“It’s Too Late” by Carole King

http://youtu.be/1y6AUTzqZUU

Karofsky is obviously infatuated, while Blaine remains a cipher. Does he still have feelings for Kurt? Blaine is like a blank space, and I think that’s intentional.  If Blaine’s feelings were made clear, it would lend the relationship more credence. Nothing about the Blaine/Karofsky relationship is meant to ring true. It exists to shock and surprise and serve as a roadblock in the relationship until the inevitable Klaine reunion. The saving grace is how the arc serves to tell Kurt’s story.  What’s real is Kurt’s struggle to come to terms with the fact that his relationship with the only boy he’s ever loved is finished. That struggle is fully realized and beautifully portrayed by Chris Colfer.

Kurt and Rachel can’t decide on their first lesson plan. They settle on a heatbreak theme, but Kurt wants to teach the kids the great classics and chooses  the Carole King album, Tapestry. Rachel wants something modern and edgy and suggests Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill  (Twenty  years old. Not exactly contemporary).   Kurt suggests doing both albums. A Glee mashup! YAY.

If only settling on the mashup was the end of their disagreement! In front of the class, they can’t stop stepping on the other’s toes and giving each other the side eye.  Most of the grads–Tina, Puck, Quinn, Santana and Brittany–stick around for another week. The newbies are completely confused. “Just sit and smile,” suggests Tina, “Like I did for 3 years.”  Jane asks exactly how the grads can come and go as they please.  “I can bend time and space with my mind,” explains Brittany. Or the writers try…

When Kurt and Rachel begin openly bickering  over which song they should sing, Santana and Brittany volunteer to take over that part of the lesson for them.

In the meantime, Beiste is acting weird and Sam is worried. She’s missing practices and lashing out at him and others in an inappropriately angry way.  She’s obviously out of sorts. Spencer, the out and proud football player, is angling to start as quarterback. When he asks about it, Beiste practically bites off his head.  Sam, whom Beiste has entrusted to run practices during her frequent absences, is on Spencer’s side, which gives the newbie an idea. He approaches Sue, informing her of Beist’s absenteeism and  weird behavior.  Not only that, he’s spied her binding her chest with tight t shirts and scarfing down a load of drugs.   Sue says she can’t call Beiste on the yelling because. “I’m teaching a class in pedagogical screaming at the community college. I’d look like a hypocrite.”  Sue admires Spencer’s ability to sneak around without being detected. “It’s like you’re  batman. Only you’re gay. I guess it’s like you’re batman.” Sneaky Spencer doesn’t SUGGEST Beiste be fired. Just, if she was, Sam would be a GREAT replacement.

Brittany and Santana have the most functional relationship on Glee.  When Santana graduated, they broke up for the right reasons.  Santana was leaving for college, Brittany was staying behind in high school. It made sense to split. They both had mid-game relationships. Brittany with Sam and Santana with Dani (although Demi Lovato’s aborted guest stint gave it short shrift).  They eventually came back together again, without recriminations or resentment.

So how sweet was it to see them both, laying in each other’s arms, pledging undying love for each other? A truly a romantic moment.  When they have a disagreement about what to sing for the next day’s lesson, they lovingly resolve it. Santana reminds Brittany that teaching the power of the mashup (Brit wants to be a rebel and sing “You Aughtta Know”) will help put the Glee club back on top. “How can I argue with the logic of your giant, generous heart?” asks Brittany.  Santana suggests the two live in New York together, where they’ll both go back to school.  “It would be amazing!” says Brittany.  “I will love you until infinity, Santana Lopez.” Aw.

The next day, the two mash up “Hand in Pocket” and “I Feel the Earth Move.”  It’s pure chemistry, and the kids eat it up.

“Hand in My Pocket/I Feel the Earth Move by Alanis Morissette/Carole King

http://youtu.be/KygFX8VkX7w

“And that’s how a mashup is done everyone!” enthuses Rachel.  “No this is,” says Santana. She sits Brittany down on a chair and proceeds to deliver a heartfelt marriage proposal.  “I want to mash up with you forever, Britt…no matter how many times we’ve tried to put down this thing we can’t…I don’t want to live without my one true love…” Santana presents the ring. “Brittany S. Pierce. Will you marry me?”

“Wait…what’s happening?” asks Roderick. “This kind of thing goes on in here all the time,” says Puck. “Just go with it!” Grads schooling the newbies on the OTT ways of Glee.

