Welcome to the fifth episode of the fourth season of Glee, a show about chicken drumsticks, tuna salad, kayaks and people who eat other people. This week’s episode had the distinct pleasure of featuring absolutely not one single moment of anything I gave a shit about while managing to annoy me with yet another bungled recycled storyline. Glee, you sly, sly fox.
Although one might imagine “The Role You Were Born To Play,” an episode about casting the McKinley High School Musical Grease, would feature Dianna Agron as Sandy and Santana Lopez as Rizzo — it does not. But next week looks neat!
We open at Hummel Tires & Lube, a sexually suggestive auto repair shop located in the heart of Lima, Ohio, a tender little town anchoring the conservative stronghold of Allen County, Ohio, where a pale human-shaped eggplant is mysteriously fixing an automobile when he’s visited by precocious sweater-vested high school senior Artie Abrams.
Artie: “You’ve had a rough couple of months and I thought maybe you could use a friend.”
Finn: “It’s not that bad, I just embarrassed myself out of the army, lost Rachel completely, and now I’m back in my hometown working in a tire shop.”
Apparently “having secure employment in a town where my family and a lot of my friends live” is a shameful and unpleasant situation for Prince Finndalin Baratheon.
Further moping:
Finn: “I figure my luck will change soon and one of the lifts will break and I’ll get crushed by a car.”
Oh Finn, no — that’s what would happen if our luck changed soon. Anyhoo, Artie, stealing a line from Ryan Murphy’s bedside journal, tells Finn that Finn’s his hero and he’s not gonna let Finn drown himself in self-pity, seemingly forgetting that self-pity is one of Finn’s Top Five Feelings always.
Finn: “You know, I’ve heard that a lot all my life, Artie. That I’m better than I think I am. Well, look around, maybe I’m not.”
Finally, we’re getting somewhere!
Artie’s solution to Finn’s doldrums? Finn should direct the school musical, Grease! Artie explains that directing is easy and a lot like fascism:
Artie: “Directing is about having an idea and convincing everyone around you to make it happen.”
Sweep on over to the Hallowed Homosexual Hallways of McKinley High where Sam’s wondering if he can Executive Order his way into playing Kenickie. Meanwhile, Blaine’s just missing Kurt Hummel and, I assume, all of Kurt’s Safari Scarf Headwrap Fur Leather Wool Modern Flashy Vintage Outfitwears. Blaine’s so forlorn, in fact, that he’s refusing to audition for Danny Zuko, The Role He Was Born To Play.
Blaine: “I’m not in the right headspace to do a project like Grease. Since Kurt and I broke up, I haven’t slept, I’ve lost my appetite, I don’t even gel on weekends.”
TRAGEDY!
Blaine: “We talked about spending our lives together, and retiring in Provincetown and buying a lighthouse and starting an artist’s colony.”
Oh, Blaine. Of course you did. If you’re anything like me, though, when you think “lighthouse,” you think POTATO CHIPS!
(Also the Virginia Woolf book thing) Thus we segue into the evening’s first musical number, “Hopelessly Devoted To You” — a curious choice, as the song was invented for Grease the Movie, not Grease the Musical, but whatever. Confession: I WAS SO INTO GREASE. Grease was my favorite movie for like ten years. I watched it every week, I know all the songs, I own the DVD, and I saw Rosie O’Donnell play Rizzo at the Fox Theater in Detroit 1994 and I still have the ticket stub. Also, when I was a kid I always fast-forwarded through “Hopelessly Devoted To You” ’cause I hated it. /done.
The number is sentimental and melodramatic and adorably absurd it and it eventually leads us to the Auditorium Stage, where Blaine’s auditioning for Artie & The Histronics. Because Blaine’s got Danny Zuko hair, can sing like a motherfucker, and is wearing a store-brand version of Zuko’s varsity sweater, he’s clearly a shoe-in for the male lead. But not so fast!
Blaine: “I can’t, I’m sorry, I just can’t, Finn. I didn’t want to let you down, but Grease is a romance, and how can I play any of the scenes if I have ruined mine? I don’t think I would be able to play the truth of Danny Zuko.”
We’re finally starting to see Blaine and what I see is a boy I’d like to hug and talk about RENT with. Anyhow, Blaine than suggests that maybe, just maybe, he could manage playing Teen Angel, and with pitch-perfect melodrama, projects himself offstage via the Power of Too Many Feelings, which inspires Finn to have his own “I can’t do this” meltdown and waddle out of the auditorium.
Back in the Hallowed Horticultural Hallways of McKinley High, Arite’s chasing a slab of wet clay, begging him to reconsider. How will Artie seduce Finn back into the swampy underworld of musical theater direction? Well, Luckily Sweet Baby Jesus Crying In Heaven — or perhaps Teen Angel — has blessed the hallowed halls with a new “vocal coach” and “choreographer,” the former of which allegedly resides in Los Angeles (or Chicago?) and is pursuing a recording career and the latter of which I believe is in dance school but whatever.
It’s good to see these two again — but you know who I wanna see even more?
As Mercedes and Mike approach Finn & Artie, we break into slow motion and the foursome begin laughing uproariously as if somebody just told them “laugh uproariously” and it’s super-weird.
Back at Grease HQ, Finn and His Merry Band of Returning Seniors are lamenting the lack of a viable Danny Zuko. (I blame The Glee Project.) Finn’s surprised that, just like every other high school musical production, his guppies are missing a viable male lead.
Mercedes: “Well, there aren’t a lot of dudes like you. Even Mr. Schu had that problem when he first started Glee Club.”
