Glee – Auditions (2.01) – review

Will Schuester and Sue Sylvester are back to continue their bitter rivalry and battle over who will get the funding for their respective programs. All seems normal until Principal Figgins introduces Coach Shannon Beiste, the new football coach at McKinley, who has requested that the Cheerios and Glee club’s budgets be cut in order to greater fund the football team. Sue will not take the cuts lying down and convinces Will to join in her subterfuge to oust Coach Beiste.

Meanwhile, new members for the Glee club are down thanks in part to the club’s defeat at the hand of their rivals Vocal Adrenalineat nationals. Will thinks that with this year’s nationals being held in New York, they may be able to get new members despite their defeat. As the club searches for new members, we are treated to a rendition of  Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind.” This spawns a new Glee member named Sam to perform Poison’s “Every Rose Has its Thorn” and “Billionaire.” Finn is excited about another football player potentially joining Glee. All seems great until Artie, who has the misguided idea that making it onto the football team will help him win back Tina, convinces Finn to help him.  When Finn poses the idea to Beiste, she dismisses them both from the team.  Sam, now the new quarterback, refuses to join Glee.

Rachel continues her search for new (back-up singer) members for Glee. She comes across a foreign exchange student named Sunshine. The two girls break into a singing battle with Lady Gaga’s “Telephone.” The interaction  causes Rachel to see Sunshine as a threat to her lead singer position, and she hatches a plan to scare the new girl away. Despite her plan, she is forced to admit she was wrong, and Sunshine still gets a proper try-out, singing “Listen” from Dreamgirls. Yet it is all in vain:  Vocal Adrenaline finds out about Sunshine and lures her to their fold.

Meanwhile on the Cheerios front, Sue reinstates Quinn as head cheerleader, and puts ”over-the-summer boob job” Santana on the bottom of the cheerleader pyramid. This change does not go without drama, and the two girls get in a brawl. The writers have re-set all the characters this season for change and a bit of drama. At the show’s end Rachel, feeling bad about what she has done, breaks into a an emotional version of “What I Did for Love” (A Chorus Line).

I am a huge Glee fan. So I was looking forward to this new season with great excitement. I love the banter between Will and Sue and look forward to it each episode, and the first episode of season did not disappoint. Not only did the banter of insults happen, but the pair had to team up against Coach Beiste. This new character sure lives up to her namesake–she is tough as nails and definitely a good adversary for fan favorite cheer-master Sue Sylvester. Glee for me is television bubblegum; it is pure fun, so that I almost feel like I am watching cartoons on Saturday morning. I guess it brings out my inner child or teenager.

The music was a bit bland for me this episode, and I wished they had used some better songs, yet I know there are fans for the music that was presented. Even with what I considered dismissable tunes, the episode was filled with great plot twists and character reboots. My favorite twist has to be Coach Beiste.  She sure is a manly-looking woman, and I hope her and Sue have a throw-down of some sort this season. Overall I would rate this episode great on plot but weak on melody.

As I look forward to a new season of Glee, I find myself wondering…Can Glee get new members? Will Finn make it back on the football team? Will Beiste foil all of Sue’s plans? So many questions are left to be answered, and we have a whole season to find them out. I really like Glee, and I am very pleased the writers were able to mix things up for this new season. The song selection for this episode was not my cup of tea, but they were still fun to hear and watch. Next week is the Britney Spears themed episode, which should be fun.