“I would love to!” exclaims Brittany.  They hug.  But the celebration is short lived, as Kurt stands up and objects. “We’re too young to get married! All of us!” he says.  As his own romantic dream slips through his fingertips, he can’t stop himself from ruining the moment.

I still think it’s dumb that these young characters are getting married, but the Brittana love seems real. Even Tina isn’t jealous! Even as Brittany is written as another one of Glee’s caricatures, Heather Morris infuses a sweetness into her that is hard to resist. You understand completely why Santana would fall so hard.

If you’ve been missing Santana’s take downs, she delivers an epic one to Kurt out in the hallway, while Rachel watches.  She starts off as if she has come to agree with Kurt. But of course, it’s just a prelude to her going ALL LIMA HEIGHTS ADJACENT on him.  Judgmental, shrill, and self-aggrandizing she calls him. She throws in a few insults about his toothless smile, his outfits, and his obsession with old people. “Like one of those cats that can smell cancer.” and “Maybe Blaine woke up one day and decided he didn’t want to marry a sexless, self centered baton twirler.”  She also makes fun of his dance moves. There’s truth to what she says.  Kurt can be judgmental, shrill and intolerable at times.  But in her anger at having her moment ruined, she’s missing his broken heart.

Which hasn’t even begun to break.  While preparing her engagement gift for Santana,  which consists of a giant heart filled with as many mounds bars as minutes she and Santana have spent together (Figured out by her giant math brain. And did you know that mounds were the lesbians of candy?) Brittany delivers some bad news to Kurt.  Blaine and Karofsky are moving in together.  She knows this because they asked her to help decorate their  new apartment. Cut to Brittany’s rainbow flag covered decor, sans bed “I had it removed, because when I pictured the two of you having sex, I imagined a U-Haul mounting a moped.”  Same, Brittany.

Kurt apologizes.  He interrupted their moment because he’s bitter. But he believes Blaine and he are merely on hiatus. Brittany shakes him out of his denial with more truth telling. “You need to start getting over him. Move on. ” Kurt is afraid to start dating, because that would mean it was really over. Then, she offers up some crazy Brittanism, about how mounds bars will just melt in your hand if you don’t eat them right away.  “Don’t let waiting for things to maybe work out with Blaine make you look like the guy who looks like somebody just pooped in your hand.”

Later, newbies Jane and Mason sing a romantic (and gorgeously sung) duet of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” mashed with “Head Over Feet.”  Kurt watches, remembering happier times with Blaine. There’s a montage of Klaine moments that hits every beat. It’s as if the director went on You Tube, found a fan video and cut it into the scene.

“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow/Head over Feet” by Carole King/Alanis Morissette

http://youtu.be/SiiGNrZ97Uw

Kurt wipes a tear from his eye and then proceeds to deliver a Simon Cowell like critique of the performance. Rachel prefers to go all Paula Abdul on them. She feels Kurt isn’t being reasonable and sends him home.  But he’s got a point. If they’re going to win championships, they’ll have to be brutally honest with their charges. This time, it’s Kurt who does the truth telling.

After her talk with Spencer, Sue confronts Beiste about the behavior changes and the drug taking (Steroids, Sue learns, after rifling through her things). Sue thinks she has cancer. Beiste allows her to believe that.

But eventually, Beiste meets with Sue and Sam for some of her own truth telling. She admits that she doesn’t have cancer. Sue is outraged. Sam is confused. The truth? Beiste has met all of the criteria of Gender Dysphoria. She describes it to Sam as “where your outsides don’t match how you feel you are on the inside.”  Beiste is about to transition from a woman to a man.  When Sam asks if she’s a lesbian, Beiste answers, “It’s not who I want to go to bed with,  It’s who I want to go to bed as.” Sue pledges to support in every way she can.

Coach Beiste reveals that she’s Transgender

http://youtu.be/4Aq-lQKj45I

The scene is handled with the utmost sensitivity and is BEAUTIFULLY acted by the incredible Dot-Marie Jones.  Sam will take over as the football coach. In a few episodes, Shannon will be back after surgery,  as the newly christened Sheldon in an episode titled “Transitions.”  You can read an interview with Dot-Marie about it at The Hollywood Reporter.  I read that GLAAD was on set to make sure everything was kosher.