Mike: “That’s why he went looking for you.”
Thus Finn The Magical Potato Sack galavants glumly to the football fields to locate Everybody’s Worst Nightmare: Another Finn. On the sidelines, Coach Beiste butters Finn up with the standard “you’re special and will find your way in life” globbedyglook as Finn casts a glance upon the spry football aspirants, searching for that special someone.
Everybody masturbates all over Finn:
Coach Beiste: “You wanna know the thing about you that makes you special? It’s not about the singing or the dancing or the way you threw the ball. It’s that you could move people.”
Finn’s a rabid People-Mover! Coach Beiste points out The Floppy-Haired Guy From The Glee Project, who she refers to as “Ryder Lynn” and will be heretofore known as Ryder Beiber-Strong. He’s a mediocre football player and a freestyle breakdancer with a “lazy streak” and chapstick for brains.
Luckily for Ryder Bieber-Strong, he’s a new recruit at McKinley Manmaker High School, a special charter school for boys who need somebody to make a man out of them.
Cut to the Blusteringly Binary Bathrooms of McKinley High, where Unique and Marley are chatting about grrrl stuff, like how “Grease” is the word, etc.
Let me get this out of the way: the show has no fucking idea what they’re doing with this character. I believe she’s supposed to be transgender, but nobody uses the right pronouns, nobody is ever corrected for doing so, and the writers seem to believe that being trans* is just about what clothes you like to wear.
Unique: “Everyone sees me in drag as a joke or a stunt when we’re performing. But it would feel as weird for me to play Danny Zuko as it would for you.”
Really? ‘Cause I’m a cisgender female and wouldn’t feel even slightly weird playing Danny Zuko. Excellent work, Glee! The absolute best way to communicate the transgender experience is to discuss which characters an actor feels comfortable pretending to be. Because that’s the whole thing! Dresses and wigs! Let’s do this same plot like five more times fast and then spin around and put cheese on our noses! Let’s stop casting and start living! LET’S SING OUR TRUTH!
And then! — AND THEN! — Sue marches out of the stall in menswear to deliver a tirade of transphobic nonsense that is so eighteen seasons, 72 ret-cons and two do-si-dos ago. Then somebody fucking kills Jenny, I swear.
Sue: “Well well well, if it isn’t McKinley High’s very own Tina Stomach-Turner, and her trusty sidekick…”
Sue glances at Marley and comes up with nothing, just a paper plate, which’s actually really funny:
Sue: “…I’m trying to think of a mean nickname for you and I’m blanking.”
And then…
Sue: “But you, Urethra Franklin, you are a boy and you are fooling no one. You are smuggling more keilbasa under those gowns than a homesick Polish lady trying to sneak through Customs.”
Marley: “You can’t say things like that.”
Sue: “Oh I think you’ll find I can say anything I want, you absolutely stunning, kind-faced, blue-eyed girl…. “
She’s right, Sue can say whatever she wants! Even wildly inconsistent crazy things!
Sue: “…now, I know full well that gender confusion is the liberal media’s new darling, bored with drowning the nation’s airwaves with tinny sitcoms so gay you have to stretch a dental dam over your television set in order to watch them safely. The Hollywood Communists are busy force-feeding us drag queen reality shows and soft profiles of gender-confused hormone-gobbling pre-teens, who faint at the sight of their own genitals. There’s no way in hell you’re gonna play Rizzo. I will not allow you to unleash a teenage malestrom of gender-bent sexual confusion at this school, so you can turn it around and make it a launch party for your very own line of male girldles and a brand new fragrance called “Nut Whiff.”
Starsweep to the hormone-gobbling hallways of McKinley High and eventually to the Auditorium of Audio/Visual Atrocities, where Marley and Unique belt out an energetic rendition of Pink’s “Blow Me One Last Kiss,” which is fun save for the excessive scrap metal hanging from the respective children’s neckholes.
Although I’ve got an aversion to Marley on principle — Just what this show needs! Another white girl with no discernably compelling personality traits! — holy fuck, she gets cuter every episode! Look at her hopping around with her mike and dykey pants. Everybody should wanna go steady with Marley forever-ever.
Cut to the Sonogramic Study Hall, where Finn catches Floppy-Haired Guy From The Glee Project studying away to raise his C-minus average. Naturally, Finn’s got a plan for Ryder Bieber-Strong to raise his grades like the roof — a time-consuming extracurricular activity!
Finn, having dumped his wad of wisdom upon the bright-eyed lass, barks the audition time and extracts his fimo feet from the classroom, at which point Ryder Bieber-Strong gets another C- and complains that “all he does is study,” which means he’s gonna be diagnosed with ADD or dyslexia in an upcoming Issue Episode. I can’t wait!
Sweep over to the auditorium where Artie and Finn volley some dialogue about jukebox selection and then Ryder Bieber-Strong arrives for a little Finnspiration.
They eventually break into “Jukebox Hero” and we all learn that Ryder Bieber-Strong is a better singer than Finn, just like my neighbor’s pet parakeet.
Back in the Hallowed Heterosexual Hallways of McKinley High, Ryder Bieber-Strong introduces himself to Marley and they exchange banter about meatballs while Fake Quinn and Puck Lite exchange biting banter about jealousy and Bieber haircuts (Fake Quinn says Ryder Bieber-Strong’s got one and it’s way cute.):
Puck Lite: “Who wants Justin Bieber hair?”
Fake Quinn: “Half-black guys who can’t grow it.”
Really? Yup, really.
