Glee: 2.18 "Born This Way" (open spoilers)

Tonight’s an extended, 90 minute episode. Kurt’s back at WMHS, Karofsky is going to “come to terms” with his sexuality; whatever that means. Also Quinn & Lauren are running against eachother for Prom Queen, Rachel’s considering a nose job, and Will helps Emma with her OCD by taking her to see a therapist.

[ul]
[li]As If We Never Said Goodbye (Sunset Boulevard)[/li][li]Barbra Streisand (Duck Sauce)[/li][li]Born This Way (Lady Gaga)[/li][li]I Feel Pretty/Unpretty (Sammy Davis, Jr.)[/li][li]I’ve Gotta Be Me (Lady Gaga)[/li][li]Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)[/li][/ul]

I’m guessing “As If [WNSG]” is Kurt’s song upon going back to McKinley. Here’s hoping his return to New Directions goes better than Norma’s return to Paramount.

Speaking of, I wonder if Karofsky’s “coming to terms” will involve going insane and an embarrassing misunderstanding of “We’d love to see you join us in New Directions”. I’d prefer that to something way too ‘peace love joy’ ‘I’m here, I’m queer, and gosh I owe Kurt an apology’ deus-ex-machina.

Blaine: “I’ll still have you after school, and on the weekends.”

**Me: **"*Twice *on Sundays."

Incidentally, looks like Kurt’s gone steampunk.

I won’t be able to watch until tomorrow at the earliest; could somebody please spoiler me why Kurt is going back to McKinley?

Santana promises to be Karofsky’s beard so long as he quits bullying Kurt; there’s a summit with the principal and their dads, and Kurt makes K. form a PFLAG club with him.

I may have to review the tape to make sure I didn’t hallucinate that last point.:smack:

He wanted to go back, but neither he nor Blaine was comfortable with this as long as Karofsky was a threat. Meanwhile, Santana had decided she wanted to be prom queen and decided that the best way to get everyone to like her would be to “reform” Karofsky and bring Kurt back to McKinley.

Santana confronts Karofsky and offers him a dual-beard arrangement and a shot at prom king in exchange for his cooperation. He apologizes to the glee club and Kurt, saying that Santana has convinced him that bullying is wrong. Kurt doesn’t buy the sudden change of heart, and gets Karofsky to admit he has an ulterior motive, but tells Karofsky he’ll agree to continue keeping his secret as long as the bullying is really over AND Karofsky will help him start a PFLAG group at school.

Kurt returns to McKinley in triumph, with Blaine making a point of saying he’ll still “have” Kurt every day of the week. :wink:

OK, so I didn’t hallucinate. Good to know

Oh, the teaser for next week suggests that Sam will

Have an affair with Kurt. Or at least the other glee club members seem to think this is happening.

I fully expect this will turn out to be a misunderstanding, but they are going there.

One thing that we know that Kurt knows about Sam is that he isn’t a natural blonde. I predict that will somehow be an issue.

That may be it. The teaser for next week seems to show Kurt leaving Sam’s house/apartment at night. So it may be that Kurt had agreed to discreetly do Sam’s highlights or something.
Back to this episode, it was interesting to see Karofsky pere again. Elsewhere on the Web I’ve seen it accepted as “fanon” that Karofsky’s parents are homophobes and that’s why he’s a violent closet case, but Mr. Karofsky had not seemed like one to me that last time he appeared. He seemed concerned about his own son’s behavior and didn’t try to say it was Kurt’s fault for being a “deviant” or anything. In this episode he says that while he’d had a negative view of homosexuals when he was young he’d changed with the times and hopes Kurt and Burt will give his son the chance to show that he’s learned to be tolerant as well.

Now, it’s entirely possible that Mr. Karofsky makes less tolerant comments in private or would be upset to learn that his own son is gay, but I think it’s good that the writers aren’t giving Karofsky fils an easy excuse for his behavior. His family doesn’t appear to believe that homosexuals are evil or anything.

“As If We Never Said Goodbye” and “Somewhere Only We Know” were both great. But that “Barbra Streisand” thing (just a rhythm track and somebody saying ‘Barbra Streisand’, really? that’s a song?) was a real waste of the money spent to rent that mall and pay those extras.

As time goes by, I am less enthused about anything plot-wise on this show, but I’m still loving the singing and dancing.

I was disappointed that came up with brand new past for Quinn to excuse her behavior. I got the impression that the writers just couldn’t figure out how to write a character that grew up physically beautiful. Also, it doesn’t seem to match what we have known about her until now

Listened to As If We Never Said Goodbye on a page that has Chris’s and Glenn Close’s version. I love that song- SB is probably my favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that didn’t involve Tim Rice- and while Glenn may be more convincing as an actress in the part of a 50-year-old-jazz-age-superstar-narcissist-in-1949 Chris tore that song up (in the good way), though if I didn’t know who he was I would never have guessed it was a man singing.

I wonder if his voice will ever deepen. Actually can’t think why it would; he’s grown 3 inches in height since the first episode (late teen growth spurt) but the voice has stayed the same.

Ditto. Which is sort of circular here since “Shut the hell up and just sing” is a phrase that I usually feel about Barbra Streisand.

Correction:

  • As If We Never Said Goodbye (Sunset Boulevard)
    • Barbra Streisand (Duck Sauce)
    • Born This Way (Lady Gaga)
    • I Feel Pretty/Unpretty (TLC/West Side Story)
    • I’ve Gotta Be Me (Sammy Davis Jr.)
    • Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)

“I’m with stoopid/stupid,” “Can’t sing/dance,” “Four Eyes,” “Lebanese.” That’s just some comedy gold right there.

Yeah, Britney and Puck’s shirts were worth the price of admission. :slight_smile:

I might have enjoyed that scene more if it hadn’t already been done, and better, in the Whedon ep.

Also, thank you Maggie, the list in the OP hurt my feelings.

As a gay man who is a fan of GLEE and knows plenty of other guys like me who are, I was disappointed that more wasn’t done about the “Lebanese” joke!!! Any good gay man knows that joke is from an old “Golden Girls” episode… Now wouldn’t it have been even funnier and a sly wink to anyone who knows that fact if Brittany said to Santana, “Well thats how my friend Blanche told me how to spell it”…

See the following video clip at 1 min 33 seconds and 3 min 30 seconds for soem funny s%^t

I didn’t understand Mercedes’s shirt…

“No weave”?

Huh? Ok, I know weaves are like hair extensions, and are more popular with black women (I think?), but I didn’t think that not having one would be a source of embarrassment as her shirt would seem to indicate.

I enjoyed the episode overall, but did feel that Mercedes’ and Will’s shirts were pretty much copouts.
I also agree that the Barbra Streisand song/scene made zero sense either inside or outside the context of the show.

What about Kurt’s shirt? Since when is he embarrassed that he “likes boys”? Shouldn’t it have said something like “scrawny arms” or “looks bad in teal”?