Tonight’s episode is a Whitney Houston tribute.
The actual title of this episode was “Dance with Somebody” – I’m going to ask a mod to fix it.
Well, this was yet another tribute episode where multiple characters were suddenly (and seemingly always had been) obsessed with a particular artist who they had never even mentioned before. I’m pretty sure only Mercedes was an established Whitney Houston fan. The only dissenting voice was Sam, who pointed out that Whitney Houston wasn’t the best role model. While this is true, I think it’s odd that no one had a similar problem with the Britney Spears of Michael Jackson tributes. Anyway, all the “We <3 Whitney” stuff was thankfully dealt with in the opening scenes.
I’m not sure how I feel about this episode yet, but unlike some of the other tribute episodes there were actual plots that were, by the standards of Glee, fairly coherent. Will continues his creepy obsession with his students by attempting to organize his wedding around them, Rachel and Santana bury the hatchet, a romance develops between Quinn and dreadlocks dude, and Kurt and Blaine have a fight about what I believe is the third love triangle involving this couple in this season.
I am glad that this did at least lead to them finally addressing the issue I’ve been expecting to come up ever since Blaine revealed that he was trapped in a time loop and would be a junior forever: Kurt will be graduating soon and will probably be off to NYC, and Blaine will be left behind in Ohio. They worked things out after singing a couple of songs and having a session with Miss Pillsbury. I was kind of afraid things were going to get dragged out when Kurt sang “I Have Nothing” after what I believe was the first scene with Burt in a while. I fully expected that Blaine would say something like “That was so sweet you sang that song for me” and Kurt would say “That song was for my DAD!”
I’ve decided that I think they’re trying too hard to be edgy, and the show is suffering. I really hope it’s not renewed. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s over.
That said, I liked the wedding planner, and I was stunned that Will has no comprehension of how to plan a wedding. I think I was more surprised than his fiancée at some of his choices. I thought Kurt’s new friend made his teenage romance more realistic, and I didn’t like what was happening with the guy who is attracted to Quinn.
I’m not a big fan of episodes that feature only one artist, so I fast-forwarded through a lot of the songs.
I do realize that I am years, no decades, away from their target demographic, so my opinion is pretty worthless.
It’s already been renewed for a fourth season, although I agree it would have been better* if the show had been planned to end with the graduation of most of the major characters this season.
*I mean better both in terms of the writing (wrapping everyone’s storylines up instead of trying to come up with new characters) and in terms of me being able to stop watching this show.
I thought the a cappella opening just killed. Stunning.
Nice to see Burt again.
And it’s weird what implausibilities/impossibilities one chokes on with this show – Kurt’s flat “I’m not cheating” denial was just … odd. “Gee, Dad, Blaine is po’ed, and I have absolutely no clue why.” :rolleyes:
They do have a habit of doing this, true (see: disco episode), but it is not entirely unrealistic that the death of Whitney would affect them more than mentioned in the episode.
I am not a huge Whitney fan; I don’t believe I’ve seen any of her movies, I enjoy her music but not enough to buy albums anymore, etc. However, for about 2 weeks following her death, I was depressed and choked up anytime I heard one of her songs.
Sometimes people get touched by something that previously wasn’t any big deal. Now, I’ll grant the two months later is a stretch. :rolleyes:
I did like that quite a bit, but the arrangements of pretty much every other song just seemed… odd. Kurt doing “I Have Nothing” in his creepy falsetto was just too much.
I imagine this show makes way too much money in iTunes sales to be cancelled any time soon.
Wow. I thought his voice was angelic.
I think he’s talented, I just didn’t like it at all for that song. I guess maybe I’m a Whitney purist 
“Starsky and Gay Hutch”.
Did Blaine ritually murder the Irish kid and eat his heart? He hasn’t been in the last couple eps. I know they have dreadlock-boy now, but I think his leaving would at least rate a mention.
Was the music store kid one of the Glee Project contestants?