Fake Quinn, channeling some combo of Regina George and Carlene Cockburn, hits up Ryder and Marley on her way down the hallway to inform them she’s auditioning for Sandy. She’s also jocking to throw Ryder off the Marley tip.
Fake Quinn: “By the way, Ryder, you should know about this one’s gene pool. She’s only got a month or two before she starts ballooning to her natural weight of 5,000 pounds and starts writing her memoir, Fifty Shades of Gravy.”
Ryder Bieber-Strong: “Wow, you’re kind of a bitch. What did she ever do to you?”
Baby, baby, baby, OH!
At some point, Fake Quinn and Puck Lite audition for Grease with a song so annoying I cannot mention it here, lest it worm its way into my brain again.
Cut to Team Cast-Away pondering which moderately talented cast member will obtain the various roles Santana Lopez was born to play. Who will they ever pick? The children chatter and look at index cards and refer to Unique solely with male pronouns:
Artie: “So we cast a brunette as Sandy and a guy as Rizzo? Who’s directing this, Julie Taymor?”
Har.
Sweep fabulously forward into the Principal’s Lair, where Sue Sylvester is dishing out real talk re: Grease and weird talk re: everything else.
Sue: “The twin idiots seated before you are poised to cast the she-male-fabulous Unique Adams as Rizzo in Grease; the already oversexualized minstrel show featuring teen pregnancy and the ridiculously unnecessary lubrication of lightning. If they succeed they will set a legal precedent that will clear the way for Unique to become a Cheerio.”
I feel like we’re not at a place in society yet to joke about transphobic humor ’cause 95% of the population still thinks it’s totally acceptable, so these transphobic jokes aren’t edgy, they’re just really irresponsible.
ANYHOW, Will wants to know when Unique expressed interest in becoming a Cheerio (she didn’t), and Principal Figgins has this:
Principal: “Coach Sue I do not understand. Unique Adams is nothing more than an attractive, buxom young woman who’s got it going on in all the right places. She’s a brick house, Sue!”
Will: “Uh, Principal Figgins, Sue’s right about that. Unique is definitely a guy.”
Principal: “What?”
Then he made a face. It was stupid.
Finn: “Look, I don’t see what the big deal is. If Unique identifies as a girl and dresses as a girl, she should be allowed to play one onstage.”
Will: “Cross-gendered casting is as old as theater itself. In Shakespeare’s time, all the female roles were played by men.”
Sue: “There’s no way that’s true.”
At this point, Sue could literally leave Glee to join the circus, fall in lesbians with Emma and launch her own line of stationary and it wouldn’t seem that out of character. Character development’s got the longevity of a half-stick of Trident on this show.
Finn: “In the last few years, McKinley’s become the kind of place where all kinds of outcasts can feel free to follow their dreams. I don’t think that should change just because Coach Sylvester’s a bigot.”
Sue: “You know, I’d think twice about calling someone a bigot who’s had gay Cheerios both male and female on her squad and resigned her post as principal in protest because this school wasn’t doing enough to protect a gay student from being bullied! But you do have a point there, mashed potato pants. We’ve become somewhat of a progressive bubble here at McKinley High, and I think that’s due to the fact that The Glee Club is being run by a strange, weepy man-child who has lotion in his hair but no adult friends. We live in Ohio, and if you choose to cast Rizzo with a naive, gender-confused boy in a dress, I guarantee someone is going to raise a very public stink about it [points to herself] and I don’t think that’s fair. Don’t put this kid in danger because you want to make some grand gesture about how open-minded you are.”
Four points for the strange weepy man-child, however.
Finn: “Enough! With all due respect, this is none of your business. I’m the director, it’s my decision.”
Sue: “William, maybe you need to remind Chubby-Wan-Kenobi of the daily nightmare that is borne of being my enemy.”
Finn: “You can’t threaten me, Sue. I’ve already lost my girlfriend, my future, my pride, I’ve nothing more to lose. I’m casting Unique, and that’s all there is to it. And you know I thought that you would’ve known more about being an underdog after you helped us win Nationals and had a retarded baby, but…”
[EVIL LOOK]
Finn: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. That was the wrong word to use and I apologize.”
Who are these characters? What is this show? Look: This show is ambitious. It breaks form. It’s consistently inventive musically. It takes risks with occasional aplomb and frequent flopping. When the show succeeds — that perfect song for that perfect moment, that look she’s never given her before — it’s more emotionally compelling than a similar success on a more traditional show because its reach is so much greater. But when it fails, it falls flat on its face like a dumb fish and that’s where the “story” part of this show has been for a while now. The tropes are lazy, the love triangles recycled and the “issue episodes” an orchard of dead horses. The only “consistency” on Glee is that it consistently relies on the “Sue wants to destroy Glee Club” plot to sub in when nobody’s got a better idea that week. Glee is trying to be so many things — a receptacle for the winners of a poorly-rated aggressively-branded reality TV program among them — and it can’t be all those things. You can’t stuff tropes into new holes or hit songs each week to fit the story you’ve decided to tell before checking in with any of your characters. You have to work with the characters you created. Because otherwise, this is the minstrel show. You know?
Back in the Hallowed Heterosexual Hallways of McKinley High, Mike corners Tina at her locker to inquire about why Ryder Bieber-Strong and Fake Quinn get more screentime than she does I MEAN why she’s ignoring Mike and not auditioning for Grease.
Look everybody knows Tina’s gonna get cast as Jan. I know it, you know it, and Jan knows it.
Smear to the Amazing Auditorium for Callbacks Part Duextathalon, where Team Cast-Away are ready for some hit musical number rocksongs! Hit it, Jack!
