-Kurt has been to Rachel’s house several times (even to sleepovers). He would know Rachel’s dads and in all likelihood he’d be nuts about them and vice versa and there’s no way in hell he wouldn’t have come to the dinner tonight.
-Agree that whenever Brian Stokes Mitchell is paid for an appearance and not required to sing the networks should be fined.
-Did Jeff Goldblum dust off a former serial killer character he once played? His dad was so damned weird.
-Lose the dreadlocks. Like, NOW. Very nice face and all but those things look nasty, literally, not to mention affected and- did I mention nasty?
-Amazing work in finding the one possible outfit that makes Darren Criss not sexy
For those upset about the dads not singing enough, there’s a longer version of their song on iTunes.
I also thought the absence of Kurt at the dinner was odd.
As far as the dreadlocks, those are real, and I doubt the actor will be willing to ditch them. Plus they are part of his character. And it’s a misconception that dreadlocks are dirty or that they aren’t washed.
I didn’t hate this episode as much as most of this season - how’s that for a ringing endorsement?
I thought of Karofsky at first for Kurt’s secret admirer, too. I have a feeling we’re not done seeing him yet - and the story arc with him is going to be very dark.
Where the hell did the God Squad come from? Has that been a thing all along and I missed it? That new kid can’t cut off his dreads - they’re named after books of the Bible! I did like their discussion of homosexuality and religion, though - it was a bit facile, but more than any other show I’ve seen has been willing to do.
And, in closing, I LOVED seeing Kurt belt out a line from a song! He should do that more often!
The one thing I noticed that could have lasting implications: at the Sugar Shack, there were some women wearing “Lima University” T-shirts.
This gives the seniors whose actors don’t have better things to do than to remain on the show an excuse to stay in Lima:
(note these are just some possibilities, although the executive producer has already said that Rachel will be appearing in Season 4):
[ul]
[li]Rachel (and possibly Kurt), when she doesn’t get into NYADA;[/li][li]Mike, because it’s the only school with a halfway-decent dance program that didn’t notice there was something strange about his college application (remember, Tina filled out and sent in Mike’s applications to most of the “top dance schools” in the country);[/li][li]Quinn, once they come up with a reason why she would be expelled from Yale (or they retcon her acceptance and say it was just made up, like they did with Tina’s stuttering in Season 1).[/li][/ul]
Lima University - the California University of the Midwest! (Those of you who don’t get that one, ask somebody who remembers the original Beverly Hills 90210.)
I thought those said Lima University, but I only caught a glimpse and I forgot to go back and check. Good thought!
As to the episode overall, it was okay, but somewhat all over the place for a holiday type special. I am also tired if the Rachel and Finn romance, hope they show more of the new guy and don’t quite understand why there’s been so much (sort) of a spotlight on Artie lately. I like him as a character, but aren’t there better fringe relationships to explore?
And come on, we need more Beiste! I really wish they’d flesh her out a lot more. She’s one of the most interesting people on there. Sigh.
Actually he’s said in interviews that he’d be glad to, that he actually wants a low maintenance hair style, but his agent had fits when he talked about cutting them. (Easy to understand why- cute kid and he sings but neither are in short demand in casting circles, so anything that makes him stand out.)
I was surprised to learn the Bible verse tattoos are real. (Out of curiosity I wonder how he and others with biblical tattoos get around the whole ‘The Bible forbids tattoos’ part [Leviticus 19:28].)
Amazing that the God Squad has four members but four-and-forty robed choir for backup. Talk about your elitists.
The media explosion around Whitney Houston’s death reminded me of “Buckwheat has been shot! How did it happen? Let’s take a look!”, one of the best cold opens ever in Saturday Night Live history (and amazingly prophetic considering it was before you had a dozen 24/7 news channels). So much so that I rewatched that and its follow-up on Hulu.
Those old enough to remember Buckwheat’s shooting may remember the follow-up, which was the profile and shooting of Buckwheat’s assassin, John David Stutts.
GLEE tie in: Stutts was from Lima, Ohio (though pronounced like the bean) and they show pages from his high school yearbook.
She’s also a member of the glee club, and apparently no one can date outside the club.
I did find it rather hard to swallow that both Artie and Rory would consider Sugar worth competing over. While she’s reasonably pretty and Artie’s former relationship with Brittany indicates that he doesn’t expect much in the brains department, she’s so irritating that I’d think at least one of the guys would feel he could do better.
Thinking of Brittany, I feel like a major weakness of this season has been that we’re apparently expected to take the Brittany/Santana relationship seriously without actually seeing much interaction between them or even much of Brittany at all. This episode attempted to address this, but it seemed like too little too late to me. To some extent the writers painted themselves into a corner with this relationship; Santana’s struggle with coming out is too serious a storyline for a character who exists almost entirely as comic relief to play a large role in it. But they could have either had Santana meet someone new or reworked Brittany’s character – it wouldn’t be the first time a Glee character suddenly started behaving in a different way for no clear in-world reason – rather than reducing her to basically an extra in her own relationship.
I was also thinking Kurt, and possibly even Sam, would be at the Berry-Hummel-Hudson family dinner. But since it was eventually revealed that this was going on at the same time as Sugar’s Valentine’s Day party, Kurt actually did have other plans. He even had to be at Breadstix early to meet his “secret admirer”.
I watched The Glee Project over the summer, and he mentioned them on there so I was expecting them.
