Pajiba

I just posted a similar comment over on the Pajiba After Dark post, but yeah, I really have a problem with making Finn the bad guy here. Kurt has been scheming to have Finn move in with him so that he could seduce him, yet Finn's discomfort at being constantly the object of Kurt's longing is the aberrant behavior? Yes, he said "faggy" and I don't think it's necessarily out of character for a high school guy to use that word, but using that to paint Kurt as the good guy is really troublesome to me.

Speaking of stabbing with knitting needles, are those knitting needles the girl in the header pic is wearing, and did she stab herself in the right eye with one? I mean, I read that phrase here all the time and never thought people actually DID stab themselves in the eye, but then before yesterday I never would have thought people were moronic enough to pour vodka in their eyes either.

I'm done with Glee. I would punch it in its manipulative over-dramatic face, but Brittany's Gaga lobster glasses were too bad ass.

I thought the first five minutes were hilarious, but the music was embarrasingly underwhelming. And Finn showing up in the... thing almost made me break my old ass TV.

And Mike O'Malley should win a friggin' Emmy. Which is a sentence that has likely never been uttered.

And Finn's mom is dumb. Who thinks they can break that news that way to a high school kid, and then be surprised when he isn't happy?

But I’ll say this: Santana fucking rocked it.

Yes, that was the only positive comment about the music I had all night. I've never heard that Beth song, but it put me to sleep. Five guys singing, and no harmony? Pointless.

I can't WAIT for Robert to show up...

"Sure, “Glee” is set in Ohio, but “United States of Tara” is set in Kansas City, and it doesn’t seem as though the gay students at that school are being ostracized"

I have never watched Glee but I have to comment on that sentence. The last episode of US of Tara had the gay son being picked by his principal to pass out condoms to students because the principal believed the gays knew more about AIDS and other STDs.

The song "Beth" was okay. The idea of forcing a baby name onto a mother determined to give her up for adoption, not so much.

Am I really the only person getting just plain tired of the "Kurt's dad really loves his son, even though he's masculine and Kurt is gay" subplot? I think this is the third heartfelt speech I've seen on the topic. One was really enough to make the audience say "aww!" Now it's just gay.

Pandemic, are you saying that in real life someone wearing a jetpack and someone dressed like a mole WON'T come and fight in my back yard?

COME ON!!!

As for the Poker Face version that was performed last night...Lady Gaga usually sings it that way in her live show (check out her Ellen performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JlPKZBVmEg)and she did a version like that with Kid Cudi. So it's not really the Glee people who came up with that. Just sayin.

I like the episode but I like them all. So yeah...

That said: Finn did cross the line with the “faggy” comment, and Kurt’s dad delivered a really nice (but hokey) lecture that should’ve been delivered to every high-school asshole in the nation. In 1991. Or maybe 2002.

I don't know, I graduated high school in 2002 and as far as I know, nobody who was out had major problem at school. At home? A different story. But at school, people just...didn't care.

Yes, Kayanne, I loved that line, too! I wish Brad would get a line sometime, though, instead of just popping up like the Piano Fairy.

At least write it so Idina _tries_ to be in Rachel's life and then they realize it's just an awkward chase, but don't state one second that a character needs another one and then another second later write that the character couldn't care less.
Ugh, ridiculous.

Well, that's pretty much been the norm on Glee since day one. It doesn't really matter whether they spend weeks building up a plotline (a la Finn/Rachel) or bring it up and solve it in the same episode (every time anyone's ever tried to stop Glee Club from existing), nothing ever sticks in this show.

I'm not even sure you can complain about Finn's characterisation over the "faggy" comment because NO ONE on this show has consistent characterisation. Although I agree both that he's not in the wrong feeling uncomfortable sharing a bedroom with someone who simply will not take no for an answer, and that he should have found a better way to express it (then again, he's Finn; he's like the taller, male-r Brittney).