Marley, Fake Quinn, Puck Lite and Ryder Biber-Strong must prove their “chemistry” to Team Cast-Away via Born to Hand Jive, another classic hit from the comedy-musical Grease!
And while this season’s rehashed love triangle is oft-grating, it works for this number ’cause it allows for the same rowdy partner-jostling utilized in the film/musical in which a tightly choreographed routine is punctuated by teenage jealousy and criss-crossed crushes. Who will become Danny and Sandy? I can’t hardly wait!
Cut to the library, a Space For Books, where Finn’s convening with Unique to talk about breaking into the hatch, taking back the iron throne, who will watch Gracie Bell and how to catch Abu Nazir. I mean! Finn Hudson, a stack of chicken gizzards carved into human form, is bestowing the honor of Rizzo upon Unique. Finn says all Unique must do now is learn the lyrics and get the wig, and Unique is like, um, duh, I know the song and I have the wig.
Apropos of nothing, Unique offers us a sliver of her thoughts:
Unique: “I don’t feel right in the men’s locker room. But I can’t go into the girls’. And I don’t feel right in men’s clothing, but I can’t wear dresses every day. It sucks to never know your place. It’s just nice, for once, to feel like I’ve found one.”
Finn: “Yeah, it is.”
Finn warns her that she’ll have to “take some heat” and Unique says “dreams aren’t free.”
That’s true, especially if you dream of owning a lesbian separatist commune where we grow our own animals, harvest sunshine and make ice cream all the time.
Starsweep over the river and through the woods to the Hallowed Hallowed Heteronormative Hallways of McKinley High, where Finn has paper and a pin to pin it on the board so there HUMPH!
The students take turns approaching the casting list, locating their name, making a facial expression, and then returning to the outer circle of poker faced teenagers waiting for their closeup. The good news is: Brittany’s still in the show!
Sue hates it:
RAWR
The cast:
Brittany – Cha-Cha
Tina – Jan
Puck Lite – Putzie
Blaine – Teen Angel
Sam – Kenicke
Unique – Rizzo
Teen Jesus – Doody
Sugar Motta – Frenchy (PERFECT BTW)
Ryder Bieber-Strong – Danny
Marley – Sandy
Fake Quinn – Patty Simcox
Fake Quinn’s all upset like Patty Simcox about being cast as Patty Simcox, it’s so perf!
How does this episode wrap up, fellas and lassies? Well, we may have won on November 6th when Obama got re-elected, but on November 8th, a new man took office and he was not the man I voted for.
Let me explain: see, Will is going to Washington to “fight for the arts” which I think is like, doing cabaret in a pit of Jell-O or being a congressional page or having meetings — JK I know what he’s doing, I just don’t care.
Anyhow, so Mr. Willshington’s going to Washington for a few months. Who will take over Glee Club in his absence?
Yup, they’re putting Finn in charge of Glee Club.
Will: “I can promise you that there’s no greater joy in the world than helping a young boy like you grow into a man.”
Uh, yeah there is. It’s called Lesbian Sex.
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Comments
I like how the only glee character who gets a moving .gif is Santana; obviously this is because she is a wizard.
Thanks, great recap; I laughed in all the right places. For me pretty much the only redeeming feature of this episode was Marley and Unique’s duet. Why am I still watching this show? I have no answer.
I ask myself that question every episode..then i remember that i watch the show to be able to read these recaps.
So true! I didn’t even realise it, but that’s exactly it! :)
Ugh ugh ugh.
Why did I not know Rachel nor Kurt nor Santana nor Brittany were going to be in this episode? I could have saved myself 44 minutes plus download time of yelling GO AWAY FOREVER FINN.
Perfect recap. Your opening paragraph nailed it: ‘This week’s episode had the distinct pleasure of featuring absolutely not one single moment of anything I gave a shit about while managing to annoy me with yet another bungled recycled storyline.’ Slow clap.
I saw the TV promos and thought… meh. Still not gunna watch after the 2nd episode. Glad I didn’t. I think Glee’s days are done.
Officially over it.
I don’t know how Jane Lynch doesn’t read her lines every week, tear the script into tiny pieces and hurl it at the writers while screaming with rage.
I really don’t.
she’s probably dealing the same way Jennifer Beals did circa season 6
Public calm and internalized rage/drinking?
she would go to her trailer and scream between takes
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I knew they were going to continue to completely screw up the Wade/Unique storyline because it is far outside Glee’s capacity to do properly, but I still got so fucking annoyed at how inconsistent it was. Even Finn who, because he’s the hero even though he’s done and said more bigoted things than any other character pretty much, seemed like he was the one who was supposed to get it couldn’t pick a pronoun.
Also, this:
Puck Lite: “Who wants Justin Bieber hair?”
Fake Quinn: “Half-black guys who can’t grow it.”
So annoyed. Probably cause it hit too close to home as a half black queer growing up and not being able to have any of the cool hair styles I wanted.
Agreed.
It annoys me how they deal with biracial characters.
Take Blaine for example (actor who plays him is half Filipino half Irish) Glee recognised that Blaine is Eurasian in season 2 then ignore it completely by introducing his white brother and casting a white actor as young Blaine in a flashback.
Also I’m not sure if Tina is supposed to be mixed race given her surname Cohen-Chang. But that’s ignored.
