“The first rule about Glee Club: you do not talk about Glee Club.”
It is surely no coincidence that “Blaine Anderson” is an anagram for “a bone land siren”, a clear reference to both the supernatural power of his voice and his dominion over death (bone land = burial ground) and sacrifice. Both of course have traditionally been associated with harvest deities, e.g. Osiris.
The significance of Blaine’s romantic relationship with Kurt beginning only when Kurt took on the role of officiating the death ritual for the Warblers’ totemic bird is now obvious to me.
The fact it’s also an anagram of “boner is anal end”, “nine boner salad”, and “inbred nasal one” imply to me that Kurt and Rachel are his children and he plans to impregnate them both in an orgy.
You guys are really weird.
That’s why I love it here.
I wish I was drinking something because I surely would have spewed it all over myself in laughter.
The number nine of course has both traditional mystical significance and special significance in the world of Glee (the first regular episode, “Showmance”, originally aired on 09/09/09), but more importantly there have been nine male members (ahem) in New Directions aside from Blaine himself. It now becomes clear that the name of the club isn’t merely a racy pun, but an indication of its ultimate purpose. I’ve heard rumors that both Sam and Jesse St. James will return for guest appearances this season, which means only the continued absence of Matt is preventing the ritual orgy that will allow Blaine to finally manifest his full powers. Long time Glee viewers will recall that Matt mysteriously “transferred” at the beginning of season two, shortly before Blaine was introduced as a character. The timing of this is surely no coincidence.
Getting back to the overt text of “The First Time”, I thought it was interesting that Sebastian told Blaine he’d heard from the other Warblers that Blaine was both a great soloist and a total hottie. If he was telling the truth (and it’s entirely possible that he wasn’t, he was clearly lying about other things) then this suggests that at least one of the other Warblers had a crush on Blaine. My guess would be that one chubby guy, since he seemed the most excited to see Blaine again.
I mention this mostly because I think if the writers wanted to do a “Warbler tries to steal Blaine from Kurt” plot then it would have been better to develop one of the Warbler characters introduced last year rather than bring in a new guy. I also think someone who Blaine already considered a friend would be a more credible threat to his romance with Kurt, especially if won Blaine’s sympathy by confiding that he’d never told him how he felt because he was afraid of coming out or something. Or heck, Sebastian could have fed Blaine some sob story about how he’d been bullied at his old school and really wished Blaine were still at Dalton because he needed a gay role model. I can easily believe that Blaine would fall for that and agree to hang out with Sebastian because he felt sorry for him. I find it less plausible that Blaine was impressed by Sebastian’s phony “I’m so sophisticated and lived in Paris and drank cognac every day” routine.
I’m afraid they’re going to bring this guy back and have Blaine continue to be impressed/tempted by him, but Sebastian is such an obvious sleazy jackass that I don’t think there’s any way to do that without making Blaine totally unsympathetic.
Never mind the teen role models people- show me adults in Glee with healthy relationships!
Sue- uh, nope, nothing healthy here.
Ditto weird former Glee teacher/pot dealer/paedophile.
Bieste - virgin due to low self esteem.
Emma- one broken engagement, one unconsummated marriage and now in a relationship with Shu which is still unconsummated.
Shu- horrible marriage, rebound nookie with Rachel’s mother and Gwyneth Paltrow (neither of whom are poster girls for ideal female sexual role models), now in asexless relationship with OCD-girl.
Mike’s parents- lies, shattered dreams and cultural stereotyping writ large.
Which leaves…Rachel’s unseen, but obviously devoted (if pushy) dads, and Burt and Carol.
You forgot the Cohen-Changs: vampires. 
Which reminds me, I’ve always wondered about Tina’s last name. She’s never mentioned being biracial (and that’s the sort of thing that would come up on Glee), so I assume both her parents are Asian. Where does the “Cohen” come from? My best guess is that one of Tina’s parents was adopted by a family named Cohen and that her mother and father chose to take a hyphenated last name when they married. Actress Jenna Ushkowitz was born in Korea but has an obviously non-Korean last name because she was adopted; her father is Polish-American.
Well, that does explain why HER parents didn’t come to their charity concert last year. All the other parents get the “bad parent of the year” award.
Though I think that concert was a night - so even the vampires should have been able to attend.
I thought it was especially odd at the time that Burt and/or Carole didn’t show up for the Night of Neglect, and that there wasn’t even a throwaway line about how they were visiting Finn’s grandparents or something. Most of the other New Directions parents are not seen much, if at all*, but Burt in particular had become such an important character that it seemed strange he wouldn’t have been there with Kurt and Blaine.
I wish they’d shown Burt and Carole in the audience for West Side Story, but maybe the actors were unavailable or something. IIRC Finn mentioned to Rachel that they’d been there but had to leave immediately after the show.
