Glee: New Year, Same Slushies
The long awaited return of Glee has arrived! Tonight was packed with Sueisms, a brand new lady(?) football coach, awesome songs, and a slushie to the face. Start warming up, gleeks, it's gonna be a hell of a season.
The episode kicked off with McKinley's resident gossip blogger and general creepazoid, Jacob Ben Isreal, catching us up on all the drama that happened over the summer. Here's what went down:
- Finn and Rachel are dating. For real, now.
- Mr. Schuester listens to terrible music and can't rap. All the kids are talking about it.
- Puck is heart broken and can no longer reproduce thanks to a chosen vasectomy. Jewish mothers everywhere let out a sigh of despair that they'll never have nice Jewish grandchildren fathered by Puck.
- Brittany doesn't know the difference between feeling excited and feeling her cell phone ring.
- Asians like to date other Asians, not handicapped kids who fantasize about doing the Safety Dance at the mall.
- Kurt Hummel is still an amazing diva who stuck it to all the 4chan types out there in the interwebz that talked shit about him.
- Slushies never go out of style.
[There was a video here]
And just in case that wasn't enough to show how as much things change they stay the same (read: everyone is still a loser) McKinley High's own version of the Mean Girls cafeteria of truth showed, through the magic of club sign up sheets, that even after making it to regionals, New Directions is still the lamest club at McKinley High.
Then Jane Lynch reminded us (as if we needed reminding) why she deserved that Emmy while ripping into Schuester's "everyone is special and wonderful" way of teaching.
[There was a video here]
And that's how Sue "C's" it.
After Sue berated Schuster with a little less hate than usual, she was caught off guard when she met the new football coach. Rivalry alert! We have a new enemy/lesbian/threat to Sue's Queen Bee status: Shannon Beast Beiste. It's French. Farewell Ken Tanaka. We'll miss your whistle and short shorts. Okay, not really.
The Bieste and her large chunk of the school budget not only became a threat to New Directions, but also to the Cheerios. Without extracurriculars, Brittany won't just be getting lost in the sewers during the summer, but the school year too. So what does New Directions do? They put on some NEW YORK CITAAAAY shirts, shift their flat brim hats sideways, stick some gold hoops and chains on (because, I know that's what I as a New Yorker wear to work every day) and belt "Empire State of Mind" because nationals are in New York City this year! GET IT?! (But... then I thought, "Didn't they not even make it past regionals last year? How will they make it to nationals? Don't they know that P.S. 22 will destroy them if NYC schools are involved in this competition? Or those kids who go to the Fame school?" But I digress.) And it is within this song we realize Puck is officially the only white person on this show who can rap and Mercedes is a singing beast. Not French. Also, nobody but New Directions cares about New Directions. Things are status quo.
With the glee club's failure to drum up support by rapping during recess, or whatever, Sue and Schuester team up to destroy The Bieste with things like ordering a lot of pizza in her name, threats of ghastly past nemesis, and accusing her of CHILD MOLESTATION. Britney's stupidity sure does come in handy! All because they want their club budgets back to normal.
Enter Sunshine Corazon (played by Filipino singer Charice, no last name, dubbed by Oprah as the "Most Talented Girl in the World") and Sam Evans (actor Chord Overstreet... yup, Chord) as the new glee club prospects. I like Sunshine the best because she reminds me that the hipster paradigm isn't just exclusive to Brooklyn. Sam is just pretty to look at — despite his abnormally large mouth — and can actually sing (unlike Finn... cough).
These two newbies barely hummed an eight bar without some tension brewing between them and Rachel and Finn. But more on that later.
In other Gleek news, we find out that Mike Chang (he has a name?) and Tina fell in love while they were counselors at Asian camp. Teaching Asian kids how to be less stereotypically Asian. Because, you know, they're really good at computers and video games and stuff. No, I'm not kidding. So the crushed Artie thinks the remedy to his girl troubles is getting on the football team as some kind of paraplegic cannonball. Uhhh huh. (FYI Glee writers? This kind of weird stuff is why Modern Family won the comedy writing Emmys. Just saying.)
Later in the chorus room, Rachel tells Kurt and Mercedes all about Sunshine's amazing voice, and tries to convince herself, and them, that they don't need another amazing singer because then their egos will be bruised even further by having to share solos with yet another lead. And in a moment of selfless clarity, Kurt explains to the borderline psychotic Rachel that it's not about them, it's about beating Vocal Adrenaline, in the Greatest Sweater I Have Ever Seen.
And then Schuester channeled Sue's evil behavior and made the Beiste cry by not letting her sit at his table during teacher lunch. Schuester just doesn't wear bitch as well as the Cheerios and Sue. He should leave the meanness to them. Not to mention, it is always really uncomfortable watching a grown... woman... cry. Poor Beiste. This is when I started liking her and her hulkish ways.
That was until she threw Finn off the football team for trying to get Artie on the squad, in moment of fury over being caught crying by a bunch of teenage boys. So Finn had to try out for Cheerios to be cool again, which posed the question: How does one make someone as attractive as Cory Monteith undesireable? Make them white boy dance on national television.
[There was a video here]
Yes, Becky. It is happening. Cory, I love you, but never, ever do that again. Ever.
So, Finn didn't get on the team. But Quinn did. In fact, she became captain again after Santana got a boob job and was demoted to the bottom of the pyramid because of it. A girl fight commenced in the hallway, and I'm sure tons of fictional freshman boys took a hold of their crotches and ran for the bathroom. Ah, high school.
Eventually, New Directions found out about Rachel's horrible Iago-level scheming to get rid of Sunshine. She tried to send the unsuspecting tiny singer to a crack house to audition! Luckily Miketina and their tingly Spidey Asian senses came to the rescue. The Asian community is very tight, after all. She ended up auditioning for the club anyway with a show stopping rendition of Listen from Dreamgirls. Everyone was blown away. Rachel probably got hives. So they had their 12 singers, ready to start the journey to reginationals all over again until... the unthinkable (but very predictable) happened.
Sam became quarterback in Finn's place and Sunshine was whisked away to Vocal Adrenaline. And the team was back down to a disqualifying group of 11. But at least Rachel and Finn won't break up because they don't want to be losers and lonely. If that's not a strong foundation for a relationship, I don't know what is.
Cue well-placed and obvious showtune "What I did for Love" sung by show's starlet while a montage showing the happy people happy and the sad people sad rolls.
And scene.