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“Glee” Takes A Drunken Stumble

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Posted by Rae Votta on 02/23/2011 at 10:00 AM News, Recaps

The Popdust Files: glee

In this week’s very special episode of Glee we learn all about the dangers and delights of alcohol, which leads to questioning your sexuality, embarrassing phone calls, and frozen yogurt coupons.

First off, the only thing that can explain this episode of Glee is if the writer, the director, and everyone else involved were drunk off their asses when creating it as some sort of thematic homage. Only the truly wasted could produce such an inconsistent, choppy, weird, filler-filled episode; it was so poorly structured, I thought a commercial for a Jack In The Box turkey sandwich was actually part of the show. (It made sense at the time.)

We begin with Rachel trying to write what seems to be the worst original song in the history of original songs; it is about her hairband, and rhymes “do” with “do.” Finn points out the failings of the tune and Rachel realizes she can’t write a song because she hasn’t lived yet. The only way to live, of course, is to drink, so she decides to throw a party while her dads are away on the Rosie cruise.

The Glee kids are wary, and with good reason. Rachel throws a pretty lame party—although I agree that “Celebrity” can be a really great party game when you’ve got the right group—and eventually she buckles to Puck and Finn’s pressure and breaks into the liquor cabinet.

Cue “Like a G6″ to let us know that everybody is trashed. The kids act debauched and we get some truly sexy Santana/Britt bodyshots that made me scream out “Yes!!” in my Paris hotel room. Kurt is trying to go light on the alcohol to impress Blaine, who is dancing like a terrifying monkey and not going light on the alcohol to impress anybody.

When the drunkenness hits critical mass the group breaks out a staple of adolescent partydom—”Spin The Bottle.” Sam and Britt kiss and I can’t tell whose lips Santana is drunkenly laying claim on. (Probably both.) Rachel takes a turn and lands on Blaine, tugging him in for a kiss that has been setting fire to the hearts of fangirls and bloggers for the past week.

This smooch sets off the episode’s thin plot. Kurt’s reaction is pitch perfect; Rachel’s boozy “your face tastes awesome” earns a chuckle, and then Blaine and Rachel join spotlight-hog forces to belt out “Don’t You Want Me” on the stage in the basement. (Of course Rachel’s house has a stage in the basement.) They are a hot mess, although their showboating is lost on their friends, who are mostly engrossed in making out. I love the other kids’ interactions during the song—Puck and Lauren’s growing closeness, Santana’s drunk happiness—but then everything is ruined by the editors cutting out the part where Blaine drunkenly falls off the stage. I watched that part of the preview so many times!

We flash to the next morning at the Hummel-Hudson house with Burt walking upstairs to find a strange, albeit fully clothed, boy in Kurt’s bed. After a year and a half of Burt dealing with accepting his son’s homosexuality in the abstract, this is his first taste of its actually being real.

The glee kids deal with their hangovers through song, of course. “Blame It (On The Alcohol)” is a fun number, and I appreciate how fly everyone looks, but I hate to agree with Mr. Schue: It doesn’t really work for an alcohol-awareness assembly. Still, it is pretty hard to find a glee-appropriate (and Glee-appropriate) song that vilifies instead of glorifies alcohol.

(Side note: All the points being made about alcohol during this episode are fine. But I don’t get why we needed them? Usually, Very Special Glee Episodes have some overarching point to them—Mercedes’ weight issues in relation to joining cheer, Kurt’s anti-religion beliefs relating to his father’s heart attack—but there’s no story beyond the surface here. I’m not asking for someone to die in a alcohol-fueled car crash, but a moral more substantial than “drinking leads to sexual confusion” would be nice.)

Rachel has progressed to drinking wine alone and calling her gay friend’s gay crush and asking him out. Kurt, meanwhile, is telling Blaine that making out with Rachel while sloshed is “rock bottom”; Blaine laughs with Kurt over this, then promptly tells Kurt he accepted Rachel’s invitation. Keep in mind that the last time we saw Blaine, he was so head over heels for some male Gap employee he sang about sex toys. Kurt reminds Blaine of this fact, and that it’s not nice to lead Rachel on; Blaine replies that the kiss felt nice, and that maybe he’s into women and men both. Of course this does not sit well with Kurt. It didn’t engender much positive reaction from fans, either; in fact, creator Ryan Murphy prefaced the episode by reassuring the world that Blaine is not bisexual at all, effectively castrating the episode’s entire dramatic arc