I have been wondering when we’re going to see the last of the Glee Project winners, Alex, who was a semi-finalist and was thus promised one episode. (He may appear in more – the other semi-finalist, Lindsay, was in two.) Alex was described by one of the coaches on the show as being basically the secret love child of Kurt and Mercedes (in other words, he’s like Kurt only heavier and African-American), and I was kind of surprised he didn’t show up as one of the Kurt-esque boys at the NYADA get-together. He may turn up at Regionals or Nationals, since a competition episode is an easy place to feature a one-off performance, but after this week I’m wondering if he might show up as Karofsky’s new boyfriend instead.
I felt bad when Rory said that the GLEE club makes him feel so much like he’s home. Apparently his biological family ignores him and only lets him say one or two sentences per month also.
Heaven’s Eyes (with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir- given their historically discourteous opinions of people of African ancestry in general and multiracial people in particular I assume and hope they were paying him a bloody fortune to be there)
He’s starred on Broadway as Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha and Coalhouse in Ragtime among many other things, and he’s perhaps best known as Frasier’s equally snooty upstairs neighbor. And if you- ahem- have a few years, you might remember him best for a non-musical role. (Damn, I’m really that old.)
Wouldn’t it be ironic if one of the tattoos actually was Leviticus 19:28? Wow, man, mind officially blown …
Also, while it seemed overly dramatic to have the God Squad agonize over whether to sing to Brittany and Santana (come on, man, Mercedes, Sam and Quinn wouldn’t think twice about it!), Mercedes did mention she had her church choir joining them sometimes. So I guess that’s how they’re explaining the robed singers for Rachel’s valentine song. On the other other hand, Mercedes’ church must have said “thumbs down!” to singing for a same-sex couple, as I didn’t see any robed choir joining along in “Cherish” at Breadstix.
Speaking of the song to Rachel, I find it interesting that so many McKinley students still want to eat lunch outside. In Ohio. In February. Wearing heavy coats.
I probably would have given this episode a “meh,” but I was so disappointed by Rachel’s dads that I gave it a “didn’t like.”
WTF was up with those guys? I don’t know Brian Stokes Mitchell so I didn’t know what to expect from him, and Jeff Goldblum isn’t the best actor but he’s usually watchable, but both their dialogue and their acting was just…bad. And no way do I buy them as a long-term couple.
Or they all have night jobs, since obviously they’re not only free in the daytime but willing to take a few hours to drive across town and all chip in their bit for Mercedes and the God squad to earn… ten bucks.
Poor Rory can officially pack now that Samuel Larsen’s on the show. He’s worlds sexier and dances; while it’s true Rory hasn’t been given a lot to work with, he’s also- bless him- just not a charismatic or compelling presence.
They all seem to go there on the current 90210 as well. With plenty of contrived reasons for them all to wind up there.
Anyway, enough talk of that crappy show, now to talk about this crappy show!
I thought it was a pretty terrible episode all around, though I liked the Love Shack number. Again, lack of Sue makes for a bad show.
The God Squad meeting scenes were painfully bad to watch. New guy was pretty good at the whole singing thing though, better than Leprechaun boy, I thought.
I’ve never heard of this Stokes fellow before, and I found it disappointing that Rachel’s parents look nothing like the ones we previously saw a photo of in the pilot, but I can understand not using the same guys, probably just extras or models or something. But they could’ve at least found actors similar to them. At the very least, one of the dads should’ve been black.
Someone wondered why Kurt wasn’t at the dinner, well, it’s pretty obvious. He was (openly) against the wedding idea so he didn’t attend a dinner in celebration of it.
So, what’s the over/under on Karofsky winding up suiciding after he gets bashed at his new school? On a VERY SPECIAL™ Glee. Looks like it’ll be Beaver (from Greek) doing the outing. Wasn’t much of a surprise that he was the Secret Admirer. The only other candidate was the Evil Warbler, and he’s much more hateful of Kurt than Karofsky ever was.
I know something similar happens on lots of shows, but it’s frankly getting quite annoying at how the only restaurant in town is Breadstix.
That scene was weird, but I think Sam and Quinn at least were supposed to just be concerned about whether the new guy was okay with serenading a same-sex couple. Mercedes did seem unusually angsty about it considering that her best friend is gay and had visited her church before, but maybe we were just supposed to take that as her being worried about stirring up trouble? I dunno. It didn’t make a lot of sense.
This may be more realistic than you think. My family moved to Wisconsin when I was a teenager, and I was both surprised and dismayed to discover that, regardless of time of year or weather, we were required to go outside for the second half of our lunch period. The school was too overcrowded to permit everyone to eat lunch at a reasonable hour inside the cafeteria, so there were overlapping lunch periods with each group having to vacate the cafeteria before the next one arrived.
Brian Stokes Mitchell is black. (No, really.)
I figured it was probably Karofsky, but it would have been interesting if it had turned out to be the work of the new guy. Not because he was gay (although that’s another possibility), but because he wanted to remind the most visible gay kid in the school that there’s a special guy who loves every one of us…Jesus!
Well, then, ignorance fought. At my high school (in Iowa, so same neck of the woods), nobody went outside, for lunch or ever - unless you were a senior that didn’t have a class scheduled first or last period. Then you were outside, as in, not on the school property. We did have a small outdoor courtyard area next to the upperclass lounge, but I think I saw people actually in there, like, twice. And it darn sure wasn’t in February.
The overcrowding thing could make sense. The one time we saw McKinley’s lunchroom, it looked awfully small to me.
And there I go, trying to put realism and common sense into the Glee universe again. Must! Stop! Now!
