Glee – Season 1, Episode 13: “Sectionals” – review

“I am reasonably confident that you will be adding revenge to the long list of things you’re no good at, right next to being married, running a high school glee club, and finding a hairstyle that doesn’t make you look like a lesbian.”

This is my 13th Glee wrap-up, or recap, or review, or whatever I’m doing here. If you’ve been reading them — hi, E-dawg — you know that although the show never fails to entertain me, my hopes have gone up (mostly) and down (occasionally). But basically everyone who watches knew the parallelism was no joke; just as New Directions had to hit it out of the park at Sectionals to stand a chance of continuing, the creative team of Glee would have to kill it in “Sectionals.”

Did they? Uh, yeah. But I didn’t realize that they’d do it so well…or with such vicious swipes at the show’s critics.

There were a few different plots here, but they all revolved around the central event of the show: the Show Choir Sectionals. Everyone’s on edge, especially with losing Mr. Shuester and gaining a brand-new and clueless advisor, Emma Pillsbury, who is actually taking the morning of her own wedding day to escort the kids. The situation is not helped by Rachel getting curious about the Quinn-Puck “secret” that everyone else knows. She ends up spilling this massive pot of beans, leading to Finn understandably freaking out, punching the crippity-crap out of Puck, telling Quinn off, and leaving the glee club…forever. Duhn-duhn-DUHN!

Side note–we don’t want to forget the early musical highlight of Mercedes bashing out some amazing stuff on “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” leading Rachel to step aside so Mercedes can have the solo spotlight at Sectionals. Not only is it just as thrilling as you might imagine, it’s thematically important. More about this later.

So after Quinn inexplicably forgives Rachel and then not-quite-as-inexplicably rejects Puck’s fervent wish to be in her life and to be a good father to their baby, the kids are off to Sectionals…only to learn that the other teams have, in fact, copped their setlist. We learn this, by the way, by hearing the Jane Addams girls belting out “And I Am Telling You.” Which is odd, considering they only decided to do that song like two days ago. Hmmm. Anyway, they know the jig is up when the JA’s all get into wheelchairs for “Proud Mary”… just as New Directions was a-gonna do. Eve does a great job of wrestling with her conscience here. Plus, as I’ve mentioned, she looks hot.

We follow with one of the best scenes of the show, Will accusing Sue of leaking the setlist, Sue denying it but smirking so hard that it’s clear what has happened, back and forth for an excellent minute. The above quote is involved. Jane Lynch should be nominated and then win an Emmy for her performance in Glee, and this episode would be a great one to send to the voters. Bonus drama:  Will manipulating Finn into going to Sectionals after all and taking a brand-new set of sheet music with him. (Bonus question, asked by my wife, “For a choir that seems to learn three or four new songs every single week, why would they have to wait for Finn?”)

Back to Sectionals, where Emma is haranguing Eve and the Deaf School advisor guy about their shameful cheating. Here’s where it gets kind of meta, because she drives home the lesson that these two educators should believe in and advocate for their children instead of working the system to score short term points. Doesn’t this seem like an implied shot at the show’s critics to you? You know, the ones who have sniped about the fact that the actor who plays Artie is not actually handicapped, or the ones who have complained that Rachel gets all the solos while Mercedes — an African American — just has to just stand around in the background all the time? (I’m guilty of the latter, for sure.) And then suddenly this speech, ostensibly to the grownups in the room, following hard upon Mercedes’ killer performance…It’s almost as if Ryan Murphy and his people are telling us, “Back off and don’t be so quick to judge us, we know what we’re doing.” Anyone?

As the second group uses their stuff, New Directions retires backstage to lick their wounds, only to witness Finn saving the day with sheet music and a renewed commitment to the group. Still not speaking to Puck or Quinn, of course, but he’s becoming a man, so we should support it. And Rachel really does rally; she hits the stage with an EXTREMELY Streisandian version  of “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Then everyone else comes in and ND launches into the newest song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” which works wonders on the baby boomers in the crowd (and on Emma, who is on her phone so Shue can hear every note). After this second ovation, the group probably did “Somebody to Love,” but we don’t see it. Instead —

— instead, we get a hilarious tonal shift, seeing the judges backstage. One’s a no-talent bimbo pageant queen, one’s a no-talent bimbo news anchor guy (Rod Remington, the one who almost dated Sue), and the third is an angry state comptroller. They don’t know what they’re talking about, they don’t really pay attention to what’s going on, and they just want to get out of there…gee, sounds like another swipe at critics and haters, doesn’t it? Damn, they go hard. But we don’t hear their decision for a while. Kind of resultus interruptus if you ask me. But nobody asked me, did they?

Two touching parallel scenes follow in quick succession — tense sad conversation between Shue and Terri, then Shue goes off and bedevils poor left-at-the-altar Emma. Dude is toxic. He very much wants Emma to take him in, but she is smart about it and tells him to back off, as he’s still married. Also, she’s tendered her resignation and is leaving. The scenes are well-written and well-acted, but we spend all our time asking, “Wait, did we miss the big reveal or something?” This continues into the next sequence, where Figgins finally suspends Sue from the Cheerios and she then confronts Will in the hallway, promising to unleash hell. Ah, Sue and Shue. Weird that I never noticed that before. Oh, and Shue is reinstated officially.

End with the big trophy presentation by the club — oh, wait, so they won? I mean, of course they won, but still — and a special song to show Shue how much they love him, Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You.” Shue is inspired, catches Emma in the hallway…they kiss…they smile ambiguously….

And no more until spring. Oh, and no criticizing anything about Glee, ever, under any circumstances, okay? You don’t want to be like a show choir judge or a cheating advisor, do you?