But here’s the thing. The writers basically retconned Beiste’s character. While Beiste longed to be loved, and made some bad choices, including hooking up with a guy who physically abused her, she never appeared to be uncomfortable in her skin. Glee could have chosen to continue and bring to conclusion, the transgender story of Unique Adams, the power housesinger who transferred to New Directions, looking for acceptance. But it would not have gotten as much press.  That’s what creator, Ryan Murphy is all about. Making as big a splash as he can, in the most shocking way possible.

Luckily, we WILL get an update on Unique in “Transitions.” She’ll be leading a full choir made up of real life trans people.

Back to “Jagged Little Pill.” There’s a B plot involving Becky Jackson that I think is just taking up time that could have been devoted to catching up with the lives of the grads or developing the newbies. The story has Becky improbably dating a non-disabled boy.  Initially, Tina and Quinn set out to help Becky convince her new beau that she’s really in the Glee club. In order to impress him, she’s told him lots of lies about after school activities, including that she’s a member of Glee.  While the duo rehearse a number with Becky, they meet the new boyfriend and are outraged to learn he’s not disabled.  Sue, who of course, is co-signing
Becky’s lies, wants to know Darrell’s (the boyfriend) intentions.

Quinn and Tina Meet Becky’s Boyfriend

http://youtu.be/N9AgqLNQPsY

Honestly, I don’t think this is such a weird thing to ask of a boy who has chosen to date a girl who is not operating in the same emotional or intellectual space that he is. But the concern is painted as ignorant and at the best, misguided.

The face-off culminates in Tina, Quinn, Sue and Coach Roz (a random return of Nene Leakes) getting together with Darrell to grill him. He insists that she’s entitled to everything in life as a non-disabled person, including sex.  As it turns out, they aren’t sleeping together, but Darrell says they might eventually.  His interest in Becky has something to do with…to be honest, I couldn’t quite figure that out.

Becky Introduces Her Boyfriend to Coach Sue

http://youtu.be/mEV6fw_McCc

The plot would have had resonance if Becky was more realistically dating–and perhaps even having sex– with a boy who was also disabled.  A really meaningful exploration of the way people stereotype and patronize the disabled could have ensued.  Instead, it’s the plot that’s patronizing, as Darrell operates as an articulate stand in, explaining Becky’s point of view. Bleh.

Tina and Quinn, with Becky between them, sing “So Far Away,” with Darrell in the room watching. When it’s time for Becky’s cue, she bolts.

“So Far Away” – by Carole King/Alanis Morissette

http://youtu.be/PQmwauzcAi4

The girls chase after her. Becky ran because she realized that as soon as she tried to sing, Darrell would know she really wasn’t in Glee club. Quinn reminds her that she once told a guy that he was the father of her baby. Santana says a real relationship can’t start until you “stop being who the other person wants you to be and just be yourself.” Then she kinda reads her the riot act, calling her annoying and lazy. Truth telling. Becky learns a valuable lesson. Hugs all around.  Darrell reiterates the Be Yourself trope during a dinner date where he reveals he knew she was lying all the time. And that concludes today’s After School Special!

It’s great that a Down’s syndrome character was written for the show. It’s not so great that she’s a complete caricature.  The idea of a disabled person being potty mouthed and inappropriate was played out ages ago. Why are we wasting time when there’s only 11 episodes of Glee remaining?

Kurt apologizes to Rachel for not leaving his “baggage” at home.  “Or check your baggage so that the whole plane doesn’t have to smell your stinky socks.” Kurt adds, “Heartbreak poisons the brain.” Kurt admits he was out of line. Except he wasn’t, says Rachel.  Jane and Mason came to her later to say they appreciated Kurt’s honesty. Don’t go easy on us, they said. Rachel realizes that she NEEDS Kurt as her CO-DIRECTOR, to keep her HONEST.  “Holy crap we’re teachers!” says Kurt. They decide to change the world together. PINKY SWEAR! (Parallel to Purple Piano Project when the two promise to join forces to conquer NYC .)

The episode ends with Rachel and Kurt gathering everybody in the auditorium to sing a final rousing number of “You’ve Got a Friend” and “You Learn.”  Truth told. Lessons learned. “Now we know you guys are ready…for the Road to Sectionals!” announces Rachel.

“You Learn/You’ve Got a Friend” – by Alanis Morissette/Carole King

http://youtu.be/ZjE9x_fJebs

Next Week – Glee – The Hurt Locker Preview

http://youtu.be/YzVPsIwUQ_0