“Kurt looked up from his desk and stared fondly at the old group photo of the members of New Directions, his High School Show Choir. He struggled to remember when it had been taken. He lifted the frame from the wall and scrutinized the tiny markings on the bottom that dated the photo.
‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘That was the year everyone sang to me.’”
– Appointment with Apprehension: A Kurt Hummel Mystery; an excerpt from a fanfic I’m totally not writing in which Kurt is an old man solving mysteries in New England.
Glee! Plot lines now exclusively culled from 30 Rock one-liners! “Then I found out her mother was a nazi hunter. From OHIO!” Liz would say. “Isn’t she the woman who ended up marrying herself in a ceremony presided over by herself?” Jack would ask. “The very same!” Liz would reply and then Jonathon would come on screen and Jack would be mean to him and I would die a little inside.
Once again Kurt was the center of this episode, and once again this made me uncomfortable. Sue got married to herself, which initially seemed like a throwaway storyline, but Carol Burnett is in it. She and Sue sing a duet that is the answer to anyone who doubted me last week about how not-on-purpose terrible those performances were. Their number this week sure as hell didn’t cost as much as the Chicago number last week, and yet this one is not a horrifying display of mediocrity that would make Bob Fosse weep. See the difference?
Sue Sylvester was the most responsible and caring I’ve ever seen her, which makes me think she might be Lawful Evil. Or maybe she’s Chaotic Good but believes pain makes people virtuous? I really don’t understand this character’s morality, but it seemed like her job was to go through a certain number of “Principal Whose Hands Are Tied” clichés before the end of that first scene in her office. And then the Glee Club banded together to dispense vigilante justice. On Karofsky! Yeah, let’s just kill him! His life is probably really satisfying and not at all tragic! Then Kurt’s father reinforces the “Violence is the solution as long as the violence is being visited upon the wicked by the righteous” idea by threatening a minor in a High School.
The Glee wedding was nice, but it seemed odd how so much of it was about Kurt. And how everyone was making a point to say something nice about him and smile really big and not make any sudden movements, as if he might wish them into the cornfield if they displeased him. The last few episodes have kept up this barrage of compliments, with all of them getting ecstatic over everything he does. They treat Kurt like a new puppy. Because he’s perfect. And no one ever calls him on his flaws. And of course he can make a wedding work on almost no notice, he’s a magical queer.
So what are you all watching? Anything good?
16 Comments
THANK YOU for “plotlines culled from 30 Rock one-liners”! That is exactly the problem with Glee this year. Last year, Sue had a throwaway line about her famous Nazi Hunter parents, that was funny and could have potentially been a self-aggrandizing lie, but was mostly funny. At least the Carol Burnett number ALONE makes this one of the best of season.
I’m really having a tough time with the way they’re portraying Sue this year – she is sometimes the moral centre of the show and sometimes is completely absurd. It’s really difficult to take seriously the emotions of someone who is at her wedding rehearsal for her marriage to herself, which she has actually invited people to. I think Jane Lynch does as much as she possibly can with it, but there is only so much one lady can do.
Also, point very well taken re: magical queer. Not good, not funny, not progressive.
Oh my ghod, Garland Grey, I don’t watch Glee ever, but I read your posts about it because of lines like the reference to Twilight Zone cornfield boy. Only now I’m having the most mixed feelings ever because my beloved Carol Burnett appeared on TV for the first time in ever, apparently SINGING, and it had to be on fucking GLEE.
“Then Kurt’s father reinforces the “Violence is the solution as long as the violence is being visited upon the wicked by the righteous” idea by threatening a minor in a High School.”
There’s another response to hearing that someone threatened your child’s life? Because I’m not really sure I would have responded any differently.
I like that Kurt is getting the focus. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual “what hijinks have all the straight couples gotten themselves into this week? Baby daddy drama? Love triangles? Promise rings? Tune in to watch the latest misadventures of heterosexual-people-doing-heterosexual-things-and-have-I-mentioned-they-are-heterosexual-today?!”
never gonna get my Kurt/Karofsky…
Maybe Sue is a Mercykiller from Sigil.