StG
No, we’ve seen all four of the Glee Project finalists now:
(1) the girl who was at the NYADA meetup where Kurt and Rachel were assuming everyone else would be way worse than them
(2) Irish guy (who does seem to have vanished, along with Sugar)
(3) Dreadlocks guy
(4) Black crossdresser on vocal adrenaline
I enjoyed this episode more than most recent ones even though I know zero about Whitney Houston and basically knew none of the songs… but they were fun and melodic and well performed.
So why is Will so obsessed with having the Glee kids participate in his wedding? And when he mentioned it (along with the idea of getting married at a campground), his fiancee had a weird expression, as if she was wondering if she was marrying a crazy person. Given that she has her own issues, that says something.
Only in Glee-verse is there a sheet music store in a small town in Ohio.
That was really nicely done, and I like it when they do a different arrangement of a familiar song. Although this was one of the rare instances where I think a Glee musical number would have been better if it had taken the lyrics more literally – Mercedes, Rachel, and Kurt might all reasonably be wondering “How do I know if he really loves me?” about their various love interests.
Are you older than high school age, though? I could understand someone around my age (31) being surprisingly affected by the death of a woman who had a string of #1 hits when we were in elementary and middle school, but the characters on Glee wouldn’t even have been born until after Whitney Houston’s career was past its peak. I think only one song in this episode (“It’s Not Right but It’s Okay”, 1999) was even released within the lifetime of the teen characters. It’s certainly not unheard of for teenagers to be fans of music from before they were born – I was a big classic rock fan – but 4+ of them in a group of only about 14 people? It would have made more sense if this theme had been one of Will’s suggestions. Of course, the same was true for the Michael Jackson episode, the Madonna episode, and really even the Britney Spears episode.
I think we’re supposed to find his devotion to his students touching, but yeah, it’s disturbing and creepy.
Maybe he had a fatal reaction to his first peanut butter.
So there’s a North Lima High? And they have a musical theater queen just like Kurt- same age and everything- and Kurt has somehow never met him even though they live in the same small town and probably go to the same mall all the time and the “Sound of Music singalong” etc…
Wait, a small town can support a sheet music store?
And North Lima High doesn’t have a glee club? And Burt Hummel pays a fortune to send Kurt to an exclusive private school when there’s another public school he could probably get zoned for with a couple of phone calls (and if not there’s always registering him with somebody else’s address)?
Are The Writers Even Listening To Themselves Anymore? I honestly think 10th graders could write with more consistency.
Repeat to yourself its just a show, I shoud really just relax.
Consistency? Glee? The only consistency they think they need is to make sure that each show choir has at least 12 students in it, since they made this a plot point at one time. The show can’t even agree on which schools are in which sections and regions from one year to the next, or which girls are the “background” singers for the TroubleTones.
Lima isn’t exactly a “small” town - it’s about 40,000, which is big enough for two public high schools. I have seen sheet music stores in much smaller towns, although I will admit that was some years ago (now even the ones in big cities are closing, mainly because it’s much easier to buy sheet music online).
Remember, McKinley didn’t have a glee club until Mr. Shuster restarted it. Maybe North Lima High just doesn’t have anyone willing to take the job.
Yes they did. Sandy Ryerson ran the glee club until he got caught molesting a glee student (one who was never again seen after the brief clip where this happens) by Rachel who anonymously narced on him and got him fired. He was just really crappy and ran the club into the ground, as opposed the woman he replaced who was there when Shu was a student and took them to nationals.
Anyway, as for this ep, pretty much the only thing I liked was Brittany’s dancing in one of the numbers. BLEH to everything else.
Since this is Glee, I consider it equally likely that Chandler attends a high school in the northern part in Lima as that he lives in the unincorporated community of North Lima on the other side of the state and drives into Lima to buy sheet music.
I’ll defend this one as actually having a reasonable, established in-universe explanation. Kurt transferred to Dalton not merely because it was a high school other than McKinley, but because it has a strict anti-bullying policy. Switching to a different local public school might have gotten Kurt away from Karofsky, but it would not necessarily have protected him from a similar problem arising at his new school – as Karofsky himself learned when he was outed to his new classmates.