"I’m From a Part of Town Called Lima Heights Adjacent"
By Katelyn Anne | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (21)
There’s always a weird balance with shows on “Glee” that don’t feature Sue Sylvester. I find myself walking away not realizing I missed her or writhing in agony from the loss. Generally, the latter happens when it’s a Will Schuester centric episode, but last night I got the former. I suppose they’ve done enough with Sue’s “Love stinks” mentality and decided to forgo her contribution for this episode. Although, to be honest, I’d have love to seen how one spends Valentine’s Day when one is one’s own spouse.
But without Sue, this episode of “Glee” flourished. Love was in the air with the kids at McKinley and Dalton. First up Blaine asks Kurt for some love advice about a guy; Kurt assumes that the guy Blaine is asking advice for is Kurt and basically agrees with any suggestions that he might like. Unfortunately, though it should come as no surprise, Blaine reveals that the guy is a Gap employee when he and the Warblers start planning a flash mob type performance to serenade Blaine’s crush. Kurt is hurt when he finds out the object of his affections isn’t interested and he has a slumber party with Rachel and Mercedes to dish about it. Mercedes actually gives some pretty decent advice about being able to stand on your own; while I don’t agree with her idea that they have to be single to be successful, it was encouraging to her someone on that show try to be a little more grounded about high school relationships. After the pep talk, Kurt still helps the Warblers perform at the Gap. While the song got the shoppers dancing, it got Blaine’s crush fired; worse still, Blaine is shot down by his dream guy. Later on, when Blaine is venting his disappointment, Kurt admits he had hoped that the guy Blaine was interested in. Rather than go the cliched route and have them immediately hook up, Blaine admits he was clueless about Kurt’s feelings and that he doesn’t want to mess up what they already have. Kurt says that they can be Harry & Sally, which is weird since they never hated each other, but it doesn’t matter since they’ve seemed to reach a point in their relationship where they’ve decided to let their friendship evolve however it’s supposed to.
The other relationship that got started was my favorite. If you haven’t been rooting for the Lauren Zizes and Puck hook up since he admitted that she rocked his world before sectionals, you may not have appreciated the best coupling of the episode. Puck finds himself incredibly smitten with Lauren and it’s no wonder: she’s more confident than all of the other girls in Glee club combined, she kicks ass (literally and figuratively) and she’s not afraid to go after what she wants, basically she’s Puckerman in lady form. But because she’s a lady, Puck has no idea how to go about wooing her properly and watching him fumble over and over throughout the episode was great to watch. Lauren makes no apologies for who she is or how she wants to be treated and she doesn’t let him half-ass his pursual, which is really nice for a change. How many of the other couples in Glee club just sort of fell into the relationship because they figured it was supposed to work out; granted, that mentality is normal for most high schoolers, but Lauren candidness was refreshing. And God love him, Puck tried and messed up several times. His song, while technically serenading Lauren, was less about how lovely he found her and more about wanting to hit it. He was stood up for their dinner date that promised some serious “macking.” And finally, when at his wits end, he asks her what she really wants and she tells him she wants to take it slow. She knows his history and wants a real relationship from him and miracle of miracles, Puck agrees. I’m interested to see how this courtship progresses as Puck tries to win over Lauren.
The only other student who could give Lauren a run for her money is Santana, who was one of the funniest of the night. She was great as the jilted and conniving woman scorned. In retaliation for being passed over by Puck and being left single, she decides to try and expose Fin’s gassy infant face for what it is: cheating. When she sees that Finn & Quinn have more going on then the peck they shared at his kissing booth (which raised enough for half a ticket to nationals), she decides to go classic high school sabotage and use some biological warfare. Santana gets some mono germs from an infected student and kisses Finn at his booth. Quinn and Finn decide to test the potential of their relationship by making out in the auditorium. Of course Finn is fine with cheating when he’s not the one being cheated on. Quinn and Finn admit they saw fireworks, but Quinn is dedicated to being with Sam because she swears she loves him.
Unfortunately for Rachel, Finn has decided to pursue Quinn despite he relationship with Sam. Rachel makes a last ditch effort as Florence Nightingale to try and win back Finn. Initially I was frustrated with her for pulling her normal “it’s all about me” shtick, but it finally clicked for her that Finn wasn’t interested and it was such a relief. I’d grown so tired of seeing her try to make that relationship happen despite the two of them having almost no chemistry.
The show saw fairly decent beginning and endings of relationships in this week’s episode and just like the last episode, I enjoyed most of the music. Probably the biggest offender was Rachel’s “Firework,” but that has less to do with her choosing more pop music that she’s ill-suited for and more to do with the actual song. At this point I can only assume “Glee” has penned a deal with Katy Perry’s record company to promote her entire album. While Lea Michele sang it well enough, I just couldn’t help but feel like she could have picked a much better song to celebrate her independence.
Artie sang “PYT” and I was only so-so for it. Sometimes Artie on lead works really well, but others he just sounds so generic. But the song wasn’t really about Artie singing and more about Mike dancing, which is always appreciated. Artie wasn’t the only one who got to sing about his love and Puck did “Fat Bottomed Girls.” It’s really hard to judge any Queen song against someone without Freddie Mercury’s voice since the man was so iconic, but I certainly enjoyed Puck’s singing. Tina also had a cute bit singing “My Funny Valentine” and then breaking. The most remarkable thing about her performance was that it wasn’t autotuned and that she was actually singing it in the classroom. But as a pro-tip for Mike, when you’re girlfriend starts sobbing in the middle of a song, you should probably help her before she falls to the floor in a heap.
But my favorite songs of the night were from the Warblers. “When I Get You Alone” was fun and super catchy and “Silly Love Song” was very sweet. The only criticism I have is that I wished they’d shake things up a little bit and drop the formula of just letting Blaine belt out the solos.
Overall the episode was off-the-wall, but in the fun frenetic way that “Glee” gets right on occasion. In matters of the heart, Glee sometimes goes crazy with the hook-ups and beyond plausible relationship moments. Of course my love for “Glee” may be completely shattered with next week’s Beiber episode. Should 16-year-old tweeners even be allowed a tribute anything?
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Comments
Posted by: Wednesday at February 10, 2011 11:54 AM
I can't stand My Funny Valentine and we were given absolutely no reason to see why Tina would fall apart over it. It was the worst part of the episode for me, followed by Silly Love Songs, but that's mostly because it, too, is a pointless song that gets trotted out when they can't think of another love song to use. Lazy lazy lazy.