(Side rant:
And I throw my hat in there as one of those who are sick of the awesome Mike O'Malley speeches. He's pretty much my favourite character on the whole damn show, but once, hell TWICE was enough. And talk about inconsistent characterisation - when Kurt came out to his dad way back in the first part of season 1, Burt's response was "I know, but thanks for telling me anyway." Then a few weeks ago, we were told something along the lines of "when you came out, we all knew it was going to be hard." Wait, what? How did that change anything if he supposedly "already knew"? WHY AM I EVEN GETTING WORKED UP OVER THIS, it's the same for every character. Nine weeks getting Finn and Rachel together? Undone the first episode back. Ditto Will and Emma. We're supposed to give Sue's psychotic insanity a pass because she loves her sister. Quinn's a prissy prom bitch. Wait, now she's Mercedes' wise best friend. Now she's a shallow bitch again. I could go on. But I won't. Because this little side rant is enormous enough already.)

I'm pretty sure small town Ohio (They call it a cow town) is a lot different than Kansas City a major metropolis, just saying. And everyone wore letter jackets at my high school! (and I graduated in 08 so I"m not too far removed) Though the choir kids and the gay kids didn't get picked on too terribly much. We pretty much just stayed in our safe and flamboyant circle. But then again I went to a huge school in a mid size city in a very shitty part of town where I never saw little suburban guys fight (the gang members had a monopoly on school yard violence). But I have an aquiantance from nowheresville Kansas who refused to attend a dinner our sorority had with the gay fraternity because "gay people make her sick and she wouldn't be able to eat." So yeah it happens and it makes me want to cut a bitch. (needless to say she was kicked out of our sorority for her grades). Honestly it's about town size and the amount of diversity people are exposed to. I'm sure that stuff is less common in Cincinnati but in a tiny town like Lima it's still gonna happen.

And yeah I hate Gaga but I didn't mind this episode. Not great but I liked the Kurt/Burt bit. They really are very touching. I agree it was nice that no one was totally right in the Finn/Kurt situation. I'm really really sick of the gimmicks though it is getting old. No more themed episodes please. It is so much better when they have a legit plot and make the music flow from it (like a real musical) instead of trying to fit plot into a bunch of related songs (a la Mamma Mia and other Juke Box Musical shit!)

We've missed a couple episodes of the second half and so have fallen off watching. Probably catch up when it gets released.
Maybe it has jumped the GaGa Shark, or maybe, like any self-dis-respecting teen, it's just trying to find it's way.

I think the part that amazed me the most, is that tall black guy who's name I can't remember (I keep calling him Shrek, the name bestowed upon him by Sue Sylvester) Got his first talking role! and it's only about 20 episodes in. Sure he was disguised in makeup and it took me a lot of rewinding and complicated math to figure out that Jesse wasn't there.

But I think that's major, and probably part of some huge plot line later. Maybe the last shot of the season finale will be him winking and the screen fading out. Or maybe that wasn't supposed to be his line and he just stole it from some other cast member, tired of his Murphy-induced prison of silence (I'm fairly sure he's just lip-syncing in every song).

Murphy will probably drop a bridge on him for this small act of defiance. I honestly thought that way back in the ballad episode that case of whatever the hell disease he had was gonna turn out fatal. Which would set us up for constant "Remember when Shrek did _____" "Who's Shrek?"

But here's the thing (after that long rant): I'll probably still watch the show every week.

Oh, and for the record, those people sucked. Probably still do.

Wow. I actually really liked this episode.

First off, You suck Dustin. Lady Gaga is amazing and can obviously sing (i.e. Poker Face piano version). So just because YOU didn't like the music, doesn't mean the episode was bad.

Speaking of, I'm starting to think that the likability of a Glee episode directly corresponds to the likability of the songs played on said episode. Hence, I loved this episode because I love Lady Gaga.

Other than that, Glee has always been after-school special, shallow and general, liberal lessons. So it wasn't surprising that Finn was chastised for his outburst. However, I didn't think he was demonized and though Kurt's father had to "kick him out", I think Finn's prior arguments to Kurt rang true to the audience and to Kurt himself.

Which brings me to why I thought this episode was really good (other than Gaga's beautiful music). It went a bit further than shows normally do with the issue of homosexuality, blurring the lines of what is deemed right and wrong by society's (liberal) standards and they continue to do this with the character of Kurt's father.

Best Line of the Show: "Brad! (Piano guy walks in) He's always just...around."

Oh right, and people are DEFINITELY still like that in High School Dustin.

I graduated in 2006 and I live 15 minutes from New York, and I didn't stop using the words "gay" and "fag" as an adjective until I went to NYU and my roommate was gay. That made me stop real quick.