PLEASE stop!!! saying Darren Criss is Irish or Asian. He is categorically NEITHER. He was born in San Francisco. His father was born in America, his mother in the Philippines. The same “diversity” fibs are being spread about the The Glee Project season 2 winner, Blake Jenner. “Half Cuban” my fanny! He was born in Miami, FL. Get a new schtick, Murphy.Your ethnically inclusive casting ploys are getting treated to a little sunlight and they aren’t passing the veracity smell test. Darren Criss is an AMERICAN!….ditto Mr.Jenner, Blake(who’s gonna’ be needin’ a whole lotta’ auto-tunin’,by the way, as his singing registers at about a 2.5 on the vocal Richter Scale—-10 being the best you can do. Totally serious on that point.)
Since when can you not be American and Asian at the same time? Blaine is an American of Filipino descent. And Ryan Murphy is not playing Blaine’s ethnicity as diversity, since they haven’t even played up Blaine’s race the way they do with Tina or Mercedes or Puck Jr. They’re all American too; that doesn’t make them not ethnic minorities or mixed-race.
I think it might be misunderstood since Americans typically say someone is Irish, Filipino, etc. to mean “of Irish descent” or “of Filipino descent,” which is how it’s said in other countries. I think its just a difference of semantics and how we say phrase in America vs. other places.
I think you’re confusing nationality/ethnicity/race/etc. Darren’s American, but he’s still half Asian. :)
Actually, the little boy who was cast as baby Blaine is of mixed race. IIRC he is part-Japanese.
Willis – you did update your avatar to include the puppy! Yay! Totally adorable. :)
Haha yes I did. His name is Spike because he has vampire fangs and an attitude. I’m pretty much obsessed with him.
My dog is named Spike also – Also after the vmpire from Buffy. He is 10 years old this year, and still tiny and cute as a button
SO. WAIT. Finn is a total homophobic asshat but yet is the sole character to understand the depth and complexity of gender issues and is totally cool with trans* identities?
NO. FUCK YOU, WHITE KNIGHT, YOU CAN’T REDEEM YOURSELF FOR A PLOT DEVICE ENHREIOHNEIONHTBNGIOHNTNITNMPONMYPORNMOJNPOKPONJM
Also. Considering, like, half the cast is queer, especially The Lynch, how the fuck can they stand for any of this transphobia? I mean, really. Can someone with that power and status not take a stand with the writers and, I don’t know, call them out for this awful bullshit?
Is it possible for the cast to, I dunno, just outright refuse to use the word “he-she” or something? Like in every take, just skip the worst lines until the director gets frustrated and they are forced to move on? Does anyone know if this is possible?
And I wouldn’t be surprised if this episode actually got praise for “trans* representation” or something. This show makes me sick.
They should start doing something like what Shatner did to keep the first ever bi-racial kiss in that one episode of Star Trek.
The nervous producers asked for extra takes where he and Ohura (sp?) just hug instead of kiss, so Shatner deliberately crossed his eyes/made weird faces each time, which the director didn’t notice until much later in the editing room. So they had to keep the kiss in.
I don’t really care for Shatner that much, but that’s still pretty damn boss.
Even if the actors had the option of speaking out against the messages Glee is spreading (though, frankly, they’d probably just be fired – there’s certainly more than enough characters to fill the time slot), I wonder if they even would speak out. They know all about homophobia, but do the actors really know about transphobia? Do they even realize that “he-she” and “she-male” is hurtful language and not just a funny joke? They’ve filmed the word “tranny” twice on the show (once was edited out).
This isn’t meant to be an excuse for the actors. Rather, it’s a criticism. If they’re dealing with a subject on the show, shouldn’t they make it their responsibility to educate themselves about the messages they’re spreading? Especially on a show like Glee, which is considered some sort of universal equalizer.
(Part of the rage behind this comment coming from the fact that one of the actors apparently tweeted someone about their halloween costume and used the word “tranny”, so apparently they really don’t have any idea?)
Which cast member? Not that I don’t believe it, but I follow some of them and want to know who is responsible for that.
Dean Geyer.
So I have a dual love and hatred for Grease. I grew up in middle class white suburbia and every school dance before high school was a Grease inspired sock-hop. It took college and theatre major friends to reintroduce me to the gold that is this production. Even so I couldn’t really bring myself to watch this episode because I was really happy on Tuesday and Ryan Murphy has a knack for making me really unhappy most Thursdays and I wasn’t ready to give that up.
Thanks for at least telling me about the tripe I missed. I had to cover my face like Stefon at work to keep from laughing. Maybe I only appreciate Glee anymore for your amazing recap realness.
It’s not all that surprising that Ryan Murphy would fuck up in dealing with trans issues. See Nip/Tuck for such gems as: transsexuals chasing down and peeing on a main character and this throwaway line that stung more than underwear made of bees: Liz (sole lesbian character): “Not everybody [was “fooled” by the transsexual character]. I knew there was a reason I wasn’t attracted to her.”
Yeah, cuz it’s a trait inherent in lesbianism to be attracted to every single woman ever except those assigned male at birth, cuz you know they’re men forever. Even if it’s totally unknown that the girl is trans, the only people who would be attracted to an icky thing like that either have some weird kink or are straight guys who will pork anything they presume to have a vagina!
Rage rage rage.
Raise your hand if you still care about Finn and aren’t named Ryan Murphy. Oh look there is NOT A SINGLE FUCKING HAND
I think there are still a few giddy Finchel fangirls on fanfiction dot net.
Reminds me of one time I was in the airport and I overheard a girl exclaiming how she had just made her ringtone his cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” from the fuck-you-this-is-not-lesbian-representation Very Special Episode. I wanted to throw up. Then I sat in the middle of her group of friends for a six-hour plane ride.