Principal Figgins is anti-vamp, so maybe he banned them from campus. Vampires can’t come in unless invited!
*Aside from Burt and Carole we’ve seen both of Quinn’s parents (although she apparently hasn’t had contact with her father since he threw her out), a brief appearance by Puck’s mom, Rachel’s birth mother but neither of her fathers (except in the photo in the pilot episode), and as of “Asian F” both of Mike’s parents. I’ve heard rumors that both Brittany and Santana’s parents will be showing up this season too.
I just keep telling the kids “its a musical fantasy - continuity isn’t the strong point.”
The absent parent is a reoccurring theme of children’s fantasy lit. So it really isn’t that remarkable that parents are used in Glee primarily as plot devices and little else.
I actually think it’s fairly realistic that parents are rarely seen in a show set primarily at a high school. I had plenty of friends in HS whose parents I only saw occasionally or never met at all, and it would have been unusual to see anyone’s parents inside the school itself.
Of course, the big exception to this would be special events like school plays and concerts. That’s where you’d expect to see the parents of most participating students in the audience, so it was weird that NO ONE’S parents made it to the Night of Neglect fundraiser. My fanwank is that Sunshine’s fans reserved nearly all the seats (without paying) and none of the parents could get a ticket. Then when Sunshine backed out all her fans canceled.
I thought this episode was… meh.
They did a good job of the West Side Story songs. It was hilarious to see the Irish new kid trying to do an accent the way Santana does it (Santana was AMAZING throughout all of the episode, her accents and singing were great in the musical), although I would’ve liked to see more of Kurt as Krupke. Coach Beist getting an admirer was cool too.
The bad parts: what the heck is with Artie telling Blaine and Rachel to go have sex with someone? Do directors of real musicals do that? I doubt the audience would know or care if the main actors are or are not virgins. Also, when Finn wanted to wait with Rachel for a more romantic time, and then they ended up doing it anyway a few days later (when Finn was feeling depressed and Rachel was just out of the musical, I might add - not exactly a romantic time), that seemed like forced screenwriting to me. I thought the first season of Glee was the best, and it went downhill from there. It feels like we’re not reusing old plot lines, although I know we’re not exactly (yet).
Okay, I’ll admit that Artie telling Rachel and Blaine to go get laid was bizarre – but he admitted he had no freaking idea what he was doing as a director. This could be a function of that.
The more I think about it the more I feel that this scene seemed “wrong” not just because it was an inappropriate way for Artie to behave (people behave inappropriately all the time on Glee, and Artie at least had the excuse of being a stressed-out teenager) but because it wasn’t necessary to the plot. It wasn’t appropriate for Artie to start meddling in his coach’s* love life either, but the Coach Beiste storyline needed someone to serve as a go-between so whatever.
But as olivesmarch4th said, “I can’t convincingly play a girl who loses her virginity unless I lose my virginity!” seems like the kind of thing Rachel might well come up with on her own. The Kurt/Blaine storyline would have played out exactly the same without Artie’s recommendation that Blaine lose his virginity; concern about the play didn’t seem to have anything to do with Blaine’s behavior later on. The combination of alcohol, general teenage horniness, and the fact that Sebastian had been doing his best to get Blaine hot and bothered seem like sufficient motivation for Blaine’s ill-timed and over-aggressive attempt to set Kurt’s van a’rockin’.
*Is Artie still on the football team? They haven’t mentioned it this season, and I’d be fine with the show just pretending that it never happened.
Does Maria lose her virginity in West Side Story? I didn’t think she and Tony ever actually had sex.
Well, if not then Artie’s advice was even less helpful!
I’ve only seen the movie once (and never the play) and it’s been years, but I thought Maria and Tony did sleep together at least once. I might just be making that assumption because Romeo and Juliet do consummate their secret marriage, though.
Incidentally, it seemed a little odd that Artie never considered the possibility that Rachel and Blaine’s scenes lacked heat because 1) Blaine’s gay, 2) Rachel and Blaine do have a brief but embarrassing romantic history together, and/or 3) Rachel’s very large boyfriend (who is also Kurt’s stepbrother) doesn’t like Blaine. I’d think any one of these would make it difficult for an inexperienced teenage actor to get in character.
Biggest surprise to me was Bieste not knocking Artie so hard he could walk again when he mentioned her sex life.
Only tangentially related, but- I think my favorite stage version of America was this one by Debbie Allen, if only for her marvelous 1 second chicken dance.
I’m starting to think that Naya Rivera is going to be a really big star after this show is over. She’s got the looks, the voice, the moves- I could see her starring in a movie, a Broadway show, or a Law & Order spinoff.
I think they did. I’ve only seen the movie, but after Bernardo is killed there is a brief bit where they’re in bed together dozing and looking post-coital.