Isn't this whole show just kind of one big homosexual stereotype? I mean lets make a show about gay kids in highschool and we'll make it a fabulous musical. I don't get the hype at all. I think the whole show pushes genuine acceptance of gay people back...alot. I have plenty of gay friends and not one of them acts like as much of a camp stereotype as this "forward thinking" show wants us to think. Oh and the music blows. Sue Sylvester owns faces though.

Yeah, kids in high school have not progressed that much. I graduated less than ten years ago, and at one point the football players visited my (not yet out of the closet) friend in the middle of the night and glued pics of naked men to his car. It was so public, his parents, neighbors and friends all saw it and he was devastated and very embarassed. Kids (like adults) can be truly mean.

Also, I read that Glee is adding a new gay character next year. A football player.

Man, my highschool experience must have been bizarre. I never felt anything but accepted. I was never crazy popular, but I can proudly say that in my school, when people were hated, it was because those people were jerks. I've always felt that the concept of cliques was outdated too, but again, maybe I got off lucky. My brother went to the same school and had a similar experience.

Maybe it's just because we're from Canada.

dsbs
Yeah, but you guys had DeGrassi rather than Glee. Just sayin'.

That was possibly my least favorite episode so far - for many of the reasons already listed above.

The one question that really burns is: what is the significance of the cup Shelby gives Rachel? I mean, I know the bedtime routine story but, since Glee has taken on a sort of Twin Peaksian ultra-symbolic humor, I sort of thought it might be a sort of passing of the cup, broadway theater kind of thing.

Am I the only person here who has ever worked with teenagers? Finn using the F word was entirely believable. You say his disbelief at the hurtfulness at the word. I see teens all the time fling around incredibly hurtful words without acknowledging its power. Teen boys fling that word around like it's candy, and we could tell that Finn had no idea how hurtful he was actually being. It was entirely believable; Finn was reacting because of Kurt's inappropriate advances and lack of awareness, and Kurt's dad was reacting out of paternal protectiveness. The jocks were present to show us what is at stake for Finn in terms of masculinity and social alienation.

Also, I was relieved to watch Rachel as a vulnerable young woman struggling to connect with a parental figure instead of the obnoxious, control freak we usually see her as. She felt human this week, and that felt like progress.

And speaking of progress? I love how other characters are leading the songs. Mercedes, Artie, Puck, Santana, Tina, and Kurt have all had incredible solos or duets these past few weeks, and for that I'm relieved.

All in all, I thought this was the best episode since its return.

I loathe KISS, OMG I hate them so much! Gene Simmons can rot in hell!

Other than assaulting me with KISS, I thought that the Burt/Kurt/Finn scene was one of the seasons best. While I agree that Kurt was being an ass, I think that Christ Coffer handled that scene so well. Mike O'Malley and Jane Lynch will be polishing their Emmy by the end of the year. That scene was SO well acted, it rivaled the Will/Teri scene in intensity.

Also Burt Hummel best TV dad ever!

People are bitching about Poker Face but it seems kind of obvious that it was the song Rachel was practicing for the Gaga assignment, not the one she had dreamed about singing with her mom her whole life.

Also ditto to the above posts on how teens throw words like "gay" and "fag", while it was wrong for Finn to say it, it was not completely out of now where. Boy was pushed.

Also did anyone catch Finn's pained look as Puck asked to be at the birth, I love that Glee makes sure to have those little moments.

Poor Finn :(

Oh, I forgot to mention, the Fox execs fucked with the schedule and moved up the Gaga ep a week so that it would coincide with the AI finale. I hope that they never do this again, showing the episodes out of order is a dumbass thing to do.

I wonder if next week's episode will add a bit of filler to the Rachel's mom story. Jesse leaves next week (which was why he wasn't in the episode this week). I imagine that they will have to mention the whole Jesse was only in ND to get to Rachel for her mom, so it would have been a 3 ep arc, not just 2.

Ruth and ed -- right there with you. I teach high school, and there are many otherwise nice kids who will use the "f" word, even when I've laid out the verbal smackdown a million times. Also, there are letter jackets.

And while there are kids who are out in high school, I thought something Dan Savage said awhile ago was pretty interesting -- something about how most (most! not all!) of the kids who are out in high school couldn't be in if they tried. That means that high school students get a misperception of "gay" as "flamboyant", something which is not exactly aided by popular culture.

