Glee Recap: I Kissed A Girl

This episode had a lot of good points and a lot of bad points, but I like the direction it’s heading with most of the plots. Emphasis on most.

Glee

“I Kissed A Girl”

 

In the wake of “The Slap Heard ‘Round The Glee Club” Santana is on the brink of suspension. Violence is not tolerated at McKinnley: Just putting into lockers, name calling, bullying, and getting slushies thrown at them. Those are acceptable. Noticing that Santana is on an uncontrollable downward spiral (about to be outted, about to be suspended, about to be unable to go to sectionals), Finn jumps to her aid, saying she didn’t slap him. It was a stage slap.

Finn brings together the Troubletones and New Directions to come to Santana’s aid. Think Intervention Glee-Style. He decides everyone will perform a song to make Santana feel better about herself.  He wants to show Santana that even “in this rotten stinking world [she] has a group of people who support [her] choice to be whoever she wants to be.” Santana fights with all her might to resist from cracking still remaining steely cool, even through Kurt and Blaine’s sweet performance of, Pink’s “F-in Perfect”. I’m glad Kurt and Blaine finally have an upbeat duet together, but Darren Criss’ energy completely overshadows Chris Colfer’s. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, I just think his energy is different when he performs solo’s or with Lea Michele. I’m still waiting for Kurt’s performance as Office Krupky, Ryan Murphy, you hear me?

Meanwhile the High School President Election is coming to a close and it looks like Kurt I waaaaaaaaay behind in the polls. (Do high schools really have percentage polls?) Either way, sorry Kurt, but I’d pick pixie sticks – I mean Brittany – over Kurt as well. I really really love pixie sticks – I mean Brittany. Anyway, Kurt, going on a downward spiral of his own, decides the only way he can win and get into NYATA is by cheating. He wants it all so bad, he’s contemplating stuffing the ballots.

Also losing an election is, no surprise, Sue. In order to counter some of the backlash, Sue sets her sights on finding a man. Beiste’s man to be more specific, football recruiter, Cooter (And yes, that rhymes). And it works, Cooter has been feeling neglected by him and Beiste’s so-called “relationship”. Even though Beiste is head-over-heels in love with him, he’s not getting what he wants out of their relationship and Beiste isn’t the best communicator. But after Sue parades her relationship with Cooter in Beiste’s face, she comes to a turning point. After a heartfelt and touching performance of “Jolene,” Beiste becomes a beast (see what I did there?) and decides she won’t go down without a fight. She’s going to fight Sue for her man back. You go girl!

Back to Santana, she still doesn’t understand why Finn is fighting so hard for her. Finn reveals it’s because Santana is going to do something self-destructive, something like hurt herself, and even though she says she won’t – she loves herself too much – he’s not convinced. He reveals to her that she “means something to him” because she was his first and he doesn’t want to see anything happen to her. To further get through to her, we get a subtle, slow performance of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and it does the trick. It breaks Santana down, and honestly, me too. The whole performance was understated, simple, sweet and to the point. Sometimes all it takes is eye contact to break a person down. Naya Rivera and Cory Monteith did some fantastic work here.

While it’s great that Santana has her support system, the fear she’s been holding in all the time, is justified when a stupid punk approaches her with some ignorant statements. And yet before Santana can even defend herself the Glee girls come to her aid. While it’s great they are all there for each other, it almost seems out of character for some people. (Isn’t Quinn off her rocker? She hasn’t even so much as glanced Santana’s way since she went nuts). It does, however give the girls a chance to sing Katy Perry’s, “I Kissed A Girl (And I Liked It). And any chance to see Rory’s (Damian McGinty) head explode over girls dancing with each other is a plus.

After the voting process is done, Kurt and Burt are dragged into Principal Finnigan’s office. It turns out despite feeling like he was going to lose, Kurt won. By an overwhelming amount. So overwhelming, he won by more votes then there were students in his senior class. This can only mean one thing, someone cheated, and by the look on Kurt’s face, it wasn’t him.

It was Rachel. While at first reluctant, realizing how much trouble Kurt could get into Rachel turns herself in. As a result, she’s suspended for a week and banned from competing at sections. Ruh-Roh.

