Welcome to the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of Glee, a gentle and tender mini-series about a Jewish beautician from Queens who becomes a nanny for the three children of a British Broadway director who looks a lot like Pierce Brosnon but isn’t. This heart-jerking and tear-warming tale is an allegory for the ages, weaving together instrumental plot elements including but not limited to Rainbow Brite, second cousins, severe psoriasis, apple juice, Sally Struthers, Athlete’s foot, coconut cream pie, churros, goat-milkers, cocoa butter, LSD and free makeovers.
This week on Glee, the writers decided to start all over with a slightly different kind of show! Also, apparently Santana and Brittany are on vacation and for some reason they decided against making this entire episode into a Tropical Vacation Episode featuring Brittany and Santana drinking margaritas out of coconuts and doing big beach numbers like in Gidget Goes Hawaiian and the most underrated movie-musical of all time From Justin to Kelly.
We open in New York, New York, home to the world’s best cinnamon sugar candied nuts, where it’s apparently been six months since we last checked in with these sociopaths. An old white-haired man named Sidney is delivering exposition to Rachel in the guise of conversation! Here’s what we learn: They opened Funny Girl out of town, and they had to re-stage the entire show, and then everybody went duck hunting and bought themselves new Reebok Pumps. Actually that last part I just made up.
The moral of this story is that Rachel has been gifted with her very own 24/7 Town Car & Driver to take her “wherever, whenever” like the BIG star she is. “Where would Miss Berry like to go?” asks Sidney. FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK, SIDNEY!
The lady would like to go “downtown”! The driver doesn’t ask for specifics. He just knows. You know, downtown, where all the downtowny folks hang out with their drugs and their poetry.
Thus we launch into the evening’s first musical number, “Downtown,” featuring Kurt emerging from the West 4th Street subway station like he didn’t just emerge from the West 4th Street subway station, Sam and Artie walking breezily through Washington Square Park and Blaine buying lattes. Witness:
http://youtu.be/CycIKLO0FOY
Now it’s time for more exposition! Turns out Rachel moved back into the loft after her out-of-town run and didn’t help with the box-moving, even though as I’ve mentioned 400 times, she could afford a much nicer place and a mover (or several!) with her Broadway salary but whatever.
In celebration of her weird boss getting her a fancy car and her friends being so lovely and patient, she’s gonna take all of them to the Odeon for side salads!
Just kidding, she’s gonna take all her friends except Artie, ’cause the town car isn’t wheelchair accessible. Artie and Sam will meet them at the Odeon and will hopefully spend the entire journey there talking smack about Rachel being self-centered.
Cut to the very next morning in the Barbie Bushwick Dreamhouse Loft, where Blaine’s preparing a gourmet breakfast for his man-love.
Blaine starts gushing over the thrills and chills of living with Lady Hummel, including but not limited to: waking up together, walking to the subway together, going to lunch together, curling up in bed under the covers together and performing musical numbers together. It’s just a dream! He can’t get enough of it!
Kurt wonders if they’re turning into an old married couple but they quickly counter this concern by signing a song only familiar to very old married couples, “You Make Me Feel So Young”!
http://youtu.be/GqmrMBxOTiU
It’s super fucking gay.
Just as Kurt and Blaine are about to settle in for some deep dicking, Sam shows up. Apparently, Sam’s been crashing on their couch all this time and Kurt wants him to move the fuck out.
Meanwhile, Artie’s monologuing about he’s adapting to wheelchair life in the city, building up his biceps, and always taking the subway like a real New Yorker because there is music and life underground in the beating throbbing heart of the city!
Then a dude on crutches steals his backpack and NOBODY HELPS ARTIE!!! NOT ONE SINGLE SOUL. I FIND THIS SCENE OFFENSIVE AS A FORMER NEW YORKER.
Back at the Barbie Bushwick Dream Loft, Sam is playing video games instead of living the life he deserves to live as a premium male model because he’s gotten zero modeling auditions and doesn’t want to get a new haircut. Then Blaine shows up and wants to broach the “maybe you should move out” conversation, which sets Sam off on a rant about how much he hates New York: It’s crowded, it’s loud, it smells like garbage, “everybody here is basically paid to be rude to you” and Riese doesn’t live there anymore. “Sometimes it’s just easier to stay inside,” says Sam. I hear you, brother.
Blaine thinks what Sam really needs to cheer him up is performing a hokey musical number with a bunch of extras in the gaping hellmouth of Times Square!
And he’s right!!
http://youtu.be/3wEkbrRm4Cs
At the song’s conclusion, Blaine erroneously declares that if you can sing in the middle of Times Sqaure, you can pretty much do anything, and then a freshly empowered Sam delivers the best line of the episode:
Sam: “I don’t know why they call it Times Square, I don’t see any clocks.”
Cut to Fake Julliard, where a cognac commercial extra is teaching Kurt how to use his body like an instrument.
Kurt’s laying in to a deep rope pull when who should he spy out of the corner of his eye but Gay Blaine!
Kurt: “What are you doing here? This is a winter master class taught by Marcel Marceau’s illegitimate son Alain. You — you’re a freshman!”
Blaine: “I got special permission from Madame Tibideaux. Turns out I’m in six of eight of your classes.”
Kurt: “How is that even possible?”
Yup, Blaine’s sticking to Kurt like glue on a thing that needs to be glued to another thing, and it’s driving Kurt bonkers! Blaine asks Kurt if he’s sure that it’s Sam, not Blaine, making their apartment feel so suffocating, and Kurt’s like “oh, no,” which is a lie, and Blaine says ok great then they should go get lunch before Theatre History class.