Back in the moment, though, things are heated. Kurt takes the (offensive!) position that “bisexual” is what high school boys call themselves so they can hold hands with girls, which is only forgivable because he is an angry teenager who doesn’t know any better. Glee, however, does not get a pass on this storyline. The notion of bisexuality is something that could be truly explored; yes, a lot of gay people use bisexuality as a stepping stone in their coming-out process, but it’s also a valid identity and one that even other characters on this show might have. (It’s been heavily implied that both Santana and Britt are bisexual. Why bother pushing this storyline onto Kurt and Blaine instead of just working with the one already in motion, unless it’s a simple plot contrivance?)

Blaine gets angry, going as far as to equate Kurt’s insensitivity with Karofsky’s assault of Kurt, which is completely out of line. Blaine is obviously hurt that Kurt isn’t supportive of him, but he doesn’t seem to realize that beyond the “liking girls too” aspect of his new romantic interest, Kurt is going to feel lousy because Blaine is trying to date his friend—who ended up dating the last boy Kurt liked too. While I’m glad Blaine’s character is getting more dimensions, it’s sad they’ve been variations on the “insensitive asshole” theme. I know teenage boys are failures, but can Kurt at least catch a break? Not for now, at least; Blaine stalks off in a rather queeny huff, determined to go on his straight date and figure himself out. (Although we never actually get to see any of that.)

One thing I’ve really enjoyed this season is Bieste and Schue’s friendship; they’ve been non-combative, adult, opposite-sex-but-nonsexual friends who just get each other. I think both their characters really need that support and it’s sweet to see them develop that further. That said, I am not thrilled by their “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” performance. I know the theme of this episode of drinking, but every song in the episode comes off like drunk karaoke.

Kurt helps Rachel clean up from the party a few days later; he claims to want to be a good friend, but he really wants to hear about Rachel and Blaine’s date. What went down was gayness, but of course Rachel doesn’t see it that way since Blaine simply shares her interests—Broadway, classic movies, etc. It’s painful to watch Rachel be so insensitive to Kurt, since not long ago she and Mercedes were comforting him over Blaine’s last slight. Does she have the memory of a gnat? Why would you so giddily tell your friend that you might be falling for the guy he likes after one drunken kiss and a chaste date? Usually you don’t crush your friend’s dreams until you’re actually dating the person.

Kurt, while obviously hurt, is holding it together admirably and trying to give Rachel the gentle talk-down that one gives to any friend who’s fallen for someone clearly not interested. Of course, a bit of bitchiness comes out, and his quip “Blaine is in a long line of conflicted men you will date who will turn out to be the most flaming of homosexuals” is priceless. At least this jumble of an episode managed to hearken back to the conversation Rachel and Kurt had in season one about Finn, during which Rachel pointed out that she’d always have a leg up on Kurt because she was a girl. While Kurt doesn’t say that in so many words, at least he’s secure in knowing that Rachel is playing the losing game this time around, even though Glee is leading us to believe it’s way more likely for a gay guy to turn out straight than the other way around. It really does get better, Glee. Thanks for that!

Bieste deposits Schue at home after their night out, complete with a piece of hay sticking out of Schue’s mouth repulsively. They have a heart to heart and Schue attempts to grade papers drunk, employing the exact same grading method I used during my stint in Teach For America—A+ for effort! He then calls a mystery woman and leaves an inebriated message that we all know won’t end up in the right hands.

Kurt and Burt have been part of some of Glee‘s strongest moments, so a new scene with them is a treat. They are making a soufflé together and Kurt’s frustrations at its inability to rise lead to him venting about Blaine. Or starting to, until his dad cuts in that they need to talk about Kurt inappropriately bringing a boy home to sleep over. Kurt protests that their clothes were on the entire time, and would Burt feel this way if Puck slept over with Finn, or even if Finn had a girl home? Burt won’t back down—but when pushed, he admits that while he doesn’t even know what two guys do when they’re together, he doesn’t want Kurt doing it under his roof without permission.

Kurt, who is obviously hurt, apologizes anyway and tells his dad to educate himself so they can talk like straight father-son duos. Chris Colfer and Mike O’Malley best get Emmy nods again this season; they are consistently the heart of this show and the ones that bring gravity to a relationship not seen on TV until now. In all the fail that is this episode I applaud whoever at Glee pushed the show’s producers to actually deal with the reality of gay family relationships.