 

Random Thoughts

• Love the look on Santana’s face when Blaine starts rapping.
• Sue, I also “need 20cc’s of man candy Stat.”
• Kurt is such a drama queen.
• Love the look on Rory’s face during “I kissed a girl.”
• I’ve been hating Kurt’s wardrobe choices. What’s up with with those weird sweater things he wears?
• I love that all the girls stood up for Santana, but where was that initial support for Kurt when it happened to him? Or Rory when it happened to him? Santana can handle herself, then again sometimes it’s those that look the strongest, that are actually the weakest.
• Puck’s affair with Shelby is about to come to a head. Hurt by Shelby, he turns to crazy Quinn and reveals his secret to her. Bad idea Puck. Don’t give the crazy girl ammunition.
• Quinn trying to make another baby with Puck is crazy. Hopefully Sam can come in and save her from her crazy self

Santana’s nicknames for Finn:

1. Grimace
2. Hamburgular Finn
3. Fetus Face

Quotes:

Santana: “I’m a mischievous bitch, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell this is about.”

Santana: “Worry about yourself fetus face.”

Finn to Santana: “The truth is I think you’re awesome and when you hide who you are I feel like you hide part of that awesomeness with it and that’s why you act out because you hurt inside every day.”

Kurt: “I’m gonna lose unless I pull a JFK.”
Rachel: “You’re going to shoot Brittany?”

Santana about Kurt and Blaine’s song, “Thank you guys. Thank you Finn especially. You know with all the horrible crap I’ve been through in my life, now I get to add that.”

Sue: “Why would someone assume I’m a friend of Ellen just because I’m man-ish and highly aggressive and have short hair and only wear track suits and I coach a girls sport and I married myself. It just doesn’t make sense. The truth is I’m attracted to men. I mean sure I can’t stand watching them eat or talking to them, but when it comes to getting sexy this girl has a whole in her heart only a man can fill.”

Puck to Quinn after she tries to seduce him, “Look I was into you pretty hard a couple years ago because you were hot like a pixy and I thought you were pretty much cooler than every other girl in this school. But it turns out you’re kinda nuts. Higher maintenance than Berry and pretty much the most selfish person I’ve ever met in my life. So thanks for the offer, but I’d rather raw dog a bee-hive.”

“Where’s Rachel? She never misses applause” – Artie.

Songs:

“F—in’ Perfect,” Pink: Good but in no way perfect. I like the message and it was relevant to the plot. But it could have had more energy and heart. Grade: B

“I’m the Only One,” Melissa Etheridge: I love Puck’s rendition of the song. Maybe even more than Melissa Etheridge. What I didn’t love was Puck’s creepy singing to Shelby and awful lip singing. His facial expressions definitely didn’t match how he was singing. Grade: B+

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” Cyndi Lauper: At first I wasn’t sold on this version of the song. But in the context of the episode and Finn’s gentle voice and sweet face made this song a winner. He grew more confident in this song which definitely helped it sound better, but it was by no means perfect. Grade: A-/B+

“Jolene,” Dolly Parton: Dot Marie Jones’ performance was what sold this song. Those longing looks and teary glances. Her voice isn’t the best, but sometimes it’s the heart behind it that matters. Grade B+

“I Kissed a Girl,” Katy Perry: Definitely a girl power song, though the moves were a little rudimentary and embarrassing. It was no “Who Run The World.” But I love songs that start out as a kind of a flash mob. Yeah, I’m a sucker for flash mobs. Grade: B+

“Constant Craving,” KD Kang: Not a big fan of this song in general. I think it’s kind of boring. But Santana did a lovely job and it worked well with the montage. The addition of Kurt and Shelby’s voice was a nice welcome though I wish Kurt could have had a bitter part within it. Grade: B

Overall this episode was a bit of a rollercoaster, but the Glee kids are definitely on their best acting game as of late. Even the fact that Dianna Argon angers me so much proves her insane acting is on par…unless she’s really crazy who knows. I also love the plot point of Rachel being banned from performing at Sectionals. Can New Directions win without Rachel going against the Troubletones? Will it even stick? I think it should. New Directions needs to believe it can win with, or without Rachel.