Mr. Ryan Murphy has bitten off more than he can chew, and is now subjecting viewers of American prime-time television to a weekly 40-minute see-food fiasco in which we are forced to watch him gnaw, open mouthed, on the massive chunk of stuff that he has bitten off, and listen to him make terrible squelching chew-noises while half of whatever the hell he’s chewing on dribbles down his chin and on to his overly expensive shirt. It is disgusting, and so I have given up watching, but thank you for recapping, because it’s honestly better what what Mr. Murphy is creating.
Also, Re: Quinn: She is not on the show because she totally off catching Abu Nazir. Notice how, like Carrie Mathison, she is intelligent, a badass, unbelievably hott, and blonde. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
The best part about this recap was the solid 30 minutes I spent looking at Julie Andrews gifs.
I’m glad I stopped watching this show. Just judging by your recap, it seems like the episode was a Finn wank-fest aka something I don’t want to watch ever. This show is so hypocritical, constantly preaching about how cool it is to be different while having this straight white male who is a consistent douche towards everyone in a really high pedestal. With everyone CONSTANTLY telling him how great he is.
Also, i don’t know if y’all are aware of Murphy’s behaviour on Twitter towards Brittana fans and people who have tried to complain about the lack of/crappy way lesbians are treated in Glee, but it was enough for me to not want to watch any of his shows again.
Me too, damnit. I started watching season 4 just to know what was going on, but now I don’t care, and I realized I can read the recaps without watching the episode. This recap really helped me dodge a bullet re: the episode being Finn Finn Finn.
I’m the same as you, I started watching Season 4 but then I was like, ‘why am I even watching this? it makes me rage, it’s not entertainment anymore’, so I stopped and best decision ever made.
I wish there were a place that writers were engaging with their fans other than twitter, frankly. It’s a horrible medium to try to have nuance discussion about the show, so it’s easy for them to misunderstand what the fans are asking/critiquing and it’s so easy for them to have knee-jerk reactions when they aren’t warranted by what the fans have said.
That being said – there are some people asking the writers really strange stuff sometimes. I noticed a whole series of questions from people asking if Ryan would write Faberritana story lines and linking to fanfiction dot net links of stories with group sex and dubious consent memes. I’m sure that’s someone trolling (or at least I hope so) but are the writers discerning enough to realize that’s not mainstream brittana fans doing that? Given that Ryan Murphy has the subtlety of an ox, I’m guessing he doesn’t see the difference.
Oh, I think they do understand what the fans want, but they don’t care, and it annoys them to read it on Twitter every day. Ryan, Brad Falchuk, Ali Adler… they are all the same towards fan critique. Mostly ignoring, occasionally snarky, sometimes rude and off putting, but all of them equally dismissing of any form of criticism that goes their way, whether the fan in question expresses it in a responsible manner or not.
But it’s not just fan critique isn’t it. I mean, after “I Kissed A Girl” aired and it was universally hated they continued on the same line. It’s like they don’t read or listen to anyone or anything that raises valid criticism against the show, and to top it all Ryan gets petty on Twitter towards people who are his audience and probably +20 years older than he is. He went as far as saying that he’s so bothered by the Brittana fandom that it ‘inevitably’ translates into the writing room. It’s completely absurd.
I meant 20 years younger, damn.
agh I’m just so sad about this because I LIKED glee circa season two, and this episode has just left me as a bundle of rage. I was excited at the “Coach Sue I do not understand. Unique Adams is nothing more than an attractive, buxom young woman who’s got it going on in all the right places. She’s a brick house, Sue!” because I thought someone was actually accepting Unique’s gender identity and then Will fucking stomps all over that. And Finn calling Sue’s baby “retarded”? How is this character still getting all this praise and shit?
I need to lie down.
Also Ryan Murphy tweeted this “Ryan Murphy @MrRPMurphy
Tonight on Glee…the first of a Grease two-parter. Great stuff for Brittana, Finchel and Klaine!” and I just don’t understand. Brittany was hardly in the show, and Rachel, Santana and Kurt weren’t in it at all..
I’m assume the second part is just an hour long scissoringfest.
here’s hoping.
Seriously, if all Brittana do sex-wise is scissor, they are seriously missing out.
The character of Unique/Wade is seriously concerning. Glee can’t make up their mind how the character identifies and can’t seem to distinguish between transvestite and transgender.
The only logical solution would be if Unique/Wade is bigendered, had fluid gender or some sort of genderf*uck. But I really think that’s too much for Glee to handle.
I agree, when this show hits, it hits a home run. When it misses, it falls flat on it’s face in the bog of eternal stench.
Marley would be better as a dyke. A little soft-butch baby dyke who Brittney and Santana need to “coach”.
the only thing i got out of this episode is that “mashed potato pants” is a hilarious insult.
I was surprised at the association of Finn and potatoes. Does Murphy know we call him that, or is that just his own observation?
i know i was like WE STARTED IT
When I heard about Unique’s character I wanted to get back into “Glee” to see how they were going to handle it, but now I definitely won’t.
I mean, the part about not wanting to play a man’s role in a musical when you’re still fighting your way out of playing a man’s role in real life since forever feels realistic to me – but when that same character refers to dressing as their supposed-to-be true gender as “being in drag” in the very same sentence, it’s just, uh???
I also agree with Riese that we’re so not ready to joke about transphobia on TV, and it just falls flat considering that the whole episod is just as transphobic as Sue’s “humoristic” lines. Also, calling Unique a “shemale”? That’s like calling Blaine a faggot or Mercedes the N-word, even with Sue they would never have gone there. Just what the hell are they doing.
