This Week on "Glee": At Least It's Consistently Lackluster
By Katelyn Anne | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (24)
The “Glee” finale was a mess. Scratch that. It wasn’t interesting or dynamic enough to be a mess. It’s those little cereal flakes that get stuck between the counter and the oven. Yeah, it’s a little obnoxious, but why bother moving the oven to make a fuss over it, they’re just cornflakes.
Nothing of note happened in the episode, not even the fact that the group only placed 12th in nationals. Of course they won’t win, they spent all of 2 days writing their songs. What’s frustrating is that this was my breaking point for this show. Had they had done something interesting or point the tiniest bit of intrigue as to what may happen next season, I may have been half-heartedly looking forward to the premiere. But Fox greenlit the show through season 3 last year and not a single person in the creative team felt like they needed to do more than coast through this season of the show. In fact, had the “American Idol” lead-in not harped on the fact that the episode was the season finale, nobody would have known. It was so bland and standard “Glee” that it could have fit in a mid-April slump week.
Maybe, I’m doing the show a disservice, the cast and crew did do something this episode, it’s not like they stared at white wall paper for an hour. The group went to New York for nationals and also, to WRITE THEIR SONGS FOR NATIONALS. I cannot stress the absurdity of that enough, people. These asshat slackoffs couldn’t even get the bright idea to use the same routine they used at regionals. Nope, they had to go to New York and get “inspired.” Part of their inspiration involved bouncing around the city in a montage and then the other half of their inspiration came from … staring at beige hotel wallpaper for hours. The club realizes that they aren’t about to become the next sensation huffing hotel air and decide to sneak off at random intervals because Will Scheuster is being the most responsible chaperon ever by leaving them alone for hours at a time. After the montage, Finn takes it upon himself to remind the other guys that the only way they’ll win is if he and Rachel do a duet together (keep in mind that his track record for winning competitions by singing a duet with Rachel is not so hot) and everyone agrees. Puck then tells him that everyone knows that Finn and Rachel should be together so he suggests that Finn ask Rachel out. Finn does the classy thing and demands over text message that she show up looking nice. She’s smitten and meets him for their “work date” that isn’t really a work date so much as it’s an excuse for Patty Lupone to do a cameo. Someone needs to remind her that she doesn’t need to slum it for shows like this.
Anyway, Rachel’s on the date with Finn and he tries to kiss her while they both hallucinate that the rest of the glee club guys are there singing to them. At least, I can only assume it was a hallucination since no one acknowledged them except the camera. Maybe I was hallucinating from the fit of rage that I had to sit through “American Idol” for whatever the hell that sickening date was. It was miserable and awkward to watch and I must again insist that Rachel has absolutely no chemistry with Finn. They are awful together and salt and pepper make a more vivacious power couple than these two knuckleheads. But Rachel tells him that they can’t kiss because she’s got to be true to herself and her career. When she sings this out with Kurt the next day she has her mind set on not worrying about Finn because he’s so small town and she’s going to New York and these two things cannot exist together.
She promptly gives up all her dreams to be with Finn by making out on stage with him. This, apparently, is the only reason they lost nationals. It had nothing to do with their mediocre songs and nothing to do with their terrible choreography and nothing to do with the fact that they were absolutely unprepared. No, the only reason they lost was because Finn and Rachel kissed in such a way that it was so powerful that the entire audience was stunned by its power. I wish I could say I was exaggerating this, but Finn even called his kiss the “Superman of kisses” and everyone acts like this is the only reason for their loss. So everyone starts freaking out on Finn (especially Santana) and then they get back to school and everyone acts like nothing happened. That’s right folks, rather than have a lingering drama to come back to, the show decided to do what it does every episode, which is have a giant fight and then have everyone come back together at the very end.
There were some other side plots to the episode. Will starts thinking he may want that Broadway career after all and sings on a stage all by himself. He then realizes that he loves the kids too much and agrees to stay. So rather than having a question mark over the summer about whether Will would be back in the fall, they quickly ended that storyline with barely a thought. It almost seemed less like a legitimate character arc and more like someone trying to promote an album. Ugh. Does anyone remember Quinn’s big plans? Yeah, her big plans were to cry about how she’s lonely and then let Santana cut her hair. I swear, they take every potentially interesting character on this show and write them into a corner so that they’re little more than snotty little brats.
I suppose the two big details that were meant to make us talk over the summer were Kurt and Blaine’s declarations of love and the burgeoning romance between Sam and Mercedes. While Blaine and Kurt will probably blossom nicely, I can only assume that Mercedes will dump Sam when she realizes that he can’t by her tater tots. Overall, though, it was a lackluster and boring episode and the music wasn’t much better.
As for the songs not revolving around nationals, probably the most interesting was “My Cup” by Artie and Brittany. Everyone thought it was crazy, but Rachel had no room to judge considering she thought “My Hairband” would win her all kinds of acclaim (even though it was hilarious). “I Love New York” mashed together with “New York, New York” was as annoying as it was cliche. Occasionally I would stare at the mildly annoyed New Yorker’s faces in the background and desperately hope that one of them would throw coffee at the kids and tell them to shut up. Real New Yorkers, do you automatically shame anyone who pulls the Mary Tyler Moore hat stunt? Because I really hope you do. The song was bland and it was basically a promotional for the New York tourism department, although the department should probably send it back. “Bella Notte” was dumb and distracting and useless. Here’s a tip for “Glee” writers, you don’t actually have to have a song anytime someone mentions music. We get it, your group sings, but if it’s not necessary, don’t shoehorn it in.
The only song I actually liked was, “For Good.” Once again it’s obvious that Kurt and Rachel have much more chemistry than Finn and Kurt and had they done that at nationals they could have stood a chance. In fact, both Lea Michele and Chris Colfer sound their best when they’re working in the Broadway wheelhouse and when they’re not trying so hard. They’ve both found a nice place in their singing together that they try and compliment one another rather than show each other up. “Still Got Tonight,” was the budget version of the same theme. I will not be buying Matthew Morrison’s album any time soon.
Then the group got to nationals. The first performance was done by a competing show choir and they did “Yeah!” which I actually really liked. It was fun and it was poppy and it was obviously well-rehearsed. Next came the Sunshine Corazon show, a.k.a. Vocal Adrenaline, and after Sunshine freaked out about heading to the embassy because she was so afraid and then Rachel hugged her and made it all better, she sang “As Long as You’re There.” This could have been replaced by any of the other songs that we’ve heard from Sunshine. She’s obviously very talented, at least as a singer. Her acting is terrible and I will not miss her if she doesn’t show up at all next season.
Lastly, the glee kids sang their songs. They were both dumb. “Pretending” sounded like a whiny little teenager wrote it, which is probably the first in character thing that Finn has done in a while, and the singing was just so not on par. The choreography was dumb and Finn and Rachel do not compliment each other at all. They need to stop singing together, they need to stop dating and the show needs to quit making them the it couple. And the kiss was completely underwhelming. “Light Up the World” was a by the numbers pop-song. It was probably written and produced by the same company that churned out Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”
Well, a mostly lackluster season ended with barely anything of note. Although to end on a positive note, at least “Glee” has finally figured out how to be consistent about something.
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Comments
Posted by: Nimue at May 26, 2011 12:15 PM
This terrible-ness of this episode has made my break-up with the show easy. I CAN quit you Glee.