Also, while we're musing...I think the reason that most adults think that things have gotten better is that as we grow, we get better. Because our peers have gotten less homophobic as we get older, we assume that the world has done the same. And it has, to an extent, but I challenge you to find a place more homophobic than a high school hallway. It's not really a geographic thing either, unfortunately. As people have been chiming throughout these comments, you'll find it in high schools in Ohio, NYC, and in the suburbs of Seattle. It's a really crappy high school thing. There's a great article called (I think) "Homophobic Hallways" -- a little old, but still good -- all about this.

The gay kids still get ostracized. You're in foolish denial if you think otherwise.

We still get hit with exactly the kind of questions that Finn asked Kurt. "Why can't you just try to blend in a little more?"

Kurt's Dad wasn't as unrealistic as you'd think. My father gave a very similar speech to one of my teacher's in highschool when she made her views on my sexuality known. When my step-sister went through her homophobic phase, she was treated in a similar manner.

Mind you, Kurt has been pretty damn creepy with regard to Finn. The way that he screwed Rachel over wasn't okay. This kind of behavior is not typical. I'm bisexual, and I don't pine after straight women or gay men. Do straight men pine after lesbian women? If so, it's a little pathetic. As Rachel said in an earlier episode, she and every other girl in the school has more of a chance at Finn than Kurt ever will, simply because they're girls.

They set up Finn's outburst well, with his confrontations with the other jocks and his shying away from Kurt. They also played out Kurt's father's rant very well. Every parent is going to assume that their child is in the right, and I'm sure that Kurt never shared his obsession over his new room mate with his father.

More important than the flow of the story-line though, is the lesson. I hate it when straight people assume that just because a gay person's in the room with them, they're going to be ogling them. We don't pull that shit, guys. There's no point. I know that with Kurt and Finn there was some background to suggest otherwise, but in reality, please, as a collective group, grow up. As Kurt said, "It's just a room". Your gay friends are no more likely to maul you in your sleep than your straight friends.

Gaga's music was... eh. I think they could've done better with somebody else, but the homage to an influential artist was a nice idea. (Also, considering that some people believe that "poker face" is a song about a lesbian leading on her cover boyfriend, I think its placement with the other storyline was amusing.)

i'm always late to these things.

the main problem that i had with the kurt-finn argument was that kurt has been trying to get into finn's pants – he even went as far as to set up their parents. i absolutely hate that finn called him out on it and then kurt played the victim. granted, i can see a high schooler taking that route out. anyway.

i think the thing with the pyrotechnics and amazing costumes is that we are seeing the kids they way they see it - so the costumes are so cool and the stage is amazing and their names are in lights. in reality, they're probably pretty shitty costumes and the stage is a bare-bones budget operation. everything seems so amazing when you're young.

JVO: i think the thing with the pyrotechnics and amazing costumes is that we are seeing the kids they way they see it - so the costumes are so cool and the stage is amazing and their names are in lights. in reality, they're probably pretty shitty costumes and the stage is a bare-bones budget operation. everything seems so amazing when you're young.

Exactly, that is exactly how I see the show. Looking back through rose colored glasses happens to us all. It makes perfect sense that in remembering back; their Glee performances and costumes would be remembered as that good.

Uggggghhh Yeah this was a terrible episode, mostly because I am so irritated that they made Finn the bad guy. I am a gay man, and my GOD, I had some Kurt-like crushes on some guys in high school. The difference is, they never knew I was gay, and our parents never put us in the same room. Oh! And also, I wasn't a crazy gay stereotype who decorated my room based on that Deitrich lady (or whoever...God...I really hate Kurt for being the big gay stereotype on TV.)

As far as I am concerned, Kurt's dad had his heart in the right place but was actually COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT in his little speech to Finn. Who would want to share a room with a creepy stalker with whom you have no interest?!? Gay or straight, Finn, as a high school boy, should absolutely freak out. And "faggy" was the perfect word for his decoration, even if Finn, as a straight guy, isn't "allowed" to say it.

This isn't a gay rights issue, Ryan Murphy. This is a terrible excuse to peddle your politics, and frankly, it's doing us normal gays a HUGE disservice.