It’s like they think that they can write these horribly offensive lines and as long as they have the ~Bad Guy~ deliver them, it totally counts as fighting against whatever -ism of the week they’re dealing with.
Pro tip: it doesn’t.
yeah one thing that keeps getting me is how they count on US to know what’s bad and what’s not, there’s never any blowback from the other characters. he’s assuming we know which of sue’s lines are racist/sizeist/transphobic and which are okay, and that’s a dangerous assumption to make especially when dealing with transphobia
Exactly. What is usually funny about Sue is that she is so over the top. When what she says is too close to how a substantial portion of the population actually feels it falls totally flat.
I don’t get what they are doing with Unique at all. I wouldn’t mind the other characters calling her “Wade” and “he” if the audience was given some indication that this was wrong and hurtful. It’s realistic that high school students who had never known a trans person before wouldn’t be sure how to act, but we’re given no indication that the writers/producers even know what’s appropriate.
Also, the fact that the principle thinking Unique was attractive was played for laughs really infuriated me. It might be a little creepy for an older man to be attracted to a teenager girl, but there is nothing wrong, strange, or amusing about a straight man being attracted to a trans woman, and that is what was presented as humorous.
Finally, it’s strange to me how they seem so reluctant to use the words “transgender” and “transsexual” on the show, actually cutting them out of songs, and yet slurs like “tranny” and “shemale” are fine. It’s baffling.
“the part about not wanting to play a man’s role in a musical when you’re still fighting your way out of playing a man’s role in real life since forever feels realistic to me”
yes, i actually totally agree with you there, and i like the way you put it. (“fighting your way…”) the fact that she compared it to “how a girl would feel playing Danny Zuko” is what rubbed me the wrong way ’cause I don’t feel like that’s an apt comparison or would illuminate the experience of being transgender for anybody watching at home or for Marley. I wouldn’t want anyone to be like, “well, I don’t mind playing a boy in a play, so what’s her problem?” you know?
(also grain of salt as i’m cis and cannot speak first-hand)
that bag of cape cod potato chips is made of win.
The Game of Thrones references make me happy.
I’m still laughing at the Hopelessly Devoted To You performance being an almost frame-by-frame rip-off of the I Want To Hold Your Hand scene from Across The Universe
Yes! All I kept thinking about was Prudence and that damn cheerleader.
And also Frank Ocean’s Forrest Gump: http://youtu.be/bL9dgePptmw
Riese this was hilarious.
Also is anyone else pissed that Marty and Vince Fontaine don’t seem to have been cast? Also can we talk about how Sandy’s last name should be Dumbrowski? This is an outrage!
i think the roles aren’t cast to allow for SPECIAL GUESTS next week, i noted Marty was missing too. I read somewhere Agron was gonna be marty, but i haven’t been keeping up with any external materials at all about this show anymore because i can’t take it, so for all i know she’s announced that she’s never coming back to the show
While reading this (because I now have zero reasons to watch without Quinn or Santana), I was going to make a comment about how I was sensing that they were building up to Finn becoming the next Will, but then I scrolled down and saw that it already happen because glee writers don’t know how to build from one episode to the next. Finn and Will are really similar, though, in all the worst ways.
Anyway, now I just want to put on an all lesbian performance of grease. Those T-birds would be so wonderful.
An all-queerlady version of grease sounds amazing!
I didn’t read all the comments b/c I don’t have time right now so sorry if this has been discussed already, but I want to talk about this:
“Apparently “having secure employment in a town where my family and a lot of my friends live” is a shameful and unpleasant situation for Prince Finndalin Baratheon.”
Because I think Finn (if he were real) would be happy living in Lima near his family/friends and working at Burt’s tire shop. I also think the Army was a good choice for him and I’m sad they dropped that so quickly. Not everyone needs to have big dreams like Rachel, or move far away from home after high school. Some people can be happy with something a little more “boring” and honestly I wish someone had told me this in high school. That’s it’s okay to just be happy, y’know?
Also, I’m still confused as to whether Unique is supposed to be transgender or just a cross-dresser (sorry if that’s not the right term). It seems like she’s supposed to be transgender, but then why do they sometimes call her “Wade” and also “he?” I mean, I get that she doesn’t feel comfortable wearing women’s clothes to school every day and is presumably registered at school as a boy named Wade, but you’d think her friends would treat her better, or at least use the correct pronouns. If Rachel Berry was here, she’d never let these assholes get away with calling Unique “he.”
The best part about this completely craptastic episode was Marley’s increasingly dykey wardrobe, and the perfect casting of Sugar as Frenchie and Kitty as Patty Simcox.
P.S. though – In real high school, underclassmen would not get all the leads in the musical. Just would not happen, some senior girl would cut a bitch to play Sandy. (Just saying, theater kids are crazy.)
Looking forward to next week when there are more people I like back on my screen.
I use to fast forward through “Hopelessly Devoted to You” as well. I never liked it.
Grease 2 is where it’s at though. Michelle Pfeiffer=first crush!!
I’m gonna scoo-o-o-ooore tonight!
I only read these recaps because I live on a lesbian commune where we grow our own chickens (goats soon!), harvest sunshine, eat a lot of ice cream, and have no television.
Brilliant as always. I bear nothing toward ill will toward basically all the Glee characters but I can’t. stop. watching.