Finally the alcohol awareness assembly is upon us, as is the moment where Glee‘s writers can make a bunch of Ke$ha jokes; Britt quips, “Ke$ha’s been a culture icon for weeks and I want to do her justice,” while Figgins introduces the performance as “The hit single Tick and also Tock, Ke dollar sign ha.” This leads into the glee club’s spot-on performance of “Tik Tok,” which is carried along by Heather Morris’ knack for pop-starlet vocal mimicry. The only thing tempering my raging Heather Morris crush is this scene’s gross puking gag, which at least resulted in Rachel getting puke all over her face.

Sue, who has been trying all episode to get “the alcoholic teen vomit fetishist” Schue into alcohol treatment because she believe he has a problem, is of course the recipient of Schue’s late-night phone call. He thought he was calling Emma to tell her how much he loves her and how they should get together even though she’s married. Embarrassing enough, and even moreso when Sue plays the whole thing over the loudspeaker. Of course, everything comes out sunny side up when the group is called into the principal’s office and told their “special effects” actually scared the kids in the school away from booze and they’re awarded frozen yogurt coupons. While true consequence is avoided, back in the choir room we’re suddenly in the middle of a Very SpecialSaved By The Bell Episode. Mr. Schue won’t drink and doesn’t want the kids to drink until after competition, and they even have to sign a pledge and Schue gives out his cell phone number—Sam is creepily excited by this—so the kids can call him if anything gets out of hand.

So we’ve tied a bow on a completely pointless plot. I’m not looking for a moral or meaning in every Glee episode—I’d actually rather they don’t have them—but at least character and plot development would be nice. Aside from a few pointed looks during the party scene, there was zero progress on the Finn/Quinn and Sam/Santana pairings. The vast majority of this episode unfortunately feels like filler so we can get to Regionals, where Rachel will sing songs that magically don’t suck thanks to their being ghostwritten by Max Martin.

To wrap things up in a bow, Kurt and Rachel wait at Lima Bean to ambush Blaine, who Rachel has fallen hopelessly in love with in part because he can give her “vaguely Eurasian looking children.” Kurt, still trying to be the bigger person in all this, tells Rachel he doesn’t want her to get hurt. But Rachel doesn’t listen, rushing over to Blaine and planting a kiss on him. Blaine responds, “Yep, I’m gay!”—nice 1997 reference there—and then walks away, robbing us of the episode’s lone remaining chance for plot movement. Are Kurt and Blaine in a fight? Is Kurt over Blaine for now? Anything? We’re left with no resolution and Rachel is, of course, thrilled because now she’s been “in a relationship” with someone gay and that will help her write songs that are not about hair accessories. Kurt’s look of utter WTF mirrored mine.

So what did this episode actually accomplish? Aside from its brief exploration of the father/son dynamic between Burt and Kurt, nothing. Most of the characters were completely ignored, and the kicker came from learning that Blaine Anderson is gay—something we’ve known from the first time he appeared on screen and something Ryan Murphy told the world before the show even aired. Coming into this episode I was actually optimistic about Glee dealing with bisexuality; it’s gone pretty cold on the topic since Britt started dating Artie, and Santana hasn’t addressed her feelings about that development yet. But the topic wasn’t treated properly. I’d be happy to learn about Blaine’s struggle with his identity if we actually got to understand his point of view on things. When other characters in the show are struggling with romantic feelings this complex, we get information directly from their points of view. Blaine has yet to have a scene without Kurt in it, and we’ve got nothing on why he does what he does. This is fine if you’re talking about a guest star like Mike Chang who hasn’t been dealt high-drama plot lines, but in this case it’s pretty insulting. At the very least, Kurt’s character should be shown as having deep feelings about the relationship, but Kurt seems to still be pining over Blaine as the episode ends. He shouldn’t be now that Blaine has been proven to be pretty clueless. It’s time the show stepped up and gave his character an intermediate love interest to spark some chasing. There has to be another gay kid at Dalton Academy.

And to add insult to injury, the episode had exactly zero good musical numbers. If an hour of Glee is going to be pointless filler, it should at least wow the audience with the music. You’ve got a two-week break, guys. Pull it together.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)