GLEECAP: Yes/NO NO NO NO (And Other Objections To Current Developments)

Editor’s Note: Resident Gleek Sarah Connor will be doing a weekly review of new episodes of “Glee!” Read, enjoy, and please share your own thoughts regarding this week’s episode. Don’t forget to check back next week!

Finally, after yet another hiatus (made longer by a plotless Christmas episode), Glee has returned to us. They’ve reunited, they’ve won Sectionals, and they’ve wrapped up all of the plot arcs from 2011, leaving room for some titillating new drama for the second half of their senior year.

Well, I’ll just say this: it seems to be a unique peril of being a Glee fan that you can like an episode while simultaneously hating everything that happens in it. Or maybe that’s just my peculiarity. Well, whatever.

Say what you will, but I kind of like this Sam/Mercedes thing (although it’s regrettable that they’ve sort of resorted to turning Sam into a clown). Even though “Summer Nights” from Grease was a fairly predictable song choice, it genuinely was cute. And it’s nice to see Mercedes get some love for once, after two whole seasons of loneliness. However, one thing that scares me is Glee’s repeated inclination to turn teenagers into cheaters as a means of changing romantic relationships around, and I really hope they don’t do that to Mercedes – not only because I like her as a character and I think her heart is too big for that, but because I am really sick of watching the Glee kids cheat on each other. Enough, already.

Most of the music in this episode was facilitated by a plot device: Will has finally decided to propose to Emma, and has asked the New Directions to  help sing a song for the event. Setting aside how weird that is (I’ll get to that, don’t worry), the music in this episode was really, really good. My personal favorite was Artie’s thrilling mashup of “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5 and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Stones themselves. I had my doubts when I first heard about it, but not only was the arrangement terrific, Kevin McHale absolutely killed it. It was a welcome return for his voice, as well – despite his chops, Artie often gets passed over for Blaine or Rachel. Other highlights included the girls’ rendition of “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” and a rare Emma number, “Wedding Bell Blues,” which was also excellent.

One number that I didn’t like was, ironically, the one that was chosen as The Proposal Song. The Glee club performed “We Found Love” by Rihanna, which sort of makes sense – until you throw them into a pool in ’40s swimsuits and have them do a synchronized swimming routine. Yeah. That was weird. The song itself wasn’t that bad, but the fact that they were singing that particular song while synchronized swimming had me genuinely laughing – as did the part when Artie rolled into the pool, and when Mr. Schue put on some kind of all-white tux and then also dove into the pool and it was all just completely ridiculous.

Speaking of Will Schuester being ridiculous. I’ve always thought Will had boundary issues with his students, as well as intimacy issues with his many ladies, and I’ve always thought he was pretty stupid. This episode confirmed all of those opinions to an extent I wouldn’t have thought possible. I would like to make an assertion: Will Schuester is not a man. He is a ball of Silly Putty. Why, you ask? Because he never does a single thing or has a single thought without someone else literally pressing it upon him. Why did Schue ask Emma to marry him? Because she asked him to marry her first! Why did Will express doubts about Emma’s ability to handle marriage? Because Emma’s parents expressed doubts about Emma’s ability to handle marriage. (And I’m not getting into how totally disrespectful it is to blame Emma’s mental disorder for any difficulties they might have, and to assume that she wants to have children without consulting her in the slightest!) The thought had literally not entered his head until that point. Every single thought process that he has is determined by what other people say to him or tell him to do, and honestly, it’s enough to make me crazy. Also, can we talk about how Will roped in his entire Glee club to help him propose to Emma (presumably because he couldn’t figure out how to do it himself)? Can we talk about how utterly insane it is that he asked Finn Hudson, a senior in high school and Will’s student, to be best man at his wedding?!

And Finn did not escape unscathed from his relationship with Mr. Schue. In this episode, Finn, seeking direction in life, decided to emulate his father and enlist in the army. This led to Finn’s mother revealing that Finn’s dad did not, in fact, die a war hero, but returned to Ohio deeply troubled by his wartime experiences and ultimately died of a drug overdose. Finn is understandably upset about this, but frankly, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why did Carole choose this moment to reveal this to Finn (come to think of it, why did she lie in the first place)? It sort of felt like the Glee writers didn’t know what to do with Finn so they started flinging around emotionally charged words like “army” and “drug overdose” and hoped that one would stick. But in any case, Finn is heartbroken and decides to seek yet another new direction (haha, get it?). And here we received what I consider to be the single stupidest plot development that Glee has ever had: Finn proposed to Rachel. I can’t even talk about how unbelievably dumb this is without getting angry about it. It says to me that the Glee writers are completely out of ideas and have decided to artificially raise the stakes by doing what every other show does – only it makes no sense because the characters are in high school.

In season one, we had a baby. In season two, we had a wedding and a funeral. And in season three, we’re getting – two more weddings! I sure hope Tina and Mike are using birth control, because frankly I can’t handle all the tropes anymore. I don’t know if it’s pandering or not (although if it is, it isn’t working – the hashtag #RachelSayNo was trending worldwide on Twitter last night) but whatever it is, it’s absolutely infuriating and not at all what I love about Glee – or what anyone loves about Glee.

You know what I love about Glee, what made me esteem the show so highly in the first place? When it’s real. Sure, bursting into song isn’t exactly the epitome of gritty realism, but Glee is at its finest approaches the real issues that high schoolers face, the ones that no one else is talking about. And despite all the romantic fluffy nonsense, that, too, existed in this episode – through Becky, the Cheerio co-captain with Down’s Syndrome and a new thing for Artie. Although Artie does go out with her and grows to be quite fond of her, when he realizes her romantic intentions he quickly withdraws, leaving Becky to deal with the reality of being rejected because of her disability. This part of the episode (which, by the way, was voiced over by  Helen Mirren as Becky’s internal monologue, which was very, very awesome) was the only part that genuinely touched me, and reminded me of what I always hope Glee will be.

So, Glee writers, if you ever see this: you can keep your proposals and your cheating and your drama. Please just give us that refreshing, brilliant honesty that made Glee so amazing in the first place.

Images via and via.