Also on that Bieber hair joke… I thought it was hilarious because my brother is a half-black guy in the vein of Mini-Puck. who desperately wishes for flippy white boy hair. I know this because one day he said to me, “Man. Imagine if I had hair like yours.” (Our genes didn’t turn out quite the same way.)
Best. Ending. To. An. Article. Ever.
“Will: ‘I can promise you that there’s no greater joy in the world than helping a young boy like you grow into a man.’
Uh, yeah there is. It’s called Lesbian Sex.”
Oh, if only the world even knew the truth of that…..
So we can add Artie now to the list of “people who are members of marginalized groups who are inexplicably obsessed with Finn”?
Just dropping in to say that the “half black kids who can’t grow it” thing reeallly peeved me.
I used to love Glee but halfway through season 3 my love for this show started seriously waning, and it’s because the writers don’t differentiate between characters who are hurling slurs towards others and showing the world “what not to do” and characters who are “allowed” to say these slurs because it makes them cute and/or funny.
That little “half black” joke was probably meant to be purely funny, but as a POC who has been teased all her life for both “not being white enough” and “not being black enough,” a throwaway line like that hits too close to home. It’s not funny. It’s annoying and offensive.
I feel like Ryan Murphy just tried to sum up every “white washed black kid’s” struggle by implying that *all* we reeeallly want in life is white people’s hair. Poor us. *All* we really want is to have straight hair and light eyes and light skin and ditch our coarse hair and dark eyes and dark skin; ditch the unattractive “darkness.” I feel like he’s implying that all we want is for all of our white classmates to finally accept us as “normal kids” just like them, and to me it’s like no screw that, being half black or even full black does not mean that I am or should feel ashamed or how I look, it does not mean that I will or should compare myself to any other races that are socially deemed to be “more attractive” than me.
Yes it was a stupid little line in Glee but the fact that Little Puck didn’t even respond or disagree, and the line wasn’t even given so much as a beat after it was said, just shows me that I guess Little Puck just accepted it to be truth (or he just didn’t care).
And I guess the audience was supposed to laugh and agree and accept the all black kids wanna be white trope as truth too, since nothing was done show that Kitty and Glee are wrong for promoting that kind of racist thinking.
Just like they are butchering having a trans character on this show they are also butchering having a half black kid on the show. Was he supposed to be there to represent “white washed” black kids like me? Because I don’t feel represented. I feel made fun of.
I’m only part way done reading the recap, but – you know Scrivener has a useful name generator tool, and maybe someone should point that out to Ryan Murphy, because Ryder Lynn? Really?
And if you hit the gear and look at the advanced settings, you can customize for different ethnic backgrounds. So like your Asian characters can have different last names, even, Mr. Murphy.
this whole episode was shit. I’m tired of glee
First of all, not surprised by that “tranny” comment from Dean Geyer. He is a well-known conservative bigot in his home country of Australia. I can’t take watching this show anymore because it is now totally ridiculous. I really liked HDTY because I am a Blainestan but I skipped most of the rest of the episode. Frankly, I LOVED this recap because I could never understand everyone’s adulation of Finn. I always thought he was a sack of potatoes and a total jackass. I never recovered from the fact that he gave his Jewish vegan girlfriend a PIG for Xmas. As a Jewish person, let me say that it is offensive to give Jews Xmas gifts or ask us to pretend we are Christians in order to help you decorate your trees etc., although I thinks it’s OK to be a Guest at a friend’s Xmas party. And, in almost all public schools it is not permitted to put up Xmas decorations, or any “holiday” decorations. I agree with the person who said that Finn should be happy inheriting Burt’s tire shop and staying in Lima and that you don’t need big dreams (esp. with no talent) to be happy. Nobody mentioned that they have turned Kurt into Rachel’s Gay Sidekick or that they assassinated Blaine’s character with this whole stupid, tired cheating storyline. I’ve been sticking to fanfiction which is much better written than the actual show.
Keep up the good work. OldLadyKlainer
I have many differents views here. First, in respect to Finn. Y actualy like that character, because he is a jerk. He is a complete jerk, an idiot, and a bully. ANd yet, he is the leading man, the role model, the leader. I don’t think that is the writters trying to convince us that he is A Good Guy, my interpretation is that Finn is given a lot of symphaty and supprt and whatever because he is the straight, white male. I mean, in the real world, and in Glee, the lead does not necesarily go to the most qualified, just look at politicians. For me, Finn is an exaple of ecerything that is wrong with provilege. And I think is brilliant.
About Unique… I don’t mind that other characters use the wrong pronouns, because, how are they supose to know? Has Mike ever talked to her? How is he supossed to know that she identifies as a she? I just, think it’s a process, and I believe that is being handled well. And Sue? Well, you can certainly be transphobic and be suportive of gays and lesbians.
Things:
That Santana GIF is everything and all things.
I thought I would hate this episode since it was missing all characters I formerly invested in, but! I didn’t. Mostly because of…
These Things:
Could care less about Marley until this episode. Her FIERCE like Sasha’ness came out during Blow Me and Hand Jive and I was like “Wow who is this bitch!? I like it.”
I still think Kitty is a Santana wannabe with Quinn disposition, but I sort of maybe started to like her this episode too. Mostly because she can dance and seems to have all sorts of rhythm.
I like the half black kid now, Jake. funny enough when Glee first started I thought Puck was half-black too, but alas he wasn’t.
I also like that new kid from the football team.
Finn annoyed per usual. He outs people. Calls babies retarded. And gets to loaf around like a has-been with seemingly no repercussions. The kid has good friends at the very least.
Also, why wasn’t Sugar Motta cast as Frenchy?