The problem is that, at William McKinley High, bullying isn’t an infraction, it’s an institution. High status kids throw slushies at low status kids, tough kids throw weaker kids in the dumpster, etc. The reason I hated the way that Kurt’s friends and father dealt with Karofsky is that they reacted to what they interpreted as out of bounds bullying with bullying of their own. Presumably if Karofsky had limited himself to cruel comments and the odd bit of semi-violent humiliation things would be rolling along smoothly.
I wouldn’t call it vigilante justice, because when it came to actual violence the Glee gang seemed pretty unprepared, and barely managed to hold their own despite outnumbering Karofksy three to one. I think the failure of, well, everyone in the episode is the fact that bullying is viewed as the appropriate response to socially unacceptable behavior, not a problem in itself.
um i don’t watch glee either but LOVE the d&d references … (and planescape in the comments, +10 points)
@Scrumby
I really hope we’ll never see Kurt/Karofsky. This is not cutesy ‘teasing the girls, asking for kisses’ (Dutch aforism) behaviour, this is downright frightening.
Breaking Bad is what I’m watching right now. Also, the Big Bang Theory.
This is the only episode of Glee I’ve ever watched – I was staying at a friend’s house this week – and I am kind of glad it’s not just me who was a little weirded out by how the entire thing seemed to be about coddling one character to the extent that he was like the main focus of someone else’s wedding? My friends insisted he’d been having a v. hard time of it lately (which I’d heard about – being on the internet at all, it is hard to miss) as though that meant he deserved it and this was justified, but I thought it came across as really absurdly indulgent Mary Sue nonsense. I was completely bewildered.
Oh, Garland, the cornfield reference made my day! Thank you for being awesome in every way.
And I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but does anyone else feel like the writing has become sloppy and lazy this season? I mean, the first season had these over-the-top, overarching, ridiculously entertaining storylines (Teri’s fake pregnancy, love triangles, Quinn’s baby drama, Rachel’s Birth Mama drama, etc,), and now it just feels like they’re coasting. I mean, Rachel and Finn broke up and Emma and Uncle Jesse are married and this show has become a TOTAL SNOOZEFEST!!!!! And even the music has become…well, bad, mostly. It feels so uninspired when it used to feel subversive and delicious and kitschy and fun. I miss that. (Also, if you or Sady are ever in Alberta I will make you cookies. Delicious cookies. *total fangirl*)
Oh Saint Kurt I’m not so comfortable with thee.
Yeah, the writing has definitely gone to shit this season. Not the dialogue, that remains snappy, but the decision to, for instance, turn Mr. Schue into a complete narcissist asshole who has been completely willing to ignore the best interests of his students in order to impress Emma (Rocky Horror Glee Show) or just an utterly selfish monster in his dealings with Terri. Remember when it seemed like he really cared about the kids, and his character arc was one of letting go of his dreams of ego gratification through personal stardom and finding a dream of helping otherwise socially disadvantaged kids find happiness and a surrogate family through music? Yeah, neither did I.
I’m watching The Good Wife. I thought the idea of it sounded just awful and vilely sensationalist before it came out, but I watched the first episode anyhow based on some of the reviews claiming it was surprisingly excellent and feminist friendly. And it is! I’ve been utterly hooked. It has such awesome actors (omg, too many to list!), the story telling shows us the multi-faceted nature of the conflicts that come up along the way, and it humanizes characters who on a lesser show might simply turn into caricatures. And it does so without making its characters either 100% sympathetic or 100% repellent. The show rarely if ever delves into the empty straw man b-plot constructions that a lot of other legal dramas, specifically those by David E. Kelly, depended upon to develop soapbox-cum-story material.
I’m also watching Terriers, which is the first post-Shield show Shawn Ryan is involved with that I actually like! (I won’t even get into the angry I got up trying to watch The Unit, though I could, because UGHHHH.) Plus, it costars Donal Logue, who I always seem to enjoy.
The problem with glee is that it started as a teen comedy/drama with some musical numbers thrown in and now its a bunch of unconnected musical numbers with some plot wedged into the sidelines.
The Sue marries herself plotline scene could have been an interseting foil to Beist’s desire to find a man plotline if the writers actually bothered to spend some time connecting the two and building up to Sue marrying herself instead of having that come out of left field.
I’ve just starten watching Glee after the last time you wrote about it, I’m hocked and it’s your fault.