This is a good mime exercise for all you aspiring actors to practice at home:
Alain: “And now we will move on to the mime’s most tragic expression of the pointlessness of man’s existence. We are walking down the street, without a worry, a care in the world, and suddenly we begin to notice that we are walking in place but we are not going anywhere… and now we will stop to pick a flower. And in front of your eyes, the flower dies.”
IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES, THE FLOWER DIES!!!!
Meanwhile, Kurt dies inside while him and Blaine are forced to pantomime being stuck in a box.
Then Sam goes on a great big journey to a super-hip hair salon and gets a haircut!
Back in the Barbie Bushwick Dreamhouse Loft, Artie is upset about his laptop and Kurt wants Blaine to stop using the soda-stream and Rachel would really really love it if Blaine could make her some hot water with some lemon because that would be really great.
Artie says he doesn’t feel safe going in the subway anymore and he feels super vulnerable, which is totally valid. From here forward Rachel is basically the collective lovechild of all four main cast members of Girls.
Rachel: I am so sorry, but I know exactly how you feel okay? When I first moved to New York I gave this homeless person ten dollars when I only meant to give him one? And then when I asked for it back, everyone hissed and they booed at me, and I felt so violated and vulnerable… but the next day I just got right back on that subway, because overcoming experiences like that is what makes you a real New Yorker.
Artie says that Rachel isn’t even a real person anymore and he has to go! To wherever he is living and whatever he is doing!
Cut to Adam Lambert and Kurt Hummel’s #1 After-School Hangout: THE GUITAR SHOP!
Glambert wants to discuss a musical number, but Kurt’s having trouble focusing ’cause he was up all night dealing with a bizarre case of bedbugs — Blaine picked up a couch from the back of a truck and brought it home only do discover it was crawling with insects! The winsome duo then had to spend the whole night washing all the things, because why anything. At least it didn’t have a dead mouse in it.
“I know that I sound like a Bravo show, but I’m starting to think that that couch was an omen of our relationship,” Kurt tells Glambert. Kurt’s starting to feel like there is too much Blaine all the time and he is losing his identity. Glambert suggests they set some boundaries. Good talk!
His first step as an independent man will be to sing a song in the guitar shop!
http://youtu.be/tAdFSIh9eoo
Meanwhile, Rachel’s riding around in her fancy car thinking about how cut off she is from the world now that she has Town Car Privilege. She’s not sure if she can be a great actress without engaging in daily full-body sparring with the entire population of Manhattan.
Rachel decides to break free of her popemobile and go shopping for herbs in Chinatown! Okey doke.
Back in The Barbie Bushwick Dreamhouse Loft, Blaine has decided to remodel the entire apartment as an apology for the bedbugs and also to make the house feel like it is also his house.
Then Sam arrives with his new hair and announces he’s booked his first modeling gig for “Bubble: booty-contouring underwear for men.” Furthermore, Sam will be moving in to one of those infamous model apartments where poor scrawny boys lie about looking devastated and handsome all the time.
Then Kurt shows up, and before Blaine can share the good news about Sam’s onion butt, Kurt goes off about how Blaine didn’t consult him before embarking on an interior decorating journey. Kurt mentions that “Elliot was right” about how they’re losing their boundaries.
Blaine: “I’m sorry, Elliot? What does Elliot have to do with any of this?”
Kurt: “We were talking.”
Blaine: “I bet you were talking.”
Kurt: “He’s my friend.”
Blaine: “I bet he’s your friend.”
Kurt: “Calm down, psycho, all right? And stop being so pouty and weird. It’s annoying. Let’s just be adults and put everything back where it’s supposed to go.”
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I actually honest-to-God watched this episode last night before reading your recap first to judge, and I liked it. I liked Glee again. This felt familiar and normal. THERE WAS CHARACTER GROWTH. THEY ACKNOWLEDGE SAMCEDES AND IT WAS KIND OF CUTE. I’m suspecting that in 3 episodes I’ll regret my life choices, but hearing Lea sing People cemented it for me. I’m back.
3 episodes? Oh, I promise you it won’t take nearly that long.
Yeah! I like this direction so far, it feels like a more grown-up show. Although I was a bit confused why they chose to place it six months in the future when very little seems to have changed in that time. But it was interesting to see Blaine and Kurt have a really grown-up conversation about a relationship issue that was actually relatively complex and believable, compared to so many others entertained on this program.
I’m also cautiously optimistic since all of the characters they mangled aren’t present (although I was delightfully surprised with Mercedes coming back! YES MORE STORY FOR HER!!), they’ll be consistent in focusing on characters that have always been the writers’ favourites.
Although next week’s premise makes me cringe. I’m hoping that because it’s Kurt, they’ll follow the Season 2 kind of sensitivity, instead of the Season 3 approach to Santana.
Wait the next episode is seriously called “Bash”
idk why I’m surprised about this after “Shooting Star” and yet thanks Ryan Murphy
so clever, that one
This actually makes me want to watch Glee again! But this also makes me nervous because I don’t want to get my hopes up too much. Think I’m going to wait to read your recap of next week’s episode Riese and see how they handle that storyline…
This is my faint glimmer of hope I’ve been hoping for on every Glee-speckled star since the new cast came in. Here’s hoping some more that it continues/doesn’t suck/Quinn ditches Puck when he realizes he can’t just “stay”and decides to pursue Rachel finally and they and Santana and Brittany and Dani and Adam Lambert and Mature Klaine can have a spinoff on a Hawaiian(?) island together.
Riese you are hilarious. This was great, and I also read the mouse-in-couch story again and concluded that it is my favourite thing.
dammit, Riese, now I have to watch this again.
I would pay good money for an episode where they perform Singin’ in the Rain while wearing neon Cedar Point ponchos.
i would pay good money for an episode where they go to cedar point