I think Glee has been generally better since they’re focusing on the New York characters. But… I was really enraged (and yes I realize that it’s silly to be enraged) that Rachel doesn’t seem to have a single human connection with any of the rest of the cast of Funny Girl, and didn’t go to the opening night cast party. WTF!!!
(Not to mention, what happened to her two gay dads?)
Ha, I was about to bump my Glee season 5 part 2 thread to talk about this episode when I saw this. 
I too have felt the all-New York Glee was a big improvement over season four/early season five, but while this episode had its moments it didn’t work for me. Rachel’s lack of connection, or even minimal interaction, with her castmates is I think a consequence of the show spending too long trying to split itself between NYC and Lima. There wasn’t time, or presumably even money, to introduce a bunch of new NYC characters when the show was still set largely in Lima and had a bunch of new kids at McKinley. So we wind up with Rachel starring in what might as well be a one-woman show. I assume the absence of her dads on opening night was also due to the show not being able to schedule or pay Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stokes Mitchel to return for cameos, although it was kind of weird that Artie’s absence was explained and the Mr. Berrys’s was not.
The Will and Sue storylines that were awkwardly shoehorned into this episode reminded me of how little I miss Lima now. Will’s presence in NYC at least made some sort of sense, but he had to turn around and leave almost as soon as he arrived. The Sue plot might have been okay (albeit unnecessary) had she dropped in for a visit within the past couple of weeks, but it didn’t miss with the opening night storyline. I thought it was particularly bizarre to turn “Who Are You Now”, which was established as a big deal for Rachel both professionally and personally, into essentially a duet with Sue.
But for me, the biggest problem with this episode was that IMHO a Rachel who is starring in a successful Broadway revival of Funny Girl is a Rachel who no longer belongs on this show. This storyline has been problematic ever since she was cast, but now that Rachel’s had a great opening night she has what she’s wanted since the first episode of the show (and most of her life). The casting announcement or the opening night seem more like places where this entire series should END than things that should be happening when we know Glee is set to run for another season. Rachel’s also now in a very different place than the other characters. All her friends are either still in school or are working in their chosen fields but without yet achieving major success. A show that’s half Glee: Smash 2 and half Glee: The College Years seems likely to run into the same problems as when this show was split between NYC and Lima.
In a practical sense, that’s certainly true. But they just as easily not have any of the castmates be characters, and just not show the times when Rachel is hanging out with them, rather than deliberately rub everyone’s face in how bizarrely unrealistic of a bitch she is being to the rest of the cast.
The wife and I were predicting for a while that she was going to tank, and have to go back to school - but honestly, how tedious would that have been? It certainly would have made more sense (for the same reasons laid out by the OP), but good god it would have been boring.
There is Rachel falling on her face foreshadowing in the form of Whoopie Goldberg telling her that she needs the discipline that NYADA teaches or she’ll fame out. I think she’ll come crawling back to NYADA, and it would be interesting to watch her have to come back to earth after these last weeks.
StG
Were you also bothered that they waited for the print version of The New York Times to read the review rather than just going to the website? Surely it was published earlier than the print version was available. And they didn’t even read the paper until the morning. I’m fairly certain the early edition is available around midnight.
I suppose it’s possible they’re building towards an episode where it’s revealed that all the other Funny Girl performers think that, despite her considerable talent, Rachel is a terrible, awful person and they’d be happy to see her replaced. Especially after the New York Times review was apparently devoted entirely to how great she was.
I agree this has been foreshadowed, but this being Glee it’s entirely possible that Whoopie’s warning will never be mentioned again. But even if Funny Girl isn’t a commercial success or Rachel manages to shoot herself in the foot somehow, she’s already achieved her dream. There could certainly be a show about a young Broadway actress who discovers that her dream isn’t all that she’d…dreamed it would be, or who finds that her initial success was fleeting, but Glee hasn’t been that kind of show and I don’t think the other characters belong in that kind of show.
The newsstand guy said basically the same thing, but I can believe that Rachel would want to do things the “traditional” way and see the printed paper. I guess Kurt might also have still been refusing to let her go online.
It’s certainly also possible that the NYT deliberately times the release of things like theater reviews so that they show up in print first… anyone know the straight dope?
Maybe they all reached their 10 articles a month limit on NYTimes online ;).
I didn’t see this episode and it’s not online yet. Could somebody please spoil it and tell me if she got positive reviews or not?
I did see last week’s. Could somebody remind me whether Artie is capable of “feeling” sex? (I know that he’s capable of having it, but when he was with the girl in the wheelchair both said they didn’t really know if the sex was good.) The show is oddly intent on sexualizing Kurt.
I’m still working on the fact that not only does a total unknown without even chorus girl experience get a starring role in a major show, but she has to keep waiting tables while rehearsing. I know that rehearsal wages aren’t much and I can imagine chorus members or featured players having to wait tables to make ends meet, but surely the star would make enough to not have to have a day job at least.
Not only was the NY Times review positive, it was all about how wonderful Rachel was.
He told Tina back in season one that his equipment was fully functional, and having sex with Brittany seemed like a pretty big deal to him when they were dating, so I assume Artie is able to experience sexual pleasure rather than just “going through the motions”. I think in the wedding episode he and his one-night stand were just joking.
Thinking of the Artie/Brittany relationship, I was a bit surprised that he apparently never considered the possibility that he’d picked up chlamydia from her. (Or the girl he hooked up with at Will and Emma’s non-wedding, but Brittany seems like the bigger risk.) He was asymptomatic and had never been tested for STDs before, so he could have been infected before college. Brittany’s other ex-boyfriend Sam did have a clean bill of health, but Sam apparently used condoms and Brittany could have been treated at some point during the year she was exclusively dating Santana.
Well, it also revealed that Blaine – who has been dating Kurt for about three years, having sex with him nearly that long, and is now engaged to be married to him – was surprised that anyone considered Kurt to be sexy. Maybe he’s been picturing Sam whenever they’re together?
Not worth opening a thread for, but Kurt Colfer wrote this week’s episode and I would support his lashing for wasting Tim Conway and Billy Dee Williams. (At least they got a check.)
June Squibb was adorable as always, and I actually liked her harmonizing with Colfer on “Memory” (about 1:35. )
Judging by the actress playing her daughter, the character either gave birth at 50 or the daughter bathes in the blood of virgins.
I don’t know how much it’s fair to blame him for that; for all we know they had scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor. IMHO the worst thing about the episode was the weird, distracting camerawork, but that’s not the fault of the screenwriter.
The writing itself struck me as pretty typical for a filler episode of Glee, which is faint praise indeed but probably as much as could fairly be expected of a guest writer. Again though, it’s hard to say how much credit/blame Colfer really deserves as he was presumably collaborating with the regular writing staff. I did think it was nice that someone in the writer’s room remembered that Sam wasn’t always such a doofus and that he had in fact taken on a lot of responsibility for his family while he was still in high school.
according to IMDB there is 34 tyears difference in the mother and daughters actual age
Hmm. I stand corrected, but she is a very young looking 50.