Ah, the ol’ double-switch. This episode contained more switchery and bitchery than a [INSERT HUMOROUS BUT SLIGHTLY RISQUÉ COLLECTIVE NOUN HERE] convention; and while some will say that it was low on character development and featured several plotlines that indicate that some of our favorite characters are actually dumb children, I am not one of them. Nope, this review is all sunshine, light, and leave-in conditioner.
“Sue Sylvester is up to something” is always the best way to start an episode of Glee, and here she is in the opening scene jamming up Mr. Shue for his setlist. This sets off Will’s bells, and he’s soon off on an expedition to the Jane Addams Academy to find out whether or not Sue has leaked the list. There, he finds a radiant Miss Hitchens, his counterpart over there, and asks her; Miss H (played rather well by Eve) feels slighted, so Shue does what he always does: try to smooth things over. (Possibly heterosexist side note: Eve is looking fine. Why isn’t Will Shuester falling for her, just a little bit? Same reason that there are no black teachers at William McKinley High School?)
Before we know it, we are smack-dab in the middle of a glee club cultural exchange program, spearheaded by a Jane Addams Academy version of “Bootylicious,” with more rough energy and pep than his kids could ever dream about, and long, well-cared-for follicles being tossed about every which way, in tantalizing slow motion. Will Shuester, who seems to have gotten a lot dumber this week, immediately introduces YET ANOTHER NEW NUMBER FOR SECTIONALS: “Hair,” from the musical Hair. Get the connection, there, kids? I know I did.
Okay, Plot B is more Quinn’s Dilemma stuff. Now that she’s been kicked out of her home, she’s considering abandoning the Terri plan and keeping the baby herself. Which means spilling the beans about her daughter’s real father. Which means seeing if Puck is up to it. Why this means she has to pull Kurt in to hip up Rachel’s look to distract Finn, I fail to understand — I mean, she kind of explains it, but I ain’t buying it. Of course, Kurt loves Finn too, so his “slut it up” advice to Rachel is coming from a bad place inside him. But it turns out Lea Michele can pull off the look, so it’s all good for me.
But I was much happier about Plot C, which deals with Terri’s mad attempts to distract her husband from her own impending NON-pregnancy. Egged on by insane sister Kendra (YAY), this farce takes the form of buying Will a new version of his beloved high school car, the Blue Bomber. This works to distract Will just fine, and he turns into a kind of Mike Delfino-esque car jock before our eyes. This is supposed to be “the real” him…if we ignore the fact that he was a glee club geek in high school. (Yes, I know one can, in fact, do both. It’s just highly unlikely.) Kendra comes up with a diabolical idea: Quinn should babysit her three kids! These red-headed monsters are always seen murdering each other and showing wanton disregard for property and propriety, so it should work, right?
And let’s just throw Plot D, the Sue Sylvester thing, on the back burner for now. She yells at Will, and he whispers back and whatever for now, because we’re back on Plot A.2 with the introduction of a hard-of-hearing glee director from an all-deaf school. He, too, wangles an invitation to McKinley, but not before making a lot of borderline offensive jokes about how he can’t hear and how he’s being too proud to admit it. I was pretty uncomfortable watching this, and I’m not even deaf.
Things come together eventually — Rachel scares Finn with her Olivia Newton-John look, then has a loud tense conversation with Kurt over his duplicity; Quinn and Puck manage to calm the kids down by singing “Papa Don’t Preach” (seriously!), only to be split up again over his sexting ways with Santana – did I miss the beginning of this somehow? — so Quinn’s back on the adoption train and back in Finn’s arms; Rachel and Kurt bond over their sadness about this; Will trades in the Blue Bomber II for a more practical minivan (with bitchin’ wood panels, boyeeeee). Tidy!
But first we have to go through obligatory musical numbers. I was kind of sickened by the mashup of “Hair” with “Crazy in Love,” but that was the point — it was a desperate move on Shue’s part, one he acknowledges later. I am still of two minds about the deaf school’s performance of “Imagine”; on the one hand, it was quite moving and ends up being beautiful musically, but on the other I am tired of people looking at “Imagine” like it’s the national anthem or something when in fact it’s a much more ambiguous song than episodes like this will admit. But I loved seeing all the ASL and hearing how they integrated New Directions with the framework of the song. Pretty over-the-top sentimental, but brutally effective. Also Mercedes sings two (2) songs during the same segment, an all-time record for her.
Final one-two punch: Sue leaking the setlist to the other two teachers, and a nice little version of “True Colors” where everyone sits on stools and refuses to wear fake hair. Calm before the storm.
