at McKinley during this week’s episode was awful: the manufactured drama of Marley and Jake breaking up over his out-of-character cheating; Will nonsensically enacting the first amendment in order to combat Sue’s ban against twerking; and Unique’s overly preachy bathroom storyline, which confirmed that the writers only know how to use Unique as a prop to instill their messages of equality instead of understanding how to treat her as an actual character, and also that Alex Newell has nowhere near the acting talent of Chris Colfer and Naya Rivera, who were both able to give some sort of grounded realism and emotional depth to these “after school special”-esque plots over the course of Glee‘ first three seasons.
What use to make Glee such a joy to watch (the emotional realism of its high school characters, the over-the-top musical productions, and the series’ self-awareness that it was silly and ridiculous a lot of the time but that it also knew how to wear its heart on its sleeve) is all gone. The Ohio side of the show has become soulless, an almost warped reality where cardboard cutouts have replaced our favorite characters and the only real ties to the Glee of old is the bickering and bantering between Will and Sue (which was also one of the few things I actually enjoyed about last night’s episode).
On the flip side, however, as I stated in my review last week, Glee is doing a great job this season of making its New York setting feel real, vibrant, and interesting. Last night, as I watched Rachel rehearse for Funny Girl and she and Kurt drunkenly got to get tattoos, I felt invested, and most of all, I felt the fun permeate through the screen. These are characters and situations that actually have been formed out of some thought and consideration, not meaningless plots that are dictated by whatever moronic word Will writes on the board in the choir room that week.
And that’s what made Glee so good years ago. Sure, there was always some sort of theme or lesson that the show constricted itself too, but the stories of the characters grew from those concepts and ideas instead of being confined by them. Characters like Rachel, Finn, Kurt, and Santana could be caught up in episodic plots that were light and fun and goofy, but they always had some sort of direction and meaning to their personal journeys throughout the course of a season. And now? Well, aside from winning Nationals, I couldn’t tell you why I should be invested in anyone at McKinley. From Blaine to Sam to Marley to even Will, there’s nothing that captures me emotionally, no stories or moments that make me cheer for them or sympathize, or heck, even sing along.
Instead, the only time that I find myself not rolling my eyes at the screen are when Rachel is channeling Fanny Brice, or when Kurt attempts to get a band of singers together, or in my favorite moment of last night’s episode, when Rachel reveals that she got “Finn” tattooed to her side, the only thing that she could ever picture herself loving and not regretting 50 years down the line. That’s when Glee has me interested. That’s when Glee captivates me. That’s when Glee has me singing along with it again.
What did everyone else think about last night’s episode of Glee?
[Photo via Mike Yarish/FOX]
Follow Us
